Dr. Lycka was a highly successful cosmetic dermatologist when he received a life changing diagnosis of ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) and thought his life was over. Fortunately, Dr. Lycka kept searching for more answers and eventually realized he was misdiagnosed. Once he got a second chance on life, he started to view things from a very different perspective. He began to simplify his life and focus on the things that really mattered to him (e.g., being of service to others). This has all led to a successful career as an author, podcast/radio host, and speaker; all geared around providing guidance on how to live a "fantastic life."

The thread throughout the conversation with Dr. Lycka was around better understanding that simple, yet impactful approach to life. I tend to view life as extremely complex and nuanced, making simple approaches to life good in theory but difficult to actually execute. I appreciated Dr. Lycka's thoughtful responses to these questions because I think for many people like me, we desperately want a simple answer, but we just haven't found one that works yet. One of the concepts that came up was the Japanese "ikigai", which provides a very practical framework for finding "your reason for being."

I think if I had to net out Dr. Lycka's advice it says that we need to: 1. figure out what matters to us (our ikigai), 2. determine our non-negotiables in trying to achieve it, and 3. take on more risk and continuously work towards it (although he articulates it much better in his book and his "13 pearls of wisdom"). As I read those words I know there is a lot of wisdom and good advice in there, but I think as Dr. Lycka would acknowledge, it can be a long, difficult journey to get to a place where you are able to act on it. Or maybe it can be a really simple process if we follow the right steps. That is the beauty of this show and of life; we get to explore all the different perspectives on getting to our version of a "fantastic life."