The Long Game

Managing Director of Old Mutual Wealth, Farhad Sader, explains how the discipline, consistency and teamwork required to complete a long-distance team time trial like the Double Century can translate into better, more rewarding investment decisions.

There is a strong connection between cycling and investing: both reward consistency. Nobody gets fit in a weekend and nobody gets wealthy in a quarter. Both come from small, unglamorous decisions made when you don’t feel like it: the 5am ride in July, the debit order that goes off before you see the money. Both punish the attempt to catch up in one big effort. The rider who skips six weeks and then does 200 kilometres on a Saturday gets injured. The investor who sits in cash for six years and then buys at the top gets hurt the same way. 

Time is the obvious constraint. Hours on the bike compete with work, family and sleep. But I have found that the budget is bigger than it looks. Fitness increased my capacity for work more than it reduced my time for it. The decisions I make after a ride are better than the ones I make after a late night. 

The return is in the behaviour 

The financial parallel is slightly more uncomfortable. A bike is a consumption, not an investment. The return from a lighter frame can probably be achieved more cheaply by wearing thinner socks. That does not mean you should not buy the bike. I love riding cool bikes, even though I know they will not necessarily make me faster. What makes me faster is showing up every week. That is the return that matters. For investors, the uncomfortable truth is similar: the product matters far less than the behaviour. 

That principle also shapes how I approach the competing demands of being a parent, an executive and a cyclist. I do not really believe in balance. Balance suggests that everything gets an equal share of your time. In reality, one of those things is losing in any given month. The skill is knowing which one, and knowing when it is time to recalibrate. 

Two rules have helped me. The ride must take time from work, sleep and screens, not from the family. That means early starts when I want to ride longer, which is a real commitment for someone who treasures sleep. The other is to make discipline visible. Children learn very little from what you tell them about hard work. They learn a great deal from watching you go out in the rain or show up at the gym because you said you would. 

For me, being a healthy rider is the foundation underneath the other two roles. When I stop exercising, I am less in control at work and less patient as a parent. Fitness is capacity returned to work and family, rather than simply time taken from them. For me, cycling is my meditation. There are seasons when the bike has to lose: small children, a new role, a crisis at work. That is allocation, not failure. The mistake is allowing a season to turn into a decade.

Discipline is its own reward

The same thinking applies to investing. People often ask when they can afford to take money out of the bank and put it to work elsewhere. I would turn that around. Money in the bank carries its own risk. Cash is safe over months, but expensive over decades, because inflation takes a slice every year whether you notice it or not. The real question is which risk you can afford, and that depends on when you will need the money, not simply on what you earn. 

The sequence is straightforward. Clear expensive debt first. Keep three to six months of expenses in something liquid. That is your puncture kit: it exists so your long-term money is never forced home early. Then money you will not need for a few years or more can be invested outside the bank. The entry point is lower than many people think: a unit trust debit order from a few hundred rand a month, a tax-free savings account, a retirement annuity that gives you tax back for the discipline. 

Begin with an amount small enough that a 20% fall on paper does not change your behaviour. The first few years of investing teach you about yourself more than they teach you about markets. That is one of the most valuable lessons you can learn, and the sooner you learn it, the better.

Build for the distance

The same lesson plays out over 200 kilometres on the road. In a team, the strongest rider rarely matters most. Your result depends on how well you manage the sixth and seventh riders through a crosswind, not how quickly your best climber gets up a pass. The best teams I have ridden with were not necessarily the most talented. They were the most organised. Everyone knew when to pull, when to sit in and when to drop back for someone else. 

Honesty matters too. The rider who admits they are cooked at 120 kilometres can be sheltered and brought home. The rider who hides it can blow at 180 kilometres and take the team’s time with them. I’ve not seen that lesson taught better in any boardroom. 

Credibility compounds. Consistency compounds. Small decisions compound. And, ultimately, the objective is not to have the fastest individual. It is to build something that can go the distance.