5 Ways to Achieve a ‘Rich Life’ & Change Your Mindset from Scarcity to Abundance

Does thinking about your personal finances make your palms start to sweat? If so, you’re not alone. The sheer amount of information out there about managing your finances is overwhelming, especially for people in their 20s or 30s who are just starting their financial journeys. Ramit Sethi is a self-taught expert in personal finance whose goal is to help you cut through the noise of conflicting and overly technical financial advice, get past your own hang-ups around money, and take small steps toward a “rich life”—whatever that looks like for you.

In this summary, you’ll learn how to use credit cards wisely, choose the right bank accounts and investment accounts, plan out your spending, and ultimately create a financial system that grows your money automatically.

Most of us assume financial success depends on education and intelligence. But in The Psychology of Money, finance expert Morgan Housel presents an alternate hypothesis: The key to financial success lies in understanding human behavior. Housel posits that when you understand how emotions and beliefs influence your financial decisions, you’ll make better financial decisions.

In this guide, we compare Housel’s advice with that of other finance experts and supplement his ideas with concrete recommendations. You’ll learn why people fail to achieve financial success and what’s behind your desire for money. You’ll also learn what to include in a financial strategy, how to create one you can follow for decades, how to follow it through those decades—and how to pay attention to the information you need to do so.

In From Strength to Strength, management expert Arthur Brooks says that as we get older, our professional skills start to decline, and we can no longer succeed in our current jobs. Despite this, with the right mindset, the second half of your life can be even happier and more meaningful than the first. If you find a job that suits your changing skill set, and if you change your idea of “success” from career achievement and material wealth to happiness and fulfillment, you can continue to thrive.

In this guide, we’ll first explain how and why you lose your job skills as you get older. We’ll then discuss solutions: how you can find a job that suits your changing brain, and how to achieve a meaningful life instead of fruitlessly chasing success in your former field. In our commentary, we’ll discuss whether this professional decline really is inevitable and explore some methods to keep your mind sharp. We’ll also offer strategies for making the most of your life as you age.

Shooting selfies on vacation. Posting Facebook updates on our kid's graduation from pre-school. Garnering awards and promotions to add to our LinkedIn profiles. Guess what, America? We've become self-obsessed. In David Brooks’s The Road to Character, the New York Times columnist suggests we take a good hard look at ourselves and remember that we weren't always so narcissistic.

Brooks outlines the moral shift that took place after World War II when we transitioned from honoring humility, self-discipline, and public service to worshiping at the altar of "the Big Me." He also reminds us that our current self-focus isn't even making us happy. To help us recalibrate our moral compasses, Brooks details the lives of war heroes, civil rights activists, advocates for the poor, writers, and deep thinkers who've tackled the work of building moral character, then outlines a 15-point plan to help us live more virtuous—and ultimately happier—lives.

Do you look forward to a time when you’ll be happier? In Happier, Harvard professor and positive psychology expert Tal Ben-Shahar argues that greater happiness is accessible to everyone now. He argues that happiness is not an end goal, but an ongoing journey.

Ben-Shahar addresses common misconceptions and offers practical strategies to cultivate happiness in our everyday lives. In this guide, we’ll explore Ben-Shahar’s definition of happiness and consider ways in which people often get the pursuit of happiness wrong. We’ll discuss why happiness is a worthy cause and provide practical strategies to help you prioritize your happiness. Throughout the guide, we’ll supplement Ben-Shahar’s advice with research in the field of positive psychology and additional insights from authors like Catherine Price (The Power of Fun), Nicholas Carr (The Shallows), and Desmond Tutu and the 14th Dalai Lama (The Book of Joy).

Most of us assume financial success depends on education and intelligence. But in The Psychology of Money, finance expert Morgan Housel presents an alternate hypothesis: The key to financial success lies in understanding human behavior. Housel posits that when you understand how emotions and beliefs influence your financial decisions, you’ll make better financial decisions.

In this guide, we compare Housel’s advice with that of other finance experts and supplement his ideas with concrete recommendations. You’ll learn why people fail to achieve financial success and what’s behind your desire for money. You’ll also learn what to include in a financial strategy, how to create one you can follow for decades, how to follow it through those decades—and how to pay attention to the information you need to do so.

Your Money or Your Life guides you through 9 steps to reach financial independence—not having to work for money. Unlike other personal finance books, this book is about more than budgeting. Rather, it’s about changing your entire relationship with money and, consequently, living a more meaningful life. You’ll learn to think of money as “life energy”—the time and energy you dedicate to paid work—and use this new mindset to align your spending habits with your values, purpose, and dreams.

You don’t have to choose between saving money and enjoying your life. Transforming how you think about money is the key to having both the life you want and the money to achieve and maintain it. In the 9-step program, you’ll learn to pay down your debt, generate passive income, simplify your life, and retire early.

In Who Will Cry When You Die?, self-help guru Robin Sharma wants to know if you’ll feel happy with the life you’ve led when you’re on your deathbed. Sharma thinks that most people lead lives they’ll regret because they focus on the wrong things—success, money, fame—and none of the right things—family, community, love. If you think you might have end-of-life regrets, Sharma provides a collection of pithy life lessons and advice to help you seize control of your life and turn it into one you’ll look back on fondly.

We’ve grouped those lessons into eight broader tactics that will help you cope with adversity, build self-discipline, spread kindness, and more. You’ll come away with actionables you can implement daily to make your life better and background on the philosophies, ideologies, and science on which Sharma draws.

In Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, self-made millionaire T. Harv Eker reveals the difference between the way rich people and poor people think and feel about money. Eker argues that these thoughts and beliefs impel you to take actions that either move you toward financial success or away from it—if you’re not happy with the state of your finances, it’s because your unproductive thoughts and beliefs about money hold you back from the financial success that you want. According to Eker, you can dramatically improve your finances by taking conscious control of your thoughts and adopting a rich attitude that will inspire you to take new actions that lead to your financial success.

In this guide, we’ve reorganized Eker’s ideas into three distinct parts that walk you through his philosophy and give you actionable advice on developing a richer mindset. Additionally, we include research underlying why people often fail to meet their financial goals and actionable ideas from other self-improvement authors, financial authors, and psychologists.