DESIGN THE LIFE YOU LOVE BY AYSE BIRSEL > DESIGN TAKES COURAGE

Dear Designers of Life!

Last week I wrote here, Design = Joy.

The next day, my friend CB Bowman interviewed me for her?CB LIVE! Courage To Leap and Lead, ?rated in the Top 100 podcasts on Apple and Amazon in Europe!

CB reminded me—design takes courage!

Design is imagining the future based on what we know today. That is inherently risky.

It takes courage.?

For a company, courage is investing in products no one has done before.?

For TOTO, it took great courage to invest in me, a 26-year-old female designer, to design what is now unofficially known as the world's most comfortable toilet seat. Likewise, it took courage for me to stand up to TOTO engineers and enlist the CEO's help in making the design a reality (I shared my design "war" stories during last week's Virtual Tea.)

Especially for companies that have a great track record, creating a future that matches their history is not easy.?For Tiffany & Co., Harvard Business Review, and Converse, we helped them distill their timeless design DNA and safely bridge their past and future.

Marshall Goldsmith, the world's #1 leadership coach, often advises his amazing clients to leave while at the top of their game. Imagine the courage it took?Hubert Joly, ?who turned BestBuy around before becoming a bestselling author, to do just that. Enormous courage.

Sometimes, simple things require courage.?

A few nights ago, I sat next to?Noémie Le Pertel ?at dinner. We're both members of 100 Coaches, but this was the first time we were meeting. Making new friends gives me joy, but my introverted self requires courage to get started. Luckily Noémi and I stayed put all night, talked, and are off to a fabulous start.?

It takes courage to design! So how can we shore up that courage?

1. Imagine the joy you will receive—your reward for having courage. A new friendship, bigger market share, a design award, you name it.

2. Get out of your head. Think of the other person.?What if, as a result of your courage, you make a positive difference in another person's life.?

3. Remember how exciting doing something you haven't done before can be. It's definitely not boring, and it also expands your perception of time.

4. Put yourself in a place from which you can't back out. Sometimes this is a physical space—I was seated in the middle of a booth which made it hard for me to escape from dinner. Sometimes it's ringing Frank Gehry's doorbell before you can change your mind about interviewing him (true story by Paola Antonelli, the fabulous design curator at MoMA, which you can read in my?Inc.com article. )

5. Practice Grace under Pressure. One of my dear friends and a person I admire very much,?John Baldoni, ?executive coach, keynote speaker, and bestselling author (15 books and counting), is coming to our Virtual Tea on Wednesday. He will explain to us how to practice grace in difficult moments. To hear a fun conversation between John and me, listen to this episode of his?podcast. ?

And join John and me this Wednesday at 5 PM ET at my Design the Life You Love Virtual Tea. We will learn about Grace under Pressure and practice it.

In design, we learn by doing. Every Virtual Tea is about thinking creatively and collaboratively about our life and work using design tools.?

Virtual Tea date and time: Wednesday, March 23, 2022, 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM EDT.

You can RSVP below.

Here is the?link ?to share the newsletter and the invitation to the Virtual Tea with friends. If you know of someone who's thinking about their next project, please invite them. Kids, parents, spouses, collaborators, friends, mentors, and mentees are welcome!?

See you Wednesday!

RSVP

Inspiration:

Pratt Presents Women Made

This is a chance to see each other in person!

Thursday, March 24, at 6:30 PM

Higgins Hall Auditorium, Pratt Institute's Brooklyn campus

61 St. James Place

Free and open to the public.

Reservations are required at:?this link .

Design the Honest Life You Love

Save the Date: May 14, Saturday, 11AM-4PM ET.?

Ron Carucci? and I invite you to Design the Honest Life You Love.?Mark Reiter, ?best-selling co-author, says,?"What is most amazing about Ayse Birsel and Ron Carucci's Design the HONEST Life You Love program is not its extraordinary efficiency but the simple fact that it does what it claims to do – it will coax and cajole you to be more honest and transparent about the life you really want for yourself. It certainly did for me. Honestly."?

Online event.

Tickets?here.

Virtual Tea #100 Celebration

Save the Date: April 13, Wednesday 5PM.

Our 100th Virtual Tea will be a very special celebration. Artist?Tamar Ettun ?will help us "trap" our inner demons as we make incantation bowls, also known as devil-trap bowls, using household items.

Free, online event.?

You can sign up for our newsletter for more information,?here.

Thank you!

Design the Joy You Love!

Ayse Birsel + Leah Caplan + Selin Miskavi

Our Collaboration:

Do you have a question about your life and work projects? Email me a question or reflection and inspire my next Newsletter and potentially Virtual Tea.Co-Design Workshops:

We make co-designing with you, your organization, your teams, and end-users easy and game-changing. Your project can be anything from Resilience to Hybrid Culture, from Luxury to Adventure to Excellence, from Birth to Long Life, from your Design DNA to Office Systems, Automobiles to Health. Join Amazon, CVS, Herman Miller, Staples, Walmart, and others and email us at?[email protected] ?for a conversation and a short demo.By registering for this online Zoom event, you automatically allow your data to be used by Birsel + Seck. This session will be recorded and might be shared for marketing and educational purposes.