My friend and co-collaborator (and official “Goodluck Guinea Pig” that I try all my new ideas out on), Justin Castelli, wrote a post with a clever acronym that I wanted to unpack here.
The acronym is R.E.N.E.E. and it stands for Rediscover, Envision, Navigate, Embody, Evolve.
The short version: any planning or advice-giving that doesn't start with asking “What is life?” And, “Why are you actually doing this?” will never get you to satisfaction. It might get you optimized, but it won’t keep you happy.
I tend to agree with his approach here.
Life is never complete until it’s completed and you’re dead. Morbid, perhaps, but - memento mori - so, there’s always a chapter we’re leaving and a new chapter we’re starting, and - as much as I wish it occasionally was - life just isn’t boring.
Some people want to constantly blow everything up, and others want to cling to life as if nothing is ever changing. Anything you can do to help people understand themselves, and the direction they want to orient towards, is damn near invaluable.
Justin’s doing that with R.E.N.E.E.
Orient is the operative word for me here. Because it brings to mind one other acronym I use all the time and don’t really think about explaining often enough too.
The acronym I think about the most is OODA.
OODA stands for Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. It’s a fighter pilot thing, from John Boyd. The original idea is that when you’re trying to win a dogfight, you want to see what your opponent is doing, orient their behavior with your own capabilities, commit to an advantage, and then act on it. It’s no surprise there’s a metaphorical waterfall of useful ideas that flow out of OODA looping (Boyd called it the OODA Loop because it repeats).
I put OODA next to R.E.N.E.E. because Castelli’s version is all about rediscovering and embodying some definition of your current authentic life, while Boyd’s technique is all about the mechanism of how you adapt and make decisions while living it, as new information keeps coming it. I see them as extremely complimentary.
One is about designing your authentic life. The other is about maintaining an advantage over all the things that try to knock you out of that sky.
As a fellow planner, I think our clients want, need, and deserve life design level treatment. It pushes us way beyond commoditized products and basic services. It’s also way more honest to the constant evolution of the lives of our clients. I am 1,000% behind that vision. I am also behind the need to constantly re-evaluate our basic human need to align next steps with an authentic, to us - not some industry’s, path.
Designing what you want from the inside out. Contrast it against some perspective from the outside in. Then repeat. Help is out there if you want it. We’re in this together.
Bravo, Justin.
