This 1 Simple Exercise Will Remind You of Your Purpose

If you're like me, there are moments at work when it is hard to see your purpose clearly. Especially in moments of change and uncertainty, it is easy to feel unmoored and forget why you're doing what you do.

Here is a simple exercise to remind you of what matters in times of uncertainty.

It is called the Heroes Exercise. It's my favorite exercise from my book, Design the Life You Love. In fact for many people it's the big reveal as it provides them with a big "AHA!" about themselves.

It's a simple exercise that will take you about 10 minutes.

Here's what you need to do:

1. Get a piece of paper or open your notebook.

2. Think of your work heroes--the people who inspire you professionally. These are not superheroes but simply people who have qualities that interest you or that you want to emulate. You might know your heroes (a mentor, colleague, family member, friend), you might know of them (Elon Musk of SpaceX, Jacqueline Novogratz of Acumen, Reshma Saujani of Girls Who Code) or you might admire who they were (Steve Jobs, Martin Luther King, Cleopatra).

3. Write down their names, draw a small icon for them (round glasses for Jobs, a sweater for Novogratz after her book, The Blue Sweater), and list as many of their qualities as you can think of. You can have one, three or six heroes. Some people have more.

Here are designer Michael Robinson's icons for his heroes.

4. Once you've listed your heroes and their qualities, take a look at the qualities you wrote. These are your values. The qualities that inspire us in others are actually our own values, those we have and/or aspire to have. We notice these qualities because they're "value-able" to us.

5. Now, cross out the names of your heroes and put your own name down! We are the hero of our own work and life, and our values are our super powers. So, I am serious, cross off your heroes' names and put your own name down.

Our values are the foundation for the work (and life) we love. If we know our values we can decide what we want, what we need to change and what we want to leave out. We can create our very own roadmap.

When Marshall Goldsmith, world's #1 leadership coach and author, took my workshop he listed his teachers as his heroes: Frances Hesselbein, Former Girl Scout CEO, Peter Drucker, Father of Modern Management, Paul Hersey, creator of Situational Leadership Model, and Buddha. For him, they all shared a common quality--they taught him everything they knew without expecting anything in return. The Heroes Exercise inspired Goldsmith to start his feed forward 100 Coaches program which counts Mark Thompson, NYTimes Bestselling Author, Alex Osterwalder, creator of Business Canvas Model, Whitney Johnson, author of Disruptive Self, Garry Ridge, CEO of WD-40, and me, to name a few, as part of its 1st 25 cohorts.

So next time you're in the midst of change or uncertainty about work (responding to a difficult colleague, changing jobs, taking on a tough assignment, saying no to something), or in your life (entering a new relationship, moving to a new city, having teenagers, becoming empty-nesters) take your heroes exercise out and reread your values.

Your values are the foundation of your work and life. They remind you of what matters. Use them to design the work and life you love.

Who are your heroes? I would love to hear from you.

Design the work and life you love!

Design the Life You Love: Inspiration Journal #5

Hello!

This week we share with you the profile of an extraordinary person, Whitney Johnson, disruptor and corporate innovator. Whitney and I met at Marshall Goldsmith's 100 Coaches program, where we were both among the first wave of 25 cohorts. She is an original who has not only disrupted her life multiple times, but helped so many others to disrupt their lives for the better.

When I asked Whitney what advice she has for those who want to live the life they love, she said, "If it's scary and it's lonely you're on the right path." Inspiring words from a true disruptor!

Design the life you love!

Ayse Birsel

EXTRAORDINARY LIVES / WHITNEY JOHNSON

"If you want to be successful in unexpected ways, follow your own disruptive path. Dare to innovate. Do something astonishing. Disrupt yourself."

The author of Disrupt Yourself and Dare, Dream, Do, Whitney is a self-proclaimed "investor in people, concepts, and dreams." As co-founder of Rose Park Investors, a Disruptive Innovation Fund, she put this approach to practice and now shares it with others through her speaking engagements, writing and her inspirational "Disrupt Yourself" podcast. 

