The Art of Happy Money with Ken Honda

[MUSIC] Welcome to the Jack Camfield podcast, where we dive deep into the world of personal growth and inner awakening. I'm Jack Camfield, multiple New York Times bestselling author and a human potential trainer, speaker and coach for more than five decades. Each episode will bring you new ideas, cutting edge strategies, and inspiring people. It will challenge your paradigms and help you unlock your ability to make all of your dreams come true. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Let's get started. [MUSIC] Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Jack Camfield podcast. Today, we're diving into a topic that's close to my heart. Something called the Art of Happy Money with my good friend, Ken Honda. Now, first, I'd like to give you a little background on Ken. Ken's a bestselling self-development author in Japan, with books they all surpassing over 8 million copies since 2001. His latest book is called Happy Money. The Japanese Art of Making Peace with Your Money, the new book coming out soon. Ken has been a business consultant, a successful investor. He's a finance expertise, which comes from owning and managing several businesses, including an accounting company, a management consulting firm, and adventure capital corporation. But Ken's expertise goes way beyond just money and finance. His knowledge and writings bridge the topics of finance and self-help, focusing on creating and generating personal wealth and happiness through developing deeper self-awareness and self-honesty. In his mentoring programs, business seminars and correspondence courses have been called therapeutic. I've actually witnessed Ken working with people. It's amazing what he does. Take advantage of him in the future if he can. Now, Ken also is the first person from Japan to be voted into the Transformation Leadership Council, which is a group I started a professional and personal development leaders about 20 years ago. Includes people like John Gray, Manifold Mars, Lisa Nichols, from the secret, Mary Morrissey from the Brave Thinking Institute, Marcie Shimoff, Dave Asprey, Eric Ebenez, Joe Vitale, Vision Lachiani from Mind Valley. So, good company. Now, Ken is fluent in Japanese, English, and Spanish, and currently resides in Tokyo, Japan. And as you'll soon experience, Ken's a pioneer in marrying the concepts of money and happiness in ways that transform lives. And today, we're going to explore how your emotions and beliefs about money shape your financial reality and how shifting these can lead to not just financial peace and prosperity, but the life, long happiness that most of us are pursuing. We're all about action here and advice, so get ready to learn how to heal your relationships with money, tackle financial stress, and infuse more joy into all your financial transactions. Ken, it's always a pleasure to have you and have these conversations with you, so welcome. Thank you so much, Jack. This has been my dream, so I feel my dream come true. I just pulled out your Japanese version of success principles here. And I, wow, yes, it's been many years since I picked it up. It's almost like 20 years, right? I'm so excited that I'm on your show. Well, I'm excited to have you here. I value our friendship. I value what you teach. You're counseling. You invited me over to Tokyo a number of years ago. We got to go to Buddhist temples and Shinto temples and we did, where we went to Sumo Wrestling. We went to one of the greatest sushi restaurants I've ever been in my life. That's right. You are the consummate host, so I appreciate you and the generosity. I know generosity is a big part of your life, and we'll talk about that. But let's start by talking about your book Happy Money, which is transformed how many of us talk about our fight incident. Can you share the core philosophy behind Happy Money and how it came into being? Yes, so I was born into a successful tax accountant father. My mother was a stay-at-home mom and it was a very unique family because my father started teaching about money since I was five or six. He used to teach me about small business and big business and one day he wanted me to take over his accounting firm and all the other things. So he started teaching me about money. As I grew up, I witnessed a lot of my father's clients go up and down in business and also with money and life. So I have learned like a mini version of what you wrote in your book Success Principles. So by the time I was 20, I thought I knew pretty much about money and work. So I started my own company and I was successful enough to retire at age 29 for my baby girl whom you met at the Transmission Leadership Council. So I retired for four years and during this four years semi-retirement, I came up with this vision of writing a book. Writing a book was sort of in my dream but I was a low and accounting major so like I was far from writing. I love books. So one day I sat down and started writing and then a lot started to come up. And I wanted to write about happiness and money. That eventually became this book Happy Money in English. Let's talk about what's the core concept. Normally I don't think about money being happy or happy money and you share some really I think radical breakthrough ideas. Share some of those with us right now. Yes. You know I realized and also I've been taught by my grant mentors and my mentor said there are two kinds of money. Happy money and unhappy money. You know it because when you receive it happy money opens up your heart because it comes with gratitude. For example your best clients usually appreciate the most and then they give it the most money. So if you're so appreciative because out of say 20,000 other coaches he or she picked me. Wow thank you and that is happy money. And also when you pay bills you feel appreciation not obligation you pay at the restaurant cashier. Wow your meal is amazing. You know thank you so much or you buy something that the shop is on to say thank