Investing Lessons From the World Cup: If You're Not Having Fun, You're Doing It Wrong

Once every four years, most of the planet turns its attention to the soccer pitch for an unrivaled sporting pageant: the World Cup. And while Motley Fool co-founder David Gardner is not a superfan when it comes to futbol, he's a lover of sport in general, so it should come as little surprise that he, like billions of people around the globe, has his mind on the competition. But, at the Fool, our ongoing competition is to help you beat the market, so whatever he's doing, he's liable at some point to try to imagine it through an investor's lens.

In this segment, he zooms in on one of the fundamental aspects of sports that can be overlooked in our financial lives: This business of competition is fun. So how can you bring that into your portfolio? He has some suggestions.

A full transcript follows the video.

This video was recorded on June 20, 2018.

David Gardner: Let's go to No. 4. How could I not mention the simple word, this is a big one around Fool HQ, three letters, starts with F -- it's fun. It's tremendous fun, watching these games. Even just by your lonesome, it's fun to watch the pageantry, the colors, the jerseys, the different crazy haircuts and tattoos of the players, the mix of different countries. Watching a stadium full, let's say two-third Colombians, one-third Japanese, good-naturedly sitting next to each other and having some fun with the rivalries of their teams. Of course, it's extra fun to watch the World Cup with other people. The social experience of watching games together explains a lot of things worldwide, like the success of bars, for example. Other things also explain the success of bars. But, the fun that the World Cup makes happen.

Now, if it showed up every month, it wouldn't be that fun. Part of the fun is that we wait four years for the women's games and four years for the men's games, and we get to enjoy them in those limited time periods. It doesn't happen every month. That's part of the fun, the spectacle, the color.

I think investing should be fun. You should be able to look up and down your portfolio and go, "Wow, those companies are really fun. They're awesome companies, they're innovative." In my case, I'm always looking for innovation. I suggest you should, too. "They're excellent. And what they do is fun."

The output of a company like Starbucks -- I mentioned to Howard Schultz just a little while ago, Howard Schultz, who I think is going to be running for president in 2020, we'll see. I've been talking about this for a few years. How much fun has Starbucks brought to how many lives, just through making it possible to have that interaction in a third place that isn't, as has been said, your home, it isn't your work, it's that third place where you can meet up and chat and get to know somebody, have fun.

Fun is such an important thing around The Motley Fool. I was meeting with some of our new employees earlier today. We had eight people in, a mix of Fools living here in Alexandria, Virginia with us, Fools in Foolorado at our Foolorado offices in Colorado, and then Fools from across the globe, like our new friend Hays Chan from Singapore or Liam Meltin from Fool Japan.

I had the pleasure, in a World Cup-like way, of sitting with those eight people earlier today. And what was I there to do? To teach a game. I had been put on the spot by our people and culture team here at The Motley Fool. They're like, "Let's have the co-founder, rather than lecture them, teach them a game." Of course, Codenames, which is a game that I know some of you know. If you've been to FoolFest, you might have played Codenames before. It's a very fine family game. I've mentioned it as one of my favorite games on this podcast and podcasts past. That's what I was teaching our new employees, Codenames, and we all played that game together.

If you call yourself The Motley Fool 25 years ago -- it's our anniversary this year -- presumably, you'd better be having fun at that company or this offices. Otherwise, where does this whacky name come from? I think my brother Tom and I forced fun, we channeled it from early on by calling our company The Motley Fool. I certainly wouldn't want to go through investing, business, or life without having a lot of fun. That's something that I know we all appreciate, those of us who watch and enjoy the World Cup.