What Total Wealth Planners Can Learn from the “Education Irony”

Most people arrive at financial planning believing education equals security.Degrees. Credentials. Certifications.Yet the evidence increasingly shows a deeper problem: education can fail to develop the very human capabilities people need to navigate work, money, and life well. A recent peer-reviewed study, The Education Irony: When College Degrees Lead to Unemployment, Mindless Thinking, Debt, and Despair, … Continue reading What Total Wealth Planners Can Learn from the “Education Irony”

Ikigai Is Not a Feeling: Using Purpose as a Design Tool, Not a Career Pitch

At the start of a new year, many professionals find themselves asking quiet but persistent questions. Not “Am I successful?”But “Is this still right for me?” Often, nothing dramatic has gone wrong. Performance is solid. Income is acceptable. Reputation is intact. Yet something feels misaligned — not emotionally fragile, but structurally unresolved. This is where … Continue reading Ikigai Is Not a Feeling: Using Purpose as a Design Tool, Not a Career Pitch

Why a Total Wealth Plan Feels So Different from a Financial Plan

Why a Total Wealth Plan Feels So Different from a Financial Plan And why it isn’t a bolt-on People approaching a Total Wealth Plan—whether as individuals or professional advisers—often do so with a familiar mental model. They expect a better financial plan.More depth. More insight. Better projections. That expectation is understandable.It’s also where confusion usually … Continue reading Why a Total Wealth Plan Feels So Different from a Financial Plan

Lessons on Human Capital for Total Wealth Planners

Lessons on Human Capital for Total Wealth PlannersWhat long-term economic growth teaches us about life-first planning Most financial planning still treats people as inputs into a system: earn, save, invest, retire.The attached study on human capital as a determinant of long-term economic growth quietly dismantles that assumption. Its core finding is simple but profound: Sustainable … Continue reading Lessons on Human Capital for Total Wealth Planners

Why £497 Is the Right Price for Real Planning — And Why It’s Finally Possible

For more than a decade, policymakers have asked the same question: Why don’t more people access financial advice? The answer has never been a lack of interest.It has been a mismatch between what people value, what the system delivers, and what it costs to provide. At the Academy of Life Planning, we are now offering … Continue reading Why £497 Is the Right Price for Real Planning — And Why It’s Finally Possible

Why Total Wealth Planners Must Move Beyond Human Capital Theory

For decades, mainstream human capital theory has shaped how governments, employers, and financial planners think about people. At its core sits a deceptively simple idea: invest in education and skills, and higher earnings will follow. But the study Human Capital: State of the Field and Ways to Extend the Concept exposes a growing gap between … Continue reading Why Total Wealth Planners Must Move Beyond Human Capital Theory

The Academy of Life Planning: 2025 Review & Our Direction for 2026

From Improving the Old System to Building the New As 2025 comes to a close, it’s clear that this has not been a year of incremental growth for the Academy of Life Planning — it has been a year of structural change. Rather than scaling the old financial planning model, we made a conscious decision … Continue reading The Academy of Life Planning: 2025 Review & Our Direction for 2026

From the 1% to the 100%: An Invitation to Financial Advisers Ready to Practise Total Wealth Planning

Most financial advisers didn’t enter the profession to sell products. They entered it to help people make better decisions about their lives. And yet, many now find themselves constrained — not by their ethics or competence, but by the narrow scope of the system they work within. This article isn’t a critique of advisers.It’s an … Continue reading From the 1% to the 100%: An Invitation to Financial Advisers Ready to Practise Total Wealth Planning

Total Wealth Planners: The Antidote to Inequality — Without Ideology

Inequality is usually framed as a political problem.But increasingly, it’s a structural one. The gap widening beneath modern economies isn’t only about income or assets. It’s about who gets access to judgment, responsibility, and compounding human capital—and who doesn’t. A recent reflection prompted by a study on education pathways, alongside a Wall Street Journal article … Continue reading Total Wealth Planners: The Antidote to Inequality — Without Ideology

Inequality Isn’t a Moral Failure — It’s a Planning Failure

Why Total Wealth Planners are emerging as the quiet antidote For decades, inequality has been treated as a political problem. Argued over.Moralised.Weaponised. But beneath the noise sits a quieter truth that rarely gets airtime: Most inequality is not caused by malice or ideology — it is caused by structural mis-planning of human capital. Not bad … Continue reading Inequality Isn’t a Moral Failure — It’s a Planning Failure