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55. Retirement Realities: What Advisors Need to Know About Client Psychology and Support with James Woodfall · Planning & Beyond® - Where financial planning meets human understanding

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think it is well, like I came across the concept of retirement counselling, and that's not really a thing in the UK.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_02: People don't go to a counsellor for retirement.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_02: So I think the um you know advisors are default retirement counsellors.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's a lot of pressure on them.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_02: It is, yeah.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I think there aren't too many relationships that you can have, like an advisor-client relationship, where there's that level of trust, that you know, sort of safe space where the client can really sell you anything.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_02: And advisors all have that experience of you know clients offloading about absolutely anything that's going on in their lives.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and I think so, you know, advisors are that kind of safe payer of ears to sort of use a metaphor, you know, about where you know clients can talk about what's on their mind, you know, about transitioning from pre-to-post-work or you know, even you know, beyond that.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Planning and Beyond, the show where financial planning meets human understanding.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: As an exceptional financial advisor, you know that financial planning is about more than just numbers.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's about giving clients the clarity they need to align their money with what matters most.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: Which is why each episode is designed with that goal in mind.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: You'll learn how to uncover the psychology behind client decisions and gain insights and behavioral strategies needed to create deeper, more meaningful client relationships.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: You'll discover techniques for navigating emotional client situations, conversations with leading industry experts and behavioral finance psychology communications.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: Whether it's mastering discovery meetings, handling sensitive client conversations, or understanding client stuff.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: You'll walk away with not all the strategies that you can use in your next client meeting.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, I fully introduce myself.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: Let's dive in.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Planning and Beyond, the podcast where financial planning meets human understanding.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Ashley Kwamey, and today I am joined by a previous guest that we've had on the show, James Woodfall from across the pond, across the way, uh, across the ocean.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know, I hear pond, but I feel like is do Americans just stay across the pond, or do you guys over in the UK also stay across the pond?
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think so.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think I'm not looking at you thinking I don't know what pond you're talking about.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, or like you stupid American, like uh which don't tell me if you're thinking that.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: Don't tell me if you're thinking that James.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um no, no, it makes sense.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, across the pond, across the ocean.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: Across the pond.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, yeah.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, we'll go, we'll go with that.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: But from a little bit further than Augusta, Georgia, I'll say that, um, a few different time zones away.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: James, I'm so glad that you're here.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: I truly love following your work, reading your newsletter, and am really excited for our conversation today to be talking about some research, some research that you've done around the psychology of retirement.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so when you shared that, when we are exchanging emails and you're sharing that is like a yes, that is something we absolutely need to talk about.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't want to, you know, take up any more time doing, you know, small talk things here and there.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: Let's just jump right to us.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: Can we start maybe just high level?
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: Would you mind just sharing a little bit about this research that you did?
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: And then we'll just go from there.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, sure.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: So so last year where I did another another another master's, just it was to scratch an itch, but in psychology this time.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_02: I wanted to do it when I was at, well, I wanted to do like a psychology degree when I was at when I was at school, but anyway, I won't go down that story today, but I I left before and didn't go to university that time around.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I might I went to university later, later in life.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, psychology was something I always wanted to study.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, after I did the study around sort of communication and behavior, there were certainly some topics that I wanted to take a bit of a deeper dive in.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_02: So I saw yeah, I'll carry on doing some study, you know, in that area.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_02: But I did um another dissertation, and one of the there was I suppose a few different themes and things that were on my mind as I kind of went through the program, but I really liked um developmental psychology, which is one of the units that we studied.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_02: And it was interesting because I think what we learned was apparently most of the time when people looked at developmental psychology, it was really looking at kind of that childhood phase.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: So what happens between, you know, once you're an adult, you know, you you're out in the world and no one really.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: Apparently we're all done developing once we hit, you know, 18, 25, yeah.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_02: Oh absolutely.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but uh but now actually it's what's a different developmental psychology looks at the lifespan.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_02: So the entire lives.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, we do, you know, we continue developing.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_02: And of course we do, because we have experiences that you know happen to us, some good, some bad, you know, we learn from them.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_02: But that was kind of sort of in my mind when I was going through you know disertation topics.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_02: And I kind of landed on looking at studying how some of the theories around how people adapt to aging might be playing out in uh financial planning practices.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: So the way the study was done was was to look at the kind of day-to-day practices, you know, and investigate actually what is it that financial plans are doing to support their clients through retirement.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_02: But it was a qualitative uh research study.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_02: So I suppose just to kind of go through just briefly about how researchers study retirement, because it was that was a bit of an odd odd question, isn't it?
