Designing Your Life

Anita Brick: Hi, this is Anita Brick, and welcome to CareerCast at Chicago Booth. To help you advance in your career. Today, we're delighted to be speaking with Dave Evans. Dave has been on the mission, really, since Stanford to help others find their mission. As he found his, he went to Apple, where he led the math team and introduced laser printing to the masses.

Since 2007, he has been a lecturer in the Stanford Program in Design, where he co-teaches the popular course Designing Your Life, hence the book we're talking about today. He held a B.S. and an MFA in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford, and a graduate diploma in Contemplative Spirituality from San Francisco Theology Seminary. So, Dave, both mechanical engineering and a certificate in kind of Plato's spirituality, it feels like those two pieces come together in the book, which is highly structured but really open to give people an opportunity to emerge and be who they are.

Dave Evans: Well, thanks to you, it's good to be with you. And yes, even if that's not obvious to most people, what mechanical engineering and contemplation have to do with each other. You know, those are sort of the bookends at the same spectrum that we're all dealing with this rather challenging, we sometimes call wicked questions, what do I do with the rest of my one wild and wonderful life?

Anita Brick: It's interesting because some people I was chatting with about the book, they're like, oh yeah, it's about my setting some career goals and career planning. I actually, having read the book, think it's different. Maybe you can help us see the difference. What do you think is the difference between setting career goals and designing your life?

Dave Evans: Setting career goals actually means you're starting with the answer. If I'm setting a goal and then charting the optimized path to it, and we're talking to MBAs, designing your life methodology is a design thinking based tool and ideas to give people a conscious competence in life and vocational wayfinding. That's the technical terminology, the distinction between wayfinding and navigation.

This may sound like I'm not answering your question, but I am. Wayfinding is when you know where you are approximately, you do not know exactly where you're going. You don't know all the data about where you are and where you think you might be trying to get to. And so the best you can do is make an informed estimate of one step at a time.

You learn more as you're going, you add that information along, and then you make a new adjustment and you continue step by step. The straightest possible path looks like a long zig zag when you're navigating. I know exactly where I am. I know exactly where I'm going. I know all the data about everything between here and there, and now I can chart.

In fact, the optimized, most efficient pathway, which is exactly what my GPS does. GPS is a wonderful thing when you know all that information. For most of us in life, we don't have that information. So navigation, setting the exact destination and then getting there as quickly as you can doesn't actually work because we don't actually know the exact destination.

Now, there are times in our careers when we are navigating. I now have decided I am absolutely going to become a certified CPA. Well, great. The path to that certification process is very clear. That's a navigation step. The big goal in life. Give me a direction. Now what I want to do is experiment my way forward, step at a time.

If I get overcommitted to a very defined goal that frankly, I don't even really understand yet, that's where you get the watch what you wish for, because you can end up being highly efficient and ending up in a place that wasn't what you had in mind. That's why the most common phrase, when people sometimes are asked about, well, how has it gone for you in life? The single most common phrase that comes up in that interview is not what I had in mind.

Anita Brick: And you know what's really interesting? Because there was an alum, a recent alum. I like her question and maybe we can go there next. Sure, she said. Simon Sinek gave a Ted talk called Start with Why, and in this talk he mentioned that people don't buy what you do, but why you do it. This inspired me to think about my own why and design a career up to this point. Unfortunately, I've made four career changes in ten years and still haven't found the right path. How do I tap into my own beliefs and experiences to figure out my why and really design my career?

Dave Evans: So there's two things going on in that question. One is, what's going on and why some exciting ideas? I would affirm that I think we talk about narrative a lot. You know, it's about the story. Your life isn't a set of goals. Your life is a story you're living into. What's the narrative in the narrative?

Why am I doing this? So I haven't got a good reason. Then what's going to not have a lot of energy in it? And if we want to live a well-designed and happy life, then it's going to have, you know, authenticity and energy in it. So the whys got to work. So except that I would agree with the problem that the former students are asking about, gee, I've tried four things in ten years and they still haven't found the right path.

Well, of course, you know, the particulars would matter tremendously. But even just in the phrasing of that question, the question assumes that there is a right path that we discuss in the book. I think we call it dysfunctional beliefs, ideas that are popular in the cultural metanarrative and are either untrue or insufficiently true for most people, that they're not generative, they're not helpful.

