For decades, Gallup has studied well-being. Their five-pillar model — social, financial, physical, community, and work — is now cited globally as the framework for understanding human flourishing. On the surface, it is rigorous, credible, and useful.
But at its heart, it remains ego-bound. Gallup’s model measures what can be seen and quantified: relationships, money, health, jobs, communities. In doing so, it reflects the Age of Pisces paradigm — an age defined by intermediation, dependence, and exploitation.
Piscean models speak the language of the visible self — the ego and its attachments. They avoid spirituality, hiding behind the excuse that religiosity and spirituality are “confused” in their research. This omission is not neutral. It is a cop-out. It keeps people dependent on external validation and locked inside systems of measurement and control.
The Missing Pillar: Spiritual Well-Being
A truly holistic model cannot stop at the visible ego. It must include the invisible sixth element: spiritual well-being.
Spiritual well-being is not about religion. It is about meaning, transcendence, and alignment with truth. It is the thread that binds the other five elements together, giving coherence to the whole person.
Without it, wealth becomes hollow, work becomes drudgery, relationships become transactional, and community becomes conformity. With it, people move from dependency to sovereignty — from being measured by others to being guided by their own compass.
This is the threshold of the Age of Aquarius:
- From intermediation to sovereignty
- From exploitation to empowerment
- From visible ego-being to invisible self-agency
Gallup as a Piscean Enabler
Gallup’s global well-being research has helped leaders see beyond GDP. But by excluding spirituality, Gallup also acts as an enabler of the old age. Their framework risks institutionalising the ego’s metrics while leaving the soul invisible.
In this sense, Gallup mirrors the financial services industry itself — brilliant at measuring the visible, but blind to the invisible forces that give life meaning.
The AoLP Alternative: Aquarius Revealed
At the Academy of Life Planning, we refuse to collude with Piscean omission. We reveal the sixth element and make it central to planning.
Holistic Wealth Planning is not just about managing assets. It is about:
- Normalising spirituality as a dimension of well-being.
- Embedding sovereignty into financial life decisions.
- Decentralising power by creating self-managing communities of planners.
- Equipping individuals with tools for agency, autonomy, and empowerment.
Our GAME Plan framework begins with life, not money. It aligns Goals, Actions, Means, and Execution with personal values, purpose, and contribution. It reclaims planning as a tool of liberation — not exploitation.
Living the Aquarian Shift: My Own Talents
Recently, an Academy Member shared with me how my Gallup BP10 talent themes play out in AoLP. He highlighted strengths like Delegator, Relationship, Risk, Independence, Determination, Knowledge, Confidence, and Disruptor. These are unmistakably Aquarian traits — decentralising, connecting, challenging, and innovating. They are perfectly aligned with building a global movement of holistic wealth planners.
He also suggested that Profitability and Selling were gaps. But in truth, these were never weaknesses. In my Piscean career, they were my tools. As Head of Investments at HSBC, RBS, and Santander, and Chair of the BBA Bancassurance Steering Group through RDR, I rose to the very top. I was seven times a market leader in financial services — and my secret was simple: Stephen R. Covey’s fourth habit: win–win.
I believed that what was good for the bank and good for the consumer could also be good for society and the planet. For me, success was never just financial. It was always a quadruple bottom line: purpose, people, planet, and profit. That philosophy drove extraordinary profits for my employers — but it also revealed something uncomfortable. My fellow bankers enjoyed the profits but left the other returns invisible. They could not see the deeper purpose.
When I chose to step away, they saw it as betrayal. Their anger was rooted in a single dimension: lost profit. In their eyes, I was stupid. In truth, I was sovereign. I refused to let profit-only thinking define my worth.
That was my break with the Age of Pisces — the age of intermediation and extraction. Today, in the Age of Aquarius, I use the same talents, but I apply them differently. I no longer chase profit as the sole measure of success. I measure success by sovereignty, agency, authenticity, and contribution.
What Gallup might frame as “gaps” in profitability or selling are not gaps at all. They are conscious redefinitions. Sales and profit, when guided by virtue, are not exploitative — they are regenerative. They support empowerment, not extraction.
My role now is to reveal what others ignore: the invisible sixth element of well-being — spirituality. It is the thread that binds the visible pillars together, and the compass for true win–win in the Aquarian age.
A Call to Planners
The Age of Pisces was the age of intermediation, where institutions stood between people and their own power. The Age of Aquarius is the age of empowerment, where sovereignty is returned to the individual.
Gallup’s model is useful, but it is not enough. It is a mirror of the old age. To move forward, we must name what they will not: the invisible sixth element of spiritual well-being.
This is our task as holistic wealth planners. To reveal what has been hidden. To normalise what has been ignored. To guide clients beyond ego-centred being into self-sovereignty, agency, and autonomy.
Only then can we build not just well-being, but empowerment. Not just thriving lives, but liberated ones.
