Today we extend our conversation with several listeners and dig in to four beautiful questions to make us all smarter, happier, and richer.

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This video was recorded on March 03, 2024.

David Gardner: Happy Saturday. I've said that some over the years we've probably done, I would say 15 or 20 Weekend Extras in our nine years. It was time for a 16th or a 21st because if you got to spend time with us earlier this week, you already know what to expect. Great camaraderie, conversation, shared wisdom, maybe a little love too, with some of my favorite Fools contributors to this podcast, Mailbags, over the last nine years. We thought, in addition to the earlier podcasts we recorded this week, why wouldn't we spend a little extra time, if you wanted to spend it with us for the first time together as a group, and explore some open-ended questions? I've got four of them, and that's what we got for you for this rare Weekend Extra. Let's get started.

Welcome. It is an Extra. We don't do Extras enough. It's extra fun to do Extras. This week had made extra sense to do Extras because of the crowd that we had. You, dear listener, spending some time with us on your weekend or some time after, I hope you're looking forward as I am to opening it up with this group of Fools. I have four open-ended questions, just to have, I hope, an enjoyable discussion, full of some wisdom, maybe a laugh or two. It's not going to be too long. This is a Weekend Extra. I prepared four questions, and I'm going to take them one at a time. Are we ready, team?

Question number 1, we're going to reflect unchange and adaptability here with this first question. I want you each to look back over the years of investing and engaging with Rule Breaker Investing. What's one significant change that you've made to your investment strategy or mindset as a result of an unexpected lesson or experience, maybe something that might surprise you or us to hear? How has adaptation contributed to your growth as an investor? Jason Newman, I see you with your hand up. Start us.

Jason Newman: Sure, David. I gave this one some thought, and I can't help but think back with wonder about the concept of a spiffy pop. I remember you always used to say, and probably still do, spiffy is for closers because I'd be so excited at the first thing in the morning after a good earnings report that I might have a spiffy pop coming, and the change for me was when the term forget-me-pop became old hat. The change for me, which was just truly remarkable and amazing, was when spiffy pops were not even celebrated anymore because the power and the value of the time that had passed made them almost inevitable on a daily basis in some cases, and really the impact that it's had on me as an investor has been to be, a, comfortable enough to just let my winners run, but more importantly, perhaps comfortable enough to just let my losers lose. I used to comb through my portfolio on a bi-annual basis and sell the the real dogs. Now I'm totally comfortable having mine, and like you, I still have never lost all of my capital, but I've got some that are like minus 80. I just never sell anywhere, and that's I guess the change.

David Gardner: That really is a change in Jason. Just defining our terms briefly because many listeners, many Fools, fellow Fools, will know what a spiffy pop is, but there are also new people all the time. This is when you make more money in a single day than the cost basis that you have for that stock, so if you bought a stock way back at $12 a share, let's say. It usually does take some years, Jason. Years later, the stock goes up by more than $12 in a single day. We call that not just a pop, but a spiffy pop, and forget-me-pop, which Jason also, as a fantastic Fool, knows, and I hope the whole world knows this, but for those who don't, once you get 13 of those, when it happens for a 13th time for the same stock, which by the way will happen. If you get them, and you behave this way, you will have your winners keep winning, it becomes a little bit not worthy of celebration anymore, so we call the 13th, the baker's dozen, the forget-me-pop because we're just going to not count it or celebrate any more. Adam Nelson.

Adam Nelson: You may think that I always thought about stocks in terms of market cap based on my Mailbag track record, but that [laughs] is one thing that I actually did glean from listening to your podcast and participating in the community. I still hear many people to this day talk about stocks being expensive because the per-share price is high, or other ones are cheap because they're low, and they think they can afford to buy that particular stock, but I think thinking about the size of companies and how big that market cap can grow to is really powerful. The Market Cap Game Show teaches you that, if you think the market cap is much higher than it actually turns out to be, perhaps, maybe that's a company that you should take a deeper look at. One of the examples I have, I think, where this is really powerful is just thinking back to 2018. We may have exchanged a message about this, but when Apple first crossed the one trillion-dollar market cap threshold, I remember thinking, how much larger could this thing can actually become? It's huge. It surely it has to stop. I think a little bit later that year, it did lose something like 300 or 400 billion dollars of market cap in the fourth quarter of 2018 when we had a brief bear market but memorable in some ways, but then it now has gone on to be 4x that amount at 2.8 trillion, and who knows where it can stop. That's just one example. It's not necessarily an endorsement, but I think it's amazing to think about how much potential that these companies have and how they can continue to grow and impress us in unexpected ways.

