How to Design Your Life in 1 Hour

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Mel Robbins Podcast

Episode: How to Live a Meaningful Life & Design the Future You Want

Date: February 23, 2026
Host: Mel Robbins
Guests: Bill Burnett & Dave Evans (Stanford Professors, Creators of "Designing Your Life")

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Episode Overview

In this highly practical and engaging episode, Mel Robbins dives deep with Stanford’s Bill Burnett and Dave Evans—co-creators of the wildly influential "Designing Your Life" course and bestselling authors—on how to craft a meaningful, purpose-driven life. The conversation breaks down why most people feel stuck, reveals research-backed frameworks for designing not just any life but YOUR meaningful life, and walks listeners through transformational exercises like the “Odyssey Plan.” Packed with wisdom, humor, and actionable advice, this episode is a blueprint for anyone feeling uncertain about their future or longing for more from day-to-day life.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

The Core Theme: Designing a Meaningful Life (00:00–06:14)

• Taking Agency: Dave Evans insists the process is about gaining freedom and agency:

  “You’re going to get freer. You’re going to feel more agency in your life. You’re going to realize you actually know how to find your way. And as you go along it, you can make meaning every day.” (06:14, Dave Evans)

• Getting More Out of Life: Bill Burnett stresses,

  “It’s not about cramming more stuff in. It’s about getting more out of what you’ve already got and what you can design for.” (06:25, Bill Burnett)

• Anxiety Across Life Stages: Both discuss the growing anxiety among young adults and those in midlife or later years confronting these same questions:

  “Will my life, will my future be meaningful? Can I find something to do that has some purpose in it?” (08:04, Bill Burnett)

The Myth of the “Right” Life and Embracing Multiple “You’s” (09:04–13:00)

• No Single “Right” Path:

  “There are lots of good lives. Let’s go lean into them...There’s no getting it right. There’s just getting it going.” (09:15, Dave Evans)

• More Than One Life Within You:

  “None of them [the people I’ve buried] were done. That’s the good news. You’re far bigger than your lifetime.” (09:52, Dave Evans)

• The Odyssey Exercise: The average person can imagine living about seven or eight different lives, highlighting the abundance of untapped potential.

  “If you could have all those lives, wouldn’t it be cool?” (11:36, Bill Burnett)

Facing Change: Optimism, Growth, and Generational Challenges (13:00–17:00)

• On Younger Generations:

  “The design mindset, it’s inherently optimistic...I can make a better one than I might have gotten.” (14:07, Bill Burnett)

• What If You’re Young and Discouraged?

  “Your 20-year-old self's job is to give your 28-year-old self some interesting options.” (14:42, Dave Evans)

• Agency Despite Circumstance:

  “What’s available to you? How can we make the most of what is, not complain about what isn’t? But I get that it’s hard. It is hard.” (15:53, Dave Evans)

Practical Tool: The Odyssey Plan (17:00–24:31)

• Break Free of Binaries:

  “Three is kind of a magic number because it really gives you some freedom.” (17:21, Dave Evans)

  • Odyssey Plan Steps (18:46–19:23):
    1. If nothing changes and it goes well, what is life like in 5 years?
    2. If you can’t do your current path, what’s your plan B in 5 years?
    3. If money were no object and no one would laugh, what’s your wild card idea?
• Overcoming the Inner Critic:

  “The crazy thing is, the reason we ask people to have a crazy idea...is because we need to train you to quiet the internal critic.” (17:23, Dave Evans)

• People Are Capable of More Than They Think:

  “100%...it’s not as crazy as you think.” (21:33, Bill Burnett)

• Real-Life Wild Card Examples:
  • Bill: “I am a painter...the goal isn’t to make art, the goal is to be in that marvelous state of mind that makes art inevitable.” (22:44, Bill Burnett)
  • Dave: “To be a waiter in an extremely elite restaurant...absolutely performance art.” (23:06, Dave Evans)
  • Mel: “I want to write a fantasy trilogy...” (24:16, Mel Robbins)

From Ideas to Action: Prototyping Your Life (25:08–38:26)

• Permission to Try:

  “We’re just giving people permission to live their lives. It’s really just giving...Yes, you can.” (25:09, Dave Evans)

• Prototyping Explained:

  “Life is a series of incremental prototypes. You find your way by living into your life.” (26:43, Dave Evans)

• Try Small, Learn Fast:

  “Set the bar low and clear it. This is the whole psychology of behavior change...super simple things.” (37:39, Bill Burnett)

Addressing Fear & "Too Late" Thinking (38:26–40:01)

• It’s Never Too Late:

  “No, it’s never too late.” (38:31, Bill Burnett)

• On Starting Anew, Even Later in Life:
  • Dave walks through a practical scenario:

    “You’re 54, you want to be a doctor...that puts you at 64, you got 11 or 12 years to go...” (38:32, Dave Evans)

    • “What else am I doing?” (40:01, Dave Evans)

Eulogy Exercise & Focusing on Becoming (44:29–49:59)

• Living Toward the Eulogy You Want:

  “We have a protocol...where you can say, ‘I’m going to die next week, I’d like everybody to write a eulogy.’...Find out what you really mean to people. It’s amazing.” (45:16, Bill Burnett)

• Aspirational Living:

  “Write the eulogy you hope will be true by then. Make sure the eulogy includes things that aren’t true yet so you can live aspirationally into that.” (46:33, Dave Evans)

• The Focus Question:

  “What question do you hope to be able to answer by the end of the next year or three that you’re thinking about?” (49:14, Dave Evans)

The Importance of Flow and Meaning Now (55:34–61:05)

• Reframing the Question:

  “Problem finding precedes problem solving...We’re here to give you tools to design more meaning in life.” (55:34–56:15, Dave Evans)

• Meaning Is Not a Destination:

  “No, you haven’t found it, because you’re going to keep growing and it’s going to change. So stop worrying about it and let’s work on this.” (56:26, Dave Evans)

• How to Find Flow:

  “Flow is that state where time stands still. You’re in the moment...it’s an energy generating moment.” (59:28, Bill Burnett)

  • Everyday Flow Examples: Sports, cooking, painting, music—moments of total present-moment engagement.

The “Post-It Note” Version: The Four-Step Framework (62:26–63:53)

“Get curious, talk to people, try stuff, tell your story.” (62:53, Dave Evans)

• Cycle of Change:
  • Curiosity leads to engagement.
  • Engagement leads to prototypes.
  • Prototypes lead to stories and insights.
  • The cycle repeats—momentum builds.

On Loss, FOMO, and Joyful Living (64:41–66:12)

• From FOMO to JOMO:

  “You gotta move from FOMO to JOMO. From the fear of missing out to the joy of missing out.” (64:41, Dave Evans)

• Making Courageous Choices: Each “yes” is a package of many “no’s.” And that’s liberating.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “We’re just giving people permission to live their lives.” — Dave Evans (25:09)
• “You don’t know the future...There is no getting it right. There’s just getting it going.” — Dave Evans (09:15)
• “Set the bar low and clear it.” — Bill Burnett (37:39)
• “Life is a series of incremental prototypes. You build your way forward.” — Dave Evans (26:43)
• “Get curious, talk to people, try stuff, tell your story.” — Dave Evans (62:53)
• “You’re going to die with a to do list and the experiences and all of the things that you could have become, regardless of whether you mope on the couch or you use these principles.” — Mel Robbins (64:18)
• “Choose your life.” — Dave Evans (66:12)
• “You can do this, and I really hope you do. You deserve it.” — Dave Evans (66:16)
• “Try something really small and see if you can find that little piece of joy or just a pointer towards something that wakes you up.” — Bill Burnett (66:22)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Introduction & Episode Theme: 00:00–06:14
• Why Agency and Meaning Matter: 06:14–09:04
• You Have Multiple “Lives” Within You: 09:04–13:00
• Challenges Facing Younger Generations: 13:00–17:00
• Odyssey Plan Framework: 17:00–24:31
• Wild Card Dreams & Real-Life Examples: 21:47–25:08
• Prototyping: Turning Ideas Into Action: 25:27–38:26
• Addressing Fear & Too Late Thinking: 38:26–40:01
• Eulogy & Focus Questions for Meaning: 44:29–49:59
• Meaning Is Now, Not “Out There”: 55:34–61:05
• The “Get Curious, Talk, Try, Tell” Model: 62:26–63:53
• On FOMO, Choices, and Joyful Living: 64:41–66:12
• Closing Encouragement and Takeaways: 66:12–67:29

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Actionable Takeaways

1. Use the Odyssey Plan: Imagine three different 5-year futures. Don’t self-censor.
2. Prototype with Small Steps: Talk to people in fields you’re curious about. Try something tiny before going all-in.
3. Don’t Wait for the Perfect Answer: Experiment, iterate, and learn; meaning is created, not found.
4. Lean into Flow: Seek activities where you lose track of time and feel most alive.
5. Ask a “Focus Question”: Write what you hope to become or accomplish in your next chapter.
6. Share Your Journey: Tell your story, even if it’s still in progress. Community brings support and reflection.

