Glad I'm seeing this at the age of 4

My *summary* (mixed with some own thoughts) of this talk: • The problem: People tend to get stuck in life and they lack the right tools. Design Thinking (DT) is such a tool. • Dysfunctional beliefs -> get rid of them! ○ You need a passion. ○ You should know where you're going by now. ○ You must become the BEST version of yourself. 1. The unattainable best is the enemy of all the available betters. • 5 Tips from DT for Life Design: 1. Connecting the dots i. People want their lives to be meaningful / add up to something ii. Exercise: Write 250 word essays on the following three questions and try to match them: 1) Who are you (your thoughts, words, actions)? 2) What do you believe? What's the meaning of life? The big picture? Why are you here? 3) What do you do in the world? Why do you work? (Not a job description) The point of working? 2. Gravity problems: If it's not actionable, it's not a problem, it's a circumstance, e. g. gravity i. try to reframe problems to something workable. If that doesn't work, accept them as circumstances 3. Thought experiment: Multiverse -> How many good lives are out there for you? i. Exercise: Come up with 3 great five-year-from-now versions of yourself 1) Why 3? Good quality/quantity of follow-up ideas. 2) 3 rubrics: a) Your life as it is now goes great (continue what you're currently doing, trend-extrapolation) b) What would you do if a) died tomorrow, e. g. your job gets replaced by AI? Any sidehustle or talent to explore etc.? c) Wildcard-Plan: If neither $ nor reputation (nobody would laugh) was a restriction, what would you do/be? -> get creative! 3) Goal: recognize the great oppotunities life has to offer, smartly implement insights from b) and c) into a), as they usually get left behind 4. Prototyping your ideas i. Prototype to… 1) …ask interesting questions: "What would it be like if I tried this?" 2) …expose the underlying assumptions: "Is this even the thing I want (now) or is that just something I remember I wanted when I was 20?" 3) …involve others with your ideas 4) …sneak up on the future (because I don't know yet if this is exactly what I want..) ii. You can "prototype" ideas by… 1) protoyping conversations: the future is already here, only unevenly distributed -> others are already living your future -> get in touch with them and learn 2) prototyping experiences: test the experience (example: a 45 yo business exec attending a uni lecture to see if it feels right) 5. Making better choices: How do you know when you know? i. The process of choosing well and making yourself happy: 1. Gather & create options a) Deliberately (active brainstorming etc.) b) Serendipitious (be open for opportunities in your peripheral vision etc.) 2. Narrow down options to a working list a) "When you have too many choices, you have no choice" b) Radically cross out all choices until ~7 are left (overcome FOMO!) 3. Choose / Pick one: Combine rational judgement (pro/contra comparisons etc.) with holistic gut feelings 4. Let go & move on instead of agonizing (FOMO strikes again!): Consider decisions irreversible • Simply get curious, talk to people and try stuff!

I wish I heard this in my late 30s.... it might have made a nice difference in my life. But, I am alive! There is still time.

Glad i'm seeing this at the age of 19

This is very interesting because I am someone who was a bartender in Belize, a hairstylist in LA and now a Brand Owner in Seattle. lmao. I quit my job and moved to Belize and left to Seattle. Honestly I feel like I've lived 5 lives and everyone is waiting for me to "grow up" but im loving my life!

Seeing this at almost 57. I think classes every year in high school need to be dedicated to teaching kids this stuff. Too many are just on trajectories of eventual emptiness, delusion and depression.

That part about too much choice really hit home with me. I want to do too many things and I constantly feel overwhelmed so I don't do anything.... I kind of wish someone would just take all choice away from me and say 'right, you are going to be a web designer" or one of the tings I am interested in. Then I could just focus on one thing knowing that there is nothing else to distract me.

I'll be 35 in 4 months and I will most likely be hitting the reset button on my life soon. I was terrified that I wasted my life. I needed this.

