Motley Fool Co-Founder David Gardner Looks Back to Learn

In this episode of the Rule Breaker Investing podcast, Motley Fool co-founder David Gardner leads us through Essays From Yesterday, Volume 4.

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This video was recorded on Feb. 1, 2023.

David Gardner: For years and years and years, I wrote essays in Motley Fool Stock Advisor and Motley Fool Rule Breakers, essays to kick off the issues. It would be May 2008. Wow. Remember 2008, 15 years ago? In addition to our new stock picks and best buys now that month, the mailed issue of Rule Breakers lead off with a page 1 essay from me, and same with the next month and the month after that for years. Recognize any old-school references, phrases like issues, mailed issues. These days our services are digital. We don't do paper copies anymore. We don't do opening essays either. There's no page 1 anymore. It's simply wouldn't get the clicks.

But I put a lot of time into those essays and as they occurred over a long narrative arc of history, 2002-2017, 15 years worth of them. It can be both educational and amusing to go back and see what was being said when. The purpose of The Motley Fool is to make the world smarter, happier, and richer and that's exactly what I was trying to do with those essays over the years. I've pulled some favorites with some timeless truths I want to introduce or for long time, Fools, reintroduce you to our Rule Breaker thinking over time this week. But this isn't nostalgia or about yesterday, because I think it might just be an excellent way to educate, amuse, and enrich you today. Only on this week's Rule Breaker Investing. 

Now let's get into it. Essays From Yesterday Volume 4. This is the fourth in the series. We last brought you the previous episode essays from yesterday, the start of last year. It was January 5th, 2022. I first kicked off this series in June of 2020, and I just had this instinct to go back because I think we learned so much from revisiting what we were saying, thinking, and doing, especially if you're a stock market investor, having a memory can be so helpful. Now I have a very poor memory, which is why building a second brain is an important thing and has been a great benefit to me over the years. Part of what we're doing when we write something in 2002 or 2017, if it had wisdom or if it can teach an investing lesson.

Well, I've tried to save those and that's really ultimately what this particular series is all about. A couple of ground rules about how this really does work, how it has worked from the start. First of all, I completely randomize which essay I'll be sharing with you. For 15 years, I wrote 18 essays a year. 15 times 18, that's outside the multiplication tables, which for me ended at 12 times 12 equals 144. Although, if you're a quick study, you could do 13 times 12, just adding 12 to 144 and go above and beyond and know that 13 times 12 was 156. But 15 times 18, that doesn't come as easily to my mind, maybe yours too, but I can tell you it was 270-ish essays. What I've done then is I've randomized out of those 274. I don't know ahead of time until we plan this podcast what I'll be speaking about, since I'm randomizing.

Of course, I wish I could cherry-pick my best of all my favorite essays. I guess I like all of them in a way. It's just that some of them are probably more right than others. You never know how right or wrong I will be with any of these, it's completely randomized and often I'm going to be referring to some stocks so we get to look them up, see how they've done. We'll always have some doozies I suspect both ways and indeed I can tell you this episode is no exception. Anyway, that's the first ground rule, we've completely randomized from 274 essays. The second ground rule is they're in chronological order from earliest to latest. For example, this particular episode, I'll be sharing an essay from October of 2009. Then we'll jump forward to the next October two years later and then two years later, the October after that. 2009, '11, '13, we'll close it out with one from 2014 again, just randomizing the year and randomizing the month and having to suffer through whatever I was saying and let's have fun together. Let's get started.

Well, Rick, if I could get, please, a little bit of way-back music because here we go, strapping it in, back in the way-back machine. Once again, we're headed to October of 2009. I'm thinking I'm recalling the market, hadn't had a very good two years or so, although it was about to turn. I think as 2009 ended, the horrific bear market was starting to end now in retrospect, and I wrote a 14 baggers, 14 lessons and counting. Here we go from the October 2009 Stock Advisor issue.

The news was a shocker and it turned out to be just the start of big moves here at Stock Advisor. Disney is buying Marvel. Now Adobe is buying Omniture. The deals touched off so many thoughts and reflections that I, David here this month can't possibly capture them all in this space.

