Why Total Wealth Planner now reflects the person—and the proposition—you can experience today For years, the Total Wealth Planner website featured a photograph of me in a suit. I looked younger. Successful. Confident. Prosperous. It was a professional photograph of the sort commonly used throughout financial services. It conveyed experience, authority and achievement. The photograph … Continue reading The Man in the Suit Was Me. But He Is Not Me Now.
Tag: mental-health
When Human Agency Looks Like Sales Resistance
Why the “DIY client” may be the future of financial planning, not a prospect to defeat I recently read a sales article about how advisers should handle people who prefer to manage their own finances. It described the “DIY prospect” as a battle. Advisers were told to weed such people out before they wasted time, … Continue reading When Human Agency Looks Like Sales Resistance
Different Tradition. Same Human Journey: What The Four Agreements Reveals About the GAME Plan
Yesterday, a conversation among Academy members began with a book recommendation. Geoff Dyckes had just finished The Four Agreements by don Miguel Ruiz, which presents what Ruiz describes as Toltec wisdom as a practical route towards personal freedom. That prompted an interesting discussion. The language was different. But the journey felt remarkably familiar. Ruiz talks … Continue reading Different Tradition. Same Human Journey: What The Four Agreements Reveals About the GAME Plan
The Most Important Outcome of Financial Planning Is Not the Money
It Is When the Light Comes Back On There is an idea that has run through the Academy of Life Planning for years. The purpose of life planning is to light the lamp within. That is why I call Total Wealth Planners Lamplighters. I have always understood the metaphor intellectually. This week, I think I … Continue reading The Most Important Outcome of Financial Planning Is Not the Money
When the Badge Becomes the Blindfold
Before You Trust the Badge, Use Intelligence A difficult conversation with QROPS victims forced me to revisit what regulation actually does, what it does not do, and why understanding should come before intermediation. It also reminded me that the people trying to help have feelings too. It is after three in the morning as I … Continue reading When the Badge Becomes the Blindfold
Your Future Financial Life Cannot Be Separated From the Future World in Which You Will Live
What might the future require of me — and what forms of wealth will help me meet it? Most financial plans make forecasts. They forecast your pension. Your investments. Your income. Your expenditure. Inflation. Investment returns. Perhaps your life expectancy. Then they project those numbers twenty, thirty or forty years into the future. But there … Continue reading Your Future Financial Life Cannot Be Separated From the Future World in Which You Will Live
Before You Plan Your Money, Find the Direction of Your Life
I’ve built a new app. But this one begins with no money at all. No pensions.No investments.No budgets.No retirement calculators. Just four questions: What are you good at?What do you love?What does the world need?What could you be paid for? Those four questions sit at the heart of the Japanese idea of Ikigai — often … Continue reading Before You Plan Your Money, Find the Direction of Your Life
I Was Wrong About the Financial Concierge
The professional’s job is not to occupy the pathway between the client and their money, but to keep that pathway clear. Why a Total Wealth Planner should be at reception, not permanently in your room For several years, I have described the emerging role of the holistic financial planner as a financial concierge. I still … Continue reading I Was Wrong About the Financial Concierge
Do You Need a Financial Adviser — Or Just Your Agency Back?
Why a temporary period of complexity should not automatically become a lifetime of advised dependency Most people do not wake up one morning and decide: “I would like to outsource my financial judgement for the rest of my life.” Something usually happens first. A bereavement. A divorce. Retirement. Redundancy. An inheritance. A pension decision. A … Continue reading Do You Need a Financial Adviser — Or Just Your Agency Back?
Why Build a Total Wealth Planning Practice Alone?
Most financial planning businesses begin with one person. One planner. One diary. One network. One set of skills. One person carrying the whole thing. That can work. But it also creates an obvious weakness. If everything depends on you, you may have created a practice — but you have not yet created much organisational resilience. … Continue reading Why Build a Total Wealth Planning Practice Alone?
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