The Wealth Coach - Nic Round

23/10/2026

When did you last question your wealth manager?

Not because you're unhappy.

Not because your investments have performed badly.

Not because you're thinking of leaving.

Simply because you want to understand whether you're getting value for the money you pay.

If you have £1 million invested and your total costs are 1.5% a year, that's £15,000.

Every year.

That might be excellent value.

But what would you need to know to decide?

What are you actually paying for? What difference is your wealth manager making? And could you achieve what matters to you in another way?

These aren't unreasonable questions.

And you don't necessarily need to ask your wealth manager first.

You can now explore them privately with AI, without an appointment, an awkward conversation or someone trying to sell you something.

We've created a free place to do exactly that.

https://thewealth.coach/fees

The question isn't whether your wealth manager is expensive.

It's whether they're worth it.

A private place to think through a financial decision before you act. Free. No appointment.

16/10/2026

A very wealthy man recently made a case that the richest people should give most of it away.

His example: if Elon Musk became a trillionaire, he could give away £999 billion and still have a billion left. Think of the good that would do.

It’s a generous thought. It also rests on an assumption worth looking at.

Almost none of that trillion would be money. It would be ownership: shares in companies, some publicly traded, some not. The headline figure is a share price multiplied by a number of shares. It describes what the stake would be worth if someone bought it at today’s price, all at once, which nobody could.

Sell £999 billion of shares and the price falls with every sale. The number you started with no longer exists by the time you finish. Give the shares away instead, and the recipients receive part ownership of a company, not the means to build hospitals.

And if it could be converted, the money would come from somewhere: from capital currently paying salaries, funding research, building things. Moving it might be the right choice. But it is a choice between two uses of the same capital, not a windfall.

None of this is an argument for or against giving. It’s an argument for being clear about what is being given.

I see the same gap most weeks, at a very different scale.

A farm valued at several million.
A family business.
A property portfolio.

On paper, a wealthy family. In practice, wealth that can’t be passed on, spent or shared without dismantling what produces it.

The value is real. Whether it’s available is a different question.

So when someone tells you what you’re worth, it’s worth asking: worth what, to whom, and on what day?

13/10/2026

Liking your wealth manager matters.

Trust matters too.

If somebody has looked after your finances for years, knows your family and is there when you need them, that relationship can be enormously valuable.

But there's another question worth asking:
What am I actually paying for, and what difference does it make to my life?

Asking that doesn't mean you're unhappy.

It doesn't mean you should move your investments.

And it certainly doesn't mean your wealth manager isn't doing a good job.

It simply means that if you're paying thousands of pounds every year, it's reasonable to understand the value you're receiving.

That's something Evoa can help you think through.

If the answer is “I'm getting excellent value”, that's a very good thing to discover.
https://thewealth.coach/value

12/10/2026

How can I save inheritance tax?

It's a question many people ask.

But perhaps there's another question worth asking.

Should I?

Giving money away might reduce inheritance tax. But what if you need that money later? What if your circumstances change? What if you'd rather keep control? Or a future government changes the rules?

Saving tax is one thing. Making the right decision for you and your family is another.

Before making a decision, why not talk it through?

You can use ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or Evoa.

Here's a question you can copy and paste into whichever AI you prefer:

"I've been told that giving money away could reduce inheritance tax. But I'm not sure whether I should. Can you help me think through the advantages, disadvantages and possible consequences, rather than simply telling me how to save tax?"

Or start directly with Evoa, where the conversation is already waiting:

https://thewealth.coach/give

Free. Private. No appointment.

AI can help you explore the questions, but important tax and legal decisions should be checked with an appropriately qualified professional.

12/10/2026

Would you choose your ship's captain by popular vote?

Over 2,400 years ago, Socrates raised a question about democracy that I find fascinating.

Imagine you're about to set sail.

Would you choose the captain because he was popular? Because he spoke confidently? Because everyone else thought he was the right person?

Or would you want to know whether he actually understood navigation?