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_02: It's not well how do you how do you study aging in retirement?
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_02: Because quantitative methods, which are quite common, say in in the sciences, you know, would be like you know, uh it getting a bunch of people together and saying, look, can you write down your shoe size, you know, for example?
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_02: And you go, okay, well, that we've you know we could do some statistical analysis and come up with a mean shoe size between the group.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um we could also you know ask these people, okay, well, what's what's your height?
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_02: So we could do correlations, we could say, well, that you know, is there any correlation or link between say height and shoe size?
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that's a nice call quantitative method, isn't it?
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_02: But qualitative, you know, is where you capture people's lived experiences.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_02: So when you start saying, well, actually, what are your experiences of you know your this shoe size, for example, what's your lived experiences of going out finding shoes that fit?
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_02: Because certainly for me, I might find my say my size 10 and I'll go out and buy size 10, and it's like well, I go to that store, it fits that one, uh, you know, my toes feel like I'm punishing them.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_02: So actually that's qualitative, you know, data.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: And it turns out that actually that's you know, it's really hard to study people quantitatively when you look at say retirement.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_02: So a lot of the you know good research out there is qualitative, so capturing people's sort of lived experiences of going through retirement, you know, and and aging.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: But again, it's actually really tricky to study aging and retirement.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_02: Because what do you do?
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_02: You know, do you just get a bunch of people in a room and you know, you're let's say you're a researcher, you get a bunch of people together and you you do a quick survey, and you just well, that's just snapshot, like you know, one point in time.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_02: So some of the best research is actually longitudinal studies so where you follow up with people, you know, where boot questionnaires, you're on yeah, you know, and then you can track you know changes and you know come up with sort of formulate theories about what's going on.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_02: But there just aren't that many longitudinal studies out there because they're really hard to design.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um they're you know get participants, you know, get participants to stick with them.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: You know, obviously they're expensive, you know, because you have to do these things for decades and decades for them to be effective.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_02: But I came across one which was influenced by a theory called continuity theory.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_02: And continuity theory was effectively a theory of of aging, so how people age successfully.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: And it was interesting.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: So I used that as sort of the basis for the research and thought, well, it'd be interesting to see if I interviewed advisors about their experiences of helping people plan for retirement, are their practices showing any sort of implicit knowledge that they're acting in a way which sort of lines up with what some of the theories are saying.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_02: So that was the kind of thinking behind the study.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um and it came out with some really interesting things around you know how people, you know, age, you know, and and how Planers is supporting them, not just financially, but psychologically.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: So were these participants they were fully retired, meaning they were not working?
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: Were they was there like some part-time work um that they were doing?
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: Were they pre-retires getting ready to retire?
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: Can you maybe just share a little bit about there any just nuances, I guess, there kind of with the people with the participants in the study?
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_02: So I think the I mean, within my study, I my participants were financial planners.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um so they were all practicing financial planners.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so I interviewed them for you know, probably about an hour using sort of a sort of semi-structured um sort of interview.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_02: So I'll actually have the same questions, you know, with each of them, but if I needed to get a bit more information out, you know, it was a bit of probing and just say, you know, could you tell me a bit more about that?
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and it was it was really interesting.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_02: But I think some of the key themes which come out of it, I'll explain in a sec.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_02: But there's one thing which I thought was was really interesting, which I came across when I was doing the literature review, was to look at actually how the brain ages um from side of a cognition perspective.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I think well you know I think last time we had me on, I explained that I used to be a financial planner before I transitioned into what I do now.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um so a lot of this was sort of bringing back examples to my mind about clients that I used to kind of deal with and scenarios I used to encounter.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_02: But I read about you about IQ and cognition, so sort of cognition in the agent brain.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_02: So I IQ is it's measurable and it's effectively the it's there's almost probably maybe like 70 or 80 years, you know, of research into measuring IQ.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um so it's really robust.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_02: And actually, you know, the tools that that are out there to measure it are very, very accurate now.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_02: But the effectively to kind of define it, it's this concept of uh processing novel, complex problems at speed.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_02: So novel, you know, is like has to be a problem that you haven't encountered before.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_02: You know, complex is not easy to solve, you know, and then speed is you know, obviously coming up with a solution in the shortest time possible.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_02: So if you've ever sort of been through an IQ test, you know you get these sort of like random little tasks that you have to do.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_02: And actually it's quite difficult to design an IQ test because if it's not a novel problem, that means that you encountered it before, you could just rely on past knowledge and experience to answer it.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_02: You know, coming up with complex problems.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_02: And then they're always timed as well, IQ tests.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: But do you know what how old we are when IQ starts to decline?
