Dr. Rainer Zitelmann not only writes about success but is also remarkably successful in many areas. Zitelmann was born in Frankfurt am Main (Germany) in 1957. He studied history and political science from 1978 to 1983 and received his doctorate summa cum laude in 1986 with his doctoral dissertation on Hitler: The Policies of Seduction. When it was published as a book, it garnered worldwide attention and acclaim.In the late 1980s and early 1990s he worked at the Central Institute for Social Science Research at the Free University of Berlin. He then became editor-in-chief of Ullstein-Propyläen-Verlag, at the time Germany's third-largest book publishing group. From 1992 to 2000, he headed various departments at one of Germany's leading premium daily newspapers, Die Welt, before starting his own company in 2000.

He founded Dr. ZitelmannPB. GmbH, which has been the leading positioning consultancy for real estate companies in Germany ever since. He sold the company in 2016. Zitelmann became wealthy as an entrepreneur and investor in the real estate sector. Long before many other investors, he recognized the potentials of the Berlin residential real estate market and became rich by following the same principles he recommends in this book: swimming against the current.In 2016, Zitelmann received his second doctorate - this time in sociology - under the mentorship of the wealth researcher Prof. Wolfgang Lauterbach at the University of Potsdam.

This second dissertation was published as The Wealth Elite.To date, he has written and published 23 books, which have enjoyed global success and have been published in numerous languages. He is a sought-after speaker all over the world - especially in Asia and Europe. He writes for prestigious European media such as Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Switzerland), Die Welt, Focus and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Germany), The Daily Telegraph and City AM (London). Every Monday, he publishes a column on Forbes.com.