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What is IKIGAI?
The word IKIGAI comes to us from Japan – land of the samurai, intense death-defying effort, masterful artistry, harmony with nature, and devoting yourself obsessively to a path.
Ikigai’s closest meaning is to raison d’être in French – what one lives for, what makes your life worth living, why you inhale and exhale each breath.
But Ikigai goes further than that, to the point where your passions and obsessions can consume you… think of the artist or inventor all-consumed by his work, the boxer who lays his body and mind on the line in every fight, or the gardener whose mind is perfectly still among his creation.
Have you found your Ikigai yet? This book is for you.
Why do IKIGAI?
Sebastian has a lot of awesome content that he wants to get out to the world, and publishing has failed us. The project started as a principled stand against publishing where we try to show the world that better things are possible.
We put together an international virtual team and a book based on a blogger’s posts in one week, then we published it for kindle. Our team is global, our distribution is on the internet, and our content comes from historical lessons in a modern setting.
We think the book can make the world better.
Why do it in one week?
When Sebastian first sent me the email asking me if I wanted to work on the project, he casually mentioned that he thought we could have the book in the kindle store by next week. I decided to run with it, and The One Week Book was born.
That’s actually the reason.
Sebastian’s the kind of person who thinks that things should be done fast if possible, and this was possible. It kept us on point, and it helped demonstrate the idea that if you should do things quickly and iterate to learn and adapt as fast as possible.
What was working on the project like?
Imagine hanging out with a bunch of buddies late at night working your asses off on a project you like, going to sleep, and waking up to find that the project had been worked on while you were away. Imagine your job description changing on the scale of hours.
It was pretty much like that every day.
I feel surprised that I’ve only known Sachit and Kendall for a week.
It’s probably the fastest paced thing I’ve ever done, in that I spent almost all of my time working on it every day. It was difficult, but I didn’t feel bad doing it. We had a lot of motivation going through it because we believed in what we were doing.
Other Questions?
If there’s anything else you want to know, email me at aaron@theoneweekbook.com, and I’ll get back to you.
I want to blog about IKIGAI
Awesome! We appreciate the help. To make your job a little easier…
Graphics
Right click and select “Save Target / Link As” to download high-resolution version of the IKIGAI cover.
Author Bio
Me? I’m just a guy. The first year of my site, I was writing about time tracking, history, travel, goal-setting, probability, reviewing nonfiction, and some interesting but fairly mundane stuff.
Then I woke up one day and realized that life doesn’t just give you what you want – you have to go get it. I started being radically honest, radically transparent, and demanded to be treated well by everyone in my life, to the highest possible standard… and it’s amazing what a difference it makes. But enough about me. Let’s talk about you. I have a few recommendations for you:
- Don’t trust things that are “happening in the future” – 90% of stuff that’s dreamed about or promised won’t happen if there’s no good reason for it to be delayed. Write a date on the calendar, buy the plane tickets, schedule the lessons – or you ain’t going to do it. (Corollary: Promises are useless. People make grand promises all the time, and rarely deliver if they’re not delivering right now.)
- Stop lying to yourself. Do things, or don’t do things.
- Once someone breaks their word to you, immediately stand up and call them out. If you solider on after someone breaks their word to you, you’re their bitch after that. Don’t be anyone’s bitch.
- We’re all scared. Do it anyways. There really isn’t all that much downside.
I’d say “good luck,” but you don’t need it. See you around.
