By Steve Conley, Founder, Academy of Life Planning
Something significant is stirring in the financial services world.
This week, Aegon launched its Money:Mindshift campaign — a conscious attempt to challenge the traditional, transactional model of financial advice. Led by Dr Tom Mathar, the campaign invites us to move beyond the numbers and reconnect with what truly matters: purpose, wellbeing, and a life well-lived.
As someone who has spent over a decade advocating for a more human, values-driven approach to financial planning, I find this initiative both encouraging and overdue.
💡 The Shift: From Products to People
The financial services industry has long prioritised accumulation — more income, bigger portfolios, faster growth. But this relentless focus on financial capital has come at the cost of emotional, psychological, and even spiritual wellbeing.
Dr Mathar rightly observes:
“Being human-centric means recognising that people are more than just clients. They have instincts, emotions, vulnerabilities and values.”
This is the very ethos the Academy of Life Planning (AoLP) was founded upon.
Our GAME Plan framework begins not with investments or insurance, but with the individual’s story — their goals, values, and vision for life. We believe that financial planning should be a tool for self-agency, not sales. We don’t lead with products. We start with people.
🌱 A Step Forward — But Let’s Keep Walking
Aegon’s language around emotional intelligence, wellbeing, and purpose is a refreshing sign that the industry is waking up to a deeper truth: that money is a means, not an end.
But words alone are not enough.
To fully evolve financial services, we need to rethink how advice is delivered, who delivers it, and whom it serves. That means:
- Supporting professionals who guide, not sell.
- Empowering individuals to become their own financial planners.
- Valuing human capital and social wellbeing as core components of wealth.
- Separating financial planning from financial product distribution.
This is precisely what AoLP has been doing for over a decade — through our Planning My Life and M-POWER programmes, we’ve helped thousands reclaim autonomy over their finances and life choices.
🔄 From Mindshift to Movement
If Aegon’s campaign is a mindshift, what we need next is a movement. One that transcends marketing and restructures financial planning around the whole human — their relationships, their purpose, their potential.
At the Academy, we welcome this shift. We invite financial providers, planners, and everyday citizens to join us in building a new financial future — one that puts wellbeing before wealth, and meaning before money.
The tide is turning. Let’s keep going.
Discover the Academy of Life Planning
Explore how our GAME Plan framework is transforming financial planning into a tool for liberation and life design.
👉 www.aolp.info
Your Money or Your Life
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By Steve Conley. Available on Amazon. Visit www.steve.conley.co.uk to find out more.
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