Below I break down real life lessons applied by our most wealthy clients that helped them reach where they are today, and we outline how much savings is needed to reach $2M when you start at different life stages—emphasizing how much harder it becomes to reach this goal the longer you wait.

Your Twenties: The Foundation for Wealth

When most of us think of our twenties, we think about the newfound freedom we experience from becoming financially independent from our parents and making our own decisions. All of a sudden we have income, usually a very modest one, and we want to spend it on fun, vacations, and shiny objects. We are bombarded with noise: promise of crypto alt coins pumps, tech startup dreams, and influencer lifestyles. However, if you are able to avoid procrastination for saving, control your desire for instant gratification, sort through the noise, and act like the future begins now, then you will create a foundation that sets you up for life. If you learn to budget and prioritizing savings, over lifestyle inflation, then you will already be ahead of most of your peers.

The average income for a 25-year-old is about $50,000 per year. Whether or not your income is substantially higher than this at this age, it’s imperative that you live in a modest apartment and drive a reliable, used car instead of seeking luxury and a new car. If you invest 20%, or $10,000 annually, assuming an 8% return, by the time you are 70, that money will have grown to $4.1 million due to compounding. If you delay saving until age 30, you now need to save 25% of your income annually to hit the same $2 million goal by age 70.

Your Thirties: The Balancing Act

When we enter our thirties, the financial decisions start to carry more weight and we are asked to become even more attuned to our goals. We see our friends start to get engaged, have children, and buy houses, while others are nowhere close to reaching those milestones. The variability of experiences in your thirties is dramatic, but the most important thing to note is to never compare your timeline to someone else’s timeline. Which, truthfully, is one of the most difficult mental tasks to accomplish, especially in our media ecosystem. The pressure from social media has made us go from keeping up with the Jones to keeping up with the Kardashians. Wealth feels more attainable and pervasive than ever.

The reality is that most of us in our thirties have substantially increased our income and spending power since our twenties, making it more difficult to not justify buying a bigger home, upgrading your car, or spending more in general. The more that we are able to our expenses and spending flat as we earn more, the more we can invest in assets that compound—helping us start to create separation from the pack with our quiet wealth. At age 35, the average income rises to about $70,000. If you invest 20% ($14,000 annually), assuming an 8% return, by age 70, this savings will grow to about $1.5 million—falling short of the $2 million goal, even if still a substantial amount.

Your Forties: The Make-or-Break Decade

Our forties come with substantial lifestyle shifts and even some upgrades, but it’s important to not splash cash around like you have already accomplished your goals. Career demands and growth means you are still in the grind. The lifestyle creep that comes with a higher salary and a growing net worth can encourage many to abandon some wealth building principles. While this might be the time to upgrade from your starter home to a larger, more comfortable home to fit your growing family, resist the temptation to upgrade to your dream home just yet. Many of your peers will seem wealthier because of what you see them spending and doing, but it is important to continue prioritizing investments and embodying the idea that wealth is not what you see.

The average salary for a 45-year-old is around $90,000. If you save 20% ($18,000 per year), your investments will only grow to $900,000 by age 70—not enough to retire comfortably. If you are starting your savings journey now, you’ll need to save 35% of your income annually to reach $2 million by age 70. Saving that much during this decade is especially challenging given increasing family responsibilities and other financial commitments. While there is still enough time left in your work life to take a few high-risk investments, do not risk this at the cost of your future. Are you starting to see how painful it is to wait if you are hoping for a carefree retirement?

Your Fifties & Sixties: The Hard Work Pays Off

The decades where you start to reap the rewards from wise choices made earlier in life. If you are in your fifties and sixties and lagging behind on your financial goals, then urgency really starts to kick in. If you have children, it is likely that they are graduating college and creating their own newfound financial independence, providing the opportunity for you to reduce unnecessary expenses and downsize where possible. If you never had children, then it’s quite likely you need to reduce as many expenses or downsize since you never scaled as much as parents. The important thing to continue to practice, given you likely only have two decades left of your career, is maximizing contributions to retirement accounts and tax-advantaged investments.

It’s important to avoid high-risk investments to make up for lost time during these decades. Do not let the emotions of your life stage impact the sobriety of your financial decisions and lead you to financial ruin just for the dream of living the most lavish and comfortable retirement. If you are waiting until this late in your life to save the amount you need for retirement, then it is time you reset your expectations of what retirement will look like to something more practical. At age 55, to hit $2 million, you now need to save nearly 70% of your income—a near-impossible feat for most people.

If you are on track to achieve your financial goals, then this is the moment in which you want to start transitioning to a protection-oriented strategy to safeguard your savings—shifting out of too much risk. Your financial strategy should start planning for long-term care expenses and ensuring estate planning is in place. Now should be the time where healthy financial practices start to pay the most dividends, as overall expenses start to decrease, allowing you to enjoy a bit more luxury. Those that consistently practice good financial behaviors will benefit from the fruits of their physical and emotional labor.

