Well, hello, and thank you for joining us for the Providence Financial Retirement Show. I’m your host, Anthony Saccaro. We are your retirement income source, and this is the place where retirees come for income. Really glad that you’re here, and I think you’re gonna be glad that you’re here as well Have you ever sat down with a financial advisor and felt like you were listening to the teacher from Charlie Brown?

You know the sound I’m talking about, right? Wah, wah, wah. Well, those words are coming out, but none of them make sense. And we’re gonna take some time in the show today and talk about the language that advisors speak and whether or not you and your advisor are speaking the same language. And of course, as always, we’re gonna answer your listener questions along the way.

So I’m really glad that you’re here. Thank you for taking time out of your day to join us. In the industry, the financial industry, there’s a lot of financial jargon, and unfortunately, it often gets in the way of clarity. Our industry is loaded with it, and frankly, a lot of advisors don’t even realize that they’re speaking in this jargon.

They’re so used to talking with other professionals that they forget most people don’t live and breathe this stuff. Take a few common examples. Instead of saying a quarter of a percent, advisors might say 25 basis points, or you might hear them talk about alpha and beta, and that’s just a fancy way of saying risk and return, but it sounds like Greek to the average retiree.

Some will mention something like Monte Carlo simulation, which to most people sounds more like gambling in Las Vegas than a retirement planning tool. Or they might even talk about drawdown strategy when all they really mean is how you’re going to take money out of your investment. I was talking with a good friend of mine about this just recently.

She’s been around the financial industry for over 20 years. She’s not an advisor, but when you’re in that environment for a long time, you pick up more than the average person, and she had a CD come due. When she went down to the bank to roll that CD over, she was really baffled as to how complicated the teller and the advisor made that transaction.

You would think it would be simple, right? But the young advisor she spoke with launched into a string of financial terms and acronyms and explanations that even she struggled to follow. And she said to me at one point, “Anthony, I couldn’t believe how confusing it was. I’ve been around this stuff for a long time, and I’ve had trouble keeping up, and I’m wondering if our clients with no financial background, how they would feel in having a conversation like this.”

And she’s absolutely right. With all her years of experience, if she can feel overwhelmed, what chance does the average retiree have? And that’s why so many people come to see us after talking to multiple advisors. They’ll often say that, “You’re the first person I’ve talked to who’s actually explained it this way that actually makes sense.”

And to me, that’s a compliment. And if you’re a regular listener of the Providence Financial Retirement Show, you know that that’s exactly what we do. We explain concepts in plain English so you can understand them. But that’s exactly what’s missing from a lot of financial conversations today, plain English.

Because finance really is like learning a foreign language. If you know a few basics, you can follow along when someone speaks slowly and clearly, but the minute they switch into slang or advanced vocabulary, you’re lost. And what do most people do when they’re lost? They nod politely, they pretend like they’re following along, and then they walk out just as confused as when they walked in.

That’s not how retirement planning should work. A good advisor has to be able to step into the client’s shoes. They need the emotional intelligence to slow down, to simplify, and to make sure you really understand. Let’s be honest, retirement planning isn’t just about charts and numbers. It’s about peace of mind and the stress-free retirement that you deserve.

And you can’t have that peace of mind if you don’t understand what’s being said. Here’s the bottom line. If you don’t feel like your advisor is speaking your language, then maybe you’re not working with the right advisor. The job of a financial professional isn’t to impress you with what they know. It’s to empower you so that you can understand your retirement and have a solid plan to execute a strategy that is understandable to you.

If this is resonating with you at all and you’re thinking maybe you need to learn more about financial advisors, whether or not it’s your advisor that is speaking a little over your head, or maybe you don’t have an advisor, but you’re thinking it might be time to find one, we’ve put together an animated video that’s only seven or eight minutes.

It’s fun to watch, but it’s all about finding the right advisor. And I’ll email it to you absolutely free of charge as long as you give us your information. All you need to do is go to providencefinancialradio.com/video. Once again, it’s providencefinancialradio.com/video. Leave us your name and email address and you will have this video about how to find the right financial advisor.

