Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life by Héctor García & Francesc Miralles

GET YOURSELF OUT OF THE WAY, AND LET JOY HAVE MORE SPACE. This is a video review of a book Icky by Joesph Rodrigues.Don’t forget that cultivation is the culling of a dynamic. People have to unlearn far more than thy need to learn. You where born free now you must get back to knowing that. I hope you have the most beautiful and deeply insightful day learning about the most intriguing and interesting subject on earth, YOU…. 😉

*Los Angeles Times bestseller*

“If hygge is the art of doing nothing, ikigai is the art of doing something—and doing it with supreme focus and joy.” —New York Post

Bring meaning and joy to all your days with this internationally bestselling guide to the Japanese concept of ikigai (pronounced ee-key-guy)—the happiness of always being busy—as revealed by the daily habits of the world’s longest-living people.

What’s your ikigai?

“Only staying active will make you want to live a hundred years.” —Japanese proverb

According to the Japanese, everyone has an ikigai—a reason for living. And according to the residents of the Japanese village with the world’s longest-living people, finding it is the key to a happier and longer life. Having a strong sense of ikigai—the place where passion, mission, vocation, and profession intersect—means that each day is infused with meaning. It’s the reason we get up in the morning. It’s also the reason many Japanese never really retire (in fact there’s no word in Japanese that means retire in the sense it does in English): They remain active and work at what they enjoy, because they’ve found a real purpose in life—the happiness of always being busy.

In researching this book, the authors interviewed the residents of the Japanese village with the highest percentage of 100-year-olds—one of the world’s Blue Zones. Ikigai reveals the secrets to their longevity and happiness: how they eat, how they move, how they work, how they foster collaboration and community, and—their best-kept secret—how they find the ikigai that brings satisfaction to their lives. And it provides practical tools to help you discover your own ikigai. Because who doesn’t want to find happiness in every day?

Ikigai guy the Japanese secret to a long and happy life. geeky guys a word that means thing that you live for or the reason for which you wake up in the morning

each individual’s ikigai is personal to them and specific to their lives values and beliefs it reflects our inner self of an individual and expresses that faithfully

while simultaneously creating a mental state in which the individual feels at ease

activities that allow one to feel Iike guy are never forced on an individual they’re often spontaneous and always undertaken willingly given the individual satisfaction and a sense of meaning to life

so we’re going to discuss this book and we’re going to discuss this from a few perspectives

we’re going to talk about a key guy and the goal here is to live this philosophy

and it’s a philosophy that I’ve been experimenting for a number of years and I came across this concept maybe a few years ago

to really define and explain something that I’ve been working with and looking to cultivate when I started on this journey of entrepreneurship back in 2009

for me it was very important to do what I love to do

and doing what I love to do means that it’s a skill something that I’m really passionate about that I cultivate and I enjoy cultivating and it’s something that I believed that I could do all the time and literally time would go by

and I wouldn’t even think about it and I would be so emerged and joyously doing it

that the net result of that would be something really amazing truly remarkable

and when I started my business it was IT services I’ve been interested in computers and IT since I was a kid

and when I transitioned out of it I moved into consulting and doing the stuff that I do and teaching this kind of stuff that I do on YouTube

and it’s something that I’m really extremely passionate about doing

I think about it all the time and just about every area of my life is directly or indirectly related to what I love to do

now something else that was really important to me was it had to be something that I was willing to do to get paid for

and it was something that the world needs

now another concept that was added to this when I looked at the e key guy was something that you are good at

so we have within us purpose meaning value

something that we offer to the world that’s really unique

and in the earlier stages we look to find meaning we go in and try to identify what it is that we really can offer

and as we go about doing things we start to realize that there’s people reaching out to us and asking us if we could do certain things for them

and that thing is so obvious and something that we do with such ease and joy and we love doing it

that we can’t imagine charging for it.

Now that was the case when I started my IT business and that is the case when I do what I do right now I love what I do so much that in retrospect when I look back I couldn’t imagine one day doing this and making money and building a business around it

because I was naturally good at it and I started in a certain place and then I went through a journey of cultivating the skills

and even till this day and continuously forever for as long as I live I will continuously cultivate the skills based on the things that I’m good at

so it’s then important to find what it is for us

and usually what this is is something that the world needs and what you are good at is something that the world benefits from it is something that is needed and useful

and people are willing to pay for this.

 

so if you look around today and you look at all the different kind of businesses that have been created a lot of these are passion projects

something that someone was really passionate about that they leveraged the internet and turned it into a business so they get paid for it

and through learning entrepreneurship in the various disciplines that we talk about in this channel when it comes to entrepreneurship they grow their business to a really high level and they continue to enjoy doing what

they love to do on their own terms on their own time and have a lot of freedom to be able to then enjoy living the life in a way that cultivates and builds them up so they could do what they love even more even better and serve others even more masterfully

so a key guy is doing what you’re good at what you love what the world needs and what you can get paid to do

so in other words it’s a way of looking at life

it’s something that combines and we look at this diagram here your passion your mission your profession and your vocation

and if you do these things with everything you do every day or if you see how everything is related directly or indirectly and you see the connects you feel that you live a meaningful life

and you get excited to wake up in the morning and go to work in fact you don’t really see it as work and you find yourself in something that we’ve talked about many times flow state

which also was discussed in this books we had discussed it from the perspective of a key guy so again our goal and reflecting back in my own experience is to find our own Ikki guy

and over the years and I’ve been an entrepreneur for 10 years I’ve been carving it out ok refining it in earlier stages I might have taken on projects that I didn’t necessarily love and they started refining it

so I believe that this is an ongoing journey

so our goal is to again find what we love to do and we can do this by practicing awareness

ok observing what is it that you enjoy doing that you could imagine your entire life being dedicated to doing that thing what is it

