HCLI Partners With Designing Your Life Institute

Published 27 June 2023

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Designing Your Life Institute Arrives in Singapore — Empowering Singaporeans to Build Meaningful, Joyful Lives

Singapore, 27 June 2023 — Designing Your Life Institute (DYLI) is co-founded by Bill Burnett, an Adjunct Professor, Stanford University and co-author of the New York Times bestseller, Designing Your Life, a transformative title which has sold over 1 million copies worldwide, and Executive Director of the Life Design Lab at Stanford University as well as Mark Wee, one of Singapore’s design thinking pioneers and previously the Executive Director of DesignSingapore Council. The Stanford Lab has trained over 350 universities worldwide to teach Designing Your Life. Bill Burnett’s viral Ted Talk, ‘Five Steps to Designing the Life You Want’, has been viewed over 8 million times on YouTube. Extensive post-workshop research has shown tangible changes from mid-careerists participants, with a 40% increase in control over career path and a 23% increase in hopes to build a long-term career, when self-evaluating pre- and post-workshop.

Designing Your Life Institute (DYLI), a non-profit that aims to help Singaporeans design their most fulfilling lives, officially announces its launch today. Co-founded by Bill Burnett and Mark Wee, the Institute has its roots in the New York Times best-seller ‘Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life’, co-authored by Burnett; and the corresponding popular academic course at Stanford University, that has been picked up at over 350 universities around the world, including the Life Design Lab at Johns Hopkins University, and the Life Design Program at Bowling Green State University.

“We are privileged to be able to launch the Designing Your Life Institute in Singapore today, providing a space for individuals to reimagine and design their lives,” said Bill Burnett, Chairman and Managing Director, DYLI. “We’ve seen immense success in the founding programme at Stanford and have also run several successful workshops in Singapore. With my co-founder Mark Wee, we hope to empower all Singaporeans with the tools to effectively design meaning, purpose and joy into their lives and their careers. We believe that a designer’s mindset is also a growth and resilient mindset, necessary to navigate the future and the many changes coming to Singapore.”

A design thinking pioneer in Singapore, Wee first met Burnett through a mutual friend and subsequently engaged him and his Life Design Lab team for a Design Your Life (DYL) workshop in Singapore when he was the Executive Director of the DesignSingapore Council. The workshop, which received an overwhelmingly positive response, inspired Wee that a greater impact could be made by driving DYL as a national movement to equip everyone with the tools to design a more meaningful and purposeful life. The Designing Your Life framework combines principles from design thinking, positive psychology, and personal development to offer a unique, fun, and easy-to-apply approach to life and careers.

Mark Wee, Co-Founder, DYLI adds, “We think this is the right time to launch DYLI in Singapore. We’ve already seen the impact DYL has made on people across the world and locally and we thought—how powerful it would be for everyone in Singapore to understand it and incorporate this into their lives. We are grateful to our founding partners, HCLI and RP, who believe in our vision. We aim to develop more institutional partnerships that can help our movement cascade into the community and drive a national movement.”

Strategic Partnerships

In tandem with its launch, DYLI announces two strategic partnerships with Republic Polytechnic (RP) and Human Capital Leadership Institute (HCLI), extending the institute’s outreach to tertiary students and the business leaders community.

As a center of excellence that facilitates the acceleration of leadership development and strategic human capital management capabilities in Asia, the Human Capital Leadership Institute is keen to bring Designing Your Life tools to the business community of Asia.
“At HCLI, we aim to bring world class thinking to Asia. We are thrilled to partner with Bill Burnett, Mark Wee, and the Designing Your Life Institute to bring DYL thinking to the business community in Asia. We believe DYL principles enable business professionals to actively pursue and fulfill their individual ambitions and to ultimately live happier lives,” shares Doris Sohmen-Pao, Chief Executive Officer of the Human Capital Leadership Institute.

As business professionals today explore multiple pathways, DYL frameworks can be a powerful tool for them to chart their own personal pathway towards success and happiness in their work and personal lives. “We’d like to add “job-crafting” to the working professionals’ toolkit so they can reframe their work and make changes that lead to a more purposeful career,” adds Doris Sohmen-Pao.
In 2022, HCLI piloted the DYL curriculum in the Singapore Leaders Network workshop to an audience of HR professionals, which was very well received. Facilitated by Bill, the audience learned about the DYL model and practiced reframing and redesigning their work lives. HCLI has incorporated segments of DYL tools across multiple existing programmes including Young Leaders Programme (YLP), Leaders Programme (LP) and HR Leaders Programme (HRLP).

HCLI plans to bring DYL frameworks to diverse audiences – from professionals looking to reinvent themselves, career military officers aiming to enter the civilian workforce, and HR professionals seeking to increase employee engagement and retention in their organizations. HCLI will also partner with DYLI on research projects focused on business professionals in Asia, which can translate to insights customized for success in the region.

“In today’s fast-changing world, business professionals are constantly on a quest to find purpose. Attrition is at an all-time high. Some of DYL’s frameworks help counter this concerning and unsustainable trend and provide tools not to resign but to redesign,” says Doris Sohmen-Pao.