Message from the CEO - My Manifesto

Hello FinGym Friends,

Many of you have received notes from me before, but you have never received one like this. I have been sitting on this one for years, mostly out of fear of ticking off a potential future partner for Financial Gym. However, as I’ve sat here in fear, I’ve repeatedly witnessed what I feel are crimes against the American people by financial institutions, specifically those that provide financial advisory or financial planning services, and I can’t keep quiet any longer.

I am going to make enemies by writing this and putting it out in the public space, but after a series of meetings with one of these financial institutions, I’ve realized that unless something drastic is done—perhaps starting with my voice—then nothing is going to change. 

As many of you know, I left my practice as a Merrill Lynch Financial Advisor nine years ago to build The Financial Gym, with the mission of bringing the valuable knowledge I learned about financial planning to the masses. After all, only the top 10% of households own 76% of the wealth in the U.S. and the financial advisory business was built to serve them. Their solution for the other 90% is to give them technology and apps, expecting them to grow their wealth on their own while the wealth managers continue to help rich people get richer. 

In the 9 years since I’ve left Merrill, my team and I have worked with tens of thousands of people. We’ve refined our approach, we’ve learned how to get results, and we’ve made a tremendous impact on lives (with the data to back it up). We’ve also watched the divide of wealth in the U.S. get wider while the financial services industry has done nothing to evolve. The reality is that the industry hasn’t evolved since it was created by the Investment Advisers Act of 1940.

According to data released just last year,  83% of financial planners are white and 77% are male. Financial advisory firms will argue that this is where the wealth is held in the U.S., so they’re hiring to serve this population. I argue that a paradigm shift needs to happen in the wealth management industry. Instead of continuing to help white men and their families grow and preserve wealth, why not coach people and help them to build wealth?

Financial Gym has coached thousands of people from negative net worths to positive net worths in a relatively short period of time. With the right financial partner by their side, we’ve seen people make dramatic changes to their personal wealth which will impact generations to come. 

Coaching is the answer, not investment advising.

As you can see from the image below, investing people’s money is just a very small part of someone’s financial picture, and honestly, it has the least impact over time. There are numerous roadblocks for people on the path to building wealth including debt, unfair wages and not enough risk management.

The large majority of people don’t need someone to manage their assets— we’ve witnessed countless clients outperform advisors for years now just investing in a few ETFs on their own. People need a financial trainer/coach. They need someone who understands where they’re starting from and to help them manage the abundant landmines on the path to building wealth. 

I wouldn’t speak so boldly now if I wasn’t 100% sure that a solution exists, and that solution starts with the certification program we’ve created here at The Financial Gym. We’ve spent the last nine years developing a certification and training program that creates a “better advisor” at the end of the day. Up until this year, this program was a “secret sauce” that was kept exclusive to employees of The Financial Gym; however, after witnessing the lack of progress in the financial planning industry, we’ve decided to make our program open to all people who are ready for the financial planning revolution. 

Our certification program is perfect for someone who wants to be their own financial planner or just get the financial literacy education they never received in school, or someone who wants to help people build wealth especially with the hopes of diversifying this industry from the outside, but also I think every financial advisor/planner/coach should start their training with our program. If you work for an RIA or financial advisory firm, our team is happy to train your staff and help them to become better advisors, we’ve even created a course that I believe every financial planner should invest in. 

Financial planning is due for a revolution, and I need your help. 

1. Share these statistics with your communities. Share the image with the hashtag #fingymrevolution 

2. Be a part of the change - and become a Certified Financial Trainer. It’s a great first step to changing the look and approach of this industry.

3. Demand more from the industry. If you’re working with an advisor, require them to have our certification. Refuse to work with firms that keep supporting this archaic approach. 

My hope is to grow a better community of financial planners through our training program so that the masses will have more options and the industry will realize it needs to stop focusing on being wealth managers and shift to becoming wealth builders. Let’s truly change and democratize financial planning. This revolution is LONG overdue!

Cheers!
Shannon