Don’t search

for meaning.

Design it.

New York Times Bestselling authors and Stanford educators Bill Burnett and Dave Evans show how meaning is not out there, it’s right here. Get ideas and tools into your mailbox to find more flow, joy and purpose.

Every Tuesday 9am. Get Fully Alive, by Design.

“I’ve done everything right. Work, family, friends…
I ‘figured it out’ but I still feel stuck.”

We’ve heard this so many times. Even from the millions of people that Designing Your Life has helped figure out what to do with their life.

People are stuck. And they are stuck on the question of meaning. What is the meaning of life? This question has been around for as long as humans, but most people still haven’t figured out an answer to it.

Well, we can’t blame them. “What is the meaning of life?” is not a good design question. “How do I find meaning IN life?” is.

And that’s where our new book can help.

Now available for pre-order

How to Live a Meaningful Life

In a world grappling with major societal shifts and increasing isolation, it’s easy to feel like nothing you do matters. There must be more to life than simply surviving each day—but how do we uncover it?

Pre-order

You can’t solve your future because there’s no data. That’s where design thinking comes in.

Designing Your Life has helped millions of people transform their lives.

“Life has questions. They have answers… Learn how to find a fulfilling career… learn how to better navigate life’s big moment decisions and kill your ‘wicked problems dead.”

The New York Times

“The prototype for a happy life… Burnett and Evans show how to apply Stanford’s famous design principles to finding your place in the world, as a recent graduate or mid-career.”

NPR’s Brian Lehrer

“Designing Your Life walks readers through the process of building a satisfying, meaningful life by approaching the challenge the way a designer would. Experimentation. Wayfinding. Prototyping. Constant iteration. You should read the book. Everyone else will.”

Daniel Pink

Bestselling author of Drive

“This [is] the career book of the next decade and… the go-to book that is read as a rite of passage whenever someone is ready to create a life they love.”

David Kelley

Founder of IDEO

“An empowering book based on their popular class of the same name at Stanford University… Perhaps the book’s most important lesson is that the only failure is settling for a life that makes one unhappy. With useful fact-finding exercises, an empathetic tone, and sensible advice, this book will easily earn a place among career-finding classics.”

Publishers Weekly

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Your guides,

Bill & Dave

Hi, I’m Bill Burnett,

I’m a son, a dad, a partner and a grandfather, and I’m also a guy who has spent the last thirty years thinking and working as an educator, helping my students become the best versions of themselves.  I love music (from the Grateful Dead to Mario Lanza) philosophy (from Nietzsche to Winnie the Pooh) and I’m fascinated by the mystery of the world that is revealed in Art and Science. I’ve started two companies, worked in five, and had a chance to teach a couple of thousand students—and I’m still designing and building things, teaching others how to do the same, and quietly enjoying the fact that no one has discovered that I’m having too much fun.

Hi, I’m Dave Evans,

I’m all about helping you design a life and a way to live it that brings you fully alive. After 30+ years in tech (led the Apple mouse, a co-founder of Electronic Arts, etc.) I pivoted from making things to designing lives in 2007 and co-founded the Stanford Life Design Lab, then co-authored the worldwide bestseller, Designing Your Life.  We lead a movement to help people get unstuck and design the meaningful lives they deserve.