The ship analogy appears in Plato's Republic, and it raises a question that seems just as relevant today.

How often do we confuse confidence with knowledge?

We listen to politicians, financial advisers, lawyers, commentators and increasingly, artificial intelligence.

They explain things. They make recommendations. They tell us what we should do.

And often they're right.

But how do we know?

How much of what we believe have we actually thought through for ourselves?

I've spent much of my working life in financial services, and one thing I've come to appreciate is that people don't always need another answer.

Sometimes they need an opportunity to question the answers they've already been given.

To explore what they believe, why they believe it, and whether something they've always taken for granted might deserve another look.

That's part of the thinking behind Evoa, which we've been developing at The Wealth Coach.

Not an AI designed simply to tell people what to do.

A place to have a conversation, explore an idea and perhaps discover a question you hadn't thought to ask.

Because in a world where answers are becoming easier and easier to obtain, perhaps the really valuable skill is learning to question them.

How much of what you believe have you actually worked out for yourself?

If that question interests you, you can talk it through with Evoa.

https://thewealth.coach

12/10/2026

Imagine you could ask 100 experienced wealth managers:
“I have £1.5m invested and I'm paying about £15,000 a year. Am I getting value?”

You'd probably learn an enormous amount.

You'd hear different views. Discover questions you hadn't thought of. Understand what other firms do. And perhaps see your existing relationship rather differently.
But nobody is going to ask 100 wealth managers.

And there's another difficulty.

Another wealth manager has an understandable interest in the outcome. They'd quite like to manage the £1.5m themselves.

That's what makes an independent second opinion difficult.

Evoa doesn't need your investments.

She doesn't need you to leave your existing wealth manager.

She doesn't need to decide they're doing a bad job.

She can simply help you work out what you're paying for, what you're getting and what questions might be worth asking.

You may end up appreciating your wealth manager more.

You may not.

But you'll understand the relationship better.
https://thewealth.coach/value

09/10/2026

£15,000 a year may be expensive.

Or it may be excellent value.

How would you know?

It's surprisingly difficult to judge, particularly when you've been with the same wealth manager for years.

And asking another wealth manager isn't necessarily the answer. They may quite reasonably like the opportunity to manage your money themselves.

Evoa doesn't.

She doesn't need you to leave your wealth manager. She doesn't need to prove they're doing a bad job.

She can simply help you understand what you're paying for, what you're getting and what matters to you.

If you're getting good value, wouldn't it be nice to know?

And if you're not, wouldn't it be better to know?

https://thewealth.coach/value

08/10/2026

You might have pensions, savings, investments and perhaps a house that's worth quite a lot.

But none of that necessarily answers:

“Can I actually afford to retire?”

Because retirement isn't just a calculation.

It's a decision about the life you want, what you might spend, what could go wrong and how much certainty you need before you're comfortable stopping work.

If that's a question that's been bothering you, talk it through with Evoa.
Free. Private. No appointment.

A private place to think through a financial decision before you act. Free. No appointment.

08/10/2026

If you had a magic wand, what would you want from your wealth manager?
Perhaps the more interesting question is whether you're actually getting it.
If you're paying thousands of pounds a year for wealth management, it's perfectly reasonable to ask:

What am I paying for, and am I getting value?

You don't necessarily need to change anything.

But it might be worth understanding what you're getting before deciding that.

Talk it through with Evoa.
Free. Private. No appointment.
https://thewealth.coach/value

07/10/2026

Here's a question I've started asking about businesses:
If this became easy, why would I still need you?
If investment research became easy, why would I need the investment researcher?
If comparing insurance became easy, why would I need the intermediary?
If drafting documents became easy, why would I need the person who mainly drafts documents?
If writing software became easy, where does the value of the software company move?
It doesn't mean these businesses disappear.
It means they have to answer a much more uncomfortable question:
What do we provide that remains valuable when the difficult bit becomes easy?
And perhaps that's a useful question for investors too.
Talk it through with Evoa.
thewealth.coach

A private place to think through a financial decision before you act. Free. No appointment.