you. And also my mentor was so happy to pay even taxes when he had to pay millions of dollars. And because he knew his tax dollars were going to contribute building hospitals and schools and help other people in need. Whatever you do you do it out of appreciation that is happy money. And on the other hand unfortunately 95% of us are in the flow of unhappy money which makes us feel small and also makes us feel irritated when we pay bills and also when we pay for things. So happy money makes you open up and grow unhappy money makes you small and contained. That's a difference. It's an attitude that you have in terms of both giving and receiving. Yes exactly so it doesn't really matter how much money you have or how much money you make even though you could be a billionaire I'm sure Jack you're among your you know great successful friends or clients there could be people who are always appreciative and they're those who are very unhappy because they're not satisfied with what they got. So I think as a person people with happy money was less money could be much much happier than the billionaires who have billions of dollars but not exactly happy with what they have. You mentioned your mentor I've heard you talk about him several times you've even written the book about him and call it a book about him tell us a little about him and his philosophy of Aragato could you do that. So Waheta Keira was my mentor he passed away years ago he used to be called Warren Buffett of Japan he was one of the most successful individual investor in Japan and he was once a major shareholder of more than 100 public companies in Japan there only 3000 public companies in Japan so he owns a so like a bit of Japan he loved teaching young people so one day I was in a long line having like a 10 second private time with Waheta Keira what would you ask Warren Buffett if you have 10 seconds so I thought for many hours and came up with this question Mr Waheta what is a secret of money I thought it's a good question and he said Arigato your money that means thank you money and then I got pushed out of the long line and I never had a chance to ask him about what is Arigato your money I was so lucky to be invited back because he kind of liked my attitude so I had like this time three hours with his private time so he explained about appreciation is a key inviting happy money is a key of happy success so by doing that you have to find your heart you have to find your gift you have to do what you love most and serve people and as a result it comes back it's exactly the teachings that Jack can feel this doing that's why I'm very attracted to your work so Waheta focused on thanking money and also he was so generous one time we're at the restaurant and then he congratulated the waiting persons smile you know we do that all the time but instead of just compliments he brought up one of his solid gold coin and gave it to her and she was so surprised because he weighs so heavy and he said it's for you for good smile she cries and just walks over and I asked him the question you just did a great thing but you lost about what thousand dollar gold coin for just a smile and he said no no no I did a shopping I bought the lifetime of smile she's gonna keep smiling more because of the gold coin that means she's gonna smile for the rest of her life so for me it's like I bought her a smile for lifetime that's 「がって良いバーガンだよね」って言っても、あなたもすごく良いです。 「私は何かとしても、何かを今までのことを言うと、いつもいろんなことを言うと、それを見てください」というふうに、ありがとう。 ありがとう、ありがとう、日本語で「ぜひぜひよい」と言うと、ありがとう。 あい、「アニガトマラサン」は 様々しいレイクセストを 説明しています。 oux衣は 協力にさせてください. アニガトマラサンは アニガトマラサンは アニガトマラサンは アニガトマラサンは アニガトマラサンは manifestation, which I learned a lot from you. And also I'm learning about so many other things. So power relationships and power of money, money IQ, money EQ, money, emotional intelligence and money financial intelligence. You need both. So stuff like that I teach every month. So I already studied the course. We have about 1500 people from all over the world. I teach in Japanese. So there will be simultaneous interpreter. I feel so shy about teaching English yet. So when I feel more comfortable, I'll start teaching in English. You're ready. I can tell you. Your English is much better than you think it is. Let me ask you this. You mentioned money, emotional intelligence. Can you talk about that a little bit? What is that? I have taught this thing called money EQ. A lot of teachers, especially in America and Europe, they focus on money IQ, which is financial intelligence, which is super important. But I found out that money EQ, emotional intelligence, is as important as money IQ. Because the most financial savvy people make stupid mistakes emotionally and they end up in jail, they end up losing everything, the head of hedge funds, hedge funds did too. What they do? What? And then they lose all the money. So unless you have a healthy relationship with money, emotionally, you can mess up big. And also you can be happy. So emotional intelligence is important. What would be an example of like you mentioned like a hedge fund manager, screw up or somebody loses their fortune or makes stupid investments or whatever? What's causing that? Like what's the source of what's an example of bad EQ? Yes. I think a lot of us are drawn to grow our money more. You know, one time I read a confession of a corn artist and he said, there is only one kind of person that I cannot deceive. And he said, the people who are not interested in money and it's so true. Corn artists can't can't steal your money. A lot of people want to grow their money. That's why they just invest with this corn artist, right? So we have this great need to do more and get more. So when you are emotionally off, you want to do more, eat more. And that's our problem. So our endless, we have this endless hunger or thirst for more money. So we have to know tell ourselves how much food is enough, how much drink is enough, how much money is enough. Because if you just make about a million dollars, which is a big