Help, I m Rich!: Your Compass to a Value-Adding Private Banking Experience

Chapter 19 Raising Wealthy Children—The Need for Awareness

As the invisible psychological forces affecting the mental development of rich children (i.e., the “wealth trap”) result in one way or another in some form of unhappiness, we consider happiness to be a key success indicator: A truly happy individual has managed to circumvent the wealth trap.

In order to circumvent the wealth trap and achieve true happiness, it is essential to be aware of:

• Which invisible forces might affect the children in which way? (in other words, beware of the wealth trap)
• A concept of happiness (what is happiness precisely?)
• The success factors explaining the many successful education examples
• The limitations when attempting to apply the success factors

Fortunately we don’t need to end this book with the sad observation that there is an invisible force, a wealth trap, aiming to destroy your family wealth and having a track record of being successful within three generations. It sounds a bit like a scary zombie movie. The good thing about zombie movies is that the good guys usually win. But as long as the good guys fight without really knowing the zombies, they lose: Just relying on common sense, physical strength, and fearless courage is not sufficient to exterminate the zombies. You need to know your enemy. You need to discover their strengths and their weaknesses. Once the good guys discover how to terrify and kill the zombies, we are usually 10 minutes away from the end of the movie. ...