Ken Honda - Best Selling Author, Expert on Money & Prosperity | Lessons on Happiness and Abundance

I mean, you say this is enough, this money making life will never end. Ken Honda, today we're exploring the true meaning of wealth with someone who's been transforming lives for the past 25 years. After surveying over 12,000 self-made millionaires in Japan, Ken Honda has gained deep insights into how we can reshape our relationship with money. In life, there are two things you can go after your dreams. At the same time, you can satisfy with what you got. A lot of happy people have special skills to enjoy what you got as long as you enjoy your happy person. If you mess up with money, you could have your entire family killed. I've seen a lot of happy people who have money and then they seem to enjoy life. It's not just about material abundance, it's about authentic connection, purpose and joy. In this episode, Ken Honda shares the wisdom passed down from mentors and his personal journey to understanding that true wealth goes far beyond finances. Let's dive into this inspiring conversation. I've seen the most intelligent people on earth make most stupid mistakes. Emotionally, and then they end up losing everything. Don't go for a billionaire. A lot of billionaires don't have the right balance in life emotionally and mentally. So if you want to have a good life, I think having little money is enough. Welcome to Success Story. I'm your host, Scott Clary. The Success Story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network. I am a huge fan of HubSpot because they support entrepreneurs. A lot of entrepreneurs, founders, executives, listen to this show. And for entrepreneurs that are trying to build, I have a question for you. Does it feel like your teams are getting pulled in a million different directions? When everyone's digging in on different projects with different platforms in different places, it can be tough to stay focused on a common goal. And that throws a wrench into things. That's why HubSpot brings everything your team needs into one easy to use and easy to love customer platform with it. They have everything they need to scale the business at their fingertips. So your marketers can write blog posts in a snap with AI and build better leads with in-depth campaigns. Sales can build connections and close deals faster with tracking tools. And real-time performance insights and service can get a hand from AI-powered chatbots for better support and more five-star reviews. And everyone can deliver killer results and grow revenue faster than ever before. Because when your teams work better, your business grows faster. Visit HubSpot.com to get started for free today. Can, obviously, very grateful for you to jump on and chat. You've written how many books now? Last, when I looked, there was a point in time when you'd written over 50 books. I think you've written several more since then. How many books have you written on money? It keeps popping about this came out last month. So I keep producing books. This is my healthy addiction. It's a very good addiction. And I think people appreciate it because I would say that over the past three years, you know, every time you speak about the global climate, finance, recession, it feels like it's just getting worse and worse and worse, but it's been getting progressively worse for now three years, now four years. And it almost seems like this is just a constant state that we live in. And it's a state of fear and panic and stress and anxiety. So your message is very optimistic. It's very hopeful. It's very much reframing how people look at money, at wealth, at happiness. So if you were going to speak to somebody who has gone through the worst four years of their life and they've lost their business or they've been laid off a variety of different things, what is the most important message that you would tell them? You know, just, you know, leave money aside. You know, in life, a lot of things happen and unfortunately most of the things happen unexpectedly. So the things we hope it's going to go this way, they don't go that way. And unfortunately, our life is like that, you know, we want it to be like a lawyer or doctor or entrepreneur, but after a few tries, we, it doesn't go that way and then we get depressed. So mine is like that too. You just invest in mind, invest your precious money in something in hope that it's going to turn out well and then you end up losing everything and the work is the same thing relationship is the same thing. So our life is paved with our expectations and also despair because what we expect doesn't usually come out as as what we want. So in life, there are two things, you know, you can go after your dreams and at the same time, you can satisfy with what you got. Otherwise, you keep failing, you keep feeling miserable because things don't turn out the way it should. But there's good news that wherever we end up, we can still satisfy ourselves with what we got because a lot of happy people have special skills to enjoy what you got. You know, this could be coffee, this could be tea, this could be something just plain water, but as long as you enjoy, you're the happy person. So you learn, learn to be happy is much, much more important than how much money you make, how much money you have or what you do and how successful you are. Now, I think it's very important to tell a little bit of your story and how you bought to the point where you not only internalize this concept of understanding what happiness truly is, but you now teach it and you help people change their own lens at which they look, what which they look through. Because I know that you came from a type of family, your dad was a very serious person. He was very successful. He had money, which some people don't even have, but even then there was stress, there was stress in the household to a degree. So walk me through what led you down this path because I think that you come from a very interesting perspective, because I would say that somebody coming from a household that wasn't stressed financially, I wouldn't expect a child of that household to focus on changing the perspective of money because they already had it. So what was the set of circumstances sort of pushed you down