Episode 109
Design the long life you love
For those of us born in the West today, living to 100 will be the norm, not the exception. Living longer is clearly a gift, but the simple truth is these extra 25-30 years of life did not exist before.
This new horizon is as important and exciting as the invention of motion pictures, cars or even space travel.When a change this big happens, innovation follows.
Ayse Birsel is the author of Design the Life You Love, a step-by-step guide to building a meaningful future. As well as being on the Thinkers 50 shortlist for talent, she is the co-founder and Creative Director of Birsel + Seck, a studio where Ayse designs award-winning products for companies including Herman Miller, GE, IKEA, Philips, Staples and Toyota.
On this Fireside, Ayse shares more about her research for her new book Design the Long Life You Love. Conducted with people 65 and over, she explains how the lessons from these pioneers of life can serve us all — designers, entrepreneurs, and business leaders — in our work, our lives, and the lives of others, regardless of age.
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Transcript
So I'm Ayse uh, Ayse Birsel, and I was born in Turkey in
Speaker:Isme and I grew up there.
Speaker:So hello Paba and if there any other Turks.
Speaker:And I grew up in a family of lawyers and I was set to become a lawyer.
Speaker:Then I thought, well, I love to draw, so maybe I should do something more artistic.
Speaker:And I was gonna become an architect.
Speaker:But then a family friend came to t and talked to me about industrial
Speaker:design, and I had never heard those two words together before.
Speaker:And I thought, yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker:And the way he talked about it, I love tea, right?
Speaker:Here we go.
Speaker:And he said, you see how the edge of this cup is curved?
Speaker:It's so that it can fit our, our lips better.
Speaker:And it has a handle so you can hold hot liquid in your
Speaker:hands without burning yourself.
Speaker:And then it has a saucer so that if you spill your tea, you want ruin your,
Speaker:your mother's beautiful tablecloth.
Speaker:And in that moment, I fell in love with this, the human scale of, of design.
Speaker:And I thought that's what I want to do.
Speaker:And that's what I've been doing.
Speaker:And I've designed everything from office systems to concept cars,
Speaker:to potato peelers, to toilets.
Speaker:And in fact, I was known as the queen of toilets, uh, for a while,
Speaker:which I took as a great compliment.
Speaker:Because, I mean, who gets to design toilets, right?
Speaker:It's a, it's a privilege.
Speaker:Most of you might have used or sat in something that I've
Speaker:designed without knowing it.
Speaker:So then, um, at one point I took all of this and I started thinking
Speaker:to myself, well, how do I design?
Speaker:Like what goes on in my head?
Speaker:And I worked on kind of externalizing that for a year and I sketched and
Speaker:thought about how I design in my process.
Speaker:And from that, uh, developed deconstruction, reconstruction.
Speaker:And I would show it to my friends.
Speaker:I'd like, okay, this is how I design.
Speaker:And they'd be like, wow, it's so complicated, you know,
Speaker:we don't understand you.
Speaker:So then I had to like simplify it and simplify it until it became
Speaker:something that was like the simplicity on the other side of complexity.
Speaker:And then once I had that, I, I've always thought that our lives.
Speaker:Like our life is our biggest project.
Speaker:And I thought, well now I have a design process, why don't I apply it to my
Speaker:life and see if life is truly a design project or that if my, my process works.
Speaker:And so that's what I did.
Speaker:And from that developed, uh, design the life you love.
Speaker:And the interesting thing about that was like, you saw how long it took me to
Speaker:explain what industrial design is, right?
Speaker:It usually takes me like five to 10 minutes for people
Speaker:to understand what we do.
Speaker:But then if I tell someone, Hey, I teach people how to design their lives, they
Speaker:go immediately, oh, I wanna try that.
Speaker:I wanna design my life.
Speaker:So it's kind of like something so natural for us.
Speaker:It's, um, it requires no explanation.
Speaker:So then people start coming to design the life you love.
Speaker:And then, you know, and it became a book,
Speaker:There's quite a few things I wanted to just explore with you there.
Speaker:There's the, immediately there's the book writing process and what that meant
Speaker:for you and for people who, you know, have ideas and they want to get them out
Speaker:there and communicate them, what that really takes and your experience of it.
Speaker:There's this idea of, okay, people really attracted to the idea of designing
Speaker:their own lives and what's behind that.
Speaker:So be curious around that.
Speaker:Uh, but then to begin with, maybe there isn't something here, but I,
Speaker:I wanna, I'd like to just check.
Speaker:You said you felt a need to understand how you design, essentially.
Speaker:I was thinking essentially dis process of deconstructing your process.
Speaker:Which, which is called deconstruction reconstruction.
Speaker:So thank you.
Speaker:Awesome.
Speaker:It's all very, it's all very meta.
Speaker:Very meta.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Uh, so was there a But you know, I, I don't know, maybe did you just
Speaker:wake up say, oh, I really should do this, or was there something that
Speaker:actually this, was there a need?
Speaker:What was the thing that.
Speaker:Triggered you to actually start that even.
Speaker:That's such a good question, Carlos.
Speaker:It, yeah.
Speaker:Uh, well, I woke up one day and realized that, um, it was 2008 and all our clients
Speaker:had taken their work in-house because of the, uh, economic downturn in the states.
