Beating the Midas Curse

“Consider, however, estate planning. If there is one area of your life where you really want to hit the bulls-eye, it’s here. Of course, we try to share our dreams, our hopes, and our most important values with those we love while we are alive, but we also have an instinctive desire to provide for our families after we’re gone. We want to leave a legacy that provides meaning, not just money. Plus, we want to know that our lives meant something, that in our passage through this world, we made a difference.” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 5-6 (Estate Planning, Legacy)
“Psychologists say it is not death we fear so much. It is insignificance. The idea that, at the end of the day, our lives didn’t amount to all that much. That we didn’t’ set ripples in motion in the lives of our families, friends, and neighbors that would carry our accomplishments and our values on for generations.” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 6 (Estate Planning, Legacy, Death, Impact)
“We have worked with thousands of families over the past two decades. Through that experience, from our research of the financial and legal literature, and from interviews and interactions with professional colleagues in several disciplines, we have come to this conclusion: Ninety percent of all traditional inheritance plans will fail. In part, this conclusion is based on numerous studies that show in families where new wealth has been created by the first generation, six out of ten of those families’ fortunes will be gone by the end of the second generation. By the end of the third generation, nine out of the ten families will be broke.” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 7 (Inheritance, Estate Planning, Wealth, Children)
“We believe that when parents who build wealth pass only their material assets to their children, and not the values by which they have lived, there is little chance the family, or its wealth, will survive for long.”Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 7 (Values, Estate Planning, Wealth, Children)
“That is not to say that we dismiss the products or process of traditional estate planning outright; on the contrary, investments, trusts, and other financial and legal instruments are, and always will be, the vehicle for the transmission of the things a family owns. But money is just a tool, as likely to separate families as it is to unify them. Your financial net worth is a statistic, not a legacy. To appreciate that fact is to understand that your family cannot be defined in terms of the things that you own; real estate valuations, spreadsheets, trust documents, and bank account balances describe a condition, not a family. You and your children, your grandchildren, and generations of your family yet unborn can only be defined by the values, the traditions, the faith, and the ethics which have shaped your unique family history for many years.” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 7 (Family, Wealth, Money, Values, Traditions, Ethics)
“We have learned that when families place their valuables ahead of their values, they will end up with neither. We believe that the most important inheritance your children will receive from you comes while you are still alive. It is embedded in your everyday life. It is made up of the values you learned from important people in your own life. This is an inheritance you live and model to your family, friends, co-workers, and the community of people and organizations who make up your world. In short, we are dedicated to seeing that more families don’t become part of “the ninety percent”” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 8 (Valuables, Values, Inheritance, Traditions, Family)
“The Heritage Process helps people put their family before their fortune as they plan. In doing so, the chances that the family can thrive in its relationships and still prosper materially for generations are greatly enhanced. Families who go through the Process come to a better understanding of their relationship to wealth, and with one another. They learn to communicate more clearly and more honest about things like money, philanthropy, as well as about their shared goals and objectives. They learn- by doing, not just by talking- how to make the money a tool to achieve the most important goals of all-family unity and individual achievement. They listen to stories about the hardships and triumphs that brought the family to where it is today, and they talk openly and from the heart about deeply important matters, like the sustaining quality of faith.” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 8 (Family, Prosper, Wealth, Money, Philanthropy, Values)
“You can pass both your values and your valuables to your children.” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 9 (Valuables, Estate Planning, Inheritance, Values)
The Story of King Midas (Wealth, Money, Greed, Happiness, Family, Fortune)
“Around the room, the advisors to affluent families exchange knowing glances. They’ve seen the eighteen-year-old get a million dollars cash, no strings attached, under the terms of granddad’s will. Followed immediately by the hot car, the cocaine, the parties, and finally rehab, jail, or even suicide. They’ve seen marriages break up, friendships devastated, and family members alienated from each other. They’ve watched the companies that grandparents and parents sweated and sacrificed for decades to build go under, as heirs eager to squeeze more cash from the estate broke them up, sold them at bargain prices, or lost them through mismanagement.” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 26 (Inheritance, Youth, Money, Spending, Family Business)
“The collapse of wealth over several generations is not news to your financial or legal advisors. It wasn’t news two thousand years ago when a Chinese scholar penned the adage: “fu bu guo san dai,” or “Wealth never survives three generations.” Or in the thirteenth century England, where the proverb, “Clogs to clogs in three generations,” had morphed by the 1600s to “Rags to riches to rags.” In nineteenth-century America, where fortunes were made and lost with astounding speed amidst the goldfields, oil wells, copper mines, and railroad booms, people said “From shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations.” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 26-27 (Three or More, Inheritance, Family Business, Poor, Wealth, Decisions)