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Closing Message

“You can do this, and I really hope you do. You deserve it.” (66:16, Dave Evans)
“Try something really small...see if you can find that little piece of joy or just a pointer towards something that wakes you up.” (66:22, Bill Burnett)

If you want to design a more meaningful life, you don’t have to overhaul everything—just get curious, talk, try, and share. You have permission and practical tools—now go live into the answer.

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For more actionable strategies, frameworks, and inspiration, listen to the full episode or check out Bill and Dave’s latest book, How to Live a Meaningful Life.

Transcript

[Mel Robbins]

Hey, it's your friend Mel. And welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast. How cool would it be if you could just teleport into one of the most popular and interesting college courses that's ever been taught? You know, be a student again, no matter your age, and learn from two of the top professors on the planet. You know, one course that I've always dreamed about taking more than any other courses at Stanford, and it's called Designing youg Life. In fact, when I started this podcast here in Boston, which is the world's home for higher education, that was my vision. To have world renowned professors and experts come here to Boston and give you and me the exact same lessons, takeaways and wisdom being taught in the most incredible courses and research being done at the top universities on the planet. Well, today I am so excited that the two Stanford professors who created the Design youn Life course 20 years ago are here in our Boston studios to teach you their greatest life lessons. Now they're gonna tell you that the real challenge isn't designing a life. It's designing your life so it has more meaning and purpose. And today, you're gonna get the same proven frameworks that these professors have used for two decades. Help people take charge of their lives. They're gonna walk you through a powerful exercise that's gonna give you clarity, especially when you feel stuck, uncertain, or overwhelmed. You will leave this conversation with a crystal clear idea of what will bring you more meaning right now. And trust me when I tell you what's gonna come up for you when we do this exercise is gonna be a total wild card. It's not too late. You can find work that makes you happy. You can experience more meaning and fulfillment in your life. And using the process you're about to learn, it will be easier than you think. So grab your seat because class is in session. It's time to design your life.

[Bill Burnett]

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[Dave Evans]

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[Bill Burnett]

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[Dave Evans]

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[Mel Robbins]

There's a difference between liking a house and actually getting it. Redfin is built to close that gap. Redfin agents close twice as many deals as other agents. So when you find a home you love, you're not a step behind when it's time to make an offer. That means less watching great homes disappear and more zeroing in on the one you'll actually end up calling home. Redfin helps turn saved listings into real addresses. Get [e-mail] own the dream. Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast. I'm thrilled to be here and I'm excited that you're here too. It's such an honor to be together to spend this time with you, but I'm super excited about what's about to happen. And if you're a new listener or you're here because somebody shared this with you, I just want to take a moment and personally welcome you to the Mel Robbins Podcast family. I cannot wait for you to meet two professors from Stanford University who are here in our Boston studios to walk you through how you can design the life you want. The lessons that they've learned from teaching one of the most popular courses in the world for more than two decades are gonna change everything. Dave Evans and Bill Burnett are the founders of the Life Design Lab at Stanford University. They're also the creators of the Designing youg Life course at Stanford, which has been taught for almost 20 years and is now being taugh over 600 universities. But long before they were teaching life design for decades, Bill and Dave, they were designing products and leading teams at startups and Fortune 100 companies across Silicon Valley. Bill Burnett earned his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in product design at Stanford. He worked at Apple in the early days designing their laptops. He also worked on the team that designed the original Star wars action figures. Today, he's a professor in Mechanical Engineering and Design at Stanford. Dave Evans also earned his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in mechanical engineering at Stanford. He also went on to work for Apple. And while Bill was designing laptops, Dave was leading the team that created their very first computer mouse. Dave was also the co founder of the video game company Electronic Arts, which is one of the most successful gaming companies in the world. If Madden, FIFA, or Sims ring a bell, well, you're about to meet the co founder who made it happen. Together, Bill and Dave have authored multiple bestsellers, including the number one New York Times bestseller Designing youg Life and their latest blockbuster, how to Live a Meaningful Life. So without further ado, please help me welcome Professor Bill Burnett and Professor Dave Evans to the Mel Robbins Podcast.

[Dave Evans]

Thanks for having us. We're thrilled to be here.

[Bill Burnett]

Yeah, this is fantastic.

[Mel Robbins]

You two have been at the top of my list. Since I started this, I have been waiting for this moment. I hope you don't disappoint me. No, I'm just kidding.

[Dave Evans]

You could have called sooner. We would have come sooner.

[Mel Robbins]

Oh, my gosh. Okay, here's where I want to start. How will my life be different if I take to heart everything that you're about to share with us today and I apply it to my life?

[Dave Evans]

You're going to get freer. You're going to feel more agency in your life. You're going to realize you actually know how to find your way. And as you go along it, you can make meaning every day.

[Bill Burnett]

Everybody's so busy and there's so much going on. You're going to learn that it's not about cramming more stuff yet. It's about getting more out of what you've already got and what you can, you know, what you can design for. And I think that helps people just relax, you know, and understand that they probably have enough.

[Mel Robbins]

Bill, what do you think it is about the popularity of both of your books and the course? What does all of this interest say to you about what we're searching for,

[Bill Burnett]

particularly amongst the students? And I've taught at Stanford and I've taught all over the place, and We've got over 600 schools now teaching the class with the students. It's really. It's really clear. And it's gotten kind of worse lately in the last five or six or seven years. Social media and other things. Will I have a good life? Will I find a good job in it? I want meaning and purpose, but people tell me jobs aren't purposeful. The Gallup poll says 70% of Americans are disengaged from their job. Is that the world I'm going into, it's going to be that bad? And so for the students, it's that kind of anxiety about how do I get started? And I had been on office hours for students for years and years and years before Dave and I put this together. And it seemed clear to me that designing the new thing in the world because I've been teaching designers to design iPhones and iPads and websites and things for years. Designing the new thing in the world was just like designing the you. What am I going to be in my future? So everybody had that problem. And then we started working with folks in the, you know, so mid careers, 35, 45, and they're having the same question. Gee, it isn't as much. It wasn't as cool as I thought it would be, or I'm kind of done with this job, or it needs

[Dave Evans]

to pivot now what?

[Bill Burnett]

Now what? And I haven't thought about that in a long time. And I don't have any framework for thinking about it. And I've been doing work with folks who are retiring, you know, in their 50s, 60s, or folks that are, you know, suddenly empty nesters. And they're like, well, geez, I organized my whole life. My wife and I are empty nesters. Organized my whole life around my kids. And now it's just me and my wife. Like, do we even know each other? Do we even like each other anymore? What are we going to do? So this question just keeps coming up and it's about, will my life, will my future be meaningful? Can I find something to do that is got some purpose in it? And a lot of the structures of that it used to be, well, you had a community, everybody grew up in the same town, and so you knew where you fit in. Or maybe you had a faith community or a church or something. And a lot of those communities have gone away. There's this huge loneliness. People really feel isolated and lonely and things are changing so fast, right, that they. They don't know. They don't know where to turn for even a way to get started.

[Mel Robbins]

You say in your number one New York Times bestselling book, design your Life, that the true way to design a life is to design your lives. What does that mean?

[Dave Evans]

We say all the time, all of us contain more aliveness, more personhood than one lifetime permits you to live out. There's more than one of you in there. Which is why, by the way, Maslow's idea about self actualization through fulfillment is dead wrong because he literally says in the 1943 paper, you achieve that by becoming all that one can be. No, you can't possibly be all that you can be because you're way bigger than your own lifetime. Look, I've buried plenty of people. None of them were done. That's the good news.

[Mel Robbins]

Oh, whoa. I want to make sure that you didn't miss it. We've buried a lot of good people and none of them were done.

[Dave Evans]

Yeah, I mean, I'm at an age where I know plenty of dead people closely and they all left with a long to do list. That's the good news. You're far bigger than your lifetime. So the chance of you being bored or running out of things is zero if you're paying attention, right? That's the good news. So the best way to design your life is to recognize if there is no getting you right, there is no right life. There are lots of good lives. Let's go lean into them. And by the way, you don't know the future. You might have a good idea and implement it poorly. You might have an idea you thought was good and it didn't work out very well. Whoops. Oh, I blew it. No, I learned my way forward and I'm going to keep going. There's no getting it right. There's just getting it going.

[Bill Burnett]

Imagine this. We have this linear accelerator at Stanford. It's not the big, and it's not as big as it used to be because we had bigger ones now, but this one's pretty good, still runs. And I can put you, I can put you in the tube and fire you to the end of the accelerator. It's two miles long. And by the time you get to the end, you're going 99.999% the speed of light. At which point you will experience the multiverse. And you can have as many lives as you want simultaneously. You could be the astronaut and the ballerina and the stay at home mom and whatever you want. And you'll know about all the universes at the same time. And then we ask, I said on the count of three, one, two, three, tell me how many lives you want. I go, one, two, three. And people go everywhere. From one, it's a really bored, burnt out guy to infinity. But on average seven, seven or eight is the average. Seven or eight People want eight lives. And I go, well, that just proves our theory. There's more than one life in you. If you could have all those lives, wouldn't it be cool?

[Dave Evans]

And if you have seven lives worth of interest in you and you get one life, you're going to be 14% of your personhood right now. Oh, by the time you die.

