💡 What is Ikigai really?

When I first was introduced to the Japanese concept of ikigai, I was working in a job that drained me, juggling the relentless demands of a stressful, unfulfilling role. Ikigai was presented to me — and my equally burned-out colleagues — as the answer: Just find a job that magically combines your passion, mission, profession, and vocation, and then you’ll finally be happy.

What I hated about this approach was that it leveraged Ikigai to achieve a static destination — a mythical role where everything magically aligns. It struck me as really unhealthy to squeeze all of these requirements onto one job.

For those that may be less familiar with the concept, at its core, your ikigai is where the following four elements intersect:

• What you love (your spark!)

• What you’re good at (your superpower)

• What the world needs (your market)

• What you can get paid for (your revenue)

Ikigai meets the portfolio career.

I believe ikigai is a more helpful framework for portfolio careers.

Instead of forcing one job to tick all these boxes, you distribute those elements of a fulfilling, meaningful career across many roles.

It instantly becomes a dynamic framework when applied in this way!

Each project in your career portfolio can serve a different role, creating a more sustainable job mix that evolves with you as you grow over the length of your career:

• Revenue Anchors (60% of your time)
  These are your bread and butter. They align with "what you’re good at" and "what you can get paid for." For me, that’s my product marketing work!

• Purpose Projects (20% of your time)
  These live in the "what you love" and "what the world needs" zones. They might not pay the bills (yet), but they fuel your soul and can open unexpected doors. I put my pro bono coaching in this category.

• Growth Moonshots (20% of your time)
  These are your bold experiments — the projects that push you out of your comfort zone. They’re exciting, a little scary, and full of potential to become future revenue anchors. My podcast is an example of a personal moonshot.

How this works: Ella’s story.

Let’s look at a hypothetical example of how a fellow portfolio careerist could apply this same framework to their career.

How Ella’s roles map to ikigai:

• Revenue Anchors: Her full-time role as a marketing director provides financial stability and sharpens her marketing leadership skills.

• Purpose Projects: Ella helps small business owners that sell their products on Etsy better tell their stories through affordable digital marketing.

• Growth Moonshot: On weekends, Ella shares DIY home decor projects on her blog. This is a creative outlet for Ella currently which has decent potential to make money via an Etsy shop one day.

Doesn’t this feel a whole lot better than trying to find that magical unicorn of a role that checks all four boxes on its own? Wipes brow! I know, I feel the same way too!

Now it’s YOUR turn.

Let’s start applying ikigai to your portfolio career!

Here’s how to start:

1. Reflect on your current projects with these questions:

   • Which of these are lighting me up right now?

   • Where (if anywhere) am I leaving money on the table?

   • What skills am I building that I sense my customers need?

   • Where do I feel most in flow?

2. Map this initial list of projects to the ikigai framework.

3. Spot gaps. What’s missing?

4. Experiment! If you’re missing a passion project, start one. If you need a revenue anchor, explore a skill you could potentially monetize.

Now go ahead!

Download the ikigai template that I’ve created and give it a try yourself 👇

And remember! Ikigais are evergreen.

Don’t worry about getting your ikigai “right” the first time through. Because your ikigai mix is inherently evergreen as a portfolio careerist, and you’ll come back to this tool as you layer in new projects and sunset others over time.

That's not only okay – it's the point.

P.S. - Want to workshop your ikigai together? I have three spots for 1:1 portfolio career strategy sessions before the end of the year! Book yours here.

📚Culture & Arts Spotlight

Imagine old things anew.

Speaking of experimentation and evolution - nineties grunge is having a comeback moment, and I couldn’t resist the urge recently to dive back into one of the soundtracks of my youth: Nirvana’s iconic MTV Unplugged performance!

As an adult viewing it for the first time in probably… 15 years, I saw it with fresh eyes. I had forgetten how stripped down to the essentials the set was — the melancholy flowers, the muted lighting, and a band that looked more like they were sitting in someone’s basement playing than on a large stage.

And then there was their cover of David Bowie’s “The Man Who Sold the World”.

It wasn’t just a performance of the song; it was a reimagining. Nirvana flawlessly kept Bowie’s soul intact while layering it with their distinct, grunge-infused DNA.

It was haunting. Honest. Entirely Nirvana.

And it got me thinking about how we often define innovation at work.

We’re encouraged to chase newness and trends — to create something unprecedented, and groundbreaking. But not all transformative, moving work has to start from scratch. It can also start by taking something old and reinterpreting or reimagining it.

So here’s my challenge to you as we begin a reflective month before the start of a new calendar year:

• What “old” ideas in your field could you make anew in 2025?

• What familiar concepts or processes in your business or job could you rework into something that feels more.. fresh, more relevant, and authentic to you?