“Understanding your Ikigai about aligning your reason in order to do your best work.” – Jack Wilson in today’s Tip 538
What do you love?
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531: Ikigai (part 1 of 6)
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Transcript
Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today Jack Wilson, “The Guy with Ikigai” is back to talk more about Ikigai. Here he is:
Jack Wilson: Hey there, Daily sales tips community. I’m back with part 2 of the 6 tips series on defining your Ikigai. If you haven’t yet listened to part one, check back in on tip #531 for an overview of Ikigai framework.
Today’s tip will focus on the first of four components. What do you love?
Before we dive in, let’s make sure you grapple with the word love. Many of you are comfortable with using and hearing the term love as it pertains to your profession. While others may tend to resist it, feeling that keeping it professional means there’s no place for emotion in the workplace. Well, that’s a debate for another time. Let’s focus in on helping you answer the question, what do you love in the context of finding a reason or purpose. I don’t expect to help you find the answer in a five-minute tip. Instead, when I want to provide you with is a scope, a scope that you can seek the answer for yourself. So let’s use love as an acronym.
The L stands for lose yourself. To determine what you love, reflect on tasks, activities, or work that you tend to lose yourself in. You know, those things that you sit down to work on, and it feels like 10 minutes later, but an hour has passed. That’s a key indicator that it’s something you love to do. Take SDRs for example. You might say to yourself that you love prospecting, but when you reflect deeper, you find out that the phone feels heavy and you hate rejection. But when you’re researching your prospect, it takes you an hour instead of the 30 minutes that you’ve allotted. That’s because you love feeling like a sales detective. That might be a sign that being an AEs in your future, because you love to understand your customer and doing discovery.
The O in love is for obsessions. If you’re feeling this way in a relationship stop right here, because that’s not love. When it comes to your work, though, listen to that voice. When you obsess, it means you’re preoccupied or your mind is filled with a thought of something that something is your subconscious screaming to you what it feels is important. When you spend time not partaking in this activity, you may become worried that you should be doing it more. It’s important to distinguish between guilt-driven and desire-driven obsessions, move away from behaviors that you feel like you should be doing, and move toward those that you want to be doing.
The V in law represents your values. Losing yourself and obsessing over something can actually be unhealthy unless you’re able to benchmark those feelings against a meaningful rubric. The rubric should be your values. Despite the constant push and pull between work and life. There is no trade-off when it comes to your values. It’s important to understand that your own moral compass is what drives you. And if you apply to the work that you choose to do, that will help align your purpose. After all, understanding your Ikigai about aligning your reason in order to do your best work. So consider a time when you’ve been pressured to act in a way that contrasts with your beliefs. I bet you weren’t feeling overly motivated at the time where you. Take the time to understand your values, write them down, discuss them with a close friend or a colleague.
Lastly, we come to E for experiences. One of the best ways to identify the things you love is to reflect on the experiences in your life you’ve enjoyed the most. Our brains have a way of constantly reminding us of the most memorable things we’ve experienced. Some of those memories are to reinforce fear in order to help us move away or avoid those situations. But equally pronounced are the good times. Remember the experiences you’ve had in your career that have brought you the most joy, the biggest feelings of accomplishment. If there’s a common underlying thread in the work that you’re doing, that’s probably something that you love the most.
Now I don’t expect I’ve changed your life in a few short minutes. Honestly, it shouldn’t really even work that way. Instead, take some time to think about what you love. What type of work do you do that you lose yourself in or obsess over wanting to do more that aligns with your values and reminds you of the best experiences you’ve had. Answer that, and you’ll know what you love.
Scott Ingram: To connect with “The Guy with Ikigai” just click over to DailySales.Tips/538 and we’ll have a link for you there. Once you’ve done that make sure you’re subscribed to the podcast so you don’t miss the rest of the series, or tomorrow’s tip. I’ll talk to you then. Thanks for listening!