But Marvel has been such a successful stock for so many of us for so long that I'm going to try. Disney's offer to acquire Marvel at a 30 percent premium raised Stock Advisors first recommendation of Marvel to a 1,300 percent gain of 14-bagger. Here's the start of my 14 lessons from this experience, lessons for any investor, whether you owned Marvel or not. In an age when so many, including some of our own fool.com writers ask, "Is buy-and-hold dead?" So many though, not from the Fool say, yes. Marvel taught us that, 1, buying and holding great companies can earn you tremendous returns. Don't let small f, fools, scare you out of patient ownership of great companies. That's because, 2, you never know when they might just get bought out from under you.

The same thing happened to us with Pixar, which Disney bought in 2006. Of course, 3, we didn't need Marvel or Pixar to get acquired when you're buying stock in great companies, they'll do just fine on their own. Indeed, 4, when big companies gobble up great small ones, though the small company investors receive a premium, they're often robbed of far greater gains the small company could have achieved on its own. I suspect that was the case here. Five, it's OK to feel a bit angry, even when you get a 30 percent premium on top of a stock already near its 52-week high. As I write, Marvel has gained 1,300 percent since our initial recommendation in 2002. The directly comparable S&P performance is zero percent. It turns out that, 6, good stock-picking can make you a lot of money in sideways markets, but 7, you have to be invested to do so. If you sit on the sidelines waiting for a good market, you'll often buy after the market's already been good.

I'll emphasize this because I'm extremely proud of it. We made 14 times our money holding Marvel over seven years when the market was exactly flat. Through superior stock selection, you can make money in any market, you can even, 8, make good money in down-markets. A month-by-month investment in the S&P 500. Since Stock Advisors start in March 2002 averages a four percent loss. My average gain over the same period, 54 percent per stock, Tom's isn't bad either, 32 percent per stock. I have at least six more lessons to share, but I've run out of space. Join me on our Marvel discussion board where I'll take the number to 14 and beyond and ask for your lessons too. In the meantime, congratulations to all Marvel and Omniture shareholders.

As we describe in our update section, we recommend holding Marvel and letting Disney take the ball from here. We think it's worth holding Omniture as well, we'll keep on investing using these lessons learned keeping our eyes open for the next marvelous multi-bagger Fool-on. That was it. Wow, that is fun to revisit. Of course, I'd forgotten, I'd written it in the way that I did. I thought it was cheeky that I only gave eight of the 14 learnings and unfortunately, I'm not really sure where discussion board posting was of mine on the Marvel Board back in the day. How to find it today? I will be able to share with you the 14th and final lesson though, because I have that saved, which I'll share very soon. But for each of these four essays, I'd like to just briefly reflect before moving on to the next one.

Let's reflect on a couple of things. First of all, early on in that essay, I referenced how some of our fool.com writers occasionally disagree with what we're doing in our premium services. That was true back then, it was true before that and it's still is true today. Anybody who's been a longtime Motley Fool member is used to this. But a lot of people get confused by this because they'll come and join Motley Fool Stock Advisor and they'll buy one of our stocks and then they'll see an article on our site that says, this doesn't look like a very good stock pick and they'll say, wait, I just paid you guys for your advice and I just read an article on your site that said, I shouldn't have bought that stock. What's happening? That's where we have to explain what Motley really means to us at The Motley Fool, specifically in this context, it means that we encourage all of our writers, that includes our analysts, many of whom you've gotten to know on this show over the years.

Many of our contract writers, many of whom I've never met, who write articles for us on a daily basis talking about what stocks are up and what stocks are down. You can find on investing portals and fool.com, a wide variety, a huge number, literally over time ten thousands of people have written or writing for us. You can imagine there's not a party line you toe that wouldn't make any sense for our business. Referencing early on in that essay that one of our article titled said something like as buy-and-hold is dead, which sounds a little bit like a clickbait headline to me, anyway. But I'm glad it gives me an opportunity back then and even today to mention that there is not a single party line at The Motley Fool.

Well, we could talk more about Marvel, but it's no longer an independent public company. It is today, of course, a big part of Disney. I do suspect that had we been able to hold Marvel stock, it would have done great on its own, but I also believe that Disney has provided the resources and a lot of help and planning and hype all kinds of resources from whatever the latest trailer is for the next superhero pick this summer, right back to, well, Spider-Man, the very first one, which is what caused me to recommend Marvel stock in 2002. It has been an absolutely outstanding investment. It's well more than 14 times its money by now. That's all I really want to say about Marvel. It was in 2002 an incredibly great stock pick.

