Start Thinking Rich: 21 Harsh Truths to Take You from Broke to Financial Freedom

By Brad Klontz and Adrian Brambila

Incisive guide to transform your relationship towards money and finally start building real wealth

Start Thinking Rich: 21 Harsh Truths to Take You from Broke to Financial Freedom delivers an inspirational, tough-love, and step-by-step guide for readers to finally start building their own legacy of wealth no matter where they're starting from. Filled with proven money-making, saving, and investment strategies, this book helps readers take an honest look at their spending habits, unconscious biases about money, and self-sabotaging money behaviors in order to start living their best lives.

Heavyweight institutional finance executive Dr. Brad Klontz and self-made millionaire Adrian Brambila combine their expertise, grit, and firsthand knowledge to provide unparalleled and eye-opening perspective on topics including:

• Your ideal path to success as either an employee, entrepreneur, or “grinder”
• Trauma-based psychology that leads to a counterproductive “broke mindset”
• The value of education in sidestepping common financial pitfalls
• Steps to increase and diversify income, save what you make, and grow your money in your sleep

Start Thinking Rich: 21 Harsh Truths to Take You from Broke to Financial Freedom earns a well-deserved spot on the bookshelves of all ambitious individuals who are sick of tepid, uncontroversial, and ultimately ineffective financial advice, and want to cut through the noise to discover highly effective wealth-building moves that are proven to work.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wiley
• Release date: Oct 23, 2024
• ISBN: 9781394276547

Brad Klontz

Brad Klontz, Psy.D., is the 2008 President of the Hawaii Psychological Association. He is a licensed clinical psychologist, speaker, researcher, consultant, columnist, and personal coach. The CEO of Klontz Coaching & Consulting (www.klontzcoaching.com), Brad has been published in numerous professional journals. He is a leading expert in the psychology of money whose work has been featured on NPR and in the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post. He is the coauthor of Facilitating Financial Health and the creator of the Financial Health Scale. 

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ADDITIONAL PRAISE FOR START THINKING RICH

"In Start Thinking Rich, Adrian Brambila and Dr. Brad Klontz deliver the straight dope—everything we always needed to hear about money but the experts were too afraid to share."

—Jordan Grumet, MD, author of Taking Stock and The Purpose Code, and host of The Earn & Invest Podcast

In a world of feel-good apologists, Dr. Brad Klontz is never afraid to tell you what you need to hear. In the case of his most recent book, what you need to hear is that—whether you like it or not—wealth is a function of the thoughts that drive your behavior and, ultimately, your net worth.

—Paul Ollinger, Comedian and host of Reasonably Happy podcast

START THINKING RICH

21 HARSH TRUTHS TO TAKE YOU FROM BROKE TO FINANCIAL FREEDOM

DR. BRAD KLONTZ AND ADRIAN BRAMBILA

Logo: Wiley

Copyright © 2025 by Dr. Brad Klontz and Adrian Brambila. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, [phone], fax [phone], or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, [phone], fax [phone], or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permission.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is Available

Names: Klontz, Brad, author. | Brambila, Adrian, author.

Title: Start thinking rich : 21 harsh truths to take you from broke to financial freedom / by Dr. Brad Klontz and Adrian Brambila.

Description: Hoboken, New Jersey : Wiley, [2025] | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2024024141 (print) | LCCN 2024024142 (ebook) | ISBN 9781394276523 (hardback) | ISBN 9781394276530 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781394276547 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Wealth. | Finance, Personal.

Classification: LCC HB251 .K594 2025 (print) | LCC HB251 (ebook) | DDC 332.024/01—dc23/eng/20240628

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024024141

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024024142

Cover design: Paul McCarthy

We dedicate this book to all the hustlers out there who are committed to making a better life for themselves and their families. We believe in you.