this road. Thank you for asking Scott and my father was a very unique Japanese businessman who started teaching me about money because of his accounting background. He used to take me to the small shopping mall when I was five or six and asked me which one is making most money. And he's teaching us very practical and he wanted to teach me everything about money and business. So one day when I grow up, I will have enough and then I'll have a good life. That was his wish. Because he lost his father after the war and then when he was 12, so he had to go through without his father. So he was so happy to teach me anything so he could be a father to somebody. So he was a very happy guy when I was small. My brother who was two years younger, he doesn't have a good memory, but I had a lot of fun memories because my father was a joyous happy singer. He wanted to be the next Elvis in Japan. He dressed white and he had the weird shaped guitars, electric, very loud. So I hated him when I was small. But we were a musical family. I was a singer, my brother and my mom is a pianist and we had all fun. But one day when I came home from school, my father was crying like a baby and my mother told me his best friend committed suicide. By then I think I was eight or nine at the time. So I knew committing suicide, you know, what what it means. But what I didn't know is that my father's best friend killed the entire family of all and then committed suicide. It's called the family suicide because of failing business, my father advised his best friend to file bankruptcy. To save the shame of bankruptcy, he killed the entire family for and then committed suicide. But the thing is my father prepared some money for the family. After filing bankruptcy, they could live on the money he's. So your father was actually prepared to help the friend and step in. Yes. Yes, but you know, I don't know about your father, but Japanese guys of that generation, they don't talk much. So he didn't say that he was ready to help his friend. And he regretted so much about the fact for not telling him that he was ready to help. So when he was drunk, he said, you know, I was going to tell you, I was going to tell you as if I was his best friend. And then he said, you know, I'm so sorry and he cried like a baby. So he slipped into alcohol and also depression after that thing. And also my grandmother passed away too, which was the last blow of his his life. So all I remember is an abusive sad depressed man, but he had money. So we were okay financially. But I just made up my mind one day when I grew up, I want to have both money and happiness. That was the start of my quest for happiness. No, because I wanted to cure my father. And also I wanted to know what money is because if you mess up with money, you could have your entire family killed. And also I've seen a lot of happy people who have money and then they seem to enjoy life. So I wanted to know the secret. So I started reading books about money, psychology, happiness, religion. So by age 20, I was ready to start. So I started my own business. And I was successful enough. So I could retire at age 29. And for me, family was everything. So I took four years off of my life and not like my father, right? I just wanted to protect my happy family. So I just concentrated on a child raising my daughter for four years. And about three years into seminary time and I got this vision of writing something, which I did. And the essay became a booklet and a booklet became a book. And the rest is a legend here. The, the, the, the, the hundreds of thousands of people that you've helped. And, and for good reason too, it's, it's such a message that resonates because even, even, you know, since, since when that happened to your dad's friend, of course, our relationship with money in most cases is not that extreme, especially in the, the West, but it is to a degree in some cases. But it's not gotten much better. Money is still so intrinsically tied to self perception and self worth. And yes, it's not a normal practice when you go bankrupt to kill yourself and your family. But it also happens in some cases where people kill themselves when they go bankrupt or they lose someone money or they make a bad investment. But why do we have this incredibly for the majority of people, toxic relationship with money? That's a good question, Scott. I think it's because it's tied up with our survival. And a few hundred years ago when we all farmers, we just grew our own food. But since we move, many of us moved to the city, you know, after 1800, when the, you know, revolution, industrial revolution has happened in, in UK, all the workers were moving to the city. And in the city, in a city, you have to pay for your food, pay for water, pay for roof above your head. So you need money for survival. If you have your own land and if you grow your own food, you don't need money. But in a city, you need money to keep going. So I think money was tied up with survival in our head. So no money means no life. And so we get scared when we are fired because that means like death, right? So we can't provide, we can't live. Yeah. You don't die instantly, right? On the spot. But gradually you lose money, you cannot pay for the food, you can pay for the house. You end up being on a homeless and then in a cold weather, you die. You know, that is a vision, right? So we are so scared of losing money. We are so scared that our bank account number goes down because that means like a closer to death, right? So that's why we are fearful of making mistakes because if we keep making mistakes, we're going to get fired, we're going to lose job. Nobody is going to hire us if we are freelance and then we're going to die. But anyway, we feel like we are so fearful and we are so worried that less money or no money equals death. That's why we think money is so important. So we are so afraid of making mistakes. We're so afraid of losing money. Now, you teach this lesson over to people. But I'm very curious about in your life because yes, you had that, you had the interest in money because it had such an important place in your life growing up. And you started to research it. But even if you started to research, you would probably be interested in it. You'd be interested