Episode 34: Health Meets Wealth - A Future-Ready Guide to Aging Gracefully with Scott Fulton

Episode Summary

In this episode of The Future-Ready Advisor, host Sam Sivarajan speaks with Scott Fulton, author of Wealthspan, about the intersection of health, wealth, and housing in creating a fulfilling future. Scott shares why “aging well” is an art, blending financial planning, positive aging, and proactive design.

The conversation explores key strategies for preparing for lifetime housing needs, addressing the financial implications of health, and embracing a future-ready mindset. Scott challenges common misconceptions about wealth and health, emphasizing the importance of holistic financial planning and the power of asking better questions.

Key Takeaways

• Wealth is more than money—it’s about health, housing, and finances combined.
• Aging gracefully starts with proactive planning and an open mindset.
• Financial advisors can lead with a holistic financial planning approach by asking the right questions.
• Designing homes for lifetime use can improve quality of life and reduce long-term costs.
• Normalizing the connection between health and wealth paves the way for better planning and outcomes.
• Changes in life are often scarier than market volatility, but both require resilience and preparation.

 Key Quote

• “Nothing will impact financial outcomes more than health and housing.”

 Sound Bites

• “Wealth is not just about money.”
• “Volatility isn’t as scary as change.”
• “Designing a home for lifetime use is as much about quality of life as it is about financial planning.”
• “Aging isn’t a problem to solve; it’s an opportunity to create.” – Sam Sivarajan
• “A future-ready mindset helps clients see aging as a new chapter, not an ending.”

Topics Covered

[00:00] Introduction to Scott Fulton and Background

[03:05] The Intersection of Health and Wealth

[07:46] The Art of Aging Well

[19:21] Preparing for Housing Needs in Later Years

[25:25] Key Considerations for Financial Advisors

[32:14] Challenging Misconceptions Between Wealth and Health

[44:02] Embracing Change in Financial Planning

Resources Mentioned

Whealthspan by Scott Fulton

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Keywords

Health and wealth, aging well, financial planning, lifetime housing, holistic approach, proactive design, wealthspan, Scott Fulton, client engagement, future-ready mindset, trusted relationships, financial advisors, positive aging

Hi everyone. I'm your host Sam Sivarajan Welcome to today's episode of the Future Ready Advisor. Today, I'm here with Scott Fulton, the author of the book, Wealthspan. Scott, welcome to the show.

Thanks Sam, great to be with you. Really looking forward to our conversation today.

Me too. I think it's very timely. Let me quickly introduce you to the audience. Scott's work is all about helping us live not just longer, but better by making sure our wealth and health grow together. He lectures on positive aging at two university campuses, is a member of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, sits on the prestigious True Health Initiative Council, and is past president of the National Aging in Place Council. His book,

wealth span, more years, more moments, more money made number one on Amazon. Scott is also an Ironman triathlete and lives with his wife in Charlottesville, Virginia. Whether you're a financial advisor or just someone looking to optimize your life, you won't want to miss this conversation. Scott, when I think about wealth and health, I can't help but think about that old joke, you know, till you turn 40.

you run with your health after your money. After 40, you run with your money after your health. I can certainly attest to the truth of that statement. Can you share a bit about your journey and what inspired you to write the book and what personal or professional experiences led you to explore this intersection between health and wealth?

Sure, Sam. So maybe there's kind of a funny story that I talk about. When I turned 40, my midlife crisis was not to go buy the convertible, but I went and bought a bike. And that was really a big turning point. It kind of reconnected me with my youth and continues to probably be my favorite activity. I think my experience with aging, I started to be an observer quite young.

I did the same.

And one of the, so I had a really positive influence with my grandmother, with her cherry red 1967, think Chevy Impala two door 327 soft top when she pulled up and aging isn't all bad. I tell you that stayed with me all these years of what it can be. But in parallel as I watched other people and I was probably through my parents circle of friends,

I observed a number of kind of senior executive CEOs kind of go through their retirement or enter in and kind of follow them through over the years that followed. And I saw a really kind of hit and miss unpredictable outcome that they were experiencing retirement, which really, I think, caught my attention and continued my curiosity. so as I...