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: No, I don't.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: No, share with us.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: 25.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: Oh god.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, oh come on, James.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: Oh but we've got two branches.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_02: So we've got fluid intelligence and crystallized intelligence.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_02: So it's fluid intelligence, which is what starts declining at age 25.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_02: Crystallized intelligence is our you know accumulated knowledge and experience.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_02: And so fluid intelligence is is this, you know, as I say, this sort of part that starts declining.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_02: And it declines sort of at a steady rate from about 25.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but obviously on knowledge and experience continues to increase across our lifetime.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_02: But what I found interesting, and why this is relevant for retirement, before we think why are we going off on this tangent, is that actually as we get older, our processing speed slows down.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_02: And actually, when we come to encounter sort of new complex problems, uh especially, you know, I think as we get to the older of sort of you know, in later part of colonial life stage, it actually means that the brain's preference is to rely on experience and the familiar.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_02: So suddenly things which are uncertain, you know, now, you know, become, I'm gonna say way scarier, you know, when you're say 70, 75, 80.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um, just because that's true.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_02: You know, new complex information.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_02: I suppose it's just handy, isn't it, that like so retirement planning strategies are just so easy to understand you know, from like tax perspective.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: Products, etc.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: So what do we do as we age?
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: We effectively place more value on trust, uh trusted relationships.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_02: Because we effectively have to outsource that part of our cognitive capacity that we no longer have to someone else.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I thought that's that's really interesting.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: But it did make me think about if I were still a financial plan today, you know, would I take a different approach to presenting information to clients in that later part of life?
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I think I would, and what I would do in effectively to look at actually not necessarily simplifying information, because you've got to remember actually you can get people who are kind of older who are you know cognitively you know really sharp and actually you know their investment knowledge is great, and you can present you know new solutions to them and they had no problem understanding, because they can assimilate that into previous knowledge and experience that they have.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_02: So if you get these people sort of highly knowledgeable, highly experienced, you know, you think, oh actually, that's not you know, you might think, well, actually, I don't really see you know cognitive decline in clients, you know, because they're shocked.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: Well, actually, yeah.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_02: If they're relying on past knowledge, then yeah.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_02: But if you've got people who say haven't really had you know much experience of you know kind of investment strategies, you know, tax planning strategies, and you're presenting them with sort of heavy detailed information, it's more like, you know, based on what the science says, that you know they're gonna be experiencing quite a high level of um uncertainty, you know, or even anxiety about being sort of loaded with a lot of complex terms and information.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_02: One of the things that you that you could do is actually kind of assimilate it and put it into language that that they understand.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_02: So be like, let's say for example, you had someone who was um maybe like an engineer, like throughout the whole career.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you can talk about portfolio construction and using metaphors that make sense.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, we're gonna you know calculate a load on your portfolio.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, we're gonna stress test it in terms that in engineering terms that you might understand.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_02: You can use sort of relatable terms if that makes sense, you know, to present information in a way which you know which lands with people's experience.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: It makes a lot of sense hearing I'm thinking about those that are retiring and just you mentioned like from an experience standpoint and relying on experience there.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I guess it would make sense to me why some people would have a hard time transitioning to retirement when they've not had that experience before.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: What are they gonna rely on from just a source of information?
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: I know that you mentioned previously there were some themes that emerged uh when you were looking at this.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: Can we dive into uh don't keep me waiting any longer.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh like on the edge of IC.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: What were those themes that started to emerge?
