Ikigai Summit, 2024
Topics Covered: Self-Development, Ikigai Philosophy, Financial Well-Being, Longevity Planning, Values-Driven Living, Personal Fulfillment, Loneliness Epidemic
Conference Overall Ratings: Venue (5/5) - Food (5/5) - Speaker Content (4.5/5) - Networking Opportunity (5/5) - Likeliness to Return (3/5)
Initial Conference Overview: I intentionally did very little research on this event. Often, that’s how I like to approach things. I can usually tell (whether it’s music, an event, a movie) within moments if I like it or not. That being said, a number of times I go to watch movies for a second time with a friend, where the first time I could hardly get past 5 minutes, but the second time, with someone else there convincing me to stick with it, it’s worth it… so, it’s not that EVERYTHING works with this method. However, what I saw of this event… (their color scheme/website vibe, some of the keywords like “purpose-drive leaders” ) it seemed like it’d be worth the time. Showing up and letting the event present itself fresh, can be a lot of fun. I wanted to learn as I went, without preconceived notions.
Bullet Point Notes from Conference :
- The founder of these events began as the host. He talked about this event started from an ancient Japanese concept of Ikigai: linked to longevity, creativity, productivity, and happiness.
Actually, this presentation was very hard to hear. The microphone audio kept going in and out… matched with the presenter’s speaking style. For example, I missed his explanation of “Ikigai” at first and had to look it up later on their website. A funny start to what was otherwise a thoughtful presentation. Most everyone there seemed to know what they were getting into, but Ididnt quite get the purpose until a while in. Also, the breakfast provided as a surprise totally set a good tone way before that, and a number of other things too :)
-At any point, you have the powerful opportunity to shift your mindset from “the mundane” to “sacred opportunity”. It all comes down to your mindset.
You always have the opportunity to shift your mindset.
The founder shared a story on how he had left a corporate job, he decided to try something different. However, that didn’t work either. He found himself hitting an all-time low. But a picture of his grandparents reminded and inspired him of this ideas of “Ikigai”. This picture was a family photo and the last picture his family took together before their plan to send their three kids back to Japan to be raised by their grandparents. The couple/parents (the host’s grandparents) chose to stay in the USA to build their business. Life was too hard, raising kids and finding success in their careers, while following their purpose… “so they made the hard choice to send their kids back to Japan and be raised by family”. (the rest of this story I missed a bit of, cause I was sorta distracted thinking about that first half, but I’m pretty sure he said something about how after this picture was taken, a different scenario played out.
What is purpose? Is it service to yourself? Is it service to others?
Take a wild leap into this conscious life —- shift your mindset. Live with an idea, notion, but take action.
Your core values shoudl be identified. Example: curiosity, creativity, and courage
In life, we often get focused on the nouns, not the verbs… focus on the vers.
What values do you want to focus on today? (Patience, Harmony, Humility, Appreciation, Gratitude)
What do you love? What are you good at? What can you get paid to do? What do the world need?
Who are you?
Your Values: identify them. what is important to you? who am I?
Your Talents: what makes you unique? what are you good at?
How do you Do what You Do:
Your Dimension: deploy energy in a way that provides value to yourself and others. where do you take action? what can I do with who I am?
social, physical, intellectual, emotional, spiritual, professional
You can become a Ikigai financial planner, linking the economy to social impact.
Ikigai: a way of life for the Japanese heritage, they way they live today.
What is longevity? What does it look like for me? The people I care about?
Ikigai: perspective of life, purpose and worth. Deeply invested, enriched with connections.
LONELINESS EPIDEMIC
ikigai can be the fuel for social connections. people live to be 100 years old with social connection. social is just as important and lifestyle and diet.
loneliness is as harmful as smoking 15 cigarettes today. It’s harming our society and individuals. It’s connected to depression, Alzheimer’s, anxiety, heart disease, etc.
44M Americans adults feel significantly lonely.
26M Americans say they have “no friends”
Out of 24 countries, America rates in the bottom for “feeling connected to a community and people in their country”
Create a movement with real action.
Lonely employees cost an extra $4000+ per year. They are less productive
Happy employees are a good investment. They add social community and drive happiness. They inspire and support development. '
“The arts” are going out of business as fewer and people go out. People are not connecting as more.