INTRODUCTION

People hate this statistic, but almost 90% of millionaires are self-made. Why do people reject this proven fact? Because it implies individual accountability if you don’t become a millionaire. Instead of embracing personal responsibility, it’s much easier to blame the system, other people, or the circumstances in which we were born and raised. Start Thinking Rich is here to blow those excuses and myths out of the water. This book serves as an invitation to learn the timeless truths about how to become rich and what pitfalls to avoid if you’re sick of being poor and want a way out. If you’re looking for a cuddly, uncontroversial book that soothes you and makes you comfortable in your situation rather than empowering you to change it, this is not the book for you. But if you’re ready to take an honest look at your spending habits, your subconscious biases about money, and your self-sabotaging money behaviors and make wealth-building moves, this book will be life-changing for you.

There is a big difference between being poor and being broke. Broke means that you have no money. It is a temporary condition. Many people have money at the beginning of the month but have none at the end. We know people making six-figures a year who are broke. They get their money, they spend their money, and then it’s all gone. We don’t want you to be broke. This book is designed to take you from broke and stuck to financial freedom. But to do that, you first need to stop being poor. When we refer to poor throughout this book, we are talking specifically about a poor mindset. While broke is temporary, an unexamined poor mindset can be permanent and keep you broke forever. If you want to get rich, you need to stop thinking poor and Start Thinking Rich.

This book is your manual to help you Start Thinking Rich. If you want to climb the socioeconomic ladder, you need to do things differently, but it all starts with having the right mindset. The first mindset shift is to take ownership of your current situation around money. In other words, it is accepting that you are where you are right now financially because of how you, or your parents, or your grandparents think about money. This concept can be a bitter pill to swallow but allow us to repeat it: if you aren’t willing to take responsibility for shifting your poor mindset to a rich mindset, you will be broke forever. This is easier said than done, in part because of all the bullshit and noise about money that surrounds you. For example, social media is full of lies about how rich people think and behave around money. We wrote this book as the manual we wish we had when we were younger. We are proud of where we are, but the fact is, we would have arrived here even faster if we had known all the things we are going to share with you in this book.

We promise to tell you the truth about yourself, money, and how to get rich – to the best of our knowledge and ability. Adrian Brambila, the son of immigrant parents from Mexico, rose to TikTok stardom by redefining real wealth, and showcasing his journey of earning $1.7 million in one year while living in a van.

Brad Klontz, PsyD, CFP® is a financial psychologist, professor, and researcher who has co-authored eight books on the psychology of money. He comes from a broken family and grew up poor but still became a millionaire in his 30s. Today, he is the world’s leading expert in the psychology of money.

We first met on social media in 2019, as we resonated with each other’s messages around the importance of mindset in creating wealth. Since then, we’ve learned so much from each other, so it was natural for us to become friends. In the past several years, we have collaborated on content and courses to help people become successful with money and on social media and joined forces for this book based on a shared passion to help others achieve financial freedom.

Together, we are combining our expertise, grit, and firsthand knowledge to write the most comprehensive book about money mindsets the world has seen. We use our proven money-making, saving, and investment strategies to take readers from poor me, I’m broke, to I’m rich and it’s awesome! With a combined social media following of over three million, we know how desperately people want to learn the secrets to going from broke to rich. We also know that many of the readers of Start Thinking Rich are going to find these harsh truths controversial. Even though they are backed up by statistical evidence, there will be some resistance. That’s perfectly okay. Dr. Brad is a psychologist and has mind hacks that will bypass your natural psychological resistance to getting out of your own way so you can become the millionaire you want to be.

Start Thinking Rich is not just a money strategy book. It’s a conversation about the hard lessons we’ve learned and the ways we’ve improved our financial health. It delivers actionable solutions to increase and diversify your income, save what you make, and grow your money in your sleep. It combats your inherent mental blocks to getting rich. Using Dr. Brad’s research and financial psychology expertise, and Adrian’s immigrant family upbringing and business building strategies, we’ll challenge every excuse you can think of that will keep you stuck in a poor mindset. We truly believe that you have the potential to become a millionaire. You just need to find your path and stick with it.