As I went through, a researcher, I'm big data analyst, I've always been there and moved through lots of areas of research. I started to look for it more again as I got into my 50s and started to dive in more. so what I started to see were what was missing, right? We all like to think, we look at population data and we all would like to assume that we're all going to be at the median or the average, depending on what data set you're looking at.

Mm -hmm.

And of course, reality is n equals one. And so what I started to look into was, why is your n equal one different than the person next to you who seems to have followed a similar pattern? And it just has led to, I think, a lot more nuanced understanding of what's happening as we age and really those who age well, why do they age well? And you start to realize we've got a view in the US that it's all

socioeconomic and it's all money related. Again, that's kind of navel gazing, I would suggest. Money is certainly an easier part of it, it makes it easier, but money is not going to buy you health in your later years. There are other things that factor in. And so that's kind of what set me down the path and just has opened all sorts of rabbit holes that I've gone down and tried to pull out a few gems along the way.

I think it's an interesting point that you make that and I totally agree with it, the idea that it isn't all about money and wealth. know that it's sacrilegious to say that, but I think it's not just a US phenomena. It's a Canadian phenomena as well. How much in your, you're a data person. How much do you feel that that's got to do with, if you can count it, it's, it's measurable, it's trackable and everything else, but that some of these other concepts that you're talking about are alluding to.

you whether it's society, you know, your place in society, community, having a good group of friends or social network, we all can say that's important. But because we can't necessarily quantify it or track it, that it somehow loses that sort of focus or priority that one might think that you would give otherwise.

Yeah, I think the well So what I always caution people is stop looking for the easy answer Right there kind of say people what's the one thing I could do I say well The one thing you could do is stop thinking there's only one thing you can do You know the the art, know aging is an art There are many things we need to do on that brushstroke and you know how we dip the the paint brush how we mix the paints to get

the result that we're looking for. There are clearly measurable impacts. what I kind of remembering it, your audience is largely Canadian, is that right? Yep. So I was up in Canada, I gave a talk recently and one of the hospital CEOs showed up for my talk, which I always liked to have in the audience, that kind of level, is that once I'm...

been many years in Canada. So I know the Canadian system pretty well and I moved back and forth. So I'll always caution people, don't think because you're in Canada that you're insulated from the impact of the US. Essentially all the trends follow, we know this. They tend to lag by about five years and so we're seeing the same thing happen in longevity and health outcomes. The difference is really when we start to measure the big impacts

Mm

Mm

on our equity, right? And so in the market, in financial market, we love to talk about market volatility. Why do we do that? We talk about it because we want to calm the client down around the things that will get our client anxious. And then I'll kind of, so when I talk to health, well, we don't want to talk about health, we're going to get them too anxious. Well, that's the same.

Mm

response they have to market volatility and health they have actually a lot more influence than they do over what the markets are doing. And so there's a place to play here because what we understand is nothing will impact outcomes in terms of financial outcomes more than health and their home. And if we're not making planning, thoughtful planning decisions well in advance, we are going to pay significantly more in later years for both health and

and housing options, primarily because we haven't planned it well enough. And so we're left with short term decisions that has to be made in a matter of days versus over a five or 10 year window. And so we can measure certainly the cost of what ill health has or chronic disease in later years, even by all of the support services that we're going to need later, even though we may view that our medical is covered.

There are all the other costs that are going to wrap up on to that and then you ultimately it's that What is wealth? Is it money or is it health and reality? That's why well span is really it's really having both or I call it the you know the trifecta you have wealth you health and you have lifespan and so you really want all three of those and so we've got a look to understand what are the other things that are touching money and if anyone's worked with clients at towards the end of life

they have seen how fast the money starts to pour out. The one example I offer there is the financial cliff where we have two housing scenarios where one needs to go into a facility to get care, the partner is going to stay at home and suddenly the housing costs will probably go up to three or four X when you add the healthcare piece to it. And part of my other work is what are we doing for the survivor? What is the survivor going to be left with?

