{"id":3402,"date":"2023-11-03T12:05:07","date_gmt":"2023-11-03T12:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alchemyfor.life\/balancecoaching\/?p=3402"},"modified":"2026-09-08T19:31:02","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T19:31:02","slug":"japanese-principles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alchemyfor.life\/balancecoaching\/2023\/11\/03\/japanese-principles\/","title":{"rendered":"Japanese principles – helping you to fall in love with your job"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There are a lot of lists out there for how to obtain happiness, productivity, etc. As you know Alchemy for Life\u2122 is exactly about that too. So, I’d like to not only share some of these principals, but tell you about my real world experience with them as well as what you will encounter by utilizing them. In other words, what the reality<\/em> is of these things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ikigai – the intersection of all things good<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The first is a big one, called Ikigai<\/em><\/strong> (pronounced EE-KEY-GUY). I stumbled on this a few years ago. It is the intersection of What you love, what the world needs, what you’re good at and what you can be paid for. Check out the VENN diagram when you listen to the podcast. People talk about this a lot, but don’t really discuss where you start<\/em>. I think that is one of the most important things to focus on when considering this outlook. Listen for the full discussion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What makes you feel fulfilled at work?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

People often wonder what makes them feel fulfilled. If I ask you how you measure success it is probably an intersection of many things on this chart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What Is Ikigai? Finding Purpose Beyond Simple To-Do Lists<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Ikigai. It’s pronounced ikigai.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, hey there. Welcome back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You know, there are a lot of podcasts and lists and things floating around out there with, it’s always X amount of ways to do a thing, and usually they’re not very cohesive. Uh, but it does work for people trying to get you to listen to their stuff. And having said that, that’s exactly what I’m going to do here, but it’s also a list of things that I think can be very helpful for you. But instead of just giving you a list and then giving you like a a short paragraph on, “Hey, do this thing,” I want to give you my experience in doing these things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So here are five Japanese methods for getting more out of life and getting more control, which is what Alchemy for Life is about. Uh, some of this might actually sound very familiar to you if you have been following me for a while.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Decoding the Ikigai Venn Diagram: Passion, Need, Skills, and Pay<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

My brain wants to pronounce this one ikagi, but apparently it’s pronounced ikigai, which is the Japanese concept that combines sort of being useful, needs, meaning of life, and even something you get paid for. You may have seen the Venn diagram of this, and it’s really cool. And the very center where they meet is ikigai. Essentially, it combines what you love, what you’re good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So imagine combining all of those things. Cause, you know, you may have a a hobby thing that that you love. You love doing, you know, some thing, like I find it fun 3D printing, I find it fun with aerial photography, I enjoy riding my bike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But does the world need that? And is that something I’m going to be paid for? I am also good at those things, I’d like to think. So, uh take a look at the Venn diagram that’s probably in the article that came along with this on the Alchemy for Life site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This kind of touches on the “follow your passion” discussion, right? People say, “Oh, follow your passion.” Uh, and then people started saying, “No, no, no, no, no, don’t follow your passion,” because a passion alone is not something that is any of those other three things, right? Like if your passion… your passion is basically something that you love and you’re good at, because you’re going to get good at something if it’s your passion. And I have a book coming out explaining exactly why. But if it’s something you love and something you’re good at, it’s going to become your passion. But again, if you love, I don’t know, doing some sort of floral thing or doing some something, you love sweeping floors, I don’t know, whatever it is, or even like me with aerial photography or or um some 3D some kinds of 3D printing, is that something the world needs? And again, the world needing something and what you can be paid for are actually two different things. I mean, people pay a lot of money for stuff that they don’t need at all. I mean, there’s billions of dollars in various industries of things that people buy that they do not need at all. I mean, you know, things that are sugar-based or drug-based or or just, you know, other things. I don’t want to say like entertainment, because people kind of do need entertainment as part of a full life, but still being able to be paid for it doesn’t necessarily meet the world needs that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Job, Career, or Calling: Where Mission Meets Duty<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