money, you are surrounded by all the friends who are making three million dollars. And then you need to make more. And if you're surrounded by people who are making five million dollars, people having helicopters or big boats and private jets. And then if you make about 100 million dollars, and then you're surrounded by people with big jets. So there is no end. So unless you know how to satisfy yourself, you always feel small. A friend of mine who has a private jet said, he feels so small. Because whenever he pulls over to this special security terminal and then all the private jets are huge. He is like a tiny, tiny thing. So even if you are successful in financial well off, there's always somebody better. One time I read an article, mega jet owner complained about his jets interior is too standard. All his friends ordered ermis or Chanel or whatever the seats are so as expensive as a jet. So if you just just keep going up with the expensive stuff, there's no end. So that hunger and thirst for money is going to disturb your life. You know, it's interesting. One of the concepts I learned early on in this whole human development work was the difference between content and context. The content is like your jet, the interior design, the money you have in the bank, how many cars are in your garage. That's all content. But the context is the bowl that holds the content. And if the context is not enough, and no matter how much is in that bowl, the context is always not enough. So a million dollars, not enough, billion dollars, not enough, hundred million, not enough. And so basically most of us that I've worked with in my life feel like they're not enough. And as long as you have that context that I am not enough, then this desire to have more to prove that you are enough never works because the context is always not enough. So we have to change the container, which is your belief structure, that holds all this content. And once you do that, then you don't have that constant thirst for more. You can be satisfied. That's what we really want. We want to be happy and satisfied. Yes, exactly. And Jack seems in this position. May I ask you one question? Sure. I've known you for some years and I know you're a very, very happy person and I highly respect you. How can you satisfy yourself with what you have? Well, I'm sure you have so much and you've achieved so much, but you know you can do more. So as much as you can see that you can do more, how can you satisfy with where you are? I'm very curious from Zen perspective because you know how to do it. Yeah, I have like really gone through a major transition in the last year. I'm 79 as we record this and I'll be 80 this summer coming up. And what happens is I always felt like I wanted to do more, make more of a difference. And I realized recently that part of that was coming from this sense of lack of significance that I needed to do more to prove that I was significant that I matter that I was worthy of taking of space on planet earth as one person described it. And I recently had an experience where I was working with some people on the importance of forgiving, the unforgivable. Anyway, in that process who came up in my mind was Vladimir Putin and how could I forgive him for all the damage I think he's done millions of people died and so forth as a result of it. And as I began to get a sense of his life and how he's lived, I got that he really is driven by that same need to be significant. I can put the Soviet Union back together and get Crimea and Ukraine and Poland and all these things and reunite them under one banner, then I will have done something significant in the world. And as soon as I had that realization, I remember I just said this image of my door into my office and you go into my office and three feet on either side is just wall to wall, plaques and diplomas and pictures with presidents of the United States and all these things that was proving that I was significant and I would like literally go off travel for three days to go somewhere and give a free graduation speech at a university and then he'd give me an honorary doctorate which proved I was significant. And so I realized I don't need to do that anymore. And what's really true for me now is I'm not driven. I know I've done a lot of things I made a difference so that's satisfied of my, but really asking what brings me the greatest joy. I really believe after all the work I've done with the law of attraction that joy is our feedback system that tells us if we're on track or not. And if I'm doing something and I'm resenting it, if I'm doing something and I wish I wasn't, but I wish someone else was doing it or it's too late at night, I'd rather be in better whatever. Then I know that I'm off course. This is not taking me toward the fulfillment of my life purpose. So basically now using joy as my feedback system, if it's not bringing me joy, I'm not doing it. I'll say no, not here to meet your expectations. I'm here to fulfill my purpose and I know that joy is the essence of that. Like you talk about happy money to me, happiness and joy are similar. I think there's a little bit of a qualitative difference. But for me, it's not about proving I'm enough or doing enough or having enough anywhere. I've got plenty and certainly go for a $3 billion. I don't think she's doing it what she does to get more money. She enjoys what she does. And so she's going to keep doing it because she's enjoying it. That's kind of how I am with my life now. Beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing because all the viewers watching this just getting so much out of it because I know you don't have to do this with me, but you're doing this out of generosity. And also, you know, you're impacting a lot of people this way. And I know you're enjoying it too. So I so appreciate it in so many different ways. Yeah, I look, you're one of my favorite friends. We don't spend a lot of time together, but every time we are together, I just enjoy the heck