Money should fund
your life.
Not replace it.
For the unconventional few who built something real — and refuse to let it own them. We measure the whole person before we touch the portfolio.
I've spent 20 years watching this industry fail people. I built something that doesn't.
I've been on the independent advisory side for most of my career — close enough to see how Wall Street operates, far enough to know I wanted no part of it. But after two decades, I realized even most independent firms weren't going far enough. They'd drop the conflicts but keep the same playbook: generic plans, one-size portfolios, conversations that never got past the numbers.
You built something. You took risks others wouldn't. You measure your life in experiences, not account balances. You just need someone to make sure the financial side of your life is working as hard as you are — so you can stop thinking about it.
That's what we do. Nothing else.
You Might Be
Our Kind of Person
In 2017 I sold most of what I owned, bought an RV, and spent two years driving across 48 states meeting entrepreneurs, retirees, artists, and ranchers. The same question kept coming up in every state:
That trip became this firm. Nobody else is doing financial planning this way. That's intentional.
The Da Vinci Index™
Da Vinci didn't separate thinking from feeling from purpose. He ran all three at once — engineer, artist, and philosopher in the same mind. That integration is what made him dangerous. It's also what most assessments completely fail to measure.
IQ — how you process complexity. EQ — how you handle pressure. Purpose — whether you actually know what the money is for. Three dimensions. The distance between them tells us more about how you'll behave with money than any risk tolerance questionnaire ever could.
Most people are strong in one, maybe two. The rare ones have all three working together. And every financial plan eventually meets a moment that tests whichever one is weakest. This finds that gap before we build anything together.
This isn't a personality quiz. It's a map of the whole person — and it's how we learn to work with you, not just for you.
How We Work
Most financial planning skips this and goes straight to spreadsheets. We don't. First conversation is just about your life — what matters, what doesn't, and where you want to end up.
We map your full picture — taxes, investments, estate, risk — and find the gaps between where you are and where you said you wanted to be. Then we go deeper with the Da Vinci Index — a behavioral assessment that maps how you think, how you handle pressure, and whether your money is pointed at something that actually matters to you. The financial gaps are only half the picture. The behavioral ones are where most plans actually break.
We put a system in place that runs without you having to think about it — but we don't disappear. We stay engaged, helping you navigate decisions, adjust as life changes, and make sure the plan keeps earning its place in your life.
Done right. Nothing extra.
Taxes, estate, insurance, retirement, cash flow — the full picture, not just the portfolio. Built around your life, reviewed as it changes.
Low-cost, evidence-based portfolios with active behavioral coaching. We manage the money so you don't have to think about it.
A rules-based options overlay engineered for capital efficiency and uncorrelated alpha. Designed for HNW individuals, family offices, and institutions. Details shared under NDA.
Inquire →Seven Tools. No Email Required.
The same tools I use with clients — free, no sign-up, no email gate. Start with the one below, then open the full set.
That’s one of seven.
The calculator above is the friendliest of the set. The other six get more honest — including the ones built to talk you out of something.
Your real monthly cost, your payoff date, and what an extra payment actually saves you.
The only retirement question that matters: does the money outlast you, or the other way around?
What a trust really changes — and what doing nothing quietly costs the people you leave it to.
An honest gut-check, not a pitch. Some people genuinely don’t need one — this tool says so.
What moving somewhere cheaper is actually worth, with the tradeoffs no spreadsheet can price.
The honest version — with the costs the “just buy” pitch always leaves out put back in.
The Purpose Pit Stop
Once or twice a year, I take the RV back on the road and hold in-person financial strategy sessions — face to face, no agenda except figuring out what you actually want and whether your money is helping you get there. Can't meet in person? We do these virtually too — same depth, same format, just over video.
I'm Genti Cici — and I built this firm to say what the industry won't.
CFP®, CAIA charterholder, and founder of StandUP Advisors. 20+ years managing money for people who had better things to do than think about money.
I split my time between Maryland and Playa del Carmen, Mexico — because I designed my life the same way I design financial plans: around what actually matters, not what looks impressive. I've taught financial literacy at Goodwill and universities across the country, written a book, built a proprietary options strategy from scratch, and once sold everything I owned to drive an RV across 48 states just to find out what people really needed.
The firm exists because I saw what the industry was doing to people and decided to build the opposite. Fiduciary duty shouldn't be a differentiator — it should be the floor. At StandUP, it's the only standard we know.
STANDUP
The book that came out of the RV trip — two years, 48 states, thousands of miles, and one recurring question from every person I met: I have the money. Now what?
It's not a personal finance book. It's a book about what money is actually for — and why getting that answer right changes everything else.
Part road trip, part financial philosophy, part honest account of what it looks like to walk away from a career, a lifestyle, and a set of assumptions about what success means.
Straight talk about money,
behavior, and life.
One email a month. No fluff.
The same essays I'd write to a client if I had time — about money, behavior, and what the spreadsheet keeps getting wrong. Free. Unsubscribe whenever. No upsells in the inbox.
One per month. Read once — see what you think.
Book a 30-minute call.
No pitch. No pressure.
Just a real conversation about whether your wealth is serving the life you actually want.
Schedule a Call →StandUP Advisors exists for people who've already figured out that money isn't the point.
Purpose is.