Joyful Life - Designing Your Life - How to Build a Well-Lived

I am a Career and Leadership Coach. This book provides many opportunities for my clients to explore the many "right next steps" of their careers. My clients have enjoyed the book and I will continue to recommend it.

I heard about Designing Your Life in an episode of Shankar Vedantam's Hidden Brain. The book roughly follows a workshop format of a Stanford class. It's quick to read—slower to do—and full of fun examples and good reminders.

Pushing 65, after a lifetime of executive experience, I deeply appreciate clarity, realism, empathy and high aspiration. I knew within the first hour of reading that these guys had built an exceptionally fine tool to help virtually all of us in finding our way forward. What a gift. You need to encounter this way of thinking, and I am grateful it came my way at the time that it did.

An absolute must for anyone curious about their path in life. It's a perfect start to a life interview with yourself. It opens up possibilities to creating what we as kids thought adulting would look like. Would definitely recommend.

Simply AMAZING book filled with explanations on how we have difficulties with making choices, how to work to make those choices and how having too many choices can disable us. Do be an active participant in the exercises because they will really make a difference in finding clarity. The thought we work to find happiness when we need to be happy no matter the choices made is very Buddhist, but makes complete sense in being able to enjoy the now. The key for me was the Odyssey plan and making three plans, looking at them without undue scrutiny and the explanation he offers the the emotional "gut" reactions we have. This is a must read for those unhappy or not knowing where they want to go i the net 5 years. But it is a constant journey, so it is important to reevaluate as time goes on because a joyful life comes with adaptations.

Best thing here was to see explanation of why we are unaware sometimes of what we think about because the mind is so deep and bringing the information out needs to be done by the lower brain. Also, the use of all resources for us to make decisions ...

In this book you learn simple but extremely insightful practices to help you understand yourself, your priorities and values, and then translate those into building blocks to lead you in your life journey.

Maybe this book is good for college students or retirees, but it's not good for people my age, 53. It has suggestions like if I want to open a restaurant, I should be a busboy first to learn about different facets of the business. Hmm, at a busboy's wages, who would pay for my mortgage, vacations, summer camps, and car? It also said I should try to combine my interests with my skills. Let's see, how to combine genealogy with chemical engineering? They don't combine. This book is full of ideas that sound good but don't actually work in practice for people my age.

Excellent perspective on creating alternatives in your life and career. Some of the myths seemed obvious if you have read other career books, but I really like their perspective on failure being essential to learning. As an experienced career coach, I like that it doesn't just focus on your next job, but truly balancing what engages and energizes you to create a life that fits you. It takes committment to work through the exercises, but the results are much more meaningful as a result. I have and will continue to recommend it to clients and friends.

Valuable insight at any stage of one's life, this is not exclusive to college students. The exercises (yes, there is homework), help you drill into what is true for you, and not what someone else says you should do; then builds the courage to try a different path by helping you see that, yes, indeed you can.

This is hands down one of the most impactful books I’ve ever read. If you’re stuck in life or even just a little dissatisfied and want a book that will help you make changes fast then I would check this out. The authors not only clearly have solid Silicon Valley innovation backgrounds but are also surprisingly erudite on stuff I would consider more the purview of a philosophy/existentialism or psychology professor than former tech engineers. Well worth your time in my opinion. The book has radically changed how I think and act on a daily basis in a positive way.

Having two kids in college, I believe this book should be mandatory reading for every college student! So many tools, ideas, stories and insights. I've recommended this book to many of my colleagues as well...either for themselves or for their high school or college-aged children. In fact, I'm giving a copy to my daughter for Christmas. But anyone, at any stage of life/career will find valuable take-aways. Buy the book!

I've enjoyed working through the exercises in the book. It has helped me focus on reframing questions and problems to consider solutions that I don't believe I would have come with prior to reading this book. These are lessons I'm trying to also impart to our kids. Don't be defeated - find another way around the problem.