It's performed really well in the 21 years since and I hope at least one of you who's hearing me right now bought along with us in 2002 with Stock Advisor and you still hold your Marvel in the form of Disney today, I also referenced in that essay that Pixar, the exact same thing happen. Bob Iger took a shine to some of our Rule Breaker picks and started buying them. I had already stocked picked Pixar a number of times for our members when Disney bought them out in 2006, and then here they were in 2009, buying out Marvel. These have been really successful ventures for Disney. It's a delight to think that Fools back in the day were owning these stocks and watching this happen. Finally, I promise you I would give you Lesson 14. Lesson 14 from Marvel is that The Motley Fool community is smart. If you go back, if you can find it, find the very first posting on our Marvel Community Discussion Board.

It was dated June 17th, 2005 as we opened up that board. It was posted by Farnam Street Fool, that's the screen name. It was posted at 1:05 AM Eastern on June 17, 2005. That posting ends and I kid you not "Do you think this company is an attractive buyout candidate? If I was a media entertainment conglomerate, I would certainly be interested in Marvel. I see Disney as a natural suitor. What do you think?" An incredibly great ending to the first posting ever posted on the Marvel discussion board at The Motley Fool, that is the 14th lesson. You Fools, you listeners, you community members, you're smart. Rick Engdahl, take us forward through time. It's time to advance through time. We're time-travelling. Two years later, it's October again. We're sticking with Motley Fool Stock Advisor.

This essay was entitled, Two Small Innovations and here we go, "Effective innovations start small." Wrote management guru, Peter Drucker, "I, David, this month, agree. I had far rather be the master and commander of numerous small piloted efforts, many of which may fail than the overseer of a single innovation for crowning kings." Acronym intended side note, I think the acronym there is S-I-C-K, sick. At Motley Fool Stock Advisor, we are starting two small efforts this month to help you invest better. First, effective next month we will publish our best buys now one week earlier than our issue over in my Rule Breakers service for months now we've piloted this small effort to member a claim.

Our thinking goes like this. Why are we throwing all are interesting new ideas at you at once? Rather than publish a great reveal in one new issue each month, new picks and best buys now, we aim to spread the fun over more of your stock advisor month. Beginning in October, you will start to receive best buys now, the second Friday of the month, please note, we will still be including them with your printed issues as well. If you don't spend time with us online or in email, you will still find our bright, merry, and market beating list right here as usual. Yes, with Drucker, we're starting small. That's another way of saying two things. A, if for some reason a huge portion of our Stock Advisor membership doesn't like this. We'll consider it a failed pilot and go back to the same old, and also B, if the membership generally likes this direction, we may look at further ways to make Stock Advisor more relevant to you throughout the month as opposed to primarily on issue day.

Second, and in keeping with B above, we're delighted to introduce our new Stock Advisor calendar. For many of our regular online visitors, you've already seen it. It resides at stockadvisor.com on our issues and coverage tab. Look on the right side, its purpose to boldly go where no Motley Fool service has gone before and provide you a scrolling visual roster of the upcoming most relevant events for our membership. Those include dates for all earnings announcements of our company's dates for their dividends. Reminders about timing of service features, issue day, weekly updates, etc. We're excited to help you look ahead with us at upcoming items of great interest, like any innovation of any size, both of these aspire to be noticed and appreciated. They also have thick skin, these little guys so if you don't like them or see ways they can be improved, please let us know.

Address your feedback to [email protected] and with regard to pre-published content, e.g., best buys now. Now, please note that you must ensure your opted in to receive updates. These two initiatives join a growing roster of service improvements we've made over the years. Core holdings Best Buys Now, my scorecard end. What's next? Not sure. It'll start small. Well, that was October 2011. Here we are, more than 11 years later and thinking about that essay in regards to the first, that's a little bit more mundane. It's just talking about how we're trying to improve our service for you, our members.

