01/07/2026
Ella Wheeler Wilcox wrote:
“One ship drives east and another drives west
With the selfsame winds that blow.
’Tis the set of the sails
And not the gales
Which tells us the way to go.”
It’s a reminder that feels just as relevant to investing today as it did when it was written.
Every investor experiences the same headlines.
Inflation.
Interest rates.
Elections.
Market volatility.
Geopolitical uncertainty.
Those are the winds.
Some investors allow every headline to change their direction. They chase performance, react to fear and make decisions based on the latest news cycle.
Others stay focused on their destination.
That’s what a financial plan does.
A good financial plan isn’t about predicting the next market move. It’s about understanding where you want to go, building a strategy to get there and making sensible adjustments when life changes, not when the headlines do.
The markets will always create noise.
The question isn’t what the winds are doing.
It’s whether you’ve set your sails correctly.
That’s why I believe financial planning should always come before investment planning.
Because it’s the plan, not the headlines, that determines where you’re likely to end up.