So what do you do? Well, I had a podcast called “Job, Career, or Calling” in which we talked about, you know, a job is the thing you do for money, a career is something you pursue that, you know, you you come home and you still have to open up your laptop, it follows you wherever you go essentially, while a job you say, “See ya later, suckers,” and you go home and you don’t care or know what happens after you leave because it’s a job. And then a calling is something that you really feel compelled to do, and I guess that kind of…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A calling, I guess, could be the combination of something you, you know, you love and you’re you’re good at, and it’s something that the world needs. I mean, typically that’s what a a calling is, you know. I don’t know if… I mean, I guess that applies to anything. You could say, “Well, my calling is to be a comedian. Uh my calling is to, you know, do a thing that isn’t really sellable,” but typically that’s not the way it works. Typically, a calling is something that people need. It’s usually something that’s a fairly high-profile thing, at least in my opinion. So, if you’re if you pursue the calling, then you already have some of the uh iki-guy ikigai, excuse me, I apologize for saying that incorrectly for the eighth time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What’s an interesting thing that you can do if you’re guided by the Venn diagram chart, which, again, it is my absolute favorite Venn diagram because it’s hard enough to get three circles to intersect and have some sort of meaning, but to have four like that, that not only have intersections, but then generate four other intersections before the middle intersection, which is the ikigai. So, if you take a look at it, if you go from what the world needs, you know, a lot of people who have a hustle are typically people who go from the perspective of what the world needs. And, you know, I guess if you’re just looking to make money, that makes sense. The whole concept of hustle really bothers me, and I might do a podcast on that, because I just I the connotations of you need to have a hustle or a side hustle means it’s 100% about you and 0% about the people you’re trying to help, serve, and so forth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Navigating Forced Careers and the Forever Search<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

But if you take it from the standpoint of what the world needs and then you move to what you love and combine those two things, you know, according to the Venn diagram, that creates your mission. So, there’s that. Because then you’re actually doing something you truly do enjoy and it’s less of a hustle. So if you’re doing something you love and it’s something the world needs, well, then you try to figure out a way to get paid for it, I suppose. But again, like if you’re somebody who truly loves to help people in need or the homeless or or what have you, if you’re the person who’s there on Thanksgiving feeding people, you know, you’re not expecting to be paid for it. So, that’s not necessarily something that you sort of shove into the rest of the diagram, and it doesn’t need to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you take a thing that the world needs and you sort of see if you can combine it with what you can get paid for, well, then that becomes, you know, the job, career, or calling, you know, typically the uh the career, right? Like you know the world needs accountants, you know the world needs construction workers, you know the world needs programmers, and it’s something that you can get paid for. Well, if you love it, then you already have three sides of the ikigai Venn diagram already filled in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would assume almost no one goes from the side of what you can get paid for. Although I actually have had conversations with people from India uh who have said that they were forced into certain vocations from their parents. They wanted to do one thing and their parents said, “No, you’re not going to make money doing that, you can’t. You have to go to school for this.” So, a lot of them were forced into a lot of the people I talk to were forced into pursuing a job in in the technical realm or even in becoming a doctor when that’s not really something they wanted to do at all. Imagine, imagine that. Imagine waking up 10 years into your career and going, “I didn’t want I didn’t want to do this at all.” Imagine that. And I probably, some of the people listening to this don’t need to imagine that, because that’s probably what happened to you. I mean, if you’re somebody who listens to things like this, you are probably somebody who is forever searching. And forever searching is a really cool thing. And so one of the reasons you might be doing your forever search is because you found out one day you woke up and you’re like, “Holy crap, I don’t have a path, because I was set on a path that I didn’t want to be on.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Multipotentialite Dilemma: Being Good at Too Many Things<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

