Joshua St. Laurent
MS · CFP® · CFT™ · APFC® · ACC · Founder
Your money should buy you time.
I design the life first, then build the money to serve it.
Where this started.
Growing up, I had this nagging belief that money was scarce. So I did what I thought you were supposed to do. I worked multiple jobs, 65-hour weeks, some nights sleeping in my car. Then I got hired at a large financial firm, the only one there without a college degree, and stayed up after long days finishing community college.
By 28 I'd hit a net worth of $1 million. The goal that once seemed impossible was finally done, and I felt more trapped than ever. I was working 50-plus hours a week doing something I didn't believe in, just to make that number on the statement grow. Around then I started driving Uber, and I was told that wasn't what an advisor should be doing.
I wasn't proud of the work I was doing. It wasn't the work I wanted to do for people. Then I found financial life planning in grad school, and it opened my eyes to a different kind of finance, one that starts with the life and builds the money around it.
Today I don't work 60-hour weeks. I don't even work 40. My kids get the version of me I never had time to be. That's not a brag. It's the whole point.
Your money should buy you time.
Where planning became personal.
I pursued a Master's in Advanced Financial Planning, concentration in Financial Life Planning, at Golden Gate University. Not an MBA. A program built around a radical idea: planning starts with your life, not your money.
That's where I discovered financial therapy, the practice of understanding why you make the decisions you make about money before trying to optimize them. It rewired how I think about this work entirely.
“I watched a financial coach ask someone one question and completely change how they saw their relationship with money.”
Spreadsheets don't change behavior. Understanding does. The numbers matter, but they come after you know what you're building toward.
What I believe.
- 1Start with the why.
- 2Time is the ultimate resource because we can't get it back.
- 3An advisor should be aligned with what's best for you.
- 4Simpler is usually better.
- 5It's not just about the dollars.
- 6Increasing income is virtually uncapped.
- 7Anyone can access information. The job is the path forward.
I teach the program I graduated from.
I'm an Adjunct Professor at Golden Gate University, teaching in the same Financial Planning program I came through as a student. It keeps me sharp. It also keeps me honest. The students ask the questions my clients don't know to ask, and the answer has to hold up either way.
Teaching is a tax on certainty. You can't coast on jargon when a student wants to know why. If I can't defend a financial planning position to someone studying for the CFP exam, it probably doesn't belong in a client recommendation.
FIAT: Fiduciary In All Things
Not just a legal obligation. A standard we apply to every relationship, every recommendation, and every decision. Your interests come first. Not sometimes, not when it's convenient, but always.
Read our full fiduciary commitment →What we stand for.
No commissions. No proprietary products. A fee set once a year from your net worth (not counting your primary residence).
Fee-only
No commissions. We get paid by you and only you.
Independent
No parent company. No proprietary products. No one telling us what to sell.
Always a fiduciary
Not sometimes. Not when it's convenient. Every recommendation, every time.
Transparent
A fee you can see, set once a year from your net worth (not counting your primary residence).
The receipts.
MS
Advanced Financial Planning, concentration in Financial Life Planning, Golden Gate University
CFP®
Certified Financial Planner
CFT™
Certified Financial Therapist
APFC®
Accredited Personal Financial Coach
ACC
Associate Certified Coach
EA
Enrolled Agent (in progress)
Financial planning done right is a public good.
I've donated time to 3rd Decade, a nonprofit providing financial planning and mentorship to young adults who wouldn't otherwise have access to it. Most financial advice is delivered to the people who need it least. That's backward.
I've served as a Guardian ad Litem, representing youth in the court system who would otherwise have no voice in decisions being made about their lives. It's the kind of work that doesn't pay, doesn't scale, and doesn't look like advisory practice at all. It's also the kind of work that keeps the rest of it honest.
I've supported Junior Achievement's financial literacy programs in schools. Few things matter more than teaching people young what compound interest and fees actually look like.
The person behind the planner.
Wealth In Yourself is where I spend most of my time, serving entrepreneurs and real estate investors who want planning built around their lives. I also run a separate practice, Top Shelf Private Wealth, for professional hockey players. I'm a lifelong hockey player myself, and it turns out compressed earning windows, jock tax, and cross-border planning demand the same rigor I bring to WIY clients in different contexts. The work informs the work.
I live near Lake Tahoe, Nevada with my wife Amanda and our son Cole. Our daughter arrived in the fall of 2026.
I hosted a 35-episode podcast about what real financial planning actually looks like. The catalog is preserved at /podcast.
I also own Lake Tahoe Motorcycle Rentals and CA Homes In The Pines, a short-term rental business in the Sierra Nevada. Advisors who help clients build wealth should be building it themselves. I'm not just managing your money. I'm doing the same work you are. I'm also working toward my private pilot's license, slower than I'd like, but the hours add up.
Looking for an advisor who lives the work, not just sells it?
Book a 15-minute intro call. By the end, you'll know whether it makes sense to keep talking.
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