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: It was interesting.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: So I think there were three sort of key theories which are kind of looked at.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: Continuity theory was this main one.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_02: So to kind of explain what the kind of findings you know from that theory were, then how it applied to planning practices are, is that there was this uh effects, you know, 30-year longitudinal study.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um there was a guy called Robert Achley who kind of looked at the outcomes of this this study and just said, How do people successfully adapt to the aging process?
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the things which he noticed was actually people when faced with a challenge, the way that they main or stabilize their platform is they look for what stays the same, which I thought was quite interesting.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_02: So that's the main thing is that you know, we're faced with a challenge, you know, people kind of go, well, actually, what doesn't change?
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: Hmm.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so things like maybe relationships, where they're living, maybe their home, is that some of what you're referencing there in terms of what stays the same?
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_02: So if you think um, and and I thought this is quite interesting from kind of a perspective of, well, if you were helping people plan for retirement, and there was a there's a piece of research that found that said actually it takes people on average three years to make the decision to retire.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_02: So that means that actually there's kind of a three-year window, you know, for planners where that's when you want to start kind of dipping in these thought-provoking questions, you know, about look, what's you know, you're you're the other side of making this decision.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_02: You know, what does your ideal week look like?
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_02: What won't change?
• 16:45
  unknown: Yeah.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_02: You know, so what's data set?
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: I I really like that and appreciate you mentioning it because I'm sitting here thinking, realizing, and I'm guilty of this myself, is how much we talk about in retirement around things changing.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: And we might put a positive spin on that, and like there might be some excitement, and this is really great, and we can start to like brainstorm.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, from what I'm hearing from you, is that talking a lot about change for some clients, that might not be the right approach.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: That might not be helpful.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, it could be harmful there.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: So that's really interesting.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think helpful for me just on the practitioner, you know, side working with clients, but also for advisors too, right?
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: If we're talking about, oh, this is great, you know, all these great changes.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna get to spend more time with family and you're gonna get to go golfing and you know, have that shop in the back that you've always wanted, like that can be really overwhelming.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: That's a lot of change.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh even if it's good, like at one time.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, it's and I think this is exactly what what I thought, you know, when when I read this.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_02: So one of the other things with I think continuity theories is yeah, actually people people adapt by, I was the same, maintaining.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, that's one part of it.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_02: But actually, one of the other parts of it is that it's a a systems feedback theory, in which actually means that it's you know, to explain what that is, it means that as we kind of you know go and it's it's we kind of implement in the real world, we get feedback, and so that changes our you know, our kind of map schema of the world.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_02: So what that basically means is that um change is built into the model.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_02: And there's one couple of things which I think the you know, which which are in the theory is to say actually there has to be you know a degree of change for life to be satisfying.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_02: So if there is no change, their life suddenly becomes you know very dull and boring.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_02: If there's too much change, then that can be destabilizing.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_02: And that that pops in my head when I read that and I thought when I was am actually planning, and I kind of I transitioned my business into you know cash flow modeling and actually planning, I was definitely in some cases, you know, really like excited with clients.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I kind of like, yeah, you've got you know you've got to go and newby dream, you've got to go and you know, buy the yacht, you know, do this, do that.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_02: And I kind of reflected on it and I thought, you know, was I kind of you know projecting onto people and kind of throwing a bunch of ideas at them, you know, which kind of came from a good place, you know, might be thought provoking, but might have left people thinking, what on earth are you talking about?
