Ken Honda | The Japanese Art of Making Peace with Your Money

 

 

Ken, welcome to the Unmistakable Creative. Thanks so much for taking the time to join us.

 

Okay, good, good, good. All right.

Thank you so much, Serenity, for inviting me. I'm so honored to be here.

 

Yeah, so I was contacted by your publicist and funny enough, I had actually read your book before when somebody sent happy money to me and when they contacted me again, I thought, yes, I definitely want to talk to Ken. I loved his book. I love his philosophy on all of this. But before we get into the book, I wanted to start by asking you where were you born and raised and what impact did that end up having on your life, the choices you've made with your career as well as your perspective on money?

 

Yeah, thank you for asking. I was born in Kobe, Japan, west part of Japan, right next to Kyoto. And Kobe is a very open port city. Our sister city is Seattle in North America. So you know what it's like, right? So it's a beautiful port city, people are open, and my father was one of the most... successful tax accountant in town and he started teaching me about money since I was five or six. So I had this early money education that nobody that I know of has ever received. So I already knew about ROI and all that in my grade school and I was surprised that a school teacher didn't know anything about money.

 

 

So I started learning more about money in a practical sense. So I started my business when I was 20, and I could retire for my baby girl when I was 29 for four years. And during the full semi -retirement years, I got this inspiration to write a little essay. The essay got extended to short essays and booklets and eventually became a book and the rest is history. I published about 120 or 130 books and sold about nine million copies, most of which is focused on money and happiness and entrepreneurship.

 

 

Yeah. Well, you know, one thing that I wonder about is how the Western way of thinking about money is different from the Japanese way of thinking about money, because I think that one of the things that I have observed is that when you look at sort of the Eastern way of thinking, it's a much more holistic approach, whereas I feel like here, or at least in Western cultures are thinking not just about money, but about everything tends to be much more individualistic. And I wonder kind of how overall in Japanese culture people think about this.

 

So for money, in terms of money, I think Japanese people tend to think money is like a social asset. So even though you don't have it, your friends may have it or somebody else has it. So whereas North America and Europe, it's very individualistic. It's either my money or not.

 

So how does that dynamic end up impacting social relationships, relationships with family, and just the connections that people have with each other when we have that dynamic?

 

I think you will eventually have more fear around money and survival. Now I was so surprised that in North America people don't talk about money, whereas like Japanese and Asian culture, we talk about money more openly. But the funny thing is, in North America, people don't talk about or reveal their sexual life openly, but they're so shy about talking their financial life.

 

 

Yeah. And, but in Asian countries, you know, uh, uh, at school alumni, you know, after like 10 years or 20 years after college graduation, we openly talk about our financial life, how much you're making, you know, uh, Serene, like you may say, like, uh, I made this much. Wow. The drinks are all new, you know, stuff like that. But, uh, we never, right. But we never, right.

 

You're right, like, we definitely never would do that in Western culture, like nobody would ever openly ask you.

 

So we never talk about sexual thing. So if you're shocked by getting asked about your financial life, you can ask your Japanese friend, how was your sexual life? And then you get the same results.

 

Wow, that's hilarious. Well, one thing that I wonder, you mentioned, well, yeah, you mentioned that you were stunned to know that even your teachers didn't know about money. And I think that it's mind boggling to me that we could get all the way through college. Like I'll give you an example. When you go into your student loan interview in the first few days of college, nobody really, basically you just sign a piece of paper.

 

It's a cultural thing.

 

the money for your tuition is in your account or your tuition is paid, the money is in your account to basically live for the semester. And I think if a lot of college students had a realistic picture of what they were getting themselves into, they would be like, wait a minute, this is like a loan shark from the good fellows handing me a loan. Because it's almost like if you had brought in a mobster in there who basically said, all right, this is how you're going to pay for college. And if you don't give me this money back, I'm going to break your legs. Most of them wouldn't sign. And yet, they make it so easy and you don't really get a sense of the implication of just how much debt you're taking on, which I think that segues well into some of the ideas in the book. But when you think about what we're not teaching to young people, I know that you mentioned you have kids as well, what do you think we should be teaching about money and how soon should we be teaching it in school?

