A life your inochi rejoices in, centered on the values that are yours alone
Maki Kitahara
Educational consultant · Coach · Speaker · Founder, LIFE MANDALA
I speak at high schools, companies and local governments on values-based career education and life design, drawing on work, social initiatives and travel across more than 21 countries and regions.
- —Grand Prix, Hope Journey International — Cape Town, first Asian recipient
- —First Japanese speaker, Forbes Middle East Women's Summit — Riyadh
- —Creator of the Life Mandala® self-coaching framework
- —More than 21 countries and regions — through work, social initiatives and travel
BELIEF
The joy of inochi
People do not change because someone changes them. They change the moment they can trust the power that was already theirs.
I was once someone who carried a quiet emptiness. A job, a marriage, a life with nothing missing — and still the sense that I was living someone else's days.
It took my mental health giving way, infertility, leaving my job and leaving my marriage before I understood what was not working.
I only knew two ways to live: perform for other people's expectations, or endure. That a life could be my own had simply never occurred to me.
So to anyone standing where I stood, I want to hand a map — and the ability to steer by it.
Inochi — a Japanese word that holds four meanings at once: the force that lives you, the span you are given, the heart of a thing, and what fate has arranged. English has no single word for it.
WHY
For everyone who wants to hold the helm of their own life
Why would someone who became neither a parent nor a schoolteacher build a business in education?
The first time I felt gratitude for being alive move through my whole body — the kind that brings tears — was on a photo shoot, with the person who became my teacher.
He asked me questions. Questions that drew out what mattered most to me: my values.
What surfaced was something I had spent years dismissing as embarrassing, as out of reach.
It turned out to be the thing I had wanted all along. When he said, "This is what drives your life," the tension left my body, and I accepted the order that had been in my life the whole time.
Our real power opens through good questions — as mine did — and then the laws of nature carry it further than we could alone.
That is why I became a coach, why I built the Life Mandala® framework, and why I created LIFE MANDALA as a place to learn it.
PROFILE
Maki Kitahara
Maki Kitahara is an educational consultant and coach, and the founder of LIFE MANDALA, a school of self-mastery education. Drawing on her own experience of coming through a period of poor mental health, she developed the Life Mandala® self-coaching framework, bringing together Indian yogic meditation, the Japanese spiritual tradition in which Shinto and Buddhism are interwoven, and contemporary cognitive science. Her work reaches beyond personal development into high schools, companies and public institutions. After a language exchange in Canada as a student she worked for an American company, and for a Saudi-founded company headquartered in the UAE, went on to run companies in both Japan and Dubai, and has spent time in more than 21 countries and regions through work, social initiatives and travel. In recognition of her community work she received the Grand Prix of Hope Journey International in South Africa — the first Asian recipient — later serving as a judge and providing contestants with a three-month life coaching program. She was the first Japanese speaker at the Forbes Middle East Women's Summit in 2024, and holds the Higashikuni-no-miya Memorial Prize and Cultural Award.
CAREER
- —Nine years at a foreign-owned manufacturer, as a user trainer for business process reform and ERP rollouts
- —Founded her own education practice; experienced founding a company in Dubai through investor-visa consulting and international business support
- —Began delivering online courses and programs in 2017
SPEAKING
What I speak about
General audiences, professionals, local government
The Life Mandala® framework — seeing life as a structure you can design
A life does not change through willpower or personality. Seen as a structure, it can be designed. Work, family, money, health — domains that look unrelated — are laid out on a single map, until it becomes clear where one move sets the whole thing in motion.
Companies, local government, associations
Women, work, and the shape of a life
Career and the stages of a life are not a trade where one has to be surrendered. Views of marriage and of life have changed, and so has the world around them. I work from respect for each person's own choices, toward the career and the life they actually want.