Do you know an extraordinary person living an extraordinary life? If so, I'd love to hear from you at info@aysebirsel.com. 

For more inspiration read Ayse's Inc. column 6 Forgotten Leadership Lessons From Childhood.

OUR COMMUNITY

Want to connect with other DLYLers? Let us know at leah@birselplusseck.com and we'll send you an invite to join our Design the Life You Love Slack Channel. You can also connect with us on Facebook @ Design the Life You Love by Ayse Birsel, via Twitter @aysebirselseck and on her website, aysebirsel.com. Design the Life You Love the book can be purchased on Amazon. 

What Your Millennial Employees Really Want in Office Design (It's Not Just a Ping Pong Table)

I love working with millennials. They're creative, entrepreneurial, media savvy, purpose-driven and often have a good grasp of life-work balance. When you meet the best ones, you don't want them to ever leave.

What does it take to retain millennials?

As designers of office systems and great work experiences, my studio ran a Design the Work You Love workshop with millennials to figure this out. Seda Evis, our Director of Business and Strategy, captured our insights best:

"Millennials value coherence between the physical workspace and the culture of the organization. They expect to see the office as an extension of the purpose and meaning of work. Although physical comfort is important, it's more than the ergonomic chair and desk setup; it's also about being comfortable in your skin and having the freedom to be yourself."

To create a successful work environment for millennials, as Seda noted you need to do more than just offer a comfortable chair (although that's also a plus!), good coffee and technology. You need to touch their hearts and spirit.

Here are four key learnings that will truly make them feel in their element:

Variety of settings: Curate different kinds of places for different kinds of work.

Greg Parsons is the Vice President behind Herman Millers's Living Office--a user-centered approach to products, places and experiences that inspire and enable people at work. He is also a long time friend and collaborator. I asked him what millennials want at the office. For Parsons, millennials want to move around and choose where they're going to be productive and with whom.

"Millennials were brought up in a time in which creativity and relationships are what define the value of people over machines. Theirs is a culture focused on results, not process. They see the workplace as a community, not just a place to secure their livelihood."

Offer a variety of eclectic places for this generation of workers to choose from--comfortable living rooms, libraries, stand-up tables, outdoor spaces, nooks and crannies--to collaborate, create, contemplate, present. Be comfortable that sometimes these spaces will be outside the office too.

Kitchen: Make the kitchen the heart of your office.

Millennials in our workshop expressed how important it is to bring their whole self to the office. What better way to do this than the activities of the kitchen--cooking, sharing recipes, eating together, talking, laughing. These activities are also incredibly conducive to spontaneous conversations, organically bringing people who do different things together and exchanging ideas. A perfect recipe for innovation.

Products of Design, the graduate design school at SVA, has an amazing kitchen at the center of its studios. Architectural firm Snøhetta (they designed the September 11 Memorial Museum) has people enter their New York offices from the kitchen rather than a reception.

Note: Cindy Allen (more on her below) had these 3 cool kitchen examples: LinkedIn NY has a lounge-y speakeasy designed by M Moser; Sony NY has a enormous cafe designed by Studios; and the super chic kitchen for the headquarters of the Pritzker Group designed by HOK. Check them out for inspiration.

Workshop spaces: Instead of more meeting spaces, start investing in workshop spaces.

Workshops are places of vertical ideation for a generation that truly understands the power of collaboration. Alex Osterwalder, inventor of the Business Canvas, says it best:

"For me the wall is the new desk. Without large wall spaces I can't do knowledge/creative work."

Here are the ideal ingredients for a workshop space: lots of vertical surfaces (white boards, tack-able walls, easels and sticky pads, 4X8' foam core boards, blackboards), projector and screen or a large monitor, lots of markers, erasers, mobile tables you can move around and change according to the number of people, break out tables and stools (or sofas and lounge chairs) for your team to ideate in smaller groups of 2-3 or just to relax and take a creative pause.

I find that the best workshop spaces have daylight, and better yet, an open vista. Somehow they communicate openness of mind and a connection to the world beyond you. If you're in a room with no windows, put in a library full of books, your symbolic window into the world. And don't forget coffee, tea and a big bowl of M&M's!