 

You know, I don't want to sound too political, but I feel sorry for North American kids because, you know, it's not quite fair where we are born into. Really depends on our financial future because, you college tuition is only like, say, $5 ,000 for a whole year in Japan.

And I thought that's ridiculously expensive. But in North America, if you go to Harvard or Princeton, college tuition is astronomical, right?

 

And like say, I gave a talk in Copenhagen, Denmark. And in Denmark, if you're enrolled in college, all the higher education is free. And then at the age of 30, if you're making enough money, you need to pay back the loan. But if not, you don't have to pay anything. And the only thing is, the big difference is that you get 800 euros, like $800 per month to buy books and like other things for college student. But in North America, you know, government, they don't give you $800 that simply that you're enrolled in college. So, and I think a lot of young American kids don't know that what they're signing into because everybody seems to fall into this dead trap that.

 

Mm -hmm.

 

You don't know what you're getting into. But when you come to think of it, like a social securities and medical thing, care in many European countries and in Japan, it's fairly affordable. Like I went to a dentist the other day and the bill is only $8. It's not $800 because, you know, government gives you Medicare. So it depends on where you're born and brought up.

 

 

your financial future depends on your social system as well. So you don't know and also you're not educated in that other countries have certain things. So it's not quite fair, but that's how the word works.

 

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. Well, let's get into the book. I think that one of the first things that struck me you said is that there are so many emotions wrapped in our money. So many of us walk around with all this energy and it impacts not only ourselves, but others as well. We like to think that money is just a number of piece of paper, but it's so much more than that. Money brings with it so many emotions more than we even realize. So.

 

Yes.

 

The thing that I wonder about is when we talk about money, this part of the story is almost always left out unless it happens to be somebody who is smart enough to have read one of your books or lucky enough to have stumbled on it. So why is it that this part of the money conversation is just generally left out of the narrative? Because if you even look online in general around articles on finances that are on a website, it's all very practical. This is how you do this. This is how you do that.

all of which is pretty straightforward, but nobody talks about this. Why is this aspect of the way we talk about money not more prevalent?

 

That is a very deep question, Srini. I often wonder about that. But people are confused about money emotionally. That's why I think they try to stay away from emotional part of what's going on in financial life. For example, since sexual issues are another taboo, think about it. When we think of sexual contact, it's almost like you're dealing with

what you're supposed to do, what you're not supposed to do. And just if you leave out the emotional part, it's not fun anymore, right? It's like practical what to do, what's your next step. Now you just take off your clothes and what's next. So if you just leave out this emotional romantic energy, there's not much juice in it. And this money issue is the same thing. It brings you so much joy.

 

Yeah.

 

you know, on the positive side, it brings up the best from you. It brings you joy, happiness, bliss, all the beautiful feelings brings up generosity. Friendship and all that. But money also pulls out the worst from you. It could be hatred, resentment, anger, despair and all kinds of negative emotions. And I think we are overwhelmed by the

depth of both positive and negative emotions. So we try to put the cover on the lid. So no emotions. Let's not deal with it. Let's talk about numbers. So that's why I think what's going on in the world. And unfortunately, we are so heavily influenced by emotional issues around money, which I call it money EQ. But...

 

Yeah.

 

People are so preoccupied with money IQ, which is financial intelligence. But I have seen the most important, most financially smart people make stupid mistakes emotionally and they end up losing everything. So I think money EQ is more important than money IQ. In fact, you need both.

 

Yeah, well, let's talk about this idea of money, money, but first, how did you even come up with this idea of happy money? Because I'm really curious, like when we start to transform our relationship with money, you describe happy money as money circulated with love, care and friendship. And of course, like I can tell you, like you point out in the book, I don't find paying taxes to be happy money. I don't do that with love, care or friendship. When I pay taxes, it's more like fuck you to the government. You know?

 

And I think that most people, if they were honest about paying taxes, would admit that that's kind of how they feel about taxes, because we don't even see where the hell our tax dollars go. But tell me one how you arrived at this idea of happy money. And then what does it do when we start to look at money from this lens versus just through the pure numbers lens?