And this idea of there is a right answer. There is a best version of you, probably my favorite dysfunctional believers. Are you being your best? So I need you, are you sure? Are you sure about doing career casts and working in Booth? Is that really the best version of you? We all want to be that best person. Except all of us contain more aliveness than one lifetime permits us to express our intellect in the world.

We're all going to die with something left undone. Another way to put that is there's more than one of you in there. If there's more than one of you in there, and they're all good, but they're different and they're different and separate criteria, right? I mean, is my author self better than my entrepreneur herself? Is my entrepreneur self better than my grandfather's self?

And I know for grandkids they're not even comparable. Now which of those is better? Which one of those is right? There is no right in these things. There's good versus good. That's a really tough choice for people who resonate with this question. Maybe even the woman who asked it said that she's got this idea that there is one right answer to her life, that one she experiences and finds.

It so stunningly astonishes her that nothing else would compare that to the right answer. And most people have more than one right answer in them. And as an answer that, frankly, you have to discover your way into, you don't know it before you get there. So those facts mean finding a right of that nature is actually something you can't get to.

So one possibility on this rather important question is the best you're going for, even in existence. The other possibility is that there are lots of different ways I could go. I have lots of students who come to office hours and say, gosh, you know, I don't have a passion for what's wrong with me. How do I get one? Well, not everybody has a single guiding passion.

The good news is you could be happy in a lot of different ways. So go optimize in a variety of ways. Looking for the criteria then singular best. And it may actually be that there is a much more attractive career to this person in her future. And what she's on is version four, and she's doing a really good job.

And maybe the question in zoology, if I could go back and look again now that I know what I know after rounds one, two, three and four, I'm ten years in. Let's go do a little retroactive analysis and say, you know, if I had to do or not, but I regret anything I've done. But if I had it to do over, what might I do differently?

And that just means you've learned something that means you did the wrong thing. I mean, the person back then was doing the best you could have made. A really good decision, didn't work out the way she had in mind. But that's okay. Now, what have I learned about the criteria I was setting? What have I learned about the things that I thought would attract me into that pathway, or that career, that job type, and what was true or untrue about that?

And if from those learnings I can apply to my next goal. And so I'm actually incrementing the way I'm asking the question as well as I'm incrementing the way I'm trying to come up with the answer. That is a really big question. That's a really important one. You know, I'm ten years in, I'm an MBA, I'm a smart person. I get stuff done and it's still not working for me. That's an upsetting and disruptive experience. So interpreting it is something you want to do very empathetically.

Anita Brick: It's a very, very good point. And sometimes empathy can be hard to find, especially if someone is really self-critical. And there is a weekend student who said, I hate to admit this, but right now I'm focused on myself and my next pass and the people who can help me up there. I know in your book you talk about empathy. How can I expand that to define my life?

Dave Evans: okay. Got me on my mind and I'm not sure I'll get access to this empathy thing if I sort of, you know, amp up.

Anita Brick: Right? I think that's what he's saying.

Dave Evans: Yeah. The way I would try to self manage to grow my empathy is to lean into the selfishness of my career centric mindset. See? Okay, I really, really, really want this next move I make to really work for me. Now, if I really have decided that I actually buy into this design theory, that the way you get an innovative idea, that way you get a really effective result is by deeply understanding the situation you're in.

The smart play. For me, the thing that's going to feed me the data that I really needed at this thing, I really care about all these statements. I got to really understand who these people are. I've got to get really good at the beginner's mind of listening. I've got to get profoundly artful at thinking the way they do and adopting other people's point of view temporarily so that I can then use that information.

I can use that data, I can integrate all that back together into my own decision making, in my own job crafting. So the point being, once I've decided that what I really do need to do for me to get what I want is understand what you all are doing, you watch this kind of company culture, like watch this kind of role, really like watch this kind of customer.

Really. Like that's what we mean by empathy. By empathy, we don't necessarily mean caring about the other person more than you. We don't mean becoming less self. We mean becoming aware. And from that other awareness, I've checked at the door my biases I truly have taken on, you know, a beginner's mind, a zero based mind so that I can hear from the other person.