David Gardner: Such a good point, Adam. I do remember, back in the day, people saying, could there ever actually be a trillion-dollar market cap market cap? The answer is yes, multiple times so far and multiple trillions. Jason Moore.

Jason Moore: Thank you. I think just to further on Adam's point there as well, so if listeners have gone back and actually listen to Wednesday's episode, Shopify was something that's introduced me into this as well. I do continue to hold that. Coming back to your original six traits of the Rule Breaker, number 3 is a strong past price appreciation. Building on what Adam said, looking at Shopify and how much that had gone up as a company, it did make me nervous when I was first purchasing stocks to do that, but as I've held it throughout time, I'm actually more confident in the companies that have shown their ability to have stock appreciation as they also expand as a company and feel more comfortable holding those for the long term.

David Gardner: Jason, I really appreciate that point. Shopify has been just unbelievably volatile, and I know you know this because you've held it all the way through. Those spiffy pops that we all enjoy, they were running there, especially through 2021. They tried up quickly as the stock dropped from 170 to 40, actually below 40. Some of 2022, very happy to say, it's tripled off of its lows a few years ago, but this is one of the better, bigger companies of our time exhibiting that kind of volatility. Many people, especially who are new, especially to Rule Breaker, [inaudible] you need to know that's part of what you're buying into. If you're going to buy into a "I'm holding" approach to investing, and I'm pretty sure that each of us is doing that, and we know the benefits, but you have to know the detriments as well. Dave Geck, you have your hand up.

David Geck: Yes. I wanted to mention about how, when I switched from the dark side of Team Tom to Team David, when I originally came on to Motley Fool, I joined Hidden Gems, of which Tom was one of the writers at the time. Then later on, I had such success that I bought into Stock Advisor. I got to admit, I was more in line with Tom's thinking than I was of David. He had a great name, but Tom had a better look. [laughs] Then I noticed, my God, Dave keeps trouncing his brother. Maybe I'd have look into this, and I thought, no, the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to set him in his place. At the time, it was with Priceline, which is the forerunner of Booking. You kept recommending Priceline, and you kept going up, and you recommend Priceline, then it kept going up, and I said, I'm going to buy Priceline, not because I think it's going to go up, but I'm going to put that boy in his place, then it'll go down. I had done the same thing with Wang Computer many years before and was able to put them out of business. For those of you who don't know, Wang was going be the replacement for IBM, and for a while, it certainly looked like they were going to, but anyway, lo and behold, Priceline and then Booking kept going up also. That's when I first started thinking, there is something maybe to buy good companies and hold them, and if they go up, maybe that's the time to jump on them, and I've done that many of times since then.

David Gardner: I really appreciate that, Dave Geck. Having that happen to you a few times and not being part of it to realize, I don't think it's possible just to intuit that without having that experience, and I had that too. By the way, Tom and I share so many like-minded thoughts about investing, but sometimes the focus is on what makes us different, but I appreciate all of those points. On to question number 2. This one is about the intersection of passion and investing. Friends, we often talk about the importance of investing in what we know and what we love, making our portfolio reflect our best vision for the future. Could you share a story or anecdote about how your personal passions or interests led you to an investment or business opportunity? How did this alignment influence the outcome? Mike McMahon.

Mike McMahon: I think it's more of an interest. I still remember [inaudible] the age of 10, going to the place of work where my mom worked, where she had worked in the computer center, where the punch cards were being processed and had a fascination with the whirling cards, and then I remember in college and going through punch decks to be able to compile programs which then led to my fascination with computer and technology. It's been an overall interest actually, where, of course, I tried to learn and as a result, headed up most of my portfolio is now technology-based.

