I won’t pretend to be a wise sage who has spent the past ten years sitting cross-legged on a mountaintop pondering meaning. Instead, I can tell you that I’m an ordinary dude who has experienced an unbelievable streak of cool stuff over a lifetime. The singular thread that ties all of my crazy experiences together is my Ikigai.
I did not always know my Ikigai. For a long time, I didn’t even know that Ikigai existed. But I’ve always had a strong suspicion that life has a purpose. Now that I know my purpose, my work is to realize my fullest potential and to offer it to the world.
My mission over the past fifty-two years has been to be a researcher of life’s meaning. It’s been a lot of work. I’ve been scouring for hints, paid attention, followed the clues. I’ve used my deductive skills to connect the dots, one by one. Sometimes they led to dead ends. OMG, this is driving me crazy! Then, when I least expected it, there was my Ikigai: to delight. A-ha! For years I worked at jobs that provided me with hints of Ikigai. I didn’t see that the jobs followed a pattern that connected the hints together. I played in bands, worked as marketing rep at a record company, and hosted TV and radio shows. Each job provided glimpses of Ikigai. When I finally connected the dots, my Ikigai became crystal clear. Each of these jobs that I believed identified me as a “successful” man were actually providing me with opportunities to be myself. I felt “successful” because I found ways to delight. I was attracted to these jobs because they gave me a part of my Ikigai every day.
In discovering my purpose, I also discovered that Ikigai is an action. With this practical north star, I now understand that I want to share my Ikigai as often as possible. I feel that writing this book is an unbelievable gift that offers me a chance to delight you.
I hope you view my thoughts and lessons as worthwhile. You are an Ikigai researcher. Follow the clues. I’m cheering for you. I hope your Ikigai is soon within your reach.
Welcome to the concept of Ikigai, your life’s worth. Ikigai is “the reason you get out of bed in the morning.” It’s what you do, every day, that’s meaningful to you and to others. You might not understand what your Ikigai is right now, but this book is here to help you figure it out.
The first thing you need to know is that Ikigai is a word and concept that comes from Okinawa, Japan. To pronounce the word correctly the first thing you must do is smile. Lift your cheeks in a bright grin and start with the sound EE, as in we or free. The Japanese pronounce the letter i as EE. Since there are three i’s in Ikigai, then to pronounce the word properly, you say EE-kee-guy (with a smile).
The second thing you need to know is that your Ikigai is within reach. This book is intended to help you shine a spotlight on your Ikigai. Once you zoom in on what you’re good at, and what you love to do, your Ikigai will begin to offer you rewards. You’ll get out of bed every day with a clear understanding of why you got out of bed in the first place.
In addition to its being your purpose—the reason you get out of bed in the morning—Ikigai is a map. When you practice your purpose, you are also following a map that can lead you to discovering your gifts. Once you discover your gifts, every day that you practice your Ikigai, you will also become more in tune with these gifts. You’ll find yourself sharing them often and others will reward you for doing it. Ikigai is a map that travels in a circle of gifts.
When I was hired to be a radio host at CBC Radio 2, little did I know that I would find a dozen chances each day to feel the full circle of gifts that come from Ikigai. On the surface, the job description was to research the songs that would be played on each night’s broadcast and to share details with the listeners. I was pleased to learn that being a radio host was much more than that. I got twelve chances to tell meaningful one-minute stories on each show.
The job of a radio host is to be a companion to the listener. 90 percent of the people that listen to the radio are tuning in by themselves. They are driving a vehicle or listening through headphones on their smartphones as they ride on a train or bus. Some listeners could be at home doing the dishes or working on a project in the wood shop. My job was to make the spaces between the songs as meaningful as, or more meaningful than, the songs.
CBC provides wonderful support for radio hosts. I worked with trusted producers and two radio coaches. Early in my training, the coaches taught me that there are only four kinds of stories to tell on the radio. They cited radio coaching expert Valerie Geller, sharing that “head, heart, pocketbook, and transformation” radio stories would be the focus of the narratives I would tell. The stories I would write and share each day would make the listeners think and feel. I would tell stories that could provide information about financial security. I would also tell stories of full transformations that began with “once upon a time” and ended with “they lived happily ever after.”
The coaches inspired me to find tales that would matter to the listeners. The stories needed to be meaningful. I worked very hard each day to find ones that related to the songs, the artists, and the songwriters. When I found a story, I would have to figure out a way to understand why it felt meaningful to me. Did it share facts or an emotion? My challenge was to write each story and to deliver it on the radio so that it delighted the audience.
I worked very hard at researching, writing, and delivering the stories every day. Then one day, a thick envelope arrived in the mail. It was a from a man named Gerry who lived in a tiny town called Estevan, Saskatchewan. Inside the envelope, I found a handmade cardboard card and a small stack of photographs and photocopies. Gerry was an avid gardener and a former jazz musician. He was writing to tell me how much he enjoyed the radio show each night. Gerry also sent along photos of blossoms in his garden. He had Oscar Peterson roses and he had set up speakers outside, so he could listen to jazz all day long as he tended his flowers. Gerry had sent me the most wonderful gift. He showed that the music and the stories mattered to him every day.
Many more listeners would share their own stories of the delight they found in the radio show I hosted. I sent delight out each show through the radio waves, and the listeners sent delight back to me in return.
Figuring out your life’s purpose may feel like a daunting task. Where do you start? Is there science that supports ‘life purpose’? What steps do you take, and how do you know you’re on the right path? These are all overwhelming questions that keep people from even beginning the Ikigai journey. Instead, people tend to default to the beliefs that society and institutionalized education have peddled to us for years because they are what is safe and familiar.
We’ve been told that when you get a good education, you get