in making it. You started a business at 20, you were tired at 29 because there was some success. But your perception of money changed. What caused your perception of money to just starting a business would not change your perception of money. But going through what you went through with your dad and his friend, it would almost create this highly negative perception of money. So how did you have this sort of this awakening moment where you were like, money is not actually a bad thing. And my whole life is going to flip the script on how I perceive money. Yes, you know, I thought money was very negative. But once I started making money, I realized that, you know, I, I was wrong. You know, money is fun. So, you know, in English, I heard expression, I don't like it. I love it. You know, I'm learning English now. So, you know, that's, that's how I felt. So in my early 20s, I, I was making more money. And then I was, I became suddenly very popular among men and women. A lot of people wanted to spend time with me. And I was just, oh, oh my God, money, I thought money was bad. But money is good. And then I was addicted to making money, expanding my business. Hey, guys, Scott here. I just wanted to take a quick moment to say a heartfelt thanks to every single one of you six years of this show. And it's really all because of you. Your listens, your support, your shares, it's what keeps this thing going. When I started, I had no idea how big this would get, how many lives we touch, the stories we share, the lessons that we learned together, it's truly humbling. And I believe that we're building something really special here. A community where no one has to reinvent the wheel. We're all in this together, learning and growing. And here's my ask. If you love this show, it's made a difference for you. Please share it with somebody who needs it. Hella friend, host on social, whatever works. It's the best way to keep this thing going strong, bring on even better guests and share more life, changing wisdom. And you can find us on all the spots. So you can go to success story podcast.com. If you like listening to podcasts, if you like video, you can go to YouTube. It's YouTube.com slash C slash Scott DeClaire or the newsletter newsletter. It's Scott DeClaire.com. Just spread the word. I'm eternally grateful for each and every one of you. Let's keep learning. Let's keep growing and let's keep making this world a little bit better together. All right. Let's get back to the show like many people are. Yeah. And then one day I realized, wait a second. You know, unless I just say when, you know, this is enough. This is going to be dangerous. I sense that. Because one time I had this conversation with a very wealthy man who had a public company already. So I wanted to know I was in my twenties. I wanted to know when he started feeling successful. Was that like when he was 25 or when he started business and the money was pouring in or when he was 30 when he took his company to public. Think of Steve Jobs, you know, when he invented Apple, he didn't feel he was successful. But after he took Apple public, you know, probably he felt successful. That was the idea. So I skimmed this question. And I was so surprised when he said he was he was thinking for a second. And then he said, I don't think I'm successful. And then wait a minute. This guy has a big company with thousands of employees. Are you saying are you serious? And I said, yeah, because I don't have a private jet. And his definition of success is that if you have a private jet or not, right. In Japan is a small country. You don't need a jet. Even if you're successful, right. And then when he said, and then later on, I had a man, a man who had a private jet. And I asked the same question. And he said, no, I'm just a small potato. I feel so small whenever I go to the special terminal, right. And then look at my plan from my Mercedes, my plan is so small. It seats only six people. And here are all the other giant in the jumbo jets, with Arabic, you know, Arabian kings and the Vietnamese. So mine is like, you know, bicycle. So I'm not wealthy. So I miss you say, this is enough. This money making life will never end. You had a mentor at one point. And I don't know if it's one of the individuals that you mentioned and let me know if it was, but this mentor told you, when you spoke to him about money, he had told you the first thing about money is to not focus on money or something along the lines of that. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Explain what that means. Help, help the listeners understand and maybe give some context as to who this person is and why he will give you this advice. Yes, so I ask my mentor in my early 20s, I want to be wealthy, you know, give me a tip, you know, I was right. And then I was expecting a business tips or like, you know, investment tips and all that. And he said, if you want to be wealthy, forget about money. And I said, what? If you forget about money, how can be wealthy? And he is my Zen master. And his teaching was very Zen because he asked me more questions than I did. So his questions led me into thinking deeper and deeper and studied and understand about what life is all about. And so he shifted so many things in me. After he said, forget about money, I focused on why he meant by that. And then I realized that if you forget about money, you focus on what you do, you focus on what you can give to other people, your clients and your future customers. And if you focus truly on your customers and how to make them satisfied or entertain them or sell their problems, and then as a result, money will follow follow you. If you think of money, you try to cut the costs, you try to think that on your benefit. So you try to get profit from them. So the arrow goes this way for me. And what he meant was like, you have to focus, the arrow should be for you. And if you become for you person, people will just want to do business with you. But if the arrow goes for me, nobody wants to do anything with you because you always try to cut a good deal for you, not for your customers and friends. You're self-serving as opposed to giving value as opposed to giving giving more and you don't expect anything in return. Yeah, just putting yes, I love