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_02: Like we just want to, you know, make sure that we have enough money to go and have a cup of tea in the garden, you know, or whatever it is.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_02: So I think, yeah, change can be, you know, too much change can be destabilizing, which I think comes onto the point about one of the other theories which you know which which it looks like we didn't study, which was role theory.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_02: But our identities are so inter, like intertwined with the work that we do, that actually changing from kind of work to retirement is actually more disruptive than you think until you start reading about it.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_02: And so there's I suppose there's a couple of different theories of identity, but we have, you know, our kind of sort of self-concept of kind of who we are.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_02: And there's kind of elements that are internalized, which should be like, let's say, for example, you're you know, you're like I'm a doctor.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that's like an internal, you know, knowledge that you have about yourself.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_02: Externalized is all the habits and routines that exist to carry out that role.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_02: I work in that hospital, you know, my commuting is 25 minutes, you know, I drive, these are my colleagues who I see day in and day out, you know, this is what I do.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_02: So there's a whole load of sort of habits and routines, you know, structured around you know, around that.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_02: And we also have another theory called social identity theory, which is about you know that we like putting ourselves into groups, you know, we like comparing you know ourselves against other people, you know, based on sort of you know pigs and and so actually uh disrupting all of that through retirement is actually quite destabilizing um mentally.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_02: And this is kind of that bit about the three-year window, unless people have had quite a decent amount of time to kind of process that and plan for it.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_02: If that makes sense.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_02: So this I think leads into one of the themes that came up within the study, which was unanimously, I think the advisors that I spoke to that they could split their uh uh clients into sort of one or two chapters.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_02: Those who had a kind of a an on-time retirement, which was they'd had this nice little period to plan for it, you know, think through what's on the other side, you know, model that kind of ideal week, how they've been spending their time.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_02: And the other ones who were pulled into a meeting room at 62, you know, and told you to be made redundant, sorry.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_02: And then I'd left with being accidentally retired.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_02: And all the uh yeah, planners I interviewed said that those people really struggled to put their life back on track for about six, twelve, eighteen, thirty-six months.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: The ones that were forced into it, it was different.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, which makes total sense, right?
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: There's not that thinking right process and preparing mentally, you know, for it's just real.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Reactive there, which would make a lot of sense why they would have why they would have a harder time.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: So you shared a lot around just, well, the psychology of retirement here and where things might be difficult on the client and just what they're going through, I think, on a human level, there, all of the pieces, all of the factors, some of which is I'll say hearing you say it is new, but not surprising to me there.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: I want to get into because I know your research focused on the advisor.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: Was there anything from that research around, you know, things that advisors did maybe well that were more helpful versus more harmful?
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: Or maybe it wasn't in that research, maybe just as a result of it, you know, you've come to see or direct on or teach on, like, hey, these things are helpful based on the psychology of retirement.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: And these things are like no-nos, don't do.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: I'd love to get into some of that.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_02: So I think as I'm saying, what the, you know, my kind of thinking about the study was is that, you know, if you interview kind of advisors about what is it that they do day to day, you know, they've been doing this for a long time.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_02: And so they've effectively been running their own little qualitative, you know, research studies, you know, with the clients.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_02: And actually, whether knowingly or not, you know, that's influenced kind of how they go about their work.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_02: And it's interesting, again, most of the advisors, you know, if if not all, had noticed that clients tend to do better in retirement if you structure their income to mirror a salary.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_02: And it just seems obvious when I was saying about actually continuity theories about maintaining and keeping stuff the same.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_02: So something that that works really well, and advisors do this already, is is effectively, you know, mirroring, you know, monthly money going in the bank account, which is what you'd experience, you know, from work.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_02: But I'd say probably best practice would be going a step further than that if you've got clients who kind of, you know, are have got this sort of anxiety about whether they're going to have enough money is actually using that terminology with them and saying, actually, we're going to structure this in this way, that's your salary in the bank every month.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_02: Because you're putting it into terms which just kind of, you know, tick a box of the client just to say, well, at least that stays the same.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_02: You know, at least I don't have to worry about that.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: I've heard a lot of on the client side of things where clients will share that they are grateful that their advisor made that shift or framed it in that way.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: Once they in and they will say, like, it feels a lot better thinking about it as okay, this is my like monthly salary.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, whether it is the same, more or less from what they were receiving, it's still just that idea of like, this is my monthly income and this is what's coming in.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, I can, you know, at least validate what you're saying.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: And that on the client end, I've had, you know, countless conversations where clients have said that that strategy is really helpful from a mental emotional aspect as it relates to withdrawing uh, you know, and pulling and pulling money out.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_02: And that's, you know, to say some of the I was reflecting on things that I used to do, you know, some advice and just thinking, yeah, maybe that's why that didn't land.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_02: But when you kind of you get very technical, you think, oh, actually, this client's got X amount, you know, in their assets.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I can structure this in a really clever way where actually things like dividend income, you know, or or sort of yield on on funds, you know, actually funds their lifestyle, but that leaves clients with different amounts in their bank account every month.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I kind of said it's what you need at the end of the year, but actually you get people who might think, no, I'm not on board with that.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_02: Like I need X amount of months, and then I'm happy.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_02: So I think actually it's you know, that you might find that actually the technical, what's best from a technical perspective, might not actually be the thing that the client wants that's gonna give them that reassurance, if that makes sense.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, were there other things that came about on the advisor end that you found helpful or effective?
