Independence Day

Mitch Anthony

Independence has as many meanings as you have clients, but my guess is that for most of them it means being able to live their lives on their own terms. As financial life planners, our goal is to help our clients achieve independence, however they define it. We need to rid our minds of old, outdated paradigms about how life should be lived. The passé paradigm is one where curiosity, work, and leisure are compartmentalized into nice, neat little boxes.

The new paradigm (also know as the new retirementality) integrates all three into a balanced approach to everyday living. A truly independent life is one in which we are constantly learning something new, engaging in work that challenges and fulfills us, and reserving time for rest and relaxation. Trying to keep each of these activities in separate boxes will instead make us prisoners. A lifetime of independence only comes when we learn to fluidly integrate all three.

Curiosity

The only way to keep pace and flourish in this fast paced world is to be a lifetime learner. Gone are the days when your diploma defines who you are. Curiosity leads to independence. Personally, I have ultimately found the greater reward by tracking my heart instead of grinding it out in a career track that would have paid well but would have taken too much from me. This is not to say that I haven’t taken a detour or two and learned some hard lessons. But the fact of the matter is my constant curiosity has helped me maintain my independence.

Work

The 40-year company man (or woman) is extinct. Your clients will change jobs and/or careers many times before they turn 50. It is ridiculous that we expect 18-year olds to decide on a course of study for employment that will engage them for the rest of their lives. It’s simply unrealistic to expect that most people will have a clue about how their life will evolve. Doing so results in being incarcerated in a prison from which one will never escape. Work as a testing or plowing ground leads your clients to independence by showing them that they can design their own working lives, on their own terms.

Leisure

What’s the point of independence if you can’t enjoy it? People work like oxen for years with no vacation. In their minds, they relegate leisure and relaxation to retirement years. When they finally get there, they’re miserable because they have no idea how to relax. Leisure and relaxation need to be integrated on a regular basis.

Encourage your clients to break out of the “boxes of life” and integrate curiosity, work, and leisure into one fluid lifeline. You need to demonstrate to your clients a life course that needs no finish line and no retirement date. Only then will they discover true independence.

What’s stopping them?

The question to ask your clients after they’ve shared with you what it is they would rather be doing is, “What’s stopping you from doing it?” Try getting them to articulate what obstacles they need to overcome to get from here to there. Are they willing to take such risks? If they aren’t, they will never truly be free.

Your clients can do what they really want to do if they are serious about making it happen. For some, the motivation comes from facing the inward loathing they carry toward their work and themselves for not doing something about it. They are tired of lukewarm waters. For others, the motivation comes from facing the dreams, passions, and energies they have stored up within themselves that are not being expressed through their current work. Regardless, the conclusion should be the same: life is not meant to be a lukewarm experience. Once your clients decide to do what they’ve always wanted to do, they erase the need to every fully retire. Retirement becomes a non-event.

I’ve developed a profile your clients can complete at their leisure, for free, by visiting newretirementality.com. The profile will help your clients frame where they want to be, and open up a dialogue with you on how you can help them achieve true independence. And by helping your clients gain their own freedom, you can take pride in the fact that you’ve given them a gift they’ll enjoy for the rest of their lives. There’s no greater independence day than that.

Adapted from The New Retirementality: Planning Your Life and Living Your Dreams…At Any Age You Want, Second Edition by Mitch Anthony. (©2006 by Mitch Anthony. Published by Kaplan Publishing.)

Mitch Anthony is the founder and president of Advisor Insights Inc. and The Financial Life Planning Institute, training companies serving advisors and the financial services industry. He is a contributing editor for Research magazine and his column “Financial Life Planning” appears in Financial Advisor magazine. Anthony has been named one of the financial service industry’s top “2006 Movers & Shakers” by Financial Planning magazine. His radio feature, The Daily Dose , is heard every day on 200 radio stations nationwide. Anthony is the author of several books for advisors, including StorySelling for Financial Advisors , The New Retirementality, Your Clients for Life , Selling with Emotional Intelligence , Making the Client Connection , The Financial Professional’s StoryBook, and Your Client’s Story. Contact him at mitch@mitchanthony.com

© 2007 Mitch Anthony