this. Yeah. So he said, if you forget about money, but he didn't explain more. So I had to think, but isn't that the best question though, the best questions for you to think. The concept, you know, you're known as as one of one of the sort of the names you go by is the Zen millionaire. Zen is Zen is obviously very important to you and very meaningful and this whole this whole framework of like asking these thoughtful questions that require you to think deeper and go be go below the surface. If you would help somebody understand maybe why Zen is important, but more than Zen, the concept of asking questions to help you look at the world in a different way and maybe a better way. We explained that and help people understand the questions they should be asking themselves that could unlock a different view towards money, towards wealth, towards success, even like an exercise somebody could do right now that is in a really dark place. Right, so you know every once in a while we fall into this dark place that nothing works and then people's around us seem to be very cold or indifferent or sometimes mean it's because our our world or in a world is made of anger resentment and frustration and that will be projected out. So when you are having a hard time or just struggling you have to breathe in deep and then relax and you're you can have a different life, but in order to do that you have to take a look at your life in a totally different way. The reason why you have financial issues, for example, is that you're making too little and spending too much and you're in the wrong place, but if you just find your own reserve the seat, which means that if you find a good environment to lift you up, you will do well. You happen to be in bad place at the bad timing, so you have to find who you are and what you're good at and if you do more of what you're good at, you get promoted, you get paid well and you get a move to a place where people respect you, love you and appreciate you. So you have to find the right place for you, it takes time, sometimes it takes a few years, but it's okay because life is a fun trip or process to find your best place, find your best partner, find your best friends and you can surround them with the people that you care about. So it doesn't really matter where you're stopped, entrance is not the most important place, exit is very important. You know, where you end up is more important because it doesn't really matter if you just a junior high school dropout or Harvard graduate school, you know, graduate because what you end up doing, it means a lot more. So you can give instead of what you have done or you're having done, I love that, that's very important, that's so so important and you speak actually about, you go a step further in terms of what we believe is true and how we look at the world when you go back to childhood and you speak about money trauma because you speak about the perception of money and how basically it's scarred. And like the money wounds that we have as a child, so we have these money wounds as a child and I would love for you to explain that, but then we also have the school we went to, the friends we have, the degree that we did or didn't get, we have all these things that impact how we see the world. And so many people have this hard time breaking out of, I would say, you know, after 25 years old, our view of the world for most people doesn't change too too much, that's what's the sad thing about it, they just, all these learned experiences, make them see the world a certain way and some people do the work and try and sort of break out of this shell that their parents have molded them into and that, you know, school high school and university and college have molded them into, but a lot of people don't. And I think that that's what actually hurts a significant amount of people and it really inhibits their potential, but this is besides the point, I want to go back to money wounds money trauma because the rest of what I'm talking about is really just like your experience professionally and academically that impacts how you perceive yourself, but what is this money trauma? Because I've never heard of this before, but I'm really excited to understand what it means for the jobs I take on, the risks in terms of investment, the things that I spend money on, the companies I want to start, so how does this play into it? So I remember, whatever I hear word birthday present, I remember my seventh year birthday, you know, I think I was thinking I'm already an adult, so I wanted to have a mountain bike, you know. It's a very expensive, you know, very stylish one and I thought it's cool, you know, I'm grown up enough and my parents said that's too expensive and I was so hurt, you know, I'm not worth it, you know. He then meant that you're too early for that and they're right because I cut my forehead here and here because of the bike accident afterwards. Parents parents sometimes know best, but at the time, I felt like I'm unworthy of this expensive gift, you know, I'm a cheap boy. It's what I thought and then I was denied a few times later on when I was 14 or 15, there was this homestay program to LA Los Angeles or Melbourne in Australia, I wanted to learn English. But by then my father was a heavy alcoholic, so I talked to my mother and she said, okay, when your father is a good mood is in the good mood, talk about your homestay. And I sighed because in my home, that means never in home, my mother, my father is never in a good mood, so that means like forget it, right. So I just had to brochure ready when I find my father is even in a little bit better mood. And when he's in good mood, I was going to pitch my homestay program for him, but he never happened. Because if I did, my father gets angry at me or my mom and he could get obviously right. So I still remember on the day that the airplane goes somewhere, my friends are going to either LA or Australia. And I was like, oh my god, I never felt jealousy for anything. I was so jealous, I was going to die, I was going to burn in my jealousy. And by the way, last year, after 40 years, I landed on the soil of Australia and I almost cried because my dreams of 40 years, you know, of course I could go, but my trauma, like, oh, whenever I