It's an ethnographic stance. It's a forensic stance. If you need to go cold instead of warm, you know, because warm maybe is too compassionate to get too into. Gee, I wonder how Anita's really feeling. Ought to make sure she's okay and I'm taking care of you. No, no no no empathizing understanding you. It's about understanding. It's about transcending the situation and getting profoundly smart about it. So that feeds into my focus.

Anita Brick: I think you also have to go into it with, like you, you reference a beginner's mind because if you already have the answer, it's hard to undo it. In fact, you talk about that in the book. The people who are like, yeah, this is it for me. But one of the MBA students was kind of funny. He said after multiple degrees and ten years of work experience, I think my beginner's mind has left my life. How do I get it back so I can be open minded in designing my life to the next stage?

Dave Evans: So my beginner's mind has left me.

Anita Brick: Yeah, that's what he said.

Dave Evans: I'm not going to read it. Empathize. It's not projected into the mind of the inquirer and go, okay, I'm ten years in. I'm sorry. Most of the time I am the smartest guy in the room. Or at least I understand what's going on. This person's asking a question. Look, I got it. I know what I'm doing. I moved to judgment.

I moved to interpretation rather quickly. And frankly, most of the time, I'm right. You know, in this beginner's mind, things are kind of a waste of time that can absolutely happen. You run around at a competency and a core competency for some period of time. You are going to start trusting yourself, and that trust is going to turn into a habit.

That habit is going to turn into a point of view. So how do you overcome that? Well, first of all, you know, we talk about practices too. At the very end of the book, how do you attain and sustain the kind of mindsets, the kind of insights and awareness that will bring you to the decision making you really want?

Because if I know that I spend too much time in the realms of competency, can I? And this can be hard to do, but it can be dramatic or it can be helpful. Can I have a regular diet, maybe episodically, putting myself in a situation where I don't know what the hell I'm doing. I'm around people where my resume and my credibility does not cut any ice with these people.

That doesn't impress them. You know, I'm just one of the helpers. It could be in a volunteer situation. It could be a completely alternate situation. Summary. Years ago, I finally fulfilled a bucket list in which I learned how to fly gliders. Planes that had no motors. I was having one particular problem. One particular part of the landing technique.

I won't bore you with the details, and I remember being so angry because I kept trying to get it right and I wasn't getting it right. I didn't understand it. And then I remember one time I was in the midst of doing it wrong, and I had this light bulb go off my head, go, oh, I remember this is what it feels like to absolutely know that you don't know what you're doing, absolutely not know how to solve your problem.

And I had to go get help. My instructor couldn't figure that fact. He went to his mentor instructor. We figured it out and I solved the problem. But the point being, you know, I put myself in a situation where I had incompetency available to me. So as long as you get a search for incompetence, see, to remind yourself you don't know everything.

And to practice the act of gee, tell me more or I wonder what's going on here. Or let's not lean into my first assumption. It's probably going to be wrong. Back where you are, walking around without your beginner's mind all the time, you can prepare yourself before you go into a meeting. You know, literally write down on here the five assumptions I've already made about this meeting, and I'm going to out them on a piece of paper and then I'm going to cross them out and say, okay, I'm I'm going to evict these assumptions for the first 25 minutes of this meeting and play around with experiment and changing your internal self-talk when you're engaging situations that you normally think you've got all figured out, and see if you can't find a different way to think.

Anita Brick: Well, you think it's interesting in the whole idea of prototyping, I think it's very different from the MVP that people are thinking about, and I'm asked the question, how can I make prototyping as you define it, relatively low risk?

Dave Evans: Oh, okay. If you do prototyping as we define it, it is inherently low risk. Truth is, we live in an overwhelming science, technology and engineering influenced world, but we think we can solve it with an equation or with some technique or apparatus. Most problems. And that's not necessarily the case at all. But in engineering, when you're solving a team problem like how to get to the moon or how to build a bridge, or how to build a 60 mile per gallon hybrid car, you can solve it.

And when you just about get done, you want to test that thing to prove your design correct before you inflicted on people. And that's an engineering prototype. You do it in a, you know, cinder block room if it blows up, it doesn't hurt anybody. That's not what we mean by prototype. That's proving that you are right with something that's very high risk and you're making sure you prototype it, you know, in a safe environment rather than an unsafe environment.

