260. From Role To Soul: The Four Ingredients For Mastering Meaning

260. From Role To Soul: The Four Ingredients For Mastering Meaning

Why your best life isn’t about having the right answers, but about asking the right questions.


Finding meaning and purpose in life isn’t about having all the answers. For Bill Burnett and Dave Evans, it’s about having the courage and curiosity to constantly engage with the questions.

As designers, Burnett and Evans have careers spanning everything from academia to companies like Apple, Electronic Arts, and Hasbro. But beyond fashioning better products and user experiences, they’ve also put their expertise toward the transcendent, writing several books about designing and living lives filled with meaning and purpose.

“Compasses say North, not Seattle,” says Evans, highlighting how many mistakenly think of purpose as a single destination. “We're all a dynamic, flowing, constantly changing thing. So how could a changing thing have one static right answer?” Instead, he and Burnett maintain that meaning is more about “going the right direction, not [finding] the right destination.”

In this episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, Burnett and Evans join host Matt Abrahams to explore their strategies for leading a purposeful life. Rather than “rehearsing [an] answer,” their method involves “living [a] question” — embracing curiosity and designing a life through dialogue with ourselves and with others.

To listen to the extended Deep Thinks version of this episode, please visit FasterSmarter.io/premium.

Episode Reference Links:

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Chapters:

  • (00:00) - Introduction
  • (02:44) - Meaning & Purpose as a Direction
  • (03:24) - Coherence & Living in Alignment
  • (04:05) - Design Thinking for Life Decisions
  • (05:38) - Prototyping Conversations
  • (07:11) - Odyssey Plans: Three Possible Futures
  • (09:15) - The Four Elements of Meaning
  • (11:04) - Wonder Glasses: Shifting Perspective
  • (12:30) - Transactional vs. Flow World
  • (14:18) - How to Build a Formative Community
  • (15:41) - The Practice-to-Production Trap
  • (16:49) - The Final Three Questions
  • (21:27) - Conclusion

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Want to change someone’s mind? First, explains Robert Cialdini, you have to change their framing.For Cialdini, the Regent's Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Marketing at Arizona State University, ...

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75. Love & Money: How to Talk About Big Decisions Together

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Do love and money mix? Labor economist and Stanford Graduate School of Business professor emerita Myra Strober says absolutely. “Separating money and love is not a good idea. I have had 40 years to th...

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74. Rethinks: How Emotion Shapes Our Communication, Decisions, and Experiences

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In one of our most popular episodes, professor of Marketing Baba Shiv shares his research on how emotions affect decision making. Knowing this, and applying techniques to help guide our audience throu...

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73. Listen Up: Why It’s Better to Be Interested Than Interesting

73. Listen Up: Why It’s Better to Be Interested Than Interesting

As a communication expert, Alison Wood Brooks spends a lot of time talking about talking. But, as she says, listening is just as important.“My course is called TALK,” says Wood Brooks, who is the O'Br...

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72. Quick Thinks: Talk It Out – How to Successfully Negotiate and Resolve Conflict

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When it comes to negotiating and managing conflict, Professor Michele Gelfand says it’s time to get creative.Everybody has wants and needs. So what do we do when our priorities compete with those of o...

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71. Strategy Success: How to Communicate Your Gameplan

71. Strategy Success: How to Communicate Your Gameplan

As Professor Jesper Sørensen sees it, a winning strategy is the result of conversations, not commands.Sørensen says strategy can be directed from the C-suite, but it doesn’t have to be. “Lots of great...

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