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.