Speaker:And I hadn't seen this coming.
Speaker:We were, it was, I was partners and I still am, but you know, with bbs
Speaker:sec, my, um, husband and partner who's an automobile designer, um,
Speaker:we had three young kids, uh, my stepson and our two daughters.
Speaker:And the economy turned, and with it all our clients took their work in-house.
Speaker:And I was like, what just happened?
Speaker:You know, we were so successful and we were working with like some of
Speaker:the top brands, um, in the states.
Speaker:And it of course made so much sense for them.
Speaker:Like, I totally understand it.
Speaker:We were on the outside and they, they were cutting budgets.
Speaker:But long story short, I thought, um, I'll, you know, it's okay.
Speaker:I'll go find a job, job.
Speaker:So I went to see headhunters.
Speaker:And then the headhunters were like, Ayse, you know, you're not
Speaker:employable because you, you've never worked in an office before.
Speaker:And it's true.
Speaker:I've always had my own studio.
Speaker:And I was like, but I design office systems.
Speaker:They're like, well, that doesn't count.
Speaker:So anyways, um, I found, Myself with a lot of time in my hands, and I really
Speaker:felt, um, pressured because, you know, when you don't have kids, it's okay.
Speaker:You, you can manage, manage by, right?
Speaker:But when you have kids and you have to put bread on the table, it's a lot of stress.
Speaker:So this friend of mine, Leah Kaplan, who's one of my oldest friends and
Speaker:collaborator, she said to me, look, Ayse, you have all this time in your hands.
Speaker:Why don't you use this time to think about how you think
Speaker:because you think differently.
Speaker:And that was kind of the, they click for me, where I thought, oh, one person
Speaker:still believes that I think differently and I have something to offer.
Speaker:And, um, I read recently that, uh, all you need is one person to believe in you.
Speaker:Mm.
Speaker:Uh, but that person can't be your mom.
Speaker:So, so Leah was that one person for me, and I thought, okay.
Speaker:So then I started like that, that's what got me started and I started
Speaker:literally like mapping out my brain in sketching how I think,
Speaker:it's very of that, um, the uh, YouTube video of the guy on the side of the hill.
Speaker:You've probably seen that the festival.
Speaker:He starts dancing.
Speaker:He's a bit of a crazy guy.
Speaker:I dunno if he's on something.
Speaker:And then I think Derek Sivers did a Ted talk about it, but then the
Speaker:next guy who copies him as a joke is the kind of the ally almost.
Speaker:And then off that, back of that whole movement starts.
Speaker:So yeah, she was your
Speaker:And everybody's dancing, right?
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:So everybody deconstruct your process and then reconstructed, of course, you know,
Speaker:So there's a, an element of circumstance, like you said.
Speaker:2008 crisis.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Needing to do something.
Speaker:I loved what the, the way you call it, I need to get a job, job,
Speaker:Not pretend job
Speaker:As if I, I haven't been working for the past however long, and now I have to work.
Speaker:And so I, I just wanna look into that as well because this is something I think
Speaker:people in our community be interested in.
Speaker:Cuz there is this element of like, work is hard and there's the job,
Speaker:job and then, well, what is it?
Speaker:What, how would you describe it in terms of the contrast between what you were
Speaker:doing before and then having to get a job?
Speaker:Job?
Speaker:You know, when you're your own boss, as I think many of you here are, there,
Speaker:there is a sense of freedom that you get to decide what you want to work on, when
Speaker:you want to work on it, how you want to work on it, who you wanna work with.
Speaker:And that freedom is worth quite a bit for us, uh, and balances out
Speaker:all the, um, uncertainties, right?
Speaker:And the difficulties and the challenges and the hard work, and kind of that
Speaker:sense of taking initiative of your life.
Speaker:And my sense of, well, I don't know what the job job is like because I still
Speaker:haven't landed one, but, uh, I think the idea is that, you know, you have a boss,
Speaker:somebody else makes certain decisions for you, and that work is regulated.
Speaker:And of course, like covid changed a lot of this and I think gave many people
Speaker:a taste of being their own boss, even when they're employed by someone else.
Speaker:This is the important aspect of this, I think I wanted to pick up on which
Speaker:I, because I believe a lot of people who are, who follow our work, who are
Speaker:interested in what we do are free spirits or caged potentially free spirits as well.
Speaker:Because you talked about this idea of autonomy and freedom and um, choice.
Speaker:And it kind of leads me onto the next bit of the question was around
Speaker:why people are so interested in this idea of designing their life.
Speaker:I've got this analogy of like this whole life being a race kind of thing.
Speaker:And what happens is like, at the beginning, you've seen everyone at
Speaker:this starting line and you dunno why they're at this starting line.
Speaker:So you just join them and then next thing you know, you're running this
Speaker:race and you're getting tired and you're getting slowly burnt out.
Speaker:And you think, why am I doing this?
Speaker:Why am I running with all these people?
Speaker:And they're like, well, what else?
Speaker:What else do I do?
Speaker:And so this is for me this idea of like, well, what, how do I choose?
Speaker:And if I'm gonna choose something, what could it be?
Speaker:Which means it's a design problem.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:It, it's just like you explained it.
Speaker:I love that explanation.
Speaker:And it's, um, I think just like you said, there are moments in our life where
Speaker:we stop and think, hold on one second.