“Adam Smith summed it up over two hundred years ago in this landmark book The Wealth of Nations, “Riches, in spite of the most violent regulations of law to prevent their dissipation, very seldom remain long in the same family.” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 27 (Wealth, Family, Inheritance, Money)
“Tradition is a powerful concept. It reminds us of our duty to family, community, country, and faith. It provides a framework for our routines and rituals, from weddings and funerals to our daily conduct of business. It provides important cultural and historical cohesion.” “Adam Smith summed it up over two hundred years ago in this landmark book The Wealth of Nations, “Riches, in spite of the most violent regulations of law to prevent their dissipation, very seldom remain long in the same family.” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 28 (Tradition)
“A single issue of the daily New York times now contains more information than the seventeenth-century man or woman would have encountered in a lifetime.” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 30 (Education, Information, Last Days)
“More than eighty percent of the world’s technological knowledge has been developed this century.”Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 30 (Information, Last Days, Technology)
“In the last thirty years, mankind has produced more information than in the previous five thousand.”Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 30 (Information, Last Days)
“In his book Brain Longevity, Dr. Dharma Sing Khalsa says the average American sees sixteen thousand advertisements, logos, and labels in a day.” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 30 (Advertising, Marketing)
“Technology reduces the amount of time it takes to do any one task yet increases the number of tasks that people are expected to do (ie., answering your email)” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 30 (Technology, Efficiency, Tasks)
“However, traditional estate plans are manufactured in isolation. Accounting, actuarial and legal formulas are applied with ‘one-size-fits-all’ certainty. The estate continues to be regarded in this process as a thing in itself, just as it was before the Statute of Wills transformed the world of inheritance when it first appeared in sixteenth-century England. In fact, your estate is not a ‘thing in itself’. Instead, it is an intertwining set of relationships between you, your ancestors, your children, and generations of your children yet unborn. Those relationships cannot be quantified mathematically. They cannot be folded into a balance sheet. They defy scientific inquiry. And yet, it is precisely those relationships- and the conditions that will either undermine them or nurture them and make them strong enough to survive for generations- that will determine the success or failure of not just your estate plan, but, more importantly, of your family itself.” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 32 (Estate Planning)
“Your last will and testament is the wrong place to do your parenting.” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 33 (Estate Planning, Parents)
“According to Paul Schervish of Boston College, at least forty-one trillion dollars will pass from one generation to the next by the year 2044.” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 35 (Estate Planning, Wealth, Inheritance, Baby Boomers)
“In “The Greatest Century That Ever Was,” Stephen Moore and Julian L. Simon wrote: More financial wealth has been generated in the United States over the past fifty years than was created in all the rest of the world in all the centuries before 1950. Fifty years ago, real financial wealth was about five trillion in 1998 dollars. By 1970, that financial wealth had doubled to roughly ten trillion dollars. Since then the value of Americans’ financial wealth has tripled to over thirty trillion. When we combine this burst in financial assets with the sevenfold real increase in housing equity owned by Americans, we discover that the nation’s assets have risen from about six trillion to more than forty trillion dollars in real terms in the past half-century” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 36 (Wealth, America, Last Days)
“Andrew Carnegie’s religious faith led him to the conclusion that such wealth should be put to use for the betterment of humanity; he subsequently gave most of his money to public libraries and other charities. He had no illusions about the effect of unearned money on children. In a letter to a friend, Carnegie said: ‘The parent who leaves his son enormous wealth generally deadens the talents and energies of the son and tempts him to lead a less useful and less worthy life than he otherwise would’” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 39 (Inheritance, Charity, Philanthropy, Giving, Charity, Wealth)
“My life was never destined to be happy. Inherited wealth is a big handicap to happiness. It is as certain death to ambition as cocaine is to morality” (said by William K. Vanderbilt, the beneficiary of millions). Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 39 (Money, Wealth, Inheritance, Happiness)
“How long does the average recipient of an inheritance wait before they buy a new car? Just nineteen days.” New Car Dealer Association. Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 43 (Inheritance)
The Story of the Singer Corporation
“The one recurring problem among people who have inherited money out of the blue is that most of them end up struggling to come to grips with the effects of ‘sudden wealth’. That’s because who we were the day before the inheritance was received, or lottery winnings paid out, is who we are the day after. We have the same strengths, the same flaws, the same habits. Character is not improved by the sudden receipt of money. It is revealed by it.” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 44 -45 (Luck, Lottery, Inheritance, Windfall, Character, Money)
