Kelly Morita is an Ikigai Empowerment/Success coach helping you live a purpose-led lifestyle while building your dream life. Whether you’re wanting to start a business or brand, explore more of your passions and interests, or cultivate more self-awareness and care into your life, Kelly can guide you in achieving a life of fulfillment, happiness, and success on your journey to your dream life!
Tell us about who you are and what you do.
My name is Kelly Morita and I’m an Ikigai Empowerment and Success coach. I help people discover their purpose, activate confidence, and create a life of fulfillment and abundance. I live in the beautiful land of the rising sun and have learned from this country on a spiritual level. Through my journey living abroad, I’ve faced many challenges and explored my passions in search of my identity and purpose. I realized having a purpose isn’t about what you do, it’s about who you are and how you perceive the world!
I launched my first online course called, “The Ikigai Lifestyle Academy” attracting over 65 students and $20k in sales in the first three months of launch! I’m very proud of what this course has done for many people and I now have 1:1 coaching available for anyone who needs direction in life or business!
I started out as an influencer and content creator on YouTube and amassed over 100,000 followers in just one week due to a viral video about my emotions and struggles to find myself abroad. It’s all thanks to showing up confidently as my true, authentic self. Therefore, I’m open to helping people find purpose and direction in everyday life, business, branding, and even for those living abroad like myself and feel lost in what their next step is. Life purpose and living to the fullest is my expertise!
As for a little background, I grew up in a small town in Michigan with big dreams. My love for Japan started at a young age when I took my first foreign language class at 13 years old. I grew up with a dream to move overseas and teach English. I participated in internship programs and studied abroad, spending my last semester of high school in Japan. It was all so exciting! Nothing could keep me away. It was as if something was calling me to stay.
My heart was so set on a chance to live and teach in Japan, so I grabbed all of my courage and applied for every program before graduating from university. I lived and breathed Japan until I manifested my dream job there!
After some time, I realized that, as much as I loved teaching, I felt as if something was missing in my life like I was meant for something bigger. I began to explore other passions, signing to a record label and releasing music, starting a YouTube channel, applying to grad schools, and later, starting a business to help influencers grow their social accounts. I loved all of it, but something still felt off.
Amongst all of this exploring, I fell into the trap of listening to what others had to say about me, self-sabotaging, afraid of taking risks, always in toxic relationships that didn’t serve me until one day, I came across the beautiful concept of Ikigai.
I began to dive deep into Japanese psychology. I soon forgot all my struggles and started to incorporate Ikigai into my daily life eventually manifesting the life of my dreams and becoming the strong warrior I knew I always was. I attracted a beautiful husband, a successful online coaching business, a stronger community, closer friendships, peace within myself, and much more.
I realized my mission in life was to inspire and empower others with the concept of Ikigai or what I like to call, “Ikigai Empowerment,” using Japanese and western mindset methods.
Everyone has a different meaning in life and it starts in your soul. We all have incredible stories and a unique power within us. We can have and do whatever we desire if we get out of our own way and open up our awareness.
My new mission now is to spread this message across the world, change people’s lives from the comfort of my tiny Tokyo home, using techniques from another, beautiful kind.
Shifting your mindset, habits, and taking risks aren’t easy. But once we learn to be honest with ourselves and understand that we’re human, we can become resilient in the face of challenge and struggle.
Tell us how you created this brand and what was the sole idea behind it.
I was already creating inspirational content on YouTube and Instagram every week but in the form of life abroad. I talked about Ikigai in subtle ways as I began experimenting with it after a breakup. I felt I relied on others too much to make me happy when in reality, I knew I could be my own support system and experience so many beautiful things in life. My mind began to shift and ideas began to circulate in my mind. I was already working with a branding coach thinking I wanted to go in the direction of social media strategy as I felt I knew the secrets to grow an audience and showing up authentically online but I still felt uninspired.
I soon enough fused my love for creating, sharing my stories, teaching, and social media with Ikigai and success coaching. It took a while for my current audience to warm up to it and it wasn’t an easy shift, but I wasn’t one to give up.
My brand is the way it is today because it evolved with me and became my truth which attracted so much abundance, connections, and experiences through content creation. I didn’t let others deter me from doing something I didn’t want to do. I’m very lucky to have such a thriving brand and idea!
The message I want to convey through my brand is that you can create the life you want, dream big, and do what you want to do by activating something called, Ikigai. Ikigai is the word for ‘life purpose’ in Japanese. All my life I’ve been incorporating Japanese mindset methods into my day to day and using them as tools to activate the power I know I have within me to achieve anything I want to achieve. Ikigai is all about activating your soul, your truth, and your honest self. Once we do that, we can be unstoppable! I also believe it has helped me show up in my business and create what you see today!
Go into detail and tell us about how your brand works. You may keep this from the audience’s perspective.
Ikigai is not a new concept. It has been floating around the internet for many years. You may have seen a Venn diagram which states, in order to find “Ikigai” or your “life purpose” you must discover ‘what you love,’ ‘what you’re good at,’ ‘What the world needs,’ and ‘what you can be paid for.’ I realized this diagram was a great resource for finding your passions in life and less about finding purpose. It also wasn’t the real Ikigai concept. The real concept of Ikigai wasn’t a diagram, a chart, or a list, it’s something we all have deep within us. Although discovering your passions is valid and allows you to attract amazing experiences into your life to HELP you activate purpose, it isn’t the main piece of the puzzle.
