Here's what I learned from experts on life design

If 14-year-old Mike were to get a glimpse at the life I get to live today he'd be dumbfounded. I have managed to carve out a life that I love. Recently, I learned that the way my life has turned out didn't just happen by accident.

Up until this past Saturday I truly believed that I've stumbled from cool opportunity to cool opportunity. I felt that way because I have never been the reflecting or journaling type. I don't often slow down to think about how I got here.

In the throws of working on a team at the Reinvention Lab (think skunk works for Teach for America) I found myself sitting at a dinner with some incredible innovators in education who were all doing work to help high school students navigate their lives. Now the purpose of the dinner was for us to mine learnings for a product/program we're building for high school students.

Here's a few really practical things that stood out to me:

Journaling and Reflecting

Most around the table thought journaling and reflecting on decisions you make is the way to develop any sort of “skill” or practice of life design.

This is something I don't do nearly enough with my life as it pertains to navigating the world. My good friend and colleague Sunanna Chand sometimes has to get on zoom or on the phone with me and make me reflect on both what is working and not working. I'm thankful for that and, after this dinner, I realize I don't do it enough.

It was this weekend that I really took time to pause and really, deeply reflect on how cool my professional and personal life journey has been.

Prototyping

Rajan Patel is the Founder of this Dent Education. I've written about Rajan before so will just quickly say that he's brilliant and more people should know about the work he's done and is doing.

At one point Rajan mentioned that life is just a series of prototypes. It's a series of works in progress. You're never done building or designing. You're constantly prototyping. As someone who makes prototypes for a living, he's right. Life, to me, is this beautiful collection of works in progress. You get to keep working it out and improving on the prototype at all times.

In that respect, you're never done designing your life.

Mindsets

Almost everyone at this dinner reflected on their own journey from youth to adulthood with mention of the importance of mindsets, mindset shifting, and reframing.

This was super powerful because we covered everything from unpacking your trauma to finding people to be in community with you to use the dark parts of your story to fuel your mission. My longtime friend Dr. Ai said it beautifully when she said, “Your mess becomes your mission.”

I used to teach students for many years that the way we see ourselves impacts everything we do and say. For some reason, in this dinner format, I was just able to apply that to myself in a way I hadn't thought about before.

What I'm sure of

I'm not sure how much I heard at this dinner that I'd never heard before. When I sat down to write this I realized that I'd heard or even said some version of these things before.

But there was something about the environment whether it be the food or the cool space we were in or the fact that everyone there took time out of their busy lives to come help us at the Reinvention Lab build something cool.

I'm not sure what was different this time but I am sure that, as I left that room, I thought about my life and how it is playing differently.

BIG thank you to Laura Thomas and the amazing students she brought, Rajan Patel, Dr. Ai Addyson-Zhang and Anika Manzoor for showing up to share your brilliance.

HUGE thank you to Colleen Keating-Crawford who's my running buddy in this work. Seriously she's been the other half of my brain in this. Thanks Colleen being you!

And to you, the reader, thanks for being here on the Schoolish Newsletter (we're back!). Until next time, remember, School Sucks and we have to do something about it.

Peace out family.