The three futures method: Why great financial planners make their clients a little uncomfortable

Smooth meetings feel professional, but they rarely drive change. Here is how to use strategic tension to help clients take ownership of their financial plan.

Picture three versions of your client: the person they are today, the person they will gradually become if nothing changes over the next 10 or 20 years, and the person they could become if they make a few harder choices. We usually focus only on that third version. We build a plan in the client’s best interest and guide them through it carefully, then wonder why so many drift away from it within months. The plan is not the problem. The problem is that the client never fully felt the gap between their current path and where it leads, so the third future never truly felt like their own.

That is the role of strategic tension, and it is often the missing element in client conversations. Think of it as a careful, deliberate way of asking questions that let clients feel the weight of their current path for themselves. In this article, we will look at what strategic tension is, why most advisers tend to avoid it, and how to use it without causing harm.

Identify the comfort problem

According to the Momentum Financial Advice Research Report 2025, only 9% of South African households use a professional or certified financial adviser. The report points to two main reasons: low financial literacy, and deep mistrust of financial services. So when a client does come through your door, it is tempting to be especially warm and reassuring, and to send them away feeling good about themselves and about you.

The problem is that comfortable meetings are easy to forget, and forgettable meetings rarely change behaviour. People do not change their financial habits because we showed them a neat cashflow projection. They change because they felt the cost of doing nothing, and that feeling stayed with them after they left. If your client ends the meeting nodding politely while you do most of the talking, you are delivering information, not having a planning conversation. The plan ends up in a drawer, and the relationship slowly loses momentum.

Use tension to serve the client

Let us be clear about what strategic tension is not. It is not picking a fight, lecturing or using fear to pressure a client into signing. It is far more respectful than that. You ask open, well-shaped questions and give the client space to recognise the gap between their first and second futures for themselves.

There is a trade-off

You may get fewer eager nods and more thoughtful silences, and clients may leave reflective rather than delighted. In return, you get a client who has done the emotional work of choosing the third future for themselves instead of being sold on it. 

This aligns with the Financial Sector Conduct Authority’s Treating Customers Fairly outcomes, which require advice to be clearly understood and acted on. 

However, the key is not to leave clients in discomfort for too long, because unresolved tension becomes anxiety. Take them there, let them sit with it briefly, and then walk with them into that third future. 

Try this in your next three meetings

You do not need a new framework, app, or polished script. You need three good questions and the patience to wait for an honest answer. In your next discovery, review, or strategy meeting, try one or two of these:

• If you keep doing exactly what you are doing now, where do you think you will be in 10 years? And in 20?
• What would your future self thank you for, starting today? And what would they wish you had stopped?
• If we had this same conversation in five years and nothing had changed, how would you feel?

Stay quiet and let the silence do its work. The most common mistake is stepping in before the client has time to think. Once they speak, your role changes from asking to guiding. Reflect their words clearly and connect them to the steps in the plan, so the third future becomes theirs, not yours.

Clients need advisers they can trust for decades, not transactions. That trust is not built by keeping every meeting comfortable. It grows when you stay with clients as they face the real consequences of their choices, with a steady guide across the table. Make your next few meetings a little less comfortable, and see what changes.

Stay curious!