5 Idle Thoughts of a Summer's Day, Vol. 1

It's summer in the Northern Hemisphere! In this new episodic series from Rule Breaker Investing , Motley Fool co-founder David Gardner shares a five-thought sampler of musings to make you smarter, happier, and richer.

This includes seeing investment opportunities with new eyes, understanding the two types of failure, and recognizing an additional benefit of investing in other countries. Grab your lemonade and join us!

To catch full episodes of all The Motley Fool's free podcasts, check out our podcast center . To get started investing, check out our quick-start guide to investing in stocks . A full transcript follows the video.

This video was recorded on July 17, 2024.

David Gardner: Summer days have a way of making us slow down. Reflect, muse over the little things in life. After a landmark podcast last week reviewing the performance of all 35 stock samplers since 2015, I'm in the mood for heading out where my whimsy takes me. As the novelist, Dorothy Sayers put it, "A sampler, not of five stocks, but of five thoughts." Grab your lemonade, find a comfy spot in the shade and join me as we explore Five Idle Thoughts of a Summer's Day, Volume 1, only on this week's Rule Breaker Investing.

Yes, the sound of rules being broken. It comes across a little harsh for a podcast dedicated to Five Idle Thoughts of a Summer's Day. I mentioned Dorothy Sayers up top, her wonderful detective novels with Lord Peter Wimsey, her star character. I always remember. I think it was his Coat of Arms, his family code. Of course, his name was Wimsey, but their line was where my whimsy takes me, I think Dorothy Sayers. That was a phrase that meant a lot to her as a novelist. I've always appreciated the phrase. I think that describes about half of how we're rocking it on this particular week's podcast. The other half comes to me from basketball. As many of you will know, I am a big college basketball fan in particular.

I went to The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, so I always wear my colors on my sleeve, light blue. But I was watching a video of our head coach Hubert Davis some months ago. What he said, I want to like into what we're doing this week. He said, "You know what I'm here to do? I'm here to teach life through basketball." That made a lot of sense to me, especially for a college coach, for youth coaches. They're teaching us basketball or whatever they're teaching us, but they're the great ones. They're teaching life through that medium. That's what I think we're trying to do with The Motley Fool. I especially try to do on this podcast. Teach life, not through basketball, of course, wouldn't do that very well, teach life through investing. Somewhere from one end of the spectrum, where our whimsy takes us with Dorothy Sayers at the other end. We're teaching life through investing. We're not really doing either of those today, but somewhere in between is where this series starts. I intend this to be Volume 1. We might do this once a summer. Before we get started, let me mention speaking of summer, summer reading. I am here to announce our authors in August for 2024. I have acceptances from all three of these authors. I am excited to feature each of them and their books next month. I'm letting you know now because you still have a few weeks to start reading. Pick and choose any of these. Give yourself a gold star if you've already read, or do read all three of these by August in order.

Our authors in August, Week Number 1, Thi Nguyen Games philosopher, a past vaunted guest on this show, having T back to discuss his, speaking of landmarks, landmark book, Games Agency As Art, that will be Week Number 1. Week Number 2, the founder of Whole Foods Market, John Mackey wrote the story of his life earlier this year, it's called The Whole Life. We'll have John Mackey and The Whole Life, Week Number 2. Then a horse of a different color, a book, a title, just three letters, S-U-M, Sum. Forty Tales of the Afterlives by the neuroscientist, David Eagleman of Stanford Fame, a very popular podcast of his own. A renowned author. I really enjoyed his short book, Sum, by David Eagleman. That will be Week Number 3. Those are our three authors in August Thi Nguyen, John Mackey, and David Eagleman. Get reading. Five Idle Thoughts of a Summer's Day.

