This is a post about my personal experiencs from  reading Designing Your Life – How to Build a Well-lived, Joyful Life by William Burnett and Dave Evans.

This has been a very difficult post to write. It’s been brewing in my head for months by now. This book review had been very hard to write because this book, Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-lived, Joyful Life by Bill Burnette and Dave Evans, has so profoundly and permanently changed me.

What this Book  is About

In a nutshell, this book is a simple and easy-to-use tool that’s been developed by two Stanford University product design experts that can be used for building a well lived, joyful life. They believe to live a fulfilling life, one must chart, create, and DESIGN their own path to it. This book teaches you exactly how to do that based on methods they’ve seen success in developing great products. A few key concepts in the book include CURIOSITY, BIAS TO ACTION, REFRAMING, and RADICAL COLLABORATION. Together, these 4 points make up the whole suite of tools you need for life design.

You ever learn or read about something that is so life-changing and mind-blowing that you physically need a moment of silence to let things sink in? Well, my reading Designing Your Life was such an experience and the last few weeks was my sinking-in period.

How Much I LOVED This Book

In fact, I love this book so much, this past Christmas season I gave out 6 copies of it as gifts. In addition, I was able to personally attend a 2-day workshop (a version designed for women only; there are others that aren’t focused on women) in San Diego in early February. It was an incredibly rewarding experience where I met a lot of like-minded professional women. Together, we experienced the collective power of brainstorming, learning from each other’s life experiences and mistakes, seeing things from drastically different perspectives (called “Reframing”). There were so many light-bulbs going off Eureka moments interlaced with the emotional relief of truly believing “we can” as women.

Who Designing Your Life is WRITTEN FOR:

1. People who have passion projects but don’t know how to take it beyond a hobby
2. People who feel lost in their career or life
3. People who need to make decisions as a transition point or critical juncture
4. People who have been wildly successful in their career but are wondering “what is it all for?”
5. People who believe in their self-worth but are struggling to realize it
6. People who have different forces in their life pulling in opposite directions (family vs. career, salary vs. ethics, hobbies vs. income, etc)

What Designing Your Life is NOT or does NOT:

• It does not provide solutions readily available for your particular problems. YOU have to find your solution using the guides and tools laid out in the book.
• It is NOT a spiritually or religiously based book. But the process of applying the techniques and principles might feel so transformative that the experience is likened to adopting a new religion.
• It’s not a fad method or a trendy technique (think Bullet Journaling or the Pomodoro technique). It’s simply the adaptation of product design principles re-applied for life designing.

How to prepare BEFORE YOU START READING Designing Your Life:

• Be ready to start writing down your thoughts because you will have a lot. Also, the book asks you to be writing through different exercises. (Typing counts, too.) Do the exercises like the authors asked you to. In this process, something magical happens. What’s even more magical is after you’ve put it away for 3-6 months and come back and revisit what you wrote. Whether things changed or did not change, you have just learned something about yourself.
• Have an accountability partner. Better yet, a group of accountability partners. This is something the authors of the book recommended in the book as well, albeit for different reasons. I’ll let you find out what those reasons are. But we are all social animals, and the in-my-head-only idea takes on a different level of meaning and impact when you let someone else have a stake in it. An accountability partner can be a good friend, a family member, a mentor, or someone who you share some common goals with. If you struggle to find an accountability partner, you could also consider joining one of the Designing Your Life workshops offered in various places in the US a few times a year. And on that topic…

What to Expect from the Designing Your Life WORKSHOP:

The two-day workshop is taught by product design professionals who have lived and breathed the DYL design principles in their own life and career. They fly out of Silicon Valley to teach each of the workshops personally. The workshop does come with a fee of $799-950 but it includes a Designing Your Life workbook, two breakfasts and a lunch and multiple refreshments throughout the 2 days. Most importantly, the network of professionals that you meet and get to know over the weekend is so invaluable. To give you a sense of the incredible suite of professionals I met, there were at least4 career/life coaches, 6 business owners/entrepreneurs, and 5 female executives, and 3 other people just like me – recently transitioned into a different phase of a career.

What’s even more incredible is that this is a group of people who see the deficiency in the tools that our society teaches us to evaluate success & create success. They are seeking something better, more experience-based, proven, and immediately implementable. In this workshop, we found it all together.

OK, this is the part where I pause, and acknowledge my word choice above kind of sounds a bit fu-fu and almost quasi-religious. As reluctant as I am to admit it, there is something that is close to a religious, “finding God” kind of feeling. But it’s a lot simpler and WAY more tangible. So if you can relate to the above analogy, great! If not, forget I wrote it.

