🎈 What's your Ikigai?

+ Life update | Wisdom Letter #243

Ikigai is a Japanese concept that roughly translates to “purpose for living”.

It is defined as the combination of 3 factors--

1. What you love.

2. What you're good at.

3. What the world needs.

We get into careers early on in life because of weird reasons like - “my friends are doing this” to “my parents want me to”.

We’re too young to reflect and actually pursue our Ikigai.

So we just pick something that we’re pushed into.

And then the demands of a “normal” life take their toll. There’s no time or space left in our life to even think about finding our Ikigai.

But a life without Ikigai isn’t worth living.

3 years ago I quit my corporate career to work for myself and explore what I want to do with my life - at the ripe old age of 33. With a 6 year old son and dependent parents.

My journey since then has been a roller coaster, full of ups and downs. But I’m the happiest I’ve ever been.

I would have hated myself if I hadn’t taken this path in life. I think everyone should give themselves the opportunity to pursue their own Ikigai.

And today, I have news for you.

Last week, my wife Aditi, also quit her job to pursue her Ikigai.

She broke out of the shackles of corporate life to kickstart her own internet business.

It’s a scary and exciting adventure we embark on, as we go “off the corporate grid” as a family.

She wrote a brief note explaining her decision -

• I quit my job to build my business

Do also read her announcement post on LinkedIn -

• At 33, I had everything I ever wanted…

I have question for you -

What’s your Ikigai?

Are you pursuing it? Or planning to pursue it anytime soon?

Hit reply and let me know. Maybe I can help!

---

This is a good video about Ikigai -

---

And old post about happiness that’s related -

---

🗝️ Grab the Keys

Learn the top insights from the best books in the world (in minutes!)

An average nonfiction book is 100,000 words long.

It contains stories, examples, research references, and a whole lot of repetition of the same key ideas.

The main insights from a top-quality nonfiction book can be drilled down to 1 to 5 key ideas.

Yet, you end up having spent 6-8 hours of your precious time reading it, digesting it, and learning those insights.

If you don’t have that kind of time. We created the Keys to Wisdom for you.

It’s a collection of the top 3-5 ideas from the best non-fiction books in the world.

So that you can learn the best of what a book has to offer in less than 5 minutes.

Find out more here -

---

Thank you for reading.

If you liked this post, share it with a friend.

---

That’s it for today.

See you next week 👋

We’ll be back with more interesting notes, highlights and curations.

Cheers,

Ayush & Aditi