Thought Number 1. Let's call this one opening eyes. I was reflecting some on that podcast last week, Reviewapalooza Ultima. I was thinking about what it really represents when you try to boil it all down and look at it through Motley Fool eyes. I've tried to pick stocks of great companies. I've done so very publicly. We hold them, we report on how they're doing all of this very public through up markets and down markets. I've done it not just for those five stock samples for three years each. We've done it for three decades through The Motley Fool. I think if you really get down to what we're doing, we're exemplifying. We're actually out there demonstrating. We're trying to open eyes for many people who have never thought about the stock market. If The Motley Fool is doing its job, if Rule Breaker Investing is doing its job, we are demystifying the subject of investing for you. It's one thing to talk on podcasts or write books, it's an entirely different thing to actually go right out there and pick the stocks and show the numbers and build the results, not for a CNBC appearance or an annual pick for Barron's, but actually for three years, or five years or 10 or three decades.

When I really think about what I'm proudest of reflecting on Reviewapalooza Ultima, it's that for free, through this podcast, through last week's podcast, we're helping you see what a 10 bagger is. A lot of people that sounds that sounds really lofty. Could you really make 10 times your money on a stock that you were to buy this week? Or even better than that, this is something I've done six times for Motley Fool members. I couldn't really do it in three years for a five stock sampler, but I've done it six times for Motley Fool members. How about instead of a10 bagger, how about 100 bagger? I think a lot of people think 100 bagger or a 10 bagger, it's all about that stock. Like, did you get the right one? The one that's going to go up that many times in value 10 or 100 times in value? Surely, the stock does matter. It does matter greatly. But you know what matters even more? A lot of people bought Amazon or Netflix or Apple back in the day, and they had the right idea. It was a great company. They had a great stock pick. But in many cases, they end up looking backwards saying, why did I sell? I sold too early.

What I've realized is it's not so much the stock pick. It's actually the habits that you have that you cultivate. The only way to score a 100 bagger is to allow it over time to go up 100 times in value. Each of the companies I just mentioned has done that and has done it, in some cases, for Motley Fool members of long vintage, but it's not so much the stock pick, it's the habits that you have. But I think The Motley Fool's greatest contribution is that we did do that. We have done that. We are doing that for you our listeners and for you our members. My cost basis on Amazon and on Nvidia ironically has become the same thanks to stock splits. Over the years, it's $0.16. In both cases, many people, I would say, especially those unschooled who just see the stock market as a great big gambling machine. I hope you will have had your eyes open to see, this can be done.

It has been done. even if you don't feel like you can do it yourself, part of the point of what we do on this podcast and what The Motley Fool does through its services is we pick the stocks for you, and you can follow along with us, and now opening your eyes, I hope you can imagine yourself, even without our help in time doing this amazing thing too on your own. I have friends, especially minority or underdog friends of mine, and I've heard them say this over the years, and you might feel this too, listener. I bet you've had friends who've said things like this. I sure have. They'd say, it's not until you have a person like me in power, a woman, a person of color. It's not until you have a person like me in power that as a kid, you can imagine yourself in that role. Well, in this way, pioneers like that open up our eyes and give us new possibilities in just a powerful way, I would say, for more people than you would know. That's what we're trying to do. That's what we've tried to do in a different realm investing. As I think back on last week, I hope that podcast can be passed around and shared, and it can open eyes and help everybody recognize we're all investors. Investor is not a specialized word. You're an investor. I'm an investor. We're investing our time all the time. As we say we can invest our money and watch those investments prosper over time, everyone is an investor.

Idle Thought Number 2. This one's about failure. There's sometimes an over celebration of things like failure. I would say, and recently, vulnerability, as well. It comes from a previous era where things like failure or vulnerability were considered shameful. But then what happens is, I think we go sometimes too far the other way and we begin to champion vulnerability. Champion failure. Dangerously, we can even start to glorify them, because after all, most of us are not after failures. I think as the pendulum swings back and forth, failure is shameful, failure becomes worth celebrating, fail fast, we say, I think sometimes we need to recenter again. It makes me think a little bit of the line, there are no stupid questions. I talked about this on Pet Peeves Volume 5. I'm seeing it was actually July of 2020. It was four years ago this month. I said something like this. Have you ever heard the phrase, there are no stupid questions? I bet you have. It's usually used quite compassionately. I would say sometimes lovingly. Somebody says, now, does anybody have questions? And by the way, there are no stupid questions. What that person is trying to do, often it'll be a teacher or somebody who's in authority.