Separating best buys now from announcing our new stock picks was an important moment, I think, in the history of Stock Advisor and of Motley Fool services, we were tending to throw you all of our stuff at once and we thought we can be more relevant to you by spacing it out through the month and indeed, many of our services these days in digital formwork just that way. We're not trying to soak up all your time. You don't need to check in on a daily basis. Pointing your browser at your Motley Fool premium services, but you certainly can. We certainly have enough information there on any given day that anybody can. Thinking back to the use of the phrase printed issue in that essay reminds me that that's something we stopped doing sometime between 2011 and today.

I'm sure some people still mourn not having The Motley Fool in print, but I don't think many of us do anymore. I do want to say something about the great Drucker line of starting small. It was some years later, I reflected on this in this podcast a few years ago when I had most recently seen Jeff Bezos in-person, you'd given a talk in Washington DC that I attended in one of his quotes and the talk that he gave, the appearance that he made, I wrote down on a Post-it note and just bumped into it today in my rather messy study. It's very similar here it is, "Everything I've ever done had started small." That's Jeff Bezos. He went on to say that day that for him, he's seen small things get big. I can't imagine many people living on earth today have started with the kernel of an idea as an entrepreneur and grown it to the size and relevance and importance of amazon.com today, one of the things I love about entrepreneurs of any size and stripe is that you start it with a light bulb that went off over your head.

Somehow you turned it eventually into a product or service and you began to grow it and maybe you even made enough money, you could hire somebody else and start creating jobs. One thing I think we should all deeply respect about entrepreneurs, even ones you may not like. H has his critics. I'm not one of them, but certainly, a lot of people didn't like Steve Jobs back in the day either. But one thing I think we can all respect is their thoughts on how to start things and I love both Drucker and Bezos speaking to just starting small. Well we've got two more essays and the next one has a speeding through time. Once again, this was all random. I rolled a 20-sided die to see what year we're pulling from that. I rolled it 12-sided die to see what month. Sure enough, I kept rolling a 10 on the 12 sided die.

Is this too much information? Anyway, here we are. At October of 2013 we're advancing through time. We're going over from Stock Advisor where the first two essays appear to Motley Fool Rule Breakers. This one entitled Miss Chipotle Regrets. TMFSarahGen is one of my favorite Fools. Sarah Goddard's screen name includes our corporate acronym TMF, which says three things. One, we've noticed her intelligence and her passion for stocks. Two, we've keenly appreciated how she embodies our Motley Fool core values and thus 3, Sarah is part of our enterprise. This is true of an increasing number of Fools in our community. They are being invited to help out on our discussion boards. We are covering stocks as ticker guides. Or in Sarah's case, where they're 99.83 caps rating.

She's also a Supernova team member on our Odyssey One mission. Its portfolio at last count is up 63 percent, a considerable 38 percentage points ahead of the market in less than two years. Sarah is the very model of a modern major Fool. I'm happy to take up this question she posed to me recently. She wrote, "I've been thinking a lot lately about your partial sell of Chipotle in Rule Breakers in summer 2012, the stock did fall, but rebounded and more. I know you don't do regret, but I wonder if you have thoughts or reflections." I am of five minds on this to wit. One, no regrets. On September 16th, 2009, we rerecommended Chipotle stock at $89.77, having picked it three years earlier at $60.60. We sold that position on June 27, 2012 at 391.78. That marked a four-bagger, a 336 percent return versus the S&P's comparable rate of 32 percent. I do not regret market-crushing four baggers that happened inside three years.

Two, some regret. That position held through to today's 415, would now be nearly a five-bagger and without doing any more work besides just keeping our hands-off the wheel. Three, no regrets. It was a partial sales since we left the other position intact, and I intentionally sold the smaller position in hopes that long term, the bigger percentage mover would drive our scorecard hire further, the sold position is up six percent, while the S&P 500 over the same period is up 28 percent. Four, some regret, though Chipotle's stock valuation looked way ahead of the business, that's often been true of our best stocks. Tesla, anyone? The right move has often been to stand by these stocks. We made a "stock decision" when we're generally rewarded for making" business decisions.