It's not exactly a design prototype. It's a design prototype that is a very low risk, very cheap, very quick experience that you concoct. You may need a piece of apparatus to do it in order to learn something about what you know. You don't know, you know, back to the wayfinding versus navigation I do when I'm wayfinding. I don't have it all figured out.

Been in marketing for ten years. And I'm, you know, I mean, of course, all marketing really does is to the Salesforce. And now that I think about it, I think I really want to either learn or do that sales thing. I should go in and carry a quarter in and run customers directly. And I wonder how that might be different than I have in mind.

Well, boy, do I really want to give up my salary and go on commission. And I mean, that's a huge risk. Well, wait a minute. You can talk to a couple of salespeople. You can start generating reasons to go on sales calls. You can go to the executive briefing center of your company and be the guy who's the go to presenter for the woman who's the go to the account manager while they're on the corporate side and start doing the kinds of things those people do with extremely small exposure levels, you know, it sometimes takes some artfulness to come up with the low exposure prototype of an idea, but most people are stuck on this engineering thing.

They think they need to really, really just like the real thing version of a prototype. And that's exactly wrong. All you need is a small experience that's sort of a little bit like one aspect of what you're thinking about, and see if you learn a little something and then iterate, iterate, iterate. Set the bar low, clear it, and repeat.

That's the fundamental approach, and it does take a while to get. I was actually recently debriefing some corporate clients 19 months after a one day seminar. The number one observation for this group of people was, hey, this prototyping, it's actually really a big deal, isn't it? And I said, yeah, it really is more because once you really get this, you could do this like all the time, couldn't you, Dave? Yes, you can. You can do these very small experiments that actually test the waters a little bit, frankly, as a professional lifestyle, much less as a project.

Anita Brick: Well, it's true, if you do a whole bunch of them, then none, if they're all really incremental, is going to make or break your life design or your career or your life for that matter.

Dave Evans: Yeah, it really does. And so the biggest challenge is getting it that these small things can be helpful. And then, of course, as soon as you do the small thing, you'll finish it. And guess what? You won't have the answer. The challenge of prototyping for people is it doesn't feel instantaneous. It doesn't feel fast. I still don't know for sure because people would like certainty and they like a single answer as certainty is not available and single answers don't exist. And so what we're doing is we're incrementing our way forward. And once you get in the habit of that, it does work faster. The one liner coming out of audio with David Kelly, you know, is to fail often to succeed sooner.

Anita Brick: You're absolutely right. And I think it goes back to what it's the raw material that you're working with, one of the weekend students. There's two questions that are related, but the first one through a weekend student, he said, I'm all about ideation, so having lots of raw material to work with, I absolutely love it. When do I know that I have enough ideas and then I need to act? Doesn't this relate back to prototyping in a way?

Dave Evans: Sure does. Who, as we teach the design process, you look at the five steps, the actual technical process of doing design, particularly for products. It starts with empathy. Then it goes to define. So after you have empathized deeply and fully understand the situation, I go to the definition step. The definition step is what's my point of view and what am I actually working on?

We do problem finding before we do problem solving. Then we go to ideation, which is where the questioner jumps in and from ideation we go to prototype. And that process, by the way, has a rhythm of flair and focus. So I start with empathy. I flare out when I talk to lots of people, look at lots of points of view, and gather lots of information.

Then I focus down. I zoom down into where am I really coming from? What are the key learnings out of Astroneer? What problem is that I'm really working on? What am I really pursuing? That's a focal point now. How many ideas could I have about responding to that? I boom, lots and lots of ideas that flare back out again.

Then it's time to say, well, gee, which of these ideas really worth pursuing? Because having ideas, as any venture capitalist will tell you, is free. Ideas are free of execution. That counts. Now I get a focus back now to what am I going to do? And prototyping takes us into the land of action. Which and of course, action is a smaller step than thinking.

And so I focused on which prototypes are worth it. And then I flare back out to test and iterate until we get an answer. So the step to go from ideation is to prototyping. And when do I know I have enough ideas? Now let's say this person loves ideation. okay. It's really great to be self-aware that you know you love ideation.

It's easy for you to get stuck on the ideation step. Would I rather solve my problem or just have ideas about it? Well, that's a tough call. If I'd rather have ideas about it, then, you know, be sure you don't get stuck there. Having ideas in and of itself is of no value. It is of value because it gets you a broader list containing, hopefully, some better ideas that are worthy of that prototyping.

