The view from 30,000 feet: why we all need to zoom out
I don't like heights, but I do love perspective.
A few years back, fuelled by too much time alone with a smartphone around New Year's Eve, and a friend who actually said yes to my mad proposal, I found myself doing a parachute jump. It was of course absolutely terrifying, but also revelatory. There's something about being forced up high that changes how you see everything below.
Recently, I've been listening to people who spend their working lives with the ultimate bird's-eye view. Terry Virts, the F-16 pilot-turned-astronaut who orbited Earth 3,400 times and spent 213 days in space. Major Michelle Curran, with 2,000 hours flying F-16s in a very male-dominated world. When failure can mean life or death, you learn quickly what ego and fear really cost.
They both talk about something fascinating: astronauts and fighter pilots aren't the Tom Cruise, Top Gun stereotypes you might imagine. Yes, there's ego, but there's also a very strong desire to stay alive. An F-16 costs $30 million, but a pilot is worth far more – think about all those hours of training, all that fuel through the afterburners. It's about getting back from the mission as part of the mission.
But what struck me most was Terry talking about the change in life perspective when you've seen Earth – our blue planet – from orbit. That shift in viewpoint changes everything.
The Shard and the model railway
Inspired by these conversations, I got as close as I reasonably could to that orbital perspective with a trip up the Shard, in the City – all 74 floors of it. From up there, London looks like a model railway. People scurrying about, going through their daily grind, relentlessly hurrying from A to B to C.
Have you ever stepped back from a painting in a gallery and literally seen the bigger picture? That's what happens when you zoom out. The brushstrokes that seemed chaotic up close suddenly make perfect sense as part of a larger composition.
The summer holidays do this for us too, don't they? Or any break from the day-to-day. They help us zoom out, see the bigger picture, and check in on whether our daily actions actually match our plans, our desires, our values.
The financial equivalent
This is exactly what good financial planning does – gives you that view from 30,000 feet.
When you're in the thick of it, worrying about this bill or that unexpected expense, market performance, or what Chancellor Rachel Reeves might have planned in her Autumn Budget, it's like being on the street level, nose pressed against the window of the shop you're trying to get into. Everything feels immediate, urgent, overwhelming.
But zoom out, and patterns emerge. You start to see the bigger picture of where your money is actually going, what matters, and what doesn’t. You can spot the difference between the urgent and the important – much like our F-16 pilots distinguishing between real threats and distractions.
I've had clients who were convinced they were "terrible with money" because they couldn't seem to get ahead month to month. But when we zoomed out and looked at the bigger picture – their pension contributions, their mortgage payments reducing their debt, the steady growth in their ISAs – suddenly they could see they were actually doing brilliantly. They just needed the right altitude to see it.
The mission is getting back from the mission
Our astronaut and pilot friends reminded me of something crucial: it's not about the thrill of the ride. It's about completing the mission safely. In financial terms, that means making sure you don't just accumulate wealth for the sake of it, but that you can actually enjoy it and use it for what matters to you.
I see people all the time who are so focused on the day-to-day – saving every penny, optimising every investment decision – that they forget to ask the bigger questions. What's this all for? What does a successful financial "mission" actually look like for them?
Sometimes you need to zoom out to remember that the point isn't to die with the most money in the bank. It's to live the life you want while having enough security to sleep well at night.
You don't need to strap yourself into a rocket or climb the Shard to get this perspective. Sometimes it's as simple as taking time away from the daily financial noise – the market updates, the news headlines – and asking yourself some bigger questions. Are you happy with the direction you're heading? Does how you're spending align with what you say you value? If someone looked at your bank statements, would they be able to tell what matters most to you?
This is what we try to do in our planning sessions – create that space to zoom out, to see the bigger picture, to make sure the day-to-day tactics are serving the long-term strategy.
Because the thing about perspective is that once you've seen the view from up high, it's hard to get lost in the weeds again. You remember that most of what feels urgent probably isn't. You remember what actually matters.
I still don't like heights
But I'm grateful for that parachute jump, for the Shard, for the reminder that sometimes you need to step back – or up – to see clearly.
Your financial life is no different. Sometimes the best thing you can do is stop looking at the daily ups and downs and zoom out to see the bigger picture.
That's when you realise you might be doing better than you thought. Or spot the one change that could make all the difference. Or simply remember what you're trying to achieve in the first place.
The view from 30,000 feet – whether literal or financial – has a way of putting things in perspective.