heard Australia, you know, my heart ached. So every one of us had some kind of funny trauma, sometime big like your parents are divorced because of money and your heavily scolded or I know a person who was kidnapped for money, you know. So a lot of money related trauma happened in our childhood. And unless we feel the side effect, after effect of that is when we want to buy something, this deep voice saying, you're too cheap, you know, this is too expensive for you. When you want to start your own business, no, no, you can't make it because you didn't, you didn't deserve a ballet lesson or soccer lesson or a nice summer camp. Why such a failure can study business or succeed. So subconsciously, all these traumas just taught you and limit you and I've struggled with that because later on, I wanted to study English and do something internationally, but it took me almost 40 years since I started thinking about that. So unless you heal your money, money trauma or money scars, you know, we limit, we tend to limit those self in a small box. You have tips on where people can even begin to start healing because that's some deep rooted stuff that's going back very, very long ways, right. So you don't need to meet, see your therapist, you know, it's very simple if you're willing to do it. You know, in your imagination, go back to your living room, like 30 years ago, 40 years ago, and just look at your parents in your own eyes, adult eyes. And then your parents are maybe younger than you are now, you know, during their 20s or early 30s, right. So you can see your parents kind of like puzzled. We don't have the money, you know, so to send, send the kid a child to expensive summer school or ballet lessons or, you know, Disneyland or whatever. And then you can see there are so confused and they feel so shameful. So instead of just confronting their shame and anxiety around money, they turn it on to their kids and they made their little one a bad guy. So like you're too expensive, you know, what do you think we, we're made up, you know, we're in a matter of money, you know, stuff like that. Or even even in a very upsetting tone. So you can see 70 or all the 10 year old boy or girl girl saw her because of the comment that your young parent made. So you can say you can go to your close to your boy or girl and say, it's okay, okay, you know, it's not your fault. It's just your parents didn't have money. So, so that's why they cannot afford it. But if they have, if they have the money, they'll of course they'll be happy to give it to you. So it's not your fault. And they just hug your, you know, a child, your self many years ago. And then be with the boy, be with the girl. And then just give a blessing to the young parent because they didn't know much about money. They were as confused, you know, they're young. And they maybe came a little smarter, but they didn't know much. So do you want to blame them, you know, for for being ignorant. And if you have compassion and love for them, you can send love to your parents as well. So by looking at your young parents as innocent ignorant people, can you accept them as who they are. And if you can forgive them, just give them your blessing. And by doing that, you realize, okay, nothing wrong with me. I can start my own business. I can just invest in new things. I can get married. You know, nothing stops me. At least, at least money doesn't stop me. I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today's episode, Roadway. Moving can feel like the adult version of a temper tantrum. 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And make sure if you're using roadway, use my code, Scott D10 at roadwaymoving.com. Let them know you heard about them on this podcast. Go to roadwaymoving.com and use my code, Scott D10. I just want to take a second to thank the sponsor of today's episode HubSpot. Now HubSpot has an incredible podcast network success stories part of it. And if you like success story, you're going to love other podcasts and their network. One of my favorites is I digress is hosted by Troy Sandage, which Roy does exceptionally well is in under 30 minutes. He helps eliminate complexity, complications, confusion in your business. He talks about frameworks, strategies that really work to help you achieve scalable and sustainable success. So you need to go listen to I digress one of the most useful podcasts for entrepreneurs and founders part of the HubSpot podcast network, wherever you get your podcasts. You know what this does? This allows you to trust yourself as opposed to this allows you to understand the concept that your world is created and controlled by you versus external factors. Right. I love this a lot. I think this is what a lot of this this unlocking a healthier attitude towards money towards wealth is all about because you understand that if and you know there's the religious tropes about money is the root of all evil, but I think really if you believe that you are responsible for what happens in your life. And you start to understand that if I make money, I choose to use it the way that I want and it can be for good. It could be for evil, but we're hoping it's for good. So I think that you remove other people's perception of what money is, what wealth is, what success is, and you like build it yourself almost. Yeah, so I'm so happy that I have helped millions of people out my books and YouTube and all the other things because if you change just a little bit of how you look at the world and money. You see a totally different picture and once money is fun for you, you have no emotional mental block and then your financial situation changes overnight and you get promoted, you get a big raise, you get a big bonus and I've seen all kinds of funny funny miracles. You're just uncle just contacted you suddenly out of like you know blue like after 15 years of no contact and he's telling you like I have you know I don't have kids. Can I give to $50,000 now what you know that that actually that is why it's funny how the universe works like that I would say that even more even more practically for somebody that's listening to this. And they are they are say they are somebody who wants to make more money in their job and their career like if you free up that mental