[Mel Robbins]

Wait, hold on a second. Yeah, hold on. Because I imagine a world where your one lifetime could have seven different lives in it. Sure. Which means where you are right now in this particular chapter is just 14% of what you will experience.

[Dave Evans]

That's also true.

[Mel Robbins]

Which means you have the opportunity, if you change your mindset, to really Design the next 14% section, whether it's from age 71 to 74, Dave, or I don't know how old you are, Bill, but I. A little younger. We won't hold that against. We won't hold that against you. But if you really think about it that way, right. That means you could create whatever you wanted that was meaningful to you.

[Bill Burnett]

Well, and particularly now I tell my students, don't you hope 5, 10 years from now you're doing a job that hasn't been even been invented yet? I mean, do you really want to constrain yourself to. I'm just going to be this computer scientist. I'm just going to be this economist or something, because first of all, jobs are going to change, right? We're in the age of AI. Everything's going to be different. And, and you can look at that and be terrified, or you can look at that and go, wow, there's going to be so many new things that show up. All I have to do is pay attention, you know, as these jobs disappear and reappear. Like when I got out of Stanford, long years ago when, you know, dinosaurs still roamed, you know, White Plaza, you had to learn drafting to be a designer, drafting on a drafting table with a, with a pencil. He's done that in 40 years. And now I can just do something on my phone and print it on a 3D printer. It's amazing. And so if you stay in the growth mindset, if you stay curious, the next 10 or 15 years are going to be amazing for jobs, for careers, for possibilities. Get your boat in the water now. Learn some AI. Figure out how to. I think it's actually going to be a renaissance in creativity because it'll be possible for everyone to do a video, to do a drawing, to do anything, to write a song. This generation feels a little bit despondent. You know, there's a lot of stuff going on in the, in the news. And I think, like, this will be the first generation that doesn't have more than their parents. This will be the first generation that can't afford a home. This is the first gen. The kids aren't getting married because they just don't see, you know, they don't see a future. And I think the design mindset, it's inherently optimistic mindset. It's like, I can't make the we are optimistic, but I can make a better one. You know, I can make a better one than I might have gotten.

[Mel Robbins]

Could you speak to somebody in their twenties who is feeling that sense of discouragement, which frankly, is justified given some of the factual research about the cost of living and changes that are happening and the headlines.

[Dave Evans]

Look, first of all, if you're 20.

[Mel Robbins]

Yes.

[Dave Evans]

Be encouraged by the following fact. Your neocortex, which is the part of your brain that allows you to have an executive function and actually allows you to have full Empathy for other people isn't formed until 27 or 28. A little later in men, big surprise there. So if you're 20, 21, 22, you're not even here yet. We remind our graduating seniors, you're not broken, you're 22. Your 22 year old job is not to figure it out because the you that's you're ever maybe even going to have a shot at figuring it out is six or eight years away from you. So your 20 year old self's job is to give your 28 year old self some interesting options. Now don't mean sit on the couch at mom and dad's house and wait for something to land in your lap. Get out there, start living, do things, learn your way forward, all that stuff we talk about in all our books. But if you're 20 something, it's going to get more interesting. So don't give up yet. Now externally, the macro situation we're all living in, I mean that macro situation I was living in in 1976 when I graduated college is pretty radically different from what's going on right now 50 years later. People are feeling powerless for a good reason because people with power are hanging onto it and exercising it pretty egregiously right now. Personal point of view. That being said, okay, there are systems that are bigger than you. The question then says do you want to spend your time working on those systems? Bill's got a son named Ben who's currently working in Congress. He's going to go directly after the problem. I'm not going directly after the problem. I'm writing books about meaning making for everybody else. In the meantime, I hope that leaves the campground a little better than I found it. So find what you can do within the constraints of reality. Maybe it's different than your parents generation. Who cares? That was then, this is now. What world are you in? What is available to you? How can we make the most of what is not, complain about what isn't? But I get that it's hard. It is hard.

[Bill Burnett]

It's hard. And I see this in lots and lots of our students. People say oh, the Gen Zs don't want to work hard and they want to be pampered.

[Dave Evans]

It's like not the ones we know,

[Bill Burnett]

the ones I know, they'll do a startup, they'll work a hundred hours a week if they believe in something. And so I'm very optimistic about the generation coming up and the generation that's already out there and say, well you know, what can I do?

[Mel Robbins]

You know, a lot of people feel like they don't even know what they want. But there's this other exercise that you are world famous for called the Odyssey plan.

[Bill Burnett]

Yep. Yeah.

[Mel Robbins]

Can you just walk the listener through a little bit? Because it can help you see other lives in yourself and how to live a meaningful life to lean into.

[Dave Evans]

So we know you have to have more ideas to get your best ideas. And if you get stuck on the one idea, you're going to get stuck in a corner. So if we're going to plan the future possibilities, we got to hear from more than one of you. Three is kind of a magic number because it really gives you some freedom. And one of them is probably the life you're already in. The other one is, if you can't do that, what else would you do? And the third one, the wild card, if money were no object, you know, and nobody would laugh at you, what would you do? That's the wild card? Well, maybe I would open the Beanie Baby store or I'd start, start the button shop. Whatever. The crazy thing is, the reason we ask people to have a crazy idea, it's not because the crazy idea is a good idea. It's because we need to train you to quiet the internal critic. So as soon as you say, well, you know, the 54 year old woman says, I mean, I'm thinking about going back to medical school. I always wanted to do that. I don't think it's too late. But my friends say I'm all crazy. What do you think? So her internal critic is being encouraged by all of her friends. Internal critic going, well, that's crazy. You can't do that. And that's the part of evolution that keeps you from being eaten by the saber tooth tiger. So there's a negative bias built into your brain evolutionarily lest you be eaten. So you have to learn how to overcome that critic. So the Odyssey plan helps you imagine there's more than one way you can live. And it helps train you to quiet your internal critic so you get the rest of your ideas back.

[Mel Robbins]

So I want to make sure that you really got that. So the way that you help yourself imagine.

[Dave Evans]

Yep.

[Mel Robbins]

Different possibilities in your life is through the Odyssey planning, you ask yourself three questions, right? What happens in my life if I change? Absolutely nothing. Where am I for five, five years from now?

[Dave Evans]

And assuming it goes well.

[Mel Robbins]

Yeah, well, I, I thank you for that. Like, let's just assume it goes well.

[Dave Evans]

Let's assume it goes well.

[Mel Robbins]

What happens in five years? What is My life.

[Dave Evans]

Who am I?

[Mel Robbins]

Who am I? Okay, second one is all of this disappears.

[Dave Evans]

Yep. Can't do that, can't do that.

[Mel Robbins]

But I got to pay my bills. Plan B. Yeah, got to have a plan B. Five years. What am I doing? Yep, what am I doing? And the third is money's no object.

[Dave Evans]

Yep, whatever you want.

[Mel Robbins]

Whatever you want. Nobody's going to laugh. Yep, it's going to work out.

[Dave Evans]

Yep.

[Mel Robbins]

What are you going to do if

[Dave Evans]

you do those three and we've done this with, I mean, tens of thousands, tens of thousands of people, including people like, I'm not doing this, you know, and we give them 12 minutes.

[Mel Robbins]

12 minutes.

[Dave Evans]

12 minutes. Sometimes 15. And absolutely, I mean, 99.7% of the people do it just fine. I'm standing behind this 57 year old chiropractor. You know, we were a guy, we had 600 people in the room. This one guy's sitting back from the room, just looking at the paper going. So I come up to him and say, so how's it going? Fine. I go, you're just going to sit this one out? He goes, no, no, I'm doing it. I go, well, you're not doing much. You got to pick up the pen. He goes, yeah, I'm a little stuck. I go, well, what do you do? I'm a chiropractor. Okay, great. You like it? I like it a lot. How long have I been doing that? 27 years. Okay, you want to die doing that? I said, what? I said, by the time you die, do you want to still be doing this? He kind of goes, well, I don't think so. I said, oh, then at some point you're going to do something else. He goes, well, I guess so. I go, and what might that be? He goes, oh, I guess I am going to do something else, aren't I? I said, yes, you are. Write that down. He goes, oh, okay. I mean, he had it in him. He just had to get over himself.

[Mel Robbins]

I love this. And I'm gonna encourage you as you're listening, unless you're driving a car, do this right now. Think about it. If nothing changes, it goes, well, what does life look like? 5 years if everything disappears and you gotta go to plan B, what does life look like in five years? And what are you doing? What's the something else and what is the crazy wild thing that you don't need money and nobody's going to laugh at you? What is that thing?

[Bill Burnett]

Classes and lectures. It's a series of these little workshop things and Design exercises. So then people get in threes and they read each other. I read my odyssey plan to the other two people and we teach them to listen very generatively. And in tens and tens of thousands of these. The last question I ask when I'm debriefing the class, I say, those wildcard plans that you heard from everybody in the class of the listeners. How many of you think that person could actually do the wildcard?

[Dave Evans]

It's not nearly as crazy as they think.

[Bill Burnett]

100%.

[Mel Robbins]

100%.

[Bill Burnett]

It's not as crazy as you think. And again, we're not trying to get people to quit their jobs and you

[Dave Evans]

know, join the circus.

