The Motley Fool's David Gardner Closes 2022 With Some Questions and a Rap Battle

It's time for another Rule Breaker Investing mailbag episode. We tackle questions including those about kids and games and apps. And we've got an AI-generated rap battle between one of The Motley Fool's co-founders and Shakespeare.

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 Dec. 28, 2022. 

David Gardner: Here we are at the end of it all 2022. All of it. You and me here together at the end of it all. What did you make of it? How did you do? How would you score yourself? What's your single favorite memory or moment? Did you have your heart broken? I bet you did at least once. Never forget that, but do get past it. What three lessons will you take away? And with whom will you share those three lessons? Ringing in the New Year, English speakers worldwide each year sing, "Should old acquaintance be forgot." Remember that lyric is actually just the start of a rhetorical question. I don't think 18th-century Scottish poet Robert Burns was suggesting that you forget old acquaintances.

But some nontrivial amount of this year, 2022, we might want to forget. Thinking of how many stocks were down 60 or more percent, which we revisited on last week's Market Cap Game Show. We might want to forget a lot of the investing this year, me along with you. So if that's you, you have my Foolish permission to do so.

Here at the end of it all, we will close things out, as we always do every month. This week, is your mailbag, and so for the 86th time in Rule Breaker Investing podcast history, the 86th mailbag at the end of it all, only on this week's Rule Breaker Investing.

Welcome back to Rule Breaker Investing. It was a fun month. The month of December, especially if you like games, is always going to start fun on this podcast. Games, Games, Games, Volume 4, my best shot at giving you my five favorite lighter family strategy games or word games this year, and my five favorite harder-core strategy games, many of which did come out in 2022 but all of which got played a lot in 2022 -- sharing that out, already having heard back from a lot of people on Twitter that I helped you put something under someone's tree. Well, that's really the intent of Games, Games, Games, and Volume 4 was a lot of fun to do.

And then of course our Besties, every year, one of my favorite podcasts to do -- guest stars like Dan Pink, and Michael Hebb, and Candice Maillard, and Robert Brokamp and Chris Hill from Fool fame. A delight to celebrate some of our favorites in the year ahead. And then the Market Cap Game Show came back last week with its new throwdown rule, and of course, the OG player, Matt Argersinger rejoining with me and Andy Cross. Lots of fun. I hope you got to share that podcast with someone else. It's a great play-along kind of a podcast. With family and friends maybe still around, you can make use of that, for entertainment purposes only, any time you like in the next week or so as we get ready to ring in the New Year. So that is the month that was: Games, Games, Games; Besties; and the Market Cap Game Show.

And once again, I have a delightful set of mailbag items. You writing in; me sharing back with thoughts. And that's the guts of this particular podcast. As I mentioned, it has been every one of the last 86 months that we've done a Rule Breaker Investing mailbag.

I'd like to start out with hot takes from Twitter. I'll highlight two this month. The first one comes from, well, it's actually a combination: @Jason_Trice, and then @cwestfall08 replying. Jason, you tweeted out, "I subscribe to David's bull-bear market theory of checking my portfolio." You quote me: "In bull markets, I get busy tracking. In bear markets, I get busy living." Thank you for that, Jason. And yes, that does accurately describe how I bandwagon onto following the markets with fervor and excitement as they rise, which indeed they do most of the time. When they fall, admittedly, I'm less interested in checking. It seems irresponsible or as if I'm avoiding the truth, but really, I reallocate a lot of my time into getting busy living and thinking about the things I could do better. And that approach has worked in bull markets and bear markets for me for, yeah, around 56 years, and counting.

Well, CWestfall08, you replied: "@DavidGFool admits he checks the market every day." And indeed I do. I check the market every day, multiple times a day if I'm around. I love following the stock market, and it seems maybe contradictory to some who would think, well, "But David buys and doesn't sell, and The Motley Fool always advocates the only form of investing that counts, which is long-term investing. So why would that nitwit who hosts that podcast check his portfolio multiple times every day?" Well, at least in bull markets. And my answer back has always been I follow my baseball team during baseball season every day. I follow my football and futbol teams every day. I love college basketball. There are a number of things that I love to follow with avidity as a fan who wants to see the game being played, who wants to learn from what's happening and learn every day, even though I'm not going to change my stock market portfolio or my favorite sports teams based on just watching them every day.