is it something that the world needs are people building businesses around it is there a career around it well if there is then if you are really passionate about it if you love doing it then it’s gonna be easier for you to cultivate it

to grow it into a masterful skill in which you can provide that product or service

and is it something that you’re good at naturally

now it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be masterful at it right now

but it’s something that you know you could just sit there and do it and you can cultivate that skill and you can find yourself in flow which we’re gonna talk about a moment

and you continuously get better at it

and is it something that you can actually literally get paid to do in other words can you imagine yourself getting paid to do it

the world needs that they’re willing to pay you to do this you love to do it and you’re good at it and you can continuously get better and better at it

if you do this you experience more often flow and flow is where challenge meets skill

if you want to have a meaningful life then it’s important to go through challenged to embrace challenge but not from a place of stress and frustration but from a place of engagement

so flow is where challenge meets skill

when something is just a little bit more challenging and you have just enough skills so you could sit there and work with it to figure it out to the point where you eventually rise up to overcome that challenge and you now acquire a new skill

you’ll have this interesting feeling a feeling of an engagement where your mind your ma your body your mental physical emotional all these elements of being as a human being are one

you are deeply engaged and you have a natural focus and you have a heightened degree of awareness

and you feel excitement you feel passion your creativity starts to flow starts to increase and you become even more skillful

and then another challenge shows up and the same process you keep rising up and rising up being able to achieve it

those that play video games for example and will find themselves in flow for an extended period of time

those that do things like play musical instruments or athletes or performers will find themselves in flow

and now even those in the business realm can find themselves in flow for example I find myself in flow most of the day

that’s because I set everything up that I do from a place that engages flow and what is that

well something that I really love to do something that I’m good at and I can continuously cultivate that’s where the challenge comes in

and it’s purposeful so the world needs it and the world is paying for it so that’s it will support this project that I’m doing and it continues to support it

and I keep getting better and better at it and I find myself more and more in flow every single day

and with this amazing feeling creativity inspiration and understanding of the philosophies of iki guy really start to help me understand that this meaningful purpose that I have and the process that I go through is something that is actually anybody who is willing to commit themselves dedicate themselves to finding this is able to achieve

and when you find Ikki guy and you know what it is for you and you go down this journey you experience flow more often

so then that’s an important quote or important philosophy to keep into consideration

are you finding yourself in flow each day and if not let’s go back to this diagram here and see we were missing out

is it something that you really enjoy doing

is it’s challenging are you able to find yourself being stimulated by that challenging

now I always say it’s important to do what you love or it’s important to do what you do from a place of love or whatever it is that you do train yourself to love it

for the most part a lot of things that we do that we love to do we love doing it but for example in the world of business

you might love doing certain aspects with a certain aspects you might not love doing

perhaps like crunching numbers or doing certain kinds of things

but then what I discovered is if I can relate that back to my iki I I can actually learn how to love those things

I can train myself to love those things because now I’m seeing the connect

so this is really powerful because one of the things that I do in my consulting business and coaching is right off the gate we look at everything the person has to do to achieve the kind of results they want

which is in the realm of iki guy

and then what we do is we say okay based on this here are all the things you’ve got to do every day this how you got to segment your day and these are all the things you got to do

and maybe they’ll like doing most of the things but on these other things that they have to do they might not enjoy doing and they’ll say well I don’t enjoy doing that thing so the next thing that ends up being a huge breakthrough is the process of learning how to love that thing by connecting it to their ikki guy so in other words that thing that they didn’t necessarily like doing they start to enjoy doing it they find joy in doing it

and this is very related and he talks about this in this book to Victor Frankel’s logotherapy

and the idea behind it is that you can find meaning you can find passion in anything

however there are things that are related to your vision to your goals that you might not necessarily like doing

but if you do not train yourself to enjoy doing those things then you’re not going to find that you’re gonna stay in flow State and again the reason why we want to stay in flow is because that’s where the insights the perspectives the ideas the creativity within us is tapped into so we can come up with unique and better ways of doing what we love to do so we could do it even better

and then we can get paid even more for doing it and with that added money we can reinvest it to maybe give it to somebody else to do those things that we don’t necessarily like doing and this can keep going on and on and on

so I believe it’s then very important for somebody who is interested in building a business or going into a profession where they do what they love to do to learn valuable career skills business skills and fall in love with the process of learning those skills and I’ll relate that back to my personal experience

because I always wanted to be an entrepreneur and one of the things that makes me so passionate about entrepreneurship is that I love every aspect of entrepreneurship

every aspect of business I can find myself being fascinated with finance although I don’t go too deep into it

I have a passion and desire to do all the things related to the full scope the full spectrum of activities that is involved with building a business

and I’ve trained myself because I remember in earlier stages I didn’t even like public speaking

however I knew that it was something that was fascinating to me and it was something that I could see myself doing so at a deeper level perhaps I was good at it

I didn’t like marketing I didn’t like selling I didn’t even like money

but the idea behind it is that I saw myself being self-employed having my own business having my own freedom having my own lifestyle and being able to afford doing the things that I want to do which really are only within the reach with an entrepreneurship

because the potential for earning is unlimited through entrepreneurship if you do it right

so I learned to love these things I learned to find my icky guy in all these things

now me hi chick sent behind according to his research into the experience of being completely immersed in what we are doing which is really now as a result of this discussion

all the things that are related to what we’re good at what we love to do as well as the things that we not necessarily love to do but we now know we can train ourselves by associating it to our icky guy

this is when you find yourself fully immersed when you look at reality like this you have Csikszentmihalyi calls the state flow

and described it as the pleasure delight creativity and process when we are completely immersed in life

so think about this Ramona let’s pause for a moment and reflect

you have this opportunity and it’s called life and you have the ability to create in this life and enjoy this life and find passion in this life and be able to serve others in this life and create a beautiful living around this

