You might be thinking, “What do prison breaks and seat belts have to do with each other, let alone retirement?” Both can serve as the perfect metaphor to reframe retirement planning conversations and help clients not only avoid being blindsided by it, but also make a smoother transition to life on the outside.
To start, there is something about a prison break that is both exciting and frightening. A feeling many new retirees share as they seek freedom from work. Jail breaks, like retirement, also take years to plan and accumulate the resources to make it happen. The three men involved in the famous Alcatraz escape chiseled at their 6x9 cement vents for months while simultaneously building dummy heads and a raft from 40 rain coats.
While Frank Morris, John Anglin and brother Clarence Anglin were never captured, most inmates don’t last long on the lam. According to one documentary, 60 percent of escapees are caught within the first 24 hours of taking off and 80 percent are caught within the first week.
One of the reasons for such high rates of re-capture is most prisoners spend all the time planning their escape and don’t spend any time developing a plan for when they actually reach the outside. In other words, they are so focused on the process of getting out that little time and energy is committed to staying out. As a result, most end up back within the prison walls in a very short time.
While some jobs may feel like a prison or labor camp, the reality is, many advisors and clients are guilty of the same type of planning. They are so focused on the idea of achieving the initial freedom of retirement that they don’t develop much of a plan for once they are finally there. Therefore, they stick out like a guy walking down the highway in an orange jumpsuit, fighting off a variety of feelings including the idea that all of their hard work to get there may not have been worth it.
As you might expect, having someone on the outside to help you get away would be a huge benefit. Inmates on the run last longer and undergo less duress when they have an accomplice to provide transportation, clothes and money. However, the issue for both inmates and retirees is figuring out who to trust. The wrong accomplice can foil years of planning. Harsh reality is, many retirees have no idea who to turn when retirement doesn’t look or feel right and are often left struggling to figure things out on their own. Wasting valuable time and some of the best years of their life.
This is one reason why you see the field of retirement coaching is on the rise. Clients need an accomplice to help them plan beyond just the dollars and cents and to adjust to life on the outside. They need concrete tools and advice to replace their work identity, fill their time, stay relevant and connected, as well as mentally and physically active.
But the industry is still in its infancy and functioning like a seat belt in the 1960s or 70s. I don’t know about you, but growing up I never wore one. My parents allowed me and my brothers to climb over the seats at will, and nobody had a care or worry about us hanging half way out the window or riding in the bed of my grandpa’s pick-up truck.
Today, wearing a seatbelt is the law and an accepted ritual for anyone getting in the car. There are even slogans such as, “Click-it or ticket” to remind us to buckle up, as well as that annoying “ding-ding-ding” that sounds off until you strap in.
What’s interesting is that even though seat belts were invented in 1885, with the modern three-point seat belt taking shape in 1959, they weren’t required by law and truly recognized as an essential safety feature until the mid-1980s. And proponents of a seat belt law faced an uphill battle. This was despite having research that suggested a seat belt could reduce the risk of dying in a crash by nearly 45 percent, and every 1 percent increase in seat belt use means about 10 fewer car accident deaths and 130 fewer injuries.