So yes, CWestfall, it is true. I do check the market every day, and it's not something I feel any need to admit. I assert. I love it. I've had a lot of fun, and I will keep doing so in the decades to come.

One other tweet, this one from Mike McMahon, @ProShopGuyMF1. On Twitter, Mike, you wrote, "After listening to Robert Brokamp's Memento Mori episode on the Rule Breaker Investing podcast, I checked off the box," Mike writes, "to update our will from 35 years to create an estate plan which now addresses our accumulated wealth. I will let the kids decide what to do with the house in 25 years," Mike writes.

Mike, I'm delighted to know that Robert's scary stories told around Halloween of people who didn't finish their wills or didn't update them motivated you to make that positive progress in your life. You are exemplifying what I hope all of us will do as we age over time, knowing our own mortality and the importance of leaving to those who come after something that feels accessible, something that feels helpful, not a mess. Anything from a basement or attic that never got cleaned out or a will that never got written. So thank you, Mike. That certainly does connect with a lot of what we did on the podcast this year, thinking about talking about Death Over Dinner. Michael Hebb appearing earlier this month, talking about that which is about to lead me to my first item -- mailbag item No. 1. Before I do so, I will certainly just remind again, this podcast is @RBIPodcast on Twitter. I am @DavidGFool. You can always tweet us out, and I share some of my favorites every month in the mailbag, as I just did.

All right, let's proceed onto Rule Breaker Mailbag item No. 1. This one comes from longtime correspondent Jason Moore. Just a lovely note, @JimminyJilickrz on Twitter. By the way, I continue to enjoy Twitter not because I pay much attention to all of the news that surrounds Twitter, but because I have a lot of friends on Twitter, and we learn from each other and share every day, and if you're not already joining, I encourage you to do so. Jason Moore is an outstanding example of somebody who you would enjoy following on Twitter. I certainly have, Jason. Thank you for this note. "Hi, David and Rick. Another amazing year is almost in the books for the Rule Breaker Investing podcast. What a year it's been. You've definitely been living up to The Motley Fool's motto of Smarter, Happier, and Richer, and I know I've been in sync with it when I select seven of the same Besties episodes in advance of your picks."

Although looking at my list, I snuck in a bonus guess of 11, and Jason's mentioning that on Twitter, he previewed his own picks for the top 10 of this podcast for the year. He put them out there, made himself accountable, and indeed, Jason, you and I agreed on seven of those, so great job. I think we think, as fellow Fools, a lot alike.

Speaking of the Besties, Jason goes on: "The most recent episode, the 2022 Besties, continued the trend of 'top it.' I loved hearing from your previous guests and their reflections from your conversations. I admire your ability to bring out the best in people. It's always on full display during those chats. You asked for us to reach out if one of these All-Star guests had improved our lives. Well, the short answer is that they all did it in their own unique way. However, it's likely no surprise to you that your April guest, Michael Hebb, made a very strong connection for me. I've written a few versions of this letter today and can't quite find the right words to do it justice, but I need to say thank you."

And before I continue on with this note, I want to thank you again, Jason, because longtime listeners will remember this, but many people who are new will not. You are the reason that I read Michael Hebb's book, Let's Talk About Death Over Dinner, and then eventually we had him on the podcast, which you're reflecting on now. But you were the reason, Jason. You put out a list of books that you loved. I saw that on Twitter, and that particular title, I guess it was just, it caught me right on a given day, and so I read and love Let's Talk About Death Over Dinner. And of course, Michael Hebb ended up starring on this podcast three separate times over the course of this year. So thank you, Jason, because you're the reason that happened.

Anyway, continuing on with Jason's note. "Actually, thank you to all your friends who took the time to join you and Michael for your own Death Over Dinner earlier this April on the podcast. Thank you for taking the time to be strong and vulnerable all at once and share with us some very personal reflections from your lives. Although I had read the book a couple of times before that episode and it was a driving force for some very positive changes in my life," Jason writes, "I had not been able to share those questions with some of the most important people in my own life up until then. After hearing the ease and flow of the conversation on that episode, I took the step to have a very positive and meaningful talk with my parents, although I opted for coffee instead of dinner.