Purpose-driven spaces. Millennials want their workplaces to reflect the company culture. How do you express your intangible purpose as a tangible experience?

We visited Kelty, maker of outdoor camping and adventure products, for a meeting last summer in Colorado. They met us at their lobby and then motioned us to an outdoor tent, with coolers and camp chairs in their hands. We sat under the tent, ate organic popsicles and talked, with crickets and birds in the background. Message: our purpose is to help you have a great outdoors experience. Even when we're meeting. Simple, but true to their brand and purpose.

At the other end of the spectrum is GE's Design Center. Their co-creation center is designed literally as a Collaboration Machine, with software and hardware that changes the space in real time. Greg Petroff (then GE's Chief Experience Officer, now at Google Cloud) calls its designer David Galullo a genius of culture and space planning. Message: this is a transformational space for people who come up with transformational ideas.

As I was finishing this article I reached out to Cindy Allen, one of my design super heroes. What did she think of millennials at work? Allen thinks that today's office design is all about "joie de vivre"--sprawling sofas, yoga mats galore, and every variety of Ping-Ping table imaginable (trending: ones that turn into conference tables), with a friendly barista presiding over the entire domain. But even more important for her, is the community and strong company culture all that "fun" fosters. "It's all about the human experience".

"As Editor in Chief of Interior Design magazine, I've been publishing the best workspaces for 16 years. It certainly has evolved, become intuitive, and dare I say even cool? (I do!) Funny that millennials may not even realize that today's designed workplace is a luxury their parents couldn't ever even dream of."

Millennials have it good. But we're all benefiting from it too!

Are you a millennial, or work with millennials, and have things to add? Please write to me with what matters to you. I would love to hear from you.

Design the life and work you love.

5 Tricks to Throwing a Conference That Inspires People

When I was starting out in design, you networked over power breakfasts and martini lunches, but they have all but disappeared. These days every organization is putting together a conference, internal or public, for profit or not. Regardless of the size or format, the underlying purpose is the same--creating opportunities to learn from each other, inspire new ideas, network and build new collaborations and alliances.

This March, I attended Design Indaba, a Cape Town conference that promotes design as a business goal and tool for economic growth. Full disclosure: I was one of the speakers, telling my story while at the same time getting an audience of 1500 people started on designing their life. It was one of the most inspirational conferences I had attended in years--and it was quite different than the martini lunches of years past. The event made me realize that putting together a conference is the new way of doing business.

Here is what I learned about how to throw a great conference:

1. Recruit speakers from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines

It is easier to sign up people who are like you and like-minded. It is harder to offer true diversity. You want your audience to see themselves and their interests represented in your line-up and feel included. At the same time, you want to cast a wide net to bring together different colors, gender, voices, mediums, perspectives that will expose them to new ideas and help them connect the dots in new ways.

At Design Indaba, you had talks about from the creator of a solar light that brings us a step closer toward a cleaner future, the creator of a feminist web series who spoke about changing stereotypes about women of color in South Africa, and the creative director of Google's Creative Lab talking about his transgender transition. These topics might not seem like must-haves for a design conference, but went hand-in-hand with Design Indaba's goal about building a better future.

Other conference organizers are now including a diversity adviser or mentor on their teams. At the last IDSA International Conference, we made diversity an explicit goal from the start and made it one of our measures of success.

2. Put a face to your conference

Find a passionate leader who pulls it together. Salesforce's annual Dreamforce conference, for example, is synonymous with Marc Benioff, while Design Indaba is synonymous with Ravi Naidoo, a visionary producer, curator, master connector. Naidoo will travel the world, asking his friends for recommendations and going out of his way to meet people they've suggested in person, to nurture and cajole talent globally until he has his next batch of thought leaders.

3. Have a big picture purpose for a conference

Design Indaba's tagline is, "with the right support, a better future can be designed." That purpose is timeless--and it's what's helped the conference stick around for 20 years.