It’ll show up in your inbox shortly. Just go to providencefinancialradio.com/video and we’ll email this animated video to you. But you’ll learn what you need to know to be able to find the right advisor, one who can actually speak your language and not their language. If you just joined us, I’m Anthony Saccaro.

You’re listening to the Providence Financial Retirement Show where it truly is all about the income. I do this show week in and week out now for well over a decade for one purpose, and that is to give you the education you need so that you can have the peace of mind and stress-free retirement that you deserve.

Today, we’re taking some time and we’re talking about whether you and your advisor are speaking the same language And we have our first question of the day, and it comes from Mark in Pasadena. And Mark wrote in this, “Anthony, I heard you on a recent show saying that the advisor I’ve been with for 20 years might not be the right advisor for me now that I’m nearing retirement.

Well, that really caught my attention. I’ve had the same advisor for decades, and I trust him. Why would I ever need to change?” Well, Mark, I really appreciate you taking the time to write in that question, and it’s one that I hear often. Loyalty is very important. If you’ve worked with someone for 20 years, you probably have a great relationship and even a great friendship.

You know them, you like them, and of course, you trust them. Here’s the reality, though. The advisor who got you to retirement may not be the one to get you through retirement. The easiest way that I can explain it is with a simple medical analogy. Think about your doctors throughout your life. As a child, you had a pediatrician, and that pediatrician was probably very good at what they did, and they had a love for children, which is why they were a pediatrician, and they probably cared for you a lot.

They probably knew you by first name. They knew how to track your growth, deal with childhood illnesses, and make sure that you stayed healthy as a kid. But at some point, you outgrew the pediatrician. You moved on to a primary care physician, someone who specializes in adult medicine And as you get older still, you’re probably gonna transition away from your primary care physician to a gerontologist or maybe a specialist like a cardiologist.

The point is this, doctors specialize. The training and focus are designed for different stages of life, and financial advisors are no different. When you’re younger and still working, the goal is accumulation. You want an advisor who knows how to grow your assets. You want them to know how to build your retirement account and help you take advantage of long-term strategies.

That’s their specialty. And quite frankly, that’s what most financial advisors specialize in, the accumulation years when you’re heading towards retirement. Once you’re approaching retirement, though, the goal shifts. It’s no longer just about how much you can accumulate. It’s about how to turn that accumulation into a stable, reliable income stream that you can depend on for the rest of your life, and that requires a different specialty, retirement income planning.

It’s its own discipline. It uses different strategies, different tools, and even a different way of measuring success. During your working years, success is measured by how much your portfolio grows. In retirement, success is measured by how much predictable income you can generate without running out of money.

Those are two very different definitions of success. The mistake that many people make, though, is assuming that because their advisor did a great job helping them accumulate wealth, they’ll automatically do a great job helping them distribute that wealth in retirement. But that’s like walking into your pediatrician’s office at age forty.

You might still like the doctor, but it’s not the right fit for your stage of life. The bottom line is this, the advisor who helped you grow your wealth might not be the one to help you preserve and live off of it. And just as you outgrow your pediatrician, you may need to outgrow your accumulation-focused advisor and transition to someone who specializes in retirement income.

Mark, once again, thank you for taking the time to write in your question, and I certainly hope my answer helps give you something to think about If you’re driving along listening to this show and what I just said makes sense, maybe you’ve been with your financial advisor for a long time and you’re starting to wonder whether they’re the right person for you, but you don’t really know how to find out.

Well, in my new book, More Life Than Money, I wrote an entire chapter about the different types of financial advisors and even what questions to ask them at various stages. I’ll send you this book absolutely free of charge if you want it. All you have to do is ask for it, and you can do that by going to our website.

To claim your free copy, go to providencefinancialradio.com/book. One more time, it’s providencefinancialradio.com/book. Leave us your name and number and mailing address, and we will get a brand-new hardcover copy of my new book, More Life Than Money, right out to you. But you’ll learn what you can ask your financial advisor to make sure that they’re still a good fit.

One more time, to get your free copy of More Life Than Money, just go to providencefinancialradio.com/book and you’ll have it show up on your doorstep shortly. I’m your host, Anthony Saccaro. You’re listening to the Providence Financial Retirement Show. Our goal here on the Providence Financial Retirement Show is one thing, and that is to help you have the peace of mind and stress-free retirement that you deserve.

