The Ikigai Podcast
The Ikigai Podcast
Beyond Myself 8: Eight Powers for Navigating an Uncertain World
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The world is changing fast, and “just be strong” is not a plan. I’m joined by my good friend, clinical psychologist and author Professor Daiki Kato to share the thinking behind his new book Beyond Myself 8 and the BM8 framework: eight practical psychological powers that help us stay steady, connect deeply, and move forward with purpose when life feels uncertain.
We dig into why non-cognitive skills like resilience, self-efficacy, empathy, and tolerance matter as much as any technical ability, especially in an era shaped by rapid change and emerging AI. Daiki reframes resilience as flexible strength, like bamboo that bends and returns, and explains how self-efficacy grows through small wins that prove to your brain that progress is possible. From there we explore rolefulness, the sense that our presence and actions matter, and how that feeling can expand into genuine empathy and real tolerance, the “mental margin” that lets us welcome difference without feeling threatened.
We also get concrete with the “navigate society” powers: identifying better questions when there are no clear answers, learning from experience without getting stuck in the past, and using imagination for risk management without spiraling into fear. Daiki shares two hands-on tools you can try right away: question journaling (discomfort to question to wider view) and a resilience map that helps you name what you have, who you are, what you can do, and where you can go for support.
If you want a clear, usable map for mental strength, relationships, and meaningful contribution, hit play. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs steadier footing, and leave a review with the one BM8 power you want to practice next.
Welcome Back And New Book
SPEAKER_01On this episode of the Ikigai Tribe podcast, I welcome back my good friend, clinical psychologist and author, Professor Daiki Kato, to talk about his new book, Beyond Myself 8. Eight Powers to Navigate Myself. Daike wrote this book with his colleagues, Professor Mihoko Tsureta and Associate Professor Aya Futamura. Daike has been a regular guest on the Kigai Tribe podcast, appearing on episode 47 and 107. On both episodes, we talked about a psychological concept he coined called rolefulness. Welcome back to the podcast, Daike. It's good to see you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, good to see you. Thank you so much, Nick. It's wonderful to be back with you. I'm really looking forward to talking with you today. Yeah, thank you.
SPEAKER_01My pleasure, my friend. Congratulations on your book, Beyond Myself 8. So, how did the idea of this book come about?
Turning Research Into Daily Tools
SPEAKER_00Thank you. The idea for this book came from a very simple wish. We wanted to bring academic psychology out of the research lab and into people's daily lives. My co-authors, Mihoku, Aya, and I realized that while academic research is variable, it often stays within universities. We wanted to create a practical, accessible guide that helps people understand their own psychological strengths and navigate their everyday challenges.
SPEAKER_01I see. And on that theme, you wanted to make your academic findings more accessible and impactful in the real world. And you identified two recurring needs that you felt needed to be explored. What are these two needs?
SPEAKER_00Yes, we identify two major needs through our research and practice. First, there is a need for individuals to understand their own inner strengths. In a fast-changing world, many people struggle with stress and uncertainty. They wonder what are my strengths or how can I handle these challenges. But human psychological strength is not just one thing, it's a balance of multiple resources. People need a framework to see and nurture their whole psychological self. Second, there's a need for connection and social contribution. Personal strengths alone isn't enough. People also need to feel that they belong, that they can accept diversity, and that they're making a meaningful contribution, which connects deeply to lawfulness, as we discussed before. So we created Beyond Myself 8 to address these two needs, helping people discover their inner strengths and enabling them to uh contribute to society.
SPEAKER_01Yes, as I was reading the book, I thought, well, this book really relates to concepts like ebashol, rolefulness, obviously, and of course Ikigai. And maybe this is our struggle. How do we use our strengths? How can we handle our challenges? And then there is this uh natural human desire to contribute and I guess be a part of society. And in your book, you share that there is a growing interest in non-cognitive skills, and I guess this is what we're talking about. So what are these non-cognitive skills?