“Make the decision irreversible increases satisfaction by 60%” This is a good argument for marriage vs living together

Are you good at being lucky? What a concept. So simple. So powerful. So many different levels.

I thank you Bill Burnett for motivating my daughter when thing went really had for her. It was really so bad that she attempted committing murder until you invited Mrs Lyra Holt Dean for your TED show program. Am really so grateful for her finical assistance in my daughters life thank you so much once again.

DESIGNING YOUR LIFE [Dysfunctional Beliefs] 1. You should have passion 2. You should know where you are going to be 3. You are in the best version of yourself [5 Ideas from Design Thinking] 1. Connecting the Dots Who you are What you do What you believe = Key to gaining meaningful life 2. Gravity vs Problem If it's not actionable, it's a circumstance : you just have to accept If it's a problem, find a way to solve it. 3. One life, Many Possibilities - What are you doing right now? Continue doing it and make it better. - What would you do if you died tomorrow? - What would you do if you have money and don’t care what people think? 4. Prototype - interesting ideas, assumptions - Prototype conversation, prototype experience: Somebody has already living my future 5.Choosing Well - Gather&Create - Narrow Down - Choose - Let Go& Move On - Pay attention to your Peripheral Vision to be ‘lucky’ EDIPT Emphatize - Design - Idealise - Prototype - Testing

When he was talking about the multiple lives, it reminded me of the book called the "Midnight Library"

I am actually 25 atm, and I have experienced my parents often saying to me that exact same sentence: "You should know what you want by now!" The kind of pressure that is expressed with that can be immense.

"Collect, reduce, decide and move on. That how you make yourself happy."

At almost 50... Sooo needed this💥💫 Thanks

Dysfunctional Beliefs: 3:23 Connecting the Dots: 6:35 Gravity Problems: 7:57 Three Five-Year Odyssey Plans: 10:30 Prototyping Your Life: 13:40 Choosing Well: 16:32

At grad school, our team tried to find out how to create the next best Ted talk by analysing the data about all the Ted talks published till 2016. One of our findings was that talks shorter than 20 minutes had the most views. That expalins why this one doesn't have the number of views it should have had. One of the most insightful Ted talk I ever watched.

I am 26 and after all those videos it feels like I discovered the mighty power of life. Wish all of you all the best 🍀

Denzel Washington once said *"TO get what you never had before you have to do what you never did before"*

Remarkable clarity. Choosing well starts with curiosity and imagination. Indeed, we can have the future we’re looking for.

This is so valuable, more valuable than Gold! And we needed this 200 years ago. But glad to have gotten this in my lifetime. I’m almost 60 now so I still have a little time to work on this!

This should be studied in schools. Pretty much every TED should be. It's amazing know that almost everything which is essential in your life and professional life is not studied by school, supposed to learn you basic abilities in your daily life, but the world teaches it to you, the own life, and with your own own efforts you have to comprehend these things.

glad I'm just 17... really great watching this while almost all of my life is still in front of me...

"The unattainable best is the enemy of all the available betters." .... Pause for a moment, and let's think about that.

Watching this for the first time is both inspiring and confusing because I feel overwhelmed with the amount of important information I want to remember. Will definitely need to watch it again. I am 30 year old and starting over - want to change my career and work from home while taking care of my toddler son. There's a lot to figure out and a lot of gravity holding me back. I hope this lecture will help me in my journey.

That example with pizza or Chinese food changed my life. I constantly ask my partner or my friend for their opinion on two things and when they said "choice 1" and I realize I actually prefer choice 2 and express that, they get annoyed - why even ask them if their choice won't be picked anyway. And over the years I stopped listening to what I wanted and went through with their choice to not make them annoyed and you know to follow through. And now realizing that it is completely normal to feel the decision after it has been made just gives me SO much.

Thank you Bill Burnett for sharing your wisdom and doing it so concisely. You cover a LOT in 25mins and every minute is worth watching again!