[Bill Burnett]

Join the circus. It's just that it's proof there's more life in you than you think. There's more possibilities than you think. When you think in threes, not binaries

[Mel Robbins]

or ones, you know, you light up like the sicko sign in Boston when you talk about this. What is your wild card the last time you did this? Artist be an art, like a painter.

[Bill Burnett]

I am a painter. I have been a painter. So I went off to Stanford. Was even back when I did it was kind of expensive and I wanted to be an art major. My dad was a pretty practical guy and he said, look, if you want to be an art major, yeah. Come back and go to UMass. I'm not paying for Stanford, but I found this design thing and that was pretty cool because our design major was a combination of art and engineering and psychology. But I did make a promise to that 18 year old kid that someday I'd be an artist. So I have a studio and painting is my thing. And when I'm in the studio painting, that is, I don't know if I'm any good. I don't care. Robert Henry is a famous painting school in New York. In the 1920s, his phrase was, the goal isn't to make art. The goal is to be in that marvelous state of mind that makes art inevitable.

[Mel Robbins]

Do you know that's the mission of how we do work here? That quote.

[Bill Burnett]

Cool. I can tell. So that's on the door of my studio. And to be in that marvelous state of mind. Yeah, it's a very special place. And so I promise myself that that will be my. That is my wild card. And that is coming up.

[Mel Robbins]

Dave, what's yours?

[Dave Evans]

Well, there are a bunch of them. One probably came very close to becoming an actor. But there's a particular version of performance art that I've long thought would be really fun to try, which is to Be a waiter in an extremely elite restaurant.

[Mel Robbins]

Really?

[Dave Evans]

Yeah. Which I think is absolutely performance art.

[Bill Burnett]

First time I've ever heard this.

[Dave Evans]

So tell me more how to read the room. I mean, so you know that people are coming in, their expectations are incredibly high, and this couple's having an argument and that, you know, family is celebrating the kids graduation and. And can you read. Can you read the room? Can you maximize this incredible experience? Because you go to a fine dining experience for a particular kind of celebration or a particular kind of, you know, outing, and the right wait service catalyzes it beautifully. The wrong wait service wrecks it. And can I deliver the improv performance that has nine different stages at the same time called tables playing, nine different parts, having every one of those people have an amazing experience in real time. Can I pull that off? I mean, running a really, really amazing restaurant is a really, really hard thing. It's really hard.

[Mel Robbins]

That's definitely not on my fantasy list. My fantasy list.

[Dave Evans]

I don't want to be in the kitchen. It's too scary.

[Mel Robbins]

Mine for sure is. I want to write a fantasy trilogy.

[Dave Evans]

Oh, okay.

[Mel Robbins]

Yes. All about angels that are among us and the theme of our universe.

[Dave Evans]

Imagine a world where Mel is a fantasy trilogy writer.

[Mel Robbins]

Bad. And I have this whole. I've been thinking about it for 10 years, and I'm going to do. I'm going to do it, but it's always in there. And I love that you share that. And for you listening or watching, I want you to share your wild card either with us or put it in the review or the comment of the show or when you share this episode with somebody that you care about, be a little cryptic and say, my wild card is this. And you'll know exactly what I mean when you listen to this. And then I want you to tell me yours.

[Bill Burnett]

Yeah.

[Dave Evans]

You know, Mel, Bill and I, we talk about the stuff we've been doing for a long time. We often say at the end of the day, what we're really doing, we're just giving people permission to live their lives. It's really just giving. Yes, you can. You do know how to do this. You have it in you. You may not have it in you to be an Olympian, but you have it in you to be something.

[Bill Burnett]

And because right after the Odyssey plans comes prototyping, what on your plan do you want to learn about? And then they prototype.

[Mel Robbins]

Oh, that's the next step.

[Bill Burnett]

They come back.

[Dave Evans]

That's the next step.

[Bill Burnett]

Yeah, the next class. And they go, did you know you can actually make a living in the circus. I had one student who was a gymnast at Stanford, and she wanted to go to medical school. Her parents wanted to go to medical school. She cut a deal. Can I do something before I go to medical school? She's now in Cirque du Soleil in China, and she is a circus clown, which was on her odyssey plan.

[Dave Evans]

And she's having a great time, but

[Bill Burnett]

people have a hard time even imagining something so wild it's not possible. And when they talk about plan one, it's kind of like, yeah, well, so I'm going to just keep being an account of it. I'm going to do this thing, and, you know, I'm pretty good at it, and da, da, da. But when they talk about their wildcard, they're like, you know, I really love diving and underwater photography, and I'm wondering if I could be a. A dive instructor who does photography, maybe for National Geographic. And I said, well, I happen to know a guy who started a company building underwater cameras. Would you like to have a prototype interview?

[Dave Evans]

And they're like, really?

[Bill Burnett]

I go, yeah.

[Dave Evans]

When you know that you don't know what you're doing, right? The competence. You have to be competent at your incompetence. You have to be good at knowing when you don't know what you're doing. Called the future. I haven't figured out yet.

[Mel Robbins]

Yes.

[Dave Evans]

So you make a move, then learn something, make a move, learn something, go back, you know, keep making moves until you finally iterate your way forward through prototyping. That's what we teach. Life is a series of incremental prototypes. You find your way by living into your life. You build your way forward. We keep saying there is no knowing. There is only doing, learning and growing.

[Mel Robbins]

Bill and Dave, I am so happy that you're here. I hate to say this, but I gotta hit the pause button real quick. I know you're loving Bill and Dave, too, but let's give our sponsors a chance to share a few words. And I want to give you a chance to share this episode with somebody who needs to hear it, because we all deserve the permission. And we also need the frameworks to design the life we truly want to be living. Don't go anywhere because there's so much more to dig into. And we've got a really cool exercise that we're going to do when we return, so stay with us. I swear, this time of year, shouldn't it count as a workout? I mean, you're hauling boxes, hosting family, chasing kids, juggling a hundred things and Somehow you still feel guilty for not working out. On top of that, temptation is everywhere. Cookies in the break room, leftover pie in the fridge, drive through dinners because you're too tired to cook. It's so easy. Oh my gosh. To let your goals slide. That's where peloton comes in. They've just released the new Peloton Cross Training Tread plus, powered by Peloton iq, their most advanced piece of equipment yet. It's not just a treadmill. It's a full cross training experience that helps you break through the busiest time of the year without losing momentum. Peloton IQ gives you real time, strength, coaching. It tracks your form, counts your reps, even suggests weights and goals as you go. This is smarter, safer training that fits your schedule. And with that swivel screen, you can go from a 45 minute run to a five minute stretch without missing a beat. It's variety that keeps you engaged and personalized plans that keep you consistent even when life tries to throw you off. So let yourself run, lift, sculpt, push and go explore the new peloton cross training tread [e-mail] Relationships are hard. You know that fight you keep having? The one that starts about the dishes and ends up with you never listen to me. Yeah, it's not about the dishes. Listen up, because my good friend Jay Shetty just dropped a new audible original series called Messy Difficult Conversations for deeper connection. And the whole point is, love isn't perfect, it's practice. In this series, Jay guides three couples through the kinds of conversations most people avoid. But they're so important, you're invited into real coaching sessions behind closed doors. Couples working through resentment, broken trust, and the family baggage people drag into relationships. There's no script here, just real talk about real life. And what makes messy Love powerful is you don't just hear the hard moments, you get tools you can use. How to communicate with clarity and compassion. How to break the blame and withdraw cycle. How to rebuild trust, create emotional safety and appreciate every day. It's emotional, raw, hopeful. This is messy love. Go to audible.com messylove to start listening today. Oh boy. You know that stretch right after winter break when the kids go back to school and it's like their brains are still on vacation trying to get them to focus? I mean, you basically need a bulldozer. The motivation is gone. It's easy for them to fall behind. That's why you need iexcel. Iexcel is an award winning online learning platform that helps kids truly understand what they're learning. It covers math, language arts, science and social studies from Pre K through 12th grade with personalized interactive practice that adapts to your child's level and pace so it's not more pressure. It's a simple way to keep skills sharp and help them feel capable again. And it's trusted. IXL is used in 96 of the top 100 school districts in the United States. So if you want an easy way to support your kids as the school year moves into the most important stretch, check out IXL make an impact on your child's learning. Get IXL now and the Mel Robbins podcast listeners. That's you can get an exclusive 20% off IXL membership when you sign up today at ixl.commel visit ixl.commel to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. Welcome back. It's your friend Mel Robbins. And today, Stanford University professors Bill Burnett and Dave Evans are here for our first ever double guest episode. We're talking create a meaningful life. And I am loving it. I know you are too. So let's jump back in. So I know I'm gonna get a ton of questions about this. Can you guys give a couple examples of what actually a prototype looks like?

[Dave Evans]

Clowning. Clowning's actually a thing. And there's. Is it the Shriners? There's, there's some outfit where they train the members and they do clowning in hospitals to visit kids. Oh, so you could probably call the local hospitals and does anybody do clowning with the children? Oh, great. Do they have a training for that? So you could go, you know, trust me, there's somebody who will train you to be a clown, to be a little bit of clowning. That you could go into the children's ward and try cheering some, maybe just ride along with them, watch them. You know, I mean, there are ways to get at the thing that you think you're thinking about.