more so today than ever before

and when you’re an icky guy you’re looking taking inventory what is it that you love to do what are you good at can you get paid for this can other our others actually getting paid for this and is this something that benefits the world and if you find these things and you do these things you’ll find yourself emerged immersed in the process and the process of life

so going back to the definition of iki guy it’s waking up and excited to do what you want to do because you love doing it and it’s purposeful and meaningful

now this feeling is an amazing feeling and I know it because I’ve lived it for an extended period of time now

and I constantly refine it as every day goes by I’m constantly making sure that I’m doing the things that I really love to do

and if I find things that it’s not from a place of love or passion I ask myself why am i doing it

if it’s not related to the iki guy or as I like to call it my vision because I refer back to the Robert Dilts model then I’m not going to do it

because it’s not gonna bring out the best to me and it’s not gonna bring out the best contribution that I could make to others and I take what I do from not only a high level of responsibility to produce

but because I’m in a position of leadership mentoring coaching it’s important to me that I live the philosophy

so when I transfer the understandings I do it from place of state transference I actually feel it and I could transfer that over to my students to my clients and so forth and they start to experience it

they start to understand it so you could see how I set everything up and it’s important for you as you’re going through this watching this video right now you’re taking notes to see how you can do it as well

so that you could live from a place of a key guy now let’s talk about the seven conditions for achieving flow and again flow is something that we achieve when challenge meets skill

when there’s enough challenge and enough skill the sweet spot where you have to rise up to the challenge by acquiring skill real time by being immersed in the process being challenged by it and you’re engaged in it

and you can create this in your career in your business and here are the conditions so when you get that you feel completely immersed in life you enjoy it you’re having fun you’re growing you’re excited about it

and you’re producing results and you’re happy about it and you’re stimulated seven conditions for achieving flow number one

knowing what to do knowing what to do so you have to have a clear vision you have to have a clear goal and you have to break it down into parts and this is why I recommend using a project management system like Trello

or any kind of system that can help you take what you got to do what you got to build and break it down into little sections so that you can work on it one little bit at a time in maybe twenty five minute or 30 minute or 50 minute chunks towards an outcome okay there’s like an end result in part and in whole

for example if you’re building a business an internet based business perhaps you’ve got to build a website perhaps you’ve got to fill that email list perhaps you have to build a product or service

you have to also bring on certain people there’s hiring elements and there’s paid advertising and all these different kinds of dynamics that you got to do maybe you got to learn social media

and all this is related to the vision of creating your business now to find flow it’s important to focus on one thing at a time in your work chunk

so thus you know what the clear outcome is and what you’re going to achieve in part related to the whole and it’s important to then break that part down into smaller parts for example building a website

perhaps there’s eight pages on your website well you take each page and you work on it with focus with presence and discipline building it refining it till you get it up to the specification required to help you create that website

that needs to be created to drive that paid traffic to it

now if you don’t know what you’re doing you don’t know how to build a website so forth this can be a huge source of frustration that’s why it’s important to work with somebody to be guided

the reason why you bring on somebody to help guide you is because they break it down into specific tasks

and then you know what to do so this is one of the things that I found to be common with entrepreneurs

is in the earlier stages and I’ll speak from my own experience everything seems so nebulous this is like a whole infinity realm of things to do and so forth

and things can be so esoteric and frustrating but if we find ourselves around a good mastermind as Napoleon Hill calls it

or we bring on good mentors and guides or we have a support group we’re able to take what we have to do and break it down because we’re working with people that have already been able to create the results

they’re able to guide us and that gives us a sense of ease and then we know why we’re doing it and while we might not know the whole picture or how everything works for example if you’re studying marketing

then there’s a lot to it you’re starting paid advertising there’s a lot to it perhaps you might just break it down into getting one ad campaign up based on certain demographics and certain criteria

and then from there while it’s running you optimize it but that is something that you break it down to and if you don’t break it down to that then it could seem very overwhelming

because maybe you’re comparing yourself to somebody that has a lot of success and all the sophistication and complication

so it’s important to do that know what you have to do and break it down

number two know how to do it so again we’re talking about challenge meeting skill so you don’t have to know how to do it perfectly you just don’t have to know how to do it enough to get started

and do it to the best of your ability and realize that through the process I always say this actions create clarity

so through the process you’ll learn how to do it better

and one of my favorite things and I always mention this all the time is that I love to learn I love to grow but when my favorite things that I like to do is be in the arena and do be implementing

because that’s where I’m gonna find the optimizations that I need to do to grow and then from there areas that I don’t understand I can go and research it I can connect with mentors I can get access to that information

so I could do it even better so you have to know how to do it to a certain level because again if it’s too confusing you’re not gonna find yourself in flow

but if you break the parts down if you break the project down into smaller parts you can see now how it’s easier to know what to do and know how to do it

so creating flow in your life is a skill itself this is one thing I found when I discovered this concept from call flow back in the days and I just kept working with it I refined it down

until what I’m discussing with you right now because I realized that it’s such a powerful place to be and it’s so productive and it allows you to create success a lot faster in whatever it is you’re doing in part and a whole

that it’s definitely something that can be studied and turned into a process and can be applied so that we can achieve flow consistency

and with consistency and a level of focus and discipline and ease – we should be able to get ourselves in flow with ease and I promise you this with practice you’ll be able to do it

so knowing what to do in part and in whole breaking it down knowing how to do it in part and whole realizing that you’ll acquire the skill in the process overcoming the small challenges and the

number-3 knowing how well you are doing so this is why I’m a fan of key performance indicators and metrics in business we have this game performance we have to be able to measure it

if you want to get progress in the gym you have to measure your lifts you have to measure your your body fat levels you have to measure your macros and so forth and if you don’t do this you don’t know if you’re making