The first and The best teacher in the world is LIFE, second teache is TEDX .

@6:03 "The unattainable best is the enemy of all the available betters" OTL this is exactly where I stuck 💀

Excellent Analysis, Deployed Worldwide Through My Deep Learning AI Research Library… Thank You

This is one of the best TedTalks ever!

We just think, "Alright, you are were ever you are. Let's start from where you are. You're not late for anything." Who you are, What you believe, and what you do.

I keep going back to this every year. Always always learns something so relevant and meaningful to me.

I really love the idea of prototyping everything in life before jumping in.

This is the best Ted Talk I’ve ever seen. Thank you so much for this, I’m at a time in my life where I needed to hear this. Thank you

Hi Bill, I am writing a Pre-Employment Program for Aboriginal Women - I live in northern Canada. I am getting SO much from this TED Talk. Thank you. It is very inspiring, I am delving deeper, and working through it on a personal level, so I can grasp the ideas. My hope, and My prayer - which I did write in my journal yesterday - I want to Learn How to be Happy! This is what I want to everyone to be, and....is one of the basic elements of the program I am writing. Rhoda :)

I freaking love the shift of design thinking - I'm a growth mindset expert and sometimes it can be hard for folks to shift into "this is a challenge" from "this is a quality about myself I can't change" - but the focus on prototyping, playing, and testing things out is huge.

One practical way to start thinking about the life you want to have is by setting short-term achievable goals. They are useful because you can actually see all the progress you're making.

So true! I just did an expensive real estate agent course in Dez because I wanted to do exact this course since years. After completing, I found out that it was a nice course, but what the heck was I thinking? Not a job for me! Was the money wasted? No because exactly this course was the last 10 years in my bucket list with exact this company. Now finally I have my inner peace :) Sometimes u have to allow yourself to go to the places u wanted to go when u were younger to see, u outgrown your old ideas, but they still stuck with you for whatever reasons.

5. Choosing well A. Gather and create options B. Narrow down to working list C. Choose D. Let go and move on Leave room for the lucky ideas Stanford experience: people who thought they were lucky are better at keeping peripheral vision open Can’t handle more than 5 decisions Won’t know how you feel about a decision until after it’s been made Cant make decisions just off of reason If you make decisions reversible your chance for happiness goes down like 70%

I wish I could've heard this at 28! At 40 is better than never, though. Thank you 🙂

I would love to see this program redesigned specifically for retirees, because that’s where I am right now! There are a lot of overwhelming options out there for the golden years as well!

This is one of the best Ted talks i've watched. It is really helpful for someone who has poor decision making skills..... 🙋‍♀️

He is most likely the best Teacher/ Speaker to come on here in the last decade. If someone engages you connects with you and makes you ENJOY the conversation or being taught the specifics, it will make you eager to learn more, to become a sponge, and absorb more information. It is due to instructors like him, that made me actually interested in subjects like physics and chemistry.

One of the best talks ever! So grateful! 🙏🥰

One note, besides the fact that the speach is nice :) --> at 23:35 i think he sais make the decision irreversible, not reversible, as it is in english subtitles.

Glad I saw this while in my mother’s womb

I loved this one! Especially the structure it brings to the thought process.

My favorite Ted talk I've seen this year. Amazing and transformational!

You can make plans. For some of us life brings us a lot of challanges we never planned or never thought to have. Because these problems always was in films or happened to acquantiance of our workmate but not us... Salute to people who still is not giving up and working on trying to be best of themselves.

3 prototypes then experiment with each then choose and move on and feel lucky that you choose the good one. Also it is very true that you bring good luck to your life by simply thinking you are lucky. Positive thinking.

one of the best books i ever read. definitely a MUST for every person on the planet! it liberates us from negative society expectations and set us free to do and re do whatever we want in our own terms!

I’m 61 and I have been stuck for a very long time. I’m going to have to watch this video again and again. And take notes.

