8 Ways Life Gets Better with Age (And How a Financial Advisor Can Help You Maximize Them)
At the 2025 Barron’s Advisor Independent Summit last month, my Keen on Retirement cohosts and I attended an inspiring keynote address from Chip Conley, author and former Head of Global Hospitality for Airbnb. Chip's talk was called "Why Your Best Years Are Ahead of You," a topic that certainly aligns with how Keen Wealth approaches its financial planning mission, especially as folks prepare for retirement.
Today I want to share eight specific aspects of healthy aging Chip discussed that are also important parts of Keen Wealth’s comprehensive financial planning process.
1. Emotional Intelligence (EQ)
The ability to understand and manage our emotions, and those of others, tends to grow stronger with age. Our accumulated experiences help us control our reactions to the ups and downs of life, especially in moments when stress or emotions might be running high. We also understand other people better and interact with more empathy and understanding.
We've talked quite a bit recently about how managing emotions is also a key to successful financial planning. Many folks are feeling very anxious right now about the economy, politics, and the future as they head into retirement. Helping folks meet their short-term needs while also maintaining big picture perspective is one of the most valuable services a good financial advisor can provide.
But high-EQ financial planning is about more than the markets. It’s about understanding who you are as an individual: your family, your career, your hopes, your worries, your goals. At Keen Wealth, those are the touchpoints of our planning process. Accounts and amounts are just the tools we use to help you get where you want to go.
2. Crystallized Intelligence/Wisdom
If our emotional intelligence is fluid and expansive, our wisdom is like a diamond that hardens and gains more value with age. We become more adept at the skills we use in our personal and professional lives. The facts and figures we've learned add deeper dimensions to our understanding of ourselves and the world. And when our emotions do threaten to overwhelm us, we can return to that solid foundation of logic and reason for balance in our decision-making.
Right now, your crystalized intelligence might be the voice in the back of your head reminding you, "Hey, market volatility is normal, you've been here before, you'll make it through again." Your advisor can help you find that balance between how you're feeling and what you know so that you're more confident in your financial plan and more excited to live your best life in retirement.
3. Relational Intelligence (Social Wellness)
Your most important relationships only become more important and more meaningful as you grow older. As the responsibilities of full-time work begin to fall away, you're going to feel more connected to close friends and family and place even greater importance on the time you spend together.
How you use your resources to tend to those relationships will change with age as well. Instead of college tuition and sports camps, you might start budgeting for big family vacations or relocating to be closer to a new grandbaby. You and your spouse might devote more of your time to hobbies and sports that you enjoy doing together. And you also might look to strengthen your connection to your community via charitable giving or volunteer work.
4. Ability to Understand Your Life Narrative
The further we progress in life, the more of our life's story comes into focus. With age comes clarity around what we accomplished, where we may have fallen short, what our values are, and what we want to do with whatever time we have left.
A comprehensive financial plan can be one tool you use to connect your past, present, and future. You and your advisor can look back on the "story" up until this point and use what you've learned and experienced to start working on the next "chapter."
This intentional approach to planning becomes extremely important in retirement. Many new retirees feel lost without the responsibilities of work and raising a family. But if you reflect, prioritize, and plan, you can use your resources to set off on new adventures.
5. Environmental Mastery/Ability to Edit
By the time you get to retirement, you'll know what you really need. The days of chasing after a promotion or "keeping up with the Joneses" will hopefully be over. Instead, you'll focus more of your resources around your personal definition of "enough." For some folks that could mean downsizing to a smaller home. For others, that might mean finally building out your dream backyard with a deck and pool that will host family get-togethers for years to come.
Your advisor will also encourage you to make sure you secure the later years of retirement, as well as your estate plan. A typical "retirement spending smile" can strain your finances if you're not prepared for the costs of living longer or a sudden life-changing health issue. With comprehensive planning, you can cover your needs while also safeguarding a lasting legacy.
6. Spiritual Curiosity
Working and raising a family doesn’t always leave much time for inner reflection and mindfulness. The combination of more free time and acquired life experience can make your retirement a more spiritual period.
As you think more deeply about "what it all means," you might start introducing more philanthropy into your financial planning. Your spiritual journey might also lead you to new activities, like meditation, more involvement with your church or community center, or traveling to places where you can immerse yourself in other ways of thinking about the world and the self.
7. Time Affluence
New retirees can have a complicated relationship with time. On the one hand, once you stop working, you might feel like you have more time than you know what to do with. But as you enter the second half of life, you might also start to appreciate that time is the one resource you can never get more of.
Rather than feeling overwhelmed by all the blank space on your calendar, you can work with your spouse and your advisor to make the most of all that free time. And no matter what size your nest egg is, being able to spend more time on your favorite hobbies, traveling, giving back, and being with the people you love can make a person feel truly rich.
8. Knowing What Matters
As you've read through this list, you may have started to create a list of your own that crystallized some of Chip's ideas in a more personal way. How you want to spend your time. What values you want your kids and grandkids to inherit from you. What you want to cross off your bucket list. How you want your relationship with your spouse to evolve in the years ahead.
If you'd made this list at an earlier stage of your life, it probably would have looked very different. It might even have been a little superficial. But with age, you now have the wisdom and experience you need to put your priorities in order, and the resources to give them the care they deserve.
I think I responded to Chip’s keynote so strongly because I’ve seen how the Keen Wealth Advantage can help folks keep progressing and enjoying life as they grow older. Visit our office and let’s start planning to enrich your Golden Years.
About Bill
Bill Keen is a financial advisor with over 30 years of industry experience. As the founder and CEO of Keen Wealth Advisors, a registered investment advisory firm, he focuses on providing personalized retirement planning designed to help people thrive before and during their retirement years. With a passion for educating others, Bill regularly blogs about retirement planning, hosts the podcast Keen on Retirement, and has contributed to Forbes, U.S. News and World Report, Reuters, Wall Street Journal’s Market Watch, Yahoo Finance, and other publications. Based in Overland Park, Kansas, Bill and his team work with clients throughout the greater Kansas City area and across the nation. To learn more, connect with him on LinkedIn or visit www.keenwealthadvisors.com.
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