Most Americans are not financially ready for retirement and few—if any—are emotionally prepared to thrive in this last third of our lives, and our retirement will be nothing like our parents'. While planners and their clients focus most of the planning time and effort on the financial aspects, little attention has been given to "how will you LIVE?"

This session informs financial professionals about the challenges their clients will face as they contemplate and pursue their retirement plans. Thriving Beyond Midlife is grounded in the notion that the goal of retirement planning should be to support people in living the rest of their lives as fully as possible, so that they may become richly old instead of merely old and rich. Thriving Beyond Midlife is a concept and a way of looking at the lifestyle we call retirement that goes beyond the money. Attendees will be introduced to a unique Triptik of Aging that provides a new way of understanding the 30+ years that will follow "retirement," and enables seeing the last third of our lives in its full scope and potential. The session ends with an exercise around "Where will you live?" assessing the living opportunities that face us as we make the transition from active to quiet living.

Attendees will learn:

• Aging is much more about attitude than chronological age.
• How to describe the journey beyond midlife in ways that help your clients to make decisions and to trust you to support the rest of their living.
• Dealing with "retirement" in a people-centered (not just a product-centered) process.
• How a roadmap for what lies beyond midlife can give us a unique vocabulary with which to speak and consider the next 30+ years.
• How beginning the "where will you live" exercise now can make the ultimate loss of independence more tolerable and perhaps enjoyable.
• How to experience the impact of these conversations, and be able to apply them immediately — perhaps even to integrate into a financial services practice.
• How Thriving Beyond Midlife and going beyond the money concepts apply to ourselves, not just our clients.

Featured Speaker:

Richard M. Weber, MBA, CLU, AEP® is a 43-year veteran of the life insurance industry, having been a successful agent, an insurance company executive, and now a consultant to insurers and their agents on the topic of effective and ethical selling. Author of more than 200 articles encompassing products, sales practices, and the due diligence necessary to buy and sell insurance, his newest book is Revealing Life Insurance Secrets: How the Pros Pick, Design, and Evaluate Their Own Policies, published by Marketplace Books. Mr. Weber has been a member of the Society of Financial Service Professionals since 1974 and was just nominated to serve as Secretary of its Board of Directors. In 2008, he received the Society's Kenneth Black, Jr. Leadership Award in recognition of his "…exemplary leadership qualities and significant contributions to the fulfillment of the Society's core values of ethics, education, and relationships." In 2009, Dick was elected to the NAEPC Estate Planning Hall of Fame and selected to receive the Distinguished Accredited Estate Planner award and designation for "…significant and outstanding lifetime achievements and contributions to the practice and profession of estate planning." View a series of Webcasts on Retirement Planning for Baby Boomers produced and featuring Mr. Weber.