I joined a career event yesterday, which used the concepts in this Stanford's design program. It was really helpful to watch this video again after I have planed three of my career paths yesterday. It is like refresh my mind again and also showed what I need to do next after I have my plans in mind. The next steps I would take are to talk to people, prototype, just do it and enjoy my life! Really appreciate this video.

This is probably the best summary for decision making I've seen, after watching Gilbert and reading a whole bunch of others. And, not less important, it is very well delivered. Thank you VERY much, Mr. Burnett!

I'm so happy I've found this Ted talk at the right time. I am really busy designing my life and I've just narrowed all up to 3 choices, but I excluded what I would do if I had enough money :). New food for thought, awesome.

True story: I sold a product at state fairs and trade shows- but it’s the product next to me, next to my booth that inspired me to create an online business that finally made me successful- being “lucky” is opening up your vision to those things that are around you but you did not notice, take a small risk and try it part-time while working full time. Success, whether financially or relationships, takes a lots of work.

Watching this TEDx talk from Great Bharat/India🇮🇳,Any fellow Indians ?

I love this presentation! I really like the segment about too many choices impacting happiness.

Excellent talk. With actionable, tangible advice that can be implemented. Thanks.

i feel i got to hear this every day...l kudos to Bill Burnett , You were outstanding.

Wish I had heard this when was younger, I wouldn't have stayed in limbo in between for so long! Now on to planning my retirement now - thank you!

Dysfunctional beliefs 3:31 What's your passion? 4:24 You should know by now. 5:25 Be the best version of you Design thinking 6:35 Connecting the dots 7:46 Gravity problems 9:21 How many lives are you? 13:35 Prototyping your life 16:29 Choosing well

Just in time when I need this advice the most. Thank you.

"I think the most interesting design problem is your life" what a burn

Love this talk and it mirrors so much of what I try to do with my clients. I also like the "don't should on yourself" comment. I say that all the time

Awesome! I love design thinking. Never thought it could be applied to life choices. I'm going to buy this book and/or workbook if there is one.

I am struggling so much with finding out what I want to do with my life and I suffer from extreme decision anxiety. Ppl just tell me “just go for something you like” or “follow your dreams” and I’m like…IDK HOW TO DO THAT OR START! But watching this tedtalk helped me have a step-by-step process on making those big decisions I’ve been needing to make. This was very introspective and I’m glad I watched this Tedtalk.

Oh my, This is such a GREAT presentation in every way! Congratulations. I love how your presentation has evolved from closed in a box to the “study of fear” - understanding and breaking it down to a clear definition of stories we tell ourselves (thinking) and chemical reactions while projecting a feeling that was completely natural, personal,and educational with 4 tactics to master. That made it seem “obtainable”, too, which is fulfilling to an audience (and to me!!)

We’re living in a generation with so many options and constantly seeing how other people are living. We’re pretty much a spoiled generation & that’s why we can’t figure out what we truly want or who we truly want to be. We’re never satisfied. It’s easy to feel this way because instead of focusing on how bad some people are living in the world (for gratitude purposes), we’re obsessed on how GOOD others are living; making us envious of other people’s lives… lives that we probably never would think of having if there wasn’t social media. I’m not saying aspiration & ambition isn’t a good thing, I’m saying that we’re no longer observers, we’re followers. From trends to ways of thinking - it is very rare to be a unique individual, when in fact we were all born to be unique. I think it’s not much of trying to decide what to do with our lives, but to know that there isn’t a wrong or right answer… because happiness is doing things that you love doing, happiness is living in peace & happiness is having faith that the next day will be better than the day before. I truly loved this video. Made me think of a lot. ♥️

My Daddy used to say, "You can't start any younger."

