Stevyn Guinnip’s father became a financial advisor when she was 11, and she recalls visiting his office and seeing the effort he poured into it, specifically in his first 10 years.
She also met other advisors and grasped the toll their work can take on their health and relationships.
Guinnip recalls that her father was offered several promotions, but he always declined.
“I was struck by that; who wouldn’t want to be promoted? But when I asked my father, he said, ‘Yes, but I know what I have to give up. I know what the cost is to me.’”
This realization led Guinnip into the health and wellness field. She spent two decades trying to help people prepare for a healthy retirement. But while living in Australia, she experienced a life-threatening health crisis that led her to understand the interconnectedness between managing one’s health and wealth.
Soon after, Guinnip founded Grow Wellthy, working with financial advisors and their clients to encourage healthy practices to better their retirement. It was simultaneously a new path and one she’d prepared for her entire life.
“Once I started speaking that language, that health is an asset, it’s a really easy skill transfer for people who understand financial concepts,” she said. “To realize they can treat their health like one of their asset buckets, track trends and protect it for the future, and grow it in different ways.”
To Guinnip, the innate stress of handling money (whether an advisor’s own or their clients’) can create a “toxic cocktail,” combining the sedentariness of an advisor’s typical workday with the stress of market volatility.
Grow Wellthy has several facets, and participants begin with a six-week strategy session (costing $3,000), creating a plan with Guinnip to get their health on track (there are group sessions, as well as individual conversations). Most participants graduate into a membership with rates starting at $512/month.
The solutions vary, depending on the problem; one advisor simply needed a footwear change to make exercise easier, while another reconfigured his meal plan to lose weight while keeping weekend cookouts. Advisors’ ages range from those in their 30s to their 70s, and include several second-generation planners who want to live different, healthier lives from their parents.
In 2023, Grow Wellthy will offer quarterly wealth webinars to connect directly with advisors’ clients.
Guinnip said the webinars (with registration opening in November) will allow advisors to start difficult conversations about a client’s health without inadvertently coming across as judgmental.
“The bottom line is stopping to assess why you’re doing what you’re doing,” Guinnip said. “Is it worth what you’re doing? And what is that cost?”
