The Emerging Role of Lifestyle Coaches in Wealth Management

Beyond the standard retirement income planning, Social Security, and Medicare playbooks, many wealth managers and financial advisors are turning their attention to helping clients grapple with finding purpose and direction in retirement.

Although financially prepared for retirement, these individuals often struggle to navigate the emotional and practical aspects of this new life stage. In response, a growing number of advisors are seeking the expertise of retirement, career, and life coaches to help clients define and embrace their "next chapter."

By partnering with external coaches or developing these skills themselves, advisors can offer "common sense" guidance to address the non-financial concerns and worries clients face as they transition into retirement. These concerns include:

• Fear of not knowing how to fill the newfound free time and missing the enjoyment or challenge of a career.
• Anxiety about becoming socially isolated without the built-in network of colleagues and friends.
• Apprehension about the potential onset of depression as they leave behind the familiar structure and purpose of work life.

Together, advisors and coaches can play a pivotal role in empowering retirees to approach this new phase with confidence, self-discovery, and a renewed sense of purpose.

Beyond the Money; Enter Retirement Lifestyle Coaching

One emerging retirement planning trend is lifestyle coaching, a holistic approach that integrates financial advice with guidance on various non-financial aspects of a client's life, such as career, relationships, personal growth, and overall well-being. It aims to help clients clarify their life goals, identify their values and priorities, and develop a comprehensive plan that aligns their financial decisions with their desired lifestyle.

For financial advisors like Jay Zigmont, PhD, CFP®, founder of Childfree Wealth®, lifestyle coaching enables financial planners to provide tailored, goal-oriented advice that goes beyond traditional wealth management while addressing both the financial and non-financial facets of a client's life.

The planning process at Nashville-based Childfree Wealth focuses on life planning first, then finances, and then finally tax and estate planning. “We take this approach because childfree people (individuals or couples that do not have children) follow a different path than the standard life script. We need to understand the 'non-finance' components before we can create any financial plan. The challenge for us is that childfree people have more flexibility and freedom in their plans, so they regularly change,” explains Zigmont.

For example, since childfree clients don’t have to worry about moving to a town with a “great school system’, they are more mobile and tend to move about every three years. One Childfree Wealth client, a remote worker, rented Airbnbs in 12 different states over that last year because she wanted to experience in living in different parts of the country. “Her lifestyle is a different kind of American dream that does not include the big house in a nice suburb,” adds Zigmont.

Additionally, many of Zigmont’s clients are at or approaching what he calls the “Childfree Midlife Crisis”. Childfree people often hit their personal, professional, and financial goals early in life, says Zigmont. “Once you hit your goals, it can be a challenge to find purpose and define the next chapter of life. Parents often shift their goals to their kids, which is not a choice for childfree people. We step in and help childfree people identify what impact they want to make in the world and then create a plan to get there.”

One way for childfree people to dip their toe in the financial planning water is to engage in a $500 wealth checkup. Zigmont and his team walk clients through some big life questions and help them determine financial and more importantly, personal goals. “For many people, it was the first time that any professional had talked to them about being childfree – and for most, it’s the first time they felt and heard and seen,” says Zigmont.

According to Zigmont, about 25% of the US population is childfree and some 32% of that group will never marry. “It’s a much bigger market opportunity than most advisors realize. Without the expenses of children and grandchildren, they have more financial options and spending power. So we actually devote more time talking about how to spend,” add Zigmont. “For me, my nephews will get what’s left over in my estate after I die. I want to spend or give away most of it in my lifetime. But if they get $1 million, that’s a mistake.”

Weaving a Lifestyle Coach into Retirement Planning

Steve Krzywicki, CFP®, CEO of Beacon Bridge Wealth Partners in Lower, Gwynedd, PA, likes to work with clients to go beyond the “how much do I need to retire number”. Increasingly, Krzywicki and his team are working with clients to help them reinvent themselves in retirement through their “total wellness” approach to retirement planning.

Beacon Bridge has developed an assessment tool based on 5 key topics (finances, healthcare, lifestyle, relationships, and purpose) can help their financially secure clients address the real stresses that eat away at their retirement happiness and fulfillment. “Increasing, we help them build confidence in the nonfinancial areas like redefining their mission in retirement,” says Krzywicki.

Acknowledging that their assessment tool is just a start, Beacon Bridge enlists the support of external retirement coaches including David Buck, a Certified Retirement Lifestyle Coach and founder of Infinity Lifestyle Design in Ponte Vedra, FL.

“When working with Dave Buck, we actually sit on the same side of the table as our clients as we collectively go through some of his ‘retirement worry’, purpose, and bucket list exercises. It’s important that clients feel comfortable enough to open up to us as a trusted partner,” explains Krzywicki.