I read many books from several authors about Ikigai and realized they all had their own concept and image of what it means to have Ikigai. There was no real answer. The more I read, I began to have my own theories and interpretation of the concept.
My theory and own vision of what Ikigai means is it has nothing to do with your job and more about who you are authentically and truthfully. Your Ikigai is what you interpret the meaning of life as. Ikigai is everything you put into every aspect of your life. For example, if the meaning of life for you is to inspire yourself and others every day, then you must embody that version of yourself to live in alignment.
If the meaning of life for you is to create powerful relationships, healthy habits, a peaceful and abundant life, then that is how you will live your authentic self. Everyone has their own meaning but not everyone knows what that is yet. You have a purpose already; you just have to activate it. I always tell my clients to let down their ego and start asking the right questions.
How you activate Ikigai is by going through my eight-step Ikigai Lifestyle Method Timeline and that involves many methods derived from Japanese psychology and other techniques like manifestation, NLP, time techniques, meditations, limiting belief work, and so on. It involves shedding this layer to reveal your truth. The ultimate transformation with a Japanese twist!
Once you have purposed it can translate into all aspects of your life pie – relationships, business or brand, career, finances, spirituality, environment, etc. When you become your truth, you give off something called, “The Ikigai Effect” and THAT’S when you experience freedom in your life to be who you’re meant to be.
There is no right or wrong way to live or uncover your truth which is why this theory can help so many, but I always advocate to use something called, ‘beginners mind’ to find the methods that work best for you even if it means inventing your own theory or way. You hold the power within you, you have everything you need to succeed in life, you just have to activate it. That is why I call my techniques “Ikigai Empowerment” and “having an Ikigai Lifestyle.”
I now have available a 4-month Ikigai Lifestyle Course which will soon be shifting to group coaching in the next month, as well as 1:1 3 and 6 monthly coachings available for both entrepreneurs or the average everyday dreamer for those who need direction or help to discover their purpose in life. Single sessions are also available for anyone who needs help answering something specific!
What is your giveaway idea through this interview? Highlight something that may interest the readers on a one to one basis.
Many people wait until “the right time” to live their lives, make a change, start that business, do that thing they’ve always wanted to do. They wait for “motivation” but motivation doesn’t happen until you take action.
There will never BE the right time to make a change or transformation. The thing is, if you believe you can accomplish anything, then you can accomplish anything. Start now! Start today! No matter what age you are, you can do what you set your mind to.
You can create the life you want by living your truth. Stop worrying about what others think, dig deep, and uncover limiting beliefs that might be holding you back. Once you do this, you’ll attract a life meant for you. Understand that life happens FOR you, not TO you.
Explain the challenges you went through while you were working on brand creation. What are the challenges you go through on an everyday basis?
Limiting beliefs and thoughts will always come up. That voice in your head will always find ways to hold you back and make excuses. In Zen teachings, there’s something called the ‘thinking mind’ and ‘the observing mind’ we have to separate those two minds to heal ourselves, get up, and keep going. What I love about the concept of Ikigai is the fact that it’s all about growth and becoming resilient. Even I have bad days where I break down and need to release some emotional energy. But I know how to take a step back and observe my energy and where I’m putting it to reassess and find balance again.
I thought I was pretty confident in myself and my abilities until I hired my own coach who guided me on my journey to entrepreneurship. I realized I had a lot of stuck beliefs about what it meant to run a business and make money. I had to continuously work on that.
We are human. It’s inevitable that we feel fear, doubt, unworthiness. Our emotions are messengers of the soul. We need to learn to recognize what those emotions are trying to tell us and not feed into the thoughts that come with it.
Your journey is never-ending. There will always be battles and struggles along the way. It’s impossible to be perfect or happy all the time. But once we learn to cultivate the power we have within us and become resilient in every situation, we can realign, reassess, and move forward.
How do you manage your finances through the services you offer? Any fundings etc received?
I quit my 9-5 and had no consistent income. I believed if I focused on my coaching business full time, the universe would see that and support me in what I needed. I had some help from my amazing husband in keeping afloat, in the beginning, along with some inconsistent YouTube and sponsorship income but other than that, I put faith in all that I created and put out there.
Tell us your future vision about the brand. How far do you want to take it? What is your dream about taking it to the next level?
I believe the Ikigai Empowerment is going to change many lives and perspectives of others. It’s a new concept fused with an ancient idea. There are too many people living in a world that isn’t their own and I want to guide others in seeing their truth in order to build confidence, achieve what they want to achieve, and go after the life they want whether that’s moving overseas, starting a business, living in peace, attracting abundance, writing a book, the list goes on. Whether you believe you can do it or not, either way, you’re right.
I hope to. Be known for Ikigai empowerment across several platforms. I see many amazing projects come to life and I want to create a community of warriors who can support each other in their endeavors.
I believe that we are the queen or king of our own kingdom and in order to get there, we have to be the hero of our own story.
What message would you like to give to anybody who has a plan of creating something of their own and making a living through it?
There are no rules. Whatever you want to create, you can create. Whatever you want to be paid for, you can be paid for. Just because others are doing something one way, doesn’t mean you have to do it the exact same way. And if you’re the only one with a new idea, be the first to succeed in it. Show up as your authentic self and you will succeed because we’re all unique in our own way. In nature, no leaf is the same, and just like nature, we are not the same. Share your gifts.
Company name : Kelly Morita: Ikigai Empowerment & Success Coach
Website: www.kellymorita.com
Instagram: www.instagram.com/kellymoritasan