Tom West

PA Retirement Income Checkups Need a 2026 Reality Refresh

Retirement Income Checkups Need a 2026 Reality Refresh

PA Do You Have Enough “Decision Liquidity?”

Do You Have Enough “Decision Liquidity?”

Too many portfolio plans operate like a permanent accumulation strategy without modeling out distributions.

PA Your Success Depends on One Thing: Who’s in Your Inner Circle?

Your Success Depends on One Thing: Who’s in Your Inner Circle?

It’s time to start thinking about your personal board of directors

PA What Aging Teaches Us About Friendship, Forgiveness, Caregiving, and Acceptance

What Aging Teaches Us About Friendship, Forgiveness, Caregiving, and Acceptance

From what I've been reading and watching—on diagnoses, inheritances, apologies that never come, and the dinosaurs that stuck us with aging

PA When Not to Give Advice: Why Timing Matters More Than Being Right

When Not to Give Advice: Why Timing Matters More Than Being Right

How to get emotional timing right so clients really hear your solutions

PA When Wealth Can Be Detrimental to Your Health

When Wealth Can Be Detrimental to Your Health

$25 million bought one family everything except a coherent approach to healthcare

PA Dementia Doesn’t End Your Story. It Hands It to Someone Else.

Dementia Doesn’t End Your Story. It Hands It to Someone Else.

One client shut down. Another tried to control everything. Both had to learn the same uncomfortable truth about who carries your life forward.

PA The Abandoned Client Crisis: What Happens When Advisors Walk Away at the Worst Moment

The Abandoned Client Crisis: What Happens When Advisors Walk Away at the Worst Moment

Why I took on a struggling senior with MCI

PA The Safety-Deposit Box War

The Safety-Deposit Box War

Add in the complexity of family dynamics and it often does not take much to turn a flurry of disagreement into an avalanche of mistrust and anger.

PA AI and Aging: Cognitive Crutch or Thinking Cap?

AI and Aging: Cognitive Crutch or Thinking Cap?

How AI exposes your thought process as you age—for better or worse

PA Quarterly Check-Ins Beat Daily Promises for Sticking to Goals

Quarterly Check-Ins Beat Daily Promises for Sticking to Goals

Dispatches from the Gen X front lines

PA What March Madness Can Teach Us About Taking Risks

What March Madness Can Teach Us About Taking Risks

And how to live and invest like the shot clock matters

PA Planning To Forget: The Question of Dementia Testing

Planning To Forget: The Question of Dementia Testing

Would you want to know if your cognitive decline was around the corner?

PA You’re Not Overwhelmed—You’re Misdiagnosing the Real Problem Holding You Back

You’re Not Overwhelmed—You’re Misdiagnosing the Real Problem Holding You Back

So let’s unpack these three problems and find a framework that enables us to move forward even when we’re not sure what we’ll encounter.

PA Why Your Head Should Be in the Clouds

Why Your Head Should Be in the Clouds

What we can learn from clocks, clouds, and Popper’s problems

PA When His Comfort Today Becomes Her Chaos Tomorrow

When His Comfort Today Becomes Her Chaos Tomorrow

How to avoid a mistake I see so many older couples make

PA How To Tell Your Parents They’re Driving People Away

How To Tell Your Parents They’re Driving People Away

When a parent pushes people away, isolation feeds on itself: loneliness turns to negativity, negativity repels help, and the village shrinks faster.

PA Nice Guys Finish First in the End

Nice Guys Finish First in the End

Kindness isn’t just a virtue–it’s a long-term investment

PA Gen X and the Age of “Nobody’s Coming”

Gen X and the Age of “Nobody’s Coming”

We are the generation that got a front-row seat to every American system slowly turning into a choose-your-own-adventure

PA 5 Sedating Lies We Tell Ourselves and the Toll They Take

5 Sedating Lies We Tell Ourselves and the Toll They Take

They enable us to go forward the way we always have, avoiding uncomfortable questions or difficult decisions.