Speaker:Why?
Speaker:Why was I doing this?
Speaker:And for different people, it happens in different moments.
Speaker:Uh, for some people it happens as, you know, early on as they come out
Speaker:of school and they have a great sense of self awareness and they want to
Speaker:kind of take charge of their life.
Speaker:But like you said, for most people, life happens to us versus you defining
Speaker:and designing and imagining that life.
Speaker:But for almost everyone, there's a time where you suddenly go, hold on one second.
Speaker:Like, what's my purpose?
Speaker:Why am I here?
Speaker:What's the, like this quest for meaning?
Speaker:And that's a great moment to think about designing your life.
Speaker:I think that's why people connect with the idea.
Speaker:And then there the, when you dig a little deeper, you know, like
Speaker:the principles of design that I talk about is about optimism.
Speaker:You know, no matter how hard the problem that we're going to
Speaker:come up with a better solution.
Speaker:Or empathy, empathy for other people, but also empathy for yourself.
Speaker:Collaboration, you know, asking for help and giving help and
Speaker:building on each other's ideas.
Speaker:And, and then open mind knowing that, you know, sometimes often the, the ideas
Speaker:come from like the worst places, right?
Speaker:Like, I mean, the economy crashed and then that's what led me to this awakening.
Speaker:So it, um, those are the kinds of things, or seeing the big
Speaker:pictures so you can connect the dots in new and different ways.
Speaker:Those are like the principles of design and which allows people to
Speaker:think about their life, something very personal, very serious, uh, but to
Speaker:think about it, um, in a safe space.
Speaker:Because creativity does create a safe space and gives you the
Speaker:freedom to play with ideas.
Speaker:And one of the things like we started our conversation with, what's your emotion?
Speaker:The emotion of design is playful.
Speaker:Uh, because when we're playing, we're like kids.
Speaker:We're not afraid of making mistakes.
Speaker:And that is essential because the, the more challenging the problem,
Speaker:the more playfulness you need.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:Of like, what if I did this?
Speaker:What if I did that?
Speaker:You know, and but this plus this makes that, and then this plus that
Speaker:makes this, well that's a good idea.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:So I think that's what makes the process work.
Speaker:And then if I may add one more thing is like, that simplicity I talked about
Speaker:in the beginning is essential because my goal was to make this accessible to
Speaker:everyone, not just designers, really to anyone who's interested from ages
Speaker:like 10 all the way to a hundred.
Speaker:And I have worked with kids who are 13 and people who are 90 plus.
Speaker:And the process works.
Speaker:And it's transformative.
Speaker:It's one of our core values.
Speaker:You know, me and Carlos have known each other for 40 years,
Speaker:went to school together.
Speaker:And it was kind of awkward trying to work out what our company values were
Speaker:when we've been friends for so long.
Speaker:But play was one of the things that, that actually came up when we did that
Speaker:exercise probably 15 years ago now.
Speaker:Because I think we had both experienced work and business being
Speaker:the opposite actually, that a lot of the work environments we'd been in.
Speaker:And actually some of the creative, um, companies I've been in on the
Speaker:outside had the feeling of play, but on the inside didn't feel that way.
Speaker:And again, you can have a overbearing boss or you can have
Speaker:a project you don't believe in.
Speaker:There's so many reasons why I think it's hard to live those values.
Speaker:But yeah, I think for us, that's always been at the heart of all of our work,
Speaker:whether it's Summercamp or the programs we run or anything we do, we try and
Speaker:bring that element of play to it.
Speaker:And like you said, particularly around the idea that some of the conversations
Speaker:and topics that get brought up are very, um, important to people.
Speaker:So in some ways you don't wanna make it seem frivolous, but trying
Speaker:to lighten that load is important.
Speaker:Otherwise, you can just spin out and go around in circles, we found.
Speaker:So, yeah, I totally, uh, resonate with that idea.
Speaker:I feel like our ideas are so aligned.
Speaker:You talk about happy, I mean the, the who, who has the word happy
Speaker:in their, um, business, right?
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:And then for me, who has the word love?
Speaker:But the, the, this, I think we're all communicating that all of this is
Speaker:for a purpose, and that purpose is to bring joy to people's lives, you know?
Speaker:Well, the, the way I, I connect these, and I think this is, we,
Speaker:you mentioned this in the past.
Speaker:So there's, when I think about the love, there's the design, the life you love, i
Speaker:the word optimism, again, springs to mind is something that excites you, something
Speaker:that's pulling you towards the future.
Speaker:You know, something that's driving you towards a place rather than running away
Speaker:from somewhere, you are going to somewhere that, that, that you, you want to go to.
Speaker:And then there's the aspect of like, there's different ways
Speaker:nec potentially to get there.
Speaker:Um, and that's the creative aspect of it.
Speaker:And for me, having the word play is not only just the feeling of
Speaker:joy, maybe in the process, but also the expansiveness and openness of
Speaker:all the different possibilities.
Speaker:There's so many different ways we can do that.
Speaker:So let's, let's play with them.
Speaker:Let's try all the different things and see, like you were saying before,
Speaker:some dots might connect and suddenly something this, ah, this is what we
Speaker:could do, this is what we could create.
Speaker:And this is in all within service of something.
Speaker:And that's the other aspect I think that's coming out.