David Gardner: Mike, you're a little older than I am but not that much older and not so much older that I don't also remember the punch cards. I remember a daisy wheel printer. You didn't have screens back then. It printed you. If you were writing a little program, it printed it on paper back to you. I can get in touch with that, but aren't we glad we got to grow up and invest during the computer age that then turned in to an age of connectivity and information? It has its downsides, but I think the upsides are greater than the down, and man, as investors, how lucky have we been too experience this growth. Jason Moore.

Jason Moore: Thanks, David. I am sort of a jack of all trades, but one of the actual trades that I have is that I'm a qualified electrician. I can remember back in late 2000s, having a discussion with a family friend about this really up-and-coming business called Tesla, and how amazing it was. I spent probably close to an hour on my soapbox that night talking about how amazing Tesla was and the products that they had coming and how the future was shaping up, but unfortunately at the time, I still had not found my way to individual investing. Over the course of the next decade, I sat there and still continued to talk about Tesla and build them up, but I didn't have a part in that company. Luckily, things do change. In 2020, I finally found my way there and was able to get an initial investment there, and it's done well for me, and I plan to hold that potentially till the day I die. But I heard you talk about the circle of competence and investing in what you know, and that's just a home run for me.

David Gardner: I really appreciate that point, Jason. I've always thought, how wonderful is it that we live in a society, and a culture where we can actually, become part owners of the things that we esteem. That itself is a small miracle for the most of human history that was completely impossible, but the more people who are switching on to that who get that and then actually do it, the better and stronger our future, I think. Adam Nelson.

Adam Nelson: My wife is a big runner. She is a Boston marathon qualifier and has done that and run many marathons. After the pandemic, I actually took up trail running alongside her, and one of the brands that we became familiar with was Hoka. After a little bit of research, I came to find out that this is owned by a publicly traded company, Deckers Outdoor Corporation, and they also make UGGs, and that stock has just been on a remarkable run. My wife still owns it. I sold it way too soon, of course. [laughs] That's a lesson in itself, but I think It's just amazing how just paying attention and observing your own passions but also the passions of other people around you can have a really positive impact on your investing.

David Gardner: It's funny to hear Adam say that because I, myself, neither a trail runner nor ever will be a marathon runner, but I do a little bit of running on my own to try to live longer or feel good about myself, and I asked a friend of mine who actually knows running, what shoes should I get? That friend said, Hokas. Now this is not a paid-for advertisement, although it is an advertisement, I think, for Hokas, but I'm not here to talk about Hokas. I'm here to say I was the lazy bum who didn't even look up who owned Hoka or whether they were independent. Often people think, Dave, you've invested for 30 years, you do the podcasts, you co-founded The Motley Fool, surely you would know that Hokas was owned by Deckers Outdoor, but no, not until Adam just said that on this podcast did I know that. Now I see that I've missed a great stock, and that's to my regret. The process of asking the things around you that you like, could I be a part owner of that, that process never ends. We probably don't ask that question enough. Before we move on to question number 3, Dave Geck, quick thought from you.

David Geck: One thing is that I'm a little bit outside of just buying what I know. Sometimes I like to buy stocks that just I hear about it, and it just intrigues me to find out something about it, and so I invest in it. Sometimes it turns out very well. Sometimes it turns out not so well. I try not to remember which ones they are, [laughs] but I think [inaudible] was one of them that caught my interest for whatever reason. It went up for a while, but then it plunged horribly. I like to do that just on the fringe, and that's how I ended up with about 200 companies so I guess.

David Gardner: That's fantastic, and 53 years of investing, we'll do some of that for you as well, but let me say, Dave, that I totally celebrate that. Of course, I'm a huge fan of buying the things that we do know and that we esteem most of all, but I'm also a big fan, and circle of competence is a phrase that I think we used earlier this week. It may have come from Jason Moore's mouth on our 100th Mailbag episode, but what I've often said is, yes, we should keep our money inside that circle, inside the circle of things that we know, but we should always be looking to extend the perimeter of that circle to make the radius the diameter, am I remembering my geometry right of that circle, to keep extending outwards, so widening our circle of competence by leading a more interesting life. Part of that, I do think David Geck is being a little uncomfortable, not buying a lot but buying a little bit of something that you think is interesting and that will cause you by dent of being a part- owner to pay more future attention. I'm glad to hear it has, at least some of the time, worked, and we're all very comfortable with things that don't work. A big part of this podcast has been me talking about losing a lot. I think that's very important. Let's move on to question number 3. We're going to call this one predictions versus principles. Do you notice this? Market predictions often grab headlines. The Rule Breaker investing philosophy, I would say, we prioritize timeless principles over timing the market. Can you share a moment when sticking to your principles over following a trend paid off, or maybe conversely, a time when it was challenging, but ultimately, you reaffirmed your commitment to some of our Rule Breaker principles? Jason Newman.

