Benjamin Beck, CFP®What does it mean to build the right team?
My son Griffin could tell you. He’s obsessed with sports. I don’t mean he just “likes” them—I mean he’s consumed by them. He knows professional athletes, top college prospects, stats, backstories, trades, and injuries the way most of us know our kids’ birthdays. He collects cards, trades them, resells them on eBay, and follows sports news like it’s breaking national security intel.
So when our company fantasy football draft kicks off, guess who’s running my team? Griffin. Why? Because the kid has more knowledge in his pinkie finger than I’ll ever have about who’s likely to perform, who’s over-valued, and who’s about to break out. In short, he thinks like a general manager.
Now let me ask you this: if you were building a football team, how would you do it?
Would you draft every player in the league just so you could say you were “diversified”? Would you field a roster of hundreds of players, knowing most of them will never see the end zone, let alone carry your team to a championship?
Or would you carefully select the best players at each position—an All-Star team—based on the sharpest scouts’ insights about who’s got the most potential?
That’s the question you should be asking yourself about your investments.
Why do so many people want average?
Diversification is the word that gets thrown around constantly in investing. “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” On the surface, it makes sense. But think about what diversification has come to mean in practice.
Today’s typical investment products—mutual funds, target-date funds, ETFs—often hold hundreds of stocks, sometimes more than 500. Many of them are designed to simply mimic an index, like the S&P 500. And what’s the S&P 500? It’s essentially the average of the market.
So here’s the question: do you want your money to perform like the average player in the league? Or do you want your money playing for the All-Star team?
Would you rather have Patrick Mahomes—or QB number 27?
In fantasy football, nobody brags about drafting the 27th-ranked quarterback just because it gave them more “diversity” at the position. You want Mahomes. Or Burrow. Or Allen. You want the guys who can change the outcome of the game.
Now apply that logic to your portfolio. Do you really want to own hundreds of stocks just so you can say you’re spread out? Or would you rather own 15–20 of the best companies in the world—the ones with the earnings power, growth trajectory, and staying power to drive your financial future?
What’s safer? More players, or better players?
Wall Street has done a good job of convincing investors that more stocks = safer. But is that true? If you’re a general manager, does having more players on your roster guarantee fewer losses? Of course not. If the players are average, then the team is average.
Real safety doesn’t come from quantity. It comes from quality. From picking the players who have the best chance to succeed over the long term. From knowing who belongs in the starting lineup and who should stay on the bench.
How do you know who belongs on the team?
That’s the real work of investing. It’s not about staring at last season’s stats and assuming the same performance will repeat. Past performance isn’t the game. The future is.
Good managers, whether in sports or investing, rely on scouting. On research. On judgment about what lies ahead, not what’s already in the books.
Scouts don’t just look at what a wide receiver did last season; they project how he’s going to perform in the system, in the matchups, in the years to come. Likewise, a good investment strategy isn’t about who had the hottest stock price last year. It’s about who has the fundamentals, the earnings trajectory, and the leadership to be an All-Star going forward.
What’s the real difference between average and All-Star?
If you were the owner of that football—or baseball—team, would you be satisfied with a roster of players that represent the league average? Or would you instead focus on the select group of athletes that top scouts believe could be eventual All-Stars?
The difference shows up quickly. The mean batting average in Major League Baseball hovers around .250. The mean batting average of an All-Star? About .300. That gap of .050 doesn’t sound like much, but it means every 20 at-bats, the All-Star delivers one extra hit. Over the course of an average game, with about 35 team at-bats, you start to see the separation in just a day’s work. Stretch it out over a full season—600 at-bats for an everyday player—and that’s 30 extra hits. How many of those extra hits were home runs? Grand slams? Walk-off singles? Thirty extra hits can be the difference between a forgettable career and Cooperstown.
Now, translate that to investing. What if by being selective—by concentrating on the All-Star stocks instead of owning the whole league—you added just 0.5% a year to your portfolio’s performance? Half a percent doesn’t sound like much, does it? But stretch it over a full season of investing—a 30-year retirement horizon—and the numbers are staggering. Take a $1,000,000 portfolio compounding at 10% annually and then bump that return by just 0.5%, to 10.5%.
The result?
An extra $2.64 million in your pocket from what looked like just a tiny edge. Just like an All-Star’s extra hit here and there, over time those small differences add up to a Hall of Fame career—or in your case, financial independence.
Isn’t average “good enough”?
If you want average results, sure. But remember: the average NFL career is 3.3 years. The average investor bails on their portfolio in less than five. The average never wins championships.
What wins? Patience. Discipline. Conviction. And a roster made up of difference-makers.
So what does an All-Star portfolio look like?
It looks like 15-20 hand-picked companies that have been scouted, researched, and monitored—not 500 random names thrown into a basket. It looks like concentration in quality, not blind diversification.
Because here’s the truth: the mean batting average of the average player is .250. The mean batting average of an All-Star is .300. The gap looks small in the moment, but over time it changes everything. The same is true with your money.
So you have a choice: Do you want your money spread thin across every player in the league? Or do you want an All-Star team of companies, chosen with the kind of discipline and research that separates champions from everyone else?
Griffin doesn’t need to think twice when he’s drafting my fantasy team. He’s not picking the average tight end just to say he has more of them. He’s looking for the guys who can win. Your portfolio should do the same.