space to think creatively to focus on the work that you're doing kind of like you said, you will perform at a higher level. It's just it's just a matter of fact if you're not always thinking about the money and you're just pushing yourself into work because you love the work that you're doing. You will get so good you will perform at a higher level you will be focusing on the actual things in front of you versus these almost these fake fears about money that you have in the back your mind and then in turn you will actually progress and make more money and get the promotion or the business will be successful because you focus on the right thing. The same thing is like when you manifest when people talk about manifesting because manifesting what is it manifesting is just thinking about the thing that you want to accomplish and every single day all the actions you're taking through the day are in pursuit of that thing. If all you do every single day is just work towards being better the money comes the money always comes just we focus on the money before we work on getting better and that's why we never get the money. We should have to get ourselves out of this hamster wheel. Is this what we speak a lot about money EQ as well is this more or less what this what money EQ is or is that is that another layer. Yeah, there are full money. Many EQ principles that I teach you know with mind valley and other courses. So money EQ is almost like a curriculum by itself you know a lot of a lot of teachers talk about money IQ like Robert Kiyosaki. Those open and those teachers they talk about money financial side you know the tax code and a business and marketing and investment that is financial IQ money IQ money EQ is a totally different thing. It it it's about how you relate with money how how healthy you are with money because I've seen the most intelligent people on earth make most stupid mistakes emotionally. And then they end up losing everything you know you know that the hedge fund smart guy or the cryptocurrency big guys just they're going to jail because they are messed up emotionally you know and then sometimes they do illegal things why because they don't have this healthy relationship. So they want to grow their business bigger and bigger bigger and they forgot about the law so emotional intelligence is actually a far more important than intelligence money money IQ. So I think you need to have a strong foundation of money emotional intelligence and on that you can build empire otherwise you're just building a big building on the sand which is not stable. And when when you practice money EQ does this mean like you're taking slower steps because you trust the process you're not trying to grow at all expenses is that more or less what this kind of this idea means you're just being more thoughtful about everything. Yes I can I can quickly share of yes let's do it yeah so the first principle is receive well you know that is the first principle you have to be willing to receive when you're a baby you didn't come here to hunt you know the first seven years you just receive with business with money you receive you receive clients you receive trust you receive money abroad. And then the second step is to appreciate you know appreciate the money coming in because your clients chose you out of 30,000 other coaches. They chose you out of so many other options and then they trusted you there are so many reasons to appreciate your clients the money for coming in and the third step is to trust this is a hard part trust the flow of money. No the reason why we are so afraid of money is that we cannot trust that there will be a constant flow so if you can trust the money flow you have no problem emotionally. And the fourth step the last step is to share if you're willing to share what you have you realize that you have more than enough this feeling all I have more than enough is abundant feeling because even if you have five billion dollars or five million dollars in your bank account if you feel like you need to have more you need to make more you cannot feel you're abundant. So the feeling that you can find even five dollars in your pocket can make you feel better so this feeling of will come after you're willing to share what you have so if you share what you have if you share what you know if you share who you are if you share your heart you are the most abundant happy person. So if you can receive well appreciate the money trust the flow see what you have you have a very good relationship with money so once you have enough just trust the flow enjoy the flow what you appreciate appreciates. So and also at the same time I'm not saying that money IQ is not important and money IQ is very important. So it's almost like two wheels money IQ money IQ and then you you can have a very good drive. You think that I'm just thinking now if you if you want to come from this place of abundance would donating to charity or donating some money almost be like a psychological hack to force yourself to feel like you have enough. If you for some reason don't. Yes so my prescription for people who have money worries is donate a dime or dollar in a box right next to the register at the supermarket you know donate something it could be a penny too. When you not donate ten cents a dollar and then that's not the end of the world and that will send you the message I have more than enough. So when you feel like you are a little afraid donate some money and if you are winning do that with ten dollars. A hundred dollars could be a thousand dollars whatever you donate and then if you're not going bankrupt. Hooray and you know what the person. I also am very curious because you know even when we before we started recording you know you're in Tokyo right now I'm in the US and there's a ton of cultural differences between the two cities countries. And even if you look back at what happened with your dad's friend there's a cultural difference there so I'm sure there's tons of cultural differences about money and wealth between Japan and the US but also in other parts of the world. What are some of the cultural differences or best I guess a best cultural practices for how to view wealth because in the US culture it's very much tied to your sort of like your