They're trying to make it possible. They're building a bridge to anybody who might think, I don't want to open my mouth because I might look stupid, so I'm not going to ask a question that I actually really do have. That person in authority is creating comfort for the room by saying, and remember, there are no stupid questions, but the F, Fool in me, the one who likes to take the other side, the one who likes to challenge conventional wisdom, who can't in almost any argument, can't not take the other side, devil's advocate, the Fool in me. Any time I hear that I'm like, yes, there are stupid questions, and I've asked them myself. Here's a great example of a stupid question. Somebody has just explained something beautifully. Maybe in depth, spending a good amount of time, not too much time, speaking to a group. Then I raised my hand and I asked something that had been answered one minute before by that person. Why did I do that? Well, because my attention wandered. I wasn't listening. I was distracted. I'm asking a question that everybody else in the room already knows the answer to.

I somewhat self-indulgently, am taking away everybody else's time, because I was an idiot who didn't listen clearly, and I raised my hand, and that's a stupid question. I'm trying to show both sides of failure and vulnerability and stupid questions. We can all celebrate the idea that there are no stupid questions while at the same time truly acknowledging there are stupid questions and try not to ask one. I'm thinking now about failure, and I came across this great line from Jeff Bezos, the founder of amazon.com. I want to credit Jason Trice longtime Fool listener, Rule Breaker Extreme. Part of our 100th mailbag team a few months ago. Jason found this. I'm checking it now. I think it was 2020. I tend to save things and bring them back on this podcast years later. I'm pulling this. I think there was an ink magazine article about this in November of 2020. The title of the article is this, Jeff Bezos says, there are two kinds of failure, and you should only tolerate one. The subtitle of the article is, when you should celebrate failure and when you should feel bad about it, according to the Amazon boss, and I'm going to quote, I really appreciate this distinction. Here we go. Bezos said, "I always point out that there are two different kinds of failure. There's experimental failure. That's the failure you should be happy with. And there's operational failure. We've built hundreds of fulfillment centers at Amazon over the years, and we know how to do that. If we build a new fulfillment center, and it's a disaster, that's just bad execution.

That's not good failure. But when we are developing a new product or service or experimenting in some way, and it doesn't work, that's OK. That's great failure. You need to distinguish between those two types of failure and really be seeking invention and innovation." That concludes Idle Thought Number 2 of a Summer's Day. Failure comes in two types, I would say, so do questions. So does vulnerability. We should not shame people for these things. I also think we should not over celebrate these things. We should understand with discernment when they're good and when they're bad and call each out separately. I appreciate how Bezos did that with failure.

Idle Thought Number 3. This one, I'll entitle get invested in other countries. Speaking of saving things, I saved this from the Economist magazine. This was a letter to the editor in, oh, my gosh, it was July, 2019. I keep pulling things back from July. This was five years ago, written by somebody, I'll never meet Jonathan Chinchillo in Denver, but I saved it at the time because I think it makes a beautiful point. Chinchillo, who is writing in support of free trade, said the following, and I quote, "The intellectual origins of your analysis on the benefits of America's and China's growing financial ties can be traced back to Montesquieu." In "The Spirit of the Laws", the French philosopher wrote that because "Two nations that trade with each other become reciprocally dependent, the natural effect of commerce is to lead to peace." Chinchillo closes his short note to the economist by saying, "The underlying logic of self interest still offers the greatest hope of an accord between these two countries." Idle Thought Number 3, get invested in other countries. I want to say, first of all, I agree with that. I agree with that statement. That's in part why I think I'm more bullish than most of my friends these days on the US and China. I was just reading last week that the value of US-China trade has soared in recent decades with imports surpassing $420 billion last year. That was up more than 300% from the turn of the century. Looking back over the last 50 years in which a lot of global poverty has been eradicated. There's still more to go, but tremendous strides have been made. That is definitely connected to the value of global merchandise exports, basically World trade. In 2022, the value of world trade, according to the World Trade Organization, the WTO was $22 trillion, 22 in 2022, that's easy to remember. In 1970, the value of global trade was $0.6 trillion.

