- Good Idea, Bad Start
- When Opportunity Comes Face to Face with Hard Work and Preparation
- End of an Era
- No Strategic Approach to Wealth Management
- Alarm Bells
- It's Hard to Grow Assets AND Enjoy the Fruits of Success at the Same Time!
- Our Wealth Represented More than Cash
- We Needed to Get a Handle on Our Investment Portfolio
- Introducing Strategic Wealth Management
- We Are Stewards, Not Owners, of Our Wealth
- Taking Control for the First Time
- Philanthropy Has Emerged as a Shared Interest Among Many Family Members
- Closer Family Ties
- The Wealth-Building Legacy of E.A. Stuart
- How My Dad Taught Me the Value of Money
- A Book About Strategic Wealth Management
A Book About Strategic Wealth Management
Today, my family's value system regarding money is based both on personal prudence and on an aggressive and shrewd approach to the long-term strategic stewardship and growth of wealth. You'll read a lot about these values—and others—throughout the pages of this book.
But I don't assume that my values are your values. I've learned many lessons about wealth management, both as a member of a wealthy family and as an industry professional advising others. One of the most important things I've learned is that each individual and each family has its own values and unique circumstances relating to managing wealth. This book discusses many roads to effective wealth management, not just the ones used by my family. You can explore the options and then decide which ones are right for you.
This book deals with how you can manage your wealth, be it for your lifetime or for multiple generations, using proven wealth management principles to do so. What I say here is directed to anyone concerned about wealth creation, wealth management, families with wealth, retirement planning, and multi-generational estate management. The book will also be of value to wealth industry professionals who are interested in providing their clients with fresh investment insights. It will also help upwardly affluent professionals and successful entrepreneurs who are interested in adopting a strategic, focused, and disciplined approach to growing and diversifying their financial assets.
With an insider's perspective, I wrote this book to share the lessons that my family and I have learned, and hopefully to spare you from some of our mistakes. Most of these lessons apply whether you are worth a few hundred thousand dollars or a few hundred million.
As you turn to Chapter 1, "Protecting and Growing Your Wealth," remember this: Wealth management isn't just about money. It's also about people, relationships, values, doing well by doing good, and, of course, family. Enjoy this book for the tools and insights it provides you. Use it as a guide to more strategic and insightful stewardship of your personal and family wealth and to the achievement of a more fulfilling life. Wealth is a gift you should safeguard, nurture, and share productively with others. This book will show you how.
Stuart Lucas
July 2005