“Of course, lots of inheritance problems could be nipped in the bud if the inheritors simply understood that most estates consist of real estate and securities, not cash.” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 45 (Estate Planning, Inheritance)
“For hundreds of years, estate planning has focused on these financial inheritances almost exclusively. But there is another kind of inheritance that we receive and give, an inheritance that is far more powerful, and ultimately more meaningful, than money. That is an emotional inheritance: one we receive over a lifetime from other family members, friends, teachers, religious leaders, coaches, and other significant people in our lives.” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 45 (Estate Planning, Inheritance, Mentors, Money)
“Of course, since we know that most traditional estate plans begin to crumble almost as quickly as they shower assets on the heirs, one might be tempted to call money the time bomb inheritance.” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 45 (Estate Planning, Inheritance, Money)
“Emotional inheritances are quite different. They are composed of the values that you experienced and absorbed from your parents, grandparents, and other important people in your life. These people of influence may have taught you these values explicitly, or perhaps you picked them up simply through living around them and interacting with them. It is tis emotional inheritance (added to and enriched by your own life experience and living example) that you will pass on to your family and other people you know, whether or not you leave anything amounting to a financial inheritance. This emotional legacy is no less than the sum total of your life experience as evidenced by the values by which you lived. Values such as work, faith, philanthropy, and honesty. You received an emotional inheritance from your parents or grandparents while they lived. Your own children and grandchildren are receiving theirs from you right now.” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 46 (Values, Example, Posterity, Philanthropy, Inheritance, Influence)
“The discovery, articulation, and incorporation of these core values into the framework of your estate planning is what The Heritage Process is all about. The whole concept of wealth is redefined to include not only money and other financial assets, but also the values, virtues, and ethics that make life meaningful, fulfilling, and ultimately successful. In this values-based planning process, money is still important, but only in its function as a resource to help perpetuate the values that will keep the family strong and prosperous for generations.” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 46 (Estate Planning, Wealth, Values, Ethics, Money Posterity)
“’affluenza’, defined as a dysfunctional relationship with money, or the improper pursuit of it: Inability to delay gratification; Inability to tolerate frustration; Low future motivation; Low self-esteem; Low self-worth; Lack of self-confidence; Lack of personal identity; Social and emotional isolation; Feelings of depression, failure, anxiety; Unrealistic expectations and lack of accountability; False sense of entitlement; Inability to form intimate relationships – People who receive “sudden” money without any accompanying values often become hoarders. Or, conversely, they may become habitual overspenders, shopping with no concern for their dwindling bank balances. Quite often, they use money as a tool to control others, particularly family members.” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 46-47 (Entitlement, Lottery, Affluenza, Depression, Money, Hoarding, Manipulation)
“Controllers can devastate their children’s lives, dangling money like a carrot on a stick to ‘encourage children to go to the right school, get the right job, or marry the right person.” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 47 (Money, Parents, Career, Marriage)
“The symptoms and manifestations of this dysfunctional relationship with wealth make up a pretty depressing litany of disorders. The whole idea of affluenza flies in the face of what most people believe their lives would be like if one day, just like Jack Wrum, they came upon the proverbial pot of gold. “If I only had money,” the fantasy begins. “People would like me. I would be respected. I would be free to do whatever I wished, whenever I wished to do it. I could take charge of my life, and I would have a sense of absolute security. Nothing could intimidate me, and I would have power. Real power. Most importantly, I would be happy.” It’s a great fantasy. An enormously seductive fantasy.” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 47-48 (Affluenza, Money, Wealth, Happiness)
“If you want to know how God feels about money, look who He chooses to make rich.” Yiddish Proverb.Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 48 (Money, Rich, Poor)
“The trendy shops along Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills sell the rarest and most expensive baubles imaginable. South Beach plastic surgeons can turn a toad into a prince (or at least a shiny-faced likeness of one). But boutiques don’t sell the character, and plastic surgery can’t remove our hidden insecurities with the touch of a scalpel. We are, each of us, the product of a lifetime of experience that no amount of cash falling on our heads from heaven can alter. The sudden receipt of ‘money without meaning’ only magnifies the personal weaknesses with which each of us lives, no matter our station in life.” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 49 (Character, Plastic Surgery, Insecurities, Money, Weaknesses, Windfall, Lottery)
