One of the most compelling facts I’ve encountered over the past 25 years of advising financially successful families is that approximately 80 percent of the wealthy are not raised with wealth. I am one of them, so I can speak personally.

Born within the world of working, middle, or even upper-middle-class life, 80 percent of those who acquire significant wealth formed their core identity in the economic culture of their upbringing, not within the culture of significant wealth. This reality exerts a profound effect on their ability to adapt to becoming wealthy. Their family life, their history, their self-image, and even their understanding of wealth itself originated in economic conditions that didn’t prepare them for the very real challenges and responsibilities that come with wealth.

In thinking through this pattern, I realised those who achieve wealth over the course of their lifetime make a journey to wealth, one that very much resembles that of ethnic or geographic immigrants disembarking on the shores of a new land.

Whether through business success over the course of decades or seemingly overnight through marriage or a financial windfall, newly wealthy individuals, couples, and families make a life-altering transition. Their journey is as real and challenging to navigate as any migration from one country to another.

But, there is a fundamental problem. Because they arrived unprepared, and because the Land of Wealth is far more complicated than most people envision, these immigrants to wealth become, at heart, strangers in a financial paradise.

Duncan R Glassey
Managing Director – WealthFlow
duncan.glassey@wealthflow.com

This article is distributed for educational purposes and should not be considered investment advice or an offer of any product for sale. This article contains the opinions of the author but not necessarily the Firm and does not represent a recommendation of any particular security, strategy or investment product. Information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable but is not guaranteed. Past performance is not indicative of future results and no representation is made that the stated results will be replicated. Errors and omissions excepted.

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WealthFlow Group Ltd. Registered in Scotland No SC635011. Registered Office: 10 Charlotte Square, Edinburgh EH2 4DR.

Head Office & Consulting Rooms: 10 Charlotte Square, Edinburgh EH2 4DR.

Mail correspondence to our Central Scotland Admin Hub: WealthFlow Group Limited, PO Box 14947, Grangemouth FK3 3AU.

WealthFlow Group Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.

The guidance/advice contained in this website is subject to the UK regulatory regime and is therefore restricted to consumers based in the UK.

For your protection, unresolved complaints can be referred to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

To contact the Financial Ombudsman Service, please visit www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk.

WealthFlow Group Ltd. Registered in Scotland No SC635011. Registered Office: 10 Charlotte Square, Edinburgh EH2 4DR.