Looking at the business and saying, "Are things going great?" They were and are. They're my first four answers. I see too many colors on the canvas to pick out just one. I'm grateful to have avoided the jobs where success equals punching home a single three-word message and a fifth, it's not just whether you sold, it's what you did with your sold money. Hint, our two new picks that month were Stratasys and Protolabs. Sarah, I think I would probably do the same thing again, but maybe not and not always. Before I reflect on Chipotle because that's what we're about to do, each of these essays was exactly 500 words. As I turned them into my editor, I don't know if i was lightly gamifying or just that pedantic, but i specifically submitted every single essay at exactly 500 words, thanks to the word counter on my word processing program.

That's why they take all about the same few minutes to read because they're all exactly the same length. Miss Chipotle regrets well, there's that old Cole Porter song, Miss Otis Regrets we were certainly punning off of that. But the question was really had we missed Chipotle and did we have regrets? Sarah Goddard, long-term Fool, who I think stepped away from the organization some years ago. Sarah, I hope you're hearing this and enjoying your retirement, but it was a pleasure to get to share your name again on this podcast, Sarah has appeared in the past on Rule Breaker Investing. Really, that's the first thing I want to point out about this essay, highlighting wonderful community members and contributors over time. Of course, in my first two essays, there was Farnam Street Fool with the first post on the Marvel discussion board.

How much has each of you, especially those with us for a long time as community members, listeners of our podcast, how much have you meant to us over time? A lot. Indeed, many of you have made contributions. Sarah became a full-time Fool for a while. We paid her a salary, but many others start as contract writers and somebody like Tim Beyers who today runs Rule Breakers, I had Tim on the podcast a few months back, started indeed as a contract writer. I also mentioned caps, which I'm not going to talk about right now. But that has always been a wonderful tool for us to see how well people we don't know pick stocks. Second thing I want to reflect is it was one year ago this week that on this podcast, I happen to have Dan Pink, who happened to have written a book called The Power of Regret.

I had Dan on at the end of December because that was a bestie for me for 2022. It's really fun to think randomly that it was this very week, a year ago that Dan taught me and all of us not to say you live a life without regrets. Sarah, at the start of that essay, had said to me, I know you don't do regret. But I wonder if you have thoughts or reflections and I'm actually glad in that essay that I did do regret back in 2013. I can certainly see the benefits of having held Chipotle stock all the way through had we done so. I do want to make it clear. Motley Fool Rule Breakers has had a position in Chipotle since 2007. It has been a huge winner. Our cost basis against $60.60. Sarah was reacting to a second position we took when the stock had jumped up to 89 as I often do as a Rule Breaker investor I add to my winners and it went from there in 2009 to 391 in 2012 when we decided maybe the stock had gotten ahead of itself a little bit.

We sold that four-bagger in less than three years at a pretty nifty profit and held our original position, which we still do to this day. Now the reason I'm talking about this is because we should review now, dear listener, Chipotle's performance. One thing I love about Chipotle, it's never split stock. That makes it so much easier to look at the numbers and understand exactly what's happened. Chipotle today is at $1,638 as Rick and I record the podcast on Tuesday, January 31, the final day of the first month of the year. It's at 1,638, which means our cost basis of 60 and change were up 27 times overall on that fantastic pick made by Rick Munarriz in the Rule Breakers service back in 2007. It's been a tremendous winner, but the question was, what about that partial sale of that partial position? Let's look at how things played out had we held that original position at $89.77 when we added to our winners in 2009.

Well, today that position would be up 1,700 percent. The S&P 500, by contrast, up just 300%. Do I regret the partial sale? Yeah, you bet you, I regret the partial sale now in retrospect. It is also worth noticing though the day that we sold that partial position of our Chipotle, from that day, June 27, 2012 to this, Chipotle stock is up 300 percent, the market's up 200 percent. In other words, Chipotle has beaten the market over the last 11 years, but not by that much. Indeed, it wasn't necessarily that bad, a sale just versus the market if you play it forward. I think those things are really interesting, but I ended the essay in a most unfortunate manner now, in retrospect, because I said, after all, Sarah and dear reader, it's really what you put the money into, that's how you should be scoring whether you should have sold or not.

