After six weeks on our Wiltshire farm for harvest, I’ve returned to NextWealth and straight into some fascinating research. One project explores how clients who receive financial advice perceive risk at different stages in their retirement journey.

We’ll be sharing the findings in a series of interactive workshops across the UK. If you’re a financial adviser, planner, or paraplanner and want to explore how clients understand risk, join us for one of our Dragon’s Den–style sessions, where we’ll stress-test what genuinely drives better client understanding. Find out more here

What risk means, when you feel it most, and what you do to manage it, are things that have felt very real to me this year. The past season on the farm that I run with my parents has been one of the toughest we have faced: policy changes slashed income and undermined growth plans, input costs soared, grain prices collapsed and months of dry weather stunted yields. Farming, like investing, has always involved riding the ups and downs. But what’s been different this year is the consistency and severity of these shocks. Every decision now feels like a trade-off between risk and survival – between protecting and preserving what makes our family business ours and adapting to a new reality.

I have seen that this tension, between what we value and what we can control, sits at the heart of both farming and financial advice. Through recent interviews with clients of financial advice, I have heard how similar feelings of uncertainty and loss of control surface when people move through major life transitions, particularly into retirement. In this piece, I want to convey the commonalities I’ve observed in both spheres of how moments of change expose the non-financial side of risk: the emotional pull of identity, legacy, and purpose that shapes the decisions we make when the future feels uncertain.

The hidden wealth beneath the income statement

Running a farm and being a client of financial advice might seem worlds apart, but both reveal how influential the non-financial value we attach to our assets can be; the sense of identity, legacy, and emotional connection that comes from what we own or manage. Whether that’s a farm, a business, or an investment portfolio. For many family farms, it often outweighs the financial returns. The farm isn’t just an asset; it’s the family name, history, the hard work carried out together and literally embedded in the soil. This creates a deep emotional attachment; a desire for control and continuity that shapes how decisions are made, especially in moments of uncertainty.

When that control feels threatened, whether by volatile markets, policy shifts, or a poor harvest, it prompts action. You seek advice, look for clarity, and want reassurance that your next step protects both your livelihood and your legacy.

Retirement: When control shifts and risk feels different

In our recent research, we’ve seen clients of financial advice experience a similar moment of reckoning when they move from building wealth to drawing on it. The mindset shifts from imagining the future to living it; from thinking about retirement as a goal to realising it’s now the landscape they have to navigate.

During working life, clients feel a sense of control: “I was working, so if I wanted to earn more, I could. I didn’t realise it at the time, but I was in control.”

But once retired, that control can feel suddenly removed: “Now, they’re in charge of my financial situation. I need them to get it right. I can’t ‘fix it’ by earning more. It genuinely feels so different as a new retiree.”

The transition exposes a new kind of risk — not just to financial stability, but to identity. Clients no longer define themselves through work or earning. If advisers don’t acknowledge this emotional shift, trust and perceived value can erode quickly. Some clients, feeling unheard, turn to social media or peers instead of professionals for reassurance.

Volatility reveals what truly holds up

This year on the farm has reminded me that volatility tests everything. When conditions are stable, it’s easy to believe your model works. But it’s only under pressure that its true resilience is revealed.

In farming, this year’s weather and policy removals tested every decision: from soil management to cashflow. In financial advice, volatility (whether caused by inflation, regulation, or market swings) — does the same, revealing how well clients understand the journey and effectively how their adviser supports them. The concept of risk becomes a lens for assessing not just portfolio resilience, but relationship strength.

But even with the best planning, there are no guarantees. What matters most is adaptability: the ability to re-seed a failed crop, rethink a rotation, and respond. The same applies to advice. Policies shift, technology evolves and expectations change. The firms that thrive are those that listen, learn, and adjust not just according to the bigger market factors, but also around the shifts in their clients’ goals and objectives.

Data is vital but context is everything

Modern farming runs on data: nutrient mapping, precision input applications and yield calculations. But numbers alone don’t capture the nuance of what’s happening in the field. The same is true for financial advice. Risk profiling, cashflow modelling, and portfolio projections provide valuable insight. But they only tell part of the story.

The real understanding comes from contextual conversations, those held in emotionally charged moments of change. Just as walking a field brings meaning to a yield chart, a deep client conversation gives life to a financial plan and where meaningful change can be understood by both parties.

Both farming and financial advice are about stewardship: protecting and nurturing something that carries meaning beyond its monetary value. Whether it’s a farm passed through generations or a lifetime’s worth of savings, risk is not just a number. It’s a feeling – one that surfaces most vividly when change demands that we act.

We’re taking this research on the road to help advisers better understand how clients experience risk in retirement. If you’d like to learn more, get in touch.

Philip Leigh, Senior Qualitative Researcher at NextWealth,