Speaker:This is idea of meaning.
Speaker:Anya mentioned something about, you know, this attraction to this idea of
Speaker:designing the life you love may be coming from this lack of agency in our lives.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:And so how do I then find more agency?
Speaker:So what does that mean in terms of what kind of life does that, that,
Speaker:um, have to be, but ultimately there's a lack of meaning without agency.
Speaker:Totally, and I, I think, um, when I was reading Anya's question or um,
Speaker:statement I was thinking, for me the first step is giving yourself permission.
Speaker:And that's not that easy, but giving yourself permission to design your
Speaker:life or to have that kind of agency.
Speaker:And I think, um, it's with the understanding that, um, agency doesn't
Speaker:mean that you can do anything you want.
Speaker:I don't think we get the, uh, the liberty that no one gets, that it's
Speaker:just, uh, being intentional and like you said, like thinking about
Speaker:what, what's meaningful for me?
Speaker:What, what are my values?
Speaker:How do I bring them to life?
Speaker:And that, to me, this is like a.
Speaker:Uh, lifelong journey.
Speaker:I, I've been talking about design the life you love for, I think,
Speaker:um, 15 years now and doing it.
Speaker:And just the other day I was working with my coach and I said,
Speaker:I think I need to design my life.
Speaker:And then we started laughing, you know, and I said, you know,
Speaker:I've written a book about that.
Speaker:But it was as if suddenly I was hearing myself for the first time.
Speaker:And it had to do with the fact that of course, the kids have grown up
Speaker:and now, like a new page is opening and, and I need to design my life.
Speaker:And then, and that's exactly what I'm doing now.
Speaker:But it's, uh, so to say like, I think, all these things we are
Speaker:talking about agency or finding meaning they don't happen overnight.
Speaker:I don't think it's, it's, uh,
Speaker:It's a, a renewal process.
Speaker:It feels like.
Speaker:You know, different phases of your life.
Speaker:It's not like you're do it once and you're done.
Speaker:It's uh, it's an ongoing evolution of your, as kids get older or work changes
Speaker:or life changes, the world changes.
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:I think actually it was the bit about agency.
Speaker:It's like, yes.
Speaker:Doesn't mean you can do anything you want.
Speaker:And I was gonna say, actually it does, but also it means you
Speaker:are responsible for what you do.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:It's like when you are given full autonomy and full agency and if you want it, cause
Speaker:I I, and I'm relating it back to when we used to run an agency and an agency,
Speaker:giving people agency within their agency.
Speaker:Exactly, but yeah, no, but there was this element of like, but there's, that
Speaker:meant they also had responsibility or they felt responsibility, because any
Speaker:choice they made was down to them.
Speaker:And so without that sense of responsibility, agency can
Speaker:be very destructive, I think.
Speaker:This is what I'm, I'm coming up with.
Speaker:So part of this I think I wanted to communicate is we are very
Speaker:much advocates for do whatever you want, but understand there may be
Speaker:consequences and repercussions.
Speaker:And, uh, you talked about before, empathy.
Speaker:There's empathy for ourselves, but then there's empathy for others.
Speaker:So, so we could, you know, do whatever we want in terms of our businesses, but
Speaker:actually are we able to take ownership of what that also means for other people?
Speaker:Which then also then Connects to this idea of having a coach
Speaker:in, which ties nicely to the idea of collaboration, right?
Speaker:So I started working with my coach, um, Jean Easy.
Speaker:Uh, Jean Easy.
Speaker:I always say Jean Easy because he makes things easy for me.
Speaker:Sorry for that.
Speaker:Jean Early.
Speaker:a designer, you keep branding, you know, can't stop.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But it's, um, like I felt that I needed somebody that I could collaborate
Speaker:with and just like in other project, if this is a project, and it is, I
Speaker:needed the wisdom and the expertise of somebody other than myself.
Speaker:And to have that back and forth and found it incredibly, um, helpful.
Speaker:Because, well, thank you for, uh, saying like, I know I know what I'm talking
Speaker:about, uh, but sometimes you don't know how to listen to yourself, right?
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:Uh, so I'm also part of, um, a 100 Coaches, which is a community that
Speaker:Marshall Goldsmith, um, started.
Speaker:And so I'll do a little, uh, detour, but Marshall Goldsmith is known as the
Speaker:world's number one leadership coach.
Speaker:And I am, for full disclosure, I am Marshall's coach.
Speaker:So, and he's my mentor, so it's kind of like.
Speaker:But um, so I met Marshall when he was coaching a CEO that I was working
Speaker:with, and then we became friends.
Speaker:And then when my book came out, um, he said, I say to promote your book.
Speaker:Why don't you do a session and I'll invite my friends.
Speaker:And then he showed up with 70 of his friends.
Speaker:And yeah, Mar Marshall, I mean, when he shows up every,
Speaker:everybody wants to be there.
Speaker:So, uh, we had like our biggest session at the time.
Speaker:And then, um, in the moment he, he himself did the process and I ask people
Speaker:who their heroes are to inspire them.
Speaker:And then, um, so Marshall said, my heroes are my teachers, people who,
Speaker:who've taught me everything I know.
Speaker:And then I said, so what are you going to do to be more like your heroes?