Dr. Brad: Growing up poor in a working-class town in Michigan, my childhood was full of financial struggles, family drama, and trauma, including the violent death of a sibling. Despite these challenges, I made three promises to myself: (1) to build a loving and enduring relationship with the future mother of my children, (2) to establish a secure and nurturing environment for my family, and (3) to attain financial success, affording me the freedom to pursue my passions, prioritize family time, and provide my children with opportunities I never had. Today, I’m proud to say that I’ve accomplished and continue to pursue these goals.

However, the toughest obstacle I faced was the lack of role models who had achieved such aspirations themselves. How could those who hadn’t succeeded in these areas teach me how to do so? How could they impart the necessary mindsets and strategies? Frankly, I wasn’t sure if achieving these goals was even possible for me, let alone how to accomplish them. So I had to learn the hard way, through trial and error, making numerous mistakes along the way.

The purpose of this book is to provide you with the guidance I wish I had received earlier in life. I aim to be the mentor I never had, speaking candidly and directly, just as I do with my coaching clients behind closed doors, free from fear of censorship. While the truths shared may initially seem harsh, I urge you to keep an open mind and be willing to challenge your beliefs. Know that I have faith in your ability to create the life you desire.

Adrian: The first time I met a really rich person was when I got invited to the auto-tune singing rap star T-Pain’s house in Atlanta, Georgia. I had just landed the opportunity of a lifetime to dance for him professionally as a robot dancer and I remember my jaw dropping when we pulled up to his house. Dozens of pimped-out vehicles, a mansion the size of a castle complete with its own salon, arcade, and club had me in shock. T-Pain was only four years older than my broke college self and that opened my eyes to believe that anyone is capable of achieving great wealth. T-Pain came from nothing and used to sell fish out of a stand in Florida. One day T-Pain showed us a song before it launched publicly. I remember when he launched it looking at the numbers and realizing within 10 minutes of launch it had over a million downloads on iTunes. Back then each iTunes download was $0.99, so in other words I watched someone make over a million dollars in minutes. It was this moment that set me on the path to discover ways where I could also launch something and make a million dollars. I haven’t replicated T-Pain’s success by any stretch, but I have radically changed my family tree having made over $100,000 in a year, in a month, in a week, and even in a day through internet entrepreneurship.

My mom grew up poor in Bakersfield, California, and my dad grew up in poverty in Jalisco, Mexico, and they did everything in their power to make sure I didn’t have the same struggles they did. They saved every penny so that I could go to college and graduate debt free. Make no mistake, this is a HUGE advantage I was given, and I’ll always be forever indebted to them in gratitude for their selfless financial act, especially considering where they came from. Sometimes I think in my head my family didn’t suffer through decades of poverty, immigrate to the United States, and pay their life savings for my college for me to be a broke-ass Mexican American. I have no other choice but to take us all the way to the 1%. I became a millionaire by the time I turned 30. When I first became a millionaire I hired my dad, then my mom, and now even my wife, and we all work together. This book is the tactical playbook and tough mindset you need to go from poor to rich. It’s the life lessons of two authors who started from the bottom and became multi-millionaires in different ways. It’s the data you need to help you conquer your biases and the stories you need to inspire you to take action and Start Thinking Rich!

Start Thinking Rich offers a clear, easy-to-understand map to wealth creation. Here’s a snapshot:

THE THREE PATHS TO BECOMING A MILLIONAIRE

Self-made millionaires became rich by taking one of the following paths:

The Employee. The employee got rich by playing the game. They figured out how to rise in the ranks at the office. They went to college. Some went to graduate school. They became accountants, doctors, lawyers, and engineers. They maxed out their 401(k) and/or IRA each year. According to The Millionaire Next Door, 70% of millionaires are employees or self-employed professionals. According to a study by Fidelity, thousands of people are becoming millionaires each year through their 401(k)s and IRAs.

The Silicon Entrepreneur. This millionaire took a big gamble, and it paid off. They cashed out their 401(k) and sunk it all into their venture. They took out loans and raised capital. Then, they hit it big, despite all the odds. According to the Department of Labor, 70% of businesses fail. When they are being honest with themselves, the Silicon Entrepreneur will admit they got lucky. Sure, they had a great idea, and they were able to execute, but so did a large percentage of their colleagues who failed.

