S4E02 - Kathy Davies on design thinking and life decisions

Season 4

Jul. 5

Decisions about what you want to do next in life feel big- they can literally change your life. That's why so many people feel stuck in the process. Today I'm speaking with my friend, Kathy Davies, the Managing Director of the Life Design Lab at Stanford University. She is also the co-founder of Designing Your Life for Women and a Master Trainer of the Designing Your Life process.

In today's episode, Kathy provides an overview of what it looks like to apply design thinking to life decisions, talks about the value of sitting with emotions and feelings, explains why community helps us get unstuck, and invites employers to help co-create new options that work for both companies and employees.

Topics Covered

03:23 What is life design?
05:05 The human centered design thinking process
05:36 Empathy
05:43 Define
06:27 Ideate
07:33 Prototype
08:42 Prototyping as a mindset shift
9:30 Start small
10:54 Prototyping careers through conversation
12:26 Test: incorporate your learnings
14:08 The importance of recognizing when it's time to engage in the process, and when it may not be time
16:12 The value of recognizing what we need
18:10 The value of sitting with emotions and feelings
19:48 We are all in process, especially at the time of transition
21:10 It helps to do this in community
22:39 The feelings that keep people stuck
25:29 The opportunity companies have in co-creating options that work
30:38 Four-step process for getting started with life design
35:38 The key mindset shift

Guest Bio

Kathy Davies is the Managing Director of the Life Design Lab at Stanford University, where she teaches Product Design, Mechanical Engineering, and “Designing Your Life”. She is also the co-founder of Designing Your Life for Women and a Master Trainer of the Designing Your Life process. She has 15 years of experience developing electromechanical and software products, and proudly holds five patents. Kathy consults with Silicon Valley companies, teaches design thinking, conducts ethnographic research, and develops product strategies and concepts. She believes design thinking and life design are powerful mechanisms for getting unstuck, and is a passionate advocate for use of design thinking to empower social change, especially around equity for women.

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— Michelle Florendo