Advisors need to delve into the non-financial aspects of clients' retirements, he said.

“The future is in how you are going to differentiate yourselves," he told advisors.

He implored advisors to get rid of outdated language when talking to clients. For example, he said, instead of saying, “10,000 people retire every day, you should say, “Did you know that 10,000 people turn retirement age every day, and 4,000 are estimated to fail or struggle with the transition?’’

Another overused phrase is, “retirement will make you happy,’ he said. “Nothing could be farther from the truth," he said. "Retirement is empty. It’s what you do with it,’’ Laura said. He recalled a retiree saying to him, “Robert, don’t retire, because you won’t mean anything to anyone anymore.”

“People have these vague ideas that retirement is going to be awesome, that it’s going to magically unfold," he said. "That’s not the case. Research says 70 percent of pre-retirees think that life in retirement is going to be better, but only 40 percent of actual retirees think it is. So there is a major disconnect there because people are not planning for those non-financial things."

He also said people assume that when they retire, it eliminates the need to work. “It reorients it and that’s why people fail," he said. "They don’t know how to do work outside of work, especially men who don’t do social connection well," he said. He added that people say they want to work part-time or volunteer but then find it’s not rewarding.

Retirement, he added, simply magnifies who you already are. “If you are a person who sits on the couch, gets upset at the news … you just have more time to do [that],’’ he said.

“A successful retirement is not one without problems, it’s one in which you learn to overcome them,’’ Laura said. “And that’s again a different mind-set and attitude. And that’s how you can position yourself, because people are lost."

One of the things people don’t think about when contemplating their retirement is their social life, Research shows that people who are more socially connected are happier, physically healthier and live longer than people who are less connected, he said.

Clients should be planning to live into thier 90s or even past 100, he said, explaining that people mistakenly believe that because their parents died in their 70s or early 80s, the same is going to happen to them. But society is still adapting to the fact that being 65 years old doesn't mean you're "old" anymore, he said.

“They are 70 [and] they don’t realize they are at the top of their game,’’ Laura said.