Great talk - love the way it links purpose and happiness, just to cast one of the many pearls. Did anybody notice that at 23.38 the audio text is wrong - crucially changing Bill's "irreversible" to "reversible"? What Bill doesn't say, but what his talk infers, is that the (old fashioned) concept of marriage, where you make an irreversible commitment to a person, makes you happier than nowadays where you can effectively take your "Monet print" back ( through divorce/separation etc) multiple times. Food for thought indeed. Thank you for this!

Great talk right on point thank you for sharing your ideas.

This...this is the best ted talk...watch it completely

What a genuine humor - enjoyed so much!

Theres a nice crossover/match of this talk and “Stop searching for your passion” (really recommend this tedtalk too!)

Extremely inspiring video, we all tend to get overwhelmed by looking at the big tasks in life. This is all we need, to get started and make micro achievements for a big success

I've never seen anything in the media worth watching before. I dont expect I ever will.

I'd been looking at designing my career as a student, using Design Thinking. Though I got stuck after the empathy building stage. This gives me so much clarity on how to take the process forward. Super excited to apply this! Thanks Bill 😍

This is one of the best videos I have ever watched!! Im certainly working on this and on my gravity problems and putting them away... and take a step closer to live a life that I would like to live. Thank you for this video..

Thank you. Glad I stumbled on this video, perfect add-on and tool to investigate for what my yearly review has brought to the surface of my awareness.

Probably the most helpful talk I've watched so far

Glad I was born today and I am watching this video!

totally true !! don't allow 'expectations' to interfere with the process

" You can't solve a problem you're not willing to have" "If it's not actionable it's not a problem, it's a circumstance"

Great talk and idea of three visions. I've pursued a new occupation every 6 years on average. I've had six so far. Typist, Layout and design, Marketing coordinator, Copywriter, Book editor, now Author's Coach, combining many of the other skills.

Thank you for such a lovely talk. I was ' not knowing what to do ' before watching this , now have a clue to design small part of my life.

Happiness is not from freedom but the opposite of freedom because you focus on what is the most important and thus erase all other choices or "distractions" some might call it

Such a well delivered talk. Thank you!

O my God ! when he said " those millennials think I 'm interesting as I' m 45 & I go back to school r "!! whewww!! i' m 46 this year & m still dance street dance & I study lots of different kinds of stuffs from the internet ( for free) every day because they are so fun, why this turns to be an odd thing for age matter? !!! its not abt how old you are , its abt ur character !

This is great, exactly what I was looking for, thanks

In my opinion, it is important to learn how to be happy and to learn to enjoy everyday life. I have to mention the Forwago program because this program was a life changer for me and helped me to realize how to love more myself and my life, and to focus on what is really important in life.

Fabulous insight and tools. At 23:37, I heard Bill say, "make decisions 'irreversible' " - which supports the concept he was speaking of. The text however indicates, "reversible", which confused me until I re-watched and listened several times. Recap section: "If you make decisions reversible, your chance of being happy goes down like 60 or 70 percent. So, let go and move on, make the decision irreversible."

Thank you so much for sharing this thought. I am a long listener of TED X talk but this talk really made my thinking simple regard to design my life.... Thank You

This is actually a great talk, but I have to try the book as well. Hope to learn from it as I learned from this talk.

Being a 19 year old, glad that I listen to this. TEDx😊

Thanks, very cool info.... I recently experienced too many options and I am sifting and sorting through my value system to hear my intuition, and applying presence to let go of outcomes(scary, but thats my path)... this allows my creativity to flow, allowing faith to bring forth serendipity... LOVED the 3 plans idea.

This was excellent and I couldn't have found it at a better time!! I just graduated a few months ago and I will go for postgrad in a year or two but I was overwhelmed with the idea of choosing which part of biology I want to specialize in further. I will defo follow these steps and ideas as my past plans didn't solve my problem

Great video! I’m a designer and product developer of motorcycle outerwear, so every 6 months I design at least 10 different garments, and drop at least 50% without any regrets because I know that confirmed options will turn out awesome. Why I haven’t thought to apply these principles to my life until I saw this video?