Rule Breaker Investing Mailbag

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This video was recorded on Feb. 23, 2022.

David Gardner: Earlier in this Motley month, superstar business author Daniel Pink joined me to talk about regret. If you were living a life up to then saying no regrets, well, we gave you pause, didn't we? Because your very real regrets, Dan taught us, show you the way to a better future for you; regrets. Also, earlier in this Motley month, we reviewed three past five-stock samplers. Five stocks rolled up at random, five stocks that spark joy, five stocks shrouded in mystery. If I just told you those three themes right now, random, joy, and mystery, which group of five stocks attached to each would you think, which you now know if you're listening on February 9th, did best, random, joy, or mystery? Yeah, exactly. Last week was one for the books. I'm pre-entering it into this year's 2022 besties because we traveled forward in time 30 years in order to help you in the most effective, I hope and occasionally hilarious way, think backward from the future, which can be quite a bomb, which was our intent in these precipitously volatile and dropping times. Well, let's talk about all these things and more, shall we? Because it's your Mailbag episode for months number 2 of 2022 recorded on day 22, somewhere in and around 2:22 in the afternoon. Only on this week's Rule Breaker Investing.

Welcome back to Rule Breaker Investing. It has been a really fun month not for investors, not for you and me, strapped in on the roller-coaster ride that we have been enduring. Well, it hasn't been fun all the last few weeks or months, I would even say the last year or so has been a real under-performer for Rule Breaker investors. But again, if you've been on the ride for more than that, I hope you're still pretty pleased. If you've been on the ride for a few decades, I know you're pretty pleased and you've seen this before and I'm sure we'll talk a little bit more about that this week because it is your mailbag and I've got some items to share. We're going to keep it a little short this week. I have six really good ones. Of course, I'm always getting a lot more than that, and if I didn't get to read your wonderful, often heart-warming story, it is my regret. Not everything can fit each mailbag, but thank you for some really nice sentiments and stories. Many of you, and you know who you are. Let me mention before we hit our Twitter hot takes that the review of palooza earlier this month. Five stocks rolled up at random, I left this one hanging at the open. 

Five stocks rolled up at random, five-stock sparking joy, and five stocks shrouded in mystery of those three themes. Just to be really clear, the one that has killed it is five stocks that spark joy, and I think it's a reminder to you and to me to make sure we're invested in companies, at least a healthy share of your portfolio. You should be able to look, I think, at those stocks at the companies with the businesses that you are part owner of as an investor and think, you know what? Those companies give me joy probably I hope, but even better lots of other people joy. Maybe the world, bring joy to the world, which reminds me of the wonderful Christmas Carol but I'm also thinking right now about the world and about how there's never too much joy. We're always probably in a joy shortage, and so when for-profit companies come along and really create joy for you and for me, those are worth scrutinizing for your portfolio for the long-term. 

While I always hope every single one of my 30 historic five-stock samplers will kill it or at least beat the market, I'm particularly happy to note that of those three anyway, the best performer, and it has been rough sailing for many of us, the best performer is the five stocks that spark joy. Well, speaking on sparking joy, I'm really happy to say that what I described on Twitter as the podcast that I had more fun doing that any other last week's podcast a lot of effort put in by many, I'll be thinking a few of them in just a little bit, well, definitely sparked a lot of tweets on Twitter. So the hot takes this month are dominated by the year the market skyrocketed, which was the February 16th, 2022 Rule Breaker Investing podcast. Marcus @sunflowermarcus, you wrote, "I'm only 23 minutes in and I'm laughing consistently and have a stupid smile on my face. This is fun all around, love the continuing innovation and breaking of the rules." Thank you, Marcus. Jason Newman, longtime friend and fellow Fool @jaynew4 on Twitter. "Chanka legalization. The colonization of Canada and the harsh reality that full level four self-driving has not yet been achieved, so Foolish, great job, team. Thank you. As always, @TMFChrisHill, @RBIPodcast, hashtag Greenland bound." Although, Jason closes "@MArgersinger. Matt Argersinger can take his COVID 49 and shove it." 

