I’ve found myself in a slightly surreal position over the years. Being described as the accidental creator of the Ikigai Venn diagram.
A simple visual that somehow travelled the world and sparked a global conversation about meaning and purpose.
The irony is that it also helped surface a misunderstanding.
Because the Western version of Ikigai that spread so widely isn’t quite how it’s understood in Japan.
In the West, Ikigai became something to optimise. A neat intersection of what you love, what you’re good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for. Almost like a formula you could solve your way into a meaningful life.
Useful, in its own way. It gave people language. It gave people permission to think more deeply about how they spend their time.
But it also subtly pushed meaning into the realm of performance. Something to figure out. Something to get right.
In Japan, Ikigai is often much quieter. It isn’t necessarily a grand, singular purpose. It’s more about what makes life worth living on a daily basis. It can be small. Ordinary. Personal. A morning routine. A craft. A sense of contribution. A rhythm that feels right in your body and in your life.
That gap between interpretations pulled me into thousands of conversations around the world. Different cultures. Different contexts. Different starting points. But a shared question sitting underneath it all. What does it actually mean to live a meaningful life?
What I began to notice is that we often approach that question as if we’re starting from a blank page.
We’re not.
We’re standing on top of a very specific life.
A life that has already shaped us in ways we often don’t fully acknowledge.
This is where ideas like Karma and Dharma helped me make sense of what I was seeing. Not in a mystical or religious sense, but in a grounded, practical way that shows up in real conversations with real people.
Karma, in this context, is the accumulated momentum of your life so far. Everything you’ve experienced. The choices you’ve made. The environments you’ve been part of. The patterns you’ve repeated. The things that worked. The things that didn’t.
It’s your story in full.
Dharma is something different. It’s less about where you’ve been and more about where you’re being pulled. The direction that feels true when you’re not performing or conforming. The version of yourself that begins to emerge when you’re being honest.
An Indian mystic friend once said something that has stayed with me ever since. As you fully accept the whole of your past, your future becomes clear.
At first glance, that can sound abstract.
In practice, it’s anything but.
In conversation after conversation, I’ve seen how much energy people spend trying to edit their story. Downplaying certain experiences. Reframing difficult moments. Wishing away entire chapters of their lives.
Especially the messy parts. The failures. The wrong turns. The things that didn’t work out.
There’s a quiet belief that meaning lives somewhere else. Somewhere cleaner. Somewhere more intentional. Somewhere untouched by the parts of life that didn’t go to plan.
But when that resistance softens, even slightly, something shifts.
The same experiences that once felt like detours begin to look more like preparation.
The challenges people have faced become the very things they are uniquely able to help others navigate.
The environments that didn’t fit start to point clearly towards the ones they are here to build or contribute to.
The patterns they’ve lived become visible in a way that allows them to be changed.
Clarity doesn’t arrive as a dramatic revelation. It emerges as a kind of quiet recognition.
Of course this matters to me.
Of course this is where I have something to offer.
Of course this is the direction that feels right.
If Ikigai is the place where life feels alive, then Karma and Dharma help explain how you actually get there.
Not by designing a perfect future from scratch, but by integrating your past so fully that your next step becomes obvious.
There’s also something here about learning from other cultures.
In many Western conversations, meaning is approached as a problem to solve. A question of optimisation. What should I do? How do I do it better? How do I get there faster?
But many traditions approach it differently.
Less about optimisation. More about alignment.
Less about escaping your story. More about understanding it.
Looking back, that accidental Ikigai diagram now makes more sense to me. It opened a door. It gave people a way into the conversation.
But the deeper work has always been beyond the diagram.
It isn’t about finding something that’s missing.
It’s about seeing what’s already there.
Underneath the noise. Underneath the expectations. Underneath the parts of your story you haven’t quite made peace with yet.
Because when you do that, something changes.
Karma stops feeling like something that holds you back.
And starts to feel like the very thing that has been preparing you for what comes next.
And Dharma stops feeling distant.
It starts to feel like the most natural expression of the life you’ve already lived.
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