Episode summary
The Healthy Advisor: What’s Driving Advisor Wellbeing with Michael Kitces
Summary
Michael Kitces’s 2025 Advisor Well-Being Study found that advisor wellbeing improved to 7.3, rising from 2023 and now sitting above the broader U.S. population. He argued that the rebound was driven mainly by two stabilizers: work environments have largely settled after the disruptions of COVID, and market conditions have been stronger than they were in 2022 and early 2023.
The biggest warning sign was among younger advisors. Kitces said advisors ages 18 to 34 showed little rebound in wellbeing, with lower scores on purpose and optimism, especially in firms that have taken on private equity, family office, or other outside capital. He said outside ownership does not appear to reduce wellbeing across firms overall, but it creates uncertainty for younger advisors about where the firm is headed and what their careers will look like over time.
He also identified the main drivers of happiness as experience, autonomy, workplace quality, and compensation per hour rather than total income. Firms can improve retention by reducing admin burden, supporting flexible work, and building better team infrastructure. Kitces said technology helps advisors feel better about work, but staff support is what most improves productivity.
Key takeaways
- Kitces said advisor wellbeing rose to 7.3 in 2025, up from 2023 and above the broader population.
- He found the happiest advisors were the oldest, while advisors 18 to 34 had the weakest rebound in wellbeing.
- Younger advisors at firms with outside ownership reported lower purpose and optimism about their future.
- Kitces argued that autonomy, experience, and a good workplace matter more than raw income for long-term happiness.
- He said firms reduce burnout most by offloading admin work, improving flexibility, and investing in staff support rather than tech alone.
Notable quotes
“the well-being rating was 7.3 up from up about 7% from 2023”
“a lot of our workplace disruptions have have kind of sorted themselves out”
“the happiest advisors were the oldest advisors and the unhappiest advisors were the youngest advisors”
“there does seem to be some we kind of call like storm clouds on the horizon”
“the more autonomy advisors have, the more control they have over their own situations, the happier they tend to be as well”
How the episode opens
Welcome to The Healthy Advisor, a podcast from wealthmanagement.com focused on advisors personal well-being and healing. I'm Diana Britton, managing editor of wealthmanagement.com. And in this podcast, we explore some of the struggles and personal development issues facing advisors and financial services professionals and how to get to a place of healing for mind, body, and spirit.
Hello and welcome to the latest episode of The Healthy Advisor podcast and thanks for joining us. As you may know, this is the podcast focused on financial health and well-being and today's guest has been studying this very topic for the last several years. His name is Michael Kitces, blogger, chief financial planning nerd at kitces.com, head of planning strategy at Focus Partners Wealth.
He's also the co-founder of the XY Planning Network, AdvicePay, New Planner Recruiting, FP Pathfinder, and FA Bean Counters. He also hosts the Financial Advisor Success podcast, a great, wonderful podcast for the advisor population in general. Please go and listen to it.
Michael, thank you so much for being on the podcast for the second time.
My pleasure, Diana. I appreciate the opportunity to come in and get to talk more about all things advisor well-being.
Yeah, um so that's exactly what we're going to dive in to today is um the results of Kitces Research's 2025 Advisor Well-Being Study. You know, this is a little bit different from other podcasts I do where guests come on and talk about very serious, deep, personal issues that they're going through and we're going to just dig into some numbers and facts and figures about um advisor happiness. I mean, you know, the industry has all these practice management benchmark studies for the financial health of an advisory firm, but you know, Michael and his team, you know, really inspired to look at the health, the well-being of advisors themselves.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- advisor wellbeing
- advisor optimism and purpose
- advisor autonomy and experience
- compensation per hour
- staff support and delegation
Companies and tickers mentioned
- Kitces.com
- Focus Partners Wealth
- XY Planning Network
- AdvicePay
- fpPathfinder
- New Planner Recruiting
- The Kitces Report
- Nerd’s Eye View
Watch the episode
Watch “The Healthy Advisor: What’s Driving Advisor Wellbeing with Michael Kitces” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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