“When retirement isn’t retiring to a rocking chair, what do you do?”
Read More
Dates: August 14, 28, September 11, and October 9, 2021
Virtual Journey Overview:
Engage in a one-month journey with a group of women who have come together to work on the most important design project of all – your life.
Taught by Kathy Davies, Managing Director of the Stanford Life Design Lab and Susan Burnett, longtime business executive, this innovative digital solution gives you the opportunity to learn and practice ideas and tools contained in the NYT bestselling Designing Your Life, How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life in a life design community.
What’s it All About?
In our workshops, we work together real-time to explore the social and personal narratives that shape us, reframe our dysfunctional beliefs, and dig into the design process, tools and mindsets tools to increase your creativity and confidence. We also focus on developing a mindful awareness of where you are now, use design tools for balance and energy and improvements, practice ways to frame problems and get unstuck, gain insights into honing your decision making, and design three possible future paths – Odyssey Plans – for your life.
What do you get?
- Life Design Community of Women: Women continue to tell us that the best part of the journey is the life design community we intentionally create through multiple breakout discussions, many opportunities to ideate and collaborate with others, and the sharing of individual and collective insights that takes place throughout the journey.
- 3 Highly Interactive Zoom Workshops: The workshops give you the opportunity to learn the life design process, tools and mindsets and immediately use them to reach your goals – all in collaboration with your life design community.
- New DYL Life Design App: You will engage in the app in between workshops to explore new content and tools, use what you learned in the workshops, and engage with your life design community in the social space. This app is designed to support your one-month experience and life design community and is only available to those on the virtual journey.
- New Digital Workbook, with worksheets and tools to support your assessments and reflections during the journey and on an ongoing basis. This is designed for the virtual journey and is not available publicly.
- Bonus Session: We deliver a 90-minute post journey workshop for follow-up and support for the actions you are taking and coaching on how to successfully make life changes.
What Do You Need to Do?
Register: The price for the one-month journey is $950. If you are one of the first 20 to register, you can get the early bird price of $799. We also have discounts for students, military vets, and friends of our alumnae.
Technology: The virtual journey requires the use of technology, so before you sign up for the experience, be sure you have:
- A laptop or desktop computer that will allow you to connect to Zoom with a microphone, camera, speaker, trackpad or mouse and keyboard.
- A smartphone or Ipad/tablet that will allow you to download the DYL app.
- An internet connection of sufficient speed and stability to allow you to
About Us
Kathy Davies
Designing Your Life Workshop Leader
Kathy Davies is the Managing Director of the Life Design Lab at Stanford University, where she teaches Product Design and life design courses, and shares life design trainings with educators globally. She is also the co-founder of Designing Your Life Consulting and a commercial Master Trainer.
Kathy has 15 years of industry experience developing electromechanical and software products, and proudly holds five patents. She consults with Silicon Valley companies, teaches design thinking, conducts ethnographic research, and develops product strategies and concepts. Her prior experience as an engineer and product manager and leader of engineering teams gives her particular skill in understanding and connecting with technical audiences as they learn life design tools.
Kathy believes design thinking and life design can empower social change, especially around equity for women.
Susan Burnett
Designing Your Life Workshop Leader
Susan Burnett is co-founder of Designing Your Life Consulting and a Master Trainer who teaches DYL at Stanford University, in companies and in public retreats.
Susan has dedicated the last 40 years of her career to designing for individual and organizational transformation and growth. She held executive leadership roles at Hewlett-Packard, Gap Inc. Deloitte and Yahoo!, where she led large scale business changes, cultural renewal, employee engagement, and leadership development. She also led the effort to build Deloitte University – a center for leadership and culture.
Susan believes that by empowering people with the life design process, tools and mindsets we can design new ways to work and live in a chaotic, unpredictable, and ever-changing world. She is a regular speaker, consultant and author.