SPEAKER_00Simply
Non-Cognitive Skills That Shape Life
SPEAKER_00put, non-cognitive skills are qualities that cannot be measured by traditional academic tests or IQ scores. They are skills like empathy, exilience, tolerance, and uh ability to build good relationships with others. While cognitive skills are about what you know, so non-cognitive skills are about how you navigate life and uh work with people. In today's complex society, these soft relational skills are essential for true well-being and long-term success.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I was going to ask if we would define them as soft skills, but I think they're essential skills. So, what do they help people do?
SPEAKER_00They help people build a strong foundation for a healthy, fulfilling life in society. First, non-cognitive skills support our inner strengths, uh, building qualities like self-efficacy and resilience so we can face everyday challenges with confidence. Second, they enhance our interpersonal abilities, helping us practice empathy, accept diversity, and uh experience lawfulness where we feel valued and useful to others. In short, they bridge our internal confidence with our social connections, enabling us to live healthy, meaningful lives together.
SPEAKER_01There you go, that's the Iki Connection.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So let's touch on your book.
BM8 Powers For Inner Strength
SPEAKER_01As the title implies, you developed a framework called the BM8. It has eight uh capacities, which are organized into three core groups. Would you like to introduce the three core groups?
SPEAKER_00Okay, so uh the first group is uh powers to strengthen the individual. This is uh about building a strong inner foundation and it includes two key powers. So one is a resilience and the other is uh self-efficacy. So resilience is your inner flexibility, uh the ability to adapt and bounce back when you face difficulties or stress rather than breaking under the pressure. And the next one is self-efficacy, so it is uh confidence that comes from your past experiences, uh, that feelings of uh if I put in the efforts, I can do this. So it's a kind of the so a very core confidence for us. Uh together, uh resilience and uh self-efficacy give individuals the core strength and stability they need before connecting deeply with the world around them.
SPEAKER_01Nice. I like how in the book you relate resilience to the flexibility of bamboo. Bamboo can flex and bend under the weight of snow, but it will bounce back. Whereas if it was a rigid branch, it might break. This is uh something you call supple strength. And actually reminded me of some of the Japanese martial arts to like judo. So being flexible is an interesting perspective on resilience. Maybe in the West we we see resilience as being stone and very strong. But moving on, you write that intelligence is defined by our environment. Would you like to touch on that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Uh what we define as intelligence or uh uh capability uh changes depending on the era and environment we live in. In the past, having a lot of knowledge or score high on academic tests might have been the primary definition of intelligence. But in today's modern society uh where things changed rapidly and the future is uncertain, knowledge alone isn't enough. Today, the real foundation for living a healthy and meaningful life lies in qualities like self-efficacy and resilience. When the world around us shifts, uh having the enough flexibility to adapt and believe in ourselves to keep going becomes the most essential form of intelligence we can possess.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think it's really needed in this era of emerging AI and rapid change. There's so much uncertainty. So it almost sounds like a situational intelligence. Can you use your intelligence in these changing uh situations we're dealing with? You also touch on the power of small wins.
SPEAKER_00Yes, small wins are so important. Experiencing small wins is uh a most accessible first step to building self-efficacy. We don't need to accomplish something massive right away. Uh when we set uh manageable goals and uh achieve them, like finishing a short task or uh taking a quick walk, our mind register that progress. Those small moments of success gradually build our confidence, reassuring us I can do this. That's how real lasting self-efficacy naturally grows.
SPEAKER_01I think I can relate this to Ken Moggy's idea of start small. We're often overwhelmed if we have a big goal, but as you said, if we can cut things down and do smaller things, I guess if we start small we get small wins. And then that's when we start to feel self-efficacy. So I like these philosophies of smallness. Where in the West it's often big and ambitious and take massive action, all these kind of mantras.
Rolefulness Builds Empathy And Tolerance
SPEAKER_01Moving on, let's take a look at the powers to nurturing relationships. Um you identified three capacities for this group.