What SURPRISED me from what I learned in the workshop:

• How much positive psychology & behavioral economics compliment life design thinking. I’ve been an avid reader in both topics so I am very familiar with a lot of the famous theories, models, and phenomenon’s based on social psychology findings. So, in a way, it is no wonder Designing Your Life just clicked in my head right away – I was already bought into a lot of the theories that the authors based their teachings on.
• The promise of the corporate ladder is an illusion to more people that I thought.
• The distance between thinking and doing is short. Yet, it is what stops most people from steering their life in the direction they want.
• I have more power and are in more control of my life, therefore career, than I realized.

What Are You Waiting For?

Pick up the book here today, and start where you are! And let me know if you’d like me to be your accountability partner to implement the learnings and methods to set your life on the right path!

If you’re interested in attending on in 2018, see their remaining workshops in the Bay Area, San Diego, and New York.

Disclaimer: I was given a $200 scholarship to attend the workshop, and I offered to write a blog about the workshop in return. The instructors replied that the scholarship had no strings attached and that I should only write a blog if I wanted to and found the workshop impactful. Needless to say, it’s more than just impactful so I had to blog about it!!

Now the Giveaway

As usual, I have one copy to gift a lucky reader if you enter to win in the next week.  Between today (2/27) and Tuesday 3/6, comment in this blog post about what area of your life you want/need design help!

Designing Your Life || Book Giveaway

The post The Life Compass Everyone Needs: Designing Your Life Book Review appeared first on Cubicle Chic.

I haven’t done a book review in a while. The last one was in May 2017 when I read Build Your Dream Network by J. Kelly Hoey. Since then, I’ve read many other books. But when I read Entrepreneurial You by Dorie Clark in November, it struck an unusual nerve that I just had to share with you guys.

What Entrepreneurship Means to Me

I have a confession to make. I never ever thought entrepreneurship was for me. It’s strange. Maybe it’s my upbringing, my culture, my familiar influence… I never gravitated toward the idea of owning my own business or being my own boss. In my young adult years, I thought I was going to become a scientist, medical professional, or a regular 9-5er. I guess I turned out to be a 9-5er, just not so regular! Ha. I always say my marketing career found me, I didn’t find it. I guess in the same way, entrepreneurship found me, and I didn’t even realize that until recently.

Why I Started Reading Entrepreneurial You and Couldn’t Put It Down

But this is not entirely why I am recommending this book on entrepreneurship today.  I’m recommending this book because I realized outside of being your own boss and being financially independent, becoming an entrepreneur makes you acquire many other life skills. These life skills are highly transferable even when you are still working in the corporate world. So, whether your plan is to climb the corporate ladder or start your own business one day, there are incredible things to learn from this book to maximize your career.

Who Should Read Entrepreneurial You

This book is written by marketing and brand guru Dorie Clark (fyi she writes for Harvard Business Review). She’s got a series of book written for people that are either aspiring entrepreneurs or others who are already in the trenches with their entrepreneurial endeavor. Her other books Reinventing You and Stand Out are also on my bookshelf. I intend to read them before the end of 2017.

Three books written by Dorie Clark: (from the left) Stand Out, Entrepreneurial You, and Reinventing You

Here is who the book is intended for:

• ALL BLOGGERS – especially micro-influencers and aspiring bloggers who are just starting out
• Business owners – if you have an on-going business, check your business plan against Dorie’s recommendation to see if you’re on track; if you’re about to take on the challenge of starting a new business, this is the perfect timing to read Entrepreneurial You.
• Everyone who wants to turn your side-hustle into a full-time gig – this is probably a group of people combining the two categories above. If you aspire to become a full-time blogger, a full-time Etsy shop owner, a full-time Poshmark business owner, you should read Entrepreneurial You.

So why should you read Entrepreneurial You? I’ve made it really simple for you:

Thinking about quitting your corporate job to pursue a side hustle full time?

Here’s a roadmap for you to start earning a sustainable income. The point is to do it before you leave your financial safety net. There are many ways to experiment and build an income stream before plunging into the freelancer/entrepreneurial world.

Struggling to maintain a profit with your blog/small business?

This book provides a detailed tactical plan to develop multiple income streams so your business isn’t dependent on the success one individual thing. This is a good reference to check if you are doing the right things in your business.

Feeling anxious about your corporate career and want to explore building some career insurance?