"It always felt as though there was never a good time to talk to them about subjects that may appear off-putting or morbid. But I'm so happy that I did. I was able to connect with them in an entirely new way and hear some stories and aspirations that I never would've gotten otherwise. My dad has never been much of a talker.

"Carpe diem is a phrase that is used in so many different ways. Sometimes it's used for deep inspiration, other times as a flippant offhand remark to get moving. I would like to go verbatim and suggest that for the important conversations in our lifetime, 'Seize the day' is a worthy slogan.

"Wishing you all the best in and through the New Year. I'm looking forward to what 2023 has in store. Foolish best wishes, Jason Moore."

You know, I don't have a lot to say back to that one, because it spoke so well on its own, Jason. I guess I'll just say that part of what i enjoy about this podcast and I've enjoyed, really, in my 30 years at The Motley Fool, is having conversations, real and authentic, with real people like me and you, but specifically finding people that I enjoy and that I admire. And whether they're really well known, like someone like Dan Pink, or lesser known like you and me, the opportunity to share some of our very best thoughts and share those out across Fooldom, across this fair land, across the globe, that is what I really love about this podcast. And Jason, you are a wonderful example of being a resource to many. Thank you for that wonderful mailbag note.

All right. Rule Breaker Mailbag item No. 2, this one from Adam Nelson. "Hi, David. Thanks for everything you've shared with your listeners this year. I was hoping you could share a few more game ideas for a dad with young kids to play together. I have three daughters," Adam writes, "ages 10, 7 and 4. As they've grown older, I've loved being able to play more games with them. However, it's not always easy to play by the actual rules at their ages, and the classic games such as Candy Land," Adam writes, "are woefully inadequate, as you referenced in your podcast." Thank you, sir.

"I was pleased that you gave a shout out to Cascadia this year, even though it wasn't a featured game in the podcast episode because, well, that game was already under the tree. If you have any other ideas, I'd love to hear them. What games did you play with your kids at those ages? My kids have taken a liking to chess, which I love to play, but I can't bring myself," Adam writes, "to let them win." Winky. "Other games we've played or attempted to play together so far include Ticket to Ride, Arboretum, Forbidden Island, Acquire, Yahtzee, Risk, and a few others. I wish that list to grow considerably in 2023, and I wish you and your family happy gaming with many cherished memories over the holidays. P.S., you should develop a Motley Fool stock market tabletop game. Best, Adam Nelson."

Well, thank you for a great note, Adam, and there was, by the way, a Motley Fool stock market tabletop game. It was a rebranding, a retheming of a Reiner Knizia title from many years ago. If you Google "Motley Fool Buy Low Sell High," you may still find in secondhand shops or other stores, used games, eBay, you may still find copies of the Motley Fool Buy Low Sell High game. Is it the greatest game of all time? No. Is it a decent enough game? Yes, especially to put our name on it. Did we have delight partnering with world-class game designer Reiner Knizia in reintroducing an older design of his to a new crowd in English with a stock market theme? The answer to that is yes as well. I'm not going to overhype this game because it's not that easy to find these days, but it's out there, Adam. And if you're motivated, you'll find it.

But mainly you're asking about additional game titles, and sure, for a mailbag, in a month in which we talked about board games, I'm more than happy to put it in a few more titles. And several of these I've mentioned before, maybe in past years, so I'll just mention these will be more tilted toward your 10-year-old than your 4-year-old, and as my kids got older, they got more and more fun to play better and better games with, and that's a reason for hope in 2023, because kids get older and the games we can play with them get better and better. So in no particular order, I think Reef is an excellent strategy board game. It plays two, three, or four players in about 45 minutes. Very teachable, I would say, even to the 7-year-old, and a game that you can play over and over again. Reef.

Dominion, the original great deck-building card game, is probably the single game that our kids played more than any other. Hundreds and hundreds of plays. And we continue to play the game these days, even with everybody in their 20s, or some of us in our 50s as well. So I highly recommend Dominion as a wonderful family card game. Again, much better for the 10-year-old than the 4-year-old.