In other words, it's up 37 times, a 37 bagger, if you will, over the past 55 years. I was looking back over the history of this from 1970-1980. It went from about a half trillion to two trillion. Over the next 20 years, we started hitting the 1990s. The Internet shows up. 1999, world trade was at six trillion. By 2010, as the economy matured, and yet we just lived through 2008, '9, it had grown to $12 trillion, and by 2020, 19 trillion. Yes, COVID presented its own problems for a few years, but last year, we were at $22 trillion. That is such good news for world peace. The more our economies are interconnected, are interdependent on each other. As Montesquieu said, "Two nations that trade with each other become reciprocally dependent, the natural effect of commerce is to lead to peace." We are not in an era of complete world peace. We are in an era of more world peace than most other times in the world. That's because I think, our global trade has grown. That's why, as I've said, sometimes before in this podcast, this is not a topic I go to often, but these are Idle Thoughts of a Summer's Day. The US and China have so many shared interests. Obviously, our interdependent economies, but also we're the two lead powers in the world. There's a lot of shared benefit to both being in control of the spheres in which we are in control.

While it's often made to sound as if we're diametrically opposed to each other, in fact, our understanding of business and enterprise is very high in both countries, and we're increasingly growing connected. Whenever I hear people say, they're bearish, or they don't like Chinese stocks, or they're worried about the future, I think it's OK to be worried about the future, but not to the extent you're not going to invest. I would also say, part of the implication of this Idle Thought is that things that are about deglobalization, things that are anti-globalization are very harmful to the future of the world. The future of the world is a future of peace, and a future of peace is all about robust economies that work together with each other. We're not really going to want to bomb the other guy if that's all of our customers, and we have factories or plants or retail stores in that other place. I celebrate free trade. I appreciate Jonathan Chinchillo's rocking of Montesquieu, the French philosopher. I most of all hope for the economies of countries that are not participating in global trade. It's pretty simple. You can do a gross domestic product divided by market cap and just see the productivity of people from one country to the next. The United States is Number 1 worldwide.

A country like Russia has about one sixth the productivity of their citizens, a country like Iran much less. Large countries that aren't participating effectively in global trade, that aren't playing well with others. These are the real problems in our world, and what I want for them is more connectedness and trade with them because that's what's going most surely to lead to more peace over time. I've often said in the past as well to close, my favorite countries in the world are those that make entrepreneurs empowered. Entrepreneurs are the people who dream up ideas, provide us better services, better products, solutions that replace ineffectiveness of the past. Entrepreneurs solve our problems. We want as many great ones as possible in every country, solving your problem and mine. Any country that enables its entrepreneurs will thrive in the future. Any country that makes it impossible for its entrepreneurs will go the opposite direction, so I'm going to keep cheering on trade in every economy ours included.

On to Idle thought 4, I had a conversation with my friend Ariana, some years ago, and Ariana said something that's just always stuck with me. Ariana said, we're all after lots of things in life but one thing that is very fulfilling and very satisfying professionally for people is when they can find a platform that enables them to contribute their value. When you can find or build a platform, that lets you unleash your value. Ariana was saying that to me in the context of saying how fortunate I was. I do think I've been incredibly lucky and blessed in this regard that the Motley Fool, Ariana was saying, has been that for me. I have an opportunity to pick stocks in front of people, have people mimic my actions. I can speak to you and explain what I'm doing. I've done so over decades. The Motley Fool has just been a beautiful platform for me to add value to the world, Rule Breaker Investing, especially.

As I thought more about that, I thought what enables people to find that thing over the course of time? Because, for you dear listener, I hope you're already enjoying that. I hope you recognize one or more platforms of value. It's not all just about economic value, we're talking about what fulfills you. Have you found that venue, that group of people, that need out there that you can contribute to your platform of value? By the way, what worked last year might not work next decade. The world's always changing all the time, so we're all being challenged, and rechallenged to find our next platform of value. As I've thought about it, I see five quick tips. These aren't steps, because they don't necessarily work together. But for anybody who's inspired by Ariana's notion, let's just talk about five quick thoughts for you.

