The Leap into the Unknown

“What on earth possesses people to jump down there?” Austria’s ski-jumping legend Hubert Neuper asked rhetorically a few weeks ago as he looked down from the top of the ski-flying hill in Oberstdorf, Bavaria. At 235 meters, it is the third-largest ski-flying hill in the world.

Within seconds, ski flyers accelerate from zero to one hundred kilometers per hour and then launch themselves into the unknown (at least from the perspective of us spectators). Common sense tells us amateurs: Absolutely not. And yet the athletes rave about the experience.

It’s all in the mind

Hubert Neuper knows how fear is overcome: “If you move from the familiar to the slightly unfamiliar, you can keep your mind under control. And fear no longer plays a role.”

I once stood at the top of the Kulm ski-flying hill (the same size as Oberstdorf), looked down, and tried to imagine skiing down the inrun and taking off. Unthinkable for me - just consider everything that could go wrong.

Twenty-five years ago, Hubert wanted to prove that ski jumping is largely a mental game. Starting in March, Mario Helmlinger – who became known as “Majo Heli” over the course of the experiment – from a ski rental shop in Bad Mitterndorf, was prepared for the large hill without any prior experience. That same autumn, he jumped 125 meters on the large hill in Lillehammer. Anything is possible if you really want it.

Ignorance breeds fear

In the stock market, downward price movements often create uncertainty. But anyone who understands the image of the ski-jumping hill will recognize this: the descent along the inrun is not a crash – it is what builds the energy needed for the jump forward. Fear arises only when the process itself is unclear.

That fear leads many to keep their distance entirely. Yet it would make far more sense to take a first, small leap into the unknown and invest a modest portion of one’s liquid assets in equities. Over time, you discover the right allocation.

That said, individual stocks and other asset classes regularly capture the public’s attention because they take off like rockets. But beware when people suddenly become interested who normally have nothing to do with these topics. That is rarely a good moment to jump in late.