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After more than 25 years in wealth management, I have come to believe the greatest impact I can have on my clients’ lives is rarely captured in a performance report, tax projection, or balance sheet. Instead, it is found in the decisions clients make about how to use their money while they have the time and health to enjoy the possibilities it offers.
As a young advisor, my goals were straightforward: Grow my book of business, deliver good advice, and satisfy clients’ needs. Over time, what gives me purpose and what meaningfully impacts clients’ lives has changed.
What matters most now is not merely whether I can improve a client's financial position. It is how I help advance the financial and personal direction of that client's life in a meaningful way. That requires looking beyond wealth as a number and seeing it as one of three resources people manage across a lifetime: time, health, and wealth.
The Wealth Paradox
For much of adult life, people trade time and often their health to accumulate wealth. They work longer hours, accept stress, defer travel, postpone family time, and tell themselves they will enjoy the rewards later. Then, often near retirement, they try to reverse the dynamic using their wealth to reclaim time, restore health, or pursue experiences they have delayed for years.
The challenge is that time, health, and wealth all behave differently. Wealth can compound and, in many cases, be rebuilt. Time moves in one direction, and health can be maintained and improved, but it becomes more fleeting with age.
This dynamic is especially visible among high-performing executives, business owners, and other goal-oriented individuals. Their discipline and focus helped create their success, but can make it difficult to stop accumulating and start using what they have built. Perhaps the next professional challenge still feels exciting or an approaching financial milestone makes them feel more secure. However, when a person continues to push the bounds of achieving more, they might shortchange the resources that cannot be replenished.
A client I work with, Ben, is a senior executive at a large public company. Through his hard work and significant company stock he received over the years, he accumulated a large nest egg. As he received large grants of stock and options annually, his wealth continued to grow. Over time, our discussions evolved from technical planning strategies to focus more on the question, “How much is enough?”
When the things that connect wealth to purpose are more than satisfied, how does one’s purpose change As an aside, after much planning and deep discussion, Ben decided to retire. The knowledge that he was leaving a lot of future wealth opportunities on the table did not outweigh his knowledge that he was currently in a place of abundance in time, health, and wealth.
To help clients focus their perspective, one of my favorite questions to ask an individual or family is, “How would you define the benchmark for success in your life?”
If their first answer is a financial number, I often tell them that it might be the wrong benchmark. Not because the number is irrelevant, but because it is only an input. The more important answer, which Ben realized, is what that number is meant to make possible.
Instead of asking, “Do I have enough?” my conversation with Ben turned to, “Enough for what?” This is where planning becomes personal and exciting discussions begin. It is also where we as advisors can add value that is difficult to commoditize.
How to Change the Conversation
Make discovery part of every meeting. Every discussion with a client is an opportunity to uncover a new layer of understanding of who they are and what is important to them. Doing so requires better questions, disciplined listening, and a planning process that connects financial resources to potential choices. Rather than being a one-off part of new client onboarding, discovery questions should be part of every meeting. Ask clients what they want their wealth to accomplish. A question such as, “What does a successful next decade look like?” often reveal more than a conventional goals questionnaire.
Add time and health to agendas. A plan may carefully measure assets, liabilities, taxes, and cash flow, while leaving time and health largely unexamined. Ask where the client feels abundant and where they feel constrained. A client with substantial wealth but no control over their time has a planning issue.
Reframe expenses versus investments. As advisors, we are trained to evaluate financial returns and manage risk. That said, some of the best uses of wealth produce a return measured in time saved, energy gained, and wellbeing increased. In the context of a client's life, these choices may be among the highest-return investments available.
Plan before a trigger event occurs. Clients often reconsider priorities after a health diagnosis, a death, a business sale, a retirement, or another major transition. Advisors should not wait for a milestone to trigger a new perspective. Scenario planning can help clients see the cost of delaying while choices remain. What changes if you leave work at age 60 instead of 65? What experiences will become harder if you defer them for 10 years? What would you do differently if your good health is interrupted?
Broaden the benchmark. What mattered to a client at age 45 may not matter at 60, and what felt extravagant during the accumulation years may be entirely appropriate later. Build a short “time, health, and wealth” review into your annual meetings. Ask what has become more important, what has been postponed, and whether the current allocation of resources still reflects the client's definition of a successful life. Wealth is a tool. The real benchmark is what that wealth allows a client to do and experience.
Planning with Purpose
Our profession has become increasingly complicated. We have better technology, more investment choices, and sophisticated planning tools. Those things matter, though they do not automatically create better client outcomes. The most important questions remain deeply personal. Does the clients’ wealth serve their lives, or have their lives become organized around continually increasing their wealth?
The answer will be different for every client. Our role is not to give clients the answer. It is to help them see the trade-offs and educate them about what is financially possible. To live and act with intention, helping clients balance time, health, and wealth, is the greatest impact we can have. A client who sold their business and found new purpose once said to me, “Thank you for pushing me to live.”
Andrew Connors is a Senior Wealth Advisor and Managing Director at Hightower Signature Wealth. Prior to joining Hightower, he served as a Partner and Advisor at Fairport Wealth for 22 years. He is a Certified Financial Planner® and a Certified Exit Planning Advisor (CEPA).
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