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_02: So I think the other thing was looking at bucketed income strategies.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_02: So actually allocating kind of a purpose, you know, to you know, easily just as simple as just saying, look, what's gonna, you know, he heat your house, you know, put food in the you know, put food in the fridge, you know, just basics coverage.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_02: This is that that's where it's coming from.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_02: Is there a holiday fund?
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_02: Is there, you know, is there this fund, is there that fund?
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_02: So actually coming sort of putting stuff into buckets was something which most advisors tended to do actually.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_02: And again, that provides I suppose a bit of structure and we ensure our supplier that actually, you know, there's money coming in to do all the things that they want to do.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_02: So certainly that was quite interesting.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_02: But looking at the kind of role sort of aspect, you know, about that sort of destability, you know, about stabilizing the platform and the fact that actually loss of you know loss of a role, you know, can have such a big impact.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_02: There were a couple of advisors who actually do work you know work around having that discussion with clients early enough on.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I think one of the wise I said actually look encourages the clients to say, look, you're at a social event at the weekend, you're gonna introduce yourself, you're not gonna say you can't say I am a doctor or I used to be a doctor.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_02: What are you gonna say?
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_02: To get them actually to think about how they're gonna do that.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_02: To go a step further, I didn't have anyone say this, but what the similar theories said around role loss.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_02: I certainly had anecdotal experience when I've talked to people about this.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I can think about this working is that one of the things we role theories is that when we lose a role, you know, we go through a little bit of a sort of grieving period, a little bit of helplessness.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_02: But actually, whether knowing it or not, we sort of preconsciously will go out and find something to fill the hole.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_02: So what that looks like, these people like, you know, I I left that, you know, left that company, you know, after X number of years, you know, I had six months off and then I went back.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_02: So they meant to retire, uh see that gap was too big and they just ended up going back.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_02: And I had um, you know, whenever I talk to people about advisors about this, you know, lots of nods saying, Yeah, we've probably seen that.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_02: Or they go and take a different role doing something else, or let's say they've been a business owner, they they take an advisory role.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_02: To go a step further, and I think what best practice would be is that if advisors kind of notice that you know their clients have kind of got this gap, is that they sort of give them a little nudge into well, what could you do that's sort of similar than that?
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_02: And it's interesting, it's really maybe sort of reflect on say my own parents were retired.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_02: And my mom, so I'm one of four, and so my mom had you know raised four children, and then she was a nurse, you know, for her career, and she retired, maybe that's yours for you.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_02: So if you look at sort of meta-analysis, you know, what's my mum's role being throughout her career?
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: She's been a caretaker, right?
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's what I think about, right?
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, a caretaker.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: She and that looks right, you know, some of it's paid, some of it's paid with love and kisses and hugs.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_02: She's a carer, yeah.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_02: She likes looking after people.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_02: And so she still won't have anyone to look after anymore.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: No, no.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: How has she filled that then?
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: How has she filled that?
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'm being nosy here, but I'm just I'm also curious.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_02: Uh well, I'm trying to fill it, fill it for her by saying, look, here's my one-year-old and three-year-olds.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, which look, you and I both know from a development standpoint, you talk about like what's great from a cognitive development standpoint is that when grandparents care for their grandkids, it fills a lot of that.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: So, and that may not be everyone's cup of tea or thing or what they desire to do, but kudos to you for shoving your kids off on your mom.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's amazing.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it's interesting because like none of my other siblings really, I think, did.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_02: And it's funny because my my wife's like, oh no, no, we're not doing it.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_02: It feels like it's putting pressure on them.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_02: My wife's like, no, trust me.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_02: Like they love it.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_02: It's like the highlight of their week.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it is.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: It my mother-in-law feels very similar, and she is wonderful.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: She lives here in town with us, but early on, like, you know, I would feel badly, like asking, you know, for uh sometimes.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, she was very good about, you know, just no, I love my grandkids.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: I want to take care, you know, care for them and be, you know, grandma and do.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: So she was really wonderful.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: It still is.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: She's really wonderful about that.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: But from a role standpoint, right?