[Mel Robbins]

So you're a 20 something. You see your friends living in Montana. Should I live in New York? Should I go to Montana? Should I go into I banking? Should I be a ski bum? Like, I don't know what to do with my. You're 28. What's an example of a prototype? Here's another one. A stay at home mom, the kids are gone. Now it's my turn. What am I doing? Am I going back to nursing school? Am I finishing my degree?

[Bill Burnett]

Am I writing that novel? I'm just thinking, am I writing that

[Mel Robbins]

novel that I'm thinking about? Like, what does that mean? In terms of just a couple specific things that you've seen people do to give the person listening an idea.

[Dave Evans]

So I'm sitting with the 57 year old, suddenly empty nested mom who left a couple of things behind, doesn't know what to do. Great. So let's quickly come up with your list of things that might be at all interesting.

[Mel Robbins]

Okay.

[Dave Evans]

Oh yeah, I'm thinking about being a ski bum. I'm thinking about going back to medical school. Actually Talked to a 54 year old about that, you know, and I'm thinking about being a novelist. Okay, fine. Now maybe I should. Oh, I'm going to go back and get a master's degree in creative writing and spend three years and $30,000 and then write one blog. And I didn't like it that much. Terrible idea. That's jumping way off the cliff. So the prototype I do would say talk to people, try stuff. So go out and have a bunch of narrative conversations. Not with, oh, you're a novelist and how much do you make and what school did you go to? Those are transactional conversations, not narrative conversations. Like what's it like to be you and what do you enjoy and what do you not enjoy? And tell me all about that. And I have these narrative conversations with people in the world I'm thinking about being in, which is what Dan Gilbert at Harvard, not a bad school, would say is surrogation, not simulation. Quit reading about it, go talk to people about it because you're a person. And when you encounter a person who tells that story, that story becomes real. You'll actually learn more from persons in the world you're thinking about than reading about it. You'll feel something, you'll feel something, you'll experience something. And then maybe some of them can get you a ride along and a visit. You can do some experimentations, try stuff long before you over commit and then eventually after enough iterations, you'll make a better decision.

[Mel Robbins]

You know what's interesting? Because I want to build on this. Because so many people probably say to you, I have no idea, I have no idea what I want to do. And I that's almost never true. I agree with you. And if you're saying that right now, like I don't know what my life's about, I don't know what I like, I love this 14% thing and this idea and the invitation you gave us to step into a time machine accelerator thingy. And the average person says, I've imagined eight lives. Yeah, so you're in one of them. You've got another seven. What are the other seven lives you would imagine in the fantasy of your mind? And those are the things to then lean into and get curious about. Correct.

[Bill Burnett]

I always wanted to be a dive instructor. I love diving, but I always want to be a photographer. I want to have a podcast. Okay, before you jump into the podcast, try writing a 2,000 word essay every day for five days. See how that feels. Oh, that was really hard. It was really lonely. Dave hates writing because it's lonely. I'm the introvert, he's the extrovert. I love sitting in a room talking to myself all day long. It's wonderful. And he can't stand it. So, like, try the trying stuff and the talking to. If you talk to writers, they'll say, writing is very lonely. If you can't handle that, you're probably not. It's not going to be a good thing for you. And you wouldn't know that unless you talk to somebody who does it. So it's almost like time travel. You can have a little experience of talking to somebody who's the person you think you might want to be. They're already 10 years down the road doing it. And that experience, but that conversation is so much more powerful than, oh, I'm going to look up on Google, how many, how many writing hacks are there? You know, when, when did the five most famous writers write? You know, they wrote in the morning, they wrote in the afternoon. There's no pattern to any of that stuff. So you can prototype anything. And, and the lack of, the lack of curiosity isn't really true. I've got. I have no ideas. You really have no ideas? Okay, you know what, did you. What's the last show you watched? Did you think that was interesting? Pick something simple. We're not talking about the thing you'll do for the rest of your life. We're talking about what do you want to do next week?

[Mel Robbins]

So as all of this opens up for somebody and they have this sense of what might create more meaning, right? And I want to get curious. I want to prototype the fear of failure and the fear of what other people are going to think probably comes in like a sledgehammer. What do you say to people in your classes when they get this moment of clarity and then it's like, start really small.

[Dave Evans]

I mean, cut yourself some slack, for God's sake. We talk about failure, immunity because the purpose of a prototype is to learn something, not to succeed. We don't prototype to make sure. Oh, will it work? No, Just what do I need to know more about? I'm gonna go right along and be an auditor of the children's clowns at the hospital. And I might say the wrong thing. I mean, did I blow it? No, no, no. I'm just trying to learn what it's like here. So first of all, have your prototypes not bet the farm. You know, like maybe my. Maybe what I'll do is I'll go to Chez Panisse in Berkeley, you know, one of the most expensive restaurants in all of California, and see, because I know a friend who's really close friends with Alice Waters and she could probably get me in as the waiter. So my first night as a waiter is in front of Alice Waters at Chez Panisse. That is not a prototype, that's a performance. So cut yourself some slack.

[Bill Burnett]

Likely is, okay?

[Dave Evans]

And I'm likely to fail.

[Mel Robbins]

I probably wouldn't even want to serve the bread there.

[Dave Evans]

So make it easy, make it small where almost nothing is at stake, of which there are plenty of opportunities. Give yourself a break. Make it interesting, make it fun. Cut it down small. Don't shoot too high.

[Bill Burnett]

We're really big on. Set the bar low. Set the bar low and clear it. This is the whole psychology of behavior change. You're not going to change if you make something so big. This is the new year and people have made their resolutions. I'm going to run a marathon this year. It's like, well, probably unless you break that into very, very small steps, it's not going to happen. And so we really go for super simple things. And then that builds up your confidence too. You could try something and, you know, dress and prototypes. You learn some stuff, you get a little more confident. Eventually, you know, when you flip into these, this designer's mindset, you realize, oh, I can prototype anything. There's really no failure here. You know, failure is just a rule I made up in my head. And once I get rid of that rule, I'm. I'm much more free. But yeah, fear drives a lot of people to not try.

[Mel Robbins]

Yeah. Is it ever too late? I think there's a big fear that it's too late. I've blown it too much.

[Bill Burnett]

No, it's never too late.

[Dave Evans]

I mean, I'm coming out of a talk a 54 year old woman has asked me about, you know, am I crazy to go to medical school? And I said, look, let's just run the numbers really quickly, okay? Based on the DNA of the gene pool you were born into, what's the likelihood of when you're going to die. She kind of goes, I'm probably going to make it to my late 80s, early 90s. I go, great, let's say make it healthy to 85, 88. How long do you want to work? Well, probably 80. I said, okay, great. So we got 26 years to go. And, you know, so you applied. Probably going to spend a year going to, you know, a medical school application preparatory program, you know, called a postbac program. Spend a year on that. Spend a year trying to get in. That's two, four years to get through medical school. Now you're in residency, by the way, 90% of medicine is done by residents. So you're already a doctor. You're now practicing medicine. Six years into the program, eventually you finish your specialty. We're now eight years into the program. That puts you at 64. You got 11 to 12 years to go before even backing off. Maybe 15. Cut out the crap of all this conventional thinking and just ask yourself the question, what's happening? What might it be? I mean, I'm about to get married for the third time because my wife died on me, which was not the plan. And a lot of my friends hit me because they're like, ah, it's too hard. It's too much work. I don't. Tony, you really want to go through that again? I go, sure. This is terrific. It's a ton of work. It's an absolute mountain of work. But what else am I doing?

[Mel Robbins]

