At the courts of Queen Victoria and Elizabeth I, there were hundreds of rules governing behaviour around the monarch.
You couldn’t sit in the monarch’s presence.
You couldn’t speak unless spoken to.
If you left the room, you were expected to walk backwards.
And one rule above all others: Even if the throne was empty, you still had to bow.
Over time, many of these rituals stopped serving a purpose. But they remained, because they had always been there.
This happens everywhere.
When Mary Barra became CEO of General Motors, she discovered the company had a 10-page dress code.
She replaced it with two words: “Dress appropriately.”
Most systems become complicated this way. Rules accumulate. Processes multiply. Nobody remembers why they were created in the first place.
Elon Musk has a blunt way of describing the problem: “The best part is no part. The best process is no process.”
Steve Jobs made a similar observation: “Everything around you that you call life was made up by people no smarter than you.”
Which means something important - the systems we inherit aren’t sacred; they’re just decisions someone once made.
The same thing happens with money
Financial lives often fill up with “rules” that nobody ever questions:
- Always pay off the mortgage first
- Always maximise your pension
- Never sell investments during volatility
- Property is always the safest asset
- You must retire at a certain age
Sometimes these ideas are useful, sometimes they’re simply traditions that have outlived their purpose.
Good financial planning isn’t about blindly following rules, it’s about understanding which ones still serve you, and which ones don’t.
The real question is not: “What does everyone else do?”
It’s: “What actually helps this person live the life they want?”
A simple question worth asking
From time to time it’s worth stepping back and asking: Are you following a rule because it still makes sense? Or because you’ve been bowing to an empty throne?