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: I hear like practicing thinking about and even saying, I love that idea of the example of, hey, you're gonna go to a dinner party or an outing this weekend.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you are technically not practicing as a doctor anymore.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what are you gonna say?
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: How do you want to describe what it is that you do?
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: I will say that I don't know if you hear this, but I will hear a lot of people say, like, oh, I'm retired.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: And they'll almost use that as like a role or like an identity, you know, piece is being retired.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe that's good, maybe that's not.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: I've not really put much thought into it.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: But I feel like for people who have like maybe strong professional careers, they will uh shift from, you know, I'm a doctor to I'm retired.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like that is kind of the role then that they take on.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't know your thoughts on that, but that's just something I'm realizing that I hear a lot.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's fine.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_02: I think that sounds like successful adjustment.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's no, if they said, Well, I'm retired, but I used to be.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_02: Or actually if they led with um, oh, I used to be, and then you kind of think actually, you know, you're recently retired, you're sort of clinging, you know, clinging on to that part of your identity that's you know, that's that's not there anymore.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um so no, I'm I don't, okay, that's that's fine.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_02: You know, don't see a problem with that.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_02: Sounds like successfully adjusting to a new stage of life.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it sounds like it to me.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just you know, kind of on the spot here, just kind of thinking how I hear clients, you know, shift to that almost as a as an identity.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, James, as we wrap things up here, is there anything, which is probably a loaded question, but is there anything that, at least for today's conversation, that you would want advisors walking away from uh in terms of the psychology of retirement, how to understand their clients better or do things differently?
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_02: So I think one of the things that was interesting to me is that as I started understanding a bit more about some what some of the theories are saying, and I think this is a good thing about like, you know, like AI now.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_02: So you could literally just I'd say if you open up like a Chat GPT or something like that, just go, give me like I'm a financial planner, give me a real quick summary of continuity theory, role theory, life course perspective, which is one we didn't talk about, and how it applies to my role and clients, you'll get like a m hopefully a series of bullet points and it would just you know you can get what you need to know.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_02: But reading a little bit about it made me think actually it's knowing something about what clients go through helps build a bridge for advisors because it's it can be really hard, you know, to empathize with people.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I was an advisor at 22.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_02: So you know, I most of my career as an advisor was spent uh helping people who were 50 plus years older than me.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_02: So it's really hard to temporarily go, I've got you know, but what's about to be retired?
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_02: I've got no idea.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_02: But if you start just learning a little bit about actually, you know, what some of the theories are saying, it helps you understand a bit about what's right to go through, you know, going through or are going to go through.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_02: And also don't treat retirement as a date.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's it's a life stage.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_02: That's one of the things in in continuity theory is to say, well, it's not just adjusting to you know work to you know, pre-to post.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's actually uh continuity theories relevant that as people get through kind of the aging process, you know, they're going through that phase of life where actually health is going to reach decline, which impacts activity, which you know so you're constantly you know going to see clients getting sort of you know feedback from certain events.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, understanding a bit about some of the theories, I think you know, helps to be a bit more a bit more empathic advisor, you know, maybe helps you spot patterns and might even get you reflecting like me is to say, well I can certainly think of you know that's giving me a new perspective on that client I used to deal with, that's giving me for that perspective on that scenario, you know, or even my own family.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_02: Well, as I say, those things are useful, but in terms of hints and tips, I'd say start the discussion early.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_02: You know, actually you can provide the financial support, you know, but making sure that they're financially prepared, but you can also, you know, ask them a few little thought-provoking questions, you know, like that, you know, what's going to give you purpose or meaning, you know, uh in life after work, you know, what's your ideal week in the look like?
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_02: I think the ideal week is quite a good is a really good one.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: I love using it.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: I yes, love using that.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_02: And then also if you start noticing these patterns around someone's lost a role, you know, like the example I gave you with my mum, and you would like try it straight away.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_02: You know, if you notice that in your clients, it's like, you know, could you because they can't come up with a solution, could you sort of nudge them and say, look, you know, I noticed that you spent most of your career being a problem solver.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_02: What is there that you could be doing, you know, to put that skill to use?
