The way to win at tennis, if you’re not a pro, is to stay in the point. Many more points are lost by your opponent than won by your scintillating backhand.
At the pro level it’s the other way round – if you want to win matches you have to go out and win points. You have to play unreturnable shots.
The difference between the pros you have heard of and those you haven’t is miniscule.
The difference between a pro and amateur is galactic – they are playing different games.
And what does this have to do with financial planning?
The top professional level is reserved for multi-million and billionaires. They have access to markets and resources you can’t dream of and more money than they can ever possibly lose.
Being worth £500m makes it easy to have a £100m “rainy day fund” and get lairy with another £100m or so. The very wealthy can afford to do things you can’t, like crypto, private equity and other exotica.
Here, at our level, we are looking to be the best amateur we can be. Here are the steps to follow:
- Understand the match we are trying to win, which is financial independence or having enough in financial resources to never fear running out of money.
- That translates to a growing income of £X pm and access to lump sums as we go for holidays, cars, helping the family, etc.
- Know that, to have the best possible chance of winning your match, you need to make as few mistakes (lose as few points) as possible.
- Understand that the range of possible mistakes is infinite.
- And that many of them can’t be recovered from.
In short, make sure you get your serves in and the ball back over the net. Playing within yourself is a much better strategy than overreaching yourself.
Where does TCFP fit into this?
We are here to help you play the best amateur game you can.
You can remain a rank amateur, you’ll learn as you go, you might get very good, but my guess is that you lose more points than you win.
Or you can have us help you become a much better amateur in which case you will win way more points than you lose.