Design the Life/Work You Love at The Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership, West Point
AYSE BIRSEL TESTIMONIALS
“Nothing is more important than designing the life that you love. One of the world’s best designers can show you how to do it!”
- Marshall Goldsmith, New York Times bestselling author of Triggers, MOJO and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There
"A fun, interactive workbook for unleashing creativity and redesigning our daily lives."
- Adam Grant, Wharton professor and New York Times bestselling author of GIVE AND TAKE
“If you are looking to focus your life on the things that really matter, you need to get to the next “Design the Life You Love" session. It helped me get back to what really matters in my life and it will do the same for you!”
- Chester Elton, Best Selling Author of "The Best Team Wins" & "All In,"
“Think of your most beautifully designed possession. Maybe it’s a watch or a computer? Maybe a piece of furniture? You look at it and you know that it’s been put together beautifully, with care and craftsmanship. That is what Your life can look like after Ayse and her Design the Life You Love workshop.”
- Peter Bregman, CEO of Bregman Partners and author of Leading with Emotional Courage
“As a facilitator of leadership workshops for 1000s of people, I was struck how Ayse created a compelling environment for me to feel safe to dig deep into my assumptions, views and perspectives about my life. The workshop help me to frame a vision for my life putting many aspects together that I had not fully connected before!”
- Patricia A. Gorton, Senior Talent Executive with Technology Business Background, MG100 Executive Coach
“Ayse Birsel has designed furniture, office systems, cookware and even a toilet seat. Taking what she’s learned from product design, she has developed a fun, playful approach to designing a life you love. Who else but a designer could give you the tools you need to examine your life and make it the best it can be?”
- John Edelman, CEO, Design Within Reach
“Ayse's book costs very little money, takes almost no time to go through and may have a gigantic impact on your life. This is good design: a tiny investment featuring enormous possibilities.”
- Stefan Sagmeister, Sagmeister & Walsh (BACK COVER BOOK)
“Birsel considers an incredibly wide array of inputs to synthesize them to make a creative leap that is unexpected and addresses a holistic set of needs in ways others can’t match (Economic, performance, human emotion, etc). Few do that.”
- Greg Parsons, Senior Vice President and Creative Director, Global Work at Herman Miller
“Remember when people used to tell each other impatiently to "Get a life!" Well, with this engaging book Ayse Birsel provides a well-wrought strategy for doing precisely that. In the process, readers gain some precious insights into what design is and what designers do.”
- Ralph Caplan, Smithsonian Design Mind and Author of By Design
“Here is my endorsement.....This book is Ayse at her very best. She has a unique gift for making the complex simple and the simple beautiful. This book will not only help you to see a better life it will unleash your hidden creative talent.”
- Brian Walker, CEO, Herman Miller
“Ayse's talent as a designer and her unique worldview collide perfectly in Design The Life You Love. For anyone who is looking for an imaginative yet logical way to think through life's challenges, this is for you. Learn how to shift your perspectives with design-thinking, and be inspired by her illustrations along the way."
- Beth Comstock, CMO, GE
"What took design so long, before it finally tackled the most important of all projects? It took Ayse Birsel, a designer that knows how to find elegant solutions for complex issues not only when it comes to products, but also when it comes to everybody's search for serenity, inspiration, and fulfillment in life."
- Paola Antonelli, Senior Design Curator, MoMA (Back of DLYL Book)
“Design the Life You Love is a very clever book. First, it provides everyone, designer and non-designer alike, with an incredibly useful framework and toolkit to carry out that most daunting of tasks, the life audit. Then, it’s also a superbly cogent analysis and description of the design process, presented in a light-hearted way that charms as it enlightens. Finally, it’s the intimate story of Ayse Birsel herself, of her work and life as a designer, mother and all-round creative spirit. Too often, design comes across as a daunting, rarefied field. With exuberance, optimism, wit and grace, Ayse invites everyone to come and play.”
- Helen Walters, Head of curation at TED
“If you want to stoke someone’s imagination, give them a picture book. If you want to feed their intellect, give them a book of literature. But if you want to fuel their future, give them this book. Design the Life You Love is an invitation to prioritize what’s important in your life—to literally put it down on paper through four simple but ingenious steps—and emerge with a kind of personal mission statement that will give you clarity, power, and purpose.”
- Allan Chochinov, Chair, Products of Design, School of Visual Arts (SVA)
“Ayse Birsel has delivered the ideal self-help workbook for our harried age—one that is playful, smart, pragmatic, and contagiously optimistic. Her fun, simple exercises add up to a remarkably powerful tool for realigning your life with your dreams.”
- Mason Currey, author of Daily Rituals: How Artists Work
Design the Team You Love
“After participating in numerous workshops over my career I found Ayse Birsel’s to be refreshingly useful, and it still forms the basis of much of our discussion about our role and direction as a team.
From my perspective as a leader it was a terrific way to clarify my vision for the team and our role in the larger organization. They were able to see, and buy into, a clear and honest agenda. There were no hidden motivations, and at the end of our session, we were more bonded as a team.
The workshop gave us a common language and useful heuristics for remembering our priorities. We also came away with powerful visualisations of our team, which I still find particularly useful.
Six months later, the company is undergoing a broad strategic development process, and as a team, we feel we are well ahead of the curve and prepared for what is happening. Of course we have lots of ways we still need to improve, but I feel that we have the strength of perspective and confidence as a team that originated with this workshop.”
- James de Vries, CREATIVE DIRECTOR HBR GROUP