Andrea Ciafardini
Designing Your Life Workshop Mindfulness & Meditation Instructor
Andrea Ciafardini is the Mindfulness and Meditation Instructor for the DYL for Women experience. As Founder of Holistic Connections, Inc., the company’s mission is to create transformative experiences for individuals and groups allowing for a deeper level of connection, awareness, and presence through unique integrative practices. These include the Enneagram of the Narrative Tradition, Kundalini yoga, meditation and breathwork and Emotional Polarity Technique as ways to unwind outdated narratives in order to connect with and reveal one’s authentic voice.
Andrea’s fulfilling 15-year career is a testament to her dedication and passion for emotional and spiritual health. Her journey has also led her to develop and facilitate workshops on forgiveness, emotional wellness and all aspects of meditation throughout the U.S and globally. Whether in a virtual or in-person workshop, Andrea creates a compassionate, loving and safe space for participants to unwind, let go, and relax into a deeper relationship with one’s Self.
FAQs
Who goes to the Designing Your Life for Women (DYLW) workshops?
You will find women of all ages, backgrounds and career experiences participating in this workshop. Their common goal is to design a life and career with more joy, purpose and fulfillment. And they are usually at some kind of crossroads in their life, like starting their first job, or making a mid-career change, or deciding whether to leave or re-enter the workforce or designing their retirement. The diverse group of women really brings different perspectives which make the collaboration and community work so well.
Why do women choose the DYLW retreat?
Many women who come to our workshops have read Designing Your Life – How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life and want to do the exercises and new designs for their life in collaboration with others. It’s especially effective to be in a room with women you don’t know, as they have no history or preconceptions about you, and they have no stake in your decisions, unlike family and friends. So they can hear you and propose possibilities for you in a new and refreshing way.
Do you have to read the book to get the most out of the retreat?
Women have told us it’s helpful to read the book in advance, and others have said they like doing the workshop first and then read the book. It’s a personal learning preference, not a requirement to read the book in advance of attending the retreat.
Do you provide any special discounts?
Yes, we provide a 10% discount for alumnae friends and family. Your favorite alum will give you the promotion code. We also provide a 50% discount to students and veterans, as well as a few scholarships. Please contact catherine@designingyour.life for more information.
What’s the refund policy?
We do not refund your money if you cancel, so please make sure you are able to make the date you have selected. If something unforeseen happens, please contact Kathy Davies at kathy.h.davies@gmail.com about your situation, and we will see if we can transfer your registration to another workshop if one is available.
Still have questions?
Contact Us.
The Designing Your Life movement has connected the team to an incredible group of uniquely talented people, and engaging with Maria Shriver's team for their latest "Sunday Paper" is no different. Maria's team interviewed Susan Burnett and Kathy Davies to...
Read More
“The DYL digital journey is a perfect composition of 3 bi-weekly live sessions, a well-thought through workbook and app, and an extremely well-composed community, plus a bonus session. I had time to breathe and reflect between the sessions, with the…
“If reading the DYL books was eye-opening, taking the Digital Journey was like stepping from black-and-white Kansas into color-saturated Oz. Everything came to life in large and small group discussions under the deliberate care of Joan Cheverie, Michael Cato, and…
Ana Cristina Leonardos is a sociologist, author and co-founder of Festina Lente Platform. In 2019, she launched a new online platform and took on the mantra “fail fast and fail forward” as she tested her first prototype. She focused on…
I first learned about Designing Your Life while attending a non-profit leadership training seminar. A faculty member from Stanford’s Design School conducted the half-day workshop; we were introduced to design thinking and then prototyped an alarm clock applying DYL principles. …
What kind of results can you realistically expect from ten hours of group coaching on Zoom? Felicity Fallon, 47, at a career crossroads, dived in to find out. She discovered that with the right tools, a well-chosen coach and a high-level…
Alexandra Regan was part of our second virtual workshop community and shares her experience after participating in the January 2021 one-month virtual journey. Before the workshop, Alexandra wanted to add decision making to her tool kit in order to…
