I’m talking about rooms of regret, loneliness, despair, resentment, heartache and fear to name a few. They are all very real parts of retirement that advisors and clients can’t just paint or wallpaper over, hoping that they just go away.

Advisors today, must be better prepared to go beyond those front porch conversations. They have to learn to dig a little bit deeper, be patient when they listen to clients and look for clues of them opening up and asking for help.

You see, just as someone would hire an expert to inspect a new home for potential problems or costly repairs, so too is the case with the transition into retirement. A financial review is necessary and important, but its critical to a client’s long-term success to check the other foundations of their retirement. In other words, the thoughts and feelings that hold everything together.

Unfortunately, many clients walk into retirement, thinking they have a well-constructed home that may only need a few upgrades. But as they spend more time within these walls, they realize their relationships are wired the wrong way, that mold has grown over their passions and hobbies, and that they have treated their health like a pile of laundry they never get to.

As clients go through their first few years of retirement they try and rationalize that feeling out of sorts, less relevant or isolated isn’t a big deal and that those feelings can be tore down and easily replaced. But they don’t go away. They keep knocking and in some cases, can get worse and end up derailing a client’s plans for everyday life in retirement.

Fear can hold a client back, regret can make them a prisoner of their past and loneliness can cause them to live in the shadows of life. It’s very easy for feelings like these to slip in through the back door of retirement and carve out a person or situation they never anticipated as part of their original retirement plans. 

Which is why advisors must recognize the role that soft-skills training and experience can play in helping client’s remodel their identity, re-wire their relationships, and move their health and well-being to the top of the honey-do list.

But I want to point out, in many cases, these are sensitive areas that need to be handled with care. Just as advisors learned how to sell product or service through role play and over time working with clients, the same holds true with this side of the equation. It means practicing the questions you might ask and the response that you would give. 

I recently met with a client whose husband had passed away several years ago. She finally got around to going through some of his things and discovered a very different person than the one she thought she knew and loved.  A hidden room was opened and a wave of feelings came with it.  From anger and resentment, to forgiveness and sorrow the next.

These are situations where very little needs to be said and listening is more important. Sometimes saying little or nothing creates the space to share what’s on their mind, which in many cases is a vital part of the healing process. But an advisor with double-booked appointments won’t be able to go there.