Speaker:And then he had this big aha where he realized I need to teach
Speaker:everything I know to others for free.
Speaker:And from that, uh, he started the movement and he invited, uh, he put a, a message
Speaker:on LinkedIn, a video, and he said, anybody who wants to learn how I think,
Speaker:I'm inviting 15 people to learn from me.
Speaker:And then 17,000 people replied.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:So then, you know, he started 100 Coaches and I call myself member number one, and
Speaker:Marshall always gives me credit because he says, this happened at your session.
Speaker:So I'm very familiar with coaching and surrounded with amazing coaching friends.
Speaker:And I think that, We can all use a coach one to one time for or another.
Speaker:The thing that really stuck with me is like, we sometimes find
Speaker:it hard to listen to ourselves.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I think that would resonate with a lot of people.
Speaker:And on the topic of collaboration, the other thing is like, sometimes
Speaker:we listen to ourselves in the wrong way, in the sense that, you
Speaker:know, we work with a lot of people.
Speaker:We're trying to help them create, and they have these things they
Speaker:want to create and sometimes they've created things and they're just
Speaker:not sharing them with the world.
Speaker:Or they're creating things and they've got very myopic view about how it should be.
Speaker:And there's something here around, whether it's with a coach, with other people,
Speaker:just having a process of co collaboration, co-creation, you call it, and you, we
Speaker:talked previously about co-design, how valuable that can be in terms of really
Speaker:amplifying the, the beauty, the impact, the simplicity even of whatever it is
Speaker:you wanna birth or, or offer to people.
Speaker:And so I maybe what I'd like to hear and just get your take on, for anyone
Speaker:out there who's scared of sharing anything that they've ever made
Speaker:mm-hmm.
Speaker:Not to the extent that they wouldn't even share the, to the world.
Speaker:They made something, they think they want to give it to everyone,
Speaker:you know, to actually offer it as a product or a service, but they,
Speaker:they've kept it so tightly that there, it isn't even out there.
Speaker:And, and that's, there's something around, uh, maybe why it would be so
Speaker:beneficial for them in your perspective to start sharing and, and co-creating or
Speaker:letting go a bit, let's put it that way.
Speaker:That's a great question.
Speaker:And, um, there are two pieces of benefit in my mind.
Speaker:One is when you make something public, It makes it real and it makes it real
Speaker:and it's harder to walk away from.
Speaker:When you have an idea but you don't share it, I would just
Speaker:wanna ask, is it quite real?
Speaker:because once it's public, and it could be public, that, um, you share it
Speaker:with your intimate circle, you share it with your friends, and then the
Speaker:bigger circle, you share it with your community and then you know, you share
Speaker:it on LinkedIn like, uh, Marshall did.
Speaker:And then that's when you realize like, if Marshall had had this idea and kept
Speaker:it to himself, nothing would've happened.
Speaker:Once he put it on LinkedIn, he hid on it.
Speaker:It was like an experiment, right?
Speaker:We experiment and we have, I think to somebody who would keep their ideas
Speaker:kind of close to them, I would say we have so many ideas, and you have to put
Speaker:them out there and see which one sticks.
Speaker:Like, I didn't know this idea was going to stick, right?
Speaker:I started as an experiment and then people responded to it.
Speaker:If this didn't, this didn't work, I would've found some something else.
Speaker:And you would've found something else, right?
Speaker:So that's one piece of it.
Speaker:The other piece that I wanted to come back to collaboration, because we use the
Speaker:word collaboration, but with, um, recently I did, uh, long study into, um, aging.
Speaker:And what I realized is collaboration is actually simply.
Speaker:Asking people for help and giving people help.
Speaker:And once you start to do that, that does two things.
Speaker:One is it builds trust, but two, it creates friendships.
Speaker:Mm.
Speaker:Trust is essential to friendships.
Speaker:Collaboration builds trust, leads to friendships.
Speaker:And this is what the three of us are doing here right now.
Speaker:Actually, maybe to everyone listening, it seems like we're doing a, a fire
Speaker:chat, fireside chat, but we're actually building our friendship because if
Speaker:this conversation, like an hour ago we, we didn't have this conversation.
Speaker:Now we're collaborating.
Speaker:We're having this conversation.
Speaker:This conversation is gonna lead to other conversations and other
Speaker:collaborations, and it gives us opportunities to hang out together.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:And this is, I think, so important, um, that I wanna tell everyone here.
Speaker:Uh, work, work with your friends and become friends with people you work with.
Speaker:To me, that's one of the essential pieces of finding meaning in li in life.
Speaker:And it's fun.
Speaker:Come on, you know.
Speaker:I was really curious that you, you say that in terms of friendship and this
Speaker:idea of work as, as someone, actually Frances shared the podcast with me
Speaker:recently from the Squiggly Career people about how to find friendship at work.
Speaker:But there's, there's this real challenge.
Speaker:I think some people find it difficult to marry this idea of friendship and work.
Speaker:And there's, and there's, you know, my hunch is there's something around
Speaker:the idea of the emotional aspect of how we turn up at work and how we're
Speaker:supposed to be professional and how we're supposed to be able to, you know.
Speaker:There's something, there's a safety in a process.
Speaker:Cause you don't have to think, you don't have to negotiate or you don't
Speaker:have to deal with conflict so much.