progress which can be very frustrating so these are conditions that need to be place put in place to achieve flow now think about what I’m saying and think about the area where you can apply this in your life

because you can apply this I found – any area of your life business personal development just about any area life you can identify what the key performance indicators are

so you could see if you’re making progress

number four knowing where to go navigation where navigation is evolved

number five perceiving significant challenges so you see the challenges they’re coming and you’re ready to overcome them because you realize that actions create clarity and if there’s something that you have a hard time

with then you’re going to be able to cultivate the skills real time a lot of times this is true or you’ll note them down you write down your sticking points

one of my favorite exercises and it’s not really an exercise is just something I do is as I go about doing business every single day

if I come across sticking points and I have to come across sticking points I have to come across challenges because if I don’t that I’m not going to be stimulated

the thing about flow is if you’re just doing things that are easy you’re not gonna be in flow state if you do things that you’re too challenging then you’re gonna be frustrated so it’s really a sweet spot where a challenge meets skill

and when you’re in that space the challenges that come up you might not be able to solve real time so what I do is I write them down and I figure out ways to overcome this I refer back to something like the Robert Dilts model

does this exist in my vision level and an identity level a deep identity level or values and beliefs my capabilities do I need to improve my capabilities in the various disciplines in the business

is it certain behaviors that are being manifested that doesn’t produce the results what behaviors do I need to cultivate

and then the environment is it something in the environment can I change something around so that I can increase my success ratio or produce the results

all of these are indicators or different elements that we could use to figure out how to overcome our challenges but we have to be able to take notes

so if you make a commitment to yourself that you’re going to take notes on your performance every day and the challenges that you encounter every day then this can be really beneficial for you

and you know having somebody who can mentor you and so forth and be there as a guide to help you

can also help you not only reflect back on these challenges but provide solutions because they’re able to do it because they’ve been there before and that can also help you overcome these challenges

number six perceiving significant skills so capabilities which is one of the elements of the Robert Dilts model is what we need to cultivate so that we can produce results

going back to the model here what we’re good at is something that we can continuously improve on

doing what you love well one of the things that we could do is we can increase our level of identity

deep identity level stuff in the Robert Dilts model to really honor ourselves

what I find is that in the earlier stages we don’t honor ourselves maybe it’s low self-esteem low self-confidence and we know what we love to do but we just kind of allow others to get us to do other things that we don’t want to do

and sacrifice ourselves and not necessarily do what we love to do and as a result of that we get frustrated and stressed out

and this is because we do not or we do not get to a point where we have the self-confidence or the faith in ourselves to be able to clearly tell the other person that it’s not something that you love to do it’s not something that you really to do and therefore you don’t want to do it and so all these kind of things

I’m talking about I’m a huge fan of combining models together so if you look at a key guy and you look at the Robert Dilts model then this can be very beneficial to you because then you can look at this and you can see

okay if I have any of these areas that are lagging which is a skill that I need so I can do what I have to do better at what area on the Robert Dilts model does it preside and how can I get the support the education

the information to help me develop that skill so being in flow as mentioned earlier taking notes is very important

because then you can identify the skills that you want to cultivate so that you can produce the results even faster or get to a higher level of success

now again entrepreneurship comes with the number of skills that you can develop

in my entrepreneurship training program I talk about them at a high level direct response marketing copywriting consultative selling productivity monetization

even managing yourself managing others leadership there’s a lot of skills that you can cultivate as an entrepreneur to produce results

and there’s a lot of information a lot of education available so when you’re deeply submerged in this process then you’re motivated and you’re excited to focus on cultivating those skills

and when you cultivate those skills you rise up to the challenge and then the higher your ability to perform the more success you have obviously the more money you make

and then with that money it’s important to remember this this is an investment to live an ikki guy means to take control of your life take the power back in my opinion

and so what we want to do is we want to reinvest back in creating certain environments where we could stay in flow

that means environments that don’t have distractions or environments that don’t break our flow for whatever reason you know again taking inventory and figuring out what those things are

and so that we can continuously do what we do even better now this is one of the things that’s a benefit for being in this in the long run and creating success

once you get to a certain level of success you can set up certain conditions in your life where you could continuously do more what you love to do cultivate the skills in the areas that important so that you could do

what you love to do even better and set up your environment so there’s no distractions which brings me to my next point

number seven being free from distractions

so to get in flow we have to have challenge and we have to have skill and we have to go through this process of emerging ourselves in the task what we’re doing

and if people are interrupting and there’s distractions in your environment it breaks flow

so we have to be cognizant of this and we have to choose environments and we have to set everything up to the best of our ability to remove distractions

and we can do this at a micro level and a macro level here’s so here’s what I mean in a micro level you know your work environment right now you could turn off your notifiers you could remove anything that is

distracting in the environment you can you know indicate to others that maybe you’re involved with in business and so forth that you’re not gonna be available for the next few hours so you can deeply submerge yourself

and what you’re doing micro and a macro level you set yourself up so that your business so the work that you do those that you work with and your entire environment is actually supporting you

in other words your leadership skills you set up your team to live the philosophy of being distraction-free

and you are also cultivating certain kinds of skills which will be important because leadership is one of the skills that you learn in entrepreneurship that is going to help you leverage your business better

and grow your business faster so what you do is you start out by going first you create this environment where you can focus on what you got to do till completion

and as a result of that you’ll create some success and then you can reinvest back into training others to have that same success bring on the team and set up conditions so that everybody is achieving flow to a higher degree

and you can make this part of your culture part of your philosophy

anybody who works with me knows I’m a huge advocate of being in a distraction-free environment

and really focusing in an achieving flow flow is extremely important for me not just for me but for those that I work with

because I know that the creativity and the best results come from being in flow state so it’s a high priority for me

and you know if you look around in the business world and in the career world there’s a lot of opportunity here a lot of people are not achieving flow and they’re missing out on the ability to produce

and even have a higher level of results

so this starts small we pick our block tines and we work distraction-free and then we go to a macro level where we look at all the areas of our life because I believe how you do one thing is I do everything

where we can be focused on the things that we do to cultivate ourselves to a higher level of enjoyment at peace