This is all kind of the planning window that we can start to measure if we start to focus on what are the outflows of cash in later years.

That's a great point, Scott. I think the idea that there is a cost to poor health that in some ways can be mitigated if planning is taken upfront, I think is a key point. In a place like Canada where health is a universal care and you're not directly paying for it, but it's paid through taxes.

the point that you're making that there's other costs, whether it's reduced lifespan or support services or quality of life that needs to be factored in and the impact on surviving spouse, et cetera. That's a very interesting concept and a role that in my view, think financial advisors can play in to kind of help bring that to bear to in the planning process that it's not just about

hard dollar costs that you have for retirement or retirement health spending, or retirement home spending, et cetera. It's some of these soft dollar costs as well.

Yeah, maybe what I'll add is changes essentially in health care with chronic care. We're seeing governments move towards capping those those dollars, which means that that's going to come from more and more from out of pocket expenses that aren't necessarily representative for looking just at historical data. We know that the changes coming into health care and in the hospital systems are already changing far more than people are aware until they find themselves in that situation.

You talked about wealth spend. I'd like to dig in a little bit deeper into that. That concept, it's interesting. It's combining the financial, the physical, the mental and the social concepts. How in your talks, in your discussions, how have you seen this concept?

that it's not one single thing, it's all of this, resonate with people. Particularly when we're looking at today's world where everything is fast -based, financial stability and health are often seen as competing priorities.

I think the, so where I get a lot of feedback, particularly in the classroom where you get that opportunity, but we certainly see it on, like on LinkedIn, I try to post some information there every day. There is a growing awareness. so the two questions that come back to me from people are often on the health side, why isn't my doctor telling me this stuff? Right?

And there are lots of reasons why doctors don't do that. We don't need to get into that today. But the other more to your audience perhaps is why aren't my financial, why is my financial advisor talking to me about this stuff? And so because we're starting to understand how connected these all are. And so I look at it as, as well span, can look at, at, at clients, financial health as being a three legged stool.

Mm

one leg being wealth, the other being health and the other being housing. Upset any one of those and it's gonna pull the other two down with it. so I think that's what people are, I try to be as direct as I can and transparent and people are, they get it. It's more that why haven't we been having the conversation? Right, so it's we kind of.

Mm. Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Like there's things you say to someone and say, yeah, I kind of knew that all along, but I've actually never articulated the thought or it's never come up in conversation. So that's where I try to dig into what are the conversations we're having in our head and we're rationalizing, but we're not having them with each other, you know, for whatever reason we've avoided it. So I think there's a, you know, clients I think really have value a more holistic approach.

because they want to know that someone else is looking at it from multiple perspectives and helping ask questions to them to look at it from different perspectives because it's really hard to be forward looking in our own lives. We all tend to ask a nine year old, I feel like I'm in my 20s. We hear people say that all the time. so everything that kind of connects this concept of wealth, health and lifespan together.

is actually how we operate every day. We just don't tend to think about it that way.

That's a great point. It isn't necessarily that it's complex. lot of things I believe isn't investing, for instance, I always say it's simple, but it's not easy. And what I mean by that is that conceptually, there's nothing hard about it. It's the behavior component that makes it very difficult. And there is an element, I believe that

people may be having these thoughts, but they may also be feeling that it's just them, that this is a concern that they have that isn't really a legitimate concern. They're not doing something right. Everybody else has got it figured out, and it's just me that doesn't have it figured out. what I understand you saying is that a financial advisor that can help bring that to bear, ask those questions, is almost giving the client permission to feel this way to

look at things that aren't quantifiable or immediate and feel good that they're actually thinking about some of these longer term pieces that are going to have major impact on their lives.