👉 At AoLP, we reject Piscean exploitation and embrace Aquarian empowerment. The sixth element is here. It is time to reveal it.
✦ An Invitation
If you feel called to this path—
to walk with courage, to serve with compassion, to uphold dignity and truth—
then you may already be a Knight of Aquarius.
This is not a title for prestige.
It is a pledge for life.
Together, we are building a fellowship of Life Planners who save lives.
Together, we stand as guardians of a new age.
We are Knights of Aquarius.
We save lives.
We restore dignity.
We protect truth.
If this resonates, join us. The world needs more Knights.
Find out more about our mentorship circle.
APPENDIX: How the Triple Bottom Line Became the Quadruple Bottom Line — and Who Added “Purpose”
1) Where it started: the Triple Bottom Line (TBL)
- Origin (1994): John Elkington coined Triple Bottom Line to expand corporate accounting beyond profit to include People (social) and Planet (environment). The intent was to challenge and “stretch” capitalism’s metrics, not just add two KPIs. johnelkington.com
- Reassessment (2018): Elkington publicly “recalled” the TBL label, arguing it had often been diluted into a box-ticking exercise rather than a redesign of capitalism’s logic. Harvard Business Review+1
2) The push for a fourth line: “Purpose / Spirituality / Why”
Several streams (academic, movement-based, institutional) moved almost in parallel to surface the invisible motive force that TBL didn’t fully capture:
- Futures scholarship (2005): Futurist Sohail Inayatullah explicitly proposed spirituality as the fourth bottom line, arguing that beyond the what (profit) and the how (people/planet), society needs the why—meaning, transcendence, and ethical coherence. metafuture.org+1
- Conscious commerce (2007/2014): Ayman Sawaf’s Sacred Commerce popularised the “Fourth Bottom Line” in entrepreneurial culture, elevating spiritual/purpose impact alongside financial, social, and environmental results. Amazon+1
- Faith-anchored practice (2010s→): The Business as Mission (BAM) movement operationalised four bottom lines as spiritual, economic, social, environmental, making spiritual outcomes explicit in business models. businessasmission.com+2businessasmission.com+2
- Institutional frameworks (2016→): Cornell University formally adopted a Quadruple Bottom Line for decision-making—Purpose, People, Prosperity, Planet—to align actions with the university’s mission (their “purpose”), not just costs and impacts. sustainablecampus.cornell.edu+1
- Public health & well-being lens (2021): Wendy M. Purcell and colleagues argued for a QBL that adds Health & Well-Being as the fourth pillar (post-COVID), showing how the “fourth line” can be articulated as purpose/meaning or well-being/health depending on context. scholar.harvard.edu+2scholar.harvard.edu+2
3) Why the fourth line emerged
- To name the “why”: TBL measures what/how; the fourth line insists on motive coherence—purpose, spirituality, ethics—so actions align with meaning, not just metrics. Wikipedia
- To curb greenwashing: Without an anchor in values/purpose, TBL can be gamed (offset harm here, add good there). Purpose demands integrity across all lines. Harvard Business Review
- To humanise sustainability: Businesses aren’t only economic actors; they’re communities of humans seeking meaning, agency, and flourishing. The fourth line is how that gets designed in. metafuture.org
- To institutionalise alignment: Universities and public bodies adopted QBL to ensure choices advance mission/purpose as well as social, environmental, and economic outcomes. sustainablecampus.cornell.edu
Quick Timeline (for your appendix)
- 1994 — Elkington coins TBL (People, Planet, Profit). johnelkington.com
- 2005 — Inayatullah: “Spirituality as the Fourth Bottom Line” (Futures). Establishes the fourth as the why/purpose/spiritual dimension. metafuture.org
- 2007 / 2014 — Sawaf’s Sacred Commerce. Popularises the Fourth Bottom Line in entrepreneurial/leadership circles. Amazon+1
- 2010s→ — BAM movement operationalises four lines: Spiritual, Economic, Social, Environmental. businessasmission.com+1
- 2016→ — Cornell adopts QBL in governance: Purpose, People, Prosperity, Planet (mission-aligned decisions). sustainablecampus.cornell.edu
- 2018 — Elkington “recalls” TBL: warns of dilution; calls for deeper systems change. Harvard Business Review
- 2021 — Purcell (Harvard): argues for QBL adding Health & Well-Being as the fourth in sustainability decision-making. scholar.harvard.edu
What this means for you
The shift from a triple to a quadruple bottom line is, in many ways, the mainstream’s attempt to acknowledge what has long been invisible: the deeper driver of meaning and purpose. Whether it is called purpose, spirituality, or well-being, the message is the same. To thrive — as individuals, organisations, or societies — we must bring our inner compass into the open. When purpose is made explicit, systems are less prone to exploitation and more capable of serving genuine human flourishing.
Academy of Life Planning 