Speaking of 4-year-olds, though, a game like Carcassonne, the classic tile-laying game, while you can't really play the full-on rules of Carcassonne with a 4-year-old, the concept of laying down a tile that's a hexagonal tile and fitting it to match terrain with other tiles around it, that's at the heart of a game like Carcassonne, and it's a wonderful puzzle activity. It's really not much different from a jigsaw puzzle, but unlike jigsaw puzzles, you can start adding in some rules and other concepts from the game of Carcassonne. So I can certainly recommend that one to you as well. And in fact, whispering in my ear, my producer, Rick, reminds you there's a Carcassonne Junior title that's out there these days.

A few other titles. Codenames, of course, the wonderful partners word game -- play with a friend against a pair of friends or family members. Excellent replayable word game. A few more. Tichu, the family competitive traditional card game, not exactly a 52-card deck but much closer to that. Maybe our most played parlor card game over the years. Fantastic strategy game. Two more. Again, much more for the 10-year-old. Sagrada, where you are making your own stained-glass window, which happens to be composed of little translucent dice in different colors that you need to arrange with certain numbers and colors in certain patterns. Just a wonderful dice drafting replayable game with a few different expansions if you really get into Sagrada.

And then, finally, Pandemic, which, well, yeah, we've just lived through one, so thematically it makes a lot of sense. But Pandemic by Matthew Leacock, really one of those games as a cooperative family game that is really a top breed within that genre, that category of family cooperative games. I grew up in a family back in the 1970s and '80s -- cooperative games didn't really exist back then. The concept of playing all together with mom and dad against the system or against the big buddy, that wasn't really around a few decades ago. These days, it is very much, and a game like Pandemic is a great leading example of a good strategy game. Family level, the 10-year-old, maybe the 7-year-old. But as they grow up, you can find Pandemic, and of course, Pandemic Legacy, which I've mentioned a number of times in the past.

Anyway, Adam, I hope that gives you some more ideas, I realize it's past the under-the-tree time, but you were talking about the year ahead and those kids will age one more year and become even better gamers. Wow, you play chess against them? You don't let them win? That reminds me of my friend Todd Etter, who once gave me a great trick, which I've used as a dad. Todd grew up in a gaming family, and his father always played all out against his son, but what his father did is handicap himself mercilessly. So for example, if you wanted to play chess and not let your child win, but enable your child to beat you on a regular basis, which might actually be more satisfying for the child, then maybe she gets to move twice in a row, then you move. Then she moves twice in a row, then you move. You're going all out, but you're probably not going to win. And if she wins that way, then maybe next time she makes three moves, you make two; she makes three more moves, you make two. You can start threading it. So any game, you can create, as an adult, constraints for yourself that are ridiculously constraining in some cases, in order to make for a fair game, or a game that your child can win some and yet you never were birddogging it or letting them. You were always demonstrating full-on competition, but understandably, as the adult in the room, you were handicapping yourself.

All right. On to Rule Breaker Mailbag item No. 3. This is an unusual one insofar as it wasn't triggered by anybody writing in, but rather by an event near and dear to my heart that meant something to some of our podcast listeners over the past week. So let's talk about it briefly on Rule Breaker mailbag item No. 3.

Now, a lot of football has been played in the last month or two. And most of it that has most of the world's attention is futbol, not football, but this is an American football story. Some of you who avidly follow the NFL will know that the Indianapolis Colts were up 33-0 earlier this month in a football game and somehow managed to lose 39-36 after an amazing comeback by the Minnesota Vikings in the second half.

Now if you are a football fan, let's talk about that briefly. You'll know that you should have, and probably were, shocked to think that the Colts, playing on the road in Minnesota, would actually get a 33-0 lead. The Vikings are 10-3 this year. The Colts have been a losing team this year. How could a losing team playing one of the best teams in the NFL be up 33-0? Yeah, that's a great question on its own. But even more fascinating to me was the comeback that succeeded. And it reminded me of friend and former Indianapolis Colts head football coach Frank Reich and a story from his past.

Now, Frank Reich, who's appeared on this podcast, made some great appearances last year. I've become friends with Frank. I was so disappointed when the Colts let him go earlier this season. He was in his fifth season. He actually has a winning record as a full-time head coach in the NFL, and yet he was fired even with a winning record over five years. Does this sound like your favorite stock, something that's won for five years but was treated poorly? Over the last year? Frank ended up getting let go. He had had to work with five different starting quarterbacks, actually six, over the five years he was in Indianapolis and had a winning record.

