Practice What You Preach
“The only thing guaranteed in this life is death, but we rarely consider our own death. You’ve got 30 minutes to write your own eulogy. Do your best to imagine what your friends and family will say on the fateful day they gather to remember you.”
And with that assignment, Bernie, Aleta, and I launched our latest Transformative Design course at the d.school (sadly missing our longtime collaborator Logan Deans). Unlike many other courses at Stanford, this one isn’t concerned with external product or service design; instead, as we often say, “You are your design project.”
The eulogy assignment has a particular way of illuminating a concept we’ve dubbed “value/being alignment.” All too often, the eulogy exposes parts of a student’s life that are mis-aligned: they aren’t living in accordance with the story they hope gets told at the end of their life.
For whatever reason, I found myself in multiple conversations this week where I was asked about the origin of this blog. Both times, I expressed that it came down to value/being alignment. I hadn’t conducted a eulogy exercise of my own, yet I still had the sneaking feeling that NOT sharing the things I was learning was outright hypocrisy! I valued (and advocated publicly for) the idea of sharing one’s thoughts in writing, and yet, I didn’t do it. And one day, the misalignment bothered me enough that I googled “How to start a blog” and began this journey. (As an aside, the same thing happened with napping… another tactic of creative masters that’s changed my life.)
Value/Being alignment often comes down to a difference between what we say (value) and what we do (being). Where there’s a difference between what you say and do, the first step is to notice it, and then, either stop saying it, or start doing it! That, or live life misaligned…
But as we’ve learned from hundreds of students at Stanford over the years, those areas of misalignment, once exposed can haunt you.
Related: Correspond Broadly
Related: Take A Nano Nap
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Your first idea is rarely your best. Exploring multiple possibilities, even "dummy" options, is the key to unlocking innovation. Here’s how to maximize your creativity and elevate your problem-solving skills: reject the trap of settling for your initial thoughts.