Alive: A Guest Post by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans

By Bill Burnett, Dave Evans / February 4, 2026 at 12:01 am

It’s never too late to change your outlook on life — and we’ve got just the book to get you started. Read on for an exclusive essay from authors Bill Burnett and Dave Evans on writing How to Live a Meaningful Life.

Hardcover $27.00 ~~$30.00~~

How to Live a Meaningful Life: Using Design Thinking to Unlock Purpose, Joy, and Flow Every Day

By Bill Burnett , Dave Evans

In Stock Online

Hardcover $27.00 ~~$30.00~~

The #1 New York Times bestselling authors of Designing Your Life return with a groundbreaking guide to transforming your daily routine into one brimming with joy, purpose, and meaning.

Hey everybody,
It’s Bill and Dave here.

We started teaching life design at Stanford eighteen years ago. At the time, we had no idea how widely the ideas would travel, or how many people would eventually show up with similar questions and uncertainties. The success of the course convinced us that more people would benefit from the work, and Bill convinced Dave that we should write our first book, Designing Your Life.

Since then, more than a million people around the world have read the book. We’ve met thousands of them at talks, office hours, and through our coaching community. We’ve heard stories of career pivots, small experiments that changed everything, and big, brave leaps. Many people figured out what to do next with their lives.

But over time, we began to notice something else.

Again and again, people would say some version of: “Things are going well. I made the changes. And I still don’t feel fulfilled.”

One of those people was Alison. On paper, her life worked. Her job was stable, her relationships were fine, and nothing was obviously wrong. After reading Designing Your Life, she made thoughtful, practical changes. They helped. And yet, something still felt flat. Her days blurred together. Her work didn’t energize her. Lying awake at night, she kept returning to the same quiet question: If everything is okay, why doesn’t it feel that way?

She wasn’t alone. We heard versions of that story from students, professionals, parents, and retirees alike. And now we’re seeing it echoed even more broadly. One of the most common things people ask AI systems today is some version of “How do I find my purpose?” That tells us something important. The question of meaning is alive, urgent, and unresolved for a lot of people.

The problem, we think, isn’t that people are asking the wrong question. It’s that they’re asking it in a way that leads them nowhere.

Instead of searching for “the meaning of life,” we believe a more useful question is: How can I design more meaning in my life, right now?

That question led us to write How to Live a Meaningful Life.

This book builds on the same design mindsets as Designing Your Life, but it’s different in two important ways.

First, it shifts the focus from the what to the how. Before, we helped people design paths toward work and lives they wanted. This time, we’re helping people engage more fully with the life they already have. Not waiting for the perfect job, relationship, or future version of themselves to arrive before they feel alive.

Second, it moves beyond the idea of designing a life alone. Meaning doesn’t happen in isolation. We’re always in relationship, always shaped by the people and communities around us. In this book, we explore how to intentionally design formative communities that support who you are becoming.

Being fully alive means being present to the life you are in right now. It means noticing, savoring, and participating in the wonder and mystery all around you without waiting for the “perfect” job, partner, or life plan to unlock it.

That’s the shift: from chasing a life that’s complete on paper, to living a life that feels alive in practice.

That’s what this book is for. We hope you enjoy it.