Originally posted at fa-mag.com by Mitch Anthony, April 1, 2025.
Just as Aretha Franklin once demanded R.E.S.P.E.C.T, your clients want to be valued as unique individuals. What they don’t want is to be defined by how old they are or lumped into a category just because they are 60, 70 or 80 years old. Unfortunately, negative stereotypes persist, even in the financial services industry.
Why? In a word, “ageism.” The American Psychological Association describes it as “discrimination against older people because of negative and inaccurate stereotypes.”
People often think aging is a negative experience, and something to be avoided instead of celebrated. We don’t think of skydivers in their 70s, though that’s exactly what Wuest Ways is: a group of skydivers whose membership is made up of adults over 70. I once received a video from a family who performs a synchronized waterskiing exhibition in North Carolina. Four generations of the family have participated, including those aged 5, 40, 62, and 92! It’s not something we think of when we think about aging.
Or consider my wife, Debbie, who didn’t begin her professional music career until all of our kids were adults. She now performs professionally across the country and has recorded in Nashville. Retire? No way.
It also doesn’t help to conjure the image of someone sipping tropical drinks on a Caribbean beach and setting tee times for the rest of their lives. That idea smacks of ageism, too, because it assumes people suddenly lose interest in everything else they may have found fulfilling before.
In latest edition of my book The New Retirementality, I cite Lydia Bronte, author of The Longevity Factor, a book in which she studied the lives of several older people. Even though her book was published in 1993, her conclusions remain true more than 30 years later.
According to Bronte, we can learn something from hearing stories of those who have lived long lives: What emerges, she says, is “an affirmation of the increasing richness of experience over time, of a deeper sense of identity, of a greater self-confidence and creative potential that can grow rather than diminish with maturity. It is obvious that seen through the eyes of the study participants, chronological age markers (like 65), which have held so much power in the past, are really culturally created—a norm that was accurate only for a particular place and time.”
When we talk about the maturity of investments, it’s generally positive. When we talk about the maturity of people, it’s often a different story. Many of us assume that when someone reaches a certain age, they are supposed to retire—or at least, we assume they want to. For many folks, that simply isn’t true.
But they are still going to run into societal barriers and expectations and be treated in ways they don’t want to be.
A survey of adults over 40 by Werk Labs found that 75% experienced ageism in their job search and 53% experienced it in their workplace.
So how can you avoid inadvertently engaging in ageism in your dealings with people? Here are a few questions you can ask yourself as a check:
• Do you automatically focus your clients’ discussions on retirement? If so, you may be encouraging them to focus too much on one part of their future, without also planning for the present.
• Do you encourage your clients to think about financial planning holistically—in other words, as financial life planning? Do you encourage them to think about living the best life possible with the resources they have, including planning for unforeseen events and the future? While this question might seem identical to the first one, it’s designed to make sure your clients have a plan that leads to a balanced life, not just a retirement plan.
• Have you discussed what retirement means to your clients, and what their plans are (beyond having enough money saved)? Their answers will often provide insights you can’t get from a balance sheet, especially if they tell you they haven’t given much thought to retirement beyond having enough money.
Retirement as it has been defined for us is misleading. In a 2024 retirement confidence survey performed by the Employee Benefit Research Institute, more than 85% of respondents who were working during retirement said they were doing it to stay active and involved. And sometimes they’re doing work it’s assumed would be done only by people much younger. Take, for instance, a New York Times story from earlier this year that profiled roadies and guitar techs in their 60s and 70s who are still working for musical acts like U2 and Bruce Springsteen. Ageism would tell you that this type of career is viable only for someone much younger, but those jobs actually take years of experience.
What exactly does it mean when we say someone is “old”? Are we referring to the person’s years on the planet or their state of being? Or both? By old, do we mean that a person is in a state of decline? The truth is, “old” is a misnomer, a man-made limitation. All of us age, but that doesn’t mean we are old. Henry Ford said, “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at 20 or 80. Anyone who keeps learning stays young.”
No one comes into this world with “use by” dates stamped on their backs. As long as your clients truly love what they do, you should encourage them to stay in the race, even if they need to slow their pace. Or think about yourself: Do you really want to completely quit working? If the answer is no, why would you assume your clients do?
Clearly, we all need to be prepared for the later stages of life, but that doesn’t mean we have to step aside simply because of some random number that may or may not apply to us. It’s true that there are many people working in jobs, industries and offices they hate—the folks who have convinced themselves that the only answer is to stop working and retire. The problem is that, once they do, they become miserable (or at least unfulfilled). So you shouldn’t assume your clients want to retire simply because they’re of a certain age or build that assumption into your planning.
Adjusting Your Perspective
Here’s a shocker: If you consider anyone over 60 to be a senior citizen, then remember that Gen Xers are starting to turn that age this year. You might not think of those people as old. I doubt they think of themselves as old.
Keep that in mind when you talk to your clients about their work plans.
Most of the people surveyed in the latest Transamerica Retirement Survey—including majorities in all age groups—said they expect to continue working in what are considered traditional retirement years. Those who could drop out may instead choose to continue working because they don’t want to enter a slow track of intellectual atrophy, boredom, and monotonous leisure.
Even if your clients can afford to retire, you’ll still need to get them thinking about what they want their retirement to look like. In a 2023 survey from AARP, work-life balance was a top issue for older workers. Most weren’t interested in retiring cold turkey.
One of the best ways to practice anti-ageism is to question clients who say, “When I retire, I’m going to do such and such.” See what would happen if you encouraged them to explore those dreams now. Are those plans financially viable? If not, it’s OK, but whatever the dreams are, there will need to be a solid plan in place for the client to realize them.
I’m not suggesting your clients throw caution into the wind. There is no doubt that as a society we need to do more when it comes to how we save and spend. We all need to be prepared for whatever the future holds. But that doesn’t mean we need to miss out on the present.
Far too often society expects that, as soon as you hit that magic number of 60 years old, you automatically want to take the off-ramp. But your need to feel fulfilled doesn’t stop just because you turn 60 or 70. Most of us are truly happy when we are doing what we love, regardless of our age.
It’s Not The Money
People are still haunted by the old rules and media hype around retirement. We tell people to save, save, save until they’re 65 and then go find something to do. Life should be more balanced than a simple before-and-after view. We should be encouraged to enjoy what we have as we are aging. And when we are past what is considered the traditional age of retirement, we shouldn’t be expected to automatically step aside and make way for someone else.
Because of these outdated ideas about retirement, we have prioritized money over living. We assume that once you reach a certain age, you are no longer capable of learning new things or meaningfully contributing. We assume that all retirees have the same goal: wake up, play (choose your sport or card game), repeat. I doubt it’s what the majority of your clients want, even if they don’t realize it. Too many of us wait far too long to understand that the life we are living right now is not a dress rehearsal.