I don’t personally like being in grey zones in other words when I’m going to the gym and I’m working out and focused on working out and I’m doing it from a place of lightheartedness

it’s not intense focus when I’m with friends or when I’m with somebody I’m focused on them I’m not allowing any distractions to take away from the experience and the the joy and the submerging in the process of connecting

with another human being or with a group

with work it’s the same thing and everything that I do in my life it’s the same thing

so let’s talk about flow and the strategies the faqad strategies that were discussed in this book strategy number one choose a difficult task but not too difficult so as mentioned flows were challenging each skill

so we pick a task that’s challenging but not too overwhelming and we make a commitment that we’re going to work on this task for an extended period of time for me it’s 30 minutes to an hour

I’m gonna work on this task and while I’m working on this task my goal is to stay focused distraction-free on this task

and I see this as a fun game and an exercise so I say to myself if I stay focused on this task for 30 minutes then I’m going to train my willpower

because willpower is very important to me and having a high level of willpower will help you achieve success

I’m gonna stay on this task and I’m gonna apply willpower and I’m gonna do it from a light-hearted energy not some one place of force because I like to cultivate a light-hearted energy in me so

I’ll use that as one of my things to indicate that I’m doing it properly and

number three is that I realize that I’m going to rise up to this challenge I’m gonna acquire the skill I’m gonna figure it out

and it’s just challenging enough where I have a certain level of skills but I know that when I’m completed this task I would have overcome it whether it’s building something or creating a piece of content

or a coaching call or whatever it is

when I do this I find myself in flow so I know this works really well

number two is have a clear and concrete objective as mentioned that if you know where you’re going clearly your vision the goal you’re trying to create not just that in a macro level but micro parts that make up the whole

then you know that you’ll get there when you are complete in other words when that project for that task is complete

then you’re done so that’s your objective so the goal then is to sit there and work on it till completion train yourself to do it till completion and don’t move on to anything else

now this might span the course of days weeks and months depending on the project and that’s okay that’s why I like dedicated work chunks

because if you break whatever that project down into smaller chunks then you can say the goal is to just complete it up to this level

but you have a concrete objective and doing this engages the mind better because now we’re clear we’re not just doing things randomly and we don’t know why we’re doing it

we understand why we’re doing it now here’s the powerful thing you’ve got to find the clarity okay can’t wait for others to give you clarity you’ve got to take responsibility to finding the clarity

asking better questions if you work in a company so you can see how it relates to vision or understanding and learning yourself or creating your own goals and setting up little games that you can play with yourselves

that if you get to a certain level then you achieve success at a certain level and so that makes you feel good and so forth

but whatever it is you got to have a concrete objective

number three it’s concentrate on a single task so as mentioned distraction is going to break your flow we don’t want to be distracted we want to be doing things where we can be fully engaged in what we’re doing

you’re the challenge and then rise up it rise up to it with skill

and this is achieved by doing one thing at a time now if you’re working for example in an environment where there’s a lot of stimulus and distraction and so forth

you can find a way to turn that into a game because I find a lot of times turning flow into a game where you’ve got distractions and so forth and you try to train yourself to stay focused it’s something you can actually do

but is not something I recommend for someone starting out and cultivating the skill I recommend it’s better to just pick one task and concentrate it on till completion

and then you start getting better at maintaining focus you can move on to different kinds of challenging skills where there’s a lot more chaos and dynamic in the present environment

and the training that you’ve achieved outside of it will cultivate a skill so that when you’re in that environment you’ll be able to do it whatever it is better

micro flow this is interesting micro flow enjoying mundane tasks

even Bill Gates washes the dishes every night he says he enjoys it that it helps him relax and clear his mind and that he tries to do it a little better each day following an established order of set or rules he’s made for himself

plates first Fork second and so on it’s one of his daily moments of micro flow so as mentioned earlier finding joy in everything you do every day is very important to experience and live a key guy

it is also important to live a fulfilling life and to stay motivated and see this as a long-term process

someone who is in iki guy does not want to retire

loves what they do so much and enjoys it so much that they will continuously do it forever and continuously get better and better and doing it

on my favorite movies is Hiro Dreams of Sushi and if you watch that movie you’ll see that he has very much found his iki guy and he’s so engaged in it that the very micro things that he does every day also puts him into flow

and I’ve been working with this concept and I’ve been applying it to a high degree of success and I realized that I could find flow in even the littlest things administration work folding laundry doing little things

and it’s a discipline and tree to find micro flow on these things that will allow you to find flow even easier when you do things in your business in your career

so look at areas outside of your work where you can create micro flow

create little games in your mind create little challenges and scenarios and you know if you fold the laundry a certain way at a certain time try to do it in a certain sequence and create a little game out

eventually maybe you could fold your laundry at a certain speed and so forth or do it with enough presence or train yourself to find joy in it you can do this and I know this works

so he’s doing this with doing the dishes and it’s an exercise and it’s something that if you practice you will get better at

and you’ll find that you’ll have more joy and fulfillment and you have better energy in a better state of mind that will be there and available for you when you’re doing the projects in your business or your career

now what’s going to happen in your journey is you’re going to face challenges in life and how to face life challenges

so let’s talk about this couple concepts that he refers to in the book is Buddhism and stoicism so what can we learn from these areas to help us with life’s challenges