More of these, these were so much fun to read. We had so much fun last week. @ybmsc are so many awesome subtle jokes about the future here. @flippen_emily casually talking about crossing state lines in the Canada, just made me chuckle. Kurt Elia, probably the best one liner, that's why I saved it up for now on the podcast. I love this one, Kurt. @KurtElia, you wrote, "What a great episode? All of your podcasts are good, but this one was truly special. I will never look at my portfolio, my dog or Greenland, the same way ever again. Thank you, DavidGFool, TMFChrisHill, and the whole at the Motley Fool team." Well, you are very welcome, Kurt. @Cienany. Our friend Ciena. "Awesome show David and team and crowning it with a spiffy market pop." Love it, and that means, Ciena, you listened all the way to the end. I hope everybody did, I never expect that's necessarily true from one week to the next, but that final point was really the point of the whole episode. So if you hung out for Rule Breaker mailbag item number 7 on our fake mailbag last week, you know the reason that we called it the year the market skyrocketed when we were only simulating that the market had actually under-performed in the year 2052. Why would we call last year's podcast, which was set in the year 2052, why would we call that the year the market skyrocketed? 

Dear listener, if you don't know the answer to that well, Ciena and many others do, and I highly recommend you at least listen to Rule Breaker mailbag item number 7 from last week to get the key punch line and the key takeaway. Although if you're going to listen to number 7, I think you should at least listen to number 6 because CEO Larry McCloskey, whose company name apparently I was mispronouncing for a while, [inaudible 00:07:23]. That for me was one for the books and I had a great deal of fun, not just with Larry McCloskey, but with all of our special guests last week. I'll just cap it right there for hot takes from Twitter, although of our six items this week, the first one speaks to last week's episode so let me go right there from Skip Sears. Skip, really appreciate you writing in from Toronto, Canada, which was a punch line for last week show, one of them. "Dear David," Skip writes, "I enjoyed the year the market skyrocketed from February 16th. You Chris Hill and your other guests described an interesting future for the world and the merits of long-term investing," Skip writes. "At 87 I'm enjoying a retirement without compromise, helped with education of family and causes we believe in." I'm going to full-stop it right there for a sec. I just love hearing that phrase, a retirement without compromise. Skip, you sound like a gentleman who has lived the life you meant to live and here you are at an advanced age we all hope to reach. 

Chris and I thought we'd reached 85 briefly last week and that felt pretty good to us, and here you are at 87, spinning off value for those around you going forward. Good on you, sir. Pick it right back up there. Skip continues, "The MF approach works. Today our focus is still long-term growth, not for us, but our family. As a Canadian, David, I'm curious in your scenario, when did Canada become the 53rd state? All the best and keep up your good work regards skips Sears in Toronto, Canada." Well, I will answer that in just a little while, Skip, but I did want to spend a little time with this upfront Mailbag item reflecting a little bit more on what we did last week. You know how you watch a movie, and then later on the DVD that they used to sell you, there was the making of the movie included with the DVD, which is why you would pay $29.99 cents for a special bonus DVD edition of your favorite movie. Will this Mailbag item is a little bit the making of the year, the market skyrocketed. I just want to make a few points and then answer Skip's critically important question. The first is that of course, last week was paired with two years ago. 

Two years ago, Chris Hill, join me. Once again, this time it was for the day the market crashed. We were doing that at a time where the market had done wonderfully well. The purpose of that week's podcast was simply to simulate what it would feel like if the market wasn't in a good place. In fact, if the market had crashed, let's say, declined more than 25 percent in a single day, and it just happened to be the day that we were doing the podcast that week. In January 2020, Chris and I recorded the day the market crashed and I've always looked back on that one fondly. I do feel like it will stand the test of time. You can always go back anytime you're sitting high in your horse because the market's making you feel that way and you can go back and listen to the day the market crashed and reprocess that, which I think can be helpful for your mindset, which is what we're all about on this podcast and at The Motley Fool. For some months now, I've been thinking what if we reversed what we did two years ago? What during a dicey time for the market where you and I are crying in our soup maybe. 

What if we flipped it for you and helped you process feelings of positivity, would that help you? Especially if we had a little humor thrown it, would that help you live through what investors are being asked to live through low these last couple of months and really this last year or so for Rule Breaker Investors? The only way really to do that in my mind was to set it into the future because compounding returns are real, they happen. Rather than a day where the market crashes, what if we were to create a podcast in which we were broadcasting from a year that the market, "Anyway, skyrocketed" and reflected back to today on what has happened and why. Just a few more thoughts on this making of the market skyrocket. What was important was to build a mythology. I created a one-page PDF and I shared it out with our various guest stars in the week ahead. They tweaked it. It was a Google Doc so anybody could add to it, and together we fashioned a series of stories or events that would take place surprising developments some of them in the 30 years ahead. We had to create a base of content. 

