I know something you don’t. I’ve seen this issue evolving over the last few years and want to not only expose the problem but also start talking about solutions.

The base case is that the average financial advisor is 51 or older and has been in the business for 20 plus years. This advisor holds at least two credentials and, on average, earns $134,000 or more. The industry is dominated primarily by males who make up 69% of the workforce and who stereotypically carry a “work hard, play hard” mentality. (This data comes from Cerulli Associates, U.S. News, Forbes and Data USA.)

Now take all of that information and throw it out the window. Too often, people make assumptions based on the numbers rather than what is actually going on. Statistics like this can paint an incomplete picture—one in which we have an aging workforce and can expect advisors to exit the doors in massive numbers over the next 10 to 15 years. It also suggests that a successful career in this field follows a certain pattern.

But it’s just one small perspective, and like we tell our clients, past performance is not indicative of future results.

The problem with aging advisors is not that their time is up or that their approach is outdated; it’s that they are turning into clients. It’s happening in a very unexpected way. You know how we all eventually turn into our parents? We start to do and say the things they told us to do for years but didn’t.

A similar type of phenomenon is taking place with advisors as they try to figure out what to do next. They’re struggling with the transition from being hard-charging, successful advisors with all the answers to being someone or something else. They are, in other words, just like their clients, who have plenty of money for retirement but don’t know what to do without their career or new goal to chase.

It’s an interesting situation for a number of reasons.

First, I would highlight how older advisors are turning into their clients by also struggling with their changing roles. Recently, I received an e-mail from a woman who had read a few of my books and articles. As you will see, her situation not only illustrates the complexity of getting older and making a retirement transition, but also mirrors what many older advisors are facing as well.

It seems that in my relationship I am no longer needed. I was an excellent corporate wife, an asset. I was a good stay-at-home mother raising two sons so my husband could focus on his career. Now that he’s retired, I am not needed as a corporate wife, and since the boys are adults, I am no longer needed to fulfill that function. My husband traveled a lot whether our kids were home still or not, up to the moment he retired. I was needed then as the person who “held down the fort” at home. Again, [I am] no longer needed, as he is here all the time now. My husband used to be proud of me, and happy about my performance, but no more. And of course, I’m not doing all those things he needed me for in our past. I have an active outside life, and healthy self-esteem there, but not as a wife. This can’t be so unusual, I guess.

Can you feel the heartache and pain in her words and see how a retirement can be an anchor around someone’s neck? Let me share another e-mail I received from an advisor:

I’ve been doing this for over 30 years and I built one of the biggest practices within our BD, mostly one client at a time. Right now, my wife wants me to retire, but I can’t. I’m making more money than I ever did before, but I’m working less. Our office is a well-oiled machine, and they don’t really need me for much. I’m actually going to the movies for the second time this week at 10 a.m. because I have nothing else to do and feel guilty sitting around there while everyone else works. I’m not really sure what to do, but I don’t want to retire and can’t keep hiding at the movies.

As you can see, both the corporate wife and advisor are struggling with their roles now that they aren’t needed in the same way. And what’s critically important is that they want to talk about it. They want to share what’s going on because they don’t know what to do about it, which makes it essential for our industry to hear these cries and find ways to remedy them. The situation also highlights something every advisor and client eventually figures out: A meaningful life isn’t just about money, nor is the planning.

Don’t get me wrong; the money has a role. But it’s secondary to the more personal aspects of planning. It’s something I was fortunate to learn early on in my career and has become a prophecy that continues to ring true with more converts figuring it out each day. In other words, the future of retirement planning needs to go beyond just the dollars and cents.

Which brings me to my most important point. Older advisors need to usher in a new era of retirement planning—one in which life’s financial aspects are integrated with its mental, social, physical and even spiritual components. Older advisors not only have the time and resources to do this, but there is something inside them trying to make its way out.

This is the secret I alluded to at the beginning of the article. Seasoned advisors who have eclipsed their career goals and aspirations are feeling this deep-rooted need to go in a new direction … to make a difference and have a bigger impact, just like many of their retired clients. It’s a natural evolution in retirement planning because we are all programed to ask, “What’s next?” or “What now?” It’s why I am feverishly trying to finish my new platform and book, “The New Era Of Wellth Management.” I’m talking about a newly integrated, industry approach for advisors who see and understand the value of all-around wellness, rather than just stewardship of money.

The simple truth is that as advisors look at their own plans for retirement, they don’t want to be done. They want more and feel they are still at the top of their game. They enjoy the client interactions, but see the need to impart more than financial advice. They want to infuse coaching, psychology and advice for living well into the work and not just assess risk tolerance or complete a single goals evaluation.

It’s a powerful transformation when we become the people we serve because it fosters new ideas and change. And because of the size, scope and capacity of this generation of advisors, the opportunity to develop a truly integrated approach to retirement planning is well within reach.

Just as financial professionals once ushered in a new era of retirement planning, instructing people to save early and often, we need to update the message again. The new approach to “wellth” management must include a regular investment into a life outside of work, must involve making clients’ relationships with family and friends stronger, must involve keeping clients mentally and physically fit and involve keeping them spiritually grounded.

It’s an ongoing process and can give clients’ saving habits additional purpose and value as well as help them with the legacies they hope to leave.

Overall, aging advisors have done an amazing job getting themselves, their clients and even our industry to this point. But now it’s time to accept the challenge to follow the deep-rooted tug to do more beyond financial work and be more. Your clients will thank you, the industry will change as a result of you, and who knows, maybe even Mom and Dad will say, “I told you to follow what’s in your heart.”  

Robert Laura is the president of SYNERGOS Financial Group, the founder of RetirementProject.org and pioneer in Certified Retirement Coach training. He can be reached at [email protected].