Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us pdfdrive com

TAKE A SAGMEISTER

The designer Stefan Sagmeister has found a brilliant way to ensure he’s living a Type I life. Think about the standard pattern in developed countries, he says. People usually spend the first twenty-five or so years of their lives learning, the next forty or so years working, and the final twenty-five in retirement. That boilerplate timeline got Sagmeister wondering: Why not snip five years from retirement and sprinkle them into your working years?

So every seven years, Sagmeister closes his graphic design shop, tells his clients he won’t be back for a year, and goes off on a 365-day sabbatical. He uses the time to travel, to live places he’s never been, and to experiment with new projects. It sounds risky, I know. But he says the ideas he generates during the year “off ” often provide his income for the next seven years. “Taking a Sagmeister,” as I now call it, requires a fair bit of planning and saving, of course. But doesn’t forgoing that big-screen TV seem a small price to pay for an unforgettable—and un-get-backable—year of personal exploration? The truth is, this idea is more realistic than many of us realize. Which is why I hope to take a Sagmeister in a couple of years and why you should consider it, too.