Ultimately, what that gave us was connection because Emily Flippen could refer to something that Morgan Housel had referred to earlier that was off of our one-page PDF so that we were all on the same page if you will. Especial credit to each of our guests' stars last week, Matt Argersinger, certainly, my wonderful, talented co-hosts, Chris Hill, Aaron Bush with us, Larry McCloskey, I'll mention in the SEC, but for each of them, they didn't get to hear ahead of time what anybody else was doing. That wasn't intentional. It's just how life was. It was a very busy week, so we recorded each one separately. So Emily had no idea what Aaron had said. Matt Argersinger wasn't able to strategize with Morgan Housel. I'm really delighted to think what I'll continue to call them mythology that we created, we circulated that and we connected our guests in. You heard multiple references at different points to things like Greenland. I think that's part of the humor that they kept coming back, and that leads me to point number 2. If you're ever going to try this at home, dear listener, I think a really important aspect of shooting something from the future is very similar too. 

I think it has as much as possible and it's ridiculous to try to imagine what technology will be like and what the world will be like 30 years from this month but we went for it. I think that you have to remember in 2052 so much said then we will be taken for granted. It doesn't need to be fully explained. You could just blindly referred to Chunker or the effects of favorable Trulicity, the spillover effects of favorable Trulicity on the world you just blindly referred to them and that creates, I think, a greater sense of Vera similar to it. Like good comedians, we're trying not to over-explain our jokes. Again, when a credit vitality guest stars, I mean each of them is an investment analyst but they're a Motley Fool investment analysts. You can see we're not just looking for good analyst chops. We're looking for excellent senses of humor and people who can enroll with improve often have lots of different interests and our multitalented. That was the group that you got to hear from last week. We have many others like that at the Fool, we can only fit somebody in for one podcast but it was that very similar too that carefully referencing of this or that thing like the crash of 2029 of growth, will that happen too? 

But 2029, some of you tweeted that you're going to make sure you sell all your stocks in late 2028 to avoid what might happen. That reminds me another thing I love about that podcasts is that I think it just created some inside jokes that all of us can use that we can all access as the community for years going forward into the future. When will Fool self-driving, level 4 as Jay Newman reminded us, level 4 self-driving actually happen? It always feel some years away. What will happen to Greenland? Of course, as we continue to treat animals like members of the family and synthetic foods like Beyond Meat get tastier and tastier, and I would say healthier and healthier to the point we might look back on the actual meat that we were eating up until this year and say, wow, it wasn't nearly as good as the food to the future. We might even look back with some pity on you and me today and what we were eating versus the quality of what will have in future. Thinking backward from the future, what Rule Breakers try to train themselves to do my Washington DC licensed plate on my Tesla with reads future. Yeah, I'm the guy with future. I'm always trying as your fellow Rule Breaker to be in the future and last week gave us an opportunity to do that and have a lot of fun. 

Now there was one tweet I didn't read earlier that said, "you'd really enjoyed the character of Larry McCloskey, CEO of the decade coming out of the raging '40s," but that was not a voice you'd previously heard on this podcast. Who was that? I want you to know that is one of my best long-term friends, Todd Etter, who has been a Motley Fool employee for just about as long as I have. I think I've been with us 29 years. I think Todd has been with us 28 and a half. For many years, Todd has served as the court jester at The Motley Fool. He has made numerous valuable contributions across internal communications or company culture events. If you've ever heard Puzzle Hunts or been on one or escaped the room experiences. Todd has designed those at a breathtaking scale for hundreds of Motley Fool employees many times in the past but he also was reprising his characterization of Larry McCloskey last week. He used to appear on our Motley Fool radio show back in our NPR days as Larry McCloskey but we would always have them as a different figure and he was always a villain in the financial world. You'd be creating credit cards for kids. 

Whatever the age of the kids, that would be the interest rate of the credit card. Of course, it was all made up in a fake financial vehicle but at live events like financial seminars attendees didn't know that. My good friend Todd Etter made appearances in the flash as Larry McCloskey in front of people, and I was just reminded of how much I'd like to have Larry McCloskey back sometime again here on Rule Breaker Investing in 2022. Thank you, Todd, for all that you've done for me and for our company, and it was a delight to show you off and share you some with the world at large on last week's show. Now Skip, I promise you that I would answer you're important question, when did Canada become the 53rd state? The answer is, it is up to your imagination sir because one of the things we determined that would be much more effective for last week's podcast was not to try to explain everything but just lightly referenced things. Let me just say if when Canada does become a state, first of all, if and when that happens, I believe it would come out of love and mutual self-insurance that we will be stronger together than we were apart. 