The importance of planning and managing your time in retirement

While researching key challenges of retirement, Buck’s key breakthrough was learning that most people do not realize how much time they are going to have to fill in retirement. Many former corporate execs get lost in early retirement because they were accustomed to a lot of structure in their workday. All of sudden, it’s gone and they need help. It wasn’t just the 40 hours/week of former full-time employment, it’s about how do you structure your day in a way that supports your interests, lifestyles, commitments, and social needs, says Buck.

Buck brings a next-level approach to the traditional world of time management – and applies it to retirement planning. His deep dive into the topic resulted in the co-writing of The Time-Optimized Life (with co-author Rev. Dr. Susan Rose). Time optimization is a structured approach to retirement life that combines preparation, execution, and control with flexibility and intention. It helps retirees create a balanced and fulfilling lifestyle by effectively managing their time to achieve desired outcomes.

According to Buck there are two key benefits of using his assessment tools:

1. Clients realize they have not put a lot of thought and effort into their lifestyle. In addition, couples find they have not discussed key lifestyle issues and may find they each have different expectations.

2. Clients quickly understand that retirement lifestyle is more complicated than they think.

 Buck’s approach is to systematize the process of helping retirees find new meaning, passion, and purpose in retirement; not a small task. His 9-step system offers a lot of structure but is flexible so it can be customized to different wealth management firms, depending on the firm’s culture, needs, and book of business.

One of the biggest challenges for many newly retired people is to think about how to reinvent themselves. Buck underscores the importance of every retiree having a purpose statement and works with advisors to help them become more empathetic to their clients’ needs.

It’s no secret that most couples are not always on the same page when it comes to talking about money. For couples working with an advisor, it’s an advisor’s opportunity to get the couple to better communicate, says Buck.

And advisors need to be ready for surprises. For example, Buck worked with a client couple that walked into a quarterly checkup meeting with their wealth advisor and announced, “We just bought a Subway Franchise. That’s what we’re doing in retirement!” The advisor was floored because owning a business in retirement was never discussed in prior planning sessions. Fortunately, this couple had the resources and risk capacity to take on this new endeavor.

Beyond the Traditional Bucket List

Many wealth management clients fill their bucket lists with adventure travel, avocations, and reboots of their childhood interests. Too often the standard bucket list becomes a “cut and paste” exercise. Fortunately, these bucket lists are taking a turn to be more personal and fulfilling, says second generation financial advisor Gary Sirak, president of Sirak Financial Services in Canton, Ohio.

He helps clients plan for their desired lifestyle in retirement by centering retirement lifestyle planning sessions on three key focal points:

1. Retiring TO, not just FROM: Identify what you're retiring to, not just from. Knowing what's next is crucial. It could be leisurely travel, a passion project, volunteering, or a new venture. If unsure, a coach can help explore possibilities or reignite a passion.

2. Create a Wishlist: Plan for both major events and daily activities. Visualize your first day, week, month, and year of retirement. While big trips are exciting, focusing on smaller, everyday activities will maintain fulfillment.

3. Categorize likes, loves, and hates: Make a list of activities, places, and people you enjoy and want to avoid. This resource will help you stay engaged and content throughout retirement. By embracing likes and loves while avoiding hates, you can create a balanced and satisfying lifestyle, says Sirak.

Sirak likes to get clients to first identify the things they hate doing in retirement. Number 1 on Sirak’s personal hate list is mowing the lawn. “I absolutely hate cutting grass. Here’s my easy solution: Don’t own a lawnmower! I haven’t owned one for years and it’s proven to be a worthwhile investment as I gladly pay someone to do it. It makes me very happy to see someone else take care of this for me and my wife,” explains Sirak, author of three books on money, lifestyle and retirement including How to Retire and Not Die.

Sometimes, you just have to give people the space to indulge as they enter the new freedoms of retirement. One of Sirak’s clients, a former national sales manager who lived out of a suitcase for decades, simply wanted “alone time” to binge his favorite TV series when he finally retired. “When he told me his Wishlist including watching every episode of NCIS – all 947 episodes – I was slightly taken aback. But after years on the road, he simply wanted this downtime. And even after binging over 100 episodes, he reports that the show still brings delight and joy. I call that a success.”

In conclusion, financial advisors are increasingly collaborating with lifestyle and retirement coaches to help clients navigate the emotional and practical aspects of retirement. By addressing non-financial concerns such as finding purpose, maintaining social connections, and managing free time, this partnership empowers retirees to create a fulfilling and balanced lifestyle in their golden years. Together, advisors and coaches offer guidance and support to ensure a smooth transition into retirement, promoting overall happiness and well-being.

Related: The Essential Role of Financial Advisors in Senior Transitions