Yeah, one of things I've started to do for the financial community is to provide it. It's a six -part series that I came up with. Having worked with them and talked them for many years, is there's an education component, but the part that I think the financial industry has really stared away from is letting clients talk to each other.

Right. Because that's where like your situation is different than mine. And if I line everybody up in a table or in a room, we start to discover there are many different scenarios and mine may look a little bit like, you know, three other people kind of put together a composite. And so it's a way to to invite conversation around these topics that just allow clients to talk together and start to now

Mm

fuel a conversation. I think that's always an enlightenment that I think the advisor or the financial community has not tapped into. It's tended to all be one way. People will say, well, you give me a talk. I don't do many talks anymore for the half hour talk to promote my book or something, because I can't give you what you need in a half an hour. I can't give you what your clients really need if you're going to invest in your clients.

So for me, once I started to do this and I see the aha moments as people start to come out of there and the energy that happens when they come out of there and the advisors involved in it kind of say, thank you. Like I didn't know how to start that conversation and they don't even need to have the conversation, but people want to have this conversation. So providing a venue to have the conversation is a lot of what this is about, I think for clients.

and it's maybe harder to do one -on -one because it feels too personal. So what are the other ways that we can do that to facilitate it?

Mmm.

That's a great point. And along those lines, the question that pops into my head is how do you address the challenge or how does a financial advisor address the challenge of helping individuals shift their mindset when it comes to positive aging? One example that I want to use here is from your book, which I think is apropos. I think you talked about the idea of a best before date that you use the example that nearly every

packaged food item has the best before date. We understand that from the health benefits of early intervention before disease, but we don't think about it in other aspects, the other legs of the stool, housing, for example. So the example that you talk about is that, and most listeners can relate to this, is that we invest substantial energy in preparing for a newborn to arrive.

but we don't necessarily do the same in thinking about how we prepare our housing for our later years, et cetera. And that's a mindset issue. Can you talk a little bit about that as to how you would approach it and how financial advisors might be able to approach it?

Sure. So again, we kind of come back to say, what are the things that are going to impact your your your future in terms of future net worth? And one of them will be how how protected you are by your home. So your home is there to provide a service to you, right? Is your home supporting you over the years of life? And I'll I'll tell you one of the changes coming is

our homes will be, we saw through the pandemic, more people started work from the home. So one of the changes that happening primarily again, because of some capping on healthcare spend, also tech and labor shortages, but also technologies coming that is going to intentionally keep people in their home much longer. And so that kind of tell people this idea that you have an option of aging in place is being eroded. You probably don't have an option.

it's probably only going to be. And so if we think about it, we can wait until the last possible minute. Would we do that? Well, until I actually see the baby born, I don't know if I want to go to all that trouble of the shopping, because maybe it won't happen. Well, it's kind of like as though old age won't happen or death won't happen. It's going to happen. And so.

Hmm.

given it's going to happen, we have two choices. We can bury our head in the sand, pretend it's not going to happen, or we can take a positive view, which we would say in past generations of celebrating elderhood and to say, what an opportunity that I have. Right. And what did I retire for? I didn't retire to stay young. I retired to grow old in a way of my choosing. And so my choosing hopefully is around positive things. So if we think about a positive mindset,

Mm

Why wouldn't I choose my home? And this is really one of the first things I did when I got into aging was I started to go through and to say, find clients who had disposable income who wanted the ultimate aging experience at home. So they said, I plan to stay in my home. don't have anything. I may have the money to do any number of things. I want to do it well. How can I do it well? But I don't want a place that looks institutional because that's kind of what

Mm

the aging industry has done. So if we think about creating a home, the way we would kind of the nursery say, know, we've put all the colors and things on the walls and, you know, things hanging from the ceiling mobiles and things. What if we decorated our home both from an aesthetic and a functional standpoint so that it would serve us throughout our remaining years? For any number of eventualities, it doesn't mean we need to design it like a nursing home.

