Nick Murray

Market performance isn’ t really tied to our goals.

PHOTO BY MARK MURRAY

N THE BOOK OF GENESIS, GOD GIVES ADAM AND EVE DOMINION OVER all the Earth, forbidding them only from tasting the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. And for a moment, their innocence is perfect.

Then, being only human, they succumb, and bite the apple. This is the original transgression, and when they have committed it, everything bad about Earthly life comes rushing into the world: sin, shame, toil, sickness and death. They just made one mistake, but it was the one and only thing they were forbidden to do.

I think that, in a strange way, good investing is a little like that Earthly paradise. Because, when it’ s done right, long-term investing is always seamlessly aligned with the lifetime goals of the investor and their family. There is a perfect integrity— an innocence, if you will— about goal-driven investing. It is an appropriate means to a healthy end: financial peace in the current generation, and important legacies to the generations which follow. And so long as the portfolio remains the servant of the plan, harmony reigns.

But then, being only human, we start listening to the blandishments of the serpent of markets, who says: You can beat this thing. You’ re smart. You don’ t have to rely for your fortune on the cardinal virtues of personal initiative, hard work and thrift. You don’ t have to be bound by the tiresome practice of faith, patience and discipline. You can find more lucrative strategies than asset allocation, diversification and rebalancing. You can outperform.

When we bite into the apple of“ outperformance”— when the focus of our portfolio shifts from our financial goals to the markets themselves— we commit the orig-

16 | FINANCIAL ADVISOR MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2026 WWW. FA-MAG. COM