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Why the future of financial advice depends on the wisdom of its elders
The danger of writing off the past
Joe Stephan CFP® | Director, Stephan Independent Advisory
At this year’s FAAA Congress, I noticed something small but revealing.
There was a tendency, especially among the older advisers in the room, for people to justify their bona fides before asking a question. It was as if they needed to explain their worth before being heard. At first, I chuckled with slight annoyance. This was wasting valuable Q&A time.
Why couldn’t they just ask the question? No one cares for your CV delivered as a long winded monologue.
Later, when the noise of the conference faded and I had the space to reflect, I felt a wave of shame at my reaction. Because the more I thought about it, the more I realised that what I saw as self-importance was actually something far more human.
It was a deep desire to contribute, to remain relevant, and to feel that decades of experience still have a place in the room.
That realisation led me to write this article about something I think many of us disregard.
A profession growing older and smaller
Today, Australia has around 15,600 registered financial advisers, down from nearly 28,000 in 2019. The average adviser is 52 years old, and each year only a few hundred new entrants join the profession, far fewer than those who retire or leave.
What this means is simple:
- We have fewer advisers
- They are older
- And we are losing experience faster than we can replace it.
At the same time, Australians are facing unprecedented complexity, from retirement planning to behavioural biases to emotional decision-making. More than technical answers, clients need judgment, steadiness and perspective.
And those qualities come only from lived experience.
When experience feels like it’s no longer welcome
Seen in this context, the behaviour I witnessed at Congress made more sense.
Our profession is changing rapidly through technological shifts, regulatory reform, rising compliance burdens, and evolving expectations around how advice is delivered. In this environment, seasoned advisers may feel the space for their contribution narrowing.
When people who’ve shaped the profession for decades no longer feel actively invited into the conversation, they often find moments to insert their voice. Not to dominate, and not out of ego, but out of a genuine wish to offer something of value.
My initial chuckle now seems misplaced. That moment was a reminder that what looks like self-indulgence is often a quiet plea to still matter.
What age really gives us
Arthur Brooks, in his book From Strength to Strength, captures this dynamic with clarity. He differentiates between:
- Fluid intelligence: fast problem-solving, innovation, agility
- Crystallised intelligence: wisdom, judgment, synthesis, insight
Fluid intelligence peaks in our 30s and 40s.
Crystallised intelligence continues to expand well into later life.
Brooks argues that ageing doesn’t diminish our contribution; it changes the nature of it. We move from being innovators to being interpreters. From being problem-solvers to being wisdom-sharers. We become better at simplifying complexity, joining the dots, and guiding others through uncertainty.
In financial advice, a profession built on human behaviour, ethics, communication and emotional steadiness, crystallised intelligence is not just useful.
It is indispensable.
The quiet cost of losing relevance
There’s a name I give to this dynamic: deprivation of relevance.
The less we make room for our wise elders to contribute what they still hold – insight, judgment, perspective – the more we will see the psychological side effects of that loss of meaning.
And as advisers, we should recognise this more than most.
Our profession walks with clients through their retirement transitions. We see firsthand how people who still have so much to offer can feel sidelined, invisible, or underutilised. Retirement rarely diminishes a client’s ability to contribute. If anything, it often sharpens clarity and widens perspective.
The same is true within our own ranks. When we fail to value the seasoned advisers who helped build this profession, we don’t just waste their intelligence. We inadvertently create the very deprivation of relevance that drives the behaviour we laugh at but do not yet fully understand.
The danger of reducing people to labels
In discussions about modernising the profession, it has become common to hear older advisers referred to with dismissive labels like “pale, male and stale.” While the intention may be to highlight the importance of diversity, the unintended effect is disrespect and a subtle erosion of the very wisdom we claim to value.
These labels flatten a lifetime of contribution into a demographic stereotype.
They trivialise decades of service, mentorship and ethical leadership.
They send a message that relevance has an expiry date.
The irony is striking. As a profession that helps clients navigate identity shifts in retirement – including the fear of no longer being useful – we should be the last to treat experience as obsolete.
Just as we ask earlier generations to embrace change and new ways of delivering advice, we must be open-minded enough to recognise that the past holds enormous value too.
Wisdom is not the enemy of progress; it is the foundation of it.
When we reduce any group to caricature, we weaken the profession by marginalising its memory, its history, and its human capital.
The voice I wish I could still hear
If my father were still alive, he would be 76 today.
He passed away at 59 in 2008, right in the prime of his influence as a financial planning educator. He pioneered financial planning education in Australia and shaped many advisers who practise today.
I often think about how he would fit into today’s profession. With all this change, would he feel that same quiet narrowing of a platform to contribute? I suspect he might.
And there’s nothing I would value more right now than hearing him ask the questions I wrestle with daily:
- How do we communicate the value of advice more effectively?
- How do we keep ethics at the centre of everything?
- How do we build a profession that truly protects Australians?
These are timeless questions, and often the clearest answers come from those who have lived long professional lives.
Carrying wisdom forward
I drafted this article on my reMarkable 2 – a digital notebook designed to feel like pen on paper. It symbolises the very idea I’m trying to express: honouring the practices of the past while embracing the tools of the future.
Progress doesn’t mean discarding what came before.
It means carrying it forward in a new form.
And that is exactly what our profession must do with its elders: respect the wisdom, absorb the insight, and adapt it for a modern context.
Listening is how we last
If we want a strong, ethical, human-centred profession, we must intentionally:
- Invite experienced advisers into conversations
- Create intergenerational mentorship opportunities
- Value wisdom alongside innovation
- Blend fluid intelligence with crystallised intelligence
The future of financial advice does not rest only on recruiting new advisers. It rests on preserving and harnessing the wisdom of the advisers we already have.
A profession that neglects its elders is a profession that repeats old mistakes.
A profession that listens to them is one that endures.