PA Empty Nest, Full House: Why Gen X Is Trapped in Place Planning Fatigue

Empty Nest, Full House: Why Gen X Is Trapped in Place Planning Fatigue

Many of us Gen Xers aren’t just thinking about our place—we’re also navigating place challenges with our parents.

PA Your Future Self Has a Plan: 4 Steps to Resolutions That Actually Get Done

Your Future Self Has a Plan: 4 Steps to Resolutions That Actually Get Done

4 steps that will help Future You show Present You the way to Better You

PA Reality Checks, Resolutions, and Reviews: Making Real Changes vs Believing Last Year’s Lies

Reality Checks, Resolutions, and Reviews: Making Real Changes vs Believing Last Year’s Lies

I have prompts in each section to help you get started, and doing this before you make a single resolution will help set you up for success in 2026.

PA The Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future

The Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future

Lenses for holiday reflection. And if you’re serious about aging well physically, financially, psychologically you need to make peace with all three.

PA Snuffing Out the Shame of Being Scammed: Your Secret Holiday Mission

Snuffing Out the Shame of Being Scammed: Your Secret Holiday Mission

Make it safe for the people you love to tell you if they’ve been scammed. Now let’s talk about why the mission matters

PA The GoFundMe Generation: Getting Caught in the Gears of a Pro-Dependence Anti-System

The GoFundMe Generation: Getting Caught in the Gears of a Pro-Dependence Anti-System

Closely at GoFundMe today, in many ways it’s an indictment of the giant holes in our personal and societal approach to planning for our well-being.

PA From Thankful to Impactful: Turning Holiday Gratitude Into Lasting Generosity

From Thankful to Impactful: Turning Holiday Gratitude Into Lasting Generosity

Despite the noise about a decline in giving, generosity hasn’t gone away. It’s evolved.

PA The Race to Live Longer: Are We Near Escape Velocity?

The Race to Live Longer: Are We Near Escape Velocity?

I always think of Eileen whenever I read some new proclamation about the human quest for longevity. I thought of her again when I read a new prediction

PA The Three Types of People in Every Life Transition

The Three Types of People in Every Life Transition

Which type of person you are, so you can see your blind spots better and work more effectively with advisors or anyone else helping you

PA The Angry Widow and the Road to Financial Oblivion

The Angry Widow and the Road to Financial Oblivion

At our first meeting she sat across from me, composed but clearly holding years of bottled up anger. Her words were unflinching

PA Before We Become Ghosts: The Life Lessons Hidden in Halloween and Día de Los Muertos

Before We Become Ghosts: The Life Lessons Hidden in Halloween and Día de Los Muertos

Why Halloween is the perfect time to visualize your demise and live better for it

PA Fight Club at 55: Gen X and the Once in a Lifetime Sucker Punch

Fight Club at 55: Gen X and the Once in a Lifetime Sucker Punch

We had arrived in Generational Purgatory for Gen X—my generation.

PA Alone Doesn’t Mean Unprepared: How To Build Your Solo Aging Support Plan

Alone Doesn’t Mean Unprepared: How To Build Your Solo Aging Support Plan

Many—perhaps even most of us—will age alone at some point. Not because we chose it, necessarily—but because life happens.

PA ProcrastinAging: When Procrastination Gains Old Man Strength

ProcrastinAging: When Procrastination Gains Old Man Strength

How is it the same or different to put things off when you are older compared to earlier and relatively younger ages?

PA Why Accepting Help May Be the Hardest—and Bravest—Thing You’ll Ever Do

Why Accepting Help May Be the Hardest—and Bravest—Thing You’ll Ever Do

In the years following this conversation, he didn’t just try, but absolutely succeeded in asking for and accepting help from others.

PA The Version of You That’s Never Coming Back

The Version of You That’s Never Coming Back

The inevitable realities of aging. I know that as much as I love playing basketball, I eventually have to hang up my sneakers.