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_02: And then getting them to think through it.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_02: And as I say, that's the way you're doing it, you know, not giving people the solutions, you know, asking them the questions so that they come up with a solution themselves.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, easier said than done sometimes.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh for sure.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_01: Even for myself, easier said than done.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_02: But no, I think I think yeah, engaging in some of the theories because genuinely it's fascinating.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_02: I think it, you know, I'd I'd say, you know, certainly within within my my business, planning for retirement was bread and butter.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_02: It was the the basic thing, you know, piece of work that I would do for all of my clients.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_02: With either planning for retirement or in retirement, you know, it's it was a cute, you know.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_02: It's uh it's the backbone of financial planning.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_02: So you know, understanding a little bit about you know kind of works from a psychological perspective is interesting.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_02: And don't forget as well, like I came across the concept of retirement counselling, and that's not really a thing in the UK.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_02: People don't go to a counselor for retirement.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_02: So I think the uh you know advisors are default retirement counsellors.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's a lot of pressure on them.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_02: It is, yeah.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I think there aren't too many relationships that you can have, like an advisor-client relationship, where there's that level of trust, that you know, sort of safe space where the client can really sell you anything.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_02: And advisors all have that experience of you know, clients offloading about absolutely anything that's going on in their lives, you know, and I think so, you know, advisors are that kind of safe pair of ears to sort of use a metaphor, you know, about where you know clients can you know talk about what's on their mind, you know, about transitioning from pre-to post-work or you know, even you know, beyond that.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I love the theories here that you mentioned.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that as you just to reiterate, shared, it's a fantastic place to start uh in terms of just understanding some of the psychological aspects that go into retirement and even just human development more broadly.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: So I am grateful for you sharing all of that, all of your wisdom and insights today.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_01: James, if people want more James in their life, tell them where they can find you, what are you up to, uh, how can I connect with you?
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah, well, LinkedIn's probably where I'm most active.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_02: So you can hunt me down on LinkedIn.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_02: I do um a weekly email as well.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_02: I think you mentioned that at the beginning of the podcast.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_02: So if you go to my my website, razyvii.co.uk, you can sign up for that there as well.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um obviously the book that I'm kind of mentioned last time, yeah, the heart of finance, you know, that's that's done really well.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um I actually did the audiobook last year as well.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_02: So congratulations.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, if you go on Spotify and you know listen listen to me for hours more.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_01: I think you can get so much more, James, through the audiobook.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: I think that is a feat to do and to record your own audiobook.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_01: So congratulations.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_02: It's quite an interesting experience.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I can imagine.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_02: In the studio with a Kindle just reading into a microphone.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I would have a hard time.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_01: I would go off script.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I feel like I would I would go off script and maybe say things that are not in the book.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um I don't know.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and you know, just to plug in your training programs over at RaiseYour EI, I would encourage all of you listening to check out James's work, check out his programs, his training programs.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think that they are fantastic.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_01: His weekly newsletter is also amazing, as is his book.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_01: If you we've mentioned kind of the previous episode that James was here on.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: And if you go back, that is episode 19, Mastering Emotional Intelligence in Financial Planning.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: So you can go back and check out that recording.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_01: I would encourage you to because it's also fantastic.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_01: It was great.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, James, thank you so much for coming on today and sharing all of your insights, all of your wisdom here with us.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_01: And thank you to all of you who are out there listening.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for tuning in today and allowing James and I into your ears and into your mind.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_01: If this conversation resonated with you, I would love to keep the connection going.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so would James.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: He shared a little bit about where you can find him.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_01: You can also find me on LinkedIn where I hang out way too much and sharing weekly insights there around the human side of planning.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_01: If you want even more beyond the plan, Ashley Kwame, be careful what you wish for, be careful what you ask for.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_01: You can check out our monthly newsletter at www.beyondthefp.com.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: Most importantly, make sure to follow the show so that you never miss future conversations like this one.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: And as always, my friends, remember finances don't have feelings, but your clients do.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_01: Until next time, keep planning, keep growing, and keep going beyond.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for joining me on this episode of Planning and Beyond.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_01: I hope you found today's insights valuable and inspiring for both your practice and your personal growth.
• 39:38
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• 39:43
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• 39:49
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• 39:57
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• 40:04
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• 40:08
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• 40:10
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• 40:14
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