Investing Lessons From Pickleball

AARP (Source: Getty Images (3)) Facebook Twitter LinkedIn

I’ve been in finance for the last four decades, and think I know a fair amount about investing. But I’m relatively new to the fast-growing sport of pickleball. Many things I’m learning about

playing pickleball are applicable to investing as well. Here’s some of what I’ve learned that perhaps you can use in your investing.

Great as it feels when I hit a winning shot, I tend to lose the match. Pickleball is a game of percentages, and it’s the player or team who makes the fewest mistakes that wins the day. This

is also what investing is about. Sure, I can go for a winner and try to find the next Nvidia (up 239 percent in 2023), but the odds are low I’ll succeed and much greater that I’ll buy poorly

performing companies.

The better strategy is to own every company in a low-cost total stock index fund, because owning every company at the lowest costs guarantees I’ll beat most investors in the long run. I like

those odds, and with this strategy I end up beating the vast majority of professionals. Even those who beat me over a year or two are unlikely to consistently beat me. In fact, my total

stock index fund has even bested Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway over the past 15 years. That’s kind of like beating Ben Johns, the world’s number one ranked pickleball player.

pickleball instincts are wrong

Having been a tennis player for many years, I’ve learned my instincts for that game don’t transfer well to pickleball; they are, in fact, completely wrong. If I have a fairly easy shot, my

tennis instincts tell me to hit it hard. Time after time I’ve watched what I thought was a great hard shot I hit that ends up easily coming back to me, softly hit and perfectly placed to

make it somewhere between hard and impossible for me to return. My instincts are wrong, just like in investing.

When markets plunge, our instinct is to run for the hills and sell. Then, when stocks hit an all-time high, we instinctively think it’s safe to return to the stock market. Though the logic

is clear that doing the opposite — buying low and selling high — is superior, we have to overcome our instincts. It’s a really hard thing to do. In fact, I tell people if a financial move

feels good, it’s probably the wrong thing to do. If it feels all wrong; that’s a good sign.

pickleball mistakes

I know the theory behind many pickleball shots, and the logic makes perfect sense. I know how important footwork is, as is being stationary when hitting the ball. Yet despite knowing what I

should be doing, I keep making the same mistakes over and over again. It takes a lot of practice and muscle memory to reach consistency, or so I’m told.