Dave, thank you so much for saying that. There are so many more things I have to ask you. I've been waiting for this moment since I started this podcast. I need to give our sponsors a chance to share a few words. So let's just hit the pause button for a moment. And they've given you so much to think about. And I know as you've been imagining, imagining all these possibilities, all these lives that you could be living, somebody's popping in your mind. There's somebody in your life who's stuck, somebody who needs this framework. Text them this episode Share this episode because this episode is proof that creating a happy, meaningful life doesn't have to be a guessing game or a pipe dream. You don't have to do this alone. There are proven tools and strategies and frameworks that can help you and the people you care about do it. So share this and don't go anywhere, because we'll be right back. Stay with me. You know that feeling when your brain is fried? You have, like, 12 irritating tasks you don't care about, but you have to do them anyway. That's where I've been lately. The administrative stuff was eating up half my day, so I've been using Microsoft Copilot as my extra set of hands. It's like having your own personal assistant. That's why Microsoft Copilot is my favorite AI tool. Last week I had to send this long, overly complicated email about scheduling and travel, the kind of thing that takes up way too much energy for what it is. I opened Copilot, talked to it out loud while I was walking around my kitchen, and Copilot turned it into a clean, professional draft. It was amazing. And because my brain wasn't fried, I had the energy to sit down and eat dinner with Chris without feeling mentally wiped. That's the whole point for me. Microsoft Copilot clears the clutter so I can be more present for the moments that matter. That's why I'm using it. If you want to try it for yourself, visit Microsoft.com Melrobbins to download the Copilot app. Get started with Copilot today for free and see how handing off the small stuff gives you more energy for the moments that matter. That's Microsoft.com melrobbins you know, it's that time of year where I don't know about you, but I just can't help but daydream about where I want to go next. What are the trips you want to take, the food you want to eat someplace warm? Maybe you're not just daydreaming. Maybe you do have a trip coming up. Whether it's a weekend getaway or a bigger international adventure. Imagine how different it feels when you can understand the language, where you're going to like saying thank you in Italian, Grazzi or please in Spanish, por favor. That's just the start. With Rosetta Stone, you can feel more confident, more connected, and way less like a tourist. Rosetta Stone has been a trusted leader in language learning for over 30 years. Their immersive method helps you learn naturally and you can learn on your desktop or in the mobile app. Whether you got five minutes or an hour, don't wait. Unlock your language learning potential now. The Mel Robbins Podcast Listeners. That's you can grab Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership for 50% off. That's unlimited access to 25 language courses for life. Visit RosettaStone.com Mel to get started and claim your 50% off today. Go to RosettaStone.com Mel and start learning today. This podcast is brought to you by Expedia. Planning a family vacation is A lot. Everybody has different schedules, different needs and strong opinions. So wouldn't it be nice to have a copilot? Something that makes the planning part way easier. That's where Expedia comes in. Expedia lets you book flights, hotels, vacation rentals, cars, activities, all in one place. And when you bundle it together, you can save up to 30% plus if plans change, because they always do. At least my family Expedia helps you stay in control. Expedia, the one place you go to go places Members ONLY Savings VARY CSITE for details. Welcome back. It's your friend Mel Robbins. And today you and I are spending time with Professors Bill Burnett and Dave Evans, the brilliant minds behind Stanford University's incredible course called Designing youg Life. And today they're here to teach you and I how to create more meaning in our lives. Here's another thing I was wondering about. When you go to a funeral, it's very interesting.

[Dave Evans]

Oh yeah.

[Mel Robbins]

The second you walk out of the funeral, you feel more alive and you have more urgency to do what you came here to do. Dave and Bill, you said, we wanna give people permission to live their lives. And especially right now when the world feels so overwhelming and people are exhausted and there are very big problems, is EAs to go, it doesn't matter. And when you start to do the math, whether you're telling me that you have seven different lives you could do, you're going to die with shit on your to do list and things you never achieved. You're 50, so what? You got 40, you're 70, you probably got 20 more years left. What are you doing?

[Dave Evans]

Yeah, my next milestone is death. I haven't got time to waste.

[Bill Burnett]

Well, David and I have been in wonderful communities. I've been in this group of men, a men's group, for 32 years because I started when my son got born and I need to figure out how to raise a son. And we end up. We've been around long enough that we've had some guys die, gone to their funerals and said wonderful things about them. And then we decided, why don't we wait till we die before we say wonderful things about each other? So we have a protocol in our men's group where you can say, I'm going to die next week. I'd like everybody to write a eulogy. And then you come in and then lay there quietly and you listen to people say the most wonderful things about you. Right? Because eulogies are not about. Oh, well, you know, Dave had a big to do list. He crashed off lots of things. His PowerPoints were very well done and he always got his budget set on time. Nobody says that. They say, well, he's a good man, he was a wonderful husband, he was a great father. So do that. Have your friends write your eulogy and find out what you really mean to people. It's amazing.

[Mel Robbins]

You could also you do that exercise thinking about what you hope or wish is being said about how you lived your life. Because what you don't want it to be is, well, he got to be 70 and had the love of his life and just turned down the opportunity to get married again and do it. And she wanted to go to medical school, but talked herself out of it for 30 years.

[Dave Evans]

Right? No, I'm in a small group of guys for 51 years formed in 1974 called TD 3 Tom and 3 Dave. So I'm the founding Dave. And you know, we just went through this exercise of moving into our 70s. And so we said, okay, let's all, first of all announce what age we think we're going to die at and then write the eulogy you hope will be true by then. And make sure that the eulogy includes things that aren't true yet so you can live aspirationally into that. And we really do believe that a human being is becoming and that becoming should be a non stop program. Don't quit early. Now, you might have some constraints physically, circumstantially otherwise, but there's always more you can become into. So which questions do you want to live into? And by the way, preferably, it does really help to have some people around that you're asking these questions with.

[Bill Burnett]

Yeah.

[Mel Robbins]

So how old did you say you were going to be when you died? And what was the thing that you haven't done yet that was on the list?

[Dave Evans]

My life. 85, I'm guessing I'll make it to 85.

[Mel Robbins]

I'd like you to live a little longer.

[Dave Evans]

Well, I'm thinking I may work for an extension to the contract, but nonetheless, at the time I said 85, and the way I put what I'm aspiring to was when I get to heaven, I want to be recognized as somebody who's already been there, meaning I've already stepped into profound acceptance and universal love and welcome to all persons at all times. I want to look like I'm already doing that by the time I get there.

[Mel Robbins]

I think there's a huge power. And you know this based on the way the brain works in really embracing the truth of everything that you just said. In terms of giving yourself permission to not just live a meaningful life now and find moments of meaning, but to really think about what you want to accomplish by the end. You know, I'm thinking about this.

[Dave Evans]

Who do you want to become?

[Mel Robbins]

Yeah, who do you want to become? I'm thinking about my mother in law who's 89. I think she's 89. She 88, I don't know. But she texted in the family wide group chat. Yeah, I'm gonna be here another 10 years.

[Dave Evans]

Okay.

[Mel Robbins]

Because I wanna see all the grandkids get married if they choose to get married. And I was like, wow, she's in the game. She's in the game.

[Bill Burnett]

Yeah.

[Mel Robbins]

She knows what she's doing.

[Bill Burnett]

Yeah.

[Mel Robbins]

And I think that's there's an invitation to all of us. And so I love that construct of what age do you think you're dying and what are all the things that you wanna accomplish that you haven't done yet? And what do you hope?

[Dave Evans]

Yeah. The specific tool in the book for that's called the focus question. We actually encourage you to come up with the focus question. What focuses your attention on what you're trying to become at this particular moment or season of your life. So can you write down the question that not like, will I have enough money to retire by then? Those are transactional questions. But you know, a year from now, two years from now, three years from now, if you live well into the invitation to become more yourself, what question do you hope to be able to answer by the end of the next year? Two or three that you're thinking about? So in my case it was how will I learn to live out of get to not got to. Because I think that's a more generous position that might allow me to hit heaven in the right point of view. And so that's the focus question I've got. How do I live deeply into get to not got to you? That's my focus question for now. And preferably having some people around you that can help you with that question.

[Bill Burnett]

And by the way, I don't think anybody writing their eulogy or those questions says I wish I had more. I think I want to have more money by the time I'm X. Because you get to the second half of life assuming that money is enough and happy it's not or whatever, but it's hard. You start to realize that those kinds of transactional accomplishments, while important and interesting ways of keeping score, aren't the things that are going to make you happy when you, when you're dead. I know when you get to that point. So I think I, you know, it's really encourage the folks who are, you know, thinking about this stuff. Think, think a little, you know, give yourself a little bit of time. Turn off the phone and give yourself a little bit of time to think about, you know, what, what would I hope people say about me and how do I become the person that deserves them to say that? And I bet stuff comes up and it could be connected to your wild card. It could be just connected to where you are in your journey. I bet stuff comes up where, you know, a lot of times when I do these extra. Cause, you know, one of the first things I said to Dave when we set this up is, you know, we gotta do everything we put in the books, otherwise they're the biggest hypocrites on the planet. So we do all this stuff and every once in a while and I do this stuff, I lean back and I go, oh, wow. Where did that come. Come from? You know, that's a good. Like, that's, that's an idea. Where did that come from? And, you know, it came from some part of me, you know, just needed a little bit of quiet to, you know, to find its voice. So I hope people can do that because it's really.

[Dave Evans]

Yeah. If you're paying attention, life is full of invitations. I think life is full of invitations to your becoming self. If you're paying attention.

[Mel Robbins]

Yeah. You said, turn off the phone and take the time for the person that says, well, I. I just can't. I'm overwhelmed. I have no time. What do you want to say directly to Bill?

[Bill Burnett]

I'll bet if I looked at your phone and tell me how much time you spend on Instagram, how much time you spend on TikTok, how much time you spend scrolling mindlessly, you know, through reels or short videos on YouTube. I do it too. And every once in a while I look at that and go, I can't believe I spent an hour on this crap. So give yourself a power, a pause, and, you know, go look at the phone. It'll tell you how much time you spent just doom. Scrolling through stuff. And I always ask people, tell me the last video you watched. I don't know. Tell me the last. Really? I don't know. Tell me the last text you read or the last thing you read on X. I don't know. I said, so if you're doing it and you can't even remember what it was, would you like to reallocate that time to something more interesting. I'm only talking about 20 minutes here. Can you give me 20 minutes that you would have spent and just be present with yourself and see what comes up? You know, standing in front of a big blank canvas and I'm going, oh, the world really needs an older white guy painter because we need more painters in the world. And I'm going to paint something and no one's going to care. So I go through all that stuff in my head and then if I quiet down for a little while and I just stare at this thing, I get an idea, then I get another idea, and I get another idea and pretty soon the painting is painting itself and everything is wonderful. But boy, everybody's got that moment where like, oh, this isn't gonna work or this is stupid or this is useless. I have that all the time.

