Do you want to be rich? Do you know how to maintain your wealth and happiness after achieving financial success?
Living a rich lifestyle involves more than just making money. It’s about managing relationships, avoiding common pitfalls, and finding fulfillment beyond material possessions. Felix Dennis’s book How to Get Rich offers sage advice on navigating the challenges that come with newfound wealth.
Keep reading to discover practical insights on how to live a rich lifestyle while staying true to yourself.
Living a Rich Lifestyle
In his book, Dennis discusses how to become rich. Then, he shares his advice on how to live a rich lifestyle, with practical tips for maintaining your health, wealth, and happiness.
We’ll explore Dennis’s suggestions about how to manage your relationships after becoming rich and how to move past the urge to overindulge yourself. Finally, we’ll discuss why Dennis believes that retirement isn’t for everyone and most entrepreneurs are better off continuing to pursue new business opportunities.
Managing Your Relationships
Dennis says that, once you’ve achieved your goal and become rich, you’ll need to carefully manage your relationships in order to stay close to your genuine friends while avoiding people who are only trying to get something from you.
First of all, the author stresses the significance of maintaining your oldest friendships. Anyone who was friends with you before you got rich—and who stuck with you through the demanding process of becoming rich—will be an invaluable source of support as you navigate your newly wealthy lifestyle.
Furthermore, old friends are often the only ones who will provide you with honest feedback and advice. Those who have only known you as a rich person are likely to either be intimidated by you, or try to ingratiate themselves with you; either way, they’ll only tell you what they think you want to hear.
Dennis adds that you’ll probably find yourself with a lot of new “friends” who are hoping you’ll share your wealth with them. Therefore, Dennis suggests limiting people’s access to you so you don’t get overwhelmed by their demands on your time and money. He also urges you to hire personal security for yourself and your family members—this is a necessary expense, because there are dangerous people in the world who might try to get your money by threatening you or your loved ones.
Gifting Money to Others
Naturally, you’ll need to protect your wealth from strangers and scammers, but what about your loved ones?
Dennis says that you absolutely should give money to friends and family members—not just for their benefit, but for your own as well. Although it might sound crass, regularly giving money to friends and family is a great way to maintain your relationships with them. He also emphasizes that these should be gifts, not loans; don’t burden your loved ones with any obligation to pay you back, or you may harm your relationships instead of strengthening them.
Dennis adds that regularly giving money away will motivate you to keep creating more wealth, rather than becoming preoccupied with defending the wealth you already have. This will help prevent you from becoming isolated and paranoid and will also ensure that you’ve always got interesting projects to keep you busy.
Quickly Moving Through the Self-Indulgence Phase
Dennis gives a warning about the initial phase of wealth, noting that many newly rich people go through a period of excessive spending. This initial overspending phase may be inevitable; it’s hard to resist indulging your whims when, for perhaps the first time, you have the money to do so. For instance, it’s common for professional athletes to make enormous salaries then spend their money as quickly as they earn it and go broke shortly after retirement.
This period can also endanger your health if you spend that money on drugs and partying, which are also all-too-common pitfalls for the newly rich.
(Shortform note: It’s common for newly rich people to spend too much money on self-indulgence, but it may not be inevitable like Dennis claims. One business consultant argues that wealth doesn’t cause extreme spending and overconsumption, it merely makes such things possible. In other words, people don’t become wasteful and self-indulgent because of money. Money simply creates more options; how wealthy people spend their money comes down to their personal values and decisions.)
Dennis says it’s important to get through this period as quickly as possible. Use your newfound wealth to spoil yourself for a little while, but recognize when those indulgences aren’t making you happy anymore, and then refocus on maintaining your wealth and health.
One effective way to move past this phase of mindless self-indulgence is to find a passion other than making money. This is because, once you’ve become rich, continuing to make money is likely to be very easy for you (and therefore boring). A creative outlet or a new hobby will give you something to occupy yourself besides shopping and partying, thereby avoiding boredom and the self-destructive behaviors that may come with it.
| Other Strategies for Finding Satisfaction Dennis suggests finding a new passion to challenge yourself and stay busy. However, discovering something you love enough for that suggestion to work is often easier said than done. Therefore, it would be helpful to have some strategies that don’t depend on finding a new calling right when you need one. Some simpler ways to find satisfaction—without the need for wasteful spending or self-destructive habits—include: Practicing gratitude. Instead of thinking about what you’d like to buy next, take some time to remember and appreciate what you already have. Examples might include your health, your family and friends, your job, your home, and your accomplishments. Enjoying simple things. You can find contentment and tranquility without having to spend money or a great deal of effort. Instead of always chasing after big, showy possessions and accomplishments, remember the pleasure of simply taking a walk or watching your favorite TV show. |
Tip: Keep Looking for Opportunities
Once you become wealthy enough, it’s easy to stop working and simply live off of passive income. However, Dennis suggests that you avoid retiring and instead keep looking for interesting new ventures to pursue. He explains that most entrepreneurs find retirement unfulfilling—without work to occupy them, they become bored and lose their sense of purpose in life. You’re likely to find this is true for you as well.
Instead of retiring, many rich people become “professional entrepreneurs,” repeatedly founding new companies, growing those businesses until they’re profitable, then selling them. When they start losing their passion for one of their businesses, they sell it and focus on a new project. This is an effective way to keep growing your wealth and simultaneously make sure you stay happy and fulfilled throughout your life.
| Counterpoint: Pursue Life Success Instead of Professional Success As Dennis says, many retirees report feeling unhappy and unfulfilled. In particular, many people struggle to find a sense of purpose after leaving their jobs. However, continuing to work for the rest of your life isn’t the only way to avoid that problem—in fact, many people retire because they’re not able to work anymore, so they have no choice but to find fulfillment elsewhere. In From Strength to Strength, social scientist and happiness researcher Arthur C. Brooks offers an alternative viewpoint: Happiness in the later stages of life doesn’t come from professional success, but rather from life success. He defines life success as living a balanced life of happiness and love. Brooks also offers three strategies for finding happiness and fulfillment outside of work: 1. Focus on your “eulogy values.” These are the characteristics that people will talk about at your funeral. It’s not likely that people will talk about how many hours you worked or how much money you made—rather, they’ll remember things like your loyalty, generosity, or warmth. Therefore, Brooks recommends that you regularly look for ways to live by whichever values you hope to be remembered by. 2. Stop competing and start connecting. Whether you’re an employee or an entrepreneur, professional success comes from outcompeting your rivals; conversely, Brooks says that life success comes from connecting and cooperating with others. The mutual love and support of healthy relationships will be crucial to your overall well-being and happiness, especially as you get older. 3. Find something to believe in. Recall that loss of purpose is one of the biggest challenges people face in retirement. It stands to reason, then, that finding a new purpose is an effective way to overcome that challenge. Brooks suggests finding something larger than yourself to believe in, whether it’s based on religion, philosophy, or something else. Doing so will take your attention away from yourself and your problems and shift your focus to how you can keep contributing to the world even after your professional career is over. |