Because frankly, the only reason we're doing all this stuff is to get to a solution. A decision is something we're going to implement in the real world. This is not a mental entertainment exercise. We're looking for outcomes. At some point, if I notice I have a lot of ideas, I review them. I go, which of these are so interesting and so potentially powerful, I'd like to check them out a little more.

And then what about them? Could I prototype to get more information to see? Is this thing worthy of investing in? So once you know you've got a bunch of ideas, scan them for which ones to start prototyping and push yourself into the action step that may not take you to the end. It'll quickly show, oh, this is the wrong path. I've got to go back and do something else or this is worth refining.

Anita Brick: Well, and it's a really good point. The related question was from an evening student. She said in the book, you talk about falling in love with the first idea and not letting it go. And then that's not a good idea. I seem to do the opposite. How can I use this to my advantage instead of looking like I can't commit?

Dave Evans: Oh, this is a person who is falling in love with the idea I haven't had yet.

Anita Brick: Falling in love again and again and again. And actually, how can she leverage that to her advantage?

Dave Evans: It's an interesting example, because the way this person becomes too attracted to the next thing and falls in love again runs the risk of not ever actually completing an implementation. You know, our experience of life is mostly an idea. If you don't like your life, change your mind. And in this situation I notice that I keep jumping, I keep jumping, I keep jumping.

Is this one person's flexibility or another person's inability to commit? So the first question that the questioner has to ask herself is, do I actually believe this judgment? Other people are making about me? We say, you cannot solve a problem. You're not willing to have many people who talk to me about something like that. They're really voicing other people.

Other people think I can't commit. And then I say, but do you think you can? I mean, are you happy with this life you've got let's say you're bouncing every seven months or every 12 months, you know, is that working for you? And they go, well, yeah. Frankly, it is. Go on. Do you notice you don't believe them?

So you're hearing from lots of people that you're doing the wrong thing, but you don't think you're doing the wrong thing. So if you don't think you're doing the wrong thing, then you're not going to change your mind. You're just rehearsing other people's judgment. You've been unsuccessful in denying or rejecting. If, in fact, this person likes the way she's thinking and likes the outcomes of it, then what you have to be is honest with yourself and own it.

Yet, however, the complaints other people are making or criticism other people are making of her, I think she believes are true. Then she says, okay, what's going on there? And so I need to in fact decide to change my mind and that either means sticking with one thing longer. So here I am, doing this one role, or we're working on this one project, and this other attractive shiny object goes by and I'm distracted by it.

But what I need to start doing is be what we call mindful of process. The book recommends a good time journal and a good time journal to focus on when doing your day or things working for you. When are they not working for you to really understand how it is that you optimize your own experience so you can do job crafting and things like that?

This person could do a variation on that, could do a distraction journal. What is actually going on when I get pulled off the thing I'm on onto something I'm not doing. I mean, what is so attractive about my mind jumping to the next idea? Because if you want to solve that problem, you have to understand what the agency of it is.

The difference is it's that initial new idea. I love things I don't know anything about. Oh, it's the learning, okay. It's new. That's what it's about. The engine of this thing for me is newness. Or I just get such a kick out of having more ideas. I love being the person in the room that always has more things to say.

Okay, that's a different thing. This goes back to empathy. If I really understand the engine of what's keeping me from sticking with something, once I've decided that's a real problem, then I have the ability to start working on it. But it could be 5 or 10 different things. And if you're not working on the right one, you're not going to get anywhere.

Anita Brick: Oh, absolutely. It's really interesting. There is a question from an alum. So she said, hello Dave. I've been working on environmental issues for over a decade, first with an NGO and now as a consultant. I focus mostly on forestry and environmental economics. I have found that as a consultant, I tend to accept the jobs that come to me instead of creating a path toward clear objectives, both in the short and long term.How can I design my life so that I am more proactive than reactive?

Dave Evans: What was interesting was, again, in this question it was not entirely clear to me that it's a problem. Good point. So she's saying I hate it. So I've been in the environmental space really focusing on forestry, and I notice that I'm taking the stuff that's coming my way and I'm not charting my own path. So I'm responding rather than initiating.