The Grinder/Slow Hustler. This is the entrepreneurial route that Adrian and Dr. Brad took. They had day jobs and socked away as much money as they could while working nights and weekends to start their businesses. They bootstrapped their operation. They did NOT put their families or futures at risk by cashing out their retirement accounts to fund their businesses. They did NOT take on debt. When their side hustles surpassed their day-job income they went full time. Now they teach people the mindsets, habits, and strategies they need to do the same.

While they took different paths, all these self-made millionaires had the same money mindset. Start Thinking Rich will drive home the point that we make choices every day that either make us richer or drag us further into the poorhouse. The liberating fact of the matter is, whether we’re rich or poor, it’s our choice.

The rich get richer because they:

Live below their means

Save more than they spend

Buy assets versus liabilities

Don’t rack up credit card debt

Don’t make purchases to impress other people

Constantly seek education, such as reading finance books

Invest for the long term

However, the rich can become poor fast if they:

Live above their means

Spend more than they save

Buy liabilities versus assets

Rack up credit card debt

Make purchases to impress others

Never read books about finance

Don’t invest

Regardless of the path, we’ve helped thousands of people Start Thinking Rich by adopting our 21 harsh truths about money, which we cover in this book. Start Thinking Rich is a wake-up call for anyone who’s ever felt stuck in the rat race, trapped in cycles of poverty and hopelessness, and victimized by the system. To us, it’s all a game, and we’re going to show you how to play it. This book invites you to wipe the poor-mindset cobwebs from your eyes so you can see the countless possibilities in front of you. For years, we have used our tenacity, grit, and expertise to help people achieve financial freedom. Now it’s your turn.

In Start Thinking Rich, we transcend conventional wisdom, blending academic insights with real-life experiences through our personal stories, case studies, and actionable advice. Our goal is to be unapologetically direct and to challenge you with truths that may initially sting but will ultimately pave the way for transformational financial change. Statements like get rid of your poor friends if you want to get rich, and you’re not allowed to use a credit card if you can’t pay it off every month are not just our attempt at being provocative and getting your attention. They are real-life lessons we break down for you to help you start thinking rich.

Our approach is one of tough love, but ultimately, hope. We’ll help you take full responsibility for your circumstances, so you realize that it is not your fault if you were born poor, but you don’t have to stay that way. We’re not in the business of sugar-coating things for you. Our chapter headings may deliver a jolt and feel like a slap on the head, but once you get over the initial shock, our goal is to offer you compassionate guidance, which we hope feels like a pat on the back from a caring friend. We are being blunt with you because we care about you, and we want you to create the life you want. To Start Thinking Rich, you need to shed your poor thinking, dismantle your mental barriers, and embrace new habits. We believe that you have the ability to cut the bullshit, choose abundance, and do what it takes to go from a poor life to a rich life. Let this book be the wake-up call you need to transform your financial habits, Start Thinking Rich, and join the new millionaires club.

CHAPTER ONE

BEING POOR SUCKS

Money doesn’t buy happiness? We call bullshit. Being poor sucks. Only two types of people say money won’t make you happy: (1) broke people and (2) people who’ve never been broke. Broke people say it to make themselves feel better. Sure, we don’t have money, but that’s okay because it wouldn’t make us happy anyway. This is a comforting story to tell yourself when you’re feeling hopeless, but it’s also self-destructive. Telling yourself that more money wouldn’t improve your circumstances is the fastest way to kill your motivation and stop you from doing what it takes to create a better life. By contrast, people who’ve never been broke don’t know how miserable it is to go to bed hungry, miss their kids’ teacher conferences because they need two or three jobs so they can feed them, to be one illness or injury away from eviction, or miss out on opportunities because they can’t afford to participate.