Buddha was born a prince in Nepal and grew up in a palace surrounded by riches

at 16 he married and had a child not satisfied by his family’s wealth at 29 he decided to try a different lifestyle and ran away from the palace to live as an ascetic

but it wasn’t a citizen that he was looking for it didn’t offer the happiness and well-being he sought

neither wealth nor extreme asceticism worked from he realized that a wise person should not ignore life’s pleasures

a wise person can live with these pleasures but should always remain conscious of how easy it is to be enslaved by them so the idea is this is that on your journey in life as you go through iki guy as

you go through the process of living you’re going to encounter many different kinds of pleasures

and the goal is to value them and to enjoy them as needed but not be enslaved by them

when you indulge in something you become addicted to it and you become dependent on it and if you don’t get it you find yourself being frustrated and angry by it

the goal is to see this as challenge to train yourself when you find yourself enjoying something be okay if it’s not there

and the way to do this is to limit your access to that pleasure train yourself and find joy in the process of delaying gratification

this is how you develop the highest level of joy and pleasure the ability to maintain presence of mind

the ability to control your thoughts the ability to manage your emotions better

those that create success in life have a high degree of control over their mind and their emotions

they understand that if they do something where it’s going to lead we have to be able to look at cause and effect so the goal is to realize that there’s gonna be a lot of things that show up in our environment in our reality

that are going to distract us over to a different direction you know a Napoleon Hill it calls us drifting and outwitting the devil and we have to recognize that they’re there and not make them the enemy

and what you resist persists see them as something that is going to train you and put yourself in the position to be trained by those

now this is something that I’ve worked with for many years there’s a lot of things that I enjoy doing and if I do it excessively it leads to me drifting

and if you get into a place of being angry by those things you can find yourself just caring within yourself and anger and resentment energy and we really want to have is an understanding energy

so what I’ve learned is that I can enjoy doing those things maybe eating certain kinds of foods or indulging in certain kinds of pleasures

without being controlled by them and doing it enough so that I could feel conscious rejuvenation

for example you might enjoy going on vacations but if you go on vacations all the time because you have a lot of success in business and you don’t do any work you’ll find that the meaning is not there anymore

it’s just kind of a mundane thing that you do that used to give you a lot of joy and pleasure but because the repetition of doing it you’re not finding the joy

in that case what we have to do is we have to remove ourselves in that equation concentrate on finding pleasure in other areas of a life joy and work and fulfillment and a key guy and then use that as a reward

knowing that we can do it any time make it a thing that we get after we hit a certain level of benchmark certain level of the key performance indicator and so forth

this is how you gain control over impulses over the desire to seek pleasure and delay gratification

to do this is to cultivate confidence confidence and faith in yourself that no matter what comes up in your way whether it’s a challenge or something that will lead you astray because in the pursuit of pressure

you’re able to remove yourself from that and get back on track towards your vision

stoicism according to stoicism our pleasures and desires are not the problem we can enjoy them as long as they don’t take control of us the

Stoics viewed those who were able to control their emotions as virtuous so again we have right now our attention our attention is so valuable our attention creates a reality

wherever your attention goes your energy flows and you’ll move in that direction the goal is to keep our attention on our vision

I talked about this in the last few videos I did enable god arts work to assume the wish fulfilled visualize in your mind the person that you wish to be and assume yourself to be that person right now

and to navigate reality from that perspective and to feel it in the now and then also while you’re doing that realize that there’s going to be things that take your attention away

and those things aren’t trying to take your attention away but they’re revealing to you about yourself of what you’re being distracted by

and then observe yourself as you have this desire to move in those directions that aren’t necessarily serving you

and then maintain your Center and release yourself from that desire you’re going to find in the earlier stages you’re gonna feel a strong pressure and this is where you have to train your mind

you have to train the self-discipline and you have to focus back on your vision

you do this enough time with repetition and I could speak from experience you are no longer enslaved by those emotions that pull you in those directions

and then you start to look at them as your friends they’re revealing to you who you are and when you overcome them you keep going back keep reorienting back on your vision

the next concept is antifragility

the seme Talab explains in his book anti fragile things that gain from disorder that we used the word fragile to describe people things and organizations that are weakened when harmed

and the words robust and resilient for things that are able to withstand harm without weakening

but we don’t have a word for these things that get stronger when harmed to a point so the concept is anti fragile

anti fragile is the being of something or somebody who is a net result of being in certain kinds of environments that were stressful that harmed and you became this person where you’re unbreakable unshakable and so forth

and you were cultivated to be like this and this is beneficial because this is how you stay in flow

in fact to maintain an extended period of flow you have to be anti fragile you can’t be thrown off by the external circumstances and events of the world and what happens to you

you have to be able to recalibrate to get back on focus back on tasks

and this is done by observing the meaning that you’re giving to things and as mentioned I always like to give things an empowering meaning things are on my side

if I say that this is the enemy externally then I give it more power than it needs to have I’d rather look at and say it’s helping me move towards my vision

now to actually feel this and experience this one has to go through a lot of challenge and adversity in life before they start to really embrace this and become anti fragile

but the good news is we all have the opportunity to become anti fragile so how can we do it so we can take small risks

the goal is to find little things that we could do every day that push us outside of our comfort zone small risks by taking risks and training ourselves to go beyond the fear of the risks

we overcome our fears fears doubts hesitation hold us back from creating success they’re illusions in our mind

we create a reality based on how we think how we believe reality to work and if we see reality from a place of fear stress frustration doubt hesitation we’re going to create it

accordingly now it’s one thing to just tell someone okay hey I want you to stop thinking about fears and doubts

most the time that’s not going to work the way we do it is by pushing ourselves a little further outside of our comfort zone every day and taking bigger risks

and over an extended period of time the falling and getting back up the rejection and all these different things we’re talking about take on an empowering meaning we become excited by it

