I sat across from a client, answering his endless array of “what if” questions. His incessant inquiries about the timing of his withdrawals, the pros and cons of taking Social Security at various ages, the impact health-care costs could have and a debate about the prospects of another great depression made the conversation feel burdensome, and downright scary. Furthermore, his self-doubts and straying thoughts led to worries about the upcoming election, the potential consequences of a fractured relationship with a troubled adult child and how he would rather die than spend 7-10 years in a nursing home due to Alzheimer’s. 

I’m a big fan of planning and understanding all of what retirement can mean, however, in cases like this, it’s essential for advisors to help clients find ways to overcome these dark corners of retirement. That means advisors need to know when to stop negative thought patterns and shine a bright light on the possibilities that can take place with the right frame of mind and approach. Just as risk cannot be completely removed from a portfolio, worry cannot be removed from a transition plan. There are simply too many factors to consider and anticipate. 

Therefore, advisors need to develop strategies to help clients reframe their situation and see it from a fresh perspective. One that hits home and provides the stimulus to make changes to what they are both thinking and doing.  

One of the most powerful ways to manage retirement fear is through the use of stories that offer a happy ending for moving beyond them. Advisors don’t need to take a class on storytelling or become actors, many times they can reflect on their own personal life and experience to help clients see things through a new lens.    

It reminds me of a situation I faced growing up. My grandparents had a really cool basement. It had an out-of-tune piano we could pound on, a long closet full of old coats and clothes we could play hide-and-go-seek in, and my grandfather was an electrician who loved to tinker so he had a small workshop filed with wires, switches and all sorts of gadgets.

I loved everything about it… except one area. Buried deep in one corner was the furnace room. A dark and ominous spot that was simply terrifying. A spot that made me shiver and internally panic to look at or think about walking near.

It was in the furthest corner of the basement, had no windows, and despite the lights over the laundry area, it only glowed by the flames within the belly of the furnace. 

My grandparents also had a small fridge near the furnace room and would occasionally store food and drinks in it before a family get-together. I can remember being asked to go down and grab a few things and how the fear gripped me. No matter what grade I was in, any time I ventured near it, I felt something dark and daunting hanging over me… anxiously waiting for something to grab me. Of course, growing up, I’d never admit that I was petrified of the area, but neither did my siblings or older cousins.

Then one hot summer day, I ventured down to the basement to cool off and felt compelled to venture into the furnace room. I’m not sure why, but I didn’t fight the urge. I grabbed a big yellow flashlight from my grandfather’s workshop, took a deep breath to build up some courage, and walked-in.

With my heart racing and images of finding the skeleton of a homeless person or tunnel to some dark underworld swirling in my mind, I was pleasantly relieved to find there wasn’t either. Instead it was a small storage area where my uncle had left his old sports equipment, trophies and baseball cards.

For a fifth-grade, sports-loving kid, this was equivalent to finding gold. I was fanatical about baseball cards at the time and loved the idea of trying on his old hockey gloves and playing catch with his well-worn baseball mitt.

In an instant the furnace room was transformed from a dark, scary cavern to a gold mine. The basement I thought was great before became even better as a whole new area was opened up and able to be experienced.

The same holds true for both advisors and clients. Not only do we have to recognize that there are dark shadowy areas that a client may not be ready to explore, but we also have to be that shiny flashlight that shows them what’s behind the furnace.

Reality is, fear is human nature, so we all experience it. As we get older, we may not verbalize these feelings as being scared or afraid because we have learned to replace them with words like stress or worry but it doesn’t matter. They can all grip us and stop us from living an abundant life, filled with new adventures and knowledge.

This is important because the desire for clients to have every question answered and to have it all figured out can be one of the many furnace rooms we see in clients. Other furnace rooms can include the fear of being alone, getting ripped off, feeling irrelevant and losing a major sense like vision or hearing. It’s a never-ending list that can take center stage in their life if the fear of the unknown is not addressed. Furthermore, the longer we let them avoid waiting to open up that furnace room door, the harder it’s going to be.

In addition to using stories with positive outcomes, advisors can use a philosophical approach with clients to help them see beyond their worries and concerns. That can be something as simple as adding a tag line or phrase to your regular email and communications such as “A successful retirement isn’t one without problems but rather it’s one in which you learn to overcome them.” 

Taking it a step further, clients often need to be reminded that we live in a world full of contrast. In other words, you can’t enjoy a vacation without work, love without a disagreement, or a fit body and mind without some discipline and hard work.

Ironically, we are trained to fight this contrast and seek ways to escape it rather than face it. As a result, clients struggle to experience retirement in a full and balanced way. In the land of the free, many people are trapped by their thoughts and feelings…overwhelmed by their options and choices…and more importantly, looking for someone or some way to help them create a genuine retirement plan that helps them resolve their deepest fears and concerns. 

One of the biggest barriers clients face in dealing with their fears in retirement and being the best person they can be is because they are afraid to use their resources. They have been brainwashed for so long to save and not spend, to sacrifice and monitor, that they don’t have a frame of mind for making changes.

Cracking that nest egg scares the hell out of many people. Blinded by the fear of running out of money and living like a homeless person behind someone’s furnace, clients slow down their potential for growth simply because they’re afraid of the future instead of making the most of right now. I’ve found the best way to address this situation is to remind people that the only guarantee that comes with retirement is that at some point they will die. It could be the first day, or come 20-30 years into it.

It sounds like the perfect conversation to avoid, which is why we need to start having it. One of traditional retirement’s biggest fallacies is that clients have 20-30 years to do whenever they want, when they want. But nothing could be further from the truth because retirement can change so quickly. By helping clients work through the realities of retirement, they can refocus their time and energy to the here and now…they can stop and smell the roses and release all those fears and worries.  

In the end, thinking and planning won’t overcome retirement fears, but action will. For advisors, that may mean wading through an endless array of “What-if” questions and then handing them a big yellow flashlight and pushing open that furnace room door!

Robert Laura is the president of SYNERGOS Financial Group, the founder of RetirementProject.org and the creator of the Retirement Wellness Marketing Program for Advisors. He can be reached at [email protected].