4. Create a worthy experience and people on both sides of the stage will rise to the occasion.

Design Indaba is not simply the sum of speakers and an audience. Design Indaba created a larger-than-life atmosphere that fit will with its "design a better future" ethos by commissioning new art installations specifically for the event, integrating unconventional performances into the conference schedule like Dokter and Misses, a surreal dream staged with talking furniture and professional actors, and daily hipop improv summaries from troupe Free Style Love Supreme, and ending with dancing every night.

5. End with a grand finale

End with a big bang. This year Design Indaba ended with Archbishop Desmund Tutu, known as the "The Arch", coming on stage as the physical arch created in his honor was being unveiled behind him. Commissioned by Design Indaba, developed by Snøhetta, New York architectural studio and Johannesburg based Local Studio, the design weaves 14 lines of the constitution that brought down apartheid. All this with the mayor of Cape Town giving her agreement for it to be installed near the parliament, capped with a choir singing in celebration. An amazing finale which was also a testament to the power of design, done live.

Design the life you love!

We Started Having ‘Life We Love’ Meetings on Sunday Mornings: An interview with Steve and Pam D'Amico

Steve and Pam met when they were 19 and 17, respectively. They have been together ever since. Steve came to Ayse's Design the Life You Love Workshop around the time they were becoming empty nesters and when he went home, he taught his wife Pam the process. They’ve been designing their lives together every Sunday ever since.

 

Steve I was with Procter and Gamble for 24 years as head of their Clay Street innovation arm and am now in the process of figuring what's next. I'm an industrial designer, but I haven't designed products in some time. I'm most passionate about helping companies create cultures of innovation, whether that's at Clay Street or elsewhere.  

Pam I'm a retired stay-at-home mom who started tagging along on the journey with Steve. I worked in the finance industry for 20 years, took care of the kids, and kept everything running. Our oldest daughter is in her second year of medical school and our youngest is just about to graduate from Columbus College of Art and Design in illustration. 

Steve So we are a scientist and an artist. We met when I was 19. I had been dating a girl and it wasn't going very well. My best friend at the time was essentially badgering me about his girlfriend’s friend, so I got him to agree that if he would stop bugging me, I would go out with her. 

Pam I was seventeen at the time and still in high school.

Steve My best friend's girlfriend was hitting on me while I was on my date with Pam. It was incredibly awkward, but somehow we got together anyway.  

Pam We've been married for thirty years since last September.

Steve We were reflecting on that... That's what old people have, thirty year anniversaries, but we're not that old yet. It's gone very quickly. It was David Keeler who originally told me about your workshop…One of the reasons that I accepted and was so eager to try it was because Pam and I knew we were coming up on a life changing event for us with our youngest daughter going to college. We were just on the cusp of a transition. I only knew a little bit about the premise of Design the Life You Love, and I thought, It had never occurred to me before to use the design process to reflect on one's life, but it made a lot of sense. And I think at that point Pam and I were rather disconnected.  
 

Pam We were mom and dad, but we weren't necessarily connected.

Steve You had us reflecting about ourselves individually at the workshop, but it struck me that we could use this as a couple.  

Pam I had been taking a class through the Arbinger Institute about empathy and self, using their book, The Anatomy of Peace. When Steve came back, we put what we each learned together and started to identify where there was some common ground. Steve had more about exploring, more in the mind space. And I was looking at traveling. Suddenly we realized that we both want to explore. And that was kind of the jumping off point for us. We should do this together or combine them.  

Steve I remember reflecting how interesting it was and how Design the Life You Love really made me think about myself and where I was as a person. I went home and was telling Pam about it. I shared with her my notebook and the sketches that I had done and I think I had a rough tree.  

Pam We talked about it and I told you about the Arbinger book and then you lead me through what you did.  