Connections are an economic imperative - they add value to the in-person world and to the economy. We need them to thrive as an economy.
Working from home holds value, but it also isolates.
we may be healthier working together in an offline setting versus totally online.
What is good for you? What is good for the company?
Community and conversation is struggling and breaking down our society
Loneliness leads to a lack of empathy. If a happy person sees someone stub their toe, they will react with sympathy. When a lonely person sees this, they will have no reaction at all.
One way to make friends is to ask for help. To build trust. Build connection.
“How lucky are my neighbors? They have their kids still living with them in their 20’s. This is so much quality family time.”
This sounded very bad to me, being extra-pessimistic on this topic. Though the speaker (named Aaron) said it was a good thing - I instantly thought the other way. Like, he, as a father, was jealous of this family time and this family’s situation - their kids at home through to at least their 20s. I think many people “my age” or in their 20’s feel upset with this economy and situation. If they’re choosing to save money and live with their parents, alright. But, I just feel there is more than meets the eye with some of these things. Celebrating kids in their 20s still living at home isn’t “our culture” - or at least the culture I grew up with. There are definitely benefits to it, sure… but I think this biased perspective that it’s something to be jealous of and envy… it’s possibly not fair. These “kids” may feel trapped, or the parents - making the best of the situation, but also really frustrated with this economy and lack of home ownership attainability. I didn’t like this overly positive spin.
What you want most from life right at this moment… is most likely what you most need to give. (dang!)
Building purpose as a filed of business. “Purposeful connectivity”. The connectivity marketplace.
Challenge the decline in connection/trust. It is destroying our country and communities.
“We have to come together on climate change. It’s the #1 issue” There is no natural connecting infrastructure helping to manage this global/national effort to help climate change.
“The fundamental issue in society is climate change, but no one is at the wheel.”
“America is a nation of people who move”
Transition periods are when people are most open to change (new friends, leaving behind old friends/family, creating things from scratch, open to new people/friends, make a different choice for your life
there is a missing market for onboarding residents of a new city
50% of Seattle has lived her less than 10 years.
On average, 60,000 people move here per year.
Seattle dinner parties are usually at restaurant, but what about having people to your home and leading conversation? Hosting over 200 people per year at your home and having conversation. Experience connection.
It can take a lot of time to move somewhere and meet your people. It can take years. But it will happen, more likely, when you put yourself out there and find opportunities. You come together over common purposes.
Multicultural friendships can offer different perspectives on what “friendship” looks like
What makes someone feel welcome?
Is “failure” just based on your own perspective and interpretation? One man’s trash is another’s treasure.
Building community around shared interests and activities, this often lets you become friends with people you’d likely never hang out with and have a number of things you disagree on. Then again, it is important to make friends over common interests, then have conversations. Connectivity, shared activity. It’s the outcome of work.
social hobbies, Joan a board/committee with frequent meetings, support a bigger purpose
Focus is stolen by technology… w/ fake friend and conversations. In-person can be more fruitful.
Socialize and get excited to get together with community.
Introverts are often mislabeled and misunderstood. They still like to socialize with people. They like interactions. But maybe they like smaller groups, specific activities together alongside socializing, etc.
Be rich in connections.
Support endevours
spend the next 60-90 days working on a certain mission. Repeat and repeat.
This is for yourself and for your community. For something bigger than you.
There are 6 points to connection.
You must take care of yourself above all else, so then you can provide for others.
If you are a tree, how are your roots? How will the branches hold up with weak roots?
“Connection” is the biggest challenge for our society. “We’re living in a Donald Trump world, where “there are winners and losers, people who don’t have connections are losers” (I would disagree with this idea… maybe it’s a literal quote.. however, I think atm Donald Trump is working hard to advocate for (at least one particular group) the underdogs. People who are working so hard to stand for what is right, but the system is cheating them. So they are “winning” from cheating nonstop - especially in the stock market… so… idk. I just felt this perspective was not fair/accurate - and not really representing his intentions either. I am so excited for the future…and for these cheaters/losers currently in power to be called out and accounted for.)