rank in society but I'm pretty sure that's not the case with all cultures. I was listening to a couple podcasts ahead of time and apparently in Japan even speaking about your salary is much more common than it is in the US in the US all hush hush and they had to make laws to force companies in certain states like New York to disclose what they're paying people. So they were doing it right this is all very different from different parts of the world so what are the best the best cultures are the best ways to look at money like I mean we're not going to fix the US but maybe we can at least learn from a couple other a couple other countries. So you know everything is psychological and cultural as you said in Japan a money is not as much taboo as in North America I was surprised that even your best friend you don't talk about how much money you make to each other. Here in Japan if you're best friend you know everything right and but the funny thing is in Japan even among your best friends you don't talk about your sexual life as much in America even without asking you know American friends are calling me all the things in detail which kind of embarrassed me. So like if you're Japanese friend ask you about how much money you make you can ask them back what's your sexual life these days. So like certain things are taboo yeah which is fun you know and then like oh like why do I feel so secretive about how much money you make or your sexual life or any other things like I don't know like we don't feel so much shame about how many times we go to the bathroom how many times number one number two you know not many people I feel shameful about that even though we don't often talk about it in public. So I hope money can be such an open thing to talk about in the future because there's nothing to be said about you know big people talk people need to eat more and then short people may not need to eat as much and you know the money is the same thing if you have a money a big container you need to receive more money and you need to spend more money. If you if you money containers small you don't need to eat more or dispose more you know it's almost like sometimes the US is a little bit backwards because I think we're talking about sex more and more and money less and so the exact opposite. Oh my goodness what's you know you've interviewed like probably tens or hundreds of millionaires at this point and probably several billionaires what is the maybe maybe even tell me what a millionaire thinks of money versus even what a billionaire thinks of money versus what somebody who's making 50 or 60 thousand dollars per year thinks of money. You know I think many of the people they have common sense and a billion people they're a little bit crazy you know they don't have this thing called a break in your life. Yeah only like accelerator you know they don't have a good sense of risks so they keep taking risks all the time so a lot of billionaires thinking you don't want to learn it's almost like you know the TV shows don't do this at home that that's how I feel so that's how I just the teach people don't don't go for a millionaire. You know if you if you want to be happy and wealthy you need to stay small not because a lot of billionaires don't have the right balance in life emotionally and mentally. So if you want to have a good life I think having little money is enough so why do you want to be a billionaire you know because a lot of people want to have a power recognition and some people are destined to become a billionaire but not not all of us. You know I it's interesting because right now I'm just outside Miami which is probably one of the most superficial cities in the world everybody has the boat and everybody has the jet and everybody's spending a thousand dollars per person when they go for dinner. And it's just it's wild to me because it's gotten to the point in society not in other parts of the world it's nothing like this but it's gotten to the point society where making money isn't enough but we pretend that we have money that we don't even have which to me is just a wild concept. So then we actually go bankrupt like renting out like a fancy luxury car for the weekend or we go bankrupt spending money on like a club you know how much it costs okay I'll give you a number which is a wild number there's a real number so if you go out to live which is a club in Miami for new years even probably other some other holidays there are tables which come with a bottle or two bottles or three bottles of liquor which are probably like you know 50 dollars of bottle if you went to liquor store max. And those tables cost you 50 thousand dollars for the 50 thousand dollars so you want to talk about unhealthy relationship with money this is what some people are dealing with so when you live in a when you live in a society like that what's the answer do you just move somewhere else. How do you how do you not let yourself how do you become how do you build the mental resistance to not fall into this keeping up with the Joneses attitude. I think you should go out see you know other other place other places like I was I was telling Scott you know talk is very safe I wanted a safest cities among all the big cities now five year old girl are just walking. She's walking on a street alone and she goes on a subway and when she's lost she can grab any adults for directions you know that's as safe as Tokyo I dropped my wallet a few times and all the time my wallet was found and reported to police so they found my wallet and it's okay. So you know if you just visit place like that you see there's a whole new world out there there are very honest people dependent people or around it grounded people yeah grounded and generous people or in that if you go visit a town in Europe you feel very different to so if you want to go around. Different places now you see like your town is very unique at some point and then you can choose where to live so if you don't have the money and time you can do that with YouTube you know there are so many YouTube videos to show people's lives and then after looking at some videos like okay just Miami. And we could be crazy and then like okay so do I want to go to like Ohio or California where would I fit so you have to go