No Mercy / No Malice: The Algebra of Wealth

In The Millionaire Next Door, authors Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko skewer the myths about how (and where) most millionaires live, and what it takes to become one. Their extensive research published in 1996 identified the sometimes surprising characteristics and habits shared by many millionaires. For instance, millionaires are often bargain shoppers (they buy used cars and off-the-rack clothing), pay only a small percentage of their wealth in income taxes, and shun the lavish lifestyles we often associate with being rich.

The book explains how to determine what your net worth should be, according to your age and income, and how you can build wealth over time and become a millionaire—if you have the discipline.

Robert Kiyosaki wants you to forget the traditional path from college to a good job to a stable retirement, because it doesn’t exist anymore. In his first follow-up to the international bestseller Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Kiyosaki implores you to make your money the way the rich do: by developing assets. Using the simple concept of “Cashflow Quadrants,” Kiyosaki teaches you which types of income lead to financial freedom, and which don’t.

Combining contrarian financial advice and the blunt persona that built his brand, Kiyosaki puts both your wallet and your mind on the path to wealth. In our guide, we compare Kiyosaki’s advice with conventional wisdom and expand on his tips for succeeding in business and investing.

Jack Canfield struck gold as a co-author of the best-selling Chicken Soup for the Soul book series, but it took years for him to achieve success. In The Success Principles, he details 67 principles to help anyone achieve their goals and dreams, based on his study and interviews with hundreds of successful people. The basic formula for success is to identify what you want, know that you deserve to have it, and use the book’s principles to get you there.

The book's Principles include taking responsibility for your life, setting goals and visualizing success, facing your fears, forgiving others so you can move forward, asking for and graciously receiving feedback, and appreciating your successes.

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.

Jack Canfield struck gold as a co-author of the best-selling Chicken Soup for the Soul book series, but it took years for him to achieve success. In The Success Principles, he details 67 principles to help anyone achieve their goals and dreams, based on his study and interviews with hundreds of successful people. The basic formula for success is to identify what you want, know that you deserve to have it, and use the book’s principles to get you there.

The book's Principles include taking responsibility for your life, setting goals and visualizing success, facing your fears, forgiving others so you can move forward, asking for and graciously receiving feedback, and appreciating your successes.

In How Will You Measure Your Life? business consultant and Harvard professor Clay Christensen shows how economic theories that help businesses succeed can also help individuals make better life decisions. He presents theories and business case studies that show you pitfalls to avoid (such as marginal thinking and outsourcing your parenting), and also how to build a career that makes you happy, how to deepen your relationships with your spouse and children, and how to live with integrity. Together, they offer a philosophy for living a fulfilling life.

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.

A massive bestseller now in its 12th edition, Burton Malkiel’s A Random Walk Down Wall Street provides a comprehensive and entertaining introduction to the world of finance. Malkiel leverages his experience as an academic economist and former Wall Street portfolio manager to explain for the lay reader the intricacies of security analysis, asset valuation, and investment theory. He also offers a wealth of practical investment principles that will be useful for novice and seasoned investors alike.

A cult classic among professional athletes, The Obstacle Is the Way is a guidebook to solving any problem preventing you from achieving ambitious goals. It’s based on the tenets of Stoicism—an ancient Greek philosophy promoting calm rationality in any situation. Ryan Holiday argues that by choosing to view your obstacles in an empowering way, you can turn them into your greatest assets.

Holiday is a marketing mogul turned Stoic guru whom the New York Times credits for the modern movement of ancient Stoicism as self-help. In this guide, we’ll provide specific strategies to help you exert Stoic discipline over both your internal world and the external world. We’ll also compare and contrast Holiday’s “life hack” Stoicism with the original philosophical texts that inspired it, as well as connect it to relevant contemporary self-help such as Grit by Angela Duckworth and Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke.

In Discipline Is Destiny, Ryan Holiday examines the power of discipline through the lens of the ancient Greek philosophy of Stoicism. Holiday argues that your ability to practice discipline—one of the four cardinal virtues of Stoicism—determines how successful you are (aka your destiny). This is because discipline dictates whether you work consistently and avoid the temptations that prevent you from attaining or maintaining success.

Holiday is a modern-day Stoic philosopher who’s written or co-written several best-selling books on Stoicism, including The Obstacle Is the Way, Ego Is the Enemy, and The Daily Stoic. Published in 2022, Discipline Is Destiny is the second book in his four-part series highlighting each of the four cardinal virtues of Stoicism. (Courage Is Calling was the first.)

In this guide, we’ll explain what discipline is and why it matters. Then, we’ll describe how to practice discipline throughout various stages of your life. Along the way, we’ll compare Holiday’s ideas with those of other self-help experts.

What do J.K. Rowling, LL Cool J, and George Washington have in common? Stoic philosophy. For generations, Stoicism has motivated scores of people to live well.

In The Daily Stoic, Ryan Holiday and translator Stephen Hanselman share insights from the ancient Stoic philosophers on how you too can live a good life. It was a bestseller in 2016 and has since been expanded into a thriving podcast and website.

At the core of Stoicism is the belief that the cardinal virtues—self-control, courage, justice, and wisdom—are the source of internal stability and the measure of a good life.

Our guide explores three categories of Stoic practices the authors cover in The Daily Stoic, including viewing life with self-control, responding to life with justice and courage, and managing our lives with wisdom. Within each category, we look at essential principles that support these Stoic practices. Our commentary explores other perspectives on these principles and offers more insights from Stoic philosophy and modern psychology.

We love tales of geniuses and underdogs who rise to success through extraordinary talent and hard work—but this isn’t the whole story. In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell argues that these stories of supposedly self-made men and women mislead us into thinking that success is an individual achievement. But in reality, every successful person had circumstances that contributed to their success.

In this guide, we’ll explain why uncontrollable factors like when you’re born, how you’re raised, and the culture you grow up in impact your success just as much as personal attributes. We’ve also included commentary that adds context to the case studies, provides nuance to the principles, and offers alternative explanations for Gladwell’s conclusions.