and in the process we become anti fragile because we find ourselves in situations in life that are similar to those conscious risks that we’re taking

we’re able to overcome them with ease because we have a certain level of skill

now going back to flow remember that challenge meet skill and the higher levels of challenges that are available in society in our world today

there’s a lot of people that can handle it they haven’t cultivated the skill so when you train yourself to become anti fragile and you develop a certain level of antifragility

then you have a opportunity to work with those challenges and be able to overcome them

and the rewards are lot greater so again let’s go back to this diagram here if you have a great ability to handle challenges in the areas that you love in what you’re good at in what the world needs

that you’re going to make more money those that get paid more money are those that can handle and overcome even more complexity

and they got to that point through becoming anti fragile and as a result of consciously or subconsciously putting themselves in situations where they’re taking risks

and little by little they’re growing every single day

so the goal is to grow every single day the idea behind a key guy is not to rush things however you will make more progress if you make a commitment yourself to being productive

by dedicating all your time to that which serves your vision in all areas of your life essentially being an icky guy and then understanding that in the journey we can challenge ourselves by taking more risks

there’s always a little bit more risk that we can take every day that’s going to develop our ability to be anti fragile

now here’s the great thing about this world his risks or a calculated risk we don’t wanna take blind risks we want to take risks to develop our ability to be anti fragile in our area of vocation in our choice the things

that we love to do and so forth in this world there’s going to be tons of opportunity to take risks

think about this right now create a list of different kinds of risks that you can take right now in your line of work in your business in your career that scare you but also excite you at the same time

push you outside your comfort zone that you know is going to make you more anti fragile and contribute to you acquiring a higher level of skill so you can do what you do even better

you’re going to be able to create a list of tons of them it’s very easy to find this just goes to show you that the world is actually on your side when you shift your perspective around

get rid of things that make you fragile

so as much as we want to create comfort and luxury and well-being in our lives we also have to remember that challenge is part of life

and that if you don’t have enough challenge in our life life’s gonna seem meaningless as we discussed earlier

so thus we want to identify with everything we put in our life is this thing making us fragile is this something that okay we’re okay and I’m not saying that you know you need to live in an environment

that’s not safe and stressful and so forth just because you don’t want to be fragile you got to pick and choose and this is where you get better wisdom and wisdom is acquired through experience

being in the game longer and there’s certain things where you’ll train yourself consciously to develop antifragility

and there’s certain things where you’re okay with and you can relax with and you can see it more as conscious rejuvenation

now for me I choose a nice environment which is distraction free where I can work and where I can live and that’s important to me

I choose certain kinds of people in my life to challenge and stimulate me but in a way that grows me in certain areas that I want to grow

and I won’t choose certain environments to live and work with I wouldn’t choose being around certain kinds of people that could technically grow me but it’s not gonna grow me in the areas that I won’t grow it growth in

in relating to my vision and I’m gonna choose certain kinds of activities certain kinds of behaviors that cultivate my skills in business entrepreneurship and certain areas of my life that are important to me

that will develop me to a higher degree of antifragility

and those options to do it in other areas but I choose not to do it

however there are certain kinds of little behaviors that we can do every day for example instead of eating the junk food once a week you can maybe or once a day you can maybe reduce it to once a week

instead of missing your workouts once a week and thinking that it’s okay you can make it a consistent practice to discipline yourself to never miss a workout

waking up at a certain time and being consistent of it might seem uncomfortable for you but if you allow yourself to sleep in and just not have a schedule if you have a business for example

you’re not training yourself to be anti fragile that a little bit of stress that you experience a little bit to get yourself to wake up or a cold shower or something like that there’s the list goes on

what are the things for you or talking to people what my favorite is I always like to take myself out of my comfort zone and communicate with everybody around me

let’s make small talk make conversations and so forth

in the earlier stages to be really challenging for me but I also found it to be really beneficial because it really keeps me in a state of connectedness with people and creativity and I’m able to improve my conversation skills

so as much as sometimes I don’t feel like doing it I do it anyways because it creates that skill and then when I find myself in front of an audience or making these kind of videos

I’m a lot more lucid and a lot more energized I’m a lot more dynamic

what are these areas for you that you could place yourself in right now this week throughout your life that will continuously develop you to become more anti fragile maybe it’s exercise related maybe it’s fit yes Jim

nutrition-related maybe it is relationships related business related personal life related there’s always opportunities to cultivate a higher degree of antifragility

now here are the

ten rules of a Ikigai

number one stay active don’t retire those who give up the things they love doing and do well lose their purpose in life as mentioned earlier challenge meet skill and we got to do what we love to do and we can challenge yourself to do it even better this goes on forever that’s why it’s so important to keep doing things of value making progress bringing beauty or utility to others helping out and shaping the world around you even after your official professional activity has ended

so perhaps if you’re going to retire consider becoming a consultant or taking on some additional challenge because if you just kind of retire and do nothing you’re gonna find yourself deteriorating really fast

so my thing is I always do what I love to do and make sure that everything I do is contributing towards my vision and the goal that I want to create which is the things to bring joy and fulfillment and growth and happiness

in my life plus the lives of others and to contribute to a divine or if you don’t believe in the divine than a evolution purpose if you’ve got all three then in my opinion living a very purposeful life

