The Spirit of Wealth Preservation
Leverage Your Finite Life for the Infinite Good
Defining wealth as about more than mere numbers, The Spirit of Wealth Preservation is an inspired financial guide with advice for building a lasting legacy.
Wealth management firm founder Ken Polk’s high-minded investment book The Spirit of Wealth Preservation coaches on how to maximize long-term wealth for the sake of one’s family and the greater good.
This guide to long-term financial stewardship first broadens the definition of wealth to include the good it does for society, in addition to one’s lineage and legacy. Going beyond the number of zeros in a bank account and encouraging people to think about wealth building in a fresh way, it weaves principles like character, relationships, and purpose into its overarching vision. It draws on general principles of corporate social responsibility dating back to Andrew Carnegie’s philanthropy to make a rousing case that money is only valuable if it does good. The result is a holistic wealth management guide whose wisdom stands to be passed on to future generations.
The book addresses topics like multigenerational wealth transfer with clarity and nuance. It aligns wealth with a family’s purpose and says that one’s stewardship of resources should reflect their character and benefit their community. Often philosophical, even idealistic, it holds indexes of purpose in the same esteem as S&P 500, Nasdaq, and Dow Jones numbers. Here, wealth is not measured by how much money one accumulates, but by how many social problems one’s money can be used to fix.
Polk’s own story is also used to illustrate the book’s principles. His youth in a small town in Alabama is covered via anecdotes of starting a lawn-mowing business, saving for his first car, and preparing to become the first member of his family to go to college. Later, he became a successful entrepreneur. In the process, he arrived at an epiphany: that compounding, portfolio management, and other investment strategies can be used to maximize a family’s well-being. The resultant Built on Purpose methodology for advancing people’s well-being is embellished by clear explanations of how its ideas were developed, grounding them in personal experience before exploring them in depth. For example, a colleague’s observation that humility is recognizing “you are where you are because of somebody else” proves illuminating, as do the included lessons from sources as varied as Sophocles, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, and Robert DeNiro. Further, the prose is lively, though it sometimes leans on aphorisms.
A principled financial guide, The Spirit of Wealth Preservation is about getting the most out of one’s money and leaving a lasting inheritance for future generations.
Reviewed by
Joseph S. Pete
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