Steve Like Pam said, we realized we had some common points. This whole notion of exploration, which for me meant I sometimes spent too much time in my head. Her exploration was in terms of let's go out and see the world. So then it got us to really clarify what it means when we say ‘explore.' That gave us a launching off point to understand, this is what I mean, this is what you mean and this is what it means for us together. Up until then, we hadn't been talking about that. It's so easy just to be living your everyday life and and this gave us some common ground to actually have goals to work towards together instead of just doing the same thing every day and kind of living parallel lives. This happens a lot. You fall into patterns. I would get up and have my coffee and go to work and and she would get up and get the girls going. So, it kind of forced us to pause and really talk to each other about where we were individually and as a couple. I think I took her through pretty much verbatim what we did in your workshop. To basically have a similar experience to what I had. I think we did it in one sitting on a Saturday.  We had three common themes that were coming out: Exploration; The idea of connection; and then health and wellness. So I did the sketch of the tree. In purple pen, because I love purple. Basically, the vine symbolizes us working on our health, both mental and physical. We were hoping the fruits would be exploration. Health and wellness was our grounding, the roots, and the trunks are connection—connection to each other, connection to our daughters, and connection to our extended family and friends. Exploration became the thing that we both want. Later we changed that to play. Because play sounds a lot more fun then exploration.  

Pam We've been through many many iterations. 

Steve  We've been kind of wordsmithing it. But we really use those three themes—exploration, connection and wellness—and then say, okay, what’s within those is what's really important to us as a couple.   

Pam We started having Life We Love meetings on Sunday mornings. We would go to the local Panera and have a cinnamon roll and coffee. It was fun. It was wonderful for us.   

Steve There were other times we’d go, “Oh, you know we should have a date night" or “Oh, you know we should do this on a regular basis" and we knew that it wasn't easy to keep this going. So we actually picked Sunday mornings, because we said that's a time when the girls are not around and nothing was scheduled.   The Life We Love was the theme of what we did every Sunday. We would pick a topic and both of us, whatever it was, would go out and do a little research and then report back to the other. Now, maybe every six months or year we kind of look at it and say, you know this is working, this isn’t, and then talk about the latest iteration.   

Pam I think that this whole exercise has given us a really good connection and helped us to create a map to move forward in our relationship. This started just as Steve had left P&G and we really had no idea where we were going. 

Steve And I think that was part of also changing exploration to play. You know again there's this idea of being intentional, but it was just less serious and we were at a time in our life where people often get serious, but we needed to lighten up.   

Pam I think part of it was Steve had been the only one of us working for a lot of years. Our life could become in service of his career and his passion for his work, which which was fine, but I had kind of gotten to the point where I was just doing things on my own and making decisions about our life. That wasn't fair to him and it wasn't fair to me. So this also gave me the platform say, ‘wait a minute, we need to talk about this.' That was great, it made us feel like we were both sharing in our life. Not just in service of his career.   

Steve The other thing that I would say is that when we first did the list, we were looking at it a lot. And then, once we got comfortable with it, we put it away for awhile. I think that was important, that we not get so tied to it. But there were a couple of things that emerged naturally that weren't on there, but are on there now. The morning contemplation. We do spiritual readings in the morning and we have for the last year. Pam has her coffee. I have my tea and we have a reading and then we just talk about what that really means to us. So, some things were able to sort of percolate out naturally. That didn't originate on the list, but we very quickly found a home for it to go "oh, let's get intentional about it" and remind ourselves to do that. 

Pam I think one of the things I think that maybe you learned about me is that I was a lot more curious about exploring than you thought I was. I think I found that you wanted to be a lot more involved in our life then I thought you did since you've always been so passionate about your work. That was a very pleasant surprise for me.   

Steve  I think it helped. On a couple of fronts and I don't mean this in a negative way, but it helped me understand how disconnected we had gotten. Just because we hadn't had these kinds of conversations in a long time. There's a lot of benefit to be to be had by couples from Design the Life You Love.  

Pam It was really fun. I mean, I don't think if you were a couple that was having serious problems that it would solve them, but I think to address the every day it’s really good— a good way of falling back in love with each other and reminding yourself of what attracted you to that person and brought you together in the first place. Also, as a reminder of "yeah we need to work on that right now.”   