out of it. I love watching you teach. I love watching you interact with your daughter. I love watching you have a good time in your life. I mean, when we were in New Orleans last week at the Transformation Leadership Conference, I was going out to a sushi bar to have dinner, which was kind of ironic because you're Japanese and you were going out to see the jazz greats at the, uh, what a part of the club was. You were just having fun with your daughter, you know, but the point being that I think it's about enjoying yourself. If you ask people, and there's a lot of research on this lately that if you go to the bottom, if you had that, what would that give you? If you had that, what would that, what would the private jet give you? And now you got a big one with the air maze interior and so would that give you ultimately at the bottom line of it? It's happiness. And I've often said to people, you don't have to spend $70,000 to feel happy. You don't have to have a Mercedes Benz. I remember, I was, this was early on in my work in human potential and I was doing an exercise in a training where I was a, you know, a student and they were going like, well, what do you want? And I said, I want a new car. And what would that give you? Well, then I'd feel like I belong. But what does that mean? Well, but I stopped at my traffic light in the town I'm living in in West LA, Santa Monica. Everyone's got a Mercedes-Benz and Audi, BMW, I don't feel quite like I belong. So what do you really want? Well, I want to belong. If you belong, what would you feel? I feel happy. I want to be happy. Do you really need to have a Mercedes-Benz to be happy? No, just save myself $70,000. Basically, it's about pursuing the thing that can do the greatest joy. And if you do that, like, then it goes back to Ike Guy. We see all these people living in the island in the South of Japan where I think that all started. And what happens is that you got these people that are 105 years old, grandmothers out playing with the kids and people are working all. They lawn growing their vegetables, having fun, laughing together, dancing together, and they're fulfilled. And they don't have $1,000 bank accounts, but they have friends, they have community, they have health, they have joy. Exactly. So thank you for sharing your life. You're just another beautiful example. And at the age of 80, not people can function as well as you do physically, emotionally, and mentally. Your response is like 10 times faster than I think people in their 80s. So I have so much admiration. And I'm so happy to just start doing my best to translate you're working to Japanese again. So that way, your teaching will just gone. And I'm so appreciative of what you have done and who you are. Well, I appreciate you. I appreciate what you're continuing to do. And I move. I lift weights. I eat good food. I laugh a lot. I dance like sleep. I do the things we're supposed to do. You dance actually. So well. [LAUGHS] I do. I do. It's true. Yes, I was so surprised at the way you dance. [LAUGHS] Oh, good. I appreciate it. Well, we're running out of time here. I just want you to know. I love you. I appreciate you. Thank you for being part of this. You're one of my favorite people on the planet. And anything I didn't ask you that you want to speak to, any final words, we'll put your website and all that up on the show notes. Well, the last thing I think a few months after this will be released. My next book is Coming Out in North America and the World. So it's about a novel about the grandfather who leaves nine letters for his grandson, but no money. So this boy receives a package of nine letters from his grandfather, and he sets off a journey. So I hope everybody watching this will take a look. Because this boy is guided by synchronicity. There are synchronicities everywhere, but we don't know how to read it, how to catch it, how to act on it, especially young people I want you to observe what's going in the world and just pursue your synchronicity. True wealth. Can you give us a clue what one of the letters contains? The first letter is synchronicity. The letters that grant for the left, left each letter has a title. The second one is decision. So when he opens up one letter, he gets guided to new thing. So you know, I don't want to spoil the fun, but I think people will start hearing about this sooner. So I hope we'll pick it up. And then that will be the best time for your life. So it's a lot of wisdom contained in a novel with nine letters. I love it. Well, thank you and give my love to your daughter and your wife. And just carry on. I look forward to being in Japan with you next time. Yes, very soon. Thank you, Jack, and everybody. Yeah, and thanks all you tuned in today for watching. We really appreciate you being part of this. Hope you took some good notes and make sure you check out Ken's book, Happy Money. And then we're coming out soon called True Wealth. Ken literally is like a, like an iceberg. You hear things up here, but when you read the book, there's just so much more wealth of depth of wealth underneath all that. So make sure you take advantage of both of those resources. And we'll see you again next time on the Jack Kentville podcast. Well, I hope you enjoyed the show. That's it for now. Now, if you found this episode helpful, please let your friends and your family know about this podcast. And if you do have a moment, leave us a comment or a rating and review on whatever platform you're listening to or watching this on right now. And for even more, you can go to JackCanfieldpodcast.com where you'll find today's summary and show notes, including a list of web links to get all the resources and any free things mentioned during the episode. And while you're there, let me know what you think by sending in your feedback or any requests for topics you'd like to see me address in the future shows. Simply go to JackCanfieldpodcast.com. I'd love to hear from you. And until next time, keep pursuing your dreams. [Music]