What Flying Taught Me About Managing Risk
Before I worked in finance, I was a flight instructor.
I logged over a thousand hours teaching students how to go from knowing nothing about aviation to becoming commercial pilots.
Flying teaches you something very quickly:
Risk never goes to zero.
You can have:
A well-maintained aircraft
A detailed flight plan
Favorable weather
Solid training
And something unknown can still happen.
A mechanical issue.
Unexpected turbulence.
A sudden change in conditions.
Aviation operates in an imperfect environment.
So do financial markets.
The Myth of Elimination
One of the first lessons in aviation is this:
You don’t eliminate risk.
You manage it.
If your goal is to eliminate all risk, the airplane never leaves the ground.
And while that may feel safe, it guarantees one outcome:
You never get anywhere.
Investing works the same way.
If your portfolio is structured to eliminate volatility entirely, it may feel stable.
But over time, inflation quietly erodes purchasing power.
Doing nothing feels safe.
Long term, it is often the most predictable way to lose ground.
Acceptable Risk
In aviation, we talk about acceptable risk.
Before every flight, you assess:
Weather
Aircraft condition
Fuel reserves
Alternate airports
Your own proficiency
The question isn’t:
“Is there risk?”
The question is:
“Is the risk acceptable relative to the benefit of the flight?”
That framework directly shaped how I approach financial planning.
Markets carry risk.
Interest rates move.
Tax laws change.
Unexpected events occur.
We operate in uncertainty.
The objective is not perfection.
It’s preparation.
Preparation Reduces Fragility
In flying, you don’t just file a flight plan and hope.
You build margin.
Fuel reserves beyond minimums.
Alternate airports.
Emergency procedures practiced in advance.
In retirement planning, that margin might look like:
Staging multiple years of income in stable assets
Using guardrails to adjust spending
Stress-testing portfolios under downturn scenarios
Identifying concentration risks
You assume something will go wrong at some point.
Because over a 25–30 year retirement, something will.
Tail Risks Exist
Aviation also teaches humility.
There are tail risks you cannot fully eliminate.
Sudden system failures.
Unpredictable weather developments.
Human error.
Financial markets have their own tail risks:
2008-style crises
Simultaneous stock and bond declines
Geopolitical shocks
Policy changes
You cannot protect against everything.
But you can design systems that are resilient enough to withstand most scenarios.
Resilience is different than avoidance.
The Balance
Flying is a balance between caution and action.
Too cautious, and you never take off.
Too aggressive, and you increase exposure unnecessarily.
Investing is similar.
An extremely conservative portfolio may protect against short-term volatility.
It may also:
Limit long-term growth
Increase inflation risk
Reduce future flexibility
An overly aggressive portfolio may amplify stress and sequence risk.
The balance matters.
Alignment and Awareness
As a flight instructor, one of my responsibilities was ensuring the student understood the risks.
They needed to know:
What could go wrong
What the warning signs were
What the response would be
In financial planning, it’s no different.
Clients should understand:
What level of volatility they are exposed to
What happens in a downturn
When spending adjustments might occur
What risks cannot be fully hedged
Risk is not something to hide.
It’s something to acknowledge clearly.
The Real Lesson
Flying taught me that the safest-looking option is not always the safest long term.
Never flying avoids the possibility of an accident.
It also guarantees you never reach your destination.
In investing, avoiding all volatility may feel prudent.
But over decades, inflation and missed growth can quietly undermine financial independence.
The goal is not to eliminate risk.
It is to manage it intelligently, deliberately, and transparently.
That mindset came from aviation.
And I apply it to every financial plan I build.