We never even made clear with the 51st and 52nd states were. Skipping whether or not any of this ever happens. What I've learned about predicting the future and I've studied future as sometimes to see this is that you don't have to be too specific or know the exact year something might happen. You can just expect or dream or it's probably your Canadian nightmare that that ever would happen. So thank you for enjoying the humor and leading into as with your Mailbag item number 1. I'm going to throw it out to this community. I had so much fun making last year's show. We're not going to broadcast from the future that frequently but I think it might be fun to introduce that at some point in future as one of our episodic series. Like our great quotes or my pet peeves or old, new, borrowed, and blew. We've created something like 20 plus episodic series, and maybe a from the future series could be fun. I'm not quite clear how we would oriented or what we should do with it. So I'm mentioning this to ask for your help if you want to email us [email protected]. If you enjoyed last week's episode, half as much as I did and while you don't want to have that too often, you'd like to have it again in what form would you like it? 

Give us some ideas. We might just act on it. Rule Breaker Mailbag item number 2. This is from Riley Herrmann. Riley, right hey, David. I just want to reach out because the podcast on the power of regret was such a thoughtful and motivating conversation. In fact, I reached out to multiple people, which I previously thought I think it weird if I reached out. I struck up great conversations with my old friends and I'm incredibly grateful for you and Dan. Planning to read Dan's book and continuing to Fool-on best Riley Herrmann. Well, that was a really fun podcast to do. We probably can't have Daniel Pink on this show too often, although. Generally, he needs to write a new book each time to guarantee his appearance certainly done that in 2022. Riley and many others, I'm glad that you enjoyed it, and I hope you will read Dan's book. Dan has a habit of seizing upon timeless human subjects and really helping us look differently at them and look more intently and intensely at them. His previous book, When, which was about the science of perfect timing. 

One thing I remember from that book is, he pointed out, we can all use this today, although if we all try at the same time, it may not work, but he pointed out that over the course of a day, people especially in the medical field tend to lose energy. They start their first surgery in the morning, and they have morning eyes, they're ready, they'd had their coffee, by 2PM or so, a lot of humans have a natural cycle, where they hit a dead zone for a few hours. Dan taught us through his book when, if you didn't get a chance to read it, that anytime you schedule medical appointments, especially important ones, surgery comes to mind almost always try to schedule those before noon. There's a hot tip from Rule Breaker Investing, if you hadn't heard that one before but of course, it's not for me, or us, it's from Dan Pink, and his wonderful books, and insights over the years, and certainly, the power of regret fits right within that tradition. It was a delight to have Dan back on this podcast talking, in this case about regrets just a couple of weeks ago. 

Definitely flagging that for anybody who may have missed it, and it's one of those that you really can share with others who will benefit, not just the podcast, of course, but the book, I'm delighted to know Riley that you were going to read the book. I tend to read more by the way, when the market isn't doing so great, I might say something about that later. Rule Breaker mailbag, item number 3. This is a quick one from Vince Granary. Great to hear from you again, Vince. David, I love the story of The Star Thrower that you recounted earlier this month. What many don't realize is that the story was written by Loren Eiseley, and appears in his book, The Unexpected Universe, published in the late 1960s. I know you say you start many books, and finish few, and you've just described not just my approach to book spins, but to video games, and many other things in life. I'm awfully good at starting, I'm not often as good at finishing. Anyway, Vince finishes, but I recommend you start one of his works the next time the urge strikes you. 

Well, thank you for that Vince, and I wanted to include this because I always want to make sure we underline the original thinkers, often the writers, and give them their due. For anybody who doesn't remember the Star Thrower, I actually had to Google Star Thrower. I know Vince, you said I told the story, I was like, what story was that, and it's the starfish, it's tossing the starfish back into the ocean one at a time, and the authority figure asks the silly fool who's doing so, why are you doing that, there are so many starfish still here, why spend your time doing that? Then the simple wise answer is, well, maybe I can't reach them all, but I just saved that one's life. I just knew of that story, as a fable one I've heard, mentioned many times, and as I went to my best friend Wikipedia, and consulted with Wikipedia, I discovered a lot more, and I'm glad Vince, that you brought my attention to this. Because I want to know three things about the author, Loren Eiseley, whom I had not previously come across, it's just a reminder, you can read as much as you want, and try to remember as much of what you read as you can, and yet you're never going to come across all of the things. Just think about all the history being created this year, and next, and all the changes in technology. It's increasingly, impossible for even the most broad minded, ambitious of us to really know what I'll call all the things. 

