Should I tell my kids the real story of how the business got built, including the hard parts?

Yes. The unglamorous version of the founding story is usually the part the family most needs to hear. Kris Kluver, in The Dysfunctional Family Office, has Robert Mitchell stand at a family dinner and tell his adult children, for the first time, the real story. Not the highlight version they'd been told growing up. The hard parts. The early scarcity. The mistakes. The fears. The moments he almost quit. Anything they were curious about and too afraid to ask. The kids saw their father differently within the hour. The honest version repositions the parent as a real person, not a marble statue. It also gives the next generation context for why the founder behaves the way he does decades later. Most UHNW founders default to the polished version because it's easier. The unpolished version is what builds family.