How do I fix that? And the first question is, is it broken ? Do you like the work that's coming to you? I mean, that's a thing for some period of time, almost everybody that's going down that environmental pathway and in the NGO world is doing so. The pretty serious degree of personal mission, personal sense of purpose. She's probably paying close to a deferred salary, which she could be making with her MBA and other other sectors.

So the person who cares what she's doing. So the first thing, again, one of the dysfunctional beliefs out there and this definitely gets this genetically engineered gene added to your DNA. But how do you get an MBA at any top business school is that you need to be the initiator. You need to be an activist. You need to be the one charting the course, the master of your own fate.

You're just fielding stuff coming your way. You're being passive. That's going to be a reduced result. You know, in this kind of service world, it's a referral base. So once you start consulting, your work is going to come to you from the work that came to you. Let's go back to basics. As MBAs, we have industries and markets.

Industries are collections of sellers and markets are collections of buyers. So if I happen to be operating in the forestry oriented environmental economics market, the people who are going to hear about me are the people who live in that neighborhood. So that's the kind of work that's going to come my way. Now, if I want to get more proactive, I'm reaching out to people in that community and that's again doing demand creation rather than demand response.

To use the marketing terms, where I have credibility and connectivity to the existing client base that I already know, the people I know, know the people I know and know the people who they know. I want to be in another sector. Then I will have to be proactive. Nothing organic is going to happen in a sector where I have no presence unless I start it.

So the real question for this person would be, is there something you want that isn't coming to you organically? It's got to come to you inorganically you got to synthesize it. And then what are the steps you need to take to do that? What you have is a nice problem that sounds like this person's backlog is more than sufficient to keep them busy and or make a living, and I notice if I don't take control of this thing, I'll just keep answering the phone and I'm going to be busy myself for a long, long time. It was a bad thing. They change it. It's not a bad thing. That's fabulous. I don't even have any cost of sales.

Anita Brick: It aligned to that other question that another alum asked, are you selling the right problem? Are you solving the wrong problem? And he said, as explained in the book, some people spend time working on the wrong problem and the unlucky and smart ones succeed and what you call a success disaster. How can an individual like myself, who may be blinded a little bit by success, actually design the life I want, the.

Dave Evans: Blinded by success? So it's going so well, it's.

Anita Brick: Going so well, or the money is so compelling and the work is okay that it's hard to step.

Dave Evans: Off. Right? Something in you is telling you that there is something missing. You actually are aware of the fact that there's something you're not seeing. And frankly, something you wish you did see. And the reason it's missing is the busyness or the demand or the ego fulfillment, or just the overwhelming level of activity and bright light shining from this successful activity you're having is preventing those other things from being seen or being attended to.

So the first thing I would say, if somebody who claims they are being blinded by success or overwhelmed by that is say, okay, let's sit down and take a look at what's not happening. Kind of working, not doing what kind of personal life is being foregone for some period of time, that you're aware that this success is imperialistic overcoming.

And then you have to say, okay, is there a way to have it both ways? And in most cases there's not. There's another falsehood out there that if you're any good at this, you can have it all. No, you can't have it all. We're 24 by seven humans on this question of being your best amazing self. A lot of self-help literature these days is mostly inspirational.

I have your amazing Olympic quality self all the time, which is completely undoable, right? Unsustainable. We were actually in Chicago recently. Chicago ideas, and we were on the same platform as Abby Wambach, the world's greatest female soccer forward of all time, a multiple time Olympic gold medalist, you know, and I asked her about it. I said, mother, you can't sustain your Olympic performance full time.

She says, no, you hope like crazy to peak during the right week of the year, probably. I'm not going to solve it by just adding more discipline and behavior to some point that's going to limit out. So then the question simply becomes, is it worth the sacrifice? It's a trade off. So let's say you have decided it's worth it.

I want to make a change. I can't you know, I've got myself locked into a lifestyle now and I need, you know, for a Lexus of the year and the beach house or whatever it is, that's simply a decision. I say, well, if you're locked in and you've then great, then now simply deeply own your choice and go forward to that.

Well, I don't like it. Okay, great. This is what we call gravity problems. It's not a problem unless it's actionable. If it's not actionable, it's not a problem. It's a circumstance. Many people's problems are not a problem. It's their problem with their problem. I'm now a senior vice president. I'm working 75 hours a week and have to be on the road 60% of the time.