So of course, I'm a Frank Reich fan, and when the Colts let him go, I no longer was a Colts fan, which was therefore interesting to me when the Colts were up 33-0 and then gave away that lead and somehow managed to lose in Minnesota. And it was much brooded about at the time, a couple of weeks ago earlier this month, that that was the greatest comeback in NFL history, which is what it was. The previous record holder for greatest comeback in NFL history was when the Buffalo Bills came back against the Houston Oilers in the playoffs a few decades ago. The person quarterbacking that win back in the 1980s, the Bills backup quarterback, who came in the second half, was Frank Reich, which led to this tweet from me earlier this month: "The record for greatest comeback in NFL history previously, the Buffalo Bills, led by quarterback Frank Reich, was just broken against the team, the Colts, that fired head coach Frank Reich."

And to close this brief mailbag item, I started thinking about the movie Heaven Can Wait. Did you watch this one? It was a 1978 Warren Beatty vehicle, Warren Beatty planning Joe Pendleton. I won't spoil the whole movie, but he basically ends up coming back from the dead at the start of the movie. It's a comedy, but also a drama. You've got Dyan Cannon. You've got Charles Grown in this movie. Joe Pendleton, Warren Beatty's character, ends up being the quarterback for the Los Angeles Rams and also owns the team. So Joe Pendleton ends up owning the Rams and putting himself in at quarterback, and near the end of the movie, spoiler alert, entering the Super Bowl game, the Rams are forced to start a different quarterback, Tom Jarrett, in the climactic game. And unbeknownst to the fans in the stands, Jarrett gets hit on the field, and you don't know it, but you know watching the movie, he's been killed. And in the fantasy of the movie, Warren Beatty's character re-enters the body of Tom Jarrett, gets back up off the field, and quarterbacks them to a championship.

Are you still with me here? It just made me think, is there a chance that the Vikings' head coach -- who happens to be Kevin O'Connell this year -- is there a chance that somehow Frank Reich occupied his body? And the same guy who is a quarterback brought a team back a few decades ago for the greatest comeback in NFL history somehow got, somehow, into the body of the Vikings' head coach and then coaches that team to the greatest comeback in NFL history, breaking his own record and beating the team that fired him? Is there a chance that happened?

Rick Engdahl: Sounds like a sequel to me.

Gardner: You know, that is what Hollywood does. The only bad thing, Rick, about sequels, as we well know -- we've talked about it many times this show -- movie sequels are almost invariably worse than the movies they replace, whereas one of the reasons I love video games, video game sequels are better. Anyway, I would still, even with bad reviews, go watch that sequel. Thank you, Rick Engdahl.

OK, on to Rule Breaker mailbag item No. 4. This one comes from a longtime Fool and master storyteller, David Gec. Dave, you were listening to our Company Culture Tips Volume 10, our Best Ever. And then I had Lee and Kara, of course, back on Besties earlier this month. And you're reacting to that. "When hearing the ideas," Dave writes, "from your HR folks, I always think of one that worked well for me. It came from a manufacturing environment, but the key point, I think, is universal. My manufacturing plant," Dave writes, "was on a tight budget, but I wanted input from my line workers. We had tried suggestion boxes but never really got anything of value. I came up with my $5 idea. If someone had an idea on what we could change on the factory floor and we could do it for $5 or less, we would have our manufacturing team consider implementing it.

"I ran the idea past my staff. They went on about how they were college educated, while our assemblers, our people down on the floor, rarely had even an eighth-grade education. Our plant was in Mexico. The average age was probably 20. They agreed that in many cases there was more than one acceptable assembly process or sequence, but the chances of switching to another one and it being better was nil. Yet the work they would have to do documenting a different process, both for our records and floor visual aids, would be plentiful, and in the end, my staff said 'wasteful.' Rather than saying that maybe someone would come up with a great idea, possible because they did the operation thousands of times in a week while the engineer worked it out in a few tries, well, I agreed that I expected no great breakthrough. Instead, I was looking for a feeling of inclusion for my workforce.