I do this all the time okay all the way

number two take it slow being in a hurry is inversely proportional to quality of life as the old saying goes walk slowly and you’ll go far

when we leave urgency behind life and time take on a new meaning

now one of my favorite things that I like to do is I to enjoy each activity that I do in my business

each conversation that I have with a person each workout that I do in the gym each meal that I have and everything I do I trained myself to slow down and really enjoy the nuance of every activity

and what this has done has given me an enormous amount of joy and meaning and happiness in my life

and it’s actually made me a lot more productive

because those that are always in a hurry then come off being busy make a lot of mistakes

and they overlook the opportunities that they have in front of them because they’re always living in the future and so forth

and they might like they’re getting a lot of stuff done when they look at their key performance indicators they’re not really making that much of progress so the key is not to do more it’s to do highest and best use most valuable

use of your time energy resources and opportunity cost

number three don’t fill your stomach lessons more when it comes to eating for long life – according to the 80% rule in order to stay healthier longer we should eat little less than a hunger demands instead of stuffing ourselves

so one of the keys to living a high quality of life is to be healthy to be at a certain level of body weight and to be able to be at a certain level of fitness so that when we live from that perspective

because our physical body you have to look after ourselves physically mentally emotionally and spiritually and this is an area that covers the physical because what I went down this journey of entrepreneurship

I made sure that I was consistent on my workouts and I really started being consistent in 2013 but prior to that I was at least running and doing things

because I realized that I can handle a lot more stress than people because I have the cardiovascular and the physical health that allows me to perform better

and those that don’t have it experience stress to get overwhelmed by it and they Lida and Lea lead into being tired and burnt out

and not being able to navigate reality with ease

so it’s important to do this and before

surround yourself with good friends friends are the best medicine therefore confiding worries over a good chat sharing stories and brighten your day getting advice having fun dreaming in other words living

it’s important that you evaluate your relationships the people around you your life partner your business partners and so forth and ask yourself are they growing you and cultivating you

are they challenging you in a really healthy way to become better

or are they bringing you down and you know a lot of times they don’t know what they’re doing but the power is in your hands you have to make the choice you’ve got to be conscious

because by doing so you’ll be able to perform better when you’re doing your life’s work how you do one thing is how you everything the energy in which you feel outside of what you do contributes to how you feel at work

how you feel in your business

number five get in shape for your next birthday removes it is at its best when it flows fresh and doesn’t stagnate

the body you move through in life needs a bit of daily maintenance to keep it running for a long time plus exercise releases hormones that makes us feel happy

as mentioned earlier nutrition is important well so is exercise I make sure that I miss I do not miss my workouts because if I do then I’ll start just feel myself feeling sluggish

so for the last since 2013 I have not missed any workouts

and I continuously work to improve and make progress in my workouts cardiovascular strengths and so forth

number six smile a cheerful attitude is not only relaxing it also helps makes friends it’s good to recognize that things that aren’t so great but we should never forget what a privileged

is to be in the here and now in a world so full of possibilities so the way we go about everything we do every day is from a place of light heartedness smiling

so everything we’re talking about here is not stressful and hard work we’re being productive but we’re doing it from a different perspective we’re doing it to find deep meaning and joy and satisfaction in every activity

it’s from this place where you love to do what you do from morning till night and you actually find yourself doing a lot more things getting a lot more done being way more productive growing and developing yourself

contributing more loving what you do when you see the cheerfulness and the joy and you practice as mentioned earlier finding your joy micro flow in all tasks and that starts with a smile

number 7 reconnect with nature though most people live in cities these days human beings are made to be part of natural world we should return to it often to recharge our batteries

so one of the things that I love to do is every now and then because I live in cities is connect with nature go to areas where I can be around trees and the ocean and so forth and it’s extremely rejuvenating

even on the weekends I find myself going and walking in areas where I’m surrounded by nature

and what it does is really stimulates and engages my mind and gives a lot more meaning and purpose because when you live in an environment where you don’t really see nature

you can miss that connection to how we lived for many many thousands of years that actually nourished us that leveled us up that gave us something that can only really be experienced through nature

and some like to take it to the extremes right they like to go in those wilderness excursions and so forth where they can just kind of be in nature for an extended period of time

and they come back feeling really refreshed really grounded and understanding who they are and their meaning in purpose in life

give thanks number eight to your ancestors to nature which provides you with the air you breed and the food you eat to your friends and family to everything that brightens your day and makes you feel lucky to be alive

spend a moment every day giving thanks and you’ll watch your stockpile of happiness grow

gratitude is very important as I always say we become what we think about

and when we’re on the journey of a key guy we are living a meaningful and a purposeful life and part of it is having gratitude for the opportunities that we have and everyone that is around us that is supporting us

even if we don’t necessarily see them directly as support we have to remember that everything is helping us achieve our goals

I believe that anything that happens to us is actually revealing to us about ourselves they are our friends

and so thus we have to find the joy find the happiness and give thanks navigate reality from a place of understanding acceptance and appreciation that everyday you are making progress

and the journey is equally as important as the end result

number nine live in the moment stop regretting the past and fearing the future today is all you have make the most of it make it worth remembering

now one of the reasons why we cultivate the skill power of now as Eckhart Tolle mentions it is because there’s so much opportunity in front of our face right now

and it’s our ability to see it that we want to cultivate and we do it by valuing the now by being present to the now

and really what we focus on expands and environment changes based on how we feel inside how you feel creates your reality

thus living in the moment and having a high level of gratitude and appreciation for the now and being present improves our feelings

increases our ability to create the reality from that feeling now think about this you’ll see this with individuals who are very present

they tend to be more joyous and happy and they enjoy and they see more opportunities

and they’re in a key guy they’re experiencing it those that are constantly trying to find something better and they don’t really value what they have right now

are constantly recreating that scenario and they never really find it

and then number 10 follow your icky guy there is a passion inside you a unique talent that gives meaning to your days and drives you to share the best of yourself until the very end

if you don’t know what your icky guy is yet as Viktor Frankl says your mission is to discover it

thank you very much for watching this video if you want to copy the mind map the link is in the description I’ll talk to you soon take care

Get the Mind Map… ► http://www.josephrodrigues.com/download

As found on Youtube

Learn More