Happy Money: Transforming Your Relationship with Money

Ken Honda is the author of Happy Money: The Japanese Art of Making Peace with Your Money. He is a bestselling author of self-development books and has sold more than seven million copies worldwide.

While his financial expertise comes from owning and managing several businesses, his writing spans topics that include finance and self-help, focusing on creating and generating personal wealth and happiness through deeper self-honesty.

Ken recently shared a sneak peek of his philosophy behind achieving “happy money.” 

What is the difference between money IQ and money EQ? How do the two work together to create “happy money”?

After running my own businesses for over 20 years, I know there are two types of intelligence that every entrepreneur needs—money IQ and money EQ. If you only have one, your business is sure to suffer.

Every entrepreneur needs a basic level of money IQ. This is about making smart choices in how you make, spend and invest your money. Money IQ helps you create great strategies for generating and protecting your money.

But the true mastery of your business comes from understanding your money EQ—your emotional relationship to money. No matter how smart you are with money until you understand how your unconscious mind works around money you will make expensive decisions, bad choices and miss opportunities.

If your money EQ is low, you could very well end up losing money. That is why there is a long list of extremely intelligent individuals who have allowed their businesses to take over their life, have made bad choices and gone bankrupt.

In order to achieve a happy money life, you need to have both a healthy money IQ and a healthy money EQ. Once you know about the intelligent and emotional aspects of making money, you will have a great relationship with it.

What is the most unhealthy type of relationship a person can have with money? How does that impact a person’s life?

Most people have a difficult relationship with money because of the ways they earn and spend it are unhealthy. Which is to say, a lot of entrepreneurs tend to take on projects or clients just for the paycheck, and the stress adds up quickly. Suffering is embedded in the act of getting money. Without realizing it, feelings of stress, pain, or irritation come up every time they use or think about money.

“Most people have a difficult relationship with money because of the ways they earn and spend it are unhealthy.”

We also tend to live with the delusion that continually expanding our business just to become rich, will make us happy, solve all our problems, and put our worries to rest. The truth is actually completely the opposite. The more money we earn, the larger our work or business grows. When companies get bigger, expenses and payrolls get bigger, too.

If you want to be free of money worries, you may need to examine your relationship with money. Ask yourself: What are your fears? How and why does money control you? What have you been brainwashed to believe? While it can be painful and somewhat traumatic to look back, by understanding where you are today in regard to your relationship to money and your unconscious beliefs about money, you’ll be better able to see how it controls your life.

In your book, you write, “People who are confident aren’t that way because they are rich. They are rich because they are confident!” Will you please explain this idea further?

To fully realize your potential as a business owner, keep in mind that it isn’t just money and abundance that is important; confidence in your own abilities matters as well. Even when your supply of money is low, confidence and self-esteem lead to the heart of abundance.

Yet it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that many people are overpowered by doubt. And the road of self-doubt leads to only one place: fear. Fear of trying new things. Fear of doing anything. Fear of sharing your skills and talents.

You need to trust before you get money. All success is an outgrowth of confidence. And when we are able to trust the flow of money, both in and out of our lives, being confident comes naturally.

“All success is an outgrowth of confidence. And when we are able to trust the flow of money, both in and out of our lives, being confident comes naturally.”

A big cause of money stress is that people don’t trust the flow of money. They are worried that the money they make will not be enough to support their future. They worry that their ideas and projects won’t be worth all the time and energy spent. But if we are going to be decisive and act with confidence, we have to accept that money is a fluctuating thing.

If you want to be happy and successful, you have to muster the confidence in yourself and your abilities.

What are your tips to help someone with an unhappy relationship with money develop a more positive relationship with money?

I believe that “thank you” are the two most powerful words to help you to start to transform your relationship with money.

Take a look at your relationship with money. Make a plan to change your attitude to one of gratitude toward money. By appreciating money as it both enters and leaves your life, you will find a more fulfilling life.

When we talk about increasing money, most people automatically imagine business investments and other techniques. However, for me, it means finding a purpose that you believe in from the heart and then aiding that purpose with money.

As an entrepreneur, you should seek to create a flow of money that you feel happy about by doing what you love.