SPEAKER_00What are they? In this second group, we focus on how we connect and build healthy relationships with others. It includes three core capacities lawfulness, empathy, and tolerance. Lawfulness is about feeling valued and finding meaning through our laws in daily life, feeling that we are contributing to others. Empathy is the ability to step into another person's shoes and truly care about their feelings. And last of one, tolerance is having an open mind to welcome diversity and accept different perspectives without judgment. Together, these three powers help us build warm, meaningful, and lasting connections with the people around us.
SPEAKER_01Well, Daike, we actually wrote a book on rolefulness together, and we've talked about it in the past on several episodes. It's one of my favorite words. So would you like to touch on it a bit more? What is rolefulness?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So rowfulness is a continuous sense of law satisfaction in our daily lives. It's about feeling that our presence and actions matters to others. In our research, we highlight two key aspects of lawfulness. One is social lawfulness. This is nurtured through our relationships and interactions with others, feeling needed, appreciated, and useful in our social roles. And the other one is internal lawfulness. This happens when those positive experiences become internalized. It transforms into personal confidence, a clear identity, and a deep sense of self-worth. It's not just about playing a role, it's about how those roles help us feel grounded and connected as human beings.
SPEAKER_01I'm also a big believer that roles are a very strong source of Ikigai. Give us identity, sense of purpose, opportunity to express ourselves. Really something we can embody and and become a version of ourselves that we want to be in different contexts. So I think this word you coined, rolefulness, is amazing. It's fascinating. And I think it's a work in progress. There's so much research you could do on it. So that's exciting. And on the theme of roles, you state that those who find fulfillment in their own roles naturally become more sensitive to roles of others. So is this empathy?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So the empathy and the lawfulness are really connected, and empathy is all about stepping into someone's else's shoes and understanding their perspective. But to truly do that, we first need to understand our own roles and then recognize and respect the role that others play. When you find fulfillment in your own laws, when you experience rolefulness, you gain a clear awareness of how people support each other in a community or a team. Naturally you start to notice this person is carrying a heavy responsibility in the law right now. Knowing your own place helps you see and appreciate other people's efforts. That awareness opens your heart and uh creates genuine uh deep empathy.
SPEAKER_01So lawfulness leads or creates empathy, and then it seems it also leads to tolerance. You describe tolerance as the leeway of identity. Could you touch on this and could you also define tolerance?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that flow is so important. Rawfulness leads to empathy, and empathy deepens into tolerance. When I talk about tolerance as a psychological blessing rule, I define it as the open mindset to acknowledge and uh accept that others feel, think, and see the world uh differently from us. When we are uh insecure about our own identity, uh different opinions can feel like a threat. But uh when we have lawfulness and self-efficacy, our identity has a leeway, uh, it becomes flexible and uh spacious. That inner space allows us to say uh you see things differently and uh that is completely okay. It's not just about enjoying differences, it's about genuinely welcoming diversity with a calm, open heart.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, this is interesting because you do state that tolerance is nothing more than mental margin created by the satisfaction in one's own roles. And this got me thinking, is this a type of utori?
SPEAKER_00Yes, uh utory is a very important Japanese word and uh uh it means uh like the space or the way. And uh when we uh cultivate tolerance, it creates real utori, uh a sense of spaciousness, uh not only in our hearts but also in our daily behavior patterns.
SPEAKER_01And I wonder if it's cyclical. If you have more utory, perhaps you can have more tolerance. Yeah. The world is very unstable at the moment, and I think it needs more utory and and more tolerance. So these ideas you're touching on, I think, would be very helpful, especially for society. So
Three Powers To Navigate Society
SPEAKER_01let's move on to the powers to navigate society. This is the third group. So, what are the three capacities of this group?
SPEAKER_00Final group is uh powers to navigate society. This is about uh applying our inner strengths and the relationships to uh face the future. It includes three powers. Uh the first one is uh identify questions, the next one is experiential learning, and uh last one is risk management. So the first one is uh identify questions, so it helps us discover essential problems rather than just accepting quick answers. The next one is experiential learning and it turns out our past experiences into practical wisdom for the future. The last one is uh risk management. It allows us to make thoughtful decisions to protect ourselves and others. These three powers give us the practical tools to navigate an uncertain world.
