Welcome to Take Your Time Back Summit, a masterclass for purpose-driven and professional women like you who are ready to confidentially focus on their goals every day without stress so you can have more time with your family and for yourself.
Today I’m super excited to introduce you to Ken. Ken is a money advice expert. He is also a best-selling author in Japan. And you might know his book, which is called “Happy Money”, the Japanese heart to making peace with your money. He has sold many books surprising millions of pieces in 2021, and today we’re going to speak together about how to heal your life and how to heal your life. Welcome Ken, are you doing today?
What is the difference between like you know, you’re speaking a lot about the concept of happy money, so what is happy money and what is unhappy money? What’s the difference between the two?
Yes, you will now receive money. Does it make you feel happy? Or does it make you feel squeezed? When? When our relationship with money is healthy when we receive money? If you’re very happy when we pay bills or pay our restaurant, we feel very happy. On the other hand most of us, unfortunately, live in the flow of unhappy money, when we receive money from companies, you know checks for husband or wife, we feel like” is this all the money I have?” When we pay bills, we feel stressed, “I don’t want to pay the bills, that’s expensive”. So if you’re stressed, that’s unhappy money. Now, happy money makes you feel very open and happy. Unhappy to feel very close, irritated, sometimes frustrated. So that is a difference for each one.
Oh, so I guess that depends really on each one of us, because something can mean happiness to me while it can mean unhappiness for you, right?
Yes, exactly. It doesn’t matter how much you make or how much you have. Even if you are a millionaire, if you feel like the money you received makes you feel miserable because sometimes rich people feel miserable, then that’s unhappy money. And, even if you have 10 euros in your pocket, If you’re just listening, keep smiling. That’s happy money
What is something that in my brain is happy money and in other’s brains is unhappy money? Is there anything specifically inside each of us that makes us feel this way?
you just made a very important question. Because money is a chameleon. It can change colors and shapes. For some people, money can be a happy person. But for some people, money is an evil monster. So I always asked my audience I talked to 1000s of people all the time, but it asked the audience if money was a person, who would it be? Is the person gentle, generous, and fun? Or is it cold, mean and is always fighting? If you have a good relationship with money, money is a happy person. If not, money can be a very threatening person.
And if you picture money as a terrible person in your mind, is that a sign or s symbol of scarcity? Because many women in my audience have the feeling that money can be scary and very hard to get.
Yes, exactly. If you believe in the universe, like people being kind to each other, whatever you do will be appreciated. If you live in a world like that, if you trust your future, so you will be taken care of by your friends and other people. You don’t have so much fear of money. But if you’ve got to trust your future, if you don’t trust people, you will always feel scared. Feeling like “I don’t know when the next one is going to come in”. So trust in your future. If you have trust in your future, you feel relaxed. If you just lose everything, you know somebody will step in and help you. But unfortunately, most of us live in a modern world and also Western culture. We have cut out from family members and also friends. If we take a look at the Latin culture, they can laugh, laughing culture. You know, even if you don’t have any money, they’re smiling because their friends or their relatives, somebody has money. They may be they may not have enough cash but they know got to be well taken care of. Well, competently in a vast country. Most of us are so cut off from friends. So we need to rely on our own personal bank accounts, which is kind of sad.
In countries like Canada or the US people tend to be more individualistic, where you’re always focusing on what you have, and if you have nothing, you get scared!
But even if you live in a western country, you still can have friends that you can count on. The other day I visited friends who let me stay with them for one week without any money when I have more than 50 friends that I can count on. So I’m not afraid of money, nor even about losing it. I know that just two good friends are more important than 50 friends. So if you have more friends who let you stay for free, you don’t have to worry about money for the rest of your life. I’m just showing this example. If you want to feel happy and less stressed about money, rely on good friends, not on the money you have in your bank account.
What we are saying relies more on self-confidence and believing that we can generate more money, but also there’s confidence in the future.
Exactly! But the problem is that we’re very good at giving and helping others, but we are bad at receiving help. When a friend is in trouble, you just go and take care of your friend. But when YOU are in trouble, you can’t say “help me!”. You have a hard time asking for help. So giving help is easy, but asking for help is challenging. We don’t want to bother our friends. But actually receiving help is the most critical element to making happy money.
And do you think people are shy about receiving help?
Yes, that’s very true. We never want to bother other people. But think about your friends who maybe once said “I was sick for a week and I didn’t call anybody, I just slept all day without eating anything”. If we hear that from a friend we would get very upset and ask them why didn’t he or she called me! I would have been able to help! And he or she would say “Oh no, I didn’t want to bother you”. So let’s think about it the other way around. If you are in trouble and don;r ask for help, your friends will get upset with you for not telling them. The truth is that asking for help strengthens your friendships. Giving and receiving are part of one cycle, by receiving, someone else can give, and by giving, someone else will receive. That’s the cycle of help.
I know that you are saying that money problems are actually life problems, why are you saying that?
I do counseling in front of thousands of people, which is very fun and entertaining because couples fight in front of thousands of people. And I understand we have our own reasons to fight, but what we many times don’t understand is that both of us are right. When we fight, we lose peace, and unfortunately, that’s what we do with money. You have to let money go because money is not a criminal. The reason for the problem is our communication. The same thing happens with work. We believe we have to go to work because of money. But that’s not true. We don’t do what we love to do because we think something has changed. But is not the money that changed our work… is us! We can’t have freedom in life. Is more of an internal problem. If you realize that money is not the source of the problem.
There’s always an underline problem beneath what we tend to believe the real problem is.
If you realize that money is not really the issue, it can be your unworthiness issue, you feel like you’re not worthy of the money and that’s why you have a hard time receiving it. That’s why you feel you have to keep working with someone or on something you don’t even like. Once you realize that is all about a self esteem issue, you have to walk on it and you have to heal your money roots. And only after that, you will feel free to do whatever pleases you the most.