Speaker:It's like, it's either a computer says yes or computer says no.
Speaker:And so boom, if I'm in a, in a business with a culture's, like
Speaker:very much, all right, you do this, you do that, and we'll be fine.
Speaker:As opposed to when you're working with people that you enjoy working with
Speaker:and there's, you know, start having an emotional connection and you start talking
Speaker:at different levels, there's a experience there that I think adds to the work.
Speaker:But then there's also, you know, you have to be comfortable with maybe
Speaker:a bit of conflict and other, other emotions that come into, a relationship.
Speaker:So I'm, I think what I'm trying to get at there is like, I think when you talk
Speaker:about friendship, I think it's being open, opening ourselves up to all of
Speaker:the person that we are working with, not just the transactional side of like, oh,
Speaker:you've got that skill, you've got that thing you can offer, I've got, you know.
Speaker:There's a piece of something that I've been practicing and trying to
Speaker:learn is to have unconditional love.
Speaker:And how, how do you do that?
Speaker:How do you do that across the board, you know?
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:And to be able to see other people with empathy.
Speaker:And, you know, often, what bugs us about other people are the
Speaker:same things that we have, right?
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:So, I mean, all these things tie together, right?
Speaker:When we have empathy for ourselves and other people, and we can be forgiving and
Speaker:unconditional, it's not just about them, it's also about us and loving ourselves.
Speaker:So it, and then this is the other thing that I learned from this,
Speaker:uh, design research we did about aging is that as we age, we learn to
Speaker:love ourselves and self-acceptance.
Speaker:And so I feel like, I mean, these are things that I couldn't
Speaker:have talked about, even thought about 10 years ago, 20 years ago.
Speaker:But now it's, um, both my research and my, uh, where I'm at with
Speaker:my own life or coming together.
Speaker:Um, and my whole thing is, okay, well I didn't know how to think about these 20
Speaker:years ago, but I wish I did, you know?
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:I wish I knew.
Speaker:I knew how to love myself more when I was younger.
Speaker:There's something around harvesting and capturing.
Speaker:Well, this, communicating what you found with the research.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:To help others think about this long life.
Speaker:You know, This is what I love about how projects, like, we're very lucky
Speaker:because I think we're all here working on projects and not everybody works on
Speaker:projects or think, thinks in projects.
Speaker:But what I love about projects is they, they're a journey.
Speaker:They take you places.
Speaker:So my, my project, like being a designer, it's natural for me to
Speaker:think in project terms, right?
Speaker:Um, and to.
Speaker:Kind of go into this unknown of like the ambiguity of like, I don't
Speaker:know how this is gonna turn out.
Speaker:So design the Life You Love taught me one thing, and that is everybody
Speaker:is extraordinarily creative.
Speaker:And, um, I was at the design conference on, uh, Monday and Tuesday and somebody
Speaker:said, we're all designers until school kind of kicks it out of us.
Speaker:And I thought, I know exactly what you mean.
Speaker:So anyways, what I found is if I can share my process and tools with
Speaker:people, you know, because I need my process to be creative, right?
Speaker:Then they are extraordinarily creative.
Speaker:They just need, a little bit of guidance of like, how do you think creatively?
Speaker:Anyways, once I realized that people can transform their lives through design,
Speaker:pure design, it made me realize, they can think creatively about any subset of their
Speaker:lives and we can co-design with this.
Speaker:And so then we went to our clients like GE and said Why don't we design
Speaker:co-design laundry with people?
Speaker:Why don't we?
Speaker:And then we went to, um, Toyota, and then we said, why don't we actually, they
Speaker:asked us like co-design luxury vehicles together, adventure with millennials
Speaker:together, and then excellence with Harvard Business Review, And then, you name it.
Speaker:And we ended up doing these co-design, um, studies, which were incredibly exciting,
Speaker:and rich in how, like understanding how your end users think to build
Speaker:empathy with them, and then for them to trust you through that collaboration
Speaker:that I was just talking about.
Speaker:So then, we became together with my team, really interested in the
Speaker:aging space because we had aging parents and we realized there's
Speaker:not much out there for them.
Speaker:So I, um, talked at Amazon one time and then I told, as I was leaving, I told
Speaker:my host, if you ever work on aging, my team and I, we wanna work on aging.
Speaker:And they said, we need you right now, which never happens, right?
Speaker:And that was our first project.
Speaker:We, um, co-designed aging with people who are 65 plus with Amazon.
Speaker:And then through our work with Amazon, we got connected with the Scan Foundation,
Speaker:which is the probably the most important nonprofit in the states around aging
Speaker:policy for, um, for the government.
Speaker:And here's the what I wanted to come to, together we created this yearlong
Speaker:research, co co-designing with people who are 65 and older their lives.
Speaker:And that changed everything.
Speaker:Um, because most aging research is very reductionist.
Speaker:It says, you know, you age and something breaks down, whether it's your family
Speaker:structure, financial structure, work structure, social structure.
Speaker:But when you co-design with older people, By the way, none of them
Speaker:thought it was too late to design their lives, even when they were 90.
Speaker:We realized that they have a growth mindset and none of them
Speaker:see their lives as shrinking.
Speaker:Of course, they have challenges and you know, these challenges happen at different
Speaker:times, but that they're all about this expansions viewpoint of like, what's next?