So in summary, going from the standpoint of what can you be paid for, hm. I mean, I think when people look for jobs, that’s typically something that, obviously, is the first checkbox. It’s the default checkbox. You don’t open up the want ads, and most of you may not know what a want ad is, you open up the want ads, they’re all things people get paid for. So, it’s the box is already checked. But you don’t say, “You know, I really like standing in place and spinning.” You know, you don’t go, you know, “That’s what I’m going to do.” Well, of course, that could turn into dancing and and movement and and so and so forth. But you know what I mean, right? Like you don’t you don’t pursue it from that angle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is sort of adjacent to what uh to like just pursue your passion or don’t pursue your passion, which is what are you good at? I mean, but I will tell you right now, and I’m going to go over because this is important to me, I have said more than once that the people that tell you just, you know, focus on what you’re good at, um, and there’s a book, I think I think there’s a book that’s I think it’s “Now, Discover Your Strengths” or something, and they make the point in that book that says, you know, everyone says you suck at this, so you should work on this, and they say, “Well, no, don’t work on that, just do the things you’re really good at,” which makes a lot of sense. But when people take it the extra step and say, “Well, you know, just pursue what you’re good at,” those people are only good at one thing! The problem is when you’re good at a number of disparate things, meaning a number of things that aren’t connected in any way, shape, or form\u2014like you’re you’re really good at this creative thing, and then you’re also good at this weird logic thing, and you’re also good at maybe some physical thing, and you’re definitely good at those things\u2014so if you showed your stuff to people, they’d be, “Oh, you’re an athlete, you’re a programmer, you’re an artist.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, then what? What happens then? Or what happens to someone who just, for the most part, immediately gets good at something, you know, right away? Then what? Because that doesn’t give you a clue either. You can because then you can like pursue a whole bunch of stuff, and on day one, people think you’re good at it. And, you know, this is in no way a brag or even a a humble brag or whatever, or a European vacation. No, what is that called? There’s a there’s another term for that. This happens to me a lot, because as you know, I’m the “seek first to understand” person, so I like to look into something, I like to really understand it, so there’s a lot of cerebral activity of me looking into something. I don’t just… the things that look like I did on a whim, I probably thought about for about a month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So a lot of the things I get into, I get good at right away. And it’s just it’s just the way it is, and I’m sure there’s lots of people like that. This is a perfect example of it. I remember when I decided to start a podcast. I remember presenting it to a number of people as sort of a, you know, a not a focus group for but but, you know, “Hey, should I even be doing this? What do you think?” And the people didn’t know what to say, because they were like, “Wow, you really hit the ground running.” Uh, what? You know, because I got the bumper music, and I got this and that, the sound floor, and the and the quality, and the and the script, and I I just went all out and did it all from day one. So, there wasn’t any, “Well, you know, you could do better at this,” or “I don’t know, it seems okay, you know, it’s definitely your first try, but you’ll get better.” So, when you’re that… and I’m talking to you, the person that has experienced what I just talked about. If you’re good at something from the get-go, and you’re good at a lot of things because you probably apply a method to that, right? You have a way of pursuing things. You don’t do it, pardon my French, half-assed. You go, “Okay, if I’m going to do this, I’m going to do this this way. I’m going to focus. I’m not going to go, ‘Oh, I don’t know, I don’t know how to do that, well, I’m not that kind of person.'” You just sort of fearlessly get your hands dirty in it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I said I was going to go over, so I apologize, because I like to keep these to 10 minutes, but that last one was really important, because if you’re not aware of what I just told you, you can be, you know, left out in the cold, because you’re like, “Well, I’m just supposed to do what I’m good at, but I’m good at more than one thing, and and in my mind, they’re the same thing.” So, having said all that, this is the first episode of what was originally going to be one episode, but this is my ikigai episode. So please take a look, if you don’t see the Venn diagram in the article that comes with this, because maybe you get it on um Spotify or somewhere else that it’s just sound, um take a look at the article, or at least you can Google the ikigai, and it’s really I-K-I-G-A-I. So, uh thank you as always, and uh more to come on these Japanese principles. Thank you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thank you for listening. I’d love your feedback as always. Keep it coming. I always appreciate if you like, share, subscribe, and all that nonsense. And if you don’t, that’s cool, too. By now, my new novella, The Devil’s in the Details<\/em>, has hit the shelves. If you like a smoldering quick read, then you may love reading The Devil’s in the Details<\/em>. Check it out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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