The starting point of Financial Planning is earlier and separate from the specific way you make (and invest, and spend) money. You plot a course within a map. First, you need that map.
You must reflect on what you value, what your values are, and how you want to create meaning. On the realities you face, the obstacles, the choices, the resources, and your support.
Risk tolerance is not simply how brave you are. Those who simplify the decision-making to a trade-off between risk and return are, simply, wrong. Knowing two made-up numbers does not give you the answer. You do not get rewarded more for taking more risk. You get rewarded for adding value within specific constraints, not for being reckless.
Some people who seem risky are not risky at all. They take calculated risks when they have a level of mastery where for another person, doing the same activity, would be perilous. They have done the work. They understand what they are doing.
We typically just look (because that is all we can see) at the conspicuous. We do not (and cannot) have the full picture. When evaluating other people and what they are doing, it will (by definition) be impossible to see from their perspective.
That is why the best financial plans are about working on understanding yourself, your context, and your behaviours.