Here's the first. Self-assessment, is probably a good place to start. What are your passions? Your own self-awareness, how about that? That's going to be a major contributor to recognizing where you could go to find a platform of value. The feedback that you get from friends or family who have observed you over time and say, you are good at that, or here's how you've added value for me. I would also say, what is important to you? Part of this self-assessment is asking, what's important to you? You might be good, I don't know, let's just say at the game bananagrams, many of us have played bananagrams. Maybe not everybody knows it, but you might be great at bananagrams, but it may not be that important, either to you or to the world. Maybe you don't want to make that your platform of value as much as I love games. I think some combination of your passions, your self-awareness, the feedback you're getting, and what's important to you, Tip 1, are some good bread crumbs on your way to finding your platform of value. I was talking with my summer producer, Desiree Jones about this, Dez before the show, and I thought, this is a great opportunity to have you on, just to say hi to people, because I know you can relate to this. You're much younger than I am, but you've already done a lot of work in this direction of thinking about finding your platform of value.

Desiree Jones: Absolutely. Finding my platform, finding my value. It's been a awesome journey, just learning and growing. I know that this is just the beginning, but I'm just excited to be on the road.

David Gardner: Thank you for joining me on the podcast, Des. You were starting to tell me a story, and I would love for you to tell that story right now.

Desiree Jones: Absolutely. I'll put a theme to it. This is a part of my platform of value, and it contributes to my value in my platform, and the theme is navigating the rain. I'm from Georgia, I'm a Georgia girl. Back at home, I was staying with my parents, and I have a routine. I'm like, I'm going to get up, I'm going to go work out, I'm going to go on my run, and then I'm going to order a DoorDash and enjoy the rest of my day. As I go on my run, I'm running out there, I'm having fun. Skies are blue and the next thing you know, it starts to rain. I'm like, it's raining, nice little sprinkle. We're still going to keep running. No problem, optimistic. Then I continue to run, and it starts to rain harder and I'm like, we'll just run through it, it's fine. I still got to get through this, I'm staying on my goals, we're going to run. It's fine, everything's great. Then it proceeds to rain harder, so I just look up at the sky, like, Is that all you got? Then it pours down harder, so it just continues to just rain and rain and rain to the point where I was like, you know what? I'm almost home, I'm just going to start dancing. I dance in the rain. I'm dancing, I'm looking absolutely. My neighbors are like, what's going on? Is she OK?

David Gardner: Crazy woman.

Desiree Jones: What's going on? I'm just having a good old time, and the rain is still pouring down. It was a transformational moment for me, honestly, because when you think about the rain, it's gloomy, it's sad. But it's also a great way to navigate how you see life. I said, Is that all you got? I'm pouring down, I'm a crazy woman. What's going on? But at the end of the day, once it's finished, it didn't finish raining, and it kept pouring down. But I finished my routine. I came back home, and my DoorDash was at the door.

David Gardner: A little wet?

Desiree Jones: Just a little bit, slightly wet. No, it was drenched. At least the food was dry, but the bag was wet. It just taught me a lot about navigating the rain. I went through a lot of emotions in the rain on this jog. I was first shocked, then I was optimist. I was like, It's fine everything's going to be OK, then I challenged the rain. I was like, is that all you got? I'm still going to do it, and it poured down harder. To the point where it just brought me joy, and I started dancing. I said, well, you know what, if you can't beat them, join them, and so I just started hanging out in the rain. I made it back home, but nature has a funny way of teaching you how to navigate life.

David Gardner: I agree, and so as we think about a platform of value, Des, you're speaking to well, a number of things, but resilience, adaptability, embracing the unexpected, and not just facing the unexpected, but embracing the unexpected. I would also point out finding some joy in the journey. I think all of those are tied into finding that platform of value. Thank you, by the way, for subbing these many months here as producer for the show. This has become a new platform of value for you, Des, and thank you for sharing your story.

