Financial Planning Works Best When Advisors Stop Talking and Start Listening, LFG Daily - December 17, 2025

Dream Bigger, Sleep Better

At Lloyd Financial Group, we’re constantly striving to give you more insight, more clarity, and more confidence when it comes to your money. Our Chief Investment Officer, Colin Symons, now delivers his own daily newsletter, offering deep analysis and a detailed outlook on the ever-changing investment world called Symons Says. Check it out and subscribe if you want a very detailed, daily analysis of the investment world. Colin has amazing content.

Meanwhile, the LFG Daily will continue to bring you quick, actionable summaries — blending market updates with financial planning and tax strategies to help you make smarter decisions every day. Together, they’re the perfect one-two punch: Colin brings the deep dive into Investments, we bring the daily edge.

Luke Lloyd, CEO Lloyd Financial Group

Why Most Financial Advisors Get Financial Planning Wrong

The majority of financial advisors don’t actually do financial planning — at least not the way clients experience it.

Instead, they sit across the table from an ivory tower, armed with charts, assumptions, and a pre-built playbook, and tell clients what they should do.More saving here. Less spending there. Retire at this age. Invest this way.

That approach may look polished. It may even sound intelligent.But it misses the point entirely.

Because a financial plan isn’t something you hand to someone.It’s something you build with them.

Advice Isn’t the Same as Partnership

Yes, recommendations matter. Experience matters. Strategy matters.That’s part of our value as advisors.

But recommendations alone don’t create confidence.They don’t create buy-in.And they certainly don’t create a plan that someone actually sticks with for 20 or 30 years.

Real financial planning happens when the advisor stops talking at the client and starts building alongside them.

Your financial life isn’t a spreadsheet. It’s not a Monte Carlo simulation.It’s your income, your family, your fears, your priorities, your trade-offs, and ultimately your dream for retirement.

And no advisor — no matter how smart — can dictate that from behind a desk.

What Financial Planning Should Actually Look Like

Financial planning should feel more like collaboration than instruction.

It’s asking better questions before giving answers.It’s understanding what matters most, not just what’s mathematically optimal.

It’s recognizing that two people with the same balance sheet can need completely different plans.

Sometimes the “best” financial move on paper isn’t the right move emotionally, psychologically, or practically. And if a plan doesn’t align with how someone actually lives and thinks, it will eventually break.

That’s why the advisor-client relationship has to be a team.

The client brings their goals, values, and vision.The advisor brings structure, strategy, and experience.Together, you build something real.

A Real Conversation From Yesterday

Yesterday, I spent two hours in a financial planning meeting with a client.

Two hours. No rushing. No pre-canned pitch. No telling them what they “need” to do.

We walked through their life, their concerns, their timeline, and what retirement actually looks like to them. Not some generic version of retirement — their version.

At the end of the meeting, they said something that stuck with me:

“This feels completely different than anything we’ve done before. No one has ever taken this approach with us.”

That’s not because we had better charts or fancier projections.It’s because they weren’t being talked down to — they were being brought into the process.

They weren’t being handed a plan.They were helping build it.

The Real Goal of Financial Planning

The goal of financial planning isn’t to be right on paper.It’s to help someone confidently move toward the life they actually want.

When clients understand why decisions are being made — and feel ownership over them — everything changes. They’re more engaged. More confident. More likely to stay disciplined when markets get rough or life throws curveballs.

That’s how plans last.

Not by advisors dictating from an ivory tower.But by advisors and clients working together toward a shared vision.

Because at the end of the day, your financial plan shouldn’t reflect your advisor’s philosophy.

It should reflect your dreams for retirement — and a clear, intentional path to get there.

Don’t leave your financial future up to chance. Let’s build a plan that gives you confidence today and peace of mind for tomorrow. Click here to schedule a meeting — I’m here to help you take the next step toward financial freedom.

Colin Symons, CIO Lloyd Financial Group

Due to the government shutdown, payrolls data was likely to be noisy, and it was. Payrolls were 64K vs. est. 50K but the Unemployment Rate moved from 4.4% to 4.6%. Easy to imagine that gets revised.

Retail Sales were also messy, with the headline at 0% m/m vs. exp. 0.1%, with poor auto sales, but Core Sales were 0.4% vs. exp. 0.3% and the Control Group that goes into GDP was 0.8%.

Trump threatened retaliation against the EU for efforts to tax big tech.

Fed does another RMP operation of about $8B, today, along with three Fed speeches. We also have Micron (MU) reporting tonight, another big AI-oriented company.

What does it all mean? It’s a bit early for the official Santa rally, but markets are starting to look good and more Fed support should help.

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