“Our best year wasn’t the year we made the most money. Our best year was 2008.” — Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase
When I first heard Jamie Dimon say this, I had to pause.
How could one of the worst years in modern financial history be considered the best year for one of the world’s largest banks?
After all, 2008 was a year of collapsing markets, failing financial institutions, widespread job losses, and enormous uncertainty. It certainly wasn’t a year of record profits.
So what did he mean?
He wasn’t measuring success by profits.
He was measuring it by something far more important—resilience.
That made me wonder:
Shouldn’t we evaluate our own financial plans the same way?
We Often Measure the Wrong Things
Most of us measure financial success using numbers.
- Portfolio returns
- Net worth
- Monthly SIPs
- Reaching ₹1 crore
- Beating the market
These are useful milestones.
But they don’t answer a much more important question.
Will your financial plan still work when life doesn’t go according to plan? See Rethink Portfolio Review
The Biggest Risk Isn’t the Stock Market
When people hear the word risk, they usually think of market volatility.
- A bear market
- A 20% correction
- A temporary fall in portfolio value
But for most families, those aren’t the biggest risks.
The biggest risks are much closer to home.
- Losing your income
- A medical emergency wiping out years of savings
- Being forced to sell investments during a market crash
- The unexpected loss of an earning family member
- Falling short of important life goals because one difficult year changed everything
Risk isn’t simply losing money.
It’s losing the ability to achieve the life your money was meant to support.
That’s why good financial planning is about much more than investment returns. Read Financial Planning starts with your life
What Banks Can Teach Families
Having worked with some of the world’s largest financial institutions, I’ve always admired one thing about how they think.
The strongest institutions don’t just ask:
“How can we grow?”
They also ask:
“Can we survive when things go wrong?”
Following the 2008 financial crisis, many institutions strengthened their capital, improved liquidity, and regularly stress-tested themselves against severe economic scenarios.
Not because they expected another crisis every year.
But because they knew another crisis would eventually come.
Families don’t need sophisticated risk models.
But we can adopt the same mindset.
Every Family Will Face Its Own Crisis
Almost every family will experience financial stress at some point.
It could be:
- A job loss
- A serious medical emergency
- Supporting ageing parents
- A business setback
- Disability
- The unexpected loss of an earning family member
- A major market crash just before retirement
Life rarely presents these challenges one at a time.
A recession may coincide with a job loss.
A medical emergency may happen when markets are already down.
That’s when preparation makes all the difference.
Returns Help You Grow. Risk Management Helps You Stay
Imagine two investors.
The first earns slightly higher returns every year but has no emergency fund, inadequate insurance, and relies entirely on one source of income.
A recession hits. They lose their job.
Within months, they’re forced to stop investing and begin selling their portfolio to cover expenses.
The second investor earns slightly lower returns but has built an emergency fund, adequate insurance, and a portfolio aligned with long-term goals.
When the same recession arrives, they continue paying their bills, stay invested, and remain focused on their goals.
Who has the better financial plan?
The answer has very little to do with investment returns.
Stress Test Your Financial Plan
Banks don’t wait for a crisis to discover their weaknesses.
Families shouldn’t either.
Ask yourself a few simple questions.
- If I lose my primary source of income tomorrow, how many months can my family continue without selling investments?
- If someone in my family needs expensive medical treatment, do we have adequate health insurance?
- If markets fall 40%, can I continue my SIPs without panicking?
- If two difficult events happen together—for example, a recession and a medical emergency—will my financial plan still hold together?
- If I’m no longer around, can my family continue pursuing the goals we’ve planned for?
If these questions make you uncomfortable, that’s a good thing.
Stress tests are meant to expose weaknesses while there’s still time to fix them.
The strongest financial plans aren’t the ones that assume everything will go right.
They’re the ones that continue working even when life doesn’t.
Final Thoughts
Jamie Dimon didn’t describe 2008 as JPMorgan’s best year because it generated the highest profits.
He valued it because it proved the organisation could withstand one of the most challenging periods in modern history.
Perhaps we should evaluate our own financial plans the same way.
Instead of asking,
“How much did my portfolio return this year?”
maybe we should first ask,
“If the next crisis begins tomorrow, will my family still be financially secure?”
None of us knows what the next challenge will be. It could be a recession, a medical emergency, a job loss, or something completely unexpected.
Your financial plan can’t predict the future. It only needs to be ready for it.
Because your financial plan doesn’t exist to produce the highest returns.
It exists to ensure that, even during your toughest year, the people who depend on you can continue living the life you’ve worked so hard to build.
Perhaps that’s the real measure of financial success.
Disclaimer: This article is intended for educational and informational purposes only and reflects my personal research and opinions. It should not be considered personalized investment, tax, or legal advice. Please consult a qualified professional before making financial decisions. Read the full Disclaimer.