Aspirational means an investor who desires to achieve something in life, not “beat the market” only.
Since an aspirational investor has dreams and desires, the author justifies goal-based asset allocation. Particularly, the author divides the whole portfolio of any investor into three buckets: safe, market, and aspirational.
He writes: “… there are only three categories for your assets: low-risk with low return; market risk with market return; and high return potential with high risk. There is, alas, no low-risk, high-return bucket!”.
Generally, in finance risk is volatility (standard deviation). But the author confirms: risk is not about price movements. Risk is about a chance to fail to achieve life goals using markets as a tool.
Also, the book contains the framework, which helps to build your own goals-based investment strategy by asking questions:
How much money do I need?
When I need them?
How should I use financial markets for pursuing my life goals?
I recommend the book not only for retail investors but for financial advisers as well. At the same time, retail investors should be aware: provided framework can justify selling any investment vehicle even not in the best interest of a client. Who wants to be average? But it is another story.