So that's, I had the opportunity just as circumstances evolved when I moved to Virginia a couple of years ago, I had the opportunity to design and build our own home. So I've actually, I'll try to do this on a show at some point, is to show people this is what the modern home looks like that's designed for lifetime. It doesn't look any different than it, no one comes in and sees anything because there's an element to doing it that it's really appealing. And so.

Mmm.

As soon as it's appealing, you're now, you know, your home is open to people coming to stay socially interactive with you in later years. And at some place you look at and, you know, you talk about peace of mind of things that cause anxiety, knowing that that best before date, your home isn't really going to serve well and until you're maybe seventy five, seventy eight, depending if something happens. So this best before date is what we want to push that out as long as we can in our home.

to really make sure that it's best before date is beyond age 100 for it perhaps. We don't want our home to be the barrier to now have to kind of run up against and say, now what are we gonna do? We wanna ideally stretch that out as long as we can, because that really gives us as many options and lowers our later life costs as well.

This concept should appeal to financial advisors because it's very much along the lines of planning and preparation. You don't want to deal with circumstances in the heat of the moment because some of these things require thinking, they require preparation, require iteration because it doesn't, the first manifestation of it may not be the one that you are, that you end up with. You have to think it through to say,

Is this really, do we need extra stories? Is this how we want to be climbing in later years or is there something that we look at that is going to accommodate that when we're perhaps may not be able to take the stairs as frequently?

Yeah, it's a strategy, right? Like everything, like I actually view it as a portfolio, right? We view an investment portfolio as having the elements to maximize returns and minimize risk, or at least balance those two. And so our home should be the same approach as a portfolio. Here are the sorts of things that we want our home to be able to do. How do we get the most out of it?

Mm

Ideally, we get everything out of it, but that's okay. If we get 80 or 90%, we're still going to be well ahead of where most people are. if we approach it that way as a strategy, we can say, okay, what should we do first? And there's financial decisions as part of that, right? So I think in the book, I give a model, an example of put $50 ,000 in at retirement or retirement, maybe you work another six or nine months to get that.

to really equip your home with the things you would like to have it to now become a lifespan or a lifetime home. $50 ,000 sounds like a lot of money to everybody. But flip that around and say, what are the late life costs or what's the return on that investment down the road? Forgetting about even the emotional investment, the hard returns on that are really easy. So I tell you in the US, the return on that is going to be in today's dollars about six months.

So if it allows you to stay in your home six months longer, you're gonna have that. But in reality, you're gonna have a much better life experience by kind of setting your home up in a way that's going to serve you for many years in a style and aesthetics that's to your choosing versus that. the classic one is, your mom's had a fall and you're gonna be released from the hospital but can't come home.

Mm

because the home isn't set up to allow her to get in and out of the house safely or move around the house. So what are we going to do? We're going to have to find interim care. And then while she heals and while we get work done on the house, getting a contractor to show up and actually give you a price and do the work. Yeah, that's not a weekend activity. Those are difficult decisions. So everything just gets escalated the later you leave it. And so you do a client a great service.

Mm

Right.

by kind of helping them think through those things early.

Makes total sense. And on that note, for financial advisors, what do you think are the key considerations or the key conversations I should say they should be having with their clients to get them to start thinking along these lines, aligning their wealth, their health, their housing, at least start thinking about how those three play together well in advance.

Yeah, I think we don't have to over complicate it. We don't have to overburden advisors with this. A lot of what I have found, this is what I tell to my students, my goal in teaching is pretty simple. All I want to do is help you ask better questions. So what information can I feed to you or questions that I can pose to you that will cause you to ask better questions? so I think on this,

One of the questions is, we talk about horizon planning. So if we're using the default of 95 years, what are we planning towards? And money is only one of those things. And so if we're having that conversation with a client to say, is 95 the year we're gonna plan for? How is your housing? Is your housing set up for 95? What's that strategy look like?

What are the scenarios you have in mind for that? It's a question, right? The client could say, none of your business, I don't want to talk about it. Done, right? You've given them a chance. How do you feel about your health outlook around achieving that? It's simply not that you have to have answers to it, it's really helping the client to start to think about these other levers that are going to have a big impact on that number, not just the amount of money.