What did we put the money into? Well, I mentioned the stocks right at the end of that essay. The stocks were Stratasys and Protolabs. This was about a year later, at the time, Protolabs and Stratasys were each up over 100 percent for us as 3D printing became all the rage for a few years on the stock market. Again, Protolabs and Stratasys both exists today as independent public companies. They're both still going, but there are no longer a big part of anyone's limelight and we took our Chipotle profits and we put it in a sense into those two stocks. Protolabs would briefly shoot up to be an eight-bagger. During the pandemic, it made a huge COVID run as a stock, but Protolabs is now back to where it started. It's up zero percent since that day we recommended it in 2012, almost exactly zero percent, here 10.5 years later. Stratasys, I'm sorry to say, has done much worse.

It peaked at the end of 2013, shortly after I wrote that essay and talked about how awesome that investment had been. It is now down about 75 percent from our initial position. It's a sub one billion dollar market cap company today, a very unfortunate turn of events. The 3D printing stocks didn't really play very well for us. The technology remains relevant today. But I guess on the positive side, I'd like to point out two things to close. First of all, we have held Chipotle in Rule Breakers all the way through from $60.60, it has been a huge winner. The other positive I'd like to close with is I mentioned Tesla toward the end of that essay and how sometimes stocks get ahead of themselves, but you do well often to hold them anyway. It hurts when you look back over 2022. For a lot of us, we watch stocks, we had profits in from profits to losses.

But as I've been saying, just keep swimming. Tesla, whether it was ahead of itself or not, at this point, our November 23rd, 2011 cost basis for our members is up 150 times in value. Tesla stock has split twice the equivalent now of 15 for one, so our cost basis, $1.12 for a stock that's around 173 today. By the way, I did point out in something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, I did point out the benefits of considering Tesla at the start of this year. I didn't expect this, but it's gone from $103 a share a month ago to 173 as we talk about the stock today. Again, stocks can get ahead of themselves, but if you just keep holding Chipotle and Tesla, I think you'll be rewarded, you certainly have been over meaningful periods of time.

The only ones I count decade plus and while it's sad to think about Protolabs and Stratasys, maybe we can also reflect that great brands, lots of people have heard of Chipotle. Lots of people have heard of Tesla, sometimes that can help us toward some of the better stock investments that we make. Not so many people have ever heard, even back in the day of Protolabs or Stratasys and maybe there in another investment lies. Anyway. there it is. Miss Chipotle, regrets from October 2013. The final essays from yesterday, and Rick you can probably not play the same sound effect as you did last time because we're not going that fast or that much farther into the future. We're just 11 months forward.

So it would be 11 months after that essay that this one appeared entitled The Beating Heart of Rule Breakers. As I prepared for this week's podcasts and reread this, I thought, Wow, I'm so glad i randomized this because it elegantly summarizes a number of the themes and points already made, and ties a bow around it to close this week's podcast. Here we go. The Beating Heart of Rule Breakers. I should point out just before I start this one, this happened to be the month that was the ten year anniversary for the Rule Breakers service. Every month, for 10 years, Rule Breakers has been bringing you two recommendations of companies we believe will beat the market. From a talented team of analysts, five primary sources, each contributor gives his top three potential recommendations each month. From those 15 recommendations, month-in and month-out, 120 months, 120 times, I've tried to select our best two ideas that month. That's how Rule Breakers happens and it works.

As of today, our average selection has gained 85.2 percent. The S&P 500 over the same period has gained 45.5 percent. So our process has consistently achieved something that most people are told, whether by academics, Vanguard or Burton Malkiel, author of a Random Walk Down Wall Street, can't be done. We have never agreed or else Rule Breakers wouldn't exist. Commit to our rule-breaking approach and you will do better than average. Part of this reward is that, heck, you have a lot more fun too, how naughty of us, to defy conventional wisdom and make more money than we're in "supposed to". But I want to convey something more here. You see, there's also a very human dynamic to how Rule Breakers works. Our efforts are neither algorithmic nor machine generated. From the outset, I picked a team of exceptionally Foolish contributors to breathe life into Rule Breakers, and ten years later, we're pretty much all still here.

