Retirement isn’t just about money—it’s about meaning, flexibility, and living life on your terms. Advisors can help guide their clients through this process using a fresh, visual approach to planning for the next chapter. Jamie Hopkins and I co-authored a book, Your Retirement Sketchbook, to do just that. The book features 125 retirement planning lessons and is built around a simple but compelling idea: that sketching your retirement future can be creative, engaging, and far less intimidating than traditional approaches.
The sketchbook approach encourages clients to visualize themselves in retirement and remain open to re-sketching their retirement journey as their lives and priorities change. It also encourages clients to ask themselves about the emotional impact of retirement, beyond the numbers.
The book is a practical tool for advisors, helping them spark better conversations, reframe how people think about retirement, and ultimately improve outcomes.
The Power of Visualization
Research has found that visualization can be a valuable tool when it comes to meeting financial goals. In fact, as discussed in the book, people who feel a strong connection with their future selves save 40% more for their future (page 27). Clients who vividly visualize and specify their financial goals are more likely to delay gratification in favor of those goals, and groups exposed to visualized financial concepts show better financial knowledge. Visualization can also reduce anxiety around budgeting and result in more savings.
Practical Takeaways
- Use tools that make goals concrete: progress trackers, vision boards (including Your Retirement Sketchbook!), and avatars of future self
- Connect emotionally with future outcomes
- Visualize not just the goal but the progress
- Pair visualization with planning tools
Client Engagement
It can be hard to engage clients in thinking about their retirement. Surveys find that a
majority of Americans are stressed about money, and the spreadsheets and numbers can be incredibly overwhelming. Making retirement planning FUN can make all of the difference in preparing them for retirement (page 103)
Practical Takeaways
- Have clients sketch out their goals, using the sketchbook!
- Put pictures to their accounts
- Name things in a more fun way (page 27, page 123)
- Don’t just say second house – pick the location and name of the house (page 113)
Goal Progress
Likewise, it can be hard to communicate progress towards goals with just numbers. Putting a number out there is one thing – but it can be hard to see what that means alone.
Practical Takeaways
- Track progress visually, not just with numbers
- Use pictures instead of just charts
- Celebrate goal progress with clients – and consider new ways to celebrate
Client Education
Clients are visual learners. Anything you can explain in words, you can explain in pictures. Americans struggle with financial literacy, and most education available focuses on numbers – not life (page 185).
Practical Takeaways
- Consider ways to educate the less engaged partner and prepare for the wealth transfer
- Allow clients to engage and draw – or fill in their own story
Simplify Complex Decisions
Retirement tactics can be complicated to explain. Clients that can understand their options will be happier and are more likely to follow a plan.
Practical Takeaways
- Use visuals to explain complex money movements like distributions (page 211), conversions (page 169), and more can show the pathway of money movement
- Estate planning visuals are helpful too – showing how money passes through generations (page 289)
Retirement isn’t the end—it’s the beginning of a new story. Your Retirement Sketchbook is a resource and tool to help design retirement with clarity, confidence, and creativity. A retirement plan should be like a sketch, and you can help guide your clients to create that final picture of a retirement well lived.
Order your copy of Your Retirement Sketchbook today.