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

having just having all the money in need and then giving it all away to the healthcare system. I don't know anyone who spent a career working with that is their idea. It makes as much sense. I want to make as much money as I can so I can turn around and pay it in taxes. It's the same concept. So we want to preserve that equity, but we also want to preserve quality of life. So I think it's really around how do we figure out to ask questions? And then it would be if they're interested,

great, so let's let me know or let them know that you want to partner with them. I want to support you. I don't have the sort of things to come in and modify your home, but I can certainly help provide some resources for you to do that or get a group together to talk about it together so you can learn from each other. There are ways to do that that don't encroach on the regulatory environment that the industry obviously has to work on.

Those to me are really just the, like we need to be asking questions and allowing some conversation to essentially normalize these conversations the same way we would normalize market volatility. We don't want you getting anxious just because the market fell 50 points or 100 points yesterday. These are the normal things. It'll recover. The difference of course is the housing challenge will not recover if we haven't.

plan for it well, health may or may not recover depending on what the disease is. these are all things that we should be normalizing as part of our conversation.

I totally agree. I've always believed that the role of an advisor is to ask questions, lots of questions. And maybe the point I would emphasize is that those questions should also be more open -ended and perhaps on non -monetary things to get ideas and things going through the client's mind. You make a great example. The idea of saying that you've

you know, we're planning from a financial perspective till age 95. How does housing play into this plan? Are you planning to retire and stay in this home for that whole time period? What might be needed to make sure that you can live there when you're 75, 85? And asking those kinds of questions in the more open -ended and less directive it can be is, I think, helpful. And

These may be questions the client has never heard, never thought of. And I think the important thing is that that's okay. In fact, it's not necessary for either the advisor or even the client to have an answer to that question. It's that the question is asked, that it sits there in their subconscious and maybe a week, maybe a month, maybe three months later, they come back and say, you you've made me think.

And I realized that I hadn't really planned. Yes, we've got a financial plan till 95, but I don't have a housing plan. I don't have a health plan. I want to explore that a bit more.

Yeah, and some of these just require time. So I'll give you my own example is I have four sons, two of them live in Canada, two in the US, and they're in four different cities. So if my later life plan is to is to be a resident near them. Which one is it going to be? I can't can't answer that today. But I don't want to have to answer that.

Mm -hmm. -hmm.

in a crisis situation, right? I would like to, you over time kind of see how their lives evolve. You know, they may move three times between now and when that decision may come up anyway. But the point is time to process this in low stress conditions, you know, get the tested out are really great opportunities. But if it's only if we ask the questions early enough just to see the answer. And it's to your point, right?

Mm

Absolutely.

I don't need an answer, but these are the kind of questions that are really gonna matter because we may want to adjust your planning in terms of financial planning to make sure that we're accommodating that.

like the 50 ,000 that you talked about that you might want to spend in just before retirement to upgrade your home, etc. What are some common misconceptions, Scott, that people have about the relationship between wealth and health? And how do you challenge those beliefs in your book?

Right. Right.

Well, I think so. So one of them is this notion of

that disease only happens to poor people or the less affluent. We're always, or that it only happens to those who don't have a healthy lifestyle, right? Or flip it around and say, well, because I'm a runner, I'm not gonna get heart disease and I'm not gonna get cancer. These are common things that, and what it is is we're rationalizing all the time, right?

Yeah.

Mm

Mm -hmm.

And so if we think about kind of the health and wealth piece, I think it's really around a very holistic view to say, is wealth or the health across not just my lifespan, but across my family or my loved one's lifespan? And so that really involves, and this is where I kind of see the

particularly in the husband and wife scenario, where they are programmed differently. So we know that, interestingly, the men focus on the money and the women focus on the nurturing and care of the family. Traditionally, these are kind what we see. And then we can kind of take it later in life. so particularly the scenario plays out where the husband is older.