“Seattle should become one of the most immigrant friendly cities in the USA” (again, I have feelings on this. I’d agree, if these immigrants enter legally. I have experience with this myself, and it is a complicated process. It is not fair that illegal immigrants can cut corners and receive benefits, while people following the rules are receiving a much worse situation. And locals, ontop of that. This idea of “most welcoming to immigrants” cities sounds nice… but I think it’s not a good realistic idea. It lets in a lot of “being taken advantage of” and not enough advocacy for the people here, working hard - paying taxes, following the rules - but paying the price.)
What is your purpose? There are meanings to your actions and these have consequences in the future. Beyond yourself, your actions can affect the world around you. Your purpose is your power, not about you - beyond you.
Maslow’s pyramid was never mentioned in his notes. It was interpreted. It’s been build over the years, though, in his last two years of life, he realized you don’t necessarily need “safety” so much to get to self-actualization. He said “self-actualization” is the byproduct of transcendence. The concept of purpose.
When we know our purpose, we are healthier, happier, and filled with longevity.
Purpose = our opportunity to help others It is our responsibility to contribute to making the world a better place, working on something bigger than ourselves.
What is your root cause? Your values/. Why are you doing this? Ask yourself “why” five times and see what is your root. Your purpose? Does it align and seem right? This level of “why” is where you discover your values.
You purpose is action, its a verb, not a noun. Your purpose is never static.
Your service becomes the verb. You must work to serve others.
Start anywhere, start now.
You must help people connect, for their own individual purpose.
Find yourself and transcend yourself. Find your three values. Your work is what the world needs. The world needs you to do what you can do. The world needs you to live your life with purpose. Are you willing to head to the take off?
Reflect on one thing you want to take away from this speech today… why? why? why? why? why?
- Why take away “five why”? It is important to have self-stability. No one is truly there for you but yourself. So you must make yourself strong and reliable.
-The way to stay strong is to be certain and confident in yourself and your future. It takes practice.
To believe in yourself is a choice. You must think it through, You must work to be living at the top of your intelligence. With this approach, you can be more confident. It is not easy.
The proof it works is that it’s sustainable. Work for a positive future. Free a world that is a better future. Work towards this full heartedly. The only way to do this is to be strong in your “why”. Certain in your heart it is the smartest use of your talents and time. Then you can stand strong on your own, epic roots to host a great tree.
Expand on your life experience: what more could you be doing? be involved with?
what barrier do you need to break? what lines do you need to cross? what obstacles have you created for yourself unintentionally? Breaking/building a habit takes about 90 days. What do you have as a value? commit and don’t turn back. Hold and lock in your intentional habits.
“What else can I do”: feel you need to stretch yourself.
Habits form when you stretch yourself. The satisfaction will hit you every time.
What are you not doing that you could be doing? Do you let “time” be an excuse. If you stretch, time will adapt.
Habits form when you stretch yourself. The satisfaction will hit you every time.
What are you not doing that you could be doing?
don’t let “time” be an excuse. If you stretch, time will adapt.
What are you going to do to add value?
What are you going to do to make your vision come true?Trust your intuition, your potential, your intelligence, and constantly stretch yourself. See what else can be done.
At events like this, “you’re going to meet your new BFF or your next boss”
Put yourself out there, tell stories, be vulnerable. This leads to relationships.
Companies take risks they’ll need to pay for in the longterm. Don’t put your head in the sand. It will catch up.
Risk vs. Return
How do people constructively invest? Awareness and purpose.
The fundamental case proves that investing in sustainability, accountability, and quality leads to longevity.
Where should the financial industry be looking towards in the future? The next decade?
humanization, leveling up the personal experience.
What’s someone’s purpose? What do they love? What do they trust? Build a portfolio around that. Help them find these things
Often people say “what’s the minimum I can do for my fee? “ Instead: “what’s the maximum I can offer for this fee?”
Clients will continue to demand more because more can be offered by financial planners.
W'e’re living in a “post BS” era. We must provide customers with “more than money”
They talk the talk, but don’t really have the ability to do things on their own.
We must help people align their values with their wealth. But how?
Challenge the status quo and what we’ve been taught about investing. That’s a good place to start. Not a lot is available today too easily in investing, but it can be done. Help your clients get their solutions. More and more solutions are coming.
Many creative people are missing out and have been excluded from understanding the business world
there are many acronyms
How do you get people from different skills and backgrounds and strengths… interested in the financial world?