Today, we’re answering the question, are you and your advisor speaking the same language? Have you noticed how every profession seems to have its own language? Doctors do it, police officers do it, firefighters do it. If you’ve ever overheard two police officers talking in their codes or firefighters rattling off shorthand for their equipment, you know exactly what I mean, right?

Half the time, you can’t even follow the conversation. It makes perfect sense to them, but to the rest of us, it might as well be another language. The financial world, it’s really no different. We have our own set of acronyms and terms and phrases that roll off our tongue. But if you’re not inside the industry, then you’re gonna be scratching your head.

And when advisors use that language with clients, it doesn’t build trust. It actually builds walls. Take some of the words that we throw around. Instead of saying a quarter of one percent, many advisors might say twenty-five basis points. Or how about alpha and beta, as I mentioned before? Those are statistical measures of performance and risk.

Is it important for analysts? Yeah. Is it useful for a retiree trying to figure out if their nest egg is gonna last or not? Well, not so much. Then there’s Monte Carlo simulation. A lot of you have probably heard about that, right? But it sounds like you’re packing a bag for Las Vegas when in reality it’s just a projection software tool.

And one of my favorite drawdown strategy Well, that’s just a fancy way of saying, “Here’s how you’re gonna take money out of your investments.” The problem isn’t that these terms are wrong. They’re accurate, and they have meaning. The problem, though, is that when they’re used with clients, they usually do more to confuse than clarify.

And if you don’t understand what’s happening with your money because you don’t understand the terminology, then what good is the advice? This is where emotional intelligence begins to matter. A good advisor knows that communication isn’t about showing off how smart they are. It’s about making sure the client feels confident and informed.

That means meeting people where they are and speaking in terms that they can understand. And in twenty-six years of being a retirement advisor, if I’m going to explain the one compliment that we generally get at Providence Financial, whether it’s regards to our advisors meeting with someone or the book that I wrote that talks about the ten most common mistakes that I’ve seen people make in retirement, the one compliment that we seem to always get is the fact that we make it down to earth and we speak in English.

We’ve had so many people tell us that they understand what we’re talking about, and that builds confidence. You know, I sometimes compare this to my own struggles with speaking Spanish. I know just enough to get by. I often say that I can order food in Spanish, which is a pretty important character trait.

If you’re gonna speak Spanish, at least you know how to order food. So I kinda think that that’s pretty funny, but that’s true. But if someone speaks slowly and they use simple words, I can follow along. But if they start machine-gunning words at me, then I’m lost. And that’s exactly what happens in financial conversations.

A client may understand the basics, but when an advisor speeds up and starts firing jargon, the client tunes out. I believe that the real trick, the mark of a truly great advisor, is being able to take complicated concepts and make them simple. If you’re a regular listener of the Providence Financial Retirement Show, you know that I’m also an attorney.

And I’ve often said, not so jokingly, that law school taught me how to take a whole bunch of simple stuff and make it really complicated. That’s not a joke. That’s what law school does. In the financial world, though, I think it’s just the opposite. The job of a good advisor is to take what could be complicated and make it really simple, to explain things in plain English so the client not only hears the information, but actually understands it.

At the end of the day, retirement planning isn’t about impressing someone with financial lingo. It’s about providing clarity and peace of mind so that you can have the stress-free retirement that you deserve. But you can’t have that peace of mind if you’re leaving every meeting more confused than when you walked in.

If that sounds like your situation or resonates with you at all and you wanna learn more about financial advisors and just really try to figure out whether you’re with the right person or whether or not you might need to make a change, or if you’ve never had a financial advisor and you’re about to retire and you’re just not wanting to go it alone and you wanna learn more, well, we’ve put together a short animated video that’s really fun to watch because it is animated, and it’s only seven or eight minutes, but it’s very power-packed.

And in English, you’ll learn what the difference is between financial advisors, so you can at least do your own analysis to figure out whether the advisor you currently have is the right advisor for you going forward. If you’d like to watch this video, we’ll email it to you, no cost, no obligation. We just need to know where to send the email.

