I didn't plan to work with ultra-high-net-worth people. I planned to do careful, honest psychological work and help people face reality.
Identity and Stakes
For most of my career, my identity was clear: I was a clinical and forensic psychologist.
That meant high-stakes work where details mattered and where mistakes had real consequences. In those settings, you learn something fast: people don't usually fall apart because they are "not smart enough" or "don't have insight." They fall apart because the story they tell themselves stops working when pressure hits.
Over time, I realized the job was not only about symptoms and diagnoses. It was also about something bigger: how people govern themselves. By "govern," I mean the rules inside someone's head that shape how they make decisions when they are stressed, scared, angry, or tempted.
Wealth does something important here. It doesn't automatically change who you are. It amplifies who you already are.
If someone has good self-control and strong values, wealth can expand responsibility and good stewardship. If someone avoids hard truths, wealth can expand avoidance. If someone has ethical blind spots, wealth can make those blind spots bigger and harder to see.
That's how I became a wealth ethicist. Not overnight, but through a series of moments that made the pattern impossible to ignore.
Before I tell these stories, one thing matters: confidentiality.
I never share identifying details about UHNW clients. No names. No companies. No locations that narrow it down. No unique family facts. These stories are about patterns and lessons, not about exposing anyone.
The case that changed how I saw power
Years ago, I worked a forensic case where money was everywhere, but nobody wanted to talk about it directly. On paper, the case was about mental health and functioning. In reality, it was about incentives. People had roles, scripts, and agendas. Suffering got turned into an argument. Accountability got turned into a strategy.
One night I closed the file and sat there longer than I expected. I realized I felt something I didn't have a clean label for yet. It wasn't just frustration. It was the sense that the system made it easier for people to bend the truth and still call themselves "professional."
Power is not just money or authority. Power is the ability to shape the story around you and have everyone treat it like normal.
That was the first time it hit me: power is not just money or authority. Power is the ability to shape the story around you and have everyone treat it like normal.
I started writing a private question at the top of my notes:
What happens to a person's ethics when consequences stop touching them directly?
That question stayed with me.
The meeting where someone said, "Nobody tells me the truth"
Later, I was living and working overseas in a high-responsibility environment. I was used to pressure and real-world stakes. Around that time, I got a discreet introduction through a trusted professional channel. The request was careful: would I meet with someone who had serious privacy needs?
When I met the client, the first thing they did was turn off their phone and place it face down on the table. Then they said something like:
"I have plenty of advisors. I don't have anyone who can tell me the truth."
That sentence told me a lot. This person wasn't looking for therapy. They weren't looking for motivation. They were looking for clarity. They were dealing with money, family tension, reputation risk, and the strange loneliness that comes with knowing many conversations are not fully honest.
As we talked, I noticed something important: the problem was not mainly anxiety or depression.
The real issue was what I call decision contamination. This is when choices get distorted because the person is surrounded by pressure, flattery, fear, and incentives.
Strong in business
They could make strong business decisions
Inconsistent where it mattered most
- Family decisions
- Loyalty tests
- Philanthropy
- How they treated disagreement
- How they justified harm or unfairness
I walked out thinking: this is not a "mental disorder." This is a leadership and ethics problem. It's a gap between values and decisions.
That meeting was when I shifted from "psychologist who consults" to "advisor who uses psychology to build ethical clarity."
The heir who asked the one question nobody wanted to answer
The third moment happened within the last couple years, when my UHNW work started growing and I began turning my approach into a repeatable system instead of handling each case from scratch.
I was brought into a situation involving generational wealth and family tension. You see this pattern often: a powerful person at the center, a family under strain, and professionals around them who can handle paperwork but cannot touch the real problem.
At one point, an heir asked a question that froze the room:
"Are we good people… or are we just good at defending what we do?"
Nobody answered directly. Not because they were cruel, but because the question was dangerous. In many wealthy systems, ethics gets treated like branding, public relations, or "charity strategy." It does not get treated like an internal operating standard.
That question became a turning point for me.
I realized my job was not just to help principals perform better. It was to help them build ethical strength that can survive scale. Wealth multiplies influence. It also multiplies moral drift if no one builds guardrails.
That's when "wealth ethicist" stopped being a clever label and became the accurate name for what I was doing.
What changed over the last couple years
Earlier in my career, I introduced myself as a clinical and forensic psychologist first. That is still part of who I am and it is still part of my credibility.
But over the last couple years, for a specific group of clients, the mission changed. Not because I stopped using psychology, but because psychology became the tool inside a bigger role.
What UHNW clients need
UHNW clients don't just need insight. They need a private system that helps them make clean decisions under extreme pressure. They need a way to reduce self-deception, stabilize family governance, and prevent ethical drift from turning into reputational or relational disaster.
What I built
So I built a structured approach that fits their world:
- A discreet entry process that produces a confidential diagnostic picture, not a "therapy plan."
- A short, intense engagement focused on clarity, accountability, and decision rules.
- A longer-term option that treats ethics as an asset, not as a performance.
And I built it around strict confidentiality because privacy is not a preference at that level. It is part of security.
How I describe my work now
I still do clinical and forensic work. That foundation is part of why UHNW clients trust me.
But when I work with UHNW principals and complex families, my role is different.
The Mission
I help powerful people close the gap between what they say they value and what their decisions actually do.
The Method
I do it with psychological precision, forensic realism, and an ethics-and-governance lens built for scale.
The Standard
And I do it with extreme confidentiality, because for my clients, privacy is not a detail. It is the price of entry.
Ready to close the gap between your values and your decisions?
The Wealth Psychology Diagnostic is a discreet, structured process designed for UHNW principals and complex families who need clarity, not therapy.
In a confidential engagement, we'll map the decision patterns, ethical blind spots, and governance gaps that create risk—then build a system that protects what matters most.
All inquiries are handled with strict confidentiality.