By Steve Conley, Founder, Academy of Life Planning
The Industry’s Blind Spot
Every few months, headlines lament the “advice gap.” We’re told there aren’t enough advisers, that regulation is too heavy, and that clients can’t access affordable advice. The response? Train more advisers. Build more academies. Loosen the rules.
But this narrative misses the deeper truth.
We don’t have an adviser shortage — we have an empowerment deficit.
The problem isn’t the number of intermediaries between people and their money. The problem is the belief that people need intermediaries at all.
The System Was Built for Extraction, Not Empowerment
For decades, financial planning has operated under an extractive model:
- Products are created by manufacturers.
- Advisers are trained to distribute them.
- Consumers are kept dependent on experts who “know better.”
This structure concentrates power, knowledge, and profit in corporate hands — while everyday people remain disempowered and dependent.
When the system talks about “closing the advice gap,” it means training more distributors. But when we talk about closing the gap, we mean giving people back their autonomy.
That’s not just semantics — it’s a revolution in design.
Planning My Life: From Clients to Citizens
At the Academy of Life Planning, we don’t train salespeople — we train guides, educators, and changemakers. Our model is built on one radical premise:
Everyone can learn to plan their own life — and their own money — with the right tools, education, and support.
Through Planning My Life, individuals become their own financial planners. They learn to build enough in every area of life — financial, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual.
They don’t need to buy products to feel secure; they need to understand themselves, their values, and their goals.
And through our Financial Life Coach model, professionals can walk alongside clients in partnership — not hierarchy — offering “done-with-you” support instead of “done-for-you” dependency.
The Shift from Control to Collaboration
Traditional financial services operate under the Control Paradigm — experts prescribe, clients comply.
The new paradigm is Collaboration. It asks:
- What would happen if clients became co-designers of their own future?
- What if advisers stopped selling and started teaching?
- What if financial planning became a civic skill, not a luxury service?
That’s what democratising financial planning means: redistributing wisdom, not just wealth.
From Advice Gap to Empowerment Movement
We stand at a crossroads.
The industry can continue to recruit more intermediaries to prop up an outdated model. Or it can join a movement that’s reshaping financial planning into a public good — open, transparent, and accessible to all.
We don’t need more “advice academies.”
We need Empowerment Academies.
Places where people learn not how to sell, but how to serve.
Where technology supports human growth, not corporate profit.
Where financial planners evolve into life planners — guides helping others discover their purpose, values, and freedom.
A Call to the Next Generation of Planners
If you’re a financial planner reading this, you’re standing at the front line of change.
You can:
- Keep playing the old game — chasing assets, selling products, feeding systems that extract.
- Or you can rewrite the rules — empowering people to reclaim agency over their money and meaning.
The future of financial planning isn’t about more advisers.
It’s about more empowered citizens.
That’s the path we’re walking at the Academy of Life Planning.
Join us. Let’s make financial planning a movement — not a marketplace.
Be the Financial Planner of the Future
For just £4.99, you can start your transformation today.
Learn to plan the 100% of life’s wealth — not just the 1% sitting in investments.
Move from extraction to empowerment. From selling products to serving people.
Open your mind.
Broaden your horizon.
Join the Academy of Life Planning today.
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