My primary subject today, our hero is Rick Munarriz. Do you own any shares of Baidu, Keurig Green Mountain or Chipotle Mexican Grill? If so, you own those shares because Rick, TMFBreaker, Rick presented those stocks to our team years ago as worthy. As I recently inventoried the greatest picks in our rule-breaking history, it turns out that those three stocks are it. Baidu is up 26 times, Keurig Green Mountain has multiplied 13 times, Chipotle from our 2007 cost basis has risen 11 times. I want all of you to know that these three greatest picks in our service's history all began with one talented and thoroughly Foolish individual, my friend, Rick Munarriz. More broadly, the message I'm conveying is that it's a team effort. Great Motley Fool services always will be.

That message goes beyond Rick and his other analysts, teammates here at the Fool, right through to you and our community, as many of our best and most active members contribute insight and perspective that is invaluable to our team. So it's a true team effort though I do want to highlight that any great team is led by some star players. Rick Munarriz, thank you for taking all of us to dreamy heights. Fool on. While there's something really delightful about randomizing and happening upon things that connect with each other. What a delight it was to get to share with you the essay from just one year earlier, all about Chipotle, and then to talk about in this one to close this week, the man who picked it, and that Rick Munarriz had at that point the three best picks in the service's history. Probably my face was all over Motley Fool Rule Breakers back in that day.

But I was the first to say, this essay being an example, that we're a team, and we have such talented people, not just on the Rule Breakers team, but yes, we do today, but of course, across our whole enterprise. So many of you, whether for this podcast, it's the mailbag items that you send me that we get to share together. So many of you are also contributing to our forums online at fool.com talking about stocks there. Some of your contract writers or full-time employees at the Fool. Many of you are just well-wishers. You, people, using our advice and helping us over time by say, "Hey, Dave, you looked at this stock? Hey, Rick, Tim, have you taken a look at this stock?" We benefit every single day at The Motley Fool, thanks to the wonderful community that I hope we never take for granted. A few other reflections and then let's move on to other things in our lives this week.

But one is that I realized when I do essays from yesterday, this episode, I'm often talking a lot about numbers. I'm not sure it's that easy to hear me spat out numbers one after another. So I'm going to try not to do it here. I did a lot just talking about the numbers of Chipotle, the numbers of Marvel, or of Protolabs and Stratasys. I apologize to anybody who doesn't like to have numbers read at them. I guess it's also going to be true of us though, that when you have a score, everything mentality, which is my mentality, that you're going to end up often interpreting things through numbers. I think especially since numbers are dollars, there's often a dollar sign tied to the numbers that we talk about on this podcast and through our company, The Motley Fool, I guess I think it's important then that we do score, and that we do talk about numbers.

So my apologies if it's not the best podcast. Maybe this should have all been a blog, I don't know. Then final thought, I love that that was the 10-year anniversary of the Rule Breakers service that was of course, back in 2014. The service is now in its 19th year. Rick Munarriz, Tim Beyers, Karl Thiel, many of that exact same team are right there doing the same work, but with many new contributors as well. There's something really great about a team that stays together and about having people. Fred Reichheld, the Harvard Business School professor, wrote a wonderful book called The Loyalty Effect. Having the loyalty of long-standing employees and certainly long-standing customers as well, partners, suppliers, shareholders, the list goes on, the more loyalty enterprises generate, generally, the stronger that they are.

So every month, for 10 years, we've been bringing you this service. This was the essay that cap that off. But I do want to underline that phrase, every month. It reminds me of the importance of regularity, of stability, of saving money every two weeks from your salary. I would say investing that money consistently. Maybe you do it every two weeks or maybe you lump it up a few times a year. But being regular through good markets and bad often, you can't know if it was good or bad until all in retrospect. That's why it's important to act in the present. I think the regularity of Motley Fool services, consistently coming out with the next pick and the pick after that sets the right rhythm and the right tone for those Foolish enough to follow along.

This reminds you, I think we have to have Rick Munarriz back on the mailbag this month just to reflect some on this essay may be or on his 20-plus years with The Motley Fool. Well, there it was, Essays From Yesterday volume 4, four essays. As always, full of some really horrendous mistakes, but also some heartwarming and inspiring facts. All of these things happened, and I'm sharing them in a fake news world. I'm sharing with you real stuff that's happened all the way through, and especially, we're having that opportunity together to reflect and take away some lessons that we can use this week, this month, this year going forth. From the past, to the present, to the future, this week, I guess, celebrating the past, yesterday, I send you off to today. See you next week. Fool on.