THE FALL-TESTED RETIREMENT STRATEGIST
He knows what it means to fall—and what it takes to rebuild.
Bruce built successful businesses. Then two market collapses forced him to rebuild from zero. That experience changed the direction of his life.
Today, Bruce helps retirees and pre-retirees make clearer decisions about income, assets, taxes, risk, and the future they are working to protect.
Certified Financial Fiduciary before Retirement Income Strategist | Retirement Income Strategist | Mountaineer & Ice Climber | Featured Expert, Retirement Everest | Creator of the Income Integration™ Process
What gets you up the mountain does not necessarily get you safely down.
- Bruce Lazarus
Retirement Changes the Rules
Retirement Changes the Rules
During your working years, the goal was straightforward: earn, save, invest, and allow time to work in your favor. Retirement changes the equation.
Now those savings must support income, taxes, healthcare, legacy goals, and a life that may span decades.
A market decline can feel very different when withdrawals have already begun.
Tax and income decisions are connected. A choice in one account can affect another part of the plan.
The years around retirement deserve a different kind of planning—one built for the descent, not simply the climb.
The question is no longer only, “How much have I saved?” It is also, “How will everything work together when I begin
using it?”
Retirement Everest
FEATURED EXPERT IN RETIREMENT EVEREST
Bruce has spent more than five decades hiking, climbing, and learning from the mountains. He understands that the summit is only a milestone. Conditions can change, energy can fade, and the descent can demand even more judgment than the climb.
That experience is one reason the message of Retirement Everest resonated so deeply with him. The strategies that help people accumulate wealth are not automatically the same strategies that help them convert wealth into sustainable retirement income.
As a featured expert in Retirement Everest, Bruce helps bring that parallel to life: reaching retirement is a major accomplishment—but reaching it is not the end of the journey.
Retirement Everest
FEATURED EXPERT IN RETIREMENT EVEREST
Bruce has spent more than five decades hiking, climbing, and learning from the mountains. He understands that the summit is only a milestone. Conditions can change, energy can fade, and the descent can demand even more judgment than the climb.
That experience is one reason the message of Retirement Everest resonated so deeply with him. The strategies that help people accumulate wealth are not automatically the same strategies that help them convert wealth into sustainable retirement income.
As a featured expert in Retirement Everest, Bruce helps bring that parallel to life: reaching retirement is a major accomplishment—but reaching it is not the end of the journey.
Bruce’s Origin Story
WATCH BRUCE’S ORIGIN STORY
Every advisor has a résumé. Bruce has a turning point.
In this short film, Bruce shares how business success, financial loss, and rebuilding from zero changed the direction of his life.
It is the story behind his mission to help families prepare for the retirement descent.
The Fall That Changed
the Direction of His Life
Bruce Lazarus had been an entrepreneur for most of his adult life.
He opened his first business while still in high school.
After earning a master’s degree, he built a consulting firm that helped companies and public agencies solve difficult operational and training problems.
In 2000, after years of extensive travel, Bruce sold the business. He and his wife, Leigh, were not ready to retire, so they joined other investors in building a real-estate venture. On paper, it looked like the next successful chapter.
Then the markets changed. The downturns surrounding 2003 and 2008 devastated the portfolio. Despite years of business experience and professional success, Bruce found himself rebuilding from zero.
It was a difficult realization: being knowledgeable in business did not mean he understood everything he needed to know about retirement income.
He began studying how money behaves differently when a person moves from earning and accumulating to withdrawing and depending on it.
That rebuilding process changed his direction. Bruce saw that many intelligent, hardworking people reach retirement with accounts and products, but without a clear picture of how income, taxes, risk, liquidity, healthcare costs, and longevity interact.
Today, that lived experience shapes how he serves clients. He does not approach retirement as an abstract calculation. He understands the fear of watching a plan unravel—and the discipline required to build again with better information.
“I was smart about business. Then I realized what I did not know about money—and especially how money works in retirement.” - Bruce Lazarus
Bruce rebuilt. Now he helps other families make more informed decisions before a market decline, tax surprise, or income gap forces them to rebuild too.
The Mountains Made the Message Personal
Family, Freedom, and a Lifetime Outdoors
Bruce’s connection to the outdoors began on family road trips. Before each vacation, his father would spread a U.S. map across the kitchen table.
Bruce and his two brothers traced highways, studied the states, and searched for parks and places to explore. Watching the scenery unfold gave him a lifelong love of the world beyond his neighborhood.