Desiree Jones: Of course. You talked about your game, my game is Spades, that's me. I love a good game of Spades.

David Gardner: I also love Spades, and we need to play sometime. I'm pretty sure you're better than I am, especially if you love it, but I do like trick-taking games, so good on you. Everyone's got a game.

Desiree Jones: Absolutely.

David Gardner: Yeah, and I guess just a few other quick thoughts on finding your platform of value. Analyzing your past is an awfully good approach, as well. Your successes and your failures. For a lot of us, it was probably in there when you were a little kid. Dez just mentioned her game's Spades. When I just think about me as a little kid, I was the guy who was buying board games. Just to read the rules, and then hoping to teach my friends just so they would play with me. From my earliest days, I just loved games. I was magnetically attracted to the idea of playing not even as a master myself, but just as somebody who wanted to share, have friends around a table compete, it's OK if we lose. It got easier to lose as I lost more and more into my adult years. But looking into your past, and it might have worked, it might not have worked. Those are such instructive moments for us. I would also say, speaking of playing games around a table, joining or creating communities, if you need to, clubs or groups, that are in that area of where you want to create your value, find your platform.

I talked about this last year on the show. I had a friend who said, I moved to a new neighborhood, it was in Colorado. This person had lived on the East Coast most of his life. He's like, I don't have any friends here in the greater Aspen Snowmss area. My friend Scott said, "But you know what I learned? I learned if you're in a new place, and you want to make friends, volunteer for something that you care about." Volunteer because the other people who are volunteering for that same thing are very likely your next friends. Grow your circle of friends by thinking about who has common interests, which leads me to talk briefly about collaboration, because part of those platforms of value these days, it's very hard to do by yourself. Increasingly, thousands of people are making, not just movies, but video games these days. It used to be the sole author or the one solo artist, but increasingly, especially at scale, if you want to create value, you're going to start a business as an entrepreneur, not just try to do it all yourself. Whatever the context is, think hard about collaboration, and in conclusion, maybe your personal brand for some of us, that probably is going to be helpful as part of your platform of value, especially the extroverted among us, thinking about what you stand for and communicating that to people in a way that they understand back and could explain you to their friend.

As Seth Godins sometimes said of viral things, if you can get people to sneeze you, sneeze your idea, sneeze your brand to their friend and create some viral contagion around who you are and what you're doing. That's certainly going to help your platform of value. Then as you go, and Dez spoke to this, being resilient, learning as you go, being ready for anything. I would say, seek feedback at the start and seek feedback all the way through and keep iterating. There's an extended idle thought of a summer's day finding your platform of value. Thanks, Ariana. All right, and to close, number five, probably the idlest of my idle thoughts. This one's just about language, and especially that rare situation in language always worth noticing. In fact, if the examples I'm about to give inspire you, dear listener, I would love for you to give your own examples on this month's mailbag, rbi@fool.com is our email address. Here's what I'm looking for, I'm about to throw down some examples, phrases that mean the same thing, even when you replace one of the words with its exact opposite. What do I mean?

Well, I saw a great tweet. This one's four years ago from my friend Bill Mann at TMF Otter on Twitter. Bill said, doing something over and over with the expectation of getting a different result is also the definition of practice. Now, I think a lot of you will recognize the illusion here, but let me spell it out, especially for non-idiomatic English speakers. There's a line about insanity. The definition of insanity reads like this, insanity is doing something over and over with the expectation of getting a different result. The definition of insanity, but Bill quite plausibly replaces that with the word practice, which while not being the exact opposite of insanity is a completely different thought, and both of them are true, aren't they? If you keep doing the same thing that's not working and you do it over and over, and it keeps not working for you, you're probably going a little more and more insane. I agree with that, but I also totally agree with TMF Otter's point that doing something over and over with the expectation of getting a different result, is also the definition of practice. How about a few more examples? Well, how about just shut something up or shut something down? Technically opposite words. But think about this phrase, he shut up the conversation quickly with his final remark. He shut down the conversation quickly with his final remark. The words are opposite, the meaning is the same.