SPEAKER_01We definitely need to be asking the right questions. And you describe the power to identify questions as a guide for an age without correct answers, which is interesting. So, what do you mean by that?
SPEAKER_00So when the future is uncertain, uh simply waiting for someone to give us the right answer doesn't work anymore. Uh, the power to identify questions is uh about having the uh awareness of both yourself and your environment to ask what is the true problem here or what really matters to me, it becomes uh a compass to guide uh your own life. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So with the power to leverage experience you share, it is about turning the past into future strengths. So can you expand on that?
SPEAKER_00Mm-hmm. Uh when you combine that with uh power to leverage experience, uh you are essentially uh turning your past into future strengths. Whether uh past experiences were uh successes or failures, when you reflect on them, uh they become variable wisdom. Instead of being stuck in the past, uh you use those lessons as energy to take your next step forward. So together, asking the right questions and uh learning from your journey allow you to navigate an a certain world uh with quality and uh purpose.
SPEAKER_01It is so important to ask the right questions, and I think this means you have to be aware. Uh it's it's like metacognition, yeah. Thinking about the questions you want to ask. So we can always ask better quality questions. But then the third power is the power of risk management. So what's this one about?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So in our life, so many things, uh uncertain and uh unexpected events can always happen. That's why risk management is uh fundamentally about using your imagination. Having a healthy imagination allows you to anticipate potential challenges before they happen, asking yourself, what if things don't go as planned, or how can I protect myself and others? Particular to cultivate that imagination, we need to leverage our past experiences. Our previous experiences, both good and bad, uh, give us uh the foresight to uh foresee risks. So risk management is not about uh living in fear, uh, it's about using our imagination and experience to feel prepared, safe, and ready to step uh forward into the anonymity's peace of mind.
SPEAKER_01So, how do we do that, Taki?
SPEAKER_00How can we manage risk? I think that's a very important question.
Question Journaling For Real Risk Management
SPEAKER_00And one very practical exercise uh we introduced in the book is called question journaling. So it's a very nice question, and so uh so after uh listening our uh the podcast, so uh I hope so many audience uh uh interested in our book, and so I want to uh introduce one of the uh work, so uh it is included in in our book. So one is question journaling. So it's a very simple three-step process to train our risk management and problem-identifying skills. So the first one is uh barber is your uh subtle discomfort. So for example, so first, uh, write down any small feeling that something is off or doesn't feel uh right uh in your daily life. So then transform it into a question, reframe that discomfort into a constructive question, like why did I feel uncomfortable here? Or uh what is missing? Yeah, and this is making so uh transforming questions. And uh so the final step is uh expand your perspective. So in this step, look at the situation from different angles to uh see the bigger picture and uh discover new solutions. Through these steps by practicing question journaling, uh we can catch early signs of risk before uh they become major problems, and uh it turns our daily intuition into a uh reliable form of risk management.