When I get small children, I never see them. You know? I don't know how to solve that problem. That's really not a problem. What problem do you have? I believe I asked the CEO of your company what the role of that executive vice presidency is. It looks like this, right? If he goes. Yeah, and that's a fact, not a problem.

And it doesn't go with being how much you don't want that. You need something else. So that's an objective reality. You can have something else. You just have to pay for it.

Anita Brick: Right? Right. There's always a cost to whatever.

Dave Evans: But people describe that with all this emotional valence like, oh, it's so costly, here's what it costs. That's not a bad thing. It's just true. There's an illustration, right, of a young man who wants to be in public health policy.

Anita Brick: I remember.

Dave Evans: But he notices because he's a savvy guy, that people who are doctors are much more credible in the policy world than people who are merely policy wonks. You know, there's nothing about being a clinician that makes you better at, you know, macro policy. The truth is, if you want to be impactful, you have more credibility with an MD.

So I'm trying to decide if I should get an MD, frankly, just to improve my credibility. But it's an eight year bill. It's really expensive. And we went round and round and I said, look, you know, I really get that it's unfortunate that the political reality here is way out of scale with cost. I mean, this is a very expensive coupon to get more credibility and get a front row seat at the policy table, but it is the way it is.

And if you could get over your anger that it seems unfair and accept the truth of it because you are not going to change this in your lifetime, then all you have to do is design it. And once he got around the corner of realizing it had nothing to do with him, this unfortunate reality simply was true. It was a benign fact.

Then he's either going to do it or not, and he was able to imagine his way. Okay, if I don't do it, it looks like this. What would my life actually be like if I do go to med school and get certified and all that stuff? And how would I actually do that? And he actually found himself able to make the decision to, in fact, go, he's going to miss school.

And of course, found a way to make that a proactive, worthwhile thing. He's like, could spend eight years just biding his time to get a sticker. The hardest part of these things is accepting reality. Choosing into reality is hard, but accepting it is perhaps the harder of the two, I would agree.

Anita Brick: I love the whole concept of life design interviews because that can help you with a reality check. Obviously you can't have just one because one person's point of view isn't universal. But there was an evening student who asked a question about how do you move or potentially move those life design interviews into the action. And I like this a lot in life design interviews.

What are the signs that it's time to move to your question that you have in the book? And this is a paraphrase. The more I learn about the company and people, the more fascinating it becomes. I wonder what steps would be involved in exploring how someone like me might become part of this organization. And how do you know the timing?

I mean, now that's my question. How do you know the timing? Because if you miss it, you could derail not only that conversation, but the relationship in general. What are the signs to look for that? It's time. They're not going in that direction that it's time for you to.

Dave Evans: Sure. In my experience, most of my students, and my clients experience most of the time that these informational or lectures on interview conversation projects continue, and we're talking about six to 10 to 50 of them. It's not 1 or 2. These things organically generate opportunity. It usually happens that they gosh, you know I did it. Yeah, I never thought about work in a place like this.

So they bring it up. Makes it really easy. But what about that's not happening. Is it time yet? Because I don't want to pull the trigger prematurely and blow the whole thing. That's a really good question. Is a smart, intelligent person who's trying to do the right thing, got an MBA and is still a little unsure. Give yourself the favor of a rule.

Rules are easy. I would not in the first or second conversation within the same entity bring that up, because now it's clearly happened if I was in fact a job candidate and I came in here kind of faking it. Just hire me. Okay. I've got people coming back and telling me, hey, that left is an interview and it doesn't work.

I was right, it doesn't work. And we go, wow, I really need to hear that story. But that's one tool we push really hard as my single favorite power tool in this whole thing, if nothing else is talked about. Oh, that's where the action is. And if that doesn't work, we're in real trouble. And every single time I've explored somebody who failed at it, it's because of one of two things.

They either acted very much like a job candidate sent their resume in advance, which absolutely signals that I'm a job candidate, or they were so inauthentic in their curiosity, they were truly trying to have the conversation just to get the job offer. They don't mention it, they don't actually act like it, but they act so lackluster. So I'm curious because they're frankly just waiting for the date, waiting to be asked to the prompt.

