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| Heyo, Nik here! Sooo, as I'm going through this career transition period, one question I've had is this: How often should I write new summaries on Four Minute Books? I'm still not 100% sure, but I think the answer will likely be that, on top of the weekly videos, I want to...
Honestly, after summarizing over 550 of all the typical nonfiction books, the classics you "have to have" in a collection and all the latest and greatest, most hyped bestsellers, I'm a bit tired of keeping up with the hamster wheel that can be traditional publishing. I'll still summarize new bestsellers when I read and enjoy them, but I probably won't do it on launch day, and definitely not for all of them. A lot of the time, publishers just push popular authors to write more books, even if they have nothing new to say (how could they, one year later, when the first book took 10 years of research!). Plus, so much is just repetition of the classics, so why not read those? I'd much rather show you books I love, books no one else is reading, even books my friends are writing, where I've had real conversations with a real author who just happens to not have had their big breakout success yet. Anyway, all of this is to say: Today, you'll get the first installment of this new-but-familiar Four Minute Books summary! It's... The Little Book of Ikigai by Ken Mogi Ikigai is probably the most famous uniquely Japanese concept to hit the mainstream in Western literature in recent years, and it's SO misunderstood. That's because we had a book called Ikigai, written by two Spanish authors, find huge success, and it has largely shaped our understanding of this idea. It's a good book, but unfortunately, it pretty drastically misrepresents ikigai. It talks about finding your calling, uses a Venn diagram, "what you can get paid for," etc. All of that has nothing to do with ikigai. Ken Mogi, on the other hand, was born and raised in Japan. He's a neuroscientist, professor, and has published over 50 books, only a handful of them in English. One of them is The Little Book of Ikigai, and that one will give you an amazing explanation of the concept straight from the horse's mouth. It's not as prescriptive as typical Western self-help, and that is part of the point: Ikigai can be anything that adds meaning and happiness to your life—even if it's small and hard to define. Mogi explains that ikigai rests on 5 pillars and provides plenty of colorful examples. After reading this book, you won't know how to fix everything in your life with a 10-step plan—but you will have a good gut feel for where and how ikigai manifests itself, and that's worth a lot.
I do have one think to ask of you today as well: If you have read any of my books and enjoyed them, would you please leave a review on Amazon (or, if you can't or want to do both, on Goodreads?) Wherever my career is taking me next, I have already resolved to put the dream back in the driver's seat. That means writing more books and focusing more on selling and promoting my own work, so that maybe one day, I can be a successful author. So, if you've read either The 4 Minute Millionaire or 2-Minute Pep Talks, be it as part of your Lifetime Membership or because you bought them, would you do me the honor and leave a review? You can take as little as 5 minutes and still make my day—just a few lines is enough—plus reviews are super important for a book's success in the long run.
Thank you! I hope you enjoy the new summary, and I'll share more specifics of where exactly Four Minute Books is headed in 2025 as soon as I've got all the nuts and bolts together. Happy reading, |
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