I just feel as if, even though I'm trying to do that, Loren Eiseley had, unfortunately for me, escaped my notice until this Rule Breaker mailbag item. Vince, and here are three things that I think are pretty cool about Loren Eiseley, who lived from 1907-1977. The first was, this is again the Wikipedia page, at his death, he was Benjamin Franklin Professor of Anthropology in History of Science at the University of Pennsylvania. Well, I've talked in the past about what a big Benjamin Franklin fan I am, and so I was just so delighted, to see that it was the Benjamin Franklin Professor of Anthropology in History of Science at Penn. That leads me to my second thing, that I think is really cool in connection with other things we've done on this podcast, and that is anthropology. I hope some of you anyway will remember, Gods of the Upper Air, and Authors in August book, we covered last summer. It was with author Charles King, who wrote about the relatively recent history of anthropology, much of it coming out of American Universities, like the University of Pennsylvania. 

It made me think back to that conversation I had with Charles King, which still feels so timely and interesting to go back to me, especially if you want to have some of your notions challenged about race. I'm not even going to say racism in this case, just Race, capital R. Anthropology, somewhat subverts some of the assumptions, and labels we make around that subject. I think Anthropology, I never took a single undergrad course in the topic, but I think it's very interesting, Gods of the Upper Air is the most worthy book, and I think that Loren Eiseley was the Professor of Anthropology in History of Science at the University of Pennsylvania is extra cool. The author of the Star Thrower, you mentioned Vince, it was actually an essay that appeared in his book, The Unexpected Universe, it was a story from an essay in his book that we're all walking around now, not attributing to him talking about the kid tossing starfish back into the ocean. 

The final thing I want to mention, this is again from the Wikipedia page, publishers weekly referred to Loren Eiseley as, ''The Modern Thoreau''. Well, that one hit me front, and center because I'm a big Henry David Thoreau fan, a lot of you will recognize that. I dedicated one of my 10, and a half chapters to Henry David Thoreau, in a podcast I did in May of last year, and I love that Wikipedia closes that paragraph by saying, the broad scope of Eiseley's writing, reflected upon such topics as the mind of Sir Francis Bacon, the prehistoric origins of men, and the contributions of Charles Darwin. All of that, a brief love letter to Loren Eiseley a man I never met, many of us probably didn't. Although if you ever did, write us [email protected], I love stories that circle back. He died in 1977, may he rest in peace. Speaking of academics, we're onto Rule Breaker mailbag item number 4. Thank you for this letter, Eric Potter. "Dear David, I feel remiss if I don't start every email to you by thanking you for what you do each week." Well, that's very kind of you, Eric, I'm just going to say right back, thank you, for saying that, I certainly don't expect that from anybody, but I do celebrate a practice of gratitude, I think none of us can probably ever do it enough, and free to say, you feel remiss if you don't start every email that way, each of us should feel remiss if we don't start every day that way. I know it's hard to start every day that way but remind us in a single sentence like you just provided us, Eric, I appreciate it. 

You go on, I've recently been introduced to the term, ''embodied knowledge, '' which to grossly oversimplify, Eric writes, "is knowing how to do something as opposed to knowing what that something is," and his example is, "riding a bike is embodied knowledge. As an academic at heart, I love intellectual knowledge. Doing things is harder, and that's why your podcast has been so valuable to me, to paraphrase what Morgan Housel explains so thoroughly in his book, The Psychology of Money, Investing is about managing emotions as much as it is about managing money. When you talk about investing in thirds, you help me know how to manage my feelings, and do investing. When you talk about focusing on the long term, about letting winners win, even if their stock chart wobbles on the way there, and about finding companies, I can feel proud of, these are all ways to do investing." Thank you for that, Eric. "My portfolio gave up a year's worth of gains from mid-November to the end of January, join the club, but you've taught me how to do investing so I'm still here, and still beating the market over the past three, and five years. 

Similarly, your interview with James Clear prompted me to buy Atomic Habits, "that's James Clear's book. I did a wonderful hour-long interview with James Clear, the author of the wonderful book Atomic Habits, Eric Potter, clearly, you were listening that week. You say, "prompted me to buy the book Atomic Habits, and learn how to do important habits I've been struggling to build. For me, 2021 was the year of Atomic Habits, and the moment of personal change. I've recently come across by way of my mom, who listens to every episode in which you read one of my letters another great book." Eric's mom suggested The Bullet Journal Method by Ryder Carroll. Ryder with a Y, Carroll with two Rs, and two Ls. It is a way of identifying, organizing, and executing your priorities, again, the book, The Bullet Journal Method. "My lack of organization," Eric writes, "has been a lifelong struggle that has at times cost me academically, and professionally. I'm early in implementing the ideas in this book, but I can already feel the confidence of knowing how to do so growing inside me the same confidence I have when I held through March 2020, held your stocks, even added to my positions," Eric writes, "and earned sixty five percent returns by year's end. 

