Did you know that the world record for a domino line was 15,524 dominos? It took a group of artists two days to set up and just five minutes for all the dominos to fall.

A similar phenomenon happens when clients spend years lining things up for retirement, assuming everything will all stand up for a while, only to see it quickly topple.

The reality is that retirement planning can have a domino effect too. It’s something that can create either a positive or negative chain reaction, especially during the crucial first three to six months, otherwise known as the honeymoon phase.

I remember a valuable encounter I had several years ago with a client who had recently retired. He walked into my office, and I reached out to shake his hand. He quickly pulled his hands back, raised them in the air and said, “I’d love to shake your hand, but I have a bunch of chain grease from my bike ride this morning.”

I was intrigued because this guy had just retired, and our meeting was starting on time at 8:30 a.m.

“I meet a group of guys from the Optimist Club a couple times a week at the local metro park for a 10 mile ride at 6:00 a.m.,” he said. When I said I assumed he’d be taking it easy for a while, he looked at me with a smirk and said, “Well, I retired from work, not from life.”

It was an eye-opening moment. I assumed that once you retired, you took a few weeks or months to do nothing and then picked it all back up again when you were ready and rested.

Another time I met with a client couple, including a husband who was about 30 days into his retirement. They had some questions and things they wanted to go over. And they asked for my opinion about using some of their savings for a kitchen remodel and possibly to purchase an RV. Neither subject had come up in retirement conversations before.

For me, this is usually a sign of boredom and a desperate attempt to create some noise. When people don’t have other things going on or ways to be engaged, they create distraction by spending money.

“Well before we get to all the numbers and details,” I said, “tell me about your retirement so far. How is it going and what are you doing with your new free time?” The husband offered the common response: “Well you know, pretty good, keeping busy with some projects around the house and such.” His response lacked conviction and detail, and it was pretty easy to see the dominos falling.

Before they spent a year’s worth of retirement income on these projects, I thought we should have more dialogue. I asked, “Are you missing anything from your work life?” That’s when the door really opened and I realized what was going on.

“Well,” he stammered, “I guess the one thing I miss is having some goals and big projects to work on. None of the things I am doing at home are all that important, and I spent so much time focused on turning things around at the community center that I miss some of that.”

I asked if he had connected with anyone at work recently for lunch or coffee. “No,” he said. “I’ve just been sticking around the house.”

Talk about a tale of two different domino players in retirement. One was enjoying life after work with friends, healthy activities and community organizations. The other was still focused on work, and when those dominos were no longer in play, he felt left out of the game.

I think this is a powerful metaphor to use with clients. Imagine two people setting up a domino display. One sets up a single row of traditional black and white dominos while the other sets up several rows, with different colors, taking a few twists and turns. Which one looks more fun to build and watch fall? Which player is more likely to pick up those pieces and do it again? It’s likely the ones who see the fun in the process of building and rebuilding rather than just making one solid run at it.

That’s why I push financial services firms to get concrete training to help clients with the non-financial aspects of retirement—specific tools and resources that help clients develop ways to replace their work identity; fill their time; and stay relevant and connected, as well as mentally and physically active. These methods are supported by fields like positive psychology and behavioral economics.

We have to create better visuals, metaphors and analogies to help clients understand that retirement planning isn’t just about money. It’s about a client’s mindset and ability to plug in mentally, physically, socially and spiritually.

The domino effect starts on the first day of retirement. So advisors must be prepared to engage clients on topics outside of the dollars and cents. Here are some questions you can ask them:

These questions help frame the transition and let clients know they should have goals they’re working on right away. The questions also let them know it’s OK to talk if their retirement isn’t going as planned. The last question lets the clients know it’s OK if they miss a few things about work and gets them started talking about replacing those activities with new meaningful ones.

This is a good time to introduce the concept of a “safety gap.” I recently watched a documentary called Lily Topples the World. The subject of the film was Lily Hevesh, a domino artist with more than two million YouTube subscribers. In discussing her craft, she offered tips to budding domino artists, one of which was to remove five dominos every so often to create a safety gap. That way, the entire project isn’t lost if something goes wrong during the building of the chain and the blocks start to fall by accident. Instead, just a small section falls, one that can easily be rebuilt.

In the same manner, we have to create safety gaps for clients, helping them think and plan for the psychology of retirement and preparing them to overcome common pitfalls.

That means talking to them about their new routines, asking them what their social networks look like, about how they’ll keep in contact with co-workers and other colleagues and what they will say when someone asks, “What do you do for a living?”

In a nutshell, it’s really all about helping clients set up and design an ideal retirement—and also about executing it for a retiree’s personal and financial success. For advisors, that means becoming a retirement artist, or one who sees the beauty in the engineering, art and science of life after work.

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 founder of the Certified Professional Retirement Coach Designation, which focuses on the non-financial aspects of life after work. He can be reached at [email protected].