[Mel Robbins]

Well, that's the moment. Yeah, that's what it all comes down to. Because you can stay there or you can lean into the world You've taught us about.

[Bill Burnett]

Pick up a brush and put something

[Dave Evans]

on the canvas and again, set the bar alone. Like, oh, I really need to start meditating. So I should do 20 minutes every morning between 6 and 6:20, I gotta get up at 5:30, you know, and e some really pure yogurt first. Like, whoa, dude, lighten up. We've got a thing called the seventh day. Savoring once a week, sit down and pick a moment during the week when you felt deeply alive. Go back and savor it because you didn't have time to fully experience it in real time. You know, you could just go back there and like linger over it. I mean, put, put that, let it sit on your tongue and really get the most out of it. Okay, it's five minutes a week. And your prototype is. I'll do that twice. Okay, so two five minutes on a Sunday afternoon. And then ask the question, was I worth it? Did I enjoy that? I'll do a little bit more. It's okay. You don't have to jump over your head. If you're moving, that's moving toward a meaning making practice. So you're designing your way forward.

[Mel Robbins]

I want to read to you from your blockbuster bestseller, how to live a meaningful Life. And this is page eight. All of us. This longing for more meaning may be one of the most universal things that all humans want. Lives that are generative and joyful, fulfilling and connected. Lives that are about more than just getting through each day, paying the bills, maybe taking a vacation now and then. And too many people are finding too Few an answer for how to get what their hearts keep telling them they were made for the meaning and purpose that they need. The quest for meaning can seem too big and too overwhelming. But here's the thing. There is something you can do, really actually do, to experience a more meaningful life today, right now, in this exact moment. So, Dave.

[Dave Evans]

Yes.

[Mel Robbins]

What is that one thing?

[Dave Evans]

Well, the first thing is you get a reframe. In design, we do problem finding before we do problem solving. One of the reasons people fail is they're working on the wrong thing. Problem finding precedes problem solving.

[Mel Robbins]

Okay?

[Dave Evans]

So the question, oh, how do I live a more meaningful life? Usually frames itself as, what is the meaning of my life? I have not yet found my purpose. What is the one true thing that really is what I'm here to do? And we think those are all the wrong questions, because they all treat you as a transaction, as a problem to be solved for which there is a correct answer. Okay, so instead of working on the what is the meaning of life? We're here to give you tools to design more meaning in life.

[Mel Robbins]

Okay? I want to make sure the person listening got this. One of the reasons why I get stuck and you get stuck and the people that you love get stuck is number one, we're asking the wrong question, which is, how do I get to the point?

[Dave Evans]

The ultimate answer to life? The ultimate. Is this really it? Have I found it? No, you haven't found it, because you're going to keep growing and it's going to change. So stop worrying about it and let's work on this.

[Mel Robbins]

Well, what I love about it is. And you know, look, this is why you guys are brilliant, okay? Just going to say is, because as I've been sitting here going, you know, I got to find it, that that statement in and of itself says it's out there.

[Dave Evans]

Right.

[Mel Robbins]

How do I create more meaning right now, here?

[Dave Evans]

Yes. So don't wait for the ultimate answer. No. By the way, we have both, in different ways, have worked on the big questions for a long time, and we think the big questions really matter. I'm not saying never think about that. What I'm saying is don't defer. Life is good and worthwhile until you find those answers. What you can do is start living into the moment that you're in. So the first reframe is, how do I find more meaning now? And then the second thing is, and where might I find it?

[Mel Robbins]

Well, I'm glad you said there was a second question. Cause here's the thing. As Somebody who's really screwed up her life for large stretches of it. There are times. If you had instructed me, Mel, the answer is to find more meaning where you are right now. You know what I would have said? Probably F you. Because I don't like where I am right now. And there is nothing meaningful about this, which is why I want something else. Do you know what I mean? What do you say to the person that's feeling that, right? Like, there is no way to find meaning where I am right now?

[Dave Evans]

That's probably because the thing that's not working, there's something about the job is not working, the marriage isn't working. There's something I'm really unhappy about.

[Mel Robbins]

Yes.

[Dave Evans]

I'm not getting what I wanted from this particular aspect of my life. And so then you say, well, find more meaning. You're trying to tell me how to make a bad thing good. This is the old, well, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Okay? The problem with the lemonade idea is, let's take a bad thing and make a good thing of it. No, no, no, no. Okay, there's something that's not working. I get that. But that doesn't mean there aren't other parts of your life where more meaning and more aliveness are lurking latently waiting for you to discover them. Don't let those go now. Meanwhile, we might want to have some projects to. Maybe your job is a bad situation. When we got asked over and over again, why isn't it more fulfilling? It's. I thought I did everything you guys said and it still isn't working for me. We're hearing that skyrocket as a question in the last two years. I'm just not having the impact I want to. Well, impact is important, but it's only one form of meaning making, and it's got a very short half life right after you finish doing something successful. 3, 2, 1. What have you done for us lately? So there are other ways to experience meaning, which happen in this place we call the flow world, not in this busy world we're all in most of the time we call the transactional world. So our big invitation for where that more meaning is is spending more time in the flow world, which is right here, by the way. But there's a lot more in front of you than you think. This is easier than they told you.

[Mel Robbins]

Okay? That's the part I want to hang on to. This is easier than they told you, and this is also easier than what you're currently doing.

[Bill Burnett]

So flow is that State where time stands still. You're in the moment by definition because that's where you are fully engaged. And it's a moment where actually you're making energy. Psychologists will say it's a, it's an energy generating moment because it just feels so good, you know, dopamine and other good chemicals going in your brain. And some of this comes from the work of Dr. Lisa Miller, you know her from Columbia. She kind of updated the left brain. Right brain model. We used to have a right brain was the creative brain, the left brain was the analytical brain. It's more nuanced than that. And her model is there's the achieving brain, the transactional brain. And the awakened brain is where we experience flow, where we experience spirituality, where we experience a connection to something bigger than ourselves. And so all we're arguing for is recognize that there's two things. The transactional, the flow world, the achieving brain, the awakened brain. And get a little more into, you know, building your whole brain, which is having a balance between the two and being in the flow world and experiencing this awakened sense of yourself connected to the world. That's when we are more human.

[Mel Robbins]

Right?

[Bill Burnett]

So we need both sides of the brain. We need both awakened and achieving. We need to be in the transaction world and the flow world. And we're under practiced right at getting into the flow world.

[Mel Robbins]

Can you give me some examples in day to day life that really help illustrate for the person listening who has never even considered that there's a second world to live in other than the one in your head?

[Dave Evans]

Right.

[Mel Robbins]

What does it feel like to be in flow? Or what's an example that you might find in somebody's everyday life that you could hold onto? Go. Oh, I've experienced this. Okay. I understand this difference.

[Bill Burnett]

If you're an athlete, you felt it, you're in the zone. You're in that place where you just know where the ball's going to be. If you're a runner, it's the runner's high where your brain goes quiet and you're just on the run. I like to cook. For me, it can be as simple as, you know, I'm chopping onions, I'm doing my mise en place, I'm preparing everything before I cook and put on some good music and just be in that state. And then I'm not thinking about school, I'm not thinking about, you know, the budget, I'm not thinking about other things. I have a lot of voices in his head that are talking to me all the time. And so learning to just kind of quiet them down and do something, do. Do an activity, running, cooking, something that you enjoy doing, but really being all in, totally present and being available to what the experience can be.

[Mel Robbins]

I keep coming back to this 14% thing. I think your next book should be the 14% mindset. Because I just feel this sense of the invitation of the unlived life, that there's these two lives that we have.

[Dave Evans]

You're talking about the finished business.

[Mel Robbins]

Yeah. The one you're living and the one you have yet to create.

[Dave Evans]

Sure.

[Mel Robbins]

And one of the things that you two write about is that you can boil the design your life process into a post it note. Right, Bill, what's on the post it note?

[Bill Burnett]

This is hard. Professors don't like to boil their things down to something so simple that anybody can do it.

[Mel Robbins]

Actually, everybody says anybody, any idiot can make it complicated. It takes a genius to make it simple.

[Bill Burnett]

Exactly. Those Mark Twain's. If I had more time, I'd have written a shorter letter.

[Dave Evans]

It happened on Canadian live tv. We were running out of time. The producer goes, we're just about out of time. Can you do the book in a sentence? I said, dude, we're Stanford professors. We don't give short answers to hard questions. He goes, well, then you're off the air. So give me a minute. I was a marketing guy. Get curious, talk to people, try stuff. Tell your story. So it's 10 words. It's really not one sentence, but get curious, lean in, lean into the availability. Talk to people. Go out and engage with the world because the narrative story is where it's at. Try stuff. Prototype your way forward. Then tell the story of what you're learning. You're becoming. Pay attention. Reflect on what you're learning. You know, hey, how's it going? Oh, yeah, I binge watched Game of Thrones all night last night again. What'd you do that's not that interesting. It's just like, well, I was talking about Robin. She's talking about there's 14% of the lives I'm living as well as the ones I'm not. I'm really thinking about that. They kind of go, oh, say more. What's going on with that? So if you're leaning into and living your life and paying attention to it, it. Get curious, talk to people. Try stuff. Tell your story.