Steve It's also good to help you look forward. We were in a time of transition and, apparently, divorce rates are highest in couples when children are born and when children leave the house. Again I don't feel like our marriage was in trouble, but we had gotten disconnected. And so it seems to me that this is really great for these transition points, when you kind of have to rediscover each other, It was really great for that and is still paying dividends. We're still meeting every morning. You know we still go to Panera. Probably not every Sunday, but we're working on this every day now.  

6 Forgotten Leadership Lessons From Childhood

You want to know the top lessons in leadership training? It turns out you already know them. They're more or less the same lessons you learned as kids.

The things that your parents and your primary school teachers drilled into you are the same ones the best executive coaches will drill into you to help you be the best leader you can be.

How do I know? I'm one of top leadership coach Marshall Goldsmith's first 25 cohorts of his 'pay it forward' project, 100 Coaches, and he and his cadre of friends--among them Frances Hesselbein, CEO of Frances Hesselbein Leadership Institute and Alan Mulally, former CEO of the Ford Motor Company--and his teammates, Frank Wagner and Chris Coffey, have been teaching us.

So here is a refresher course on the lessons from your childhood that can be applied to the business world.

1. Say thank you!

Marshall Goldsmith tells this great story in his bestseller, What Got You Here Won't Get You There. He was on a flight when there was an emergency and everyone thought the plane was going to crash. At that moment, his only regret was, "I didn't thank the people I needed to thank." The emergency was averted and the first thing he did afterwards was write thank you notes to everyone to acknowledge what they've done for him.

Thank the people who've helped you become who you are with a thank you note. Just like your mom taught you.

2. Listen more (talk less)!

Alan Mulally taught us that great leaders listen well. Being a good listener is a strength. Look into people's eyes and listen to them attentively. Listen in the present time. You will learn new things. You will let the person who is talking know that you value what they have to say. You will build trust.

There was a reason why our parents told us to "talk less and listen more." We were actually being taught a leadership lesson.

3. Don't interrupt!

Part of better listening habits is not interrupting. We interrupt others because we are bubbling with ideas. Or we know the answer and we want the other person to know we know the answer. Or we think we have bigger, more important ideas then they do. It happens. When it happens, stop and apologize. The more you do it, the less you will interrupt people and start to exemplify the importance of listening to each other.

Next time you interrupt someone, simply say, "I interrupted you, I am sorry, please continue."

4. Help each other!

Goldsmith says no one likes feedback; but everyone can use feed forward. Instead of dwelling on the past, feed forward is about asking each other for help for the future. He has people do this in pairs, each person tells the other something they want to improve on (i.e. I want to exercise more regularly), listens to the answer (i.e., schedule it into your calendar as if it is a meeting), says thank you (you don't say "I don't like it" or "I've heard this before", you just say thank you). You then switch roles. Then you switch partners. The more people you do this with the more help you get and give. It is humbling, empowering, builds trust and it makes it apparent how to be there for each other.

We all need help and we can all give help.

5. Be kind!

Goldsmith says that one of the most important criteria for getting into the 100 Coaches program is not brains, expertise, position or influence. It is kindness. One of the stories he had Frances Hesselbein tell us underscores this lesson--the story of her grandmother being kind to a Chinese laundryman, Mr. Yi, and being rewarded with his only possessions in this country as he was returning to his country--2 beautiful, giant Chinese vases. Why? Because Hesselbein's grandma was the only person who respected him and showed this through kindness. That is the lesson she grew up with and shared with us.

Be kind and respect all people. It is probably also the kindest thing you can do for yourself.

6. Play!

This is my add. Approach work playfully because when we play, we're like kids, we're not afraid of making mistakes. We try things out without judgment and accept we have so much to learn. Playing with ideas, with new ways of doing things, and learning constantly is probably the best way we can move forward, innovate and learn from our failures. Great leaders I know go to work with a smile and a bounce in their step and make work look like play.

Play like a child even though you're an adult.

How about starting today by thanking our parents and embodying their lessons in the office (and in life), everyday. And if you have other childhood lessons that have served you well as a leader, please write to me or comment here. I would love to hear from you.

Design the life you love!