"Well, after a month, we all met again. The manufacturing managers said the workers were happy with being able to have input. My controller commented that over the month, our efficiency had jumped almost 7%, with no other projects having been implemented. My QC manager," quality control, "reported higher quality and pointed to two process changes that had been turned down and explained to the operators why it was not a good process change. In both cases," Dave writes, "it made an operation further down the line more difficult to do. That means that although the proposed change made it easier for the front-of-the-operation workers, they could see how it did affect others and had no desire to make their lives easier at the expense of others down the line, or of our quality.

"Well, my manufacturing engineers said it was a lot of work and that no brilliant idea had come from the floor but could see how it was benefiting the company. As mentioned," Dave concludes, "this happened in a manufacturing environment, but the key point was to make the workers feel ownership in their work. The productivity came not because they found a better process. The productivity came from them owning the process, and they were going to make it work even if it meant a bit more effort on their part. I told my staff that nine times out of 10, when they told me what they were going to do to implement a task that I'd given them, it was not what I would do. I told them most of the time I felt the way I would do it would be better, but I would just give the OK. Well, they objected and said, 'Why wouldn't you give us the benefit of your experience and tell us a better way?' I explained that my way might have some issues along the way and they would feel OK in giving up on my bad idea. If it was their bad idea, though, they would work hard to make sure it worked, because it was on them.

"I remembered from back in Ranger School during my army days, we would give our plan and the Ranger instructor would say, 'It's a plan.' And then we would go off and execute it. The key was you didn't have time to come up with the best plan. All you needed was a feasible plan that would be feverishly executed. Rare it was," Dave writes, "that it didn't meet the objective, and rarer it was that the person who came up with the plan did not put in 100% to see it to success. Your grateful listener, David Gec."

Well, I love that story, Dave, and I think for two reasons. The first is that you are speaking from your own experience, and I love that you understood the importance of everyone feeling included. I think that's so much more a 21st-century model for capitalism, and especially conscious capitalism. Well, I'm sure that there were some visionary people who were kinder and gentler back in the 19th-century days of industrial manufacturing. I have a feeling there wasn't nearly as much inclusion back then.

So No. 1, I loved that that story comes from your own experience. But No. 2, I also love that it accords with, I think, what many of us hearing it would expect, which is that when you give people say in something, whether it's your line workers in your manufacturing environment, even if many of them never went to college, or, even, let's say, your kids, or the next generation as you think about wealth transfer -- in every case, inclusiveness is going to work more often than it doesn't, even though inclusion is often not the instinct that many of us have in a leadership position.

So I think that's the key takeaway, and even sometimes if it's not a great idea, or not the best plan, you're pointing out it'll still be effective, because even if people are operating off the second best idea, not the best idea, if it was their idea, their ownership will cause them to work even harder than if it was not their idea and it was your better idea. So thank you, here at the end of 2022, for more great wisdom.

All right, on to Rule Breaker mailbag item No. 5 of six this month. This one from Ted Eun. Ted has been a longtime contributor as a member of our farm team at The Motley Fool. Those are people who go above and beyond, often starting as members of our services and end up making contributions because they're passionate about community, or helping us research stocks, and Ted Eun, you are one of those. And thank you for your Foolish service, sir.

Mailbag item No. 5. "Hey, Dave. Longtime Fool here. Dedicated farm team member following the services, participating on the discussion boards, trying to help out fellow Fools and consuming everything Foolish, including the Rule Breaker Investing podcast." Well, thank you, Ted. "I have to be honest and confess, I mainly listen for your investing advice, like the Review-a-Paloozas, Market Cap Game Shows, mailbags, and general investing thoughts. I listen to the other topics out of loyalty, or curiosity, probably will faithfully continue to do so even when the Review-a-Paloozas eventually wind down. I usually find the advice, life hacks, author interviews, pet peeves informative and humorous, but I never really think I can use them that much in my day-to-day personal life, or at work as a scientist at a biotech company that has been Rule Breakers recommended in the past. Well," Ted writes, "that all changed last week.

"My story begins during your Nov. 30, 2022, mailbag episode, when you were reviewing one of your life hacks from the Nov. 2 episode. In it you were describing how you simply use different color highlights to remember different points while reading books. The email you received from Kara recommended the app Readwise to you to track your highlighted notes." Yes, indeed, it did, Ted, and and I've been loving using Readwise ever since, which I've previously mentioned.

