“Are you ready?” my wife murmured to me. I was quick to respond, “Yes, I want to get this shoulder thing figured out,” as I walked towards the door and an early morning MRI appointment at our local hospital.

I am a little embarrassed to say that I wasn’t really processing what an MRI entailed. I just assumed they were going to slap some gel on my arm and wave a wand-like ultrasound type of machine over it to see what the problem was. I had no idea I was going to be slid into a claustrophobic coffin and told not to move for 25 minutes.

It was my first MRI and it was terrifying. I didn’t think I was going to make it. Which is hard for me to say because I’m an old school, hard-nosed football guy who doesn’t flinch at much, but for some reason this one rattled me. Fortunately, I’m not alone. One study I found stated that 14% of MRI patients require some form of sedation to undergo the scan.

For whatever reason, once I was finally in the machine, I was struck with anxiety. I imagined I couldn’t get out or I would be stuck there for days, or like I was being stuffed into a coffin. I wasn’t told to close my eyes or put something over my eyes, and wasn’t offered any music or anything familiar to comfort the situation. I clicked the button to come out.

Truth of the matter is, I see a lot of similarities between my MRI scan and how people head into retirement. This is important for advisors, because as the financial services industry continues to move toward a model where clients want more than financial advice, professionals need to develop new skills and strategies to connect more deeply with clients on the non-financial aspects of retirement.

In this case I am using an MRI scan to help highlight similar fears that people may have about life after work. In fact a recent study by Zety found that 40% of Americans actually fear retirement more than death.

According to the survey, the No. 1 fear Americans have about retirement is having a lack of income, with 87% saying that this scares them. Other fears include losing employment-based healthcare benefits and medical insurance (77%), not keeping mentally active (71%), not keeping physically active (64%) and not having social and friendship networks associated with work (50%).

I want to encourage you to reread those statistics, because for the first time you will start to see that retirement fears go beyond money and insurance to include mental and physical health as well as social well-being. This is why advisors need to start breaking out of their old and outdated mindset that it’s all about helping clients replace their income and figuring out Social Security and Medicare.

Think of this new narrative the same way you help clients understand various financial concepts. Back in my early training days, it was common for clients to ask what a mutual fund was and how it was different from a single share of stock. The analogy I was taught and used was that a mutual fund was more like a multi-pane window whereas a share of stock was more like a single pane window.

As the analogy went, the idea was that a multi-pane window reduces risk, because if a neighborhood kid throws a rock or hits a ball through the window, it only breaks a small piece that can be easily replaced. On the other hand, a larger single pane window would need to be completely replaced and cost more.

The same type of logic applies to retirement planning and the MRI. We are simply using something many people, especially those closer to retirement, have either experienced themselves or gone through with someone else. This helps to create a bond that shifts the focus away from the dollars and cents of retirement and allows you to learn more about your clients (fears and experiences) and the same goes for them with you.

I want to underscore that last point because as I have worked with and trained a number of successful advisors, one of the key ingredients to their success was their close relationships with clients. For them it was very commonplace for clients to become close friends simply because they took the relationship outside of the money conversations and started meeting them somewhere other than the office. Therefore, advisors who want to be ahead of the curve need to start finding more ways to open up new conversations about life after work that address more than money fears.

My suggestion then is for advisors to take some time to reflect on some funny, scary, weird and even very common situations that provided a valuable life lesson. By taking the time to not only write them down but also to begin to consider how they can help people in other areas of life, like their retirement, you will be one step ahead of helping clients make a better transition.

Most people are familiar with the famous quote from the movie Forrest Gump, “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get,” and so what would be some fun or interesting ways to spin that towards retirement? “Life in retirement is like an MRI; if you aren’t prepared for what’s involved, you’ll likely need to be sedated.”

While I don’t quite think that’s as catchy of a quote, I hope that you can see that you can have fun with this non-financial side of retirement planning. It doesn’t have to be hard or overwhelming, and you don’t need to rebrand your entire firm. Just be you and start sharing more of your personal experience and wisdom with clients.

Another thing advisors can do is be proactive on helping clients plan for the non-financial aspects of retirement. In the case of my MRI, it would have been helpful for the technician to say, “Hey before I send you in there, many of my clients prefer to put something over their eyes and to listen to some music.” But she did, and I didn’t know to ask, so I learned it the hard way.

Which reminds me how we often send people into retirement. “Yes, we ran your numbers and everything looks good, so let me just slip you into this tiny tube of life after work and let’s see how you do. While they may not feel claustrophobic at first, it can happen over time, and social interactions go down, as they feel less relevant, aren’t eating healthy or exercising like they thought they would or feel like they are a bother or burden to a spouse.

At least with an MRI scan you can click the button and get out, but for many struggling in retirement, they suffer in silence for years, trying to figure it out on their own. They don’t know who to turn to or talk to, but it should be you or someone in your firm trained as a Retirement Coach who can play a role in making sure they have both a financial plan to replace their paycheck as well as one to replace the mental, social and physical aspects they lose in the transition. 

Now more than ever, advisors need to realize retirement planning fears and concerns go well beyond financial and insurance related concerns. We are entering a new era where the narrative is much more about helping clients understand and prepare for everyday life in retirement, including fears about mental, physical and social well-being.

While advisors can’t install an MRI machine in their office to give clients a glimpse as to what life in retirement may look and feel like if they aren’t prepared, they can use their personal experience and knowledge to proactively educate them so when they enter retirement, they aren’t traumatized by it or need sedation to get through it.          

Robert Laura is a best-selling author, nationally syndicated columnist, and president of Wealth & Wellness Group. He is a seasoned conference speaker, corporate trainer and pioneer in “The New Era Of Retirement,” which focuses on the non-financial aspects of life after work. He can be reached at [email protected].