Dave Evans

Act Three

Overview

• Dave Evans is a lecturer at Stanford, management consultant, and co-founder of Electronic Arts. He is the co-author of the books Designing Your Life, Designing Your Work Life, and Designing Your New Work Life.

• The conversation focuses on applying the principles from Designing Your Life to retirement and Act 3 of life.

Key Takeaways

• The pandemic caused people to re-evaluate their lives and careers, leading to an increased interest in "designing your life." Many realized that going back to the pre-pandemic status quo was no longer desirable.

• Quiet quitting reflects long-standing workplace disengagement and lack of meaning, not a new phenomenon. The difference now is an unwillingness to continue tolerating lack of meaning and purpose at work among younger generations.

• Personal practices like meditation, journaling and yoga are important for cultivating awareness and meaning. They help develop capacities for being present and having "alive" experiences.

• Impact and meaning are different. Impact comes from accomplishments focused on the future. Meaning comes from experiences of coherence, community, flow and wonder in the present moment.

• In retirement and Act 3, wayfinding to discover the next version of oneself often takes much longer than expected. Exploration is a project in itself, not just a quick step to figuring everything out.

• Later life can be uniquely satisfying as people gain more freedom and complete earlier accomplishments. The invitation is to not just continue previous patterns out of fear, but discover greater meaning and aliveness.

Mentioned Resources

• Books:

• Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans

• Designing Your New Work Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans

• Falling Upward by Richard Rohr

• The Second Mountain by David Brooks

• Strength to Strength by Arthur Brooks

• Website: www.designingyour.life

This podcast is sponsored by Good Morning Freedom, my retirement coaching firm. I help executives and professionals plan the non-financial part of their retirement, like how to discover new purpose and how you want to spend your time. I offer a 1:1 coaching retirement blueprint package where we work together to discover some new avenues of exploration for your Act Three. This coaching is completely custom and will provide you with a ton of resources and support as you transition to this new stage of life. For all the details, please go to goodmorningfreedom.com/services.

Connect with Cara on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caraliveslife/ or Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/caraliveslife/ or Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cara.a.gray/