It’s time to face a truth that many wealth management professionals feel instinctively, but few like to admit in public:
Their wealth management business models are missing a critical element.
Financial services professionals can advise upon and bring about transactions and help manage portfolios. Financial planning professionals can help finance a lifestyle and manage risks. And estate planning professionals can help make contingency plans and pass on assets. But where, in this framework, is there a robust system for preparing and developing the potential of the human beings involved – both clients and their beneficiaries – for the responsibilities, relationships, and processes involved in optimising the impact of wealth creation and management on the only outcomes that really matter?
Legacy planning is the missing leg of the stool. Rodney Zeeb of The Heritage Institute in America called this out in his book, The Midas Curse, and he was right. Without this missing third discipline, it is impossible to reliably address the integration of Life, Wealth & Legacy, meaning even the best-laid plans are likely to crumble within a couple of inheriting generations.
Enter the Hereditas Approach
Andrew Dodson and I have been working for over a decade on the development of the UK’s first structured response to this challenge—the Hereditas Legacy Planning Process.
Hereditas is not just another estate planning tool or strategy. It’s a full-spectrum process and framework that helps individuals, families, and their team of personal representatives and professional service providers to:
- Clarify purpose and values
- Articulate their personal and social legacy
- Prepare beneficiaries for emotional, relational, and financial responsibility
- Translate vision into structured plans, governance, and action
This is supported by a step-by-step methodology and a suite of practical tools delivered by Licensed Hereditas Practitioners. But the vision goes further.
Life, Wealth & Legacy: The Trifecta of Real Impact
At the Wealth Management Academy, we teach a simple principle:
You cannot plan for legacy without first planning for life.
What you live today becomes what you leave tomorrow. That’s why our model integrates:
- Life Planning – Purpose, values, vision, identity, priorities, transitions
- Lifestyle & Contingency Financial Planning – Lifestyle structuring, “What-if” scenarios, funding objectives
- Estate & Legacy Planning – Asset transfer, governance, education, family stewardship
This is the foundation of what we call a Wealth for Life & Legacy Plan.
The Role of the Modern Wealth Manager
A growing number of forward-thinking professionals are realising that true Wealth Management is not just about financial assets under management. It’s about relationships under management.
That’s why our training focuses on developing:
- The coaching skills to facilitate values-based conversations
- The tools and language to bridge life, wealth and legacy themes
- The service proposition design to build profitable, scalable, purpose-led businesses
The Hereditas-accredited Wealth Management Programme (WMP) brings this to life. It gives practitioners the inspiration, structure and support to become Wealth Management Coaches—not just advisers or planners. To serve not just their clients money, but their mission.
A Call to the Curious
If you’re a Financial Planner, Adviser, Accountant, Lawyer or other Wealth Management professional who feels there’s more to your work than Insurance and Investments, Tax & Accounts, Wills & Trusts…
If you’re someone who believes self-made wealth can be a force and resource for good across the generations…
If you’re looking for a way to evolve your business, deepen your client relationships, and leave a legacy of your own…
Then perhaps it’s time to explore what’s possible.
The Hereditas Practitioner Pathway is more than a training course. It’s a new professional identity.
We’re building a community of people who understand that Life & Legacy are two sides of the same coin—and who are ready to guide others in that truth.
Let’s talk.
Explore the Practitioner Pathway at HereditasUK.co.uk and connect with me directly at Pritchard-Jeffs.com.
