Every morning, Tom checks his portfolio balance before he even gets out of bed. The market is up 2% today. Good news, right? But instead of relief, he feels a familiar knot of anxiety tighten in his stomach. Should he and his wife finally take that trip to Italy they’ve been dreaming about for years? What if the market crashes next month? What if he spends the money, and the market continues to soar—will he regret not keeping every dollar invested?

Tom is trapped between two fears, a psychological prison that confines millions of retirees: the Fear of Running Out (FORO) and the Fear of Missing Out (FOMO). And the very strategy his financial advisor told him was “safe”—the 4% rule—is the architect of this prison. If this sounds familiar, you are not alone. But what if there was a better way? A way to eliminate both fears and unlock the retirement you’ve worked so hard to achieve. There is.

What is the 4% Rule, and Why is it So Popular?

To understand why so many retirees are trapped in this cycle of anxiety, we first need to understand the rule that governs their financial lives. The 4% rule, developed in the 1990s by financial planner William Bengen, was born from a simple question: How much can a person withdraw from their retirement portfolio each year without running out of money?

After analyzing historical market data, Bengen concluded that withdrawing 4% of your portfolio in your first year of retirement, and then adjusting that amount for inflation each subsequent year, gave you a high probability of your money lasting for at least 30 years.

The concept was revolutionary in its simplicity. It gave retirees a clear, easy-to-understand benchmark. It was backed by historical data and quickly became the gold standard for retirement planning. But beneath this simple rule lies a fundamental mechanism that is the source of all the anxiety: you are consuming your capital. To get your 4%, you have to sell off pieces of your portfolio—your stocks, your bonds, your mutual funds. You are selling your assets to fund your lifestyle.

Here’s what most people don’t realize: The 4% rule is built entirely on hope. You hope the market performs well enough to offset your withdrawals. You hope you don’t live longer than 30 years in retirement. You hope nothing unexpected, like a major health crisis or a prolonged market downturn, disrupts the delicate math. Every time you withdraw money, you are literally cutting a piece off your wealth, hoping the rest is enough to carry you through.

The Fatal Flaw: You’re Cutting the Legs Off Your Golden Goose

Imagine you own a magical goose that lays golden eggs. This goose is the source of your wealth. The 4% rule gives you a straightforward strategy for survival: each year, cut off a small piece of the goose to sell for food. It seems logical at first. But no matter how small the piece, the result is inevitable. Eventually, you will run out of goose.

This is precisely what the 4% rule forces you to do with your wealth. If your portfolio is represented by 100 shares of stock—your golden goose—the 4% rule requires you to sell four of those shares each year to live.

The next year, you only have 96 shares left. The year after, 92. Your capital base, the very engine of your future wealth, is constantly shrinking.

This creates a vicious cycle, especially if the market performs poorly early in your retirement, a phenomenon known as sequence-of-returns risk. When you sell shares in a down market, you have to sell more of them to get the same amount of cash, permanently crippling your portfolio’s ability to recover and grow.

Now, imagine a different approach. Instead of cutting pieces off the goose, what if you simply collected the golden eggs it lays each day? The goose remains healthy, whole, and continues to produce for you.

This is the Virtus approach. Instead of selling your 100 shares, you live off the income those shares generate—the dividends, the interest, the “eggs.”

Your 100 shares remain intact, free to grow and compound over time. Better yet, this income stream can be structured to be guaranteed, completely severing your lifestyle from the whims of the market.

With the 4% rule, you’re always wondering, “Will I run out?” With an income-replacement approach, the answer is a confident, “No.” Your income is guaranteed, and your capital is protected.

The Two Fears the 4% Rule Creates

The strategy of consuming your capital, piece by piece, creates a psychological prison with two walls closing in on you: FORO and FOMO.

Fear #1: FORO (Fear of Running Out)

Because you are systematically depleting your savings, the possibility of running out of money is always real. Every market downturn feels like a direct threat to your survival. You become hyper-vigilant about spending, questioning every purchase.

You deny yourself experiences you can not only afford but have spent a lifetime dreaming of. This is what we call artificial scarcity. You have substantial wealth on paper, but you live as if you’re on the brink of poverty.

The real-world impact is tragic. Retirees with millions in the bank skip family vacations, delay critical home repairs, and say “no” to helping their children or grandchildren. They live smaller, more constrained lives than their wealth should allow, often dying with a fortune they were too afraid to ever use.

The root cause is that the 4% rule makes no distinction between “can I afford this?” and “should I spend this?” Every dollar spent feels like it’s being stolen from your future security—because it is.

Fear #2: FOMO (Fear of Missing Out)

The other wall of the prison is the fear of missing out. When you sell shares to fund your lifestyle, you are taking that money out of the market forever. If the market soars after you sell, you can’t help but feel the sting of regret, the phantom pain of the gains you “missed out” on. This creates an impossible paralysis.

If you spend the money, you feel guilty if the market goes up. If you don’t spend the money, you feel resentful that you’re not enjoying the fruits of your labor. There is no winning scenario.

