What Outperformance Really Means

I recently watched Alysa Liu win gold at the Olympics, and I found myself unexpectedly in tears. It wasn’t just the medal or the technical precision that moved me. It was the joy. There is something deeply powerful about watching someone operate fully inside their gift, no visible strain, no tightness, no fear of the outcome. Just presence. Flow. Mastery. When an athlete is in that kind of rhythm, you can feel it. 

Outperformance is hard to define by listing what it is. It’s often easier to describe what it is not. It is not panic. It is not reacting to every headline. It is not trading from pressure or skating tight because you’re afraid to fall. In investing, just like in sport, tension rarely produces excellence. Preparation and patience do.

According to Morningstar’s Active/Passive Barometer, “Over the 10 years through 2025, only 21% of active funds both survived and outperformed passive alternatives.”  That’s a sobering statistic and it raises an important question: if the goal is simply to match the S&P 500, why not just buy an index fund and pay almost nothing? It’s a fair point. But that is not the standard I hold for myself or for the capital entrusted to me.

Outperformance does not come from constant motion. It does not come from swinging at every pitch or placing trades simply to feel productive. It also does not come from sitting frozen when volatility appears. Markets move in cycles. There are twelve months in a year, and not all of them present opportunity. The first three or four months may offer very little edge. That’s when patience becomes a strategic advantage, not a weakness. But when conditions shift, when momentum, positioning, and probabilities align that is when preparation meets opportunity.

If the final six months of a year provide asymmetric setups, that is where returns are built. Not through forcing trades early. Not through emotional decision-making. 

When Alysa skated, she wasn’t chasing a medal in that moment. She was trusting years of preparation. The gold was simply the byproduct of being fully in the zone. Investing is no different. We do the work. We manage the downside. We stay steady when others feel pressure. And when the time comes to move, we move with clarity.