THE LONG VIEW

Russ Hill

Here ’ s a road map for a new age of chaos and opportunity .

ONGEVITY IS A COMMON CONVERSATION TOPIC IN FINANCIAL planning circles these days , largely because more people are reaching advanced ages in relatively good health . It ’ s not always clear how people , including the clients of advisors , will make the most of these extra years .

As experts who help people plan for their future , we have a professional as well as personal interest in this topic at our firm . But what do we mean by longevity ? Is it how long you live ? How long your health holds out ? How long your money lasts ? Is it about having enough time to achieve your lifetime goals or whether you have time to teach or give to others ?

Whatever it means to you and your clients , your success at achieving your goals will depend on your ability to earn , your willingness to learn and your environment . That means becoming familiar with a complex array of topics — finance , health , ethics , intergenerational relations … maybe even the meaning of life itself .

Yet too often conversations about longevity are reduced to that first question : “ How long will I live ?” People bypass the deeper questions of purpose and ultimately go straight to topics such as ice baths or restricted diets . Interesting ideas , but hardly the whole story .

I address these ideas in my book Optimizing Longevity : A Road Atlas for a Happier , Less Predictable Life . I wrote it from my perspective as a financial advisor , but the subject goes beyond mere finance .

I ’ ll try here to give you a glimpse of the book ’ s core concepts .

Most financial planning still relies on long-term projections that make assumptions about lives that will be lived out predictably . That won ’ t fit the coming age .

Starting From ‘ Here ’

There is a story , told in various cultures , about a man lost in the countryside who asks a local the way to his destination . The local shrugs and says , “ Well , I wouldn ’ t start from here .”

Life has never gone according to a schedule . Although it has always been tempting to think it will , people have found it increasingly impossible to follow one .

Technological and social change has made it harder to evade sudden , unexpected life changes ( what some people have called “ lifequakes .”) As more of us live to an older age , planning errors have more time to compound , and that can make a mess of what might otherwise be a happy opportunity to live longer . In the past , people might have been able to rely more on government and institutions to help solve these problems . But that ’ s changing , and financial planners will need to pick up the slack .

Before we can start helping our clients , we have some work to do on our own processes . Most financial planning still relies on long-term projections that make assumptions about lives that will be lived out predictably . That kind of thinking won ’ t fit the coming age .

A Road Atlas

If we think of life as a road trip , what is the best way to plan for it ? You can plug in your desired destination and passively follow a GPS-guided route . This is a bit

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