 

 

Right, so I was approached by this woman at the party in Japan. She said, can I take a look at your wallet? And I said, okay. At the time, there were many magazine articles and TV programs about celebrities wallet. You know, wouldn't you be interested in president's wallet or Justin Bieber, Mariah Carey or Taylor Swift?

 

Do they even have a wallet or somebody takes care of that, right? So it was so interesting, like certain politicians like our prime minister had a leathered wallet, even though his secretary does it all, he has a credit card and a little cash in it. It's kind of cute when they have this credit cards and other things. And then she just... took all the bills out of my wallet and she was checking something and I was more curious about what she's doing and I was kind of looking at her how she checked my money and she was mumbling, this is great, this is fun, oh this is great. So she put all the bills back into my wallet and gave it back to me and she said, Ken, you passed a test. And I said, what test?

 

All your money was smiling in your wallet. That means that... you have made everybody happy around you and received money. That's why your money is smiling in your wallet. And I thought, wow, that's interesting. And she said, on the other hand, if you are taking advantage of other people, or if you do what you don't like and bring in the cash, your money is crying in your wallet or getting angry in your wallet. So I can tell who you are by looking at their wallet. And I was...

Wow, very interesting. And I started thinking of my friends' faces, like my friends who have a lot of smiling money in their wallet and my other friends who are entrepreneurs, but definitely this money is not smiling. So I think, you know, even though the money is money, there are two kinds of money. Money that brings you smile and money that brings you frustration.

the same money, but it's how you relate with money. If you're making a lot of people happy and smile, your money come in as happy energy. But if you have a lot of frustrations and anger and resentment when you're making money, your money comes in with that energy. So just check yourself when you come back home from work. Do you bring in lots of happy energy to your house or

do bring in lots of unhappy, unsettling energy. So I'm trying to cleanse myself when I just come back home. I try to cleanse the frustration and the stress from work. I don't have much to begin with, but I try to be neutral. And I become a very powerful, loving father and husband. And then I open the door.

But unfortunately, most of us bring in bad energy with us. You know, we get frustrated. That's why we just get angry with kids or husband or wife or, you know, the really the people we deeply care about. But still we get frustrated because we have so much stress with money.

 

Well, talk to me about the role that parents and then sort of generational narratives play in all of this, because you say in the book that when I ask a room full of people about stressful childhood experiences related to money, I inevitably hear something along the lines of I wanted to take ballet classes, but my mom told me we couldn't afford it. Substitute ballet with baseball, gymnastics, ice skating, or any number of hobbies we dreamed of pursuing as children. and it's safe to say we've all heard that story in one form or another. And I can totally tell you that as immigrants, my parents couldn't afford to buy me a pair of Air Jordans. Air Jordans were expensive, they were $100. For a kid in seventh grade, my dad was like, you're gonna outgrow these in less than six months. And they were crazy expensive. And of course other kids at school had them, so we wanted them. So talk to me about the role that the messages we receive.

 

Yes, remember that.

 

from parents and the messages that they receive from their parents play. Because I think that another thing that matters here is also, at least for me, is the context. Because my parents, being Indian immigrants, for them, the narrative they received around money probably made a lot of sense given the environment that they were raised in. But then to bring that to an environment like the United States, I wonder how that also impacts the way they think about things.

 

Yeah, so unfortunately, our money blueprint is made by our parents, like it or not. And then our parents are brought up by our grandparents. So whenever I give a money counseling, I used to ask my clients to draw their family line as far as long way back as possible. So I definitely...

talk about your parents and also potentially your grandparents and how they were doing emotionally and also financially. And oftentimes our scarcity mentality comes from our parents and original place is from your grandparents and also grand grandparents. You know.

like 60 years ago, 90 years ago, there was depression, war, and all the bad things happened to their generation. And we are the result of the sufferings and pain through their generations.

