Author's Name: Bernard Roth

Buddy's idea wasn't the boldest in the class.

When you first meet him, you quickly realize he has a military background. It's evident from his demeanor—he appears stiff and perhaps even intimidating. He attended boarding school in Northern Ireland from the age of seven to eighteen, after which he joined the Royal Navy, serving for ten years.

Civilian life was frightening to him, and after leaving the army, he quickly fulfilled his civilian aspirations with a job at a major corporation and a paramilitary schedule. As a journalist, he traveled around the world, working for news organizations such as the BBC and CNBC. He later told me, "I'm the archetypal corporate employee."

When I met him, he was at Stanford University on a one-year fellowship for mid-career journalists. He was teaching a course called "Designer in Society," which encourages students to examine and take control of their lives. I've been an engineering professor at Stanford for 52 years, and in that time, I've met countless engineers who dreamed of starting their own companies one day—and then ended up working for Silicon Valley giants and never took a meaningful step toward making their dreams a reality. Very few ever get to follow their dreams and do what they want with their lives, and I wanted to do something about that. Having talent and great ideas is only part of the equation. The second—and much harder—step is taking action, taking responsibility for designing success in your life.

In 1969, I created “The Designer in Society” as a way to encourage students to think differently about how they pursued life goals—to get them out of the blue about possibilities and possibilities and into the real world.1 In developing this curriculum, I employed the principles of what has come to be known as “design thinking” (an important concept we’ll cover in more detail later) and included several ideas I found useful in helping people overcome obstacles that are often of their own making.

At the heart of this course, I created an optional project for the semester: Students had to choose between doing something they wanted to do but had never done, or addressing something that had been a problem in their lives. I was available to discuss their options. But I emphasized that this project should be theirs, and that they should do it for themselves, not for me. Ultimately, they were the ones who decided which project they would work on. I didn't judge whether what they did was good or great; I based the grade on the mere fact that they did the assigned work. If they completed the project, they received the grade and passed; if they didn't, they lost it.

One of the most important lessons the students learned from that class was to be honest with themselves—very honest. The more self-aware they are, the happier they will be; and the better you understand your motivations and personality, the more you can design your life to fulfill your desires.