Finding Your Ikigai

I am excited and proud to launch Essential Leadership, coaching for purposeful engagement and social impact. I have created Essential Leadership to work with people to become more impactful and derive meaning from their civic engagements of philanthropy, board service, volunteerism, other forms of community participation and the activation of others in one’s network.

I am tremendously grateful for the moment of pause that I have taken for deep reflection about how the past 25 years of my professional and personal life have prepared me for this inflection point in my career. I have spent more than two decades gathering the experiences and building the skill sets to emerge wholeheartedly into this latest evolution of my coaching and consulting practice.

Ikigai and the Search for Meaning
During this time, I have used ikigai to frame my search for meaning. Ikigai, in Japanese, loosely means your reason to jump out of bed in the morning. In its essence, ikigai is the intersection of your values, what you’re good at and what you love to do. At its peak, ikigai addresses what the world needs and what you get paid to do. Ultimately, ikigai is the complete alignment of your values and your truth.