There is an advantage to entering the financial world with no formal training. It allows you to ask more questions. However, when you do this, you learn the professionally trained don’t quite know what they’re working on either. Theindustry workers themselves aren’t tuned in.
Building this technology and these trading systems, you need to get to the problem so solve it. However, so much is kept secret, top down, so it’s hard to fully solve the problems. You’re not allowed to know enough information. Some verr interesting things in finance. So much is not talked about.
How can we use finance for good? Highlight the positives in the system?
How can we be true to longterm sustainability with finance?
How can we do something simultaneously good for the world, self, and all
How do people go about looking for their next investment opportunity?
underserved markets?
where can they create value?
do the metrics align with reality?
Home ownership, it’s a critical problem
but this is a way investments can align with values. deliver this in a way its personal and investing in your vision.
invest in your hosing is your way to contribute and engage.
Innovation is how you deliver the opportunites to someone. Let them know how their investment is making a different in the world.
How do you give people agency? Let them engage.
There are short-term actions you can do that help with your long-term goals and investments.
How can you take investing and make it something that allows people to experience joy?
ESG has been polarized, politicized, and weaponized. Diversity is bringing new people into industries. It can be full love love, though it can be challenging.
Leadership is about being crystal clear about your intentions, empowering peers, and organization. You have to do it yourself, create a diverse workforce. Act the way you want others to act. Embody your vision.
Show up for your clients - it brings everyone joy
Build products and explain it in a way that gets people excited. Get people excited to see something different.
Fear not, change is always happening. It imperative and needed.
It is dangerous not to talk with your clients about what they believe in and love . You can lose clients by not listening to their values and understanding them.
You can trace climate change narratives to how money is being spent. People are protecting their own intentions above all else.
Educate and provide help to others.
“There are actually good investments”
financial cases: ESG Housing: assets are your clients. They are scared to have converstaions… but you must address policies not politcy. Think of the policies more than the politics. Get to the core of what people care about.
People want to invest in certain ways, but framing the conversation must evolve.
Try to understand what people care about in terms of values. In the USA this is usually nature and taxes.
When you actually start to talk to people, they are similar. Most people are confused but we’re not all that different.
Be present and try to represent what they care about in their portfolio.
Your may feel the government should play a role, but they don’t. So then you say “okay, I need to get involved and deploy impact” - with your clients. You clients may be private equity firms, investors, family offices.
The human’s capacity for courage is inspiring.
Show up, listen, learn
Why do you care about what you care about?
Your mistakes can’t be allowed to hurt you for the rest of your life.practice loving yourself and others
in this stage, the world could use more lvoe
What is a time in your life you felt unconditional love?
Skills and Tools can be used to deescalate conflict: Educate, Inspire, Activate
-How does conflict show up: anxiety, stress, overwhelmed, clutter, indecisiveness, nervousness, discomfort, irritability, imbalance, overanalysation, disruptive, controlling, presuring
Try being curious about yourself and others.
Take care of yourself and understand your role in the conflict.
What is the story behind the conflict?
How do you show up authentically?
How do you respond instead of REACTING?
pause, relax, listen, think. What can you do instead?
are you quick to blame others?
quick to react?
SELF METHOD:
SLOW DOWN: lower your temperature, calm your body, focus on deescalation, control yourself.
EMPHASIZE: what is happening int he moment? no catastophizing/assuming.
LOOK AT OPTIONS: you may need to take time. what is/isnt’ necessary? let go of what isn’t serving you. what triggers you? what can you shift?
FIGURE OUT PLAN:curiosity, neutrality, mentality, how can both parties achieve goals?
Repair your relationship for a better longterm relationship. Think about what you can do.
Practice in simple situations, practice not getting triggered (avoid them), being more patient, more in control.
You will get stronger
practice and you’ll do wellpractice and you’ll do well
“Patience” can support in navigating conflict because it allows the time to process and not carelessly react. Possibly digging yourself deeper than before. Also, sometimes it’s easy to react over nothing. Instead, if you are patient, you may find that the process works itself out. Allow the chance for surprises to happen.
People attending this event were families (a few times). One time I talked to a guy, then later I was talking to that guy’s dad unintentionally. And it turns out two of his sons were there.
Another time I talked to a women, then later a man came and talked to me and said he was her husband. It was a lot of families there, haha.
