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].