In my medical school days, while I was pursuing my ikigai, I had a good friend who was a financially successful oil investor. (He worked for himself, buying and selling oil wells.)
Although most of our friendship revolved around playing darts and going to the local pub, sometimes he would ask me to go “coining” with him on the weekend. (Coining, as I understood it at the time, is when you go to a regional coin collectors show in a large auditorium, with hundreds of coin-sellers tables, spend a few minutes (at every table—eek!) looking over their coins, and then trying to buy some.
Now, my friend had quite a collection of coins (he specialized in early American). The coins of his collection were all carefully wrapped and graded, and his total collection—accumulated over years—was worth several hundred thousand dollars. He was aware of each of his coin’s intrinsic value (after all, he was in the commodities business), but it was also clear, by the gentle and loving manner he handled all of his coins, that he appreciated their aesthetic value. (It’s safe to say that, in some sense, the coin itself did give him a small slice of joy—something I believe many collectors understand.)
But for him, the ikigai story didn’t end there. For him, it wasn’t just a love of coins. It was also the joy of “closing the deal.”
Here was his strategy.
He would scout out thirty or forty coin-seller tables, occasionally purchasing low-end items. Invariably he would eye up one coin which he especially wanted to acquire.
At that point, he would return to that table and start looking at just about every coin they had except his target coin. He would then bundle various sets of coins with each other, putting together a complicated picture of below and above market offers.
Finally, with ten to fifteen coins on the table, he would make the entire offer contingent on a below-market price of his target coin—the one he truly wanted.
Key point: Even if the target coin was only worth a few hundred dollars, he could pursue it for hours, comfortably bundling it with much more expensive coins (provided, of course, they were at far market value).
You see, I came to realize that it wasn’t just the coin that brought him joy. It was the negotiation and the deal closure.
That’s what made him an exceptional coin collector, and that’s what made him a successful businessman. (No doubt he could have met the ikigai criteria of “doing what you love” equally well being a trade union lawyer, a car salesman, or a high-tech angel investor.)
So, if you are choosing to pivot to a new ikigai—a business ikigai—make sure you understand what you love about it.