The 4% rule forces you into a false choice between living today and security tomorrow. This constant mental calculation—“Can I afford this? Should I risk it?”—turns retirement from a life to be lived into a stressful math problem to be solved every single day.

The Virtus Approach: Guaranteed Income, Growing Capital

What if you could eliminate both fears? What if you could have guaranteed income for life and a growing pool of capital? This is not a fantasy; it is the result of a fundamental shift in strategy: from capital consumption to income replacement.

The Core Principle: Replace, Don’t Consume

The first pillar of the Virtus Five-Pillar Approach is Replace. We don’t believe you should spend your retirement selling off your assets. We believe you should replace your paycheck with a new stream of income that is guaranteed and can’t run out. This income is not dependent on market performance. It’s not based on hope. It’s based on a mathematical and structural guarantee.

To do this, we use a portion of your savings to strategically generate a reliable, predictable stream of income. The rest of your portfolio—your capital, your golden goose—remains invested for growth. Your capital stays intact, and your income is secure.

The Three-Layer Strategy

This approach is built on a simple, powerful structure:

1. Layer 1: Safety. This layer provides guaranteed, predictable income to cover your essential, non-discretionary expenses. It is not subject to market volatility.

2. Layer 2: Income. This layer is designed to replace your paycheck, providing a structured income stream to last your lifetime and that of your spouse. This can be engineered through a combination of optimized Social Security, pensions, and other income-generating assets.

3. Layer 3: Possibility. This is your growth portfolio. Because your essential income is guaranteed, this portion of your wealth can remain fully invested, allowing for uninterrupted compounding. This is the engine that funds your legacy, your charitable goals, and your most exciting discretionary spending.

This structure systematically dismantles both fears. FORO is eliminated because your income is guaranteed for life. Market downturns don’t threaten your ability to pay your bills. FOMO is eliminated because your growth portfolio stays fully invested, capturing all of the market’s upside without you having to worry about selling at the wrong time.

This is the Virtus “No Matter What” promise. No matter what happens in the market, no matter how long you live, your income is secure, and your capital is protected. The result is a transformation from anxiety to confidence. You stop checking your portfolio obsessively. You start saying “yes” to the experiences that matter. You finally begin to live the retirement you worked so hard to achieve.

A Tale of Two Retirements

Let’s make this concrete. Meet Sarah and John, both 65, with a $2 million portfolio and a desire for an $80,000 annual income to supplement their Social Security.

Path 1: The 4% Rule. In their first year, they withdraw $80,000, leaving them with $1.92 million. But the market drops 10%. Their portfolio is now worth just over $1.7 million. The next year, to keep up with inflation, they need to withdraw $82,400. This now represents 4.8% of their diminished portfolio. They are selling more shares at lower prices, accelerating the depletion of their capital. Anxiety sets in. The European trip is canceled. They are living in fear, despite being millionaires.

Path 2: The Virtus Approach. We allocate a portion of their portfolio to generate a guaranteed $80,000 annual income stream. The remainder—say, $1.5 million—is left in their growth portfolio. When the market drops 10%, it’s a paper loss that doesn’t affect their lifestyle. Their income continues, guaranteed. They take the European trip with confidence. Over the next decade, as the market recovers and grows, their $1.5 million growth portfolio compounds uninterrupted, potentially growing to nearly $3 million. Their legacy has grown, not shrunk. They have lived fully, without fear.

The 4% rule asks, “How little can I spend to make my money last?” The Virtus approach asks, “How can I structure my wealth so I never have to worry about running out?” The first question creates scarcity. The second creates freedom.

What Retirement Should Feel Like

Retirement should not be a math problem you are constantly trying to solve. It should not be a daily exercise in anxiety management. It should be the reward at the end of a long career—a time for freedom, joy, and confidence.

The Virtus approach is designed around one simple principle: No Matter What. No matter what happens in the market, no matter how long you live, your income is secure. This isn’t about squeezing every last dollar out of your portfolio. It’s about designing a life where your money serves you, not the other way around. Where you spend confidently because you know the income will always be there. Where you invest boldly because you don’t need to sell shares to live. Where you enjoy your life fully because you have eliminated both the Fear of Running Out and the Fear of Missing Out.

Do you want to spend your retirement trapped between these two fears? Or do you want to spend it living confidently, knowing that no matter what, you’re secure?

Take the First Step from Fear to Freedom

If you’re ready to design a retirement built on confidence instead of hope, it’s time to explore the Virtus approach. Our Possibility Planning™ process is designed to show you exactly how much guaranteed income you can create, how your capital can continue to grow, and what your retirement could look like when both FORO and FOMO are eliminated.

In this complimentary session, you will receive a comprehensive analysis of your current situation and a personalized income replacement strategy. There is no obligation and no pressure—just clarity and a clear path forward.

You didn’t work 40 years to spend your retirement in fear. Let’s build something better together.