So if you're not doing that, you're going along. Just wait till at least the third conversation, because at least then you've got enough under your belt when you say, gosh, you know, what I really notice about this place is that it's really fabulous. And this is the kind of thing I think I'd like to do. You have to be able to say that credibly, because you've been there long enough and learned enough that that was an informed position as opposed to, oh, you walked in knowing that, didn't you give it enough time?

That's the thing. One thing too. So that's the simple rule. Then the interpretive rule, the interpretive rule is, look, if in fact, your end goal is to try to work in a sector or a particular state, that particular institution met a couple of people now, and they're not bringing it up. And you really do have an honest interest in them.

I really would like to be here. And you can authentically represent that. Then go ahead and take the risk. It may not work if the question is, how do I do it in a way that doesn't backfire, there's no way to guarantee it won't backfire. All right, I agree you're on your third or better conversation, bringing this up in a respectful way, getting the response that says, really?

I mean, geez, Dave, I don't know where you come off asking me that question. I've never had that experience. We're in business here. People aren't going to be offended that you want to work there. So the fact that they were going to kick you out the door in the relationship is over. That's very unlikely unless you completely misread it.

I've never seen that happen. You might get a respectful no, but that's probably the only risk you run if you know there is no chance to work there. The sooner you learn that, the more you are freed to go somewhere where you could. So wait until you're credible. Then ask the question and get the answer you're looking for. The answer you're looking for isn't yes. The answer you're looking for is what is the opportunity status in this institution? That's what I really want to know, which does include, you know. Yeah. If you're willing to hear. Yes. You have to be willing to hear.

Anita Brick: No. True. And then if there is something in your candidacy that could be fixed, you can work on it.

Dave Evans: So it's really hard to get that data that's there another place where this information interview process is left? Is an interview process really your friend? Let's see. You're in your second or third conversation with an individual or the third person you met in the same place, and you bring up that very soft question as we phrased it in the book, you just ambulate the chance of getting just a hard no and sort of walked out the door and we're done and never talk to us again.

Again, very small. So tell me what's missing in me that would make me more attractive. Or if I was going to go back and add some things to my background that would make me a more viable candidate. One might those things be if I've already got a human conversation going on, the chance of getting an answer to that question are much higher than if I'm most recently a rejected job candidate in requisition. When I've been formally rejected. It's very hard to continue the conversation when I've been informally telling them it's a lot easier because good quality bad news is really hard to come by.

Anita Brick: Oh totally agree. Do you have time for one more question? Sure. Okay, I love the process. Incredibly helpful having read the whole book and made me think about things as well. If someone wanted to start doing something today, what are three things that a person can do to begin designing his or her life?

Dave Evans: Get curious. Talk to people. Try stuff. We avoid oversimplification, but it is actually pretty simple. The best beginning place is curiosity. You know what am I curious about? What I'm interested in. What keeps me awake at night? What am I worried about? What am I enthused about? Because that's where energy can be found. That's where authenticity can be found.

Curiosity is a wonderful power tool. Then for that curiosity, go talk to people, find out more about them and about you and about that world, that thing you're curious about. Get into it. And when you have those conversations, don't do some market research where you're testing your idea. Don't make them research pure research where you are just gathering factoids that you could have gotten on Google, but you are having the narrative experience of this other person's life.

You're empathetically really finding out their story. It's the story, not just the facts. So I do that in the conversation. From that, I want to try to have these experiences where I'm actually doing things that move me toward possibilities long before I commit. I haven't sold the farm by any means yet, but I'm trying things out. So if I want a really simple way to keep this stuff in mind, get curious. Talk to people, try stuff, love it.

Anita Brick: Wonderful. Thank you so very much. This was fun and I can't wait to hear what's next. But next time you're in Chicago, please let us know and great book, super super important. Thanks for making the time, Dave.

Dave Evans: Thanks for having me. And the great thing about MBAs is, you know, they're asking hard questions and they want to move toward action. So I'm very happy to be in this conversation. Thanks for having me.

Anita Brick: Dave has some great things on the site which is designingyourlife.com. That's designing your life.

Dave Evans: Take care.

Anita Brick: There you go. And thank you all for listening. This is Anita Brick with CareerCast at Chicago Booth. Keep advancing.