One of the most difficult questions for advisors to answer right now might surprise you. Clients, friends, family, and community members all ask us, without fail, one thing: What should I invest in?
When my clients first developed a retirement plan, some of them a decade ago, none of them were prepared for our current reality.
Retirement isn’t usually as smooth a transition as many people think. Permanently leaving the workforce often creates an identity crisis: You’ve spent a lifetime accumulating skills and knowledge that are now sitting dormant and you no longer have a title to concisely describe what you do. After the excitement fades, a lack of direction sets in.
Brevard, North Carolina isn’t just a retirement destination for North Carolina natives. My wife and I, after living in Colorado and Washington D.C., also decided to move to this mountain-side town in Transylvania county for our late-career and retirement living.
When I speak with my clients, with my friends, and with family, it’s clear that the market we grew up in no longer exists. The same uncertainty rattles when I turn on the news, read the paper, analyze assets in my institutional advisor software. We’re living in a new era, and to confront it is to prepare for it.
