A framework for how you engage with your financial life, and where that engagement is pointed.
Eighteen questions across three dimensions. Each question presents five behavioural descriptions — choose the one that fits how you actually operate. About five minutes. Answer as you actually are, not as you think you should be. The result is a description of where you are right now — not a score, not a judgement.
You are
The map is more useful once you know where you stand on it.
The map is more useful once you know where you stand on it.
Most people try to solve financial problems with better products. FLOAT starts from a different place.
FLOAT is not a risk tolerance test. It is not a personality type. It is a snapshot of how you are currently relating to your financial life.
The assessment measures three things. How you engage with financial decisions. What you want money to ultimately do. Where you are mentally operating in time. Together they produce an archetype — a description of where you are right now.
Where you are is not who you are. The archetype can change. That is the point.
There are three Established archetypes in this framework. Each is a fully engaged financial life, planning toward specific milestones, with a clear sense of what money is for.
The Steward weighs protection and growth evenly. The Guardian leans protective — safeguarding what matters. The Trailblazer leans expansive — building toward something specific. All three are equally valid. The Established form you reach depends on what actually drives you, not what you think should drive you.
The twenty-one archetypes are not a ranking. They describe different places people can be in relation to their financial life. Most people are Developing — on the way to an Established form, not at one yet.
Movement between archetypes is not linear. Two people starting in the same place can arrive at the same Established form by different routes. FLOAT does not prescribe a path. It identifies distance.
The tool uses language like "starting point" and "nearly there" to describe that distance. Starting point means the Established form is far. Nearly there means it is close. Neither is good or bad — they are simply where you are.
Three of the archetypes sit past the Established tier. The Architect. The Founder. The Keeper. These are long-horizon extensions of the three Established forms — people who have operated in full engagement long enough that their thinking has stretched into decades and generations.
These are not targets. They are outcomes of long, well-built relationships with money. You do not arrive as an Architect. You become one.
Most financial conversations start with products. What should I invest in. What insurance do I need. When should I retire. These are execution questions. They matter — but not first.
Before you can execute, you need to understand how you relate to money. Before you can plan, you need to know what you actually want money to do. Before strategy, clarity.
FLOAT is the clarity step.