And to give us that information, you just need to go to providencefinancialradio.com/video. Once again, it’s providencefinancialradio.com/video. Leave us your name, your email address, your phone number, and we will email this animated video right over to you. But I know you’re gonna enjoy watching it. Once again, to get that free video about the differences between financial advisors, go to providencefinancialradio.com/video and we’ll have it to you shortly I’m Anthony Saccaro.

Thank you for joining us today. You’re locked into the Providence Financial Retirement Show, where it truly is all about the income. Our goal on the Providence Financial Retirement Show is really simple. It’s to help you have the peaceful and stress-free retirement that you deserve. We’re taking some time and we’re answering the question: Are you and your advisor speaking the same language?

And speaking of questions, we have another question that comes from Linda in Fresno, and she says this: “Anthony, on my last statement, my advisor told me my account was set up for growth, but I’m not even sure what that really means. Is growth the value of my account going up, or does it include things like dividends and interest, too?”

Well, Linda, the reason I’m answering your question in this show is because it goes right along with what we’re talking about. Sometimes advisors make things confusing, and it sounds like you’re not even sure what being set up for growth means, even though that’s what your advisor told you. And this is one of the biggest misunderstandings between advisors and clients.

The word growth sounds simple, but it doesn’t mean the same thing to everybody. Traditionally, when advisors say growth, they’re thinking in terms of capital appreciation. That’s the Wall Street definition. When you buy an investment at a lower price and hope it goes up so you can sell it at a higher price.

For someone in their thirties or forties who’s saving for the long term, that definition and that strategy works fine. But when most retirees say they want growth, they don’t just mean, “I hope my account balance goes up.” What they really mean is, “I want my money to steadily increase, so I’ll have more to work with down the road.”

That difference is absolutely critical. Clients don’t usually care whether the increase comes from dividends, interest, or capital appreciation. If the number is bigger at the end of the year, that’s growth. But for many advisors, growth means appreciation only, and that’s where the confusion sets in. For years, the way that I’ve explained it, even here on the Providence Financial Retirement Show, is this way: the total return of any investment is a combination of the income plus growth.

On paper, it looked neat and it looks tidy. Here’s the problem, though. If growth means one thing to the advisor and another thing to you, the client, you can both walk away from the same meeting thinking you agree when you actually don’t. One of my good colleagues, a friend of mine by the name of Jay in Florida, he and I had some conversation, and he said this, “Look, advisors hear the word growth and they think capital appreciation.

Clients say growth and they mean make my money bigger however you can.” And that realization has led me to update the formula, and now we explain it like this. The growth of any investment is going to be a combination of the income plus capital appreciation. That’s a small change in wording, but it makes all the difference.

It acknowledges that the dividends and interest your investments generate are part of your growth, not something separate or secondary. If you earn five percent in dividends and three percent in appreciation, your account grew by eight percent. Both parts matter Here’s why this is so important in retirement.

Income is what we call known growth. When you buy a bond or a dividend-paying stock, the interest or dividend is stated up front. You don’t have to sell anything to get it. It’s predictable. On the other hand, though, capital appreciation, that is unknown growth. It depends on the markets. Your investment might go up, it might go down, and even if it does, you usually have to sell something to lock it in.

Both types of growth have their place. Known growth is generally valuable in retirement because it gives you stability and income you can count on. The bottom line then, Linda, is this: growth isn’t just one thing. Real growth in retirement is a combination of income and appreciation, and I hope that that gives you the information and the answer that you were looking for.

If you’d like to learn more about known growth or unknown growth, and you’re wondering how you can actually position your portfolio for income where you actually have known growth instead of having to cross your fingers and toes and hope that you get some growth, in my new book, More Life Than Money, I wrote an entire chapter all about that.

It’s chapter five, and you’re gonna enjoy reading it, and I’ll send it to you absolutely free as long as you ask for it, and you can do that by going to providencefinancialradio.com/book. Once again, it’s providencefinancialradio.com/book. Give us your mailing address, and we’ll have that book to you very shortly, just within a couple of days.

To get your free copy of More Life Than Money, go to providencefinancialradio.com/book, and we’ll get it right out. You’re gonna enjoy learning how you can actually have growth that you can count on instead of growth that you hope for. I’m Anthony Saccaro. Thank you for joining us today. You’re listening to the Providence Financial Retirement Show, and right now, we’re in the middle of talking about the difference between known growth and unknown growth.

We’ve just touched the tip of the iceberg, so we’re gonna get below the surface right here on the Providence Financial Retirement Show.

Thank you for continuing to stay with us. You’re listening to the Providence Financial Retirement Show. My name is Anthony Saccaro. We are your retirement income source, and this is the place where retirees come for income. We’re answering the question, are you and your advisor speaking the same language?

Oftentimes, individuals and professionals from different industries speak a language that you may not understand, and that’s true with financial advisors. The number one complaint that I hear when people come into my office who have a financial advisor is they just don’t understand what that advisor is trying to tell them.

A minute ago, we just answered a question from Linda, who said that her advisor told her she was invested for growth, and she doesn’t even really know what that means How do you know if your retirement strategy is correct if you’re speaking English and they’re speaking Spanish? You don’t. Let’s go back to that word growth again.

When we talk about growth, it’s important to recognize that not all growth is the same. In fact, there are really two different kinds of growth, what I often refer to as unknown growth and known growth. Let’s talk a minute about unknown growth, because that’s what most people usually think of when they hear the word growth.

This is capital appreciation, buying something low and hoping it goes up so you can sell it later at a higher price. If you buy a stock at fifty dollars and it rises to sixty dollars, you’ve made money, but you’ve made money through capital appreciation. Sounds simple enough. Here’s the catch though. You don’t know if it’s gonna go up or if it’s gonna go down.

And even when it does go up, you usually have to sell it to lock in that gain. Until you sell, those gains are just numbers on a statement, and the next time the market dips, they can all be wiped away. That’s why I call it unknown growth. It’s uncertain, it’s unpredictable, and it requires timing and selling to turn it into usable money.

Let’s contrast that with known growth. Known growth is the income your investments generate in the form of interest and dividends. If you own a bond that pays four percent a year, you know exactly how much you’re going to get. If you hold dividend-paying stock, you can see the dividend rate and know roughly what to expect.

It’s steady, it’s predictable, and here’s the key, you don’t have to sell anything to receive it. Just hold the investment, and the income shows up. That’s the core difference. Unknown growth depends on markets and timing and selling. Known growth is reliable, steady, and doesn’t require you to sell a thing.

Now, does that mean that unknown growth has no place in retirement? No, absolutely not. There’s a role for both, but the balance shifts depending on your stage of life. When you’re younger and saving, unknown growth is your friend. You’re contributing to your accounts regularly, so when the market dips, you’re actually buying more shares at a lower price.

And over time, that works in your favor. You don’t need to sell for income. You can wait out the volatility. Once you retire, though, that situation flips. You’re no longer adding to your accounts, you’re drawing from them. And that’s where relying too heavily on unknown growth becomes dangerous. Imagine the market takes a downturn right when you need to sell something for income.

Now you’re not just selling, you’re locking in those losses permanently. That’s one of the biggest risks retirees face when they lean too heavily on growth in the form of capital appreciation. This is why I always say that income or known growth should take priority once you retire. It gives you something the markets can’t guarantee, predictability.

It allows you to replace your paycheck with investment income without having to worry about whether the stock market is up or down that month. Unknown growth still has a place in retirement, but it should play a supporting role rather than the leading role. The mistake I see too often is retirees who keep the same growth-heavy portfolio that they had while they were working.

They assume, “Well, this strategy got me here, so it’ll get me through retirement too.” That’s not how it works. Retirement is a different stage of life with a different set of rules and a different set of goals. If you don’t adjust, you risk running out of money sooner than you should. Here’s the takeaway.

Growth comes in two forms. Unknown growth is capital appreciation. It might happen, it might not. It depends on market timing and selling. Known growth is interest and dividends. Steady, predictable, and reliable. Both matter, but in retirement, it’s the known growth that should take center stage. If you’re like most retirees that we’ve talked to, you’re probably very familiar with the unknown growth, the capital appreciation part of this, but you’re probably a lot less familiar with the known growth in the form of interest and dividends.

If this all makes sense though, and you just wanna learn a little bit more, we’ve put together a short animated video that talks about the difference between investing for interest and dividends and known growth or capital appreciation and unknown growth. If you’d like to watch the video, we’ll email it to you.

No cost, no obligation. We just gotta get your email address. And to give us that information, just go to providencefinancialradio.com/video. Once again, it’s providencefinancialradio.com/video. Give us your name, number, email address, and we will get it right over to you. But you’ll be able to learn the difference or learn more about getting interest and dividends and known growth versus unknown growth.

To get your free animated video emailed to you, just go to providencefinancialradio.com/video. We’ll get it right out. I’m Anthony Saccaro. Thank you for staying tuned in with us to the Providence Financial Retirement Show. It truly is all about the income, and my goal in doing the Providence Financial Retirement Show for well over a decade now is very simple.

It’s to help you have the peaceful and stress-free retirement that you deserve. You can’t do that, though, if you’re speaking a different language than your advisor. We’ve been talking about the word growth, because growth to your advisor might mean one thing, and growth to you might mean something else.

But here’s one of the biggest misconceptions that I see with retirement planning, and that is the idea that you can just flip a switch. People think they can stay growth-focused right up until their retirement date, and then on that day, suddenly change everything over to income. It sounds simple, but it’s not the most effective strategy.

Retirement doesn’t work like a light switch. One day you’re focused on growth, and the next day you’re living on income. A better way to think about it is like a dimmer switch. You wanna gradually adjust the mix over time, shifting from a growth-first mentality to an income-first mentality as you get closer and closer to retirement.

That transition usually should happen over the span of around five or ten years. Why does this matter? Because none of us knows what the market’s going to do in the window of time leading up to your retirement. If you stay growth-heavy right up until the end of your working years and the market drops, you could find yourself retiring with a lot less money than you expected.

On the other hand, if interest rates fall right before you retire, moving to income suddenly could leave you stuck with lower payouts than you might have locked in earlier. And this is where another listener question that we received ties in perfectly, and we’re gonna take time to answer it. Karen from Sacramento wrote in this: “I’m five years away from retirement.

Wouldn’t it make sense to keep pushing for growth while I’m still working and then just switch to income once I stop?” And Karen, that’s a logical thought, and of course, that’s exactly what we’re talking about. That’s exactly what most people think. The problem is, though, life doesn’t always cooperate with the plan.

What if the year you plan to retire happens to be the year that the stock market drops by thirty percent or more? If your strategy is to flip the switch that year, you’d be locking in big losses at the worst possible time. That’s why the gradual approach works much better. By slowly transitioning to income first over a number of years, you reduce the risk of bad timing and you smooth out the bumps in the road.

Think about it this way: extremes are rarely good. All growth and no income leaves you exposed to market downturns when you need the stability. All income and no growth too early could limit your ability to keep up with inflation. The sweet spot is somewhere in between, shifting gradually as your priorities change.

Certainly, Karen, I hope that helps answer your question. I know your thought is logical, but the problem is, is that if you wait too long, you could be putting yourself in a risk of not having the amount of money you planned for retirement. That’s why waiting too long usually doesn’t make sense. If you retired in the last ten years and you waited until the last minute, you got away with it because the market’s done really well.

But if you’re gonna retire in the next ten years, the question then is: what’s the market going to do right before you wanna retire? That’s the risk that you’re taking If you’d like to learn more about how to get known growth in your portfolio so that you can have a predictable stream of growth that we had talked about and not have to rely on unknown growth, in my new book, More Life Than Money, I wrote chapter five all about that, the difference between investing for capital appreciation or investing for income.

I’ll send you More Life Than Money absolutely free of charge. You’ve just gotta give us your information and ask for it. To do that, go to providencefinancialradio.com/book. Once again, that’s providencefinancialradio.com/book. Leave us your information, and we will go ahead and get it right out. You’re gonna enjoy reading it, though, so you can learn how to have known growth instead of unknown growth.

To get your free copy of More Life Than Money, go to providencefinancialradio.com/book, and it’ll be on your doorstep shortly. Thank you for staying tuned in. My name is Anthony Saccaro. You’re listening to the Providence Financial Retirement Show. We’re talking about whether or not you and your advisor are speaking the same language.

