Helping Your Clients Achieve an ROL (Return on Life™)

by Mitch Anthony

Whether or not your clients ever fully retire, there are still issues to address that go beyond return on investment (ROI). Because most of your clients have probably approached retirement as some sort of economic cliff that they will jump from, they have only equipped themselves with a fiscal parachute to help them land safely. While there’s no question your clients need to have their financial houses in order, most of them have probably done next to nothing regarding the life issues that go hand in hand with the fiscal ones.

As their advisor, you are in the unique position to show clients that this stage of life is about money and life––return on life. You can help them live the life they want with the means they already have. Certainly your clients need help identifying the financial, legal, estate, and taxation issues that accompany this stage of life, but you can help them look at the future in a more holistic sense––instead of just monomaniacally obsessing over having enough to retire. 

If you and your clients only focus on having enough money, then the owl’s advice to Alice (Alice in Wonderland) will apply: It won’t matter what road your clients take because not enough thought has been given to where they’re going. Life will eventually take all of us through some very predictable phases. With a nod to author Michael Stein, these phases are:

• The go-go phase. This phase is second childhood, the time when your clients finally achieve financial emancipation and can do all the things they wanted to do but couldn’t because they were too busy working. 
• The slow-go phase. This phase is more passive, marked by time for more quiet introspection and getting life straight.
• The no-go phase. This phase is defined by the need for medical and possibly nursing care.

There is no guarantee that we will spend any predetermined amount of time in each of these phases, but chances are we will end up with experience in all of them. My personal fantasy is that I will live the rest of my life somewhere between slow-go and the go-go and die in my sleep at 99. I would prefer to live out my emancipated years at a pace that will be both challenging and enjoyable, somewhere between go-go and slow-go.

From my own conversations with those closer to the last phase, it has become apparent that we must all plan for the possibility of spending both some time and money in this (no-go) phase. At some point, your clients have to make some contingency plans. These contingencies include long-term care insurance, charitable trusts, and the like. You can help them balance their fiscal and lifestyle plans by ensuring they not only have enough money, but also a plan to enjoy it.

When your clients achieve emancipation, they will most likely live life somewhere in the go-go to slow-go range, but they still need to address issues that come with a more traditional retirement. These issues are manifold and include the following:

• How will they make the best use of their time and energy?
• How will they ensure they are prepared (from a personal health and well-being perspective)?
• How will they continue to challenge themselves?
• What role will they play in their parents’ future?
• What role will they play in their children’s future?
• What kind of legacy will they leave?
• How will they define success––beyond money?

As a trusted advisor, you are in the unique position to help ensure your clients are fulfilled––not only from a monetary perspective, but also from a philosophical one. Clients don’t care about the amount of assets you have under management—they care about what you are doing for them as individuals. Helping your clients move from return on investment to return on life shows them you know the difference.

Adapted from The New Retirementality:  Planning Your Life and Living Your Dreams…at Any Age You Want, Third Edition. Copyright 2008 by Mitch Anthony (published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.). 

Mitch Anthony is the founder and president of the Financial Life Planning Institute, the leading provider of financial life planning tools and programs. 

For more than a decade, Mitch and his team have provided training and development for both individual advisors and major organizations throughout the world. Mitch personally consults with many of the largest and most-recognizable names in the financial services industry on both financial life planning and relationship development.

Mitch has been named one of the financial services industry’s top “Movers & Shakers” for his pioneering work, and is interviewed by the media on a regular basis. The Institute is partnering with both Texas Tech University and the University of Georgia to develop financial life planning programs for their undergraduate programs. Mitch is a popular keynote speaker, columnist for Financial Advisor magazine, and host of the daily radio feature, The Daily Dose, heard on over 100 radio stations nationwide.

Mitch is also the author of many groundbreaking books for advisors and consumers, including perennial bestseller StorySelling for Financial Advisors, cited by “Financial Advisor” magazine as the number one “must-read” book for financial professionals. Mitch’s other books include From the Boiler Room to the Living Room, The New Retirementality, Your Clients for Life, Your Client’s Story, The Cash in the Hat, and his newest book, The Bean is not Green. For information on these books and more resources, click here.

© 2008 Mitch Anthony