 

So how do we begin to change that narrative? I mean, I've heard numerous versions of this. We had Ramit Sethi here. And I think of all the things that he said to me that stayed with me in that conversation, he said most people spend their time focused on $3 questions, like, should I get the large latte or the small one, when we should really be asking ourselves $30 ,000 questions. That always stayed with me. But how do you begin to change all of this thinking about it? to start to change the underlying emotions so they, you know, we feel like we have more happy money.

 

Yeah, so I'm often called money healer because I focus on healing the traumas in the past. You know, little thing that you're denied your dream, basketball shoes, you know, it was so hurtful. I remember I was denied for a mountain bike. At the time, there were just, you know, very cool mountain bikes. And my parents said, that's too expensive for you.

 

They meant it's too, you are too early. And they were right because I hurt myself in a bike accident, you know, a few months later, I was not ready, but I was so hurt because they denied me, you know, they denied my worth. So I was so hurt because I was a bad boy or is not growing up enough or smart enough. So that kind of scar stays with us. So when we try to...

start our own business, when we try to do something, this voice inside us saying like, you're not worth it. And then we feel like scared, so we don't go out and start our own dream life. So by looking at what happened in your childhood, just look at your mom and dad, maybe they're younger than you are now.

 

You know, and then you can see that your young parents were as confused as teenagers, you know, because they didn't know much about money. They were just simply scared to make both ends meet and bring up kids that they've never experienced before. So.

Do you understand what was going on in your family? At least can you understand what happened? And if you can, can you forgive them for not giving you whatever you needed? You know, at the time it was impossible to do that. So if you just get the picture, you can understand it, you can forgive it. And then as an adult now,

 

 

You can do anything you want. You don't have to get stuck in this scarcity mentality that there's not enough. And then when you take a look at the world, there's plenty in the world, you know, plenty of money in the world. It's not in your bank account. So you can borrow money. You can have somebody invest in your money. You can start making money. So all money is your money, too.

 

So once you got this understanding you can increase your income, you can increase your asset as you wish. So money becomes more air than water and ice once you start living in a warmer environment. So get out of this cold, mean world and just live in a warmer environment. So one day, I hope money becomes air for you. You can breathe in as much as you want and then breathe out as much as you want.

You don't have to worry about it. It's just there.

 

Yeah, something else I wonder as it relates to his generational piece, and this is out of personal curiosity, you have two siblings, right? So my sister and I are five years apart, and my dad was mainly getting his career off the ground when I was growing up. He's a college professor, and he did a lot of postdoctoral work. For pretty much the entirety of my childhood, he was a postdoc. By the time she got to elementary school, like fifth or sixth grade,

My dad had become a tenured professor, so she had a really different experience of what their financial situation was like than I did. And I wonder how that impacts sort of the way that we live, the way that we tell our stories. I can tell you, she definitely has, like, if you look at her overall history of our lives, both as adults, she's definitely done things that seem much more financially responsible than I have. And I wonder how much that sort of upbringing and the contrast would impact how we both experience money as adults.

 

Uh -huh. Yes. It's so interesting to look at your siblings. And I understand that life is not fair. You know, if you... Because the opposite thing could happen. You know, when you were small, your father had a lot of money. But after going bankrupt, your brothers and sisters don't have memories of, you know, your family being wealthy. So, you know, the reverse thing could happen as well.

 

Yeah.

 

You know, it's interesting, even though you are born and brought up in the same household by same parents under the same roof, your siblings could come out very differently. It's because of your money personality type. So it's more about your money personality type. You may be a gambler, you may be a moneymaker, and your sister and brothers, they could be saver, they could be spender.

depends on their personality. So it's not about your parents' financial situation, it's about who they are. And I think people are born with certain characters. They love to go parties where your brother wants to stay at home. They have the same gene, but they're totally different animals. You know what I'm talking about, right?

 

Yeah, absolutely. Well, so the thing is, it's funny because I'm an entrepreneur, I run a business and I realized my sister, I think the uncertainty of not having a consistent paycheck, I mean, she just told me more or less would drive her crazy. I don't think she would be able to handle it because I mean, you know, her being a doctor, like things are pretty much set in stone.

 

Mm -hmm.