Speaker:And anyways, that changed our perspective.
Speaker:And I learned all these lessons, and then realized, when we finished the
Speaker:research, I was like, what do I do now?
Speaker:This is such an incredible message and I just want to, what, what is the message?
Speaker:The message is we have another 20 to 30 years longer to live.
Speaker:We didn't have this time before, like our grandparents and great grandparents
Speaker:didn't have this time before.
Speaker:And this is so exciting.
Speaker:This to me, it's like the, the invention of, uh, moving
Speaker:pictures or like automobiles.
Speaker:And as, um, designers and creatives and entrepreneurs we're at the cusp
Speaker:of this moment where nothing has been designed for this era because
Speaker:this era didn't exist before.
Speaker:And I thought, I wanna tell, like, I wanna shout this from the rooftops,
Speaker:and get people to understand, do you realize how thrilling this is?
Speaker:And, um, and furthermore how amazing these older people are.
Speaker:And so all those, the lessons I learned from them that I thought,
Speaker:I wish I knew this when I was younger, went into this new book.
Speaker:Well, we have the link for anyone who wants to pre-order.
Speaker:Um, and please, um, well check out the link.
Speaker:One thing I would pick up on, just that you demonstrating that idea of
Speaker:how to collaborate you saying, you know, you asking for help to Amazon
Speaker:at that moment led you on this path.
Speaker:So a very simple ask, it sounded like opened the door to this coming to life,
Speaker:which again is a great example of, yeah, you showed a bit of a vulnerability
Speaker:there by asking that question.
Speaker:Um, but the other aspect for me is more just.
Speaker:It feels like, and I think we talked about this when we first spoke.
Speaker:I, I'd only recently finished the a Hundred Year Life book, which again,
Speaker:touches on similar ideas around this, um, opportunity that, that we have
Speaker:to make the most of this new phase.
Speaker:And so for me it feels like almost a changing the
Speaker:narrative around aging really.
Speaker:It feels like a bigger mission for this project.
Speaker:Is that right for you?
Speaker:Because that feels to me like at the cusp of this is it's not just about teaching
Speaker:people how to make the most of the time they got, but actually to tell stories of
Speaker:it's not as bad as society's almost told us it is because it seems to be a lot
Speaker:of negativity around getting old, right?
Speaker:And me and Carlos are hitting 50 next year and already, uh,
Speaker:feeling a bit funny about that.
Speaker:So, um, yeah, it's nice to have stories of hope and optimism.
Speaker:absolutely.
Speaker:And, you know, I'm amazed at this reductionist point of view.
Speaker:You know, I come from Turkey and I live in New York, and it's this, like
Speaker:these two opposing cultures, right?
Speaker:The, uh, Eastern cultures, and Carlos, you and I talked a little bit about this
Speaker:of like, I come from a culture where you respect your elders and value them.
Speaker:And to this day, my best advisors are like my 80 year old aunts and
Speaker:uncles, because I can't figure it out.
Speaker:I, you know, and I'll, you know, they'll help me.
Speaker:And then the, the youth culture in the states where the young are revered and,
Speaker:and my sense is actually we're more alike than we think we are, and it's
Speaker:not an either or situation, it's both.
Speaker:You know, we, we need all of those things working together, and we have
Speaker:so much to learn from each other.
Speaker:Well, I'd like to pick up on that one because I think we
Speaker:are in a very unique time.
Speaker:Well, actually that's an oxy, we're always in a unique time.
Speaker:There's no, no time is the same as the other time.
Speaker:This is more unique.
Speaker:This is more unique.
Speaker:But the, I think the thing well, uh, the way I'll ground this, yeah.
Speaker:Like Laurence said, I'm gonna be 50 next year.
Speaker:I don't feel any different to how I was when I was 30 and.
Speaker:I could even arguably say when I was 25, 20.
Speaker:Like the, the things I like doing, the energy I have for life has not changed.
Speaker:And so I can remember a few years back at Summercamp sort of like giving a
Speaker:bit of a welcome talk and thinking, saying something along the lines,
Speaker:I'll see you all here when we're 80.
Speaker:And this whole idea that actually rather than, oh, as I get older,
Speaker:I have to get more serious.
Speaker:And you know, there's something about the, the world narrowing down as I get
Speaker:older is like, I love this idea that how, cause how do more opportunities
Speaker:turn up for us as we get older?
Speaker:How can we look at the future of our older selves in a much more optimistic
Speaker:way of, of all of the adventures that are still to come, as opposed to, alright,
Speaker:I have to get everything done now.
Speaker:Even just like how that affects our energy.
Speaker:Cause one of the things I, I believe that I've taken from my life, and
Speaker:we talk about it a bit without the happy start, is the slow stupid
Speaker:route of just not rushing anywhere.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:But just pacing ourselves through life.
Speaker:Whereas we haven't got a massive business.
Speaker:No, yes, we're not millionaires.
Speaker:But at the same time, you know, in it for the long game in terms of I wanna still
Speaker:be around doing similar things when I'm 60, maybe when I'm 70, slightly less when
Speaker:I'm 80, but still open up to the world.
Speaker:I'd love to see myself sat at a fire pit at the age of 80, talking to some 30
Speaker:year olds, 20 year olds at summer camp.