SPEAKER_01Well, that's a good way to put it. Tapping into your intuition so you verbalize something. So maybe I would say as an example, I have a podcast today and I'm uh worried about it a little. And then the transforming question is or why am I worried? Or what what is the discomfort? And then expand on my perspective. Oh, this is a a good opportunity to have a conversation or it's a good opportunity to share some knowledge. And it's it's more about the guest rather than my performance. Something like that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So yeah, I think journaling is a very good way to focus on our feelings. And uh so it's a very good way to uh care about uh our risk management.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So actually in your book, you do have various exercises like this one and others to help the readers develop these capacities. Uh shall we share another one? Or would you like to walk us through the resilience map?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, thank you. So when you are in
Resilience Map And Support Systems
SPEAKER_00the middle of a difficult situation, uh it's very easy to feel isolated and uh lose sight of the help around you. Barbariasing your uh bonds creates a vital mental safety net. In this exercise, you identify your support systems across uh four key categories. So the first one is what I have, uh, your external resources like knowledge or uh supportive relations, relationships. And the next one is uh what I am, it means uh your uh personal strengths and values. And the third one is uh what I can do, it's uh concrete actions uh you can take right now. And the last one is uh where I can go. It means safe places and professional support uh you can turn to. By mapping these out before uh uh crisis hits, uh you always know uh where to turn, which gives you the strength and uh resilience to bounce back. So I think so. It's a very simple thing. These all uh four things are very simple but uh very uh powerful to release your resilience. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I can use myself as an example on this maybe. So recently in the news in Japan, there's been a lot of uh talk and changes about immigration and law changes in regard to permanent residency. So I've I've kind of been worried and oh can I move back to Japan? So if I go through this exercise, what I have well, I have many supportive relationships in you. I obviously have my wife, and she's actually already started the process of applying for a spouse visa. So I have those external resources. Uh what am I? Well, I've lived in Japan, I have a history with Japan, a strong connection to Japan, uh, I can speak the language to some degree, I'm very knowledgeable of Japan, and I I know I have a place there. So I think that's uh what I am. What I can do, it's probably more what my wife can do. So my my wife can research all this stuff, I I can help her, and if need be we could get uh I guess someone, a professional to help us process the the visa application if we needed to. And where can I go? Well, I can actually go to Japan. I can still go there on a tourist visa, speak to people like you or other friends, uh, or seek professional help. So I guess it's slowing down and realizing, yeah, you have these resources or support systems, and then I guess you stop catastrophizing, you stop worrying, because if you don't pause and maybe objectively think all you do is worry, yeah, and then oh I won't get to Japan and all these problems are going to happen, and then uh I guess you get worried or even maybe even depressed. Yeah?
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01So very helpful, and you have many exercises. Finishing up, Daikey, you state that the BM8 powers already reside within you. So it's just really having an awareness of them and practicing them. And your book helps readers do this. So with that in mind, and also beyond the book, is the BM8 something you also do as workshops?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, uh absolutely. So that is a core message. So these eight powers are not something
Workshops Plans And Closing Takeaways
SPEAKER_00new you have to acquire, they already reside within you. It's just a matter of becoming aware of them and practicing them in daily life. Uh, through this book, my biggest hope is that people all over the world become aware of the BM8 concept and use it to make their lives richer, healthier, and more fulfilling. Beyond the book, we definitely plan to hold some workshops and programs. We want to create interactive spaces where people can experience this exercise uh firsthand, uh, feel connected, and bring the BMA into their everyday routines. I really hope this framework brings clarity and uh confidence to as many people as possible. And uh so I'm very happy to uh have such kind of opportunity to talk about uh Beyond Myself aid to so many people and uh so uh talking about my ideas. So that kind of opportunity is uh so really important for me. And so yeah, and uh next my dream is uh uh doing some webinars or the workshops and uh yeah, and uh uh talking together with uh so many people, so not only in Japan, so but also yeah, all over the world. I'm really appreciate you and uh to have such a great opportunity today. Yeah, thank you, Nick.
SPEAKER_01I'm happy to be one of your resources.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you are the my professional support.
SPEAKER_01Of course. Likewise, you are too. Uh we we can definitely do something together, so maybe we can do a webinar on the the BM8. There's a lot of overlap with Vicky Guy. And so I'd just like to summarize the eight capacities. So under the core group of uh powers to strengthen the individual, we have uh resilience and self-efficacy, then we have the powers to nurturing relationships, we have rolefulness, empathy, and tolerance, and then powers to navigating society. We have the power to identify questions, leverage experience and risk management. Yeah, very helpful book. I've been going through it, a lot of insights. Um no one can see on the this is on the audio, but I've been highlighting a lot of the book. It's a lot of wisdom condensed into a very short book, uh, so very practical. I do think we need a map now to navigate our lives in this very uncertain, chaotic world. So well done, Daikey on the book, and uh let's plan something in the future on your model the BM8. Congratulations on your book and thank you for joining me again on the podcast.