“There is no denying that money bestows great power upon those who possess it. But there is a limit to what money can actually provide. Money will buy a luxurious bed, but it cannot guarantee a good night’s sleep. It can buy a magnificent library, but not brains, nor the discipline to educate yourself; gourmet food but not healthy appetite. Money can buy designer clothing and jewelry, but not true beauty. It can purchase a house, but never a home; a state-of-the-art medicine but not health; luxuries but not culture or taste temporary amusements but not lasting happiness; religion but not salvation. Money, in fact, can buy a ticket to just about everywhere but heaven.” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 49 (Money, Wealth, Rich, Happiness, Salvation)

The Story of William and his Children
The Story of the Butterfly
“Understand that learning and personal growth, skill development, courage, persistence, the potential for empathy and other important life assets, all come from your struggles, and especially your failures.”Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 52 (Growth, Courage, Persistence, Empathy, Struggles, Failure)
“If we would have new knowledge, we must get a whole world of new questions.” Susanne K. Langer.Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 57 (Knowledge, Education)
“Not surprisingly, the government’s definition of values has undergone considerable change in the past fifty years. A 1953 publication from the U.S. Department of Commerce defined values as: ‘The fundamental principles and beliefs that guide individuals and groups, and provide resolute guidance about the manner in which people should behave.’ No fog there. Just clear, principle-based expression. Now, fast-forward to 2003, and see how a more sensitive, inclusive government defines the same term. According to the USDA: ‘Values are relatively firmly held and socially shared positions or expressions about what is good or right; they are abstract and normative and are considered to be somewhat stable.’ There wasn’t much room for the nuanced interpretation in the 1953 definition. ‘Fundamental Principles’ and ‘resolute guidance’ speak for themselves. But the average teenager, armed only with a learner’s permit, could drive a tank through the logic of the newer definition.” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 68-69 (Values)
“One generation plants the trees; another gets the shade.” Anon. Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 73 (Generations, Posterity, Hard Work, Business Succession)
“A parent’s first responsibility to his or her children is ingrained as deeply as any other moral imperative: for the protection, the provision and the maintenance of life.” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 75 (Parents)
“In 2005, the Allianz Life Insurance Company surveyed baby boomers and their parents on a wide range of family and finance-related issues. ‘Many people wrongly assume that the most important issue among families is money and wealth transfer- it’s not,’ said Ken Dychtwald, the survey designer. ‘Non-financial items that parents leave behind- like ethics, morals, faith, and religion- are ten times more important to both boomers and their parents than the financial aspects of inheritance. In fact, seventy-seven percent of those surveyed (age forty plus) said the most important inheritance they could receive or pass on would be values and lessons about life.” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 76-77 (Baby Boomers, Inheritance, Estate Planning, Money, Ethics, Morals)
“The great forbidden zone of family conversation is nearly always money. ‘There’s a toxicity and secrecy around money in many families,’ says Charles Collier, senior philanthropic advisor at Harvard University and author of Wealth and Families (Harvard University, 2001). ‘As a result, parents fail to provide their kids with any type of financial education- how to invest, say, or how to use a credit card- or to prepare them for the decisions they may have to make about their fortunes. Plus, in many cases, parents are too busy making money and managing their assets to think much about the effect it all will have on the kids.’” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 90 (Family Home Evening, Family, Money, Parents)
“Our goal in getting the family talking about money is for them to realize that money is a tool. Just a tool. A powerful tool, to be sure, but, one, like fire, that makes a better servant than master. Stripped of its aura of invincibility and curative powers (the ‘money solves everything’ syndrome), money may be seen for what it is: a resource to help strengthen your family through the values you recognize as your most important assets.” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 91 (Money, Values, Family)
“People are usually more convinced by reasons they discovered themselves than by those found by others. Blaise Pascal, 1657. Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 95 (Influence, Advice, Experience, Change)
“Kentucky Fried Chicken founder Harlan Sanders once quipped, ‘You ever see a hearse towing a U-Haul trailer? What’s the point of being the richest man in the graveyard- you can’t do any business from there!”Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 99 (Assets, Property, Wealth, Death, Graveyard, Things)
“There is one universal rule of planning: You will never be greater than the vision that guides you” Alliance for Non-profit Management. Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 105 (Goals, Vision, Business Planning, Planning)
“Vision guides us. It inspires. It leads, even through those tough times when our own personal maps can get jumbled. We have often heard successful people say that when they went through their toughest times, out of money, out of ideas and out of luck, it was their vision for the future that pulled them through. They stayed true to their vision, and the vision sustained them.” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 105 (Vision, Struggle, Motivation, Success)
“Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.” Albert Einstein. Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 117 (Problems, Vision, Goals)
“The chairman of Coca-Cola once said, ‘If every truck, warehouse and bottling plant we own burned to the ground tonight, and if every bottle and can of Coke on store shelves in the world was emptied in the fight to put out the fires, it would not diminish the value of our company by one cent. The value of our company lies in the hearts, minds, and intentions of our employees, and in the goodwill, we have built with our customers of the years.” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 131 (Employees, Goodwill, Customers, Business Planning)