Not only is quality of life affected by money, but growing up poor can mess with your brain. Researchers found that poverty early in life is linked to a reduction in the size of the hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for dealing with stress and being able to remember things accurately. Children who grow up in poverty also have increased activity in the amygdala – the part of the brain that processes emotions and motivation – when exposed to things that make them feel like they might be in danger. Being poor alters the parts of the brain that help us determine what is an actual threat, how we react emotionally, and the actions we take or don’t take to deal with it. In other words, being poor can make it harder for us to learn, harder to accurately understand what is happening and why, to identify real threats, make accurate judgments, and solve problems. This can lead to a self-perpetuating cycle. A child living in poverty may not do as well in school, which could affect the kinds of education and jobs they can get later in life.

In adulthood, being poor causes a whole host of new problems. People stuck in poverty face more sickness, die younger, are more likely to suffer from depression and abuse drugs, and have higher levels of stress. It can be hard to find hobbies, eat healthy, spend time with family, or take vacations when all you can think about is how you’re going to pay for housing. The bottom line is that BEING POOR SUCKS. But the good news is that you can go from poor to rich. There IS a way out of the poverty suck-fest, and we are going to show you exactly how to do it.

CAN MONEY BUY HAPPINESS?

Guess what? It turns out that money CAN buy you happiness. Pick up any book on wealth and finances, and you’ll likely see a reference to an outdated study that claims money can only make you happy up to a certain amount. The study, which has now been debunked, found that emotional well-being only increased in relation to income up to $75,000 per year. Interestingly, this number closely matches the average income in the United States. The view of these researchers was that once you have enough money to meet your basic needs, at approximately $75,000 per year, your happiness plateaus, and more money won’t move the happiness meter above that amount. A later, more comprehensive study found very different results, and confirmed what most of us already thought was true. The new study found that higher incomes WERE associated with higher levels of happiness, far and above the $75,000 mark, as you can see in Figure 1.1.

A line graph of z scored well being versus household income. A light line depicts experienced well being and a dark line depicts life satisfaction. The higher levels of happiness happens at a point of income 75000 dollars were two line interacts.

Figure 1.1 Average real-time reports of feeling good and overall life satisfaction based on level of income.

This chart clearly shows that the higher your income, the happier you are.

Adrian: In my college days, I was addicted to reading stories spawned from this popular study of millionaires and billionaires whose vast wealth seemed to bring more misery than joy. I held onto the belief that $75,000 was the golden number for happiness, a notion reinforced by countless financial self-help books that painted any income beyond that as a trade-off with one’s quality of life.

With this mindset, I ventured into the world post-graduation, happiness as my compass rather than the allure of a hefty paycheck. I settled for a role in a call center, earning a happy $27,000 a year (38% toward my $75,000 goal – yay!), content in the belief that I was steadily marching toward my perceived happiness threshold.

But let me tell you, it was a bust. Something was off – big time. Fast forward through nine years of the grind, and bam, the first year of the pandemic hits, and I’m making over $1.2 million, living the dream on wheels in my tricked-out sprinter van traveling around the country. The big sacrifice for making $1.2 million? Just hooking up to Wi-Fi once a week. Here’s the real deal: there’s a whole other community out there: folks like Dr. Brad and me, who’ve cracked the code on using money as a tool to elevate their quality of life while simultaneously increasing their earnings. We’re here to share those secrets with you. Being poor can lead to a deep dissatisfaction with life. But being rich and testing limits of possibility? The satisfaction has been underestimated. And it is life changing.

Being poor not only sucks, it can be downright depressing.

Adrian: My dad told me a story about a time when he hadn’t eaten for days. As a kid in Mexico he would often go to bed hungry. So one day, he trespassed onto a farmer’s land, dug up an onion, and took a big bite out of it. He told me that he was so hungry, that dirty, bitter onion was unbelievably delicious. At first, when I heard that story, I applauded his ingenuity. He found a creative way to beat his hunger. But after thinking about it for a while, I couldn’t help but wonder something. How desperate would I have to be to bite into an onion like it was a juicy burger, and rave at how great

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