Over the past three weeks, a number of people have been asking me, in reference to this multiply site, "What is a Retirement Strategist?" .

Here's shooting from the hip, 'blindsided' readers : A retirement strategist is somewhat like a life coach.  Only that the coaching is more skewed towards the latter years in life.  As a retirement strategist, I help people deal with some critical questions pertaining to life from 35 years old onwards.

This doesn't mean that anyone less than 35 cannot avail of what I have to offer.  In fact, the younger you are upon developing your retirement strategy, the better.

Allow me to give you some scenarios.  A person has a nice job in the Makati Central Business District.  Earns well.  Saves a little bit.  But then, given the way time is zipping by, he or she finds that the years spent in the corporate grind snatched away the moments for planning future dreams.  It's a classic case of, "Can't see the forest for the trees.".  By the time the person is aware of what's totally happening, it may be too late.  Things may not be irrepairable but, we do know that this minor glitch has a fair amount of impact down the line.

This minor symptom leads to what is more commonly known as "mid-life crisis".  MLC is sometimes worse than cancer.  At least for cancer, there's chemotherapy - a basic one shot solution with other preventive treatments and fixes on the side.  For mid-life crisis, there are many other items to deal with and, the solutions are in phases.

In case you haven't realized it, retirement is not all about finances.  A large part of the work of a retirement strategist is dealing with the non-financial aspects of retirement.
                                                                                    
Allow me to give you this picture.....that of an iceberg.  We do know that more than 3/4ths of the iceberg remains under water, invisible to the human eye.  Retirement is like an iceberg.  What people usually see upon mention of retirement are: the financial package, days of leisure, saying goodbye to work, and unashamedly, old age.

The retirement strategist deals with other not-too-visible issues such as: quality of life (transition from the current to the ideal), career reorientation (using old skills in new ways), spirituality and relationships, adapting to change, and so much more.

Why is there a need for a retirement strategist?  Well, one quick answer is because most people work just hard enough not to get fired and get paid just enough money not to quit.  In other words, in the busy-ness of the daily grind, most people are impaired in the retirement planning process.

Retirement strategy talks of exit strategies and other vehicles to take you places.  We always talk about the corporate ladder.  Whoever was the boss who devised the term corporate ladder was an absolute genius!  He framed people's sense of thinking that there was indeed such a thing as a ladder.  Through the years, people have been thinking inside the box in reference to THE corporate ladder.  The retirement strategists tells you, if you're on the so-called ladder, get down (no matter how high you've risen) and walk over here to take the elevator.

More to come.