Carroll's book is a fantastic companion to Clear's book, and in my opinion, a worthy addition to your authors in August series. A testament to the book," Eric adds, "parenthetically is that I would normally be sending you this recommendation in June or July, that's just before August, but I'm more organized now. Thank you again for all you do Fool on, Eric Potter, PS my Potter index will be five in July, even after the recent drop, my average gain in those five companies over the past almost five years is 234 percent. By, and hold, who knew?" Well, off the air, with spring into my headphones. My producer Rick Engdahl, mentioning to me that Eric's Potter index is something you very likely had previously written us about and my memory being what it is, I'd forgotten but clearly, Eric, these are five stocks that you bought with the Fools help and you're coming up on the fifth anniversary of them in July. I'm so glad that you have that mentality because it's not about five days, dear listener, it's not about five months, it's about a minimum of five years and preferably five decades or more, and I'll get to close this week's podcast with a PN to that mentality. 

But Eric, you're living it with the Potter index. Oh, and by the way, hello, mom. Well, just reacting with a little bit of thought about your note, Eric. I guess I want to say two things, the first is that in-market down times, I have typically spent less time than I do an up times following my stocks and following my portfolio and its performance. I have often mentioned this in the past, it seems irresponsible. It seems you're asleep at the wheel if you walk away from the horrific red numbers and all of the zigs and zags tilting downward on the grafts of the market or your favorite stocks. It would seem to be irresponsible, not to be deeply concerned. Yet, I think some people get to obsessive about that. Psychologists have tell us. We've talked about this many times before the pain of loss is three times the joy of gain. I've always tried to reverse that, so I avidly follow my stocks when the market is hot and we're making money together, and I can crow about on this podcast networks, two-years in three but one year in three historically, the market doesn't do so well. 

Rather than spend a lot of time worrying or obsessing about that, because I know where things are headed. In the only term that counts the long term they're headed up. What do I do instead? These are a few of the things that I do that I certainly recommend to each of you. One is I read more voraciously. I mentioned that earlier. I'll add as an addendum to this one. I also game, I think more socially, I probably play more board games because I have more time, and connecting with others and having a lot of fun with my 900 or so board games kicking around my house, is something that I do more avidly and I feel like I have more time and market down time. Whatever your hobbies are, reading and gaming for me, spend more time, do them with more focus. A second thing I do, I try to do is listen more attentively. Listen. You be Blake, the jazz great used to say, listened to the birds. That's not a bad thing to listen to the birds, you can also listen to your spouse or partner more attentively. Listen to the world at large. Listen to yourself. What this still small voices telling you, might be the next best move or things for you to do. 

Listen more attentively. A couple more of that come to mind, refocus more broadly. It is awfully fun making money in the stock market because it's not just a numbers game, it's not just a mathematical exercise or a competitive sport, but I treat it like that. I like all of those things. No, it's actually a destiny changer, it opens up new possibilities. When we make money, we can retire early, put a kid through school, surprise somebody with a more generous gift than they could've expected, that's a lot of fun but that's just in one area of our lives, the financial area of our life, and there are a lot of other areas of our lives that should be part of our focus. For me to have featured Dan Pink, talking about regret just a couple of weeks ago, reminds us that so much of the time I'm actually talking about life on this podcast, not just investing or business. Re-focusing more broadly and reminding you and me, I'm talking to myself half the time, it's just money, friends. There's so much more to life. Maybe the last thing I want to highlight that you can do during market downtime, some of the extra time that you might find yourself with, is you can act more intentionally. 

I'm thinking of your note, Eric, as I close with that, because you're talking about a different points. You mentioned in your note, your lack of organization has been a lifelong struggle that at times has cost you academically and professionally. I would say very humbly and vulnerably you shared, that doing things as opposed to merely loving intellectual knowledge, doing things for you, you say is harder. By the way, doing things for all of us is harder, not just for you, but maybe during hard times we can act harder. I particularly love, it wasn't just the mailbag item before yours, but in fact, the one I'm about to go-to that has people taking real action as a consequence of knowledge that they've gained, in this case from the Dan Pink interview and that too should inspire you. Rule Breaker Mailbag, Item Number 5 from Brett Wyman, "Dear David, thank you. While listening to the most recent episode of the Rule Breaker Investing podcast with Daniel Pink, you too spoke about connection regret. 

