Direct Answer
Next Economy life design is the practice of aligning your life, work, money, consumption, relationships, and energy with the economy you want to help create. It recognizes that systems change is not only organizational. It is also personal, relational, cultural, and practical.
Why Life Design belongs in Business Education
Many people enter business education asking what they should build, lead, or grow. But another question often sits underneath: How do I want to live? If someone is trying to create an economy that benefits all life while their own life is organized around burnout, isolation, debt, overconsumption, or misalignment, the work becomes harder to sustain. Life design helps reconnect purpose, capacity, and action.
The Hierarchy of Consumption
One practice from the Next Economy MBA is reflecting on consumption. Before buying something, ask whether the need is real, whether ownership is necessary, whether borrowing or sharing would work, whether it can be made or repaired, whether reuse is possible, whether a local producer exists, and whether there is a values-aligned option. This is not about purity. It is about recovering imagination and agency.
Divest, Invest, Barter, Gift, Share
Next Economy life design also invites people to rethink money and exchange. What can you divest from? What can you invest time, money, or attention into? Where can barter, gifting, sharing, or timebanking meet needs while building relationship? Many of these practices already exist in communities around the world. The work is to honor them, learn from them, and make them more accessible without romanticizing hardship.
Purpose as a Question
A useful reflection is: What is different in the world because I have lived into my purpose? This is not a productivity prompt. It is an invitation to notice the thread between inner life and outer work. Purpose may show up through entrepreneurship, parenting, organizing, artistry, care, teaching, healing, or steady work inside an institution.
Call to Action
Our Next Economy Living program specifically explores life design in a mission aligned community, and our Next Economy MBA includes life design because the work of systems change needs grounded, resilient people. Download the Course Outline and FAQ to see how this fits into the first six sessions.