[Bill Burnett]

The circular pattern. I'm telling stuff. I'm telling my story. People say, that's very interesting. Have you thought about talking to so and so or this? Trying this or this? And it Just keeps going. You know, your curiosity leads to more engagement, which leads to more prototypes, which leads to more stories. Once you get that flywheel running, you know, it runs by itself and it feels like, hey, I'm making progress, I'm going somewhere. I'm not exactly sure where it is, but I'm pretty sure I'm going in the right direction.

[Mel Robbins]

Well, I think it's really cool to just allow yourself to imagine that there are all of these things that you can do and you're going to die with the to do list and the experiences and all of the things that you could have become. Regardless of whether you mope on the couch or you use these principles, you

[Dave Evans]

gotta move from FOMO to Jomo. From the fear of missing out to the joy of missing out. So people think the reason I have fomo, right? Fear, missing out. Some cool thing goes by like, you know, oh, oh, wow, oh, we should have done that instead, shoot, I missed it. Says the person who has fomo. The phrase I missed it acts as though the world is a scarce place and there's barely enough to make an it of your life. And if you missed a little bit of an it, you are now diminished. Wrong. Seeing something cool go by you haven't got time to do just reminds you the world is a target rich place and you are a highly capacious creature who could be interested in so many more things than you have time for. Isn't that great? So get used to. Get a comfortable attitude toward wonderful things passing you by. Just reminds you the world is a cool place to live and enjoy that which is in front of you. Look, he talks me into writing a book again. We just wrote this third book and I said, oh my God, if I do that, the next four years of my life are completely spoken for. Do I really want to do that? From 71 to 75. It's a year or two to write a book and I get a year or two to talk to Mel about it. You know, I'm kind of like, do I really want to do that at this point in my life? Well, sure. And it comes in packages of yes or no. And the yes to this book has got about 75 no's in it for things I'm not doing right now. And I'm perfectly happy living into the life I've chosen. Choose your life.

[Mel Robbins]

Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. What are your parting words?

[Dave Evans]

You can do this, and I really hope you do. You deserve it.

[Bill Burnett]

My wish for, folks, is just try something. Try something really small and see if you can find that little piece of joy or just a pointer towards something that wakes you up. And we know you can do it.

[Mel Robbins]

Well, my wish for you is that I'm at the table at the night that you do your metering, and that when you have your opening exhibit for the paintings you don't think the world cares about that. We're all there to clap for you.

[Bill Burnett]

I will absolutely invite you.

[Dave Evans]

Okay.

[Mel Robbins]

I'm gonna make you. I'm gonna be there whether I'm invited tonight. Now, I know Dave will text me and tell me even if you don't. No, seriously. I love you, too. I love the work you do. Thank you for the difference that you make in all of our lives. Thank you for coming today. Thank you for writing this blockbuster of a book. Now more than ever, I know we are all searching for more meaning, and I really am grateful that you're giving us the blueprint to find it where we are. Thank you.

[Dave Evans]

Thank you. You're a dear woman. This was really sweet.

[Bill Burnett]

Yeah, we really appreciate. Appreciate the opportunity. It was a great conversation.

[Mel Robbins]

It really was. And thank you. I wanna thank you for spending time with us and for making the time to invest in yourself, to listen to something that's gonna open up possibilities for your life and your future. Because you deserve, as Bill and Dave said, to live a meaningful life. And this conversation has given you not just tools, but the permission and the encouragement to do so. And in case no one else tells you today, as your friend, I want to tell you that I love you and I believe in you, and I believe in your ability to create a better life. And as Bill and Dave said, do it, for crying out loud. All right, I'm going to welcome you into the next episode, the moment you hit play. I'll see you there. Are you a motorcycle rider?

[Bill Burnett]

No. I had one motorcycle. I crashed it. And then I decided I don't have the reflexes for this thing, so I stopped.

[Dave Evans]

I chant a little Stephen Stills every time I walk into a room, and I don't know what I'm gonna find. Love the one you're with.

[Mel Robbins]

Love the one you're with.

[Bill Burnett]

Yeah.

[Mel Robbins]

That's your next book. That's how to find meaning in your marriage.

[Dave Evans]

It's a ton of work. It's an absolute mountain of work, you know? But, I mean, what else am I doing, you know? Come on, people. Sorry.

[Mel Robbins]

No, I. This is your life.

[Dave Evans]

I mean, come on.

[Bill Burnett]

You guys are so good.

[Dave Evans]

Oh, man. You can do this for a living. You're actually pretty good at this. I mean, I think you ought to seriously consider doing this.

[Bill Burnett]

Yeah. Yeah, this was great.

[Mel Robbins]

Oh, and one more thing. And no, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language. You know, what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist. And this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I'll see you in the next episode.

[Bill Burnett]

SiriusXM podcast.

[Mel Robbins]

This segment is sponsored by Microsoft Copilot. So I've been away from home on a work trip for almost a week. And while I was gone, I'm trying to juggle work and meetings and exercising and eating right and keeping tabs on everybody in the family, all while living out of my suitcase. It's been a lot. And you want to know the first thing I did when I walked through my front door? First, I kissed my husband, Chris. Then I said hi to our dogs. I picked up the cat and petted him for a minute. And then I plunked down in my favorite chair. And immediately I started to think about all the stuff I needed to get done. What is wrong with me? My inbox was full of messages that I'd been meaning to answer for weeks. I still had to book flights to go out to Los Angeles to see our daughter. Our fridge looked like a wasteland. Next thing I know, I'm out of that chair, feeling overwhelmed, wondering where to begin. I needed help. I grabbed my phone and I opened up Microsoft copilot. I think of copilot as my little AI companion because it helps me take care of the million things that are on my mind so that I can be more present. And it helps me do it in so much less time. But I also love copilot because it's so simple to use. All you do is just open it up and ask it a question. You give it a problem to solve, and within seconds, it's working with you to come up with answers that work for you and your life. For example, that flight to Los Angeles that I have to book. Do you know how long I had been thinking about that? Okay, I should have gone, here's what I did. I just gave copilot the non negotiables. Okay, here's the dates, here's the airports. And I asked it to find the best deals. Then I said, okay, now that you have the best deals, so could you explain all the trade offs of Picking one over the other. This was all done in a couple minutes. Flight booked. Then I had copilot help me reply to a work email. I knew the gist of what I wanted my response to be and here's what I love about it. I was unloading the dishwasher as I was telling it how I wanted to come across to be professional and firm, but in a kind tone. A few seconds later I had a draft. I read it, I made a few adjustments and before I knew it, inbox cleared. And how about that sad empty fridge? I opened up the door, I snapped a photo and copilot built a simple meal plan and grocery list for the week. It gave me new recipes, it told me exactly what ingredients I needed to buy at the store and gave me cooking instructions. I didn't have to carry all this stuff around with me anymore in my head, draining my energy because co pilot had my back. I felt the tension lift from my shoulders and I realized why. The overwhelm that you and I feel, it doesn't come from doing all the things that we need to do. It comes from carrying those things around in our heads. The planning, the coordinating, the remembering, the checking back, the thinking about it, the strategizing, the mental to do list. It never shuts off. There's a term for that in science. It's called cognitive load. There's a lot of research around this, but I'm going to tell you what researchers in China found not too long ago and this research was published in the Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Science. When you're trying to keep too many things in your head, your thinking gets slower, your emotions get louder. Everything starts to feel heavier than it really is. Your brain has a limited amount of mental bandwidth. It can only hold so much at one time. So when you've got a million open tabs in your head, your brain isn't just stressed, it's overcapacity. That's why even the tiniest things start to feel huge. Because it's not the fridge. It's not even the work email. It's the fact that you and I carry all the planning and decision making for these things around in your head all day long. You're getting up every day. You're taking care of yourself, you're taking care of your family, you're caring for people. You're doing the best to take care of your health. You're trying to be all these things. You're doing so much. But it's time to stop doing it all alone. You have to get this out of your head. That could mean doing what I call a brain dump. Just jot all these mental drains on a sheet of paper so you don't have to hold onto them or talking them out with a close friend or what it's meant for me more and more is I open up Copilot and what I've found is Copilot is just like the perfect partner. It helps you stop all those little mental drains and leaves you feeling See, when I sit down with Chris for dinner tonight, I'm not going to be replaying everything I need to get done because Copilot helped me figure it all out. I can be present in a moment that really matters to me and there's nothing better than that. Thanks, Copilot. If you want to try it for yourself, visit Microsoft.com Melrobbins to download the Copilot app. Get started with Copilot today for free and see how handing off all the small stuff gives you more energy and more time to be present for the moments that matter. That's Microsoft.com MelRobbins USAA knows dynamic duos

[Dave Evans]

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[Mel Robbins]

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[Dave Evans]

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[Mel Robbins]

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[Bill Burnett]

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[Mel Robbins]

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