Mm

and will typically die sooner and have disease issues earlier, the survivor's left with the wife who's so focused on caring for her husband, wanting to make sure he has the right care, and then what she left with at the end of the day. And so this is the issue around what's gonna be there for the survivor. These are really difficult decisions to make, again, in a crisis, particularly once you commit to something. So.

Right.

So, right, so this, so I have people come and talk to me. I finally had, I was out cycling and one of the guys, he's a doctor and he talked to me about it. it was just the two of us, were waiting for the other group to get there. And I just, he was telling me about the scenario with his mother that the kids were all adult kids caring for their mother in a facility. they thought, they said, you know, we didn't really expect her to live this long and she could easily go another couple of years. And he said, quite honestly, I can't afford it anymore.

I'm not going to have enough for my own retirement. And so it's a but you what do do at that point? Right. So this is the the the difficulty for not kind of making those bigger holistic plans to say, you whoever goes first, what's that scenario and whoever goes second, what's that scenario? So the you know, I think it's I think it really is that big, big, you 40 ,000 foot view of what is wealth to you.

What's the purpose of wealth? What is health to you? What's the importance of that in terms of minimizing morbidity? So maybe that's the other just to throw in here is there's, people rationalize all sorts of things. One is that, well, I don't wanna live too long because that's gonna increase my risk of Alzheimer's and kind of being in a nursing home. Well, if you're worried about getting to 110, that's maybe,

Mm -hmm.

maybe more legitimate, but in reality is the healthier we remain, the less our morbidity period is at the end of life and the longer we live. I kind of, if we work the numbers, it's generally worth about another decade of life. for a 65 year old, that's worth about another decade of healthy years with no or probably less morbidity at the end of life than they would have had living shorter.

Mm

And so we're starting to see the same thing happen in Canada. It's not there yet. It's still lagging behind. So it's the same scenario of how do I take a bigger, more broader look at what does wealth and health mean to me and to my family? And these are conversations with partners that we don't always have either, right? So again, it's a question that an advisor could ask at the table with a couple. So what does wealth and health mean to you?

Mm

Why are we doing this? Why are we bothering to accumulate all this money? What's it for? We think it's an obvious answer, but I can tell you that people will surprise you with their responses.

Well, that's a great point. And asking both partners in the the in the relationship is critical. You do that in risk tolerance and you find that just because they're married or have been living together doesn't mean that they both share the same risk tolerance. But asking them what does wealth mean to them or what does health mean to them or what does their housing plan in their later years, et cetera, asking both husband and wife or partners or whatever it is.

is an interesting conversation to have because to your point, likely that conversation's perhaps not even occurred between the partners, let alone in front of the advisor.

Yeah, you could take like I'm an architect, for example, what am I designing for? Right? The financial planner is designing for something. It's not simply acquiring as much money as possible. That's clearly through the accumulation phase. But in terms of talking about retirement, it's a place I would say the industry has really... I'll say that there's a lot of opportunity. That's the positive way of spinning.

Right.

No, I believe you're 100 % right. There is a lot of opportunity and we're just starting to get to the point where these conversations are occurring for a whole bunch of reasons, sociographic, demographic, et cetera. Maybe I can have one quick follow -up question before we end the podcast.

Along the lines that you just talked about, do you have any thoughts or suggestions for advisors and how they might think about measuring and tracking the progress of their clients and helping them achieve this balanced wealth span? Looking at metrics beyond the traditional plan metrics, et cetera.

Right, so I think if I kind of use the traditional, are you planning to downsize your house? So we'd kind of put that in and when and so we'll say, know, whatever the house is worth and maybe the downsize, you're going to make some assumption. I think that's an example of an opportunity to go in deeper to say, OK, well, let's look at housing across the plan and how are and so we have milestones.