to a place where you fit well yeah and I think you have to have you have to do the work to understand what makes you happy and what you actually need in your life. Right there's reasons to live in a big city but there's in my opinion there's there's a lot of people would be much happier if they if they figure out what actually means a lot to them and architect their life in a way that includes the places that you live and the people that you associate with so that you that you are happy and you feel you feel like in your group appears that don't judge you and aren't expecting things of you that you don't even care about I think that's very important. I'm curious because I've seen different studies done I think this is probably the most most important question and you probably have a lot of opinion on it and maybe we'll this will be like the one that will leave the audience with I'll do a couple rapid fire after this is a very good question sort of wrap up I've seen a studies done that after you make $70,000 or something like that obviously depends on the city but there's an amount of money that you make which I think 70's a little bit better. But there's not a lot of money you make and after that it your life you don't feel much happier and I would actually say that it's probably a significant more amount than 70's a study done probably several years ago but do you know what that amount is like what's the amount that money like buys quote unquote buys happiness to a degree but then after that you have diminishing returns is it maybe it's 500,000 a year maybe it's 100,000 a year maybe it's a million a year maybe it's a million a year. Maybe it's way more than that I don't know but I'm curious if you have an opinion on that yes I mean it it's up to where you live if you live in New York $50,000 is a peanuts right but if you live in a countryside $50,000 you can have a comfortable life. So it depends on where you live and how you live if you need like four cars it's going to cost a lot but if you have a very simple life it will cost less. So that's why I said find your own life otherwise you know some life could cost so much and to pay for the expenses you have to work so hard. So some people love that kind of lifestyle and if you have a family that could be a different situation so I cannot give you any certain number but in my book I talk about $300,000 is an income that will give you enough of everything and even $100,000 if you live in a local city. That would be enough but it could be a million dollars if you live in New York or like if you want to have a housekeeper driver it adds up. Now to you but you have to find how much is enough and when is enough otherwise in life there are so many other fun things that you can enjoy. So if you have too busy making money you lose peace of mind and also you lose opportunities to enjoy life. So you have to really watch out especially if you live in a big city or if you're surrounded by highly efficient successful people just look around people don't need to live that way. Yeah very very wise because what will happen is if you don't know what that number is and you don't think about it there will be a period like you there will be a point where you can make money without significantly more risk or work but there will be a point where to get from 500k to a million per year or a million to 5 million and then endless really where you can end up but you will have to put in more work or take on higher risk. It's impossible to scale past a certain point without risk or work meaning leverage investment whatever it is and I think that to your point a lot of people who say to that and then their lives are high risk. I am out of work broken relationships stress mental health degradation physical health degradation and they look back and they're like what happened to me. I'm three wives later my kids hate me I'm over leveraged yeah okay fine I have five houses but literally I have no one who even wants to talk to me anymore. I would say that you probably should have paused maybe you know two hours ago so yeah okay if you were actually I'll ask you to rapid fire to close it out. So where can people connect with you which I feel like you're going to write another book in like the next month but what is the book. They like people to go read right now what's the one thing that you think will change people's lives. You can drop a couple titles actually maybe pick your favorites and where do people connect with you online. Thank you you can find all the information at canhanda.com KEN Honda as in a car even I have to confess I drive Toyota but no that's another thing and then the book I have is this is only one. I have just a English book happy money okay so happy money is only book and then a May of 24 published a book with a house which is a novel. Hopefully you read that too you know we haven't really decided the title but it's about a wealthy grandfather who leaves nine letters to his grandson. He donates all the money to charity but instead he leaves nine letters so this grub grunts son 20 year old boy grubs his letters and then go on a trip. So you know that that is a novel it's a best setting up novel in Japan it's like Tuesdays with Murray so I hope I love that. And hang out is huge by the way that's an enormous publisher so that's going to be in that that's an English right that will be in English okay yes okay last two questions to close this out. First question is you've had an incredible life an incredible career you change the lives of millions at this point but would be one lesson that you would tell your 20 year old self could be about money or could just be about life business anything. Life is fun so just do whatever excite you the most and just enjoy every second of it that's a short but sweet very important lesson what would be if you could if you could define success if you could define your version of success now what is success mean to you professionally but also what is success mean to you personally. I think abundance is the freedom to do what you love to do what you love at the place where you like with whom you love and at the right timing so if you can do what you love with whom you love and wherever you like and whenever you like so that is a freedom. you