It was an emotional summer of sport. Football led the way with the Euros, but as we know, success doesn’t always bring joy. Even early in the tournament, under intense media pressure, England manager Gareth Southgate said, “We all want to be loved, right?” A powerful truth. Not just for footballers, not just for athletes, but for all of us.

I saw this need for love up close, watching the Olympic canoeing. A Brazilian silver medallist, clearly overwhelmed, broke into tears as his countrymen chanted his name. Silver at the Olympics brought joy. Yet in the Euros, silver led to heartbreak. How context shifts our emotions!

Like athletes, investors—both big and small—are driven by the same desire: the need to win, to be seen as successful. In both sport and finance, the highs are celebrated loudly – but the lows, they’re harder to swallow. No one boasts about their team’s losses or their bad investments. Manchester City only became the “noisy neighbours” to United when they started winning.

For Southgate, the pressure was clear: too little, too late, wrong players, etc. Every decision scrutinised. Similarly, the investor faces relentless judgment. Trading is the investment world’s version of substitutions, moving one stock out, bringing another in. Every portfolio manager knows the weight of those decisions. The market always keeps the score.

In both sport and investing, the need for validation, whether from the crowd or the market, can lead to mistakes. It’s not easy to avoid emotional decisions when everything feels like it’s on the line. But just as Olympians focus on the next race, investors must focus on their long-term strategy. Investments, like players, can go quiet for a while, but that doesn’t mean they’ve lost their value. You can’t win or lose everything in one move.

So, how do we resist the pull of seeking validation when investing? It’s difficult no doubt. But like an athlete who sticks to their training plan, investors need to chart a course. A strategy that reflects their beliefs and goals. Our investments can’t shine every day. But that doesn’t mean they are no longer valuable. Substituting a player who’s having a quiet game is not always the right move—sometimes the ball just hasn’t reached them yet.

In sport, investing, and life, the big wins are fleeting. The love, the glory – it doesn’t last. We’ve all faced losses, both personal and financial. The silence in these moments is heavy indeed. But it is in these moments that true resilience is built. We come to realise that resisting the fear is far more character defining than chasing approval. The true value lies in enduring the silence, sticking to the course you’ve set.

Gareth Southgate, despite the critics, stayed true to his instincts. He had the courage to make the tough calls, to lead with integrity. And while the world will remember him as the manager who brought England to a silver, the record shows he took the blows, made the hard choices, and still did it his way. In football, as in investing, it’s not about the moments of glory, but about building something that lasts. Gareth would have made a great portfolio manager!