Speaker:About what it is like to to live a life.
Speaker:And you'll have hair, hair down by your ankles and you'd be
Speaker:wearing a sort of gurus robe or
Speaker:toga.
Speaker:No, I'd be, I'd be in beach shorts and a vest and like.
Speaker:Laughing all the time.
Speaker:Laughing, exactly.
Speaker:There we go.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:If that, if that, if we can have that, not have this ageist thing of like,
Speaker:oh, you can't be a kid when you're 50?
Speaker:It's like, yes.
Speaker:Why can't we, why can't we play, have a attitude of excitement and
Speaker:play no matter what age you are?
Speaker:Our research showed us that the thrill is not gone.
Speaker:It's very much on, so we have some things to look forward to.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That's the t-shirt, right?
Speaker:Um, Pauline had a couple of questions.
Speaker:I know we've got two minutes just to maybe answer one of those.
Speaker:She's a product designer looking to transition to work for herself
Speaker:and create her own products rather than work just for clients.
Speaker:And mm-hmm.
Speaker:I think she, her question was just around you starting Design the Life You
Speaker:Love during a recession, any advice for anyone who's looking to build their own
Speaker:brand or products in the next year at the moment of, you know, it's a challenging
Speaker:time, right, for a lot of people.
Speaker:That's a great question.
Speaker:f first of all, I think challenging moments are disruptive.
Speaker:And so they're actually great moments for change, because if
Speaker:things are going super well, why would you wanna change them, right?
Speaker:Like, if the economy didn't hit, why would I like change what was working?
Speaker:And then similarly, like Covid hit, and.
Speaker:I started doing these weekly virtual teas, which are at 5:00 PM New York time.
Speaker:So for you it's a little bit, it's like your 10:00 PM.
Speaker:So for any late birds, you're invited to my, um, virtual teas.
Speaker:So I would say the timing, challenging times are good times for change.
Speaker:And the way I would do it is if possible, not to completely drop one thing and
Speaker:start another, but to have to create kind of like a transition or a runway.
Speaker:So for example, I started doing Design the Life You Love, but I continued my
Speaker:studio, and figured out how got creative with using my time, so I could do both,
Speaker:which you know, it's not easy to do.
Speaker:But, uh, you'll hear a lot of people talk about, like authors talk about,
Speaker:they, they write their books early in the morning and then they go do
Speaker:something else to earn their bread.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:And that's ki that, that's, that's true for me as well.
Speaker:Like, I'll do all my experiments and kind of things that don't pay yet, early
Speaker:in the mornings on weekends and stuff like that, but then still continue with
Speaker:client work until I can switch, you know?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That's.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:The 80 20, like.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:Yeah, Google time.
Speaker:And on that, cuz I, I saw a post by David Hyatt that said something
Speaker:similar like, you know, during times of, uh, recession and, and challenge,
Speaker:then there's opportunity, which, you know, makes really useful sense.
Speaker:But I also wanna say there, this is something here around having
Speaker:a bit of self-compassion around this in terms of when you are
Speaker:scared, you're scared, you know.
Speaker:It doesn't matter when there's a recession.
Speaker:If there's not a recession, it's like, if there's a fear of doing something new,
Speaker:there's a fear of doing something new.
Speaker:And it's even worse when there's other fear going on around you.
Speaker:So there's an element here of just, and like you, Ayse, you're
Speaker:talking about creating a level of safety because the, you're not
Speaker:putting all your eggs in one basket.
Speaker:The thing you're creating is not gonna be suddenly an existential
Speaker:crisis if it doesn't work.
Speaker:So I just wanted to, I was really strong feelings about this just to
Speaker:acknowledge, it's like, yes, there are opportunities in recession, but
Speaker:don't think like, if I don't do it then there's something wrong with me.
Speaker:It's like we also have to get used to uncertainty.
Speaker:Really get used to the fear of maybe the money might not be there cuz there's
Speaker:a risk involved with all of this.
Speaker:And so if, if we accept that there is a risk and, and somehow we will work it out.
Speaker:And that's the thing, I think that's the hardest thing for most people to
Speaker:believe that they will work it out.
Speaker:Because we're so, we hold on so much to, to certainty.
Speaker:And that's the journey that I've been on, particularly like holding on so much.
Speaker:Like where is this gonna lead?
Speaker:How, how do I guarantee that this is gonna be a success?
Speaker:As opposed to you're talking about lots of experiments and some things will fail.
Speaker:That's such an excellent point.
Speaker:Um, I think part of it is something that I learned from another friend,
Speaker:uh, Michael Bengay Stainer, who just wrote a book called How to Begin.
Speaker:I would recommend that to everyone as well.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:Where he talks about, and he talked to me actually, uh, he's in my book as well,
Speaker:about the ambiguity of great projects.
Speaker:I mean, that, that's what's exciting is the ambiguity, is that you don't know.
Speaker:If you knew it, it would be a done deal.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And I, I try to, it's not like I, well I'm saying these things and I'm like,
Speaker:oh yeah, I practice them all the time.
Speaker:I'm saying it to also hear myself.
Speaker:And I'm learning this, like I'm comfortable with the unknown and, and I'll
Speaker:try to control things that I can control.
Speaker:But then there are other things I'll do them.
Speaker:I don't know where, what they will lead to.
