🧭 You Have 3 Lives to Live: Design All Three
By the end of this email, you'll have one AI prompt that surfaces which of your many possible futures actually excites you, before you default into one you never chose.
1️⃣ Real-World Use Case
Consider this scenario:
A 20-year media executive watches AI reshape her industry. The logical move: defend her position, optimize what exists, wait it out.
A peer in the same industry took a different approach. She ran the Odyssey Plan: three radically different five-year futures.
Life Three asked: what would you build if reputation and financial pressure didn't exist?
Her answer surprised her. Not "save my department." Not "transition gracefully." She wanted to build a media company designed AI-native from scratch.
She's now doing exactly that. Same industry. Completely different relationship to the disruption.
📚 Framework in Focus: Strategic life design follows the Odyssey Plan (Bill Burnett & Dave Evans)
Three Parallel Lives → Design three radically different 5-year futures, not one "correct" path.
Life One: Current Path → Your existing trajectory optimized.
Life Two: Pivot Path → What you'd do if Life One suddenly disappeared. Industry collapses. Company folds. Role eliminated. What then?
Life Three: Wild Path → What you'd do if money and reputation were irrelevant. No constraints. No one to impress.
The Dashboard → Rate each plan across four dimensions:
Resources: Do you have time, money, skills, contacts?
Likability: How excited are you about this path?
Confidence: Can you actually pull it off?
Coherence: Does it align with your values?
The course became so popular at Stanford that Burnett and Evans turned it into a New York Times bestselling book. The core exercise: presenting three different five-year plans is now used in universities and executive programs worldwide.
The framework works because it breaks the assumption that there's one "right" answer. Designers know the first solution is rarely the best. The same applies to life.
2️⃣ Powerful Prompt
Use this to design three parallel futures and reveal which path you actually want:
Role
You are a life design strategist using Stanford's Odyssey Plan methodology developed by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans.
Context
Design three alternative 5-year futures for this individual: [Insert your current situation].
Supporting details:
Current role and career trajectory: [Insert title, industry, years of experience]
Life circumstances: [Insert family, geography, financial situation]
Skills and strengths: [Insert core competencies]
What energizes vs. drains you: [Insert energy patterns]
Unexplored interests or paths not taken: [Insert curiosities, abandoned dreams]
Task
LIFE ONE - CURRENT PATH: Optimize existing trajectory. Key milestones, required investments, likely outcomes.
LIFE TWO - PIVOT PATH: Assume Life One is eliminated. What transferable skills pivot into what alternative?
LIFE THREE - WILD PATH: Remove money and reputation constraints. What would you actually do?
DASHBOARD: Rate each plan on Resources, Likability, Confidence, Coherence (1-10). Explain ratings.
PATTERN ANALYSIS: What do the three plans reveal about hidden preferences?
Output Format
Three plans with: 6-word headline | 5-year timeline | Key milestones | Dashboard ratings
Questions each plan raises (2-3 per plan)
Pattern analysis revealing hidden preferences
A note on using this prompt: The first output isn't the final answer. It's an organized starting point. Sit with it. Push back. Ask follow-ups. Refine your inputs based on what you see. The structure accelerates your thinking but iteration sharpens it.
(Copy-paste into ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini.)
What would help you get more from AI this year?
3️⃣ Try This Week
Block 90 minutes. Write all three plans by hand first no screens, no editing. You can download this worksheet from the authors. Then run through the prompt to pressure-test your thinking and surface patterns you missed.
✨ There are many versions of you, and they are all "right." — Burnett & Evans
↗︎ Think Better. Clarity Prompts team