Ted goes on. "Then another mail was from ProShopGuy recommending the app Roam," R-O-A-M, "a connected note-taking app." Ted writes, "In my day job, I read a lot of articles from scientific journals. I scribble my notes, but I share your problem that after dozens and dozens of articles on many different subjects, I have difficulty remembering what I read weeks, months, and years ago. My notes just become a swirling mess. The problem with traditional note-taking is that it's essentially a linear process. I write one note, then another, then another, and so on. Over time, I eventually build a metaphoric tower of knowledge, but it's unsearchable. I have stacks of note pads in my office that I never refer to, and yet they contain much of the information that I've read over time.

"So my interest was piqued about your highlighting method, and if I could apply a similar process to my note taking. Well, following Kara's tip on Readwise and then ProShopGuy's tip on Roam, I went down a rabbit hole on these next-generation note-taking apps and how they help retain information. I ended up comparing Roam with Obsidian and with Logseq," which is spelled, by the way, L-O-G-S-E-Q -- Roam, Obsidian, and Logseq, "eventually," Ted writes, "settling on Obsidian.

"The killer app feature of obsidian is that it connects with Zotero" -- Z-O-T-E-R-O for those who haven't heard of this before, including me, Zotero -- "which is a reference manager for all my journal articles collected over time. So now with a little bit of effort, a little bit of coding, and a lot of guidance from fellow academics also using Obsidian and Zotero, there's a method to directly download all my annotations from a journal article PDF into my Obsidian notes. Mind. Blown." Ted writes. And I need to pause it there for a second. This is obviously a little bit of a longer-form story. But I'm especially pitching this one to fans of Building a Second Brain, which is a book we've talked recently on this podcast about, one I have greatly enjoyed and we'll probably be touching back to in 2023.

But just as ChatGPT and other chatbots are entering on the scenes so, too, these days are smarter and smarter ways of taking an organizing your notes, or a book like Building a Second Brain helps you understand the processes by which you can organize your digital life. And if you, dear listener, are like me, you know that it's really needed. Our digital lives often spread across multiple platforms. In Ted's case, he was annotating PDFs but not being able to make any use of them, whether it was analog papers stacking in his room, or digitally. So, Mind. Blown. Picking it up there, Ted writes, "The power of these next-gen note-taking apps is that they assume that note-taking is unstructured and disorganized. These use a series of tags and links to connect the ideas and the notes. Instead of building a tower of notes, I can now build a web of notes. It's like making your own Internet of knowledge. And these apps are like a mini-Google for all the information you've stored." Again, fans of the book Building a Second Brain, this will sound very familiar to us as well.

Nearing Ted's close here. "Looking to learn how to use Obsidian, I started watching some YouTube videos describing how to leverage the power of Obsidian, how to assemble your notes into something that helps you search and process all your information. I came across Vicki Zhao, who makes very approachable videos describing her note-taking process. In one of her videos, she's describing how she was taking notes from a particular book. That was Atomic Habits by James Clear, who you featured on your April Fool's Day, April 1, 2020, Rule Breaker podcast. Everything," Ted writes, "came back full circle. A mental image of you highlighting the passages in Atomic Habits with different colors suddenly popped in my mind.

"I thought this whole process was a wonderful metaphor of my goal to eventually interconnect my notesm from the simple process of adding more highlighting colors when reading an informative book, to a recommendation on Readwise to catalog the notes, to a recommendation on Roam to connect the notes, and then to Obsidian, and then circling back to an informative book. It just shows the power of the connections in the amazing Fool community that you and Tom built. From the AOL days, the coolest thing about The Motley Fool has been using the power of the community to help each other invest by sharing ideas, and now this amazing network of Fools accomplishes that, and it is now extending beyond investing ideas. Happy holidays and Fool on. Ted Eun."

Well, that was a longer note, and I wanted to read the whole thing, Ted, because I think you really did a great job bringing it all full circle. I think the headliner here, and the takeaway for all of us as we enter a new year, is, are there ways for you and me to organize our notes better now? Not everyone's even a note-taker, but if you think of note-as-idea, not just "note," are there ways to organize our minds in such a way that they remember better or hold onto the precious things and, beyond just that, begin to connect those precious things together in ways we never would have foreseen before, or with the outside world with new things that we encounter in 2023? The reason that note was worth reading in full, and the reason that I'm really focused on this area, not just for myself but for all my listeners right now, is because I believe the act of choosing to remember something, taking a note and then filtering that down to the things that you really want to remember and then beginning to connect them like Lego blocks that were different colors or different shapes, all of a sudden you realize this is going to build something new. Both will enhance your productivity and your creativity.

