What makes a satisfying retirement?

When Christine Fahlund of T. Rowe Price asked a packed crowd of NAPFA advisors on Wednesday afternoon if they had clients who weren’t prepared financially for retirement, nearly every hand went up in the audience. Almost the same number also agreed that their clients were not psychologically prepared for retirement, either. Speaking at a breakout session at the NAPFA annual conference in Chicago, Fahlund then laid out a way to improve retirement preparation for clients while also giving them hope and helping advisors to differentiate themselves from their competitors.

“It’s all about the 60s,” said Fahlund, a CFP, a Ph.D. and a former fee-only advisor herself. She described those years as the age that for many years was considered “Nirvana” for clients who hoped to retire and spend that decade of life enjoying all the activities on which they had delayed gratification while working. With the Practice Retirement program (recently trademarked by T. Rowe), Fahlund said advisors can tell clients, “Yes, you have to keep working, but you can start playing” as well. She also argued that the research is clear that “lives built exclusively around leisure do not deliver the satisfaction level hoped for,” which has led to what she calls the “unretirement trend.”