- 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
- The Power and Purpose of Entrepreneurial Stewardship
- Philanthropy Has Emerged as a Shared Interest Among Many Family Members
- Closer Family Ties
- The Value of Family Lore
- How My Dad Taught Me the Value of Money
- A Book About Strategic Wealth Management
We Are Stewards, Not Owners, of Our Wealth
As the Lucas family wrestles with the work of strategic wealth management, several things have happened.
We have begun to see ourselves not as owners of our wealth, but as stewards of it. We spoke of the drifting apart of various branches of the Stuart family after Carnation’s sale and agreed we didn’t want our family to fracture further. So we decided to reverse the splintering of the Lucas family assets and, together, manage our inherited wealth so that the bulk of it is passed on to future generations, along with the skills and governance to manage it wisely.
We decided to base future wealth management decisions and strategies on core family and individual values. Why focus on values first? Values help to define family purpose and to construct a framework for establishing your wealth management priorities.
We realized it was critical to foster family harmony, strong communications, and wealth management leadership. Wealth management and wealth creation are difficult, distinct tasks. They require high-order management and leadership competencies, whether the preponderance of your assets are concentrated in one family business or diversified in a portfolio of financial assets. We recognized that effective governance was critical to the successful long-term management of our family’s assets, and you will also.