I would say the same as well of this line. The road to hell is paved, you probably know this, with good intentions. I think we can all think of times where that is true. Something started meaning right, but it got corrupted. It went downhill quickly. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, but I would also say, the road to heaven is, too, I can't imagine a road to heaven that didn't have good intention, a good, constant companion all the way through. I think the road to hell and the road to heaven, they're paved with good intentions. I got one more for you, and it's probably my favorite, but before I close it out, let's just briefly review our idle thoughts. Number 1, this week, opening eyes. One of the best things we can do is just not just talk, but act, act in a way that helps people see they can do it too. Number 2, with Jeff Bezos, failure comes in two types, let's celebrate one form, let's denigrate and not attempt to demonstrate the other.

Thought number 3, get invested in other countries. I meant to add to that, I'll add it here briefly. As an investor, I think it's smart to diversify your portfolio geographically, somewhat. You'll be more invested in that area of the world or that company, and it will broaden you and also, I think strengthen you and your portfolio. It doesn't mean you have to have a certain percentage allocated to foreign all the time. I would only want you to pick stocks that you feel good about, but think hard about looking overseas. It will grow your circle of competence. Finally, number four, well, I just shared it with you a few minutes ago, finding our platforms of value. Okay, now on to my favorite phrase that means the same thing, even when you replace one of the words with its exact opposite. Finally, especially speaking to Rule Breaker Investing and this podcast, this one from Matt Rantala @Sisu_runner on Twitter, longtime Rule Breaker listener. Matt, you pointed this out with a hashtag that we did together in Twitter a few years back. Because one of the things that I've said over and over again, helping guide us as investors toward good companies, and then continuing to add money to those companies, I say, very simply, it's drawn from sports. What do winners do? The answer is, winners win. More often than not, things that continue in a direction, let's say, from lower left to upper right, keep going, Sir Isaac Newton said with his law of motion. Keep going in that same direction, unless acted upon by something else, some other force.

Momentum winning becomes contagious. The more that North Carolina wins basketball games, the more that little kids want to play for North Carolina, the more money comes to North Carolina. There's too much money in college sports these days, but the more money comes to North Carolina, and all of a sudden, North Carolina has the resources to keep recruiting. It's not just true of North Carolina, it's true of many other schools. It's true of many other teams at all levels in many different sports, and forget about sports, it's true so often in life. Smart kids get good grades, they get patted on the back, they get resources and scholarships, they go on to succeed. Obviously, there are many exceptions, and I'm oversimplifying, but winners win is a very important rule breaker learning. When we do, what have you learned from David Gardner on my birthday in May each year? I often hear back. What have I learned, Dave? I've learned, you tell me, winners win. Let's invest that way, and I agree with that, and yet, winners lose.

One of my favorite podcasts that I've ever done in the 470 plus that we've now done every single week for the last nine years. One of my favorites, I referenced it again last week, and in fact, I got an email from a young new listener who said, I once heard you say this. Could you just could you email me back the link to that episode where you talk about how many loses you've had, how many losers you've had, and how you've still won grandly despite all those horrendously bad stocks. We heard about a few of them last week of the hundred 50 that I picked on five stock samplers over the course of the last nine years. We've seen the losers, and yet the theme is losing to win, you have to be willing to lose, like a venture capitalist, you have to be willing to take risks in order to hit a big. The key is when you hit it big, that is worth so much more the hitting big than losing big, because wins can go up infinite amounts, whereas losses are curbed at 100%. You can never lose more unless you're doing something silly than what you started with. You can make so much more than what you started with. The math is wildly in our favor, so here's another one phrase that mean the same thing, even when you replace, one of the words with its exact opposite, winners win, and winners lose, fool on.

John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. David Gardner has positions in Amazon, Apple, and Netflix. Desiree Jones has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, Apple, DoorDash, Netflix, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy .