The Gazing Principle

Why the best financial plans look further than you think

A long time ago, when I was living in London, a friend introduced me to an idea that has never left me.

It comes from Japanese warfare — from the swordsman and philosopher Miyamoto Musashi, whose legendary prowess allowed him to come through countless duels unscathed. His secret wasn't strength or speed. It was what he called Enzan no Metsuke — the gazing at the distant mountain.

The principle is this: in close-quarters combat, a warrior who focuses only on the blade in front of him loses awareness of everything else. A warrior who gazes only at the broader battlefield loses sight of the immediate threat. Musashi's genius was the double gaze — one eye on the opponent, one eye on the wider field. And the ability to switch between the two, fluidly and constantly, without losing either.

There is no point focusing on the details of execution if you haven't got a clear sense of overall strategy. And vice versa

When I sit across from a client for the first time, this is exactly what I'm thinking about.

The Clients We See Most Often

Most of the new clients coming to us are in their mid-forties to mid-fifties. They are at an interesting — and often unsettling — point in life. Assets are starting to accumulate. Superannuation balances are growing. The family home is worth more than it used to be. And yet there is still debt. There are still mortgages, sometimes investment loans, sometimes both.

The question they are starting to ask is: do I have enough? Will I be okay?

They are also beginning to think about things that felt abstract a decade ago. Downsizing the family home. Helping the children. What retirement actually looks like in practice. What they want to leave behind.

This is the moment when a financial plan stops being just a spreadsheet and starts being something more personal.

The 10-Year Plan: Zooming Out

The most powerful thing we can do in this moment is resist the urge to go straight to the numbers.

Instead, we take a step back. We look at the distant mountain.

The ten-year plan is not about predicting the future. It is about giving you a framework that connects the financial decisions you make today — the small, seemingly mundane ones — to the life you are actually trying to build. It breaks an overwhelming question ('will I have enough to retire?') into something you can actually work with.

It asks four things:

1. What do you do right now?  

   There are almost always one or two high-leverage decisions available to you today that will compound significantly over the coming decade. These might be structural — salary sacrifice arrangements, debt consolidation, insurance review. They are often unglamorous. But they matter enormously.

2. What do you do over the next twelve months?  

   The first year is about building momentum. Establishing habits. Getting the foundation right. Small adjustments here have a decade to grow.

3. What do you focus on over the next three years?  

   This is the medium-term horizon where most of the meaningful work happens — reducing debt, optimising contributions, potentially restructuring investments as income grows.

4. How does all of this move you through the full decade?  

   The ten-year view is where the picture comes together. Not as a rigid plan that cannot flex, but as a direction — a mountain on the horizon that you are always oriented toward, even as the terrain underfoot changes.

Values Before Numbers

Here is what I have learned from years of this work.

The clients who feel most settled — most confident about their future — are not necessarily the wealthiest. They are the ones who are clear on what they actually want.

A well-constructed financial plan is not fundamentally about reaching a number. It is not 'you need $2 million to produce $100,000 a year in retirement, so here is how we get there.' That framing puts the cart before the horse. It treats money as the goal, when money is actually the vehicle.

The real questions are deeper:

What do you value most — what is held close to your heart?

What do you want to do with your time when work no longer fills it?

What does your legacy look like for the people who come after you?

When these questions are answered honestly, and held in mind throughout the planning process, something shifts. Financial decisions stop feeling like sacrifices or trade-offs and start feeling like choices — deliberate ones, made in the direction of something that matters.

The numbers become the means, not the end.

Both Eyes at Once

Musashi's double gaze was not about being distracted. It was about being more fully present — aware of the immediate situation and the broader context simultaneously, and wise enough to know when to zoom in and when to pull back.

This is exactly the skill a good financial plan develops in you.

You learn to zoom in — to make clear, considered decisions about this year's contributions, this month's budget, this particular debt. And you learn to zoom out — to make those decisions with the awareness of where you are ultimately trying to go, and why.

The goal of a ten-year plan is not certainty. Life rarely cooperates with certainty. The goal is orientation.

Clarity about your direction. The confidence that the decisions you are making today are, as best as we can arrange them, aligned with the life you want in the future.

That is what it means to gaze at the distant mountain — and still stay sharp to what is right in front of you.