General audiences, schools, associations
Seeing the world, living in Japan
A language exchange in Canada as a student, then work for an American company and for a Saudi-founded company headquartered in the UAE. Working across cultures, and with organizations abroad, showed me both what is distinctly strong in the Japanese way of working and what is distinctly Japanese about it. Even a life lived entirely in Japan is shaped by the world now.
Countries and regions visited21+ countries and regions
Canada (Vancouver, Toronto) / United States (Los Angeles, Hawaii, Portland) / Brazil / South Korea / China (Dalian, Shanghai, Hong Kong) / Taiwan / Philippines / Malaysia / Singapore / Cambodia / Thailand / Nepal / Australia (Sydney, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Byron Bay) / Finland / France / Spain / UAE (Dubai) / Qatar / Saudi Arabia / Egypt / South Africa
General audiences and high school students
Knowing your own values — how to choose a path
Deciding a career by asking "what should I become" leads to a dead end. What kind of person am I, in terms of what I hold dear? Once that has words, the way you choose changes. Includes a workshop for making values visible.
Schools and educational institutions
Educating the next generation of leaders
Japan faces a shrinking, aging population, while technology and internationalization accelerate. How do we cultivate a view of the world from the regions — and people who can frame their own questions in an age with no set answers?
Available online or in person, in Japanese or English.
WORKS
Selected works
Book
- 2026.02.18
The Mandala Coaching Book: A Blueprint for Returning to a Life Your Inochi Rejoices In
Self Mastery Series / 182 pages (Japanese)
Speaking
- 2026.04.20
Technology and a global outlook: what Saga's young leaders could become
Miyaki High School, Saga Prefecture — founding anniversary lecture (approx. 400 students)
- 2026.03.13
From training people to educating oneself: developing self-directed talent
Learning Edge — "CEO Liberal Arts" morning live, guest speaker
An online community of 15,000 business owners and executives.
- 2025.09.05
Revitalizing organizations by recognizing differences in values
Kyushu Productivity Center (public interest foundation) — Kyushu Labour Union Productivity Council
Breakfast forum for senior officers of the region's major labour unions (approx. 20 attendees), held bimonthly in Fukuoka since 1990.
- 2024.12
Speaker, Forbes Middle East Women's Summit
She Leads Hub / Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
First Japanese speaker; quoted in the Forbes Middle East report on the summit.
Social impact
- 2026.09.24
Host, Self Mastery Project 2026
Miyaki High School, Saga (approx. 600 students) + nationwide online broadcast
Shifting Japan's future from education in its regions. A charity lecture with Dr. John Demartini, on building the next generation around values as an inner driving force.
- 2024–2025
Coaching program for Hope Journey International contestants
Life Coaching for Your Destiny
A three-month program for community leaders: clarifying vision and self-knowledge, balancing health, career, finances and relationships, and sustaining consistent action.
- 2022–2025
Founder and host, Serendipity Universe®
A co-creation platform initiated by women
Registered as a co-creation partner of Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, and concluded with the Expo. Four editions, approx. 2,100 participants in total, from up to 22 countries.
- 2022–2024
International Judge, Hope Journey International
Cape Town, South Africa — first Asian judge, three consecutive years
An international contest supporting projects and the people who lead them, aimed at empowering women and young people, strengthening communities, and building leadership and follow-through.
Awards
- 2024
Higashikuni-no-miya Memorial Prize & Cultural Award
A private Japanese award founded in 1963 by Prince Morihiro Higashikuni and Toyoo Toyosawa, recognizing small inventions and sustained contributions in industry, culture and social welfare.
- 2018.12
Grand Prix, Hope Journey International
Cape Town, South Africa — representing Japan; first Asian recipient
An international contest supporting projects and the people who lead them, aimed at empowering women and young people, strengthening communities, and building leadership and follow-through. The awards ceremony and gala are held in Cape Town.
A fuller record, including Japanese media coverage, is on the Japanese site.
CONTACT
Get in touch
I welcome enquiries about speaking, writing, editorial supervision, books, interviews and media appearances.
Send an enquiryFor corporate work, see Global Synergy Education.