By high school, he was learning to backpack. In college, he became a proficient rock climber and mountaineer, a Red Cross canoeing instructor, a cross-country ski instructor, and a white-water rafter.
By graduate school, he was an EMT, a member of a mountain search-and-rescue team, and a teacher of basic survival skills.
More than 50 years after his first hikes, climbing remains the outdoor pursuit that means the most to him. The mountains are where preparation becomes practice, trust matters, and mistakes become lessons that cannot be ignored.
“The mountains are how I recharge my batteries, center myself, and reconnect with what is deeply important to me.” - Bruce Lazarus
Income Integration™
A Retirement Income Plan Should Work as One Picture
Retirement income rarely comes from a single source.
Social Security, pensions, investments, insurance, cash reserves, real estate, taxes, and future care needs may all affect one another.
Bruce created the Income Integration™ Process to help clients understand the pieces they have, identify what may be missing, and evaluate how those pieces could work together as one coordinated retirement-income strategy.
Chart the Destination
Begin with the life—not the accounts. Define the lifestyle, family priorities, travel, independence, legacy, and purpose you want retirement to support.
Assess the Terrain
Develop a clear picture of income, expenses, assets, liabilities, liquidity, tax exposure, and existing income sources. Identify blind spots, missing information, and decisions that may
affect one another.
Integrate the Income
Evaluate multiple strategies and show how assets and income sources may work together. The objective is not to force every client into one product or formula, but to coordinate the available tools around the client’s priorities.
Prepare for Changing Conditions
Consider the possible effects of taxes, inflation, healthcare expenses, required distributions, longevity, and market volatility. Review the strategy as life and conditions change.
The goal of Income Integration™ is clarity: helping clients see what they have, understand how it connects, and make informed decisions about the retirement ahead.
The Rules of the Climb
Preparation
Conditions matter. Equipment matters. Timing matters. Good outcomes begin before the climb.
Trust
A rope team depends on every member. Financial relationships also require honesty, responsibility, and clear communication.
Patience
Not every decision needs to be rushed. The next move should be deliberate and grounded in the conditions at hand.
Adaptability
Weather shifts, light changes, and the terrain can look different on the descent. A retirement plan must be able to respond when life changes.
Lifelong Learning
Experience grows when mistakes are examined instead of ignored. Competence is built by continuing to learn.
The Promise
Clarity Before Commitment
Bruce believes people make better decisions when they understand what they own, why it matters, what their choices are, and what else may be affected.
His role is to listen, ask questions, explain tradeoffs, and help clients evaluate strategies based on their own needs—not to push a cookie-cutter solution or use fear as a shortcut.
The aim is straightforward: help people feel more informed, more prepared, and more confident about the income decisions that will shape their retirement.
"It is not only about how much money you have. It is about what you do with the money you have."
- Bruce Lazarus
Beyond Finance: The Anchors That Ground Him
Family, Service, Curiosity, and a Life Fully Lived
Family is Bruce’s true foundation. He and Leigh first met over the telephone when the company she worked for called Bruce’s consulting firm for help. They spoke for months and fell in love before meeting in person.
More than 30 years later, that partnership remains at the center of his life.
Their family spans four generations: two daughters, six grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. Bruce values the memories they have created together—from simple dinners and game nights to celebrations, family trips, and one-of-a-kind adventures.
Bruce is also a self-taught cook who enjoys planning elaborate, wine-paired dinners with Leigh. Travel, maps, and the anticipation of the next horizon remain part of how they celebrate life together.
Service is another shared value. Bruce and Leigh sponsor six children through Children Incorporated and support St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, local food banks, and Friends of the Inyo. Their family dogs—especially Chinese Cresteds—have all been rescues.
These relationships and experiences reflect the same qualities Bruce brings to his work: preparation, curiosity, loyalty, service, and a belief that life is measured by more than an account balance.
Your Retirement Deserves a Plan for the Descent
You worked for years to reach retirement. The next step is understanding how your income, assets, taxes, and future needs can work together from here.
A conversation with Bruce is an opportunity to identify your most important questions, uncover possible blind spots, and begin building a clearer picture of the road ahead.
Bruce Lazarus – A Guide for the Retirement Descent
Retirement Income Strategist | Mountaineer & Ice Climber | Featured Expert, Retirement Everest |
Creator of the Income Integration™ Process
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