What’s your strategy for maintaining decent health? While many people interested in matters of health and fitness will do a baseline amount of homework to ensure they understand at least the basics of the latest science, it would seem a bit over the top to study for a series of medical degrees just for the purpose of managing your own personal health. We have doctors for that, and there’s a specialist in everything.
Rather, it makes more sense to simply ensure that you’re following basic good practice for maintaining a healthy mind and body, learning from experience what types of strategies are best suited to you. If something unexpected happens, if something goes wrong, if you have specific medical needs, or if you are in a small subset of the population that needs to perform at elite levels, you can seek input from medical professionals. In the general course of daily life, however, most people needn’t ever go anywhere near a medical professional. In fact, it’s desirable to avoid them wherever possible.
And so it is with investing. It is actually rather easy to maintain decent and successful investment results, just as for most (we know not all) people it is rather easy to maintain basic health and fitness habits. Seeking advice from an investment professional should be reserved for when something unexpected happens, something goes wrong, you have specific financial needs, or you’re in a small subset of the population that has a high and complex wealth profile. Sound familiar?
And while of course we would encourage doing your homework to understand how best to go about good personal investment practice (that’s what we’re here for after all), most people needn’t go as far as trying to become an investment ‘expert’. That’s what we have investment experts for, should you ever need them.
True, our parents don’t raise us with good investment practice the same way they do good health practice, so a bit more homework is required, but consider how far you really need to go. Wealth is built from maintaining consistent and disciplined investment and financial practice, not through skilful manoeuvre. It is the same with health; you needn’t optimise every part of your mind and body in order to live a long and happy life. Likewise, with investment.
And, importantly, ‘skill’ in investment is a subject of continuous debate and disagreement. Some doubt whether it exists at all. That’s not true with the medical profession, where professionals are demonstrably skilful. So, if you’re going to try and be an expert at something, do a medical degree. Don’t try and emulate the activity of investment professionals, when you can achieve similar results by mastering the basics instead.
Trust us, we are investment professionals.
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