3 - Dysfunctional beliefs around careers - Bill Burnett on Designing a Life of Play, Purpose and Possibility

Bill Burnett speaks about his early years, some of the hard-wired elements of his operating system and how he has navigated his career across various pursuits including designing Star Wars toys, Product design at Apple and teaching Life Design at Stanford.

Bill Burnett speaks about how he thought about navigating through various choices and transitions and how he balanced pursuing his passion and being pragmatic in terms of providing for his family without swinging too far to one side.

Bill Burnett speaks about how we hold on to some beliefs about careers that might have worked for us given our lived experiences but are irrelevant in the world our children are growing into.

Bill Burnett speaks about the criticality of “problem finding” in contrast to problem solving that we all are taught formally. He speaks about how Starbucks redefined the problem and built a successful business based on it.

Bill Burnett speaks about two kinds of problems where people often get trapped with. Gravity problems are those that you can’t do much about and Anchor problems are those where a solution has crept into the problem without you realizing.

Bill Burnett speaks about the idea of coherence and how we all can strive to design a coherent life. He also discusses the markers of a coherent life.

Bill Burnett speaks about the distinction between energy and engagement and how journaling about these two can be illuminative for us.

Bill Burnett speaks about the fact that there is no one pathway but many possibilities that can unfold for us. Letting go of that “this is what I am meant to be doing” can be liberating.