 

which I think really changes. That's one huge difference. Like I've had to learn to navigate ups and downs, you know? I mean, as anybody who runs a business does, and as you write about, they're going to be good months and they're going to be months that are not so good. And that I've heard is very common. Like one of my friends, maybe you can fact check this for me. I remember when we would have a bad month, he was a business partner of mine for a while. I would get really stressed out. And one of the things he'd always say to me is some of the wealthiest people in the world have tremendous variability in their income.

 

Uh -huh.

Mm -hmm.

 

And that always stayed with me as, okay, is that true? What is your view on that? Is that true when it comes to risk and if you're doing something entrepreneurial, there's definitely gonna be variability.

 

Yes, definitely. Because, you know, when you choose a path of entrepreneurship, one thing you don't have is security, unfortunately, you know, but you could end up getting a lot by taking the path, but you could end up losing everything. So that's a path of entrepreneurship. Once again, like as you signed the school loans, you know, the same thing goes for entrepreneurship.

You lose freedom in terms of time and finance So you may have to sell your soul to get your business going, you know, you may sacrifice your family Quality time sometimes you may sacrifice your marriage. Are you okay? and if you're if this loan officer just you know explain everything and Before you sign up for being an entrepreneur a lot of people say no. No, no, no, it's not worth it, you know

They realize after going into entrepreneurship, they realize that instead of working for 40 hours for somebody else, you work 80 hours for yourself. That's how entrepreneurship goes, right?

 

Mm -hmm. Yeah, absolutely.

 

So yeah, it's part of the package. So if you understand it, and also it's a reward, risk and reward. If you're a doctor, you don't get like 10 times more money than entrepreneurs do, but at least they have the very good minimum security. And also, entrepreneurs can design a whole day or whole year based on what you want.

 

Mm -hmm.

Yeah, exactly.

 

You know, can live in North America, Europe, Africa, India, wherever you want to. But if you're a doctor, the clinic that you work in could really tie you to the location. So if you just settle for security, also you have this certain restrictions. So entrepreneurs, you have freedom to be wealthy, but freedom to be poor.

 

Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

 

So it's your choice.

 

Well, someone else you said about this in terms of the emotion piece, you said there's always an emotional drive behind wanting money, but if we become disconnected from the underlying emotions, we can get stuck in a cycle of trying to make money without understanding what we really need. And I think that struck me because my friend, Ryder Carroll, wrote this beautiful book called The Bullet Journal Method.

 

And I remember one of the things that struck me about that book was when people set financial goals, so often we just pick an arbitrary number because it sounds good. It's like, I want a million dollars. And he said, we don't ever think about like, okay, what exactly do you need a million dollars for? And I remember thinking about this. I was talking to a friend. I was like, you know what? I finally figured it out. It was like the joke. It's like the only thing I need to become a billionaire for is to buy an NBA basketball team.

 

Mm -hmm.

 

That's about the only thing that I can't necessarily get. That's the one thing that would require a billion dollars is to buy a professional sports team. But we don't really think about this. So why is it that we get set on these sort of arbitrary numbers? Like, it's like, you say, I want to make a million dollars. And you don't think about why. You just kind of said, that's it. That's the goal.

 

Yes.

Yeah, so it's because we're living in a fantasy that if you have a million dollars, I'd be safe. I'd be feeling secure. I'd be feeling more fun. But when you reach a million dollar number, you realize that million dollar will not take you anywhere. And then you realize that many of your friends are making more money and the million dollars seems to be so small.

 

And one time I had a...I sat down with the owner of a public company and asked him, how old were you when you started feeling that you are wealthy? You know, he took his company public when he was 35. And I think the time I met him, it was like 40 or something, right? So I was expecting an answer when his company started taking off, like 28 or 29. He had a few million dollars in his bank account. Sometime like that.

 

But...He thought for a moment and he said, I don't think I'm wealthy yet. And I was surprised, you know, he has a public company and you know, he's worth tens of millions of dollars and I asked him, why do you feel that? And he said, I don't have a private jet, you know, and what? And then a few years later, I had this meeting with a person who had a private jet. I asked the same thing and he said, no, no, I'm not wealthy. I'm so small.

