This article's salacious headline might smack of exaggeration -- but believe it or not, it's true.

How it happened
Picture it: New Jersey, 1995. Though not yet a Fool employee, I was, perhaps like you, an avid reader of the Fool's online site. The Fool's founding brothers, David and Tom Gardner, were occasionally recommending stocks, and one of their recommendations was an online service provider called America Online.

I was still quite new to investing, and I didn't know enough to do much of my own research. But at least I had one thing going for me: I was an AOL customer. I used the service every day, and I liked what I saw of its user-friendliness, usefulness, and potential. So I bought. I snapped up $3,000 worth of shares and hung on.

Over the following years, the stock would go up and down, sometimes significantly, but I kept holding on. Overall, it mainly went up, and it split and split. I remember checking my portfolio regularly -- several times a day! -- to see how rich I was becoming. Near the stock's peak, I was in possession of a 70-bagger! My $3,000 investment had turned into $210,000. If it doubled in value only two more times, I'd be (almost) a millionaire! All from a measly $3,000 investment.

Did I sell shares along the ride up? No. Did I sell at least some near the top, when my mom told me to? Nope. (That strange thudding sound you hear is me kicking myself.) I kept holding on. AOL merged with Time Warner (NYSE:TWX) in 2001, and ever since then, the stock has struggled. I remember when the shares were priced in the $70s, but it's a fuzzy memory. They've been below $20 for around four years now. I did sell a big chunk of my shares -- in the teens -- when I needed money for a down payment on my house. And I finally got smart and sold a few shares to diversify into some other stocks, instead of holding such a big chunk of my net worth in a company in which I no longer had the most faith.

I still hold some shares, though, and despite my inclination to curse my stupidity for not selling earlier, I'm still sitting on a handsome profit, even at current levels. My cost basis is ridiculously low, and this has still been one of my best investments ever. I really shouldn't complain.

How you can do it
If any of this story appeals to you, know that you have a chance to make it yours -- perhaps with an even happier ending -- if you make a few decisions differently:

  • First, pay attention to products and services you know, use, and love -- especially if you see more and more people using them. There may be a great stock behind them, no matter whether they're big or small companies. There are plenty of well-known companies that have done phenomenally well over the past decade or two. Are you a happy iPod owner, a digital-camera user, or a frequent searcher on Google? Apple Computer (NASDAQ:AAPL), buoyed by the incredible success of its iPod, has increased in value more than eightfold over the past five years. Flash memory card maker SanDisk (NASDAQ:SNDK) has been a 13-bagger over the past decade, powered by the growing popularity of digital cameras. Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) shares, just out of the gate a little more than two years ago, have already quadrupled.
  • Along those same lines, be wary of what you don't understand. If you don't understand a business, you probably won't be able to understand when business is going badly.
  • If you buy into a company hoping that it will be a multibagger for you, buy to hold. As long as you have faith in the company's future, it's often best just to hang on, despite inevitable hiccups. Don't let some naysayers in the media get you out of a stock because of short-term concerns when you still have long-term confidence. Consider Wal-Mart. For early investors, it's been nearly a 1,000-bagger. For those who've hung on for just the past decade, during much of which the stock has been stalled, it's quadrupled their money -- still not bad, eh?
  • This isn't to say that these companies are necessarily great buys going forward, but their histories demonstrate that as long as you get in early and hold on, the market can work wonders for you. Stocks are dynamic, and you're likely to lose more money trying to time them than you are just sitting tight, as long as you've picked solid winners.
  • Do consider selling at least some of your shares if they rise to levels you can't justify. That was my main mistake -- irrationally and greedily hoping to get even richer. If a stock is trading for more than you know in your heart that it's worth, and you still hang on, you're no longer investing -- you're speculating, at great risk.
  • Finally, consider checking out the stocks that David and Tom Gardner are recommending now. Their Motley Fool Stock Advisor newsletter service, launched in April 2002, offers two picks (and two investing styles) each month. They have a few losers, of course, but on average, their recommendations are up 65%, versus 24% for like amounts invested in the S&P 500. Those gains are in part made up of Marvel Entertainment (NYSE:MVL), which has more than quintupled since the first of several times that David recommended it, and Tom's pick bebe stores (NASDAQ:BEBE), which has risen more than 70% in less than a year.

You can try Stock Advisor free for 30 days -- and you'll have full access to past recommendations.

Here's to big profits in your future!

This article was originally published on Feb. 2, 2006. It has been updated.

Longtime Fool contributor Selena Maranjian owns shares of Time Warner and Wal-Mart. Time Warner, Marvel, and bebe stores are Stock Advisor picks. Wal-Mart is an Inside Value recommendation. The Motley Fool isFools writing for Fools.