We’ve already had a lot of conversation up to this point about the difference between what they mean when they talk about growth versus what you mean when you’re thinking about growth. And there’s a significant difference One of the questions that I get all the time is this, “Anthony, if income planning is so important for retirees, why don’t more advisors do it?

Why do so many advisors focus on growth in the form of capital appreciation?” It’s a fair question, and the answer goes back to how most financial advisors are trained. The vast majority of them start their careers at a big Wall Street firm. Here’s the thing. Wall Street figured out a long time ago that if they keep clients invested in growth-oriented products that are generally designed for capital appreciation, they make more money.

Growth products that usually have some type of capital appreciation associated with them, those products usually carry higher fees and commissions, so the firms profit more, and the advisors who learn in that environment are taught to think that way. This is where early experiences really matter. Think about fishing.

If you grew up learning to fish with nothing but a worm on a hook, chances are that’s still the first thing that you reach for today. Even though there are lures and other techniques that might be working better, you’re probably still fishing with a worm on a hook because those early lessons shape the way you think.

The same thing happens with advisors. They learn the Wall Street growth-first model early in their careers, and those habits stick. There’s another piece to this as well. When advisors start out young, most of their clients are probably their own age, folks in their thirties and forties who are still working and saving.

And for that stage of life, growth-first strategies make sense. If you’re decades away from retirement, capital appreciation is a reasonable way to build wealth. The advisor sees success with that approach and assumes it’s gonna work forever. The problem comes later when their clients begin reaching retirement age.

The advisor never really makes the shift even themselves. They keep giving the same growth-oriented advice, not realizing that their clients’ needs have changed. The result, retirees end up with portfolios that may have worked while they were saving but don’t provide the income and stability they need once they’re drawing money out of their accounts in retirement.

Let’s be honest, growth-oriented portfolios are easier to sell. They sound exciting. “Let’s put you in a strategy where your money can double.” That’s a lot flashier than saying, “Let’s create a steady stream of income.” The truth is, reliable income doesn’t always sound flashy or exciting. In retirement, though, it’s exactly what you need.

There’s one more consideration, though, and that is the ego factor. Some advisors like to talk in ways that make them sound sophisticated The more technical and complex, the better they feel about their expertise. Here’s the irony though. If their clients don’t understand what they’re saying, they don’t look smart.

They just look disconnected. Does this mean that growth investments are bad? Of course not. Growth has its place, and younger investors should absolutely take advantage of it. When you hit retirement though, your priorities shift. At that point, the advisor who’s still stuck in the Wall Street growth first mindset may not be the right fit for you anymore.

Bottom line is this, most advisors push growth because that’s how they were trained, and that’s how the industry rewards them. It’s not necessarily malicious, it’s just habit. If you’re in or near retirement though, you can’t afford to stick with an advisor whose mindset hasn’t shifted with your needs.

You need someone who understands that income comes first in retirement and growth should take a backseat. The question that you have to answer is, what would you prefer? Would you prefer to be in investments where the growth is unknown? Maybe you grow, maybe you don’t. Investments that involve to a high degree market timing, or would you rather be in- involved in investments that are gonna give you known growth through interest and dividends?

If you’re wondering the same thing and you just don’t have enough information and would like to learn more, we’ve put together a short animated video that talks about the difference between investing for income or investing for capital appreciation. I’m gonna send this to you absolutely free of charge if you want it.

You just have to ask for it. You can do that by going to providencefinancialradio.com/video. Once again, it’s providencefinancialradio.com/video and you’ll get an email shortly with the video that you can just press play and watch right on your computer. It’s animated, so it’s really fun to watch, but it’s also very power-packed because we’ve spent a lot of time wordsmithing it to explain what the difference is between unknown growth and known growth.

To get your free animated video emailed to you, just go to providencefinancialradio.com/video and you’ll have it shortly. I’m Anthony Saccaro. You’re listening to the Providence Financial Retirement Show. We’re talking about whether or not you and your advisor are speaking the same language. After everything we’ve talked about today, speaking the same language, redefining growth, and shifting from unknown growth to known growth, it really all comes down to one question: Do you truly understand what your advisor is telling you?