Maybe you’re an HR expert and have a ton of interview/resume expertise to share. Maybe you’re a marketing guru that has very marketable skills as a consultant. Maybe you’re a graphic designer with working experience in large companies that small business owners would covet. The professional norm of a 30-year career with the same company is no longer. In fact, 41% of millennials when surveyed, say that they will stay at their current jobs for 2 years or less (Job Application Center). What would you do if one day your 9-5 job disappeared? This book is a great resource to help you build an insurance plan for a side hustle.

Conclusion

I never wanted my profession to define my life and my legacy. That’s why I devote a lot of my time developing hobbies, and trying out new interest. I believe the path to true career bliss involves both financial independence and a satisfying trade that you find joy in doing. What are YOU doing to maximize your potential?

Giveaway ending Wednesday 12/6/2017 7 pm PST

Leave a comment with your name under the post and tell me how your life would benefit from this book. I will pick a winner on the night of 12/6 and ship a copy of Entrepreneurial You to you within the week! Only US residents are eligible.

Disclaimer: This is not a sponsored post. I was given a free press copy of Entrepreneurial You to review.

All photography by Natalie Alvarado @ Stylenfuse

The post Maximize Your Career Potential || Entrepreneurial You by Dorie Clark [Book Review & Book giveaway] appeared first on Cubicle Chic.

A Book That Will Change Your Opinion on What’s “Networking”

You’re boarding a flight. You have your carry-on suitcase tucked away in the overhead compartment. You put your coffee and magazine down and settled down next to the passenger you’re about to spend 5 hours of your life breathing the same air with. You look up and realize he’s the leader of an organization you’ve been desperately trying to get in touch with. “How do I do this??” You ask yourself. Now…only if you’ve read Build Your Dream Network. (Answer is at the bottom of the post. Keep reading!)

I’d take a wild guess and say that most of us don’t think butterflies and ice-cream when we hear the word networking. I’d even say that most of us even dread it. And for those of us that have tried to improve our networking skills, we are probably all keenly aware of the rules thumb when it comes to networking – read up about who you’re going to meet first, remember people’s names, listen more than you speak, and never eat alone (this tip from Chanele at DoWellDressWell.com I’d never forget).

Truth is, we only get to put these things into practice when we get to “networking events”. And when we don’t feel like we are in “networking mode”, our eyes are peeled to our phones, we don’t initiate conversations, and we try to keep to ourselves because it’s more comfortable that way.

What Networking Is NOT

One of the first things the myth the author debunks is the fact that your network is this “external resource” we tap into when we need something. No. In 2017, your network is in your everyday life. It’s your Facebook friends, your neighbors, the barista you buy coffee from, your blog readers, and your coworkers. So, building a network is not the traditional hustling to get your name out and the frenzy of business card exchange that comes to mind, but a constant stream of meaningful, intentional and purposeful interaction between you and the people you regularly meet.

Who Should Read BYDN?

If you’re wondering who should read “ Build Your Dream Network”, it’s pretty much everyone:

·      Bloggers and writers

·      Small business owners

·      Corporate ladder climbers

3 Reasons Why You Won’t Want to Miss Build Your Dream Network

To summarize, here are 3 quick reasons why you should NOT miss Build Your Dream Network:

1. I’m going to go on a limb and call this book the 21st century’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People”. C’mon, I know Dale Carnegie is a renowned relationship expert and has been for the last 80 years. But that’s precisely the point – it’s been 80 years! Navigating emails and LinkedIn invites require a different expertise than what we’ve been reading since the beginning of the last century. The tagline of the book is “Forging Powerful Relationships in a Hyper-Connected World” with “hyper-connected” being the keyword here – it’s our world in 2017!
2. The author J. Kelly Hoey has an impressive and, quite honestly, intimidating suite of credentials and accomplishments. Yet, she writes with such humor and humility that really makes you want to read on. If someone who’s accomplished so much wants to sit down with me and dish on her secret to success, I’m all ears.
3. This book is full of simple graphs on how-to’s and checklists (see photo below). It’s truly a modernized book – I haven’t seen a book that’s so tailored to the 2017’s reader’s minds. Nowadays when I read, I constantly find myself wanting to take a mental snapshot of good points and phrases. This book has packaged all the points in these infographics that are cute and easy to grasp. All you have to do is to take a photo of the page!

So, what is the secret to networking success? Two words: CURIOSITY and GENEROSITY. As to how to apply these principles.. you gotta read Build Your Dream Network to find out!

To Enter The Giveaway

I have one free copy of Build Your Dream Network for one lucky Cubicle Chic Reader! If you leave me a comment below with your name and email address, letting me know what the typical networking occasion you run into and what your biggest challenge is when it comes to networking, you will be entered into the drawing for this book! Please enter by 12:00AM Thursday, May 25, 2017.

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