The Best Time to Start Is Now

Remember, time in the market beats trying to time the market. It’s easy to get carried away with being very risky early in your life as you see people in your network experiencing huge windfalls, but even modest investments made early grow exponentially over decades. Take the risks as you see fit, so long as those don’t get in the way of your savings goals, and slowly shift out of risk later in your life. Also, do not get frustrated with yourself: you don’t need to save perfectly every year—just stay in the game. Focus on increasing savings as income grows rather than making up for lost time in one go.

No matter where you are in your financial journey, the most important thing is to start today. Wealth-building is not about making perfect choices—it’s about making smart, consistent decisions over time. If you work hard, it’s easy to get lucky once, but what is difficult is to continue building on your wealth with healthy financial practices and not get carried away with your own success. If you’re in your twenties, you have the advantage of time. If you’re in your forties or beyond, don’t be discouraged; adjusting your savings rate and making smarter financial choices can still set you up for a comfortable future.

Start now. Stay consistent. Let compounding work for you.

Life insurance technology and life insurance are provided by Optifino, Inc. (DBA Optifino Insurance Services in New York) (“Optifino”). Optifino is a licensed insurance producer in all states where it offers products, and acts as an agent for various insurance companies. License information available here. The information on this website has been developed by Optifino, Inc and is for informational purposes only. We do our best to ensure that this information is up-to-date and accurate. Any insurance policy premium quotes or ranges displayed are non-binding. The final insurance policy premium for any policy is determined by the underwriting insurance company following application. Products and specific product features may not be available in all states, and other limitations or restrictions may apply. Securities offered through The Leaders Group, Inc. Member FINRA/SIPC 26 W Dry Creek Circle, Suite 800, Littleton, CO 80120, 303-797-9080. Optifino is not affiliated with The Leaders Group, Inc. Check the background of your financial professional or broker/dealer with FINRA BrokerCheck.

“When you create a hospitality-first culture, everything about your business improves—whether that means finding and retaining great talent, turning customers into raving fans, or increasing your profitability”

–Will Guidara, Unreasonable Hospitality

Embrace Vulnerability: The Gateway to Trust

In an era marked by increasing distrust and skepticism, leading with vulnerability emerges as a powerful tool to bridge the gap between clients and businesses. The amount of people who trust their neighbor goes down every generation. The amount of others who people can trust with a personal secret has gone from three to zero on average. Predatory digital financial influencers—and don’t get us started on crypto scams—have hurt the ability for people to trust the financial advice they read. It is more difficult to connect with the people we want to help with most. When we speak with potential clients, instead of making sweeping promises, we ensure we present all the upsides and watch outs of any policy decision told through the lens of our own experiences and learnings.

What is the best way to build rapport with the people you want to get to know? Tell them about your own experiences, your problems and your learnings. Sharing personal experiences and learning humanizes the interaction, fostering a sense of empathy and understanding. This approach not only helps in breaking down barriers of skepticism but also in building a foundation of trust and rapport. Agents can share personal stories or experiences related to life insurance, such as how having a policy provides security during unexpected events in their own life or a client's life. This vulnerability helps in creating a relatable connection, making clients more open to discussions about their own needs.

Simplify to Clarify: The Art of Goals Discovery 

One of the most important messages to convey to potential clients is that life insurance portfolios must be designed in alignment with their financial goals—otherwise they risk actually damaging their ability to accomplish them. Immediately trying to explain the spectrum of policy options confuses potential clients when they don’t understand the benefits, and tradeoffs, that different life insurance policies can unlock. The life insurance industry is convoluted and opaque, so before explaining each policy type and risking them losing interest, understanding potential client goals to contextualize the benefits against their desired outcomes creates more attentiveness. If you can teach them something about the result and transformation they desire, before you make the offer, the likelihood of them accepting the offer increases exponentially. 

The goals discovery process begins with getting the client to reveal the motivations impacting the decisions they make and the roadmap they are hoping to follow. Financial goals are important to integrate, but it’s more important to understand how their larger dreams and aspirations impact their financial goals. As Blake Eastman, founder of The Nonverbal Group points out, you want to approach these types of conversations with an understanding of how you would write your client’s victory speech. In the recent book by David Brooks, How to Know a Person, he emphasizes the idea of asking directional questions that pinpoint desired outcomes. We don’t need to get into their life stories, but it’s helpful to contextualize how they think about the big moments. We want to understand the pivotal moments in their life to date, what life stage they are currently in, and what they are working towards. For example, a few questions to uncover motivations and financial goals might be:

• “What are the turning points of your life so far?”

• “If this five years is a chapter in your life, what’s the chapter about?” 

• “If we met five or ten years from now, what would we be celebrating?”