“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” Winston Churchill. Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 145 (Charity, Giving, Employment, Money, Tithing, Fast Offerings)
“It is interesting to note the point at which wealthy Americans become involved in giving. According to J.P. Morgan Private Bank, Americans seem to start giving ‘serious’ chunks of their money away once they are worth around twenty million dollars, whereas in other countries the threshold is around one hundred million dollars.” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 148 (Wealth, Charity, Philanthropy)
“Earlier we cited a statistic from the Boston College of Social Welfare, which estimated that over the next four decades some forty-one trillion dollars will be transferred from one generation to the next. Paul Schervish, one of the authors of the study, estimates that as much as six trillion dollars of that transfer might be devoted to philanthropic purposes. Schervish also says there has been a fundamental shift in the motivation for giving. ‘The rich used to give money only when they were scolded into it,’ he says. ‘Now they are increasingly giving out of a sense of doing something they want to do, that meets the needs of others, that they can do better than commercial interests, government or existing philanthropy. They can express gratitude for their wealth, and their identification with others less fortunate, and that makes them happy.’” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 148 -149 (Baby Boomers, Inheritance, Philanthropy, Charity, Rich, Giving, Donation)
“Pulitzer-Prize-winning author Ernest Becker said, “This is mankind’s age-old dilemma; in death what man fears isn’t extinction, but extinction without significance. Man wants to know that somehow his life has counted, that he’s left a trace that has meaning. Its effects must remain alive in eternity in some way.””Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 149 (Death, Legacy)
“The same principle can be applied to children: ‘Don’t over fund children- you’ll ruin them. It will impair their character and destroy their motivation to succeed.’ When children study the plight of people in need, and they understand that they have the wherewithal to do something about it, it is a powerful experience. That is especially true of children who have never experienced scarcity in any respect. With knowledge about the needs of others, children can experience scarcity from the vantage point of the helping hand in the field. As one advisor put it, ‘Instead of merely sailing on a sea of riches, children can experience an ocean of needs.” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 150 (Children, Charity, Philanthropy, Donation, Poor)
“Most affluent people earned their money the old-fashioned way: through hard work and personal sacrifice. Studies show that seventy-five percent of all affluent people (defined as having a net worth over three million) made it themselves. No handouts, no winning lottery tickets, and no magic lamp with a genie inside.” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 157 (Affluence, Hard Work, Wealth, Lottery, Sacrifice, Success)
“Dad used to say that hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don’t run up at all.” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 161 (Hard Work, Employees, Character, Success)
“As investor Warren Buffet said, “The perfect inheritance is enough money so that they would feel they could do anything, but not so much that they could do nothing.” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 171 (inheritance, legacy, posterity)
“Research and our combined experience show that most people share the same four primary goals: 1. They want to protect their family from ever being destitute. 2. They want to provide their family with opportunities that will help them mature into healthy, productive adults. 3. They do not want to promote a non-working lifestyle. 4. They want to minimize conflict within the family.” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 171-172 (Inheritance, Estate Planning)
“Traditional planning asks ‘Who gets the money that’s leftover after taxes, legal fees, and administrative costs are paid?’ The Heritage Process asks, ‘How can we develop a plan that will pass on the family’s true wealth, its traditions, values, morals, and virtues, using the material wealth of the family as a tool to secure those values for generations to come?’” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 172 (Estate Planning, Inheritance, Legacy, Posterity)
“Traditional planning counts the assets and divides and distributes the ‘spoils’ according to the language of the Will. Heritage planning guides people to discover what they have, and about what they care, to understand how their legacy will affect inheritors, to define the legacy they want to leave, and to determine how they can leave a meaningful legacy and implement their vision statement.” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 172 (Estate Planning, Inheritance, Legacy, Posterity)
“People who create traditional estate plans focus on how much money each inheritor should receive. Those who craft their plans on a foundation of values reflect on what money has meant to them, and what meaning they want to have for their children.” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 172 (Estate Planning, Inheritance, Legacy, Posterity)
“Memory is more than emotion. From a psychological viewpoint, it is the actual fabric with which we weave our perceptions of ourselves and others. It is what we used to help determine how to instruct and guide those we love. Memory can be as selective and precise in recalling, as it can be in stamping out conscious recollection of painful episodes in our lives we do not want to remember.” Beating the Midas Curse, by Perry L. Cochell and Rodney C. Zeeb, Page 174 (Memory)