Andrew Luck shocked the sports world on Saturday night when he announced he was retiring from the NFL. The former #1 Draft Pick was in the middle of what many considered the prime of his career. He was widely regarded as one of the top quarterbacks in the league and the Colts were likely going to be a Super Bowl contender for the next few seasons. A player of his caliber retiring at the age of 29 is almost unheard of. The owner of the Indianapolis Colts speculated that Andrew was leaving potentially $500 million on the table by retiring now rather than playing out his career into his late 30s or early 40s like Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, and Tom Brady. 

I thought it would be interesting to see what can you learn from Andrew Luck’s retirement and how you can apply it to your own situation. Whether you are a professional athlete, young professional, or pre-retiree – there is something for you in this post.

I recently finished “Zero to One” by Peter Thiel. I’m a few years late to it being released, but it has left quite an impact on my outlook. While the book delves into the mindset necessary to build a successful startup, there is one specific chapter in the book that struck a chord with me.

Chapter 6 is titled “You Are Not A Lottery Ticket” and the entire time I was reading it I could not stop thinking about how applicable this notion is to personal finances. I don’t want this post to turn into a full on book report, so I will briefly summarize what Peter states.

You may hear on the nightly news “The Dow was down 1.3% today” or “The NASDAQ was up 50 points today.” Have you ever wondered what they were talking about or what it meant? You are not alone in those thoughts.

Investing for first-time investors can be pretty overwhelming. There are so many variables out there and they can be pretty confusing. There are different retirement accounts, investment accounts, some account let you invest in different things, etc. But perhaps the most overlooked item is not knowing what your tolerance for risk is. And not only that, making sure your investments actually reflect how much risk you are willing to take on.