 

Hahaha!

 

When he pulls over to the special security terminal, he feels so small because his private jet is so tiny compared to the other jets, which are, which can seat like 200 people. It's a jumbo jet, right? So his plane is so tiny. He says, you cannot fly across a Pacific Ocean. I'll just drop in the middle of Pacific Ocean. So my, my

 

That's right.

 

plane is so tiny, I cannot afford a big one. So whenever I pull over to this terminal, I feel like I have no money because the other guys have big airplanes, you know. And then I had another opportunity to talk with somebody who has a big jet. And he said, no, no, no, I'm not, I'm not wealthy because my private jet is the standard jet. You know, I haven't spent

 

Hmm.

 

penny on just changing my seats and everything. My friend has a special jet who's from Arabic country. He asked Hermes to change all the seats, you know, so they have a special leather. And it costs them as much money as to order private jet, you know, because inside seats are super expensive. So where do you want to go? And when?

 

You

 

and how much is enough for you. Unless you have the number, you will never feel that you have more than enough.

 

That's so crazy. Yeah. So is there any way out of this trap of comparison? Because I've heard a similar version of this friends who've built startups in Silicon Valley. You said, you know, you start you sell your first startup and you're worth 100 million and you feel poor because your next door neighbor has sold three startups. And so suddenly suddenly you go from the guy who hadn't sold a startup to like, you know, now feeling poor, even though you're, you know, by most objective measures, extremely well off like 10 million dollars, apparently in San Francisco.

 

Yes.

 

doesn't mean a damn thing.

 

Yes, so that's what I'm talking about. And then there is this risk and gain once again. So how much do you need to feel abundant? So unless you know the numbers, you are driven to do more, get more. And that usually brings in more stress than you think. So the ideal situation is I have more than enough, you know.

You feel that all the time and then your income, your asset keep increasing, but you don't pay much attention to it because you're feeling that you have already enough. So instead of feeling like I don't have enough, I don't have enough, I have to do more, I have to do more. So you can feel, wow, I have everything I need. I have everything I need. I have more than enough. So and the feeling that I have so much.

 

Mm -hmm.

 

gives you such a deep satisfaction and that will make you a more generous person to share.

 

Well, so we've talked about this from the perspective of people who are extremely wealthy, but I know that you've also written about and even spoken to people who have almost nothing, like relatively speaking. Tell me about the stories that you hear from them and how did they think about this? Cause I know there's the extreme where you you're like living in abject poverty. And then there's people who just don't have a lot of money.

 

Yes.

Yeah, so definitely if you cannot make both ends meet, that's stressful. And if you feel like you don't have enough, that is also stressful. So you don't have to give your kids 10 Michael Jordan shoes, you know, different colors. But at least whatever your kids want, if you can just buy them, you know, or at least if you can afford them, that's a good life. So...

 

Mm -hmm.

 

You have to set some boundaries, but if you have if you feel like you can pay all the bills without any problem, and if you can do whatever you want financially, I think you're all set. But otherwise, you have to focus on getting paid more and paying less because financial problem, it's only two problems. One, you're making too little money.

The second one is you're spending too much. So I always challenge financially struggling people, are you spending money wisely? A lot of people don't. So the mantra I give people is that if I don't buy this today, am I going to die tomorrow when they go out for shopping?

 

Mm -hmm.

 

In most cases, you're not going to die tomorrow if you don't buy it now. If it's an essential food for survival, you should get it. But oftentimes when we go out in the shopping mall, we buy things that we don't even use, you know. So you have to ask yourself, I'm not going to die tomorrow if I don't buy this today. And then cut down the expenses. So every month you have some money left.

 

You

Yeah.

So one of the other things you talked about is this sort of illusion of control. And I think you basically said the only thing we can really control is how we feel about our money. Because like you said, there's an entire system. And we've bought into a system. In fact, if I remember correctly, I think it was in Sapiens where he talked about this idea that reality is just a series of collective agreements. And I got to thinking, I was like, wow, so we all as a society collectively agree that these

pieces of paper with dead presidents on them are worth something. But if one day everybody woke up and said these are worthless, like their toilet paper, then suddenly it would mean nothing.

