Why This Study Quietly Changes Everything for Financial Planners

What Human Capital Inequality Teaches Us About the Future of Advice For decades, financial planning has rested on a comfortable assumption: If people have access to money and good products, they’ll make good long-term decisions. The study “Human Capital Inequality, Life Expectancy and Economic Growth” by Castelló-Climent and Doménech gently — but decisively — dismantles … Continue reading Why This Study Quietly Changes Everything for Financial Planners

PMC Member Showcase

Geoff Dyckes RLP®, GAME Plan AccreditedLife-Centred Financial Planner Peer Practice Sharing — Learn What’s Really Working Most advisers don’t need more theory.They need to see how real people are actually building real practices — in the messy middle. That’s exactly what the Practice Management Circle (PMC) is for. PMC is the Academy’s peer learning space … Continue reading PMC Member Showcase

Take Your Sign Down: Why Financial Planning Must Stop Living Within a Lie

By Steve Conley, Academy of Life Planning Overnight in Davos, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered what I believe will be remembered as an era-defining speech. Not because it was dramatic.Not because it was ideological.But because it named reality. Carney spoke about geopolitics.But what he really described was every untrustworthy system that survives by ritual, … Continue reading Take Your Sign Down: Why Financial Planning Must Stop Living Within a Lie

Most of a Person’s Wealth Is Not on a Balance Sheet — It Walks Into Work Every Day

A practitioner insight for Total Wealth Planners Traditional financial planning has taught generations of advisers to look down—at balance sheets, portfolios, wrappers, and projections.Total Wealth Planning asks us to look up—at the living, breathing human being who generates, sustains, and renews all of that capital. A growing body of academic research confirms what many of … Continue reading Most of a Person’s Wealth Is Not on a Balance Sheet — It Walks Into Work Every Day

Planning for Total Wealth: Why Human Capital Must Be at the Heart of Lifetime Planning

Most new financial advisers are taught to plan only half a life. The familiar model—accumulation, transition, retirement, legacy—has become so normalised that few stop to ask a more fundamental question: What exactly are we planning? The answer, in practice, is almost always the same:financial capital. Savings. Investments. Pensions. Decumulation strategies. Estate planning. All important.All necessary.But … Continue reading Planning for Total Wealth: Why Human Capital Must Be at the Heart of Lifetime Planning

Confidential Settlements, Tomlin Orders, and What They Mean for Victims

For many people harmed by financial misconduct, a settlement can feel like the end of a long and exhausting journey. The letters stop. The court process pauses. There is, at last, some financial relief. But for many victims, settlement is not the end of the story.It is simply a quieter chapter—often one marked by confusion, … Continue reading Confidential Settlements, Tomlin Orders, and What They Mean for Victims

Audit Reform “Before the Next Scandal”: What Citizen Investigators Must Learn from the FRC’s Warning

In January 2026, the UK’s audit regulator issued an unusually candid warning. The Chief Executive of the Financial Reporting Council (FRC), Richard Moriarty, urged government to pass audit reform legislation before the next corporate collapse—rather than waiting for a scandal to force action. For those involved in Get SAFE cases, this will sound uncomfortably familiar. … Continue reading Audit Reform “Before the Next Scandal”: What Citizen Investigators Must Learn from the FRC’s Warning

Human Capital Is Not a Soft Idea

Why Total Wealth Planners Are Closer to Economic Reality Than the Mainstream For over two centuries, economists have been telling us something the financial services industry still struggles to hear: Wealth is created by people, not products. A recent academic review of human capital theory traces this insight from Adam Smith through to modern growth … Continue reading Human Capital Is Not a Soft Idea

Fairness Is Not Found in Rulebooks

Context: Why Fairness Is Becoming More Complicated (Synopsis of John Howard’s argument) In a recent reflection, John Howard explores why fairness—once the beating heart of the Financial Ombudsman Service—is becoming increasingly difficult to uphold. Using a simple but powerful thought experiment involving an elderly woman asked to leave a first-class train carriage, John shows how … Continue reading Fairness Is Not Found in Rulebooks

When the Debt Letters Arrive: Why Advisers Need a Bridge Before Legal Action

Over the past year, a quiet but troubling pattern has been emerging inside adviser networks. First, firms are deauthorised.Then advisers are moved, paused, or left in limbo.And only later do the debt letters arrive. A recent Citywire investigation has brought this pattern into sharp focus. The Morrinson Wealth case One of St James’s Place Wealth … Continue reading When the Debt Letters Arrive: Why Advisers Need a Bridge Before Legal Action