4 Japanese Habits to be a Millionnaire

The Japanese habit of becoming a millionaire has been around for a long time and has been used by many people across different countries in building wealth. If your wondering who is the person that created this Japanese method of wealth creation, well it's Miyamoto Musashi, one of if not the greatest samurai to have lived. 

Who is Miyamoto Musashi?

• He was a samurai, scholar, warrior and philosopher.
• He was a legend back in the day in Japan.

Before he died, he wrote the 4 most important rules to achieve success in his book "The Book of Five Rings". Growing up he loved sword fighting, he believed he was better than others and even tried to correct his father's sword fighting technique. His father responded by throwing a dagger at him that nearly killed him.

Musashi ran away from home and over the next few decades casually fought over 60 warriors and defeated many of them.

After his last fight, he put his sword down and began his path to enlightenment.

He focused more on being a:

1. Teacher
2. Wise counsellor
3. Philosopher 

He drew down experiences and knowledge from his warrior days and imparted that wisdom to those who were interested in it.

What are the 4 rules:

1. Musashi realised that all his enemies (the 60 defeated warriors) were lying to themselves. They tried to mask their defeat and were too proud to admit that they were severely outmatched.

Key takeaway: Be truthful to yourself. If there are areas that your lack or need improvement on, don't ignore them to boost your ego. Be brutally truthful about your shortcomings and use them to your advantage.

Musashi knew this about his agility weakness and spent hours training on it.

It is difficult to understand the universe if you only study one planet- Miyamoto Musashi

2. Musashi was a self-learner

He was obsessed with learning everything that he could. He didn't wait to be spoonfed knowledge at school or in life, he went out to seek answers. He learned all he could about agriculture, science, and astronomy.

People that pursue knowledge have more information at their disposal and can therefore make better-informed decisions compared to those that do not have the knowledge.

This is not to say you need some fancy ivy league college degree. Instead what this means is that people that were self-learners and kept upping their skills earned more than those that didn't.

3. Musashi didn't just learn techniques, he learned strategies.

What is strategy?

• It is the overarching vision and thinking that encompasses all tactics that you will execute.
• It is the larger picture of why you're doing something to get to your desired outcome.
• Merriam Webster defines it as an adaptation or complex of adaptations (as of behaviour, metabolism, or structure) that serves or appears to serve an important function in achieving evolutionary success.
• In simple words: a careful plan or method

For eg just buying and selling stocks for the short term, there is no guarantee that you will always be profitable.

That's the key difference between the poor and the rich. The poor only look at short term profits and how they can get money. The rich manoeuvre a strategy to build something that will be an income-generating source for themselves. 

Musashi focused on the power of training above anything else.

Although his sword-fighting battles would only last seconds, he spent thousands of house training and training and training again to master his swordsmanship craft to be the best that he could be.

Musashi took action

He took serious action to whatever that we wanted to accomplish.

Here is the lesson, if you want to build wealth you need to take action, just watching videos, reading articles, and listening to seminars which is all well and good, will remain just knowledge if you do not take actionable steps to realise them.

The biggest failure in life is not failing but the failure to take action on something.

If you are reluctant to do something but you need to do it if you want to take yourself to the next level and be better, remember the Nike tagline " Just Do It".

4. Musashi believed that if you want to be great you need to do nothing that is of no use

Time is the only resource that all of us have equally.

However, how you choose to spend your time will determine if you are a rich person or a poor person. You need to learn to value your time and then you will be able to focus on the high impact task that will move your ticker closer to your desired goals.

Protect your time, and then and only then you will have time and energy to get to financial freedom. When you protect your time: 

• You won't waste time convincing sceptics of your dreams.
• You won't waste time on people that only tolerate you but do not value you.
• You will only pursue things that actually matter to you and that you believe you can have the biggest impact on, hence increasing your likelihood of success.

Conclusion

In conclusion, if you believe just working hard alone in itself is all it takes to be rich and successful then you have been sold a false truth. Hard work is part of being successful but it takes so much more than that to be wealthy, it takes strategising, working smart, being a self-starter and acquiring wisdom. 

Working smarter is knowing the difference between what is right and what is right now. This means knowing what to do and what not to do. It also means knowing what to hold on to and what not to hold on to.

Working smarter empowers you because it lets you take the driver's seat in your life. That is the best way to live.

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