 

Mm -hmm.

 

So talk to me about this idea, like if that's the only thing we can control, because I think that the people could misinterpret that to be like, great, if all I'm able to control is how I feel, I'm just gonna spend like a lunatic.

 

Yeah, so I think that's a typical spender's idea. You know, they should spend, spend, spend. So whenever I talk about money personality type, nobody is perfect. You know, people tend to spend more, people tend to save more, people tend to make more. You know, it depends on the personality. Like if you have a wrong idea of like,

 

Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

 

the fear of missing out in life, you become a spender. So instead of just saving money, investing money, you spend, spend, spend to feel control. So you save money to feel control. You make money to feel control. So everything we do is to feel control over our finances. It comes from a different perspective. So...

You have to have the right balance, especially among husband and wife and family members. You know, some of the conservative ones, they become savers. You know, they become warriors. You know, they worry about money. So the more aggressive one, they are the one who are gamblers. They are the one who spenders, you know, because they believe in spending in order to grow.

in order to learn, in order to experience more. So you have to have some security, but at the same time, you have to have some fun. So oftentimes, the cause of divorce is the different opinions around money. So you have to really communicate well with the other. And then the same thing goes with your business partner. You know, if you are, even if you become successful, one wants to invest everything or the profit.

for the growth of the company, the other wants to kind of like cash out. So unless you are on the same page, your partnership will break up very easily.

 

Yeah, absolutely. Well, so there's one other thing here that you say as it relates to this. You say that don't save money out of anxiety. Many people save their money because they're afraid of the future. They may get sick or lose their jobs. So they save for a rainy day. This is why people want to save in case something bad happens. But if you save money out of anxiety or fear,

you'll just feed more fear and anxiety, more blocks to the flow of money. If you're gonna save money, save it while you imagine the fun ways to spend it. And I think that's so interesting because like literally in the financial app that I use, there's a default saving, took me to option titled Rainy Day Fund. And like, you're right, I never thought about it. Just calling it a Rainy Day Fund is basically like, oh, this is...

 

Hahaha

 

The presumption here is that something bad probably will happen. I'll be prepared.

 

Yes, I'll just probably change the name Sunny Day Fun.

You know, so like that's that's money for future sunny day fun, fun picnic day. So just change it in your concept. But, you know, North American people and European people are so individualistic. You know, people don't talk about money even even though you're a married couple. So what I'm suggesting is don't rely on your bank account, rely on people.

 

Yeah.

 

And the reason why I'm not afraid of money is that, you know, I don't have any debts and in Japan, I don't have any risk of being sued. So I'm financially okay as long as I'm in Japan. But the reason why I'm not afraid is that because of that, I have many friends who will not let me fall. If I have bankruptcy, I can count on my friend number one.

and ask him to stay, ask him to let me stay for one week. And I can do the same thing for the second friend for the second week. And I realized I have more than 52 friends. So after one year, I can come back to a friend number one and said, okay, it's been a while, how are you? So I can keep going. And if you don't have 52 friends, you can have 12 friends who let you stay for a month. And when you realize that you have a lot of friends,who are generous and who love you enough to support you, then you don't have to worry about the rainy fans. Your friends are the rainy fans.

 

Yeah, well, it was interesting because when I read that, I couldn't help but think about the Dan Buettner book about blue zones. And he talks about Okinawa being a blue zone. And one of the big things he points to, and we've seen this in research, we had Robert Waldinger here who wrote the book that was based on Harvard's longest running.

study on unhappiness over a lifetime. And he said it was social connections. And I noticed to your point, like, you know, this kind of brings us full circle to the idea of Americans being very individualistic. I've noticed there's a sense of community in other cultures that I just I don't even see with my own friends as much like I think about the fact that, you know, my parents, they have these two or three really good friends, they're all they're all retired, they get together every Friday.

 

Yes.

 

But one of my parents closest friends, I was like, wow, you guys talk on the phone every day and you see each other twice a week? Just for, yeah, come over. It's kind of mind boggling to me that that is just not normal.