Daniel made a point saying, 'If you're at a juncture in your life and you think, should I reach out or not reach out, you've answered the question. Yes. You should reach out.'" Brad goes on, "This caused me to pause both literally and figuratively as I pause the episode right there to take care of what I needed to do. I had an old friend from a previous job who would reached out to me months ago, but I never responded to them, and felt too embarrassed to respond after so long." Boy, can we all I think relate to that. Hearing Dan Pink speak made me decide to reach out right then and there. Before I could change my mind, I sent the message and heard back almost immediately with that friend being very happy to hear from me. Now we've set up a time this weekend to hop on a Zoom call and catch-up. "Thank you, David, and thank you to Daniel Pink for giving me the push I needed to avoid connection, regret. Best regards to the Fool who has just become smarter and happier and whose life is a little bit richer than it was before. Brett Wyman." 

Part of the fun of Mailbag episodes every month is that I get to choose what to fit. It's not just which ones make it and which ones don't, and so many great ones don't, it's actually the flow from one point to the next, and the conversation that sometimes jumps up between one correspondent and the next. Just like my guests last week, you didn't have an opportunity to hear anybody else's story, to read anybody else's Mailbag item or hear their view of 2052, you just provided your own. But in this case, as a little bit of a conductor of the symphony, I have an opportunity to look across all that's been submitted, and see what speaks, Lauren Isely back to Ben Franklin, or see who speaks Brett Wyman to Eric Potter. Because Eric in so many words just a little while ago said, "I'd love some help with taking action." For me, the best help I get in life, and that I try to share back out through this podcast, is the inspirational stories and actions of others. We're such a social creature, human beings. We so influence each other. A lot of us have heard of the six degrees of separation. If you haven't just google it, you'll learn all about that. 

A lot of us already know that, few of us in my experience know about the three degrees of influence. The way I've sometimes phrased in the past, my wife's coworker's cousin helped me lose weight. While I will never meet my wife's coworkers cousin, and I had no idea, neither would that person that they helped me lose weight. This is all hypothetical. I think I probably do need to lose a little weight, but this isn't happening. I don't think for me, unless of course it's subconscious, which is the whole point about the three degrees of influenced were never really aware of all of the forces that are influencing us, because these connected humans. I'm think about the internet during this through social media today for good and for ill. We're constantly influencing each other. We are social creatures, we're copy cuts, we're looking for heroes and trying to emulate them in many different contexts. 

Anyway, it's so much fun for me to look over a Mailbag pile and notice one note talking to another, even though the two correspondents had no intention of doing so, the power of regret. Thank you again, Dan Pink. That brings us to the final mailbag item this week. Rule Breaker Mailbag item number 6 for my pal, Adam Nelson. "Hi David. I've always loved your stories and analogies to help all of us think about the stock market. The roller coaster analogy is perhaps the most apt right now. I hope that there aren't many people considering jumping off or sticking their legs out, as we have accelerated downhill recently before the inevitable climb. I would love your thoughts on some specific companies as it relates to your horse racing analogy." We're jumping from my roller coaster analogy, [laughs] which actually I think I'm going to end with this week. But we're going back over to the horse racing analogy. Adam, you pick it up there for PayPal, Netflix, Meta, that's Meta Platforms, of course Facebook's new name Meta, and quite a few others. This is a horse race. Their leads have shrunk considerably coming around the last turn. 

You might even say those horses have slipped, fallen to the ground, and have faces covered in mud as they struggle to stand up again. While I know there's no real homestretch in your analogy, and most of us have plenty of time on our side with many laps around the track yet to come, how do you think about the right time to bet on a jockey to pick the horse back up and continue winning the race? Do you wait patiently for a good quarter of results to show that the company is indeed still a winner, or put your faith in the proven jockey at better odds than you might get if you wait for the winner to become obvious again? Specifically looking at PayPal, Adam, because it's one I own. I have faith in Dan Schulman's track record, and I think the future is bright for the industry. Do I wait a couple of laps to see that my horse is just as fast as he was before taking off the blinders and looking affectionately over at my other horse Pinterest, while also worrying about the tough conditions on the track, that would be inflation and supply chains Adam supplies, or do I just place my wager as quickly as I can when the odds have shifted much more in my favor and the payout has significantly increased if I'm right? 

Like you, I always stay fully invested. So I'm really only talking about what to do every two weeks when faced with so many great buying opportunities. I could buy the small number of recent winners I have like AMD and Alphabet or any of the beaten down stocks I own that I still believe in. As great companies with bright futures, thanks so much for all you in the Motley Fool dutiful investors. Full-on, Adam Nelson. Well Adam, great note, and I think a lot of us could hear our stories in your note, I think some of us can see our stocks in your note. Netflix, for example, which lost 20 percent of its value in one day a couple of weeks ago, remains my largest holdings. Yeah, it's hard to watch the horse race sometimes, it's hard to watch what happens to our horses, and by the way I've seen Netflix have much worse times around the track than just a couple of weeks ago. There's a lot going on in your note, and one thing I'm not really going to speak to are the individual cases of those companies. I do find them interesting, but I'm also not as focused on individual companies and going deep dives on them as much anymore. 