And Ted, you did a beautiful job talking about a comment I made on this podcast about highlighting e-books in different colors. You took that all the way through multiple Fool connections to get to what sounds like an all-in-one solution for you, uniting your professional work with your home work. The work that we all do in our homes, trying to be better humans, more productive for more people and for more causes. So thank you very much for sharing that Foolish story, Ted. And for our listeners, I look forward to talking more on these subjects in the year ahead, because it is so apropos for so many of us, especially with every passing year, more things to remember, more things going on, how do I organize it all?

All right, well, another trend emerging from this podcast toward the end of the year was about ChatGPT and AI bots. Dan Pink highlighted it earlier this month. We discussed it even last week on our Market Cap Game Show. It's very au courant, isn't it? Have you yourself used ChatGPT, which you can sign up for for free and just start to chat back and forth with artificial intelligence? Maybe you were using DALL-E earlier this year, where you could type in a text phrase and it would create original images, again based on AI.

Well, it's still very early days for this technology. But the reason I wanted to end with Rule Breaker mailbag item No. 6 is because this involves written materials straight from ChatGPT. How else would I want to end this year but with a rap battle between me and Shakespeare? Now of course, we're from different eras, so we never really would've had this chance with each other. But all it takes in this case was my middle child, my 26-year-old son going, "This would be funny to share with Dad." And so his simple prompt was, "Write a rap battle between David Gardner of The Motley Fool and Shakespeare." And about five to 10 seconds later, this appeared.

Now, is this the greatest piece of writing of all time? Is this worthy of Shakespeare? Definitely not. Is this even worthy of me? It's probably better than I am, but maybe it's not even worthy of me. Is this the piece de resistance of AI chat for 2022? Emphatically, no. But is this somewhat impressive, given the little amount of work my son did and the great enjoyment that I'm going to have performing this at the end of it all, 2022? Rule Breaker mailbag item No. 6, a rap battle between David Gardner of The Motley Fool and Shakespeare.

Again, all AI, no editing, and please excuse any self-aggrandizement. It was not intended. This is a lark. My son prompted ChatGPT.

AI David Gardner:
I'm the co-founder of The Motley Fool, the one they call Gardner.
I provide investment advice and help people grow their dollar.
Featured on CNBC and Bloomberg, my words carry weight.
I'm the modern-day oracle, a financial prodigy straight.

AI Shakespeare:
You may be a financial guru, but you lack poetry and flair.
I'm the master of the pen, the one who's beyond compare.
My plays and sonnets are timeless. They've stood the test time,
While you're just a money man consumed by the almighty dime.

AI David Gardner:
You may be a master of the pen, but can you master the market?
I've made millions for my clients. My advice is never off target.
I may not be a poet, but I speak the language of money.
I can turn a small investment into a fortune, honey.

AI Shakespeare:
You may be able to turn a small investment into a fortune, but can you turn a phrase?
I can take a simple word and spin it into gold. My talent is beyond praise.
I may not be a financial guru, but I have a different kind of riches.
My words will live on forever, while your advice may one day become obsolete.

AI David Gardner:
You may have a different kind of riches, but can you retire at 40?
I made smart investments and built a successful career. I'm no slouch.
I may not be a literary genius, but I know how to make money.
In the world of finance, I'm the king, and you're just funny.

AI Shakespeare:
You may be the king of finance, but can you conquer the human heart?
I've written some of the greatest love stories of all time. I'm the master of the art.
I may not be a money man, but I have a different kind of power.
My words will inspire and move people while your advice may only serve to empower.

AI:
The battle between David Gardner and Shakespeare may never be won.
Both are masters of their craft under the sun.
One is a financial genius, the other a literary legend.
In the end, it's up to us to decide who is worthy of our attention.

Real David Gardner: Well, to you, my dear listeners, to Fools everywhere, and my new archrival, William, Happy New Year. Fool on.