Nick Kemp shares that he wrote Ikigai-kan to convey to people that ikigai is an experiential concept -- it is something that people feel, not something you chase, and it is much more than a Venn diagram.
Grab a copy of Nick Kemp's book, IKIGAI-KAN: Feel a Life Worth Living. Visit ikigaikan.com for more details.
Ikigai is something that people feel.
Caitlin: I'm just gonna dive right in and ask you a few questions about, the main topic of the hour, which is your new book, but we'll also explore some exciting new things around the book, how the book came into being, maybe what your next steps are. So can you just tell us a little bit about the main message of the book?
Nick: Well, that is a good question. And I guess in a nutshell, the main message was to explain to the reader that ikigai is something you feel, not chase or earn. So I wanted to offer, I guess, a Japanese perspective of what ikigai means.
But if I talk about the book itself, across the 10 chapters, I offer different perspectives of ikigai. And I provide a context for those perspectives by exploring different aspects of Japanese culture.
And then I link these perspectives to ideas and philosophies and practices to show that it is a cultural concept. Hopefully, that can resonate with the reader and be helpful to them. While it's a unique cultural concept to Japan, it's also a universal concept.
And I wouldn't really call the book a self-help book, even though I'm actually putting it in the self-help section of Amazon. For me, it was really a deep dive into the psychology of ikigai.
And I guess part of what I hope to achieve the book is to help the reader find a way to find or to feel actually a more fulfilling and meaningful life. And there are frameworks and advice in the book to help the reader.