You are seated in front of a retiree, someone you know who has money, and they already have bankers serving them, and they say, “What do you do for a living?”

You respond, “I have retirees make their retirement a sweet victory and pass down their wealth in a meaningful way so that they do not fear outliving their retirement funds or spending their hard-earned wealth on expensive medical treatments.”

Would that be a result that retirees are looking for? And a pain they want to avoid?

Remember that retirement is a long-term game. It is not like “Today I’m 45, and when I retire at 60, I’m going to take out all my money and spend everything. Instead, I’m going to leave my money there and take out the income to spend.” So your money is going to stay there for the long term. And if you are going to keep your money over the long term, where should you keep your money? You can put it in the bank. Over the years, the bank will give you this thing called “interest.” But after taxes and inflation, depending on your country, you are going to get this thing called “negative interest.” Regardless of your country, chances are cash in the bank over the long term is going to give you negative interest because of inflation.

You may want to do things better by putting money in high-quality bonds, which after inflation and taxes can probably beat inflation. But if you want to make your money work hard for you, where should you put it? Historically, if you are putting your money into the S&P 500, which is the most valuable foreign companies in the world, you’re going to make about 10 percent a year. After inflation and taxes, it is still going to be a decent 5 percent. If you are keeping your money over the long term, history has shown that investing into a basket of high-quality stocks is probably your best way to beat inflation.

Have you heard the objection that investing is risky? That’s where I’ll show you why you should invest through insurance. Because when you invest through insurance, you are using a very important investment strategy: dollar-cost averaging over the long term.

When you buy insurance and you are paying premiums, are you paying premiums one year or every year over the long term? It’s every year over the long term. That’s called “dollar-cost averaging.” And when you buy insurance, is your money kept over the long term, or do you buy and sell? It is over the long term.

In other words, the reason why people lose money is because they are not investing. They are speculating. They bought thinking that it’s going to go higher. And then after they buy, the market crashes, and they lose money. Before they buy the market goes up. After they buy the market goes down. Yes or no? And then they get scared, and they sell. They say, “Investing is not for me.”

That’s why I say that when it comes to investing, one sure way to lose money is speculating because nobody in the world knows when the market is going to go up or down. What I’m going to show you next is a guaranteed way to make money when it comes to investing.

If I am going into a global equity fund, there will be years where I lose money, and the fund will go down. There’ll be years when the fund will go up, and I’ll make money. And nobody in this world knows when it will go up or go down. For example, for a group equity fund, two out of 10 years are negative returns. Eight out 10 years are positive returns. Again, nobody knows when those two years of negative returns is going to be. But what I do know is that if I put in money every year for 10 years straight, I’m going to be making on average a 6 percent return.

In other words, if I try to time the market, I could be that unlucky chap where I go in at a high, and I lose 19, 20 percent in one year. I may get lucky and make 30 percent, but luck is rarely a strategy. What history has shown over and over again, over the past 95 years, is if I’m investing into the S&P 500, which is the 500 most valuable companies in the world, 73 percent of the time I will make money. That means, in all 10 years, the market is going to go up.

Which is why the two things that can help your clients grow their money for their retirement over the long term is No. 1, dollar-cost averaging, or putting in money every year. And No. 2, you’ve got to go in for the long term.