You’d be surprised how often the answer is no. Many people come into my office, and when I ask them to explain their portfolio, they kind of shrug their shoulders. They know a few key buzzwords, but they don’t really understand what they own or why they own it. That’s a problem. If you don’t understand your investments, how can you feel confident about your retirement?

Sometimes this happens because clients are afraid to ask questions. Let’s face it, nobody wants to feel embarrassed. Men especially are guilty of this. They’ll nod along in an entire meeting saying, “Uh-huh. Yep, I get it,” when the reality is they’re lost. They don’t wanna look like they don’t know what’s going on, so they stay quiet.

The result? They leave just as confused as when they walked in. Other times, it’s because the advisor isn’t really listening. They’re too focused on showing what they know rather than understanding what the client needs. They keep using industry jargon, layering on charts and statistics, and the client gets left behind.

That’s why I believe that one of the most important things to look for in an advisor isn’t just knowledge or credentials, it’s connection. Do you feel like this person gets you? Do they speak in terms you understand? Do you feel comfortable stopping them mid-sentence and saying, “Hey, hey, hold on. Wait a second.

Explain that to me in plain English.” And do they respond with patience, or are they irritated? Let me give you a quick analogy. Let’s go back to doctors again. If you meet with a specialist and they start rattling off a bunch of medical terms you’ve never heard before, how do you feel? Probably overwhelmed, maybe even scared.

But if that same doctor slows down, draws a simple diagram, and explains it in everyday language, suddenly you’re calm and you know what’s happening. It’s the same with financial advisors. The information may be complex, but the explanation shouldn’t be. Earlier in the show, I’ll mention something that I will mention again, that here at Providence Financial, one of the compliments that we often get is the fact that on my show, this Providence Financial Retirement show, and in my book, I speak English.

It’s very understandable. And if you’ve been listening to this show, then you know that to be true firsthand. I also wanna point out something else, though, that I often see, clients who prefer female advisors. The reason is simple: women tend to listen differently. They often take more time to connect, ask questions, and really hear what the client is saying.

That doesn’t mean male advisors can’t do the same thing. It just highlights how important listening and empathy are in this business. The best advisors, regardless of gender, are the ones who combine technical knowledge with the ability to communicate and relate. Here’s the truth. If your advisor isn’t connecting with you, it doesn’t matter how brilliant they are.

If you don’t understand what’s being said, if you don’t feel comfortable asking questions, if you leave meetings more confused than when you walked in, then you’re probably dealing with the wrong advisor. Retirement planning isn’t about how much your advisor knows. It’s about how much you understand. You should never settle for a relationship where you feel talked down to or ignored or left in the dark.

The right advisor is one who’s gonna make you feel heard, who explain things in a way that you understand, and who helps you feel confident about the road ahead. At the end of the day, peace of mind in retirement doesn’t come from charts and graphs or industry jargon. It comes from clarity, and clarity only happens when you and your advisor are truly speaking the same language.

If this is the first time that you’ve kind of thought about it this way, maybe it’s starting to actually make sense to you, but just in a way that you’ve never considered it before. Well, in my new book, More Life Than Money, I spend an entire chapter talking about the different kinds of advisors, and I also talk about the difference between investing for unknown growth and known growth.

And I also talk about ten other more common mistakes that I’ll often seen retirees make over my twenty-six-year career of being a retirement advisor. I would like to send you a copy of More Life Than Money absolutely free of charge. You just have to ask for it. And to do that, all you need to do is go to providencefinancialradio.com/book.

Once again, it’s providencefinancialradio.com/book. Give us your information and a brand-new hardcover copy of More Life Than Money will show up on your doorstep very shortly, within just a couple of days. To claim your free copy of More Life Than Money, just go to providencefinancialradio.com/book, and we’ll get it right out.

You’re gonna enjoy reading it I’m Anthony Saccaro, and I certainly hope you’ve enjoyed today’s show, and I hope I’ve spoken English to you in a language that really makes the concept I’ve discussed very understandable. Thank you for staying tuned in today to the Providence Financial Retirement Show. I certainly hope you’ve learned something that will give you more confidence and clarity in your retirement so that you can have the peaceful and stress-free retirement that you deserve.

Once again, I’m Anthony Saccaro. You’ve been listening to the Providence Financial Retirement Show. Have a great week, everyone. God bless.