Can Your Clients See the Future They’re Planning?

Before an advisor can build the right financial plan, the client has to be able to see the future that plan is meant to serve – and getting there requires discovery, visualization, and a willingness to ask the same question more than once.

A dear friend from my college days, a psychiatrist and former world-class table tennis player, once told me something about speed skater and 5-time Olympic Gold medalist, Eric Heiden, that has stayed with me all these years. Heiden, a Stanford classmate of his, had developed an extraordinary ability to visualize a race before he skated it.

Not simply the finish line, or the podium with the gold medal around his neck. The race itself. Every stride, every turn, every cross over.

Years of preparation had taught him the course, the rhythm and what the journey required. He could see the destination because he understood the journey.

That story has made me think differently about something we ask clients to do every day: make consequential decisions today for a future they cannot yet see.

What does “better” actually mean to your client?

Before planning can begin, an advisor has to understand what the client is actually optimizing for – and “better” means something different to every person in the room.

This line of thinking began for me with John Hancock’s “Longer. Healthier. Better.” theme. “Longer” is measurable. “Healthier” is at least directionally understandable. But, “Better”? Better according to whom?

That question eventually became personal. What does better mean to me? My answers had little to do with a balance sheet: my wife, family, friends, health, time, experiences, contribution, meaning. They were intensely individual.

That led to a question I now believe belongs near the beginning of a planning relationship: What does “better” mean to this client?

A friend and mentor recently challenged me to take the thought further. Perhaps clients do not simply want a better financial solution. And the solution that is “best” by one financial measure – lowest tax, greatest inheritance, highest return – may not be optimal for the life the client wants. He suggested the word “optimal”, and I like it with one important qualification: before we can optimize a client’s resources, we have to understand what we are optimizing for.

“Rich is financial. Wealth is personal.”

Why isn’t the client’s first answer enough?

The first answer tells you what a client thinks they want. The conversation that follows reveals what they actually want.

Imagine a client owns a $10 million family vacation home in the Hamptons. The advisor asks what the client would like to happen to the property after death. “I’d like the kids to keep it.” It would be easy to hear that answer and start planning. Estate-tax liquidity. Carrying costs. Ownership structure. Equalization. Insurance. Investments. Trusts. But we do not yet know enough.

“Tell me more about that.” Perhaps the client says the house is where the family has always gathered. “Tell me more about that.” Now we learn that the client remembers summers there with the children, hopes grandchildren will grow up with the same traditions, and sees the property as a place that might keep the family connected long after Mom and Dad are gone.

Or perhaps continued probing reveals something entirely different. Maybe the client assumes the children want the house but has never asked them. Maybe one child loves it and another sees it as a burden. Maybe the real desire is not preserving the property at all.

That requires confidence to stay with the conversation. “Tell me more about that” may be one of the most valuable questions we can ask.

“A good question is not discovery. The conversation that follows it is discovery.”

How does visualization move a client from clarity to commitment?

Once discovery establishes what a client genuinely wants, visualization makes that future real enough to act on.

Suppose discovery confirms that the client genuinely wants the Hamptons house to remain a multigenerational gathering place. Now visualization becomes useful. Picture the house 25 years after you’re gone. It’s the Fourth of July. Your children are there, and your grandchildren are arriving with families of their own. They still want to come. They have memories there and traditions they want to continue. Nobody resents the expense of maintaining it. Nobody feels one sibling has more control than another. The house is doing what you hoped it would do: bringing the family together.

Now consider another possible future. One child wants to sell. Another cannot comfortably afford the expenses. A third believes he or she has carried more than everyone else. The grandchildren barely know one another. The asset intended to preserve family connection has become a source of division.

The purpose is to make possible futures sufficiently tangible that clients can explore what their desired outcome actually requires. What would have to be true today to make the future they want more likely?

A trust can preserve ownership. Life insurance can provide liquidity. Investments can fund future expenses. None of those things can make siblings want to spend the Fourth of July together.

Is there science behind using visualization in financial planning?

Yes. Research on episodic future thinking supports what experienced advisors have long observed: a vivid, personally relevant future changes how people make decisions today.

Behavioral scientists use the term “episodic future thinking” to describe our ability to mentally simulate events that may occur in our personal future. A 2022 meta-analysis in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General examined 174 effect sizes from 48 articles and found that episodic future thinking meaningfully influenced more farsighted choices; the effect was stronger when the imagined events were positive, vivid and relevant to the delayed decision.

Hal Hershfield’s work on the “future self” brings the idea directly into financial behavior. His research has shown that when people experience their future selves more vividly and concretely, they can become more willing to make choices today that benefit that future person.

The research does not prove a neat causal formula of emotion to clarity to conviction. That is my synthesis. But it supports the intuition underneath it: a personally relevant future that becomes vivid can feel different from an abstract goal and can influence choices made in the present. For an advisor, that distinction matters.

Where does visualization fit in the planning process?

Visualization belongs in the middle of the process – after discovery opens the conversation, and before strategy and structure enter the room.

I have often thought about planning as a progression from discovery to clarity, conviction and ultimately execution. Visualization has changed how I see the middle of that process.

Visualization creates clarity. Clarity sharpens the visualization. The reciprocal arrow matters. Discovery gives us enough understanding to begin exploring a meaningful future. As that picture becomes more vivid, clients may discover things they had not fully articulated. Greater clarity then sharpens the picture.

The financial strategy is intentionally absent from that progression. Strategy matters enormously, but it is the professional response to what has been discovered. The human progression happens before the structure.

Clients rarely become deeply committed to structures. They become committed to outcomes they can see themselves living with. In human terms, the progression is simple: I can see it. I care about it. I intend to create it. I am willing to act.

What does this mean for advisors in practice?

The advisor’s most valuable role is not technical, it is helping clients see a future clearly enough to commit to it.

Artificial intelligence can already model scenarios, calculate taxes, compare strategies, summarize documents and suggest planning alternatives. But someone still has to sit across from the family and listen. Someone has to hear “I want the kids to keep the house” and have the patience to ask, “Tell me more about that.” Someone has to recognize when preserving a property is really about preserving family connection – or discovering that it is not. AI can build the model. The advisor has to help the client see what the model is for.

Discovery without deep listening may never reveal the client’s actual desired future. Visualization without discovery risks imposing the advisor’s picture on the client. A technically elegant solution introduced before clarity may remain intellectually interesting but emotionally remote.

The optimal plan is not necessarily the one that leaves the most money, saves the most tax or produces the highest return. It is the plan intentionally designed around what matters most to the people we serve. But before we can optimize the plan, we have to understand what they are optimizing for.

Ask. Listen. Ask again. Then help them see it.

The SPG Life & Annuity team works directly with advisors on cases where discovery and planning strategy have to work together.

Start a Conversation with the SPG Life & Annuity Advanced Markets team now.