I think you know of the transition I made at the Motley Fool last year, but I do have some thoughts for you nonetheless. It was last year. It was, in fact, I'm seeing now January 13th, that I did six principles of the Rule Breaker portfolio. That is exactly what you're referencing in your note because it's in that podcast when I gave the six principles that you and I can use to build and maintain our portfolios, a brand new list of six principles. Horse racing was indeed a big analogy I used, and I'm going to mention it again here, because principal number five, you'll remember Adam, is good news, you get to invest through the whole race. That was my way of saying, as you build and maintain your portfolio, you can actually watch what's happening out there in the world and invest accordingly, unlike horse racing where you have to make all your guesses ahead of time and then you can't make any bets during the race until it's finished and you see if you won or lost. As investors playing the long game, we can watch avidly incisively, and we can invest all throughout the race Each of the companies you just mentioned I think of as a long-term winner and a continuing leader in what it's doing, Meta is in a tougher position because they are trying to transition a lot of their business toward the Metaverse. 

Whether or not that works, and if you listened to last week's show you might have some sense of our humorous take on the Metaverse, but each of those companies is really a trailblazer, continues with R&D money, to lead and to study the future, and they are probably further ahead in the race than you think because they're looking into the future when a lot of their competitors are just trying to catch them where they are today. That, for me, has been why I've been rewarded for my winners win mentality, because often part of that winning is all of the R&D money that you and I are not seeing how it's being used, but often it takes that lead husky off into really new interesting paths that nobody else would have guessed at. That's true whether Meta works for Meta or not. A reminder to you Adam, and a reminder to all of us, good news, you get to invest through the whole race. To conclude, I can't exactly tell you which horse at any given point in your portfolio, in your race is worth betting on this two weeks with, I hope, 10 percent or so of this two week's salary. 

But I totally in there with you saying it's worth dollar-cost averaging 26 times a year, and each time you should be asking yourself which of these companies that I may already own, or something new that isn't in my portfolio, but which do I feel great about over the next three-plus years. You don't need to invest in something just because it's down. Often, I've said, add money to the ones that are up and doing well, or find new companies to add to your portfolio. We don't have to be right about PayPal, or Netflix, or Meta at all, or this week. Anyway, we can continue to study and diversify our holdings if we don't have the confidence that we need. There's a little bit of thinking about where we are right now in the horse race and the horse race analogy, and again that six principles of a rule-breaker portfolio for anybody who might not know how I think you should build and then steward your portfolio, that podcast is there for you, just google it, Rule Breaker Investing six principles of a rule-breaker portfolio, and you'll hear my full thinking from one year ago, which remains current with today. 

Enough then with the horse racing analogy, let's go back to my roller coaster analogy, because I do think it's very apt for where we are right now, and it's the closing sentiment and thought and analogy that I want to share with each of you this week. I've often likened in the past, investing to being on a roller coaster ride but there is one big difference between the investing roller coaster and an actual roller coaster. I think most of us have probably at one point in our lives been on a roller coaster. You drop off your stuff, you step down into the roller coaster, you strap yourself in, make sure that safety harness thing is secure over your chest, and you get ready, and you have, I hope, a lot of fun. After about three minutes you go up, you go down really fast, feels somewhat like the stock market, which is why this is an analogy for me. But you end up where you started at the end, and there's one big difference then between the investing roller coaster and real roller coasters, because as you get off the investing roller coaster, you are not at the same place you started, because as it turns out, you've ascended a mountain. 

The whole time, even though often you couldn't tell, you couldn't feel it, with every passing loop, and loop to loop, and slow rolls up, and stomach turning drops down all along, you were going nine percent or so higher up the mountain, and you had to sit through every one of those drops as well, because you couldn't get off the investing roller coaster. But most of the time, of course, it was fun, and now your reward, because normal roller coasters leave their riders right off where they started, unstrap yourself from your seat, gather your belongings right where you left them and move on. But on the Motley Fool coaster, maybe we'll build one of those for real one day. If we do, it should be built like this, the Foolish roller coaster, the Rule Breakers roller coaster winds up leaving you off as you depart, not at the same place you started, compounding, but instead far higher than you ever could have dreamed. Wow. If you would only have learned, and acted wow, just look at that view.