Disappointment is your interpretation of reality.
You’re not out to fix thing for people, you’re sent here to help them navigate.
A human’s assets are already within themselves.
Your stories are your assets
Your values are your assets
look at what makes you
Your story matters, embrace it
How do you bring your concepts to life? Talk about your journey, rooted in values. It is important to fill your world with values.
World values, world issues. Neighborhood values, neighborhood issues.
What type of person do you want to be?
Some people are constantly looking to do good for others, pushing past negativity and continuously looking to help.
Sometimes when things are tough, there is no choice but to keep going. In life, some situations you have control over, but some you hvave no control over.
What will you sit and watch? What will you put up with? What will you stand against? What will make you speak up?
Others’ journeys impact how you live your life.
Does climbing a ladder mean compromising your values? What is the cost/reward?
try to stay true to who you authentically are. This can be a definition of success.
We need to provide areas for people who are isolated and lonely. Places to connect.
Offer things for people to do for a common reason:
connect
restore
DEI: everyone shoudl embody this in everything of every day. If it’s being saved till the last minute, the DEI officer, it’s being done wrong.
If nothing else, for a business, they want to increase their client base. This means they can diversify. Bring in new perspectives to relate to the new clients.
Be realistic that your fanbase is seen and know a new fanbase is different. They must be appropriately marketed to. It must be appealing and trustworthy and authentic to them.
Make things resonate with more people. How does it connect to you?
Don’t make things intentionally DEI, but for an initiative.What connects you to a sport/stadium/player?
become tapped in to employ engagement and culture.
DEI is so important to have through everything.
A lot of folks are at this inflection point. Looking for signals to take a step in a certain direction. What are they supposed to do? Looking for cues.
Is it luck? Do opportunities fall into your lap?
You work for it. People see you and help you. “Self made” is not real. People help you and life you up and give you advice and opportunities.
Courage is required to take risks. Be brave. This is especially hard with money. This can be scary.
-TY:: Being “too safe” or feeling you have “imposter syndrome” in your investing can happen.
Opportunies are great to consider, but be careful. You could be taking a massive risk. It depends on your view of safety.
You want safety incase something doesn’t work out.
how you grow up is how you fview safety.
You may turn down opportunites because they don’t feel safe. Or you may take more risky opportunites because you feel that safe room to fail.
Choices: what is the reason you make choices that take yourself out of your comfort zone?
You must have some guidance
What keeps you grounded and confident in yourself when making decisions professionally?
“Don’t be an asshole. Nobody likes an asshold”
How people talk about you depends on who you are and how you show up.
Be direct and be authentic with good intentions.
Have you done as much as you auntehtically can?
So many times people try to criticize you and bring you down for being confident and vocal - especially as a woman.
you may be viewed as oppressive or angry
people take your ideas and turn them into their own, right to your face
you have frustrations
you must stand up for yourself
flex a little if you have to… don’t be a “know it all”, but don’t let people who are assholes get away with it. it’s situational.
In these times, we lost that. Everyone thinks they know best.
In terms of broader, bigger things, everyone has to be able to listen to the voices of everyone.
-Servant Leadership” is about how you show up for people you’re leading. Always open to learning. You must be the way you want for people to be as well. IF you want to teach and lead the team, you need to act that way too.
People respond very different to RULERS than LEADERS
Balance your heart with helping others
Professional/personal career, people often feel resistance to face a crossroads. It takes courage.
When you are constantly curious, you will find things that you never thought you’d relate
How do you make opportunites for leadership a reliant? Self growth?
Things happen in life
Big decisions will form your tradjectory
Small decisions will also form your trajectory (being kind, curious, tenacious)
these things have a huge impact. They form you
Of course, you are in control of your own outcomes. But when people are doing what you agree with, you can support them. Help them see they can stand on their own two feet and succeed.
Simply quitting leaves you weak, with so much wasted time and effort, and starting from scratch. There is value to fighting through hard times.
If you quit cause its the easiest thing, down the road will be impacted.
Stick with it, try your best to make up ground. What stand out to you? What are you going to do for yourself? Don’t shy away and undervalue yourself. Take the hard route.
When we’re comfortable with being uncomfortable, we get complacent and stuck.
We must impact our ability to thrive in the future
Have courage and resilience to power through discomfort and believe that something is greater on the other side. If not simply just the experience you gained, at a minimum.
Carry yourself into the future.
Don’t let yourself go in reverse. Carry through.
PHOTOS + Reflections
Conference “Overall Ratings” Further Elaboration:
VENUE - 5/5
Allow me to Elaborate: This place was great for this event. I’ve been here a number of times before. When you need wifi in this building, yikes! It’s surprisingly horrible. But for an event like this, it’s so fantastic. Lots of seating, good vibes, plenty of facilities and extra amenities. (They have a climbing wall, rope/net hangout places, bikes, showers, a restaurant, coworking areas with lots of different vibes). It is a very iconic Seattle spot. It was a nice size for this event. It felt like it could accommodate everyone, while still the event felt full, but not overcrowded.
FOOD - 5/5
Allow me to Elaborate: It’s so great to start an event with a surprise breakfast. The event went from 9-4:30 (and then happy hour if you stayed for that) and no breakfast was advertised, from what I saw. So… this was a nice way to start the day. I was happy to have a danish pastry and some berries with chai tea! Then lunch was really great. A good variety of healthy (cucumber, edamame, tuna, chicken) - the staff replaced the food that ran out promptly… maybe they could have used a salad if I’m being super picky. The drinks were a good selection, nothing too elaborate, but it looked nice and was well rounded. Finally, they even gave everyone nice food/appetizers with the “happy hour”. I was impressed with the food from start to finish. They left food out the entire time, too (in a good way) so people were able to snack/nibble anytime. I like that. And also it was always healthy options (like, sometimes events like you have food… but then it’s only cookies available, that can be a bit annoying).
SPEAKER CONTENT - 4.5/5
Room for Improvement: This event was extremely spectacular, quality, sweet, and authentic - and meaningful. However, my only complaint would be that some of it was repetitive/vague. It was a lot of “think about your purpose… what is your purpose? what are your values? etc.”. I felt like… I’m not sure. This could have used just a bit more balance - they promote it as like a “Scientific Method” for success/longevity. I think if a bit more data/science was mixed into this, the “nerd” in me would be even happier. Literal connecting and logic. Also, when I arrived, I was given a notebook they said was specific for this and I’d go back to it in the future. So I was expecting to be taught something about this. It was never addressed. I felt all of the speeches were very storytelling/emotional/conceptual based. I also felt it was a little strongly political, and pushing some of the ideas onto people - I’m not sure how much some of these ideas super lined up with the core of this “Ikigai” concept and some were just people adding their personal feelings. But that was a little confusing as well.
NETWORKING OPPORTUNITIES - 5/5
ALLOW ME TO ELABORATE: This event’s unrealistic goal was that every single person would talk to every single person who attended hahaha. It was so intentionally asking people to meet, mingle, connect - talk to someone new. etc etc etc. Share, reflect, etc. It was super into connection, that was the point of this entire event. The value of relationships. So… again, I’m still in this super anti-social phase. In the sense, I’m trying not to fake it - So… with that being said, I did enjoy talking to random people, purposefully, and it was fun/funny to get their feedback that they enjoyed the conversations. Even lately I’m having a harder time reading people in conversations sometimes. I’m surprised by the positive feedback hahah. I’m so fulfilled spending my time/energy in other ways these days.
LIKELINESS TO RETURN - 3/5
Room for Improvement: I am just not sure. This event was sorta… hard to define. It was a mix of very emotional, vulnerable, thoughtful… honestly, I was entertained almost the entire time and the time passed quickly. I’d be curious to see if it were advertised again next year, and if I feel pulled to go. Sometimes these things don’t feel too strong/impactful at first, but they end up lingering for a while. You remember certain parts as different life events trigger your memories… so I could see a world in the future where I end up using/appreciating some of these tools and stories I heard. Let’s see! Something like this is why I’m keeping this blog. I can return to it next year as a gauge :). Overall, I’d recommend it to others completely.
Until next time, I wish you the motivation and success to search for opportunities around your area. Search and explore: Who is out there giving talks? There are new things happening all of the time
Find relatable or interesting topics you like and check them out! Maybe even something hosted at a cool venue, if there’s no other reason to go. Let’s see what you can learn and discover not too far from home. 😊