One simple rule of thumb is to ask more questions than you answer. Do not jump into trying to “productsplain”, but the goal is to establish the foundation of the relationship. Blake Eastman finds that conflict arises when two different people have different understandings of what comprises a relationship. In this first stage, we ask the questions that allow them to share themselves so we can better understand the depth of support they expect from our client-agent relationship. Without investing the time and energy into goal discovery, the rest of the process will be much less effective and our job made much more difficult. There is also a larger flywheel effect that this process feeds where the more goals and life stages we come to understand, the more quickly and thoroughly we can support clients with similar goals in a similar life stage. 

Prioritize Depth Over Breadth: The Power of Focused Conversations

One way to clarify and understand the client is by avoiding interrupting and asking too many questions. Instead of overwhelming clients with all possible options, focus on patiently understanding their specific needs and concerns through thoughtful questions. In fact, in many Asian countries, it is considered polite to pause for a few seconds before answering a question to show that you have reflected upon the question and your response. While waiting so long in the USA might come across as awkward, we find the principle of waiting a pause before answering creates trust with potential clients. Studies of silence in negotiation—measuring the amount of silence and outcomes that are mutually cooperative—found that silence and success is correlated. Embracing the quiet moments is proven to help you arrive at an agreement that benefits all sides. 

Quality conversations do not come from asking every question, but asking the right ones. Asking the right questions requires active listening and asking open ended questions that inspire the client to think out loud—even tangents uncover priorities that may not have otherwise surfaced. Remember, less is more. As Triad Consulting emphasizes, a rich conversation about one or two questions will be more meaningful, and get more traction than surface discussion of many questions. Open-ended questions leave room for people to take the conversation in whatever direction seems most relevant to them, and follow up questions help you get under general labels and probe meaning. Closed questions like, “Don’t you agree?” elicit yes/no responses and close down conversation. Open questions are most useful prior to going into the platform while policy explanations and pointed questions are best when doing a live demo and walking them through the platform. 

Potential Open Ended Questions

• “What do you think about life insurance?”

• “How do you see this budget working in your world?”

• “How do you approach allocating your budget for your financial goals? 

• “Thoughts?” 

Establish Consistent Communication: The Rhythm of Reliability

“The way to break through the wall of distrust is to keep showing up.” – David Brooks

Many clients take several calls and follow-ups to establish trust, and the most important aspect to building trust is consistency. Consistency in communication underscores reliability and commitment. A structured cadence of follow-ups, personalized emails, and thoughtful reminders demonstrates an ongoing interest in the client's well-being and progress. This reliability breeds trust and loyalty, transforming clients into enthusiastic advocates that creates word of mouth and drives new business. Balancing automated workflow communications with personalization is key to developing reliability. When a client sees the expertise of the team overtime through marketing emails that educate them on additional benefits of life insurance, then they can feel more empowered to make a decision without the need for persuasion. 

Consistency also helps build memorability, and we rely on scientific studies on the importance of frequency on memory to build our communication cadence. Studies find that forgetting happens after each exposure, but it’s slower than before and therefore the gaps between exposures can be longer as time goes on. There is a delicate balance between sending too much to clients that they start to get annoyed with, and between being a helpful reminder to take the next step in a process that will change their life. Communications need to be a steady drip, that starts with more frequency and slowly becomes less so overtime as leads become cold. There is an art and science behind finding the right cadence, so ensuring there is measurement to optimize the process is imperative. 

Building Success With Culture

“Fads fade and cycle, but the human desire to be taken care of never goes away.” –Will Guidara, Unreasonable Hospitality

The most important aspect of building a hospitality culture is that it’s not built overnight, and integrating a hospitality-first approach into your sales process will not result in immediate results. The Optifino team shares over 100 years of combined investment and life insurance experience, so we know firsthand the importance of building an individual experience and establishing a competitive yet fun sociable culture. As we enter the exponential age—where AI is pervasive and tech-empowerment is table stakes for any business—the way to differentiate is to be the most human, both internally in the workplace and externally with clients. As the great Maya Angelou said, people will forget what you said but they’ll never forget how you made them feel. Establishing a hospitality culture means going above and beyond in terms of how deeply you hope to connect with your clients, in addition to considering how you can help others on your team—because all of their success equates with yours.  

If there is one mantra to take away from our approach it is to simply slow down. Selling life insurance does not mean pushing a product on anybody, but equipping them with the information to where they feel confident in making their own decision—even if you guided them there. Yes, we want to help as many people as possible and as soon as possible because of the opportunity cost of waiting, but we still need to help them at their speed. This does not mean moving slow, but taking the time to digest what we see and hear to create the most impactful, personalized recommendation. As Amy Herman explains in Visual Intelligence, “Details, patterns, and relationships take time to register. Nuances and new information can be missed if we rush past them.” We made our optimization engine fast so we could spend more time listening to your needs, ensuring the human leads the machine—rather than the machine leading the human.

Securities offered through The Leaders Group, Inc. Member FINRA/SIPC 26 W. Dry Creek Circle, Suite 800, Littleton, CO 80120, 303-797-9080. "Optifino" is not affiliated with The Leaders Group, Inc.