 

Yeah, so you don't have to see your friends, you know, twice a week. But when something happens, I have like five best friends that I'll do anything for them. And they feel the same way for me. And I'm now treating a lot of young youngsters, you know, for my free advice, free lunch, free dinner. So I openly talk about this to them. You know, the reason why I'm taking you guys for dinner for free.

 

Mm -hmm.

 

is because you guys are my pension plan. You know, one day I grow up to be an old man and when I lose everything, I count on you guys and they just laugh, you know, and there are some folks who are just making it financially, you know, I used to teach them in their 20s and now in their 30s and they're entrepreneurs and they have all the money in the world. So at least I have a few guys who are generous enough to support me.

 

Hahaha!

 

in my senior homes. So my rainy day fund is already set up okay. So I think once again, I'm half joking, but I'm half serious because young people who love you so much, respect you so much could be your pension plan instead of million dollars in your bank account because dollar hierarchy could fall any minute. US is borrowing so much money.

and your government is paying billions of dollars for interest and you cannot go on that way and the Japanese government too. So your relationship is the pension plan, not your government for 1K and stuff.

 

Well, let's finish this up by talking about the future of money, because one of the things that you say towards the end of the book is that money has not always been inextricably tied to our survival. And I don't think it always will be. There's no doubt that money is useful and we'll always need a way of exchanging energy among ourselves. But money will gradually cease to feel like an energy that controls our destinies. The point is that not that we will live in a world free of money, we will live in a world free of fear of lack of money. That's the key difference.

And what's funny about that is that I've heard stories, I think Douglas Rushkoff wrote an article on Medium titled The Richest, where he goes and talks to a bunch of billionaires. And we're talking billionaires, they're building bunkers for the days that the time that their money becomes worthless.

 

Yes, yes. So, you know, I think in this situation, the best way to relate to your money is that you don't even think of money in your life. You focus on what you love to do, you know, what you express, what you want to express in the world. And if you can do that with your money, I think money can be your best friend. So in the future, you know, people will be free from money worries. And also, we will pay less attention to money because there are more other important things in life. So it could be art, creativity, friendship, and generosity, connection, bonding, and relationships. They are more important than money.

 

So I hope we'll pay less attention to money by itself. You know, money is just a result of what we do in our life. And some people think it's a scorecard, but it's so silly when we just are collecting the scorecards, you know, it's not the game of life. The game of life is happening with your friends and with your loved ones and fun projects that you do, you know, sometimes business, sometimes nonprofit, whatever that is, it's your love.

the expression of love in your life.

 

Well, I think that makes a beautiful place to wrap up our conversation. I have one final question for you, which is how we finish all of our interviews at the Unmistakable Creative. What do you think it is that makes somebody or something unmistakable?

 

I think the feeling that you're in the right place, doing the right thing with the right people. So one of the tragedies of modern life is that you don't know where you want to be, you want to go, and you don't even know who you are. So if you know who you are, if you know that I'm in the right place, it's almost like enlightenment.

So you don't have to be a billionaire to have the feeling. If you know that I'm in the right place, I'm with the right people or the good people, you're in heaven. So just figure out who you are, what you want to do in your life, where you want to be, who you want to be surrounded with. If you have all the answers, you are just a happy person.

 

Amazing. Well, I can't thank you enough for taking the time to join us and share your story, your wisdom and your insights with our listeners. Where can people learn more about you, your books and everything else that you're up to?

 

Thank you so much Srini You asked so many intelligent questions and it really shows you're so smart, intelligent and generous with knowledge and heart. So I really respect you and admire you for that. Thank you. So you can find me at kenhonda .com. I'm translating a lot of information for free in English. You can check your money personality types.

 

Thank you.

 

And I started to teach in English now. And I have an online community called Arigato Living Community, where you can learn about happy money and also how to heal money wounds. We meet once a month online, sometimes for European times, sometimes for North and Central and South American time. But I really enjoy meeting people online. So that's how I could get to share what I have learned from all the great mentors in life.

 

Amazing. And for everybody listening, we will wrap the show with that.