Are You Not Entertained?! – The Best Interest

Do you know that scene in Gladiator where Russell Crowe’s character, Maximus, yells to the crowd, “Are you not entertained?!” 

I’m more interested in Maximus’s next line:  “Is this not why you are here?!”

You see, the audience came to see violence and death. Specifically, the plan was for a bunch of local gladiators (heavily armored, fully armed) to kill some foreign slaves (including Maximus). But because Maximus is the protagonist a trained Roman legionaire, he turned the tables on the local gladiators, killing all of them single-handedly. 

The crowd, caught off-guard, went silent, thus queuing up the immortal lines, “Are you not entertained?! Is this not why you are here?!” Maximus also throws a sword at the box seats. Power move.

The audience came to see violence and death. They just hadn’t expected it could be delivered in that way. 

This frustrates Maximus. Did they expect every slave to get slaughtered without fighting back? What terrible expectations!

Does the chef expect a Michelin star without some burns and knife slips? No.

Does the traveler expect every eye-opening experience without a single delayed flight? No.

Does the long-term investor expect their portfolio to compound for decades without times like these?** 

**Here on March 6, 2025, the market is down 7% over the past 2 weeks.

I get it. Loss aversion is real and impacts us all. It’s natural to feel anxious when markets react to world events—wars, politics, tariffs, etc.—but it’s crucial to recognize that these external shocks have always been part of investing history. We’ve had world wars, pandemics, oil crises, banking explosions, inflation amok, etc. etc. And yet – here we are.

The nature of long-term investing is one of volatility. Ups and downs. The ups are easy. The downs, if we’re not careful, can be challenging. Perhaps you’re feeling that challenge right now?

This volatility is a feature, not a bug. We want to see it. We want risk involved in our investing endeavor. Because without that risk, there is no compensatory reward. There is no point to investing in the first place. Is this not why you are here, Maximus?

Yet often, people get stressed, scared, and make drastic changes when faced with volatility. Such a reaction is a glaring red light that suggests the investor’s expectations were not adequately set. If your monkey brain is screaming “Get off this roller coaster right now!,” we need to ask:

Why’d you get on the roller coaster in the first place? Were you expecting a smooth ride? Such “investments” exist, but there’s no upside to them.

It’s hard to set investing expectations amid market chaos, just as teaching fire safety while smoke fills the room. We run fire drills during safe times to engrain the appropriate reactions. Similarly, we should set investing expectations during “calm” or “positive” market times, to engrain how we should be reacting now. 

We don’t have that luxury right now. So here’s your “mid-fire fire drill.”

Markets don’t go up in a straight line. Never have, never will. Volatility is the price of admission for long-term returns. If you’re feeling uneasy, remind yourself: this is why investors get rewarded over time—because they endure the ups and downs. This is why you are here! You must endure! 

This is why we diversify. Stocks aren’t enough. Bonds play a role. International stocks (up 7.6% on the year as of now) matter. Real estate and alternatives have a place.

Zoom out. Short-term swings can feel dramatic, but the market has consistently trended upward over decades. Pull up a 30-year chart of the S&P 500. See those dips? Every one of them felt scary at the time. And yet, over time, the market has recovered and moved higher.

Focus on what you can control. Your time horizon. Your behavior. “You can’t control the waves, but you can learn to swim.”

Remember your financial plan. Why did you invest in the first place? A well-thought-out investment plan accounts for volatility before it happens. If you don’t have a plan, now’s a great time to create one—ideally one that helps you stick with it when things feel uncertain.

The world is a volatile place. When things get volatile out there, outside the markets, I too grow concerned. But when the market gets topsy-turvy, I say to my inner-Maximus: Yes, this IS why I am here. 

Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this article, join 8500+ subscribers who read my 2-minute weekly email, where I send you links to the smartest financial content I find online every week. You can read past newsletters before signing up.

On that note, our podcast “Personal Finance for Long-Term Investors” is by far outpacing this written blog. Tune in and check it out.

-Jesse

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