And by virtue of putting a milestone into the plan, it get every subsequent visit, right? We're not talking about resolving all of this in one client meeting. It's over the period of the relationship. Where are we on that housing plan? So these are questions to ask, has that changed like around kind of what your views are? Again, I mentioned like my kids, well, they've moved and somewhere has moved in a location. No, I couldn't go there. Well, actually,

Hmm.

One's moved to a great location. We're thinking about moving earlier. So these are fluid plans. But I think everything, what I would like to see are things that we can measure in terms of activity. Because this is the hardest thing we see in retirement is paralysis. We get paralyzed over making a decision to act. I call it when with

Mm -hmm

couples to say it's partner paralysis. One says, you're taking me out of here feet first. And the other says, can't wait to, I know the place I want to go. And so they kind of wait to see who's going to be the first to die kind of a strategy is the extreme, right? It's a, these are measurable milestones. I'll kind of use that upgrades to the home. Well, where are we on that? Right? Have you done that? This is

Hmm.

anything that kind of breaks the paralysis or helps them make a decision around some of what you might feel are non -financial matters clearly are financial matters. And I think that's kind of just kind of drop that in. There's a lot of activities come up in the industry around non -financial planning, which has big financial implications in many times. so understanding what's that

Mmm.

what's going on in that space that I maybe should be more aware of. And so I think the housing is the obvious one around asking questions around where has anything changed in health? And again, I get the, in terms of privacy around health information. So it's not that you need to know anything about a disease, but is there anything changing in your health that you think will impact your housing?

And it could be that you're going to be caring for an older parent coming into home at some point. How is that, is that parent bringing equity to this? Are they going to be, or maybe it's a child, right? We see more and more of that of kind of that the children are on. it's a, they're places we historically touch on, but I think we just need to kind of peel it back and start to allow a conversation to happen.

Mm

Clients need a partner in this. They don't get to talk about the money implications in a real sense. They'll talk about how much they spent on the home or upgrades, but they don't have a partner in the thought process around the planning concept.

I like that. Scott, we're coming to the end of our podcast. So I have a few final rapid fire questions for you that I ask all my guests. So number one, professionally, what is the most important lesson you've learned over the years?

I'd say volatility isn't nearly as scary as change. It's probably the one thing I've done in my career is lead people through change. They understand market volatility, they've heard about it. Change is far scarier and so it takes time to set people up and lead them through change.

And change is inevitable. So I think this is very important guidance or help to not fear it, but prepare for it.

Number two, what is one practical tip you would offer listeners keen on applying the insights that you've shared?

I think one of them would be complacency is the enemy of growth. The industry is traditionally very resistant to change themselves. And so, you know, they'll come up with reasons why they don't think they can do that or why they don't think they have a role to play. And so clearly the industry is changing. Just a question of are you going to be at the front end of that change?

or are you going to be a laggard at the back end and that's going to be an expensive place to find yourself. I think really thinking about how can I grow with the changing market that's coming ahead of me and I don't mean the financial market in terms of the consumer market that we're serving.

That's a great point. And it comes along to the point you made earlier when you said that we're at the forefront of this. There is an opportunity if one chooses to see it that way and prepare themselves accordingly. Scott, thank you for a great discussion, a timely discussion. If listeners want to learn more about you or find your work, where should they go?

So they can find it about the book Wealthspan through the website. it's Healthspan with a W in front of it or a Wealthspan with an H stuck in whichever works for you, gets you to the same place. probably LinkedIn is the one place I try to put a couple of kind of thoughtful posts in there daily that, know, late studies that are happening, change in the marketplace.

that a fair number of people seem to find that is helpful. I've had a lot of good feedback and lot of interest there. Those are the two. And then you can always reach out to me. don't need to give email out. That's an easy one for people to chase. I'm not a hard person to find. yeah, I really enjoy the interactive experiences that we have with clients and professionals.

But like you, Sam, I just really appreciate these kind of conversations. And I think the more than that we have, the better the industry will be.

Couldn't agree more. Scott, this has been awesome. Thank you for joining us today on the Future Ready Advisor.

Thanks, take good care.