Jason Newman: Sure. I can think of a couple. I think the two most prominent ones that come to mind for me over the last decade or two were, number 1, when Reed Hastings came out and said we're going to split the company in two, and you're going to follow the DVD-by-mail business Qwikster, and the streaming business is going to be Netflix, and Mr. Market didn't like that too much. That was a fun drop on the roller coaster looking back. Certainly it wasn't fun at the time, but when everyone else was running for the hills, for me, at least, I always remember Jim Mueller and some of the commentary that he had on the message boards.

David Gardner: Motley Fool analyst Jim Mueller, love it.

Jason Newman: If you watch CNBC, which I don't, but if you read the trade press, it was consensus out, and if you read the message boards or trusted your gut, it was consensus in, and that was one of the first and only times that I've really doubled down. I know you always say.

David Gardner: Add up, don't double down is certainly, one of our principles, Jason, although I want to support you in saying that, occasionally, Rule Breakers can break our rules. I've certainly occasionally added, very infrequently, to something that has lost a huge amount of value.

Jason Newman: They doubled down on Netflix when, in my gut, I knew I was adding up. Those as I mentioned on Wednesday's show are some of the shares where my cost basis is under $3 and that's life-changing returns on an investment, no matter how small it is. Then the other one I'll add to that is, I had never heard of a Dutch auction before, but being as innovative as they were, when Sergey and Larry took Google public, they did so in a very democratic way called the Dutch auction, and I knew I wanted shares of Google at the IPO, even though, as the Motley Fool has always said, you don't always have to be first, you just have to be in. I was interested, and I subscribed to a Dutch auction, and most people don't know that that Dutch auction was undersubscribed. As a matter of fact, shares of Google went public at $85 a share as opposed to what I think they were expecting to be somewhere in north of $100 a share. So those of us that participated in that Dutch auction benefited from that. Those returns are also life-changing returns, to be clear, but I knew that the puck was going in the direction of Google in the future, and I wanted to be along for that ride.

David Gardner: Thank you for both those memorable examples. Jumm.

Jumm: We're talking about sticking with the timeless principle. I don't know if this would tie it into this, my passion about investing or the rules about investing is diversification. So diversify your portfolio. I talked about it on the Wednesday, the 100th Mailbag podcast, that it is very important for you to have a diversified portfolio because that will allow you to have both looser and a winner, and then further luck to turn your way. I have a story about me and my friends who were looking into this penny stock. It was a stock that was working toward nanotechnology for the virus vaccine. So this is a very interesting story. We were both looking at it. I wasn't so much into the idea of investing into the micro cap or a very, I don't know, penny stocks, so to speak. But he convinced me until, let's look at this, they working into something interesting. So I put some money into it, not a lot. I bought 500 share at a very small amount of money, maybe not even $2,000. So fast forward, he put all of his money in that one company. So a couple of years goes by, nothing's happened, he's like, I'm going to sell it. This is 2019. So you could see where this going. So as soon as she sold it and I thought it hasn't done anything for a couple of years, maybe I should sell it too. But because I have others, other company that I'm investing in, so I wasn't paying attention. In 2020 when COVID hit, you could tell how that stock has gone up because that's one of the company that was working toward the back seat for the COVID. So that's my line about the importance of you had to diversify your portfolio. You cannot put, and that will allow you for some time the luck to turn your way, for it to prosper.

David Geck: I appreciate that point about luck, which you did say on Wednesday's show as well. We didn't have time to talk about that much, but you just illustrated a good example. It was really bad luck that COVID even ever happened, but it did happen and the timing of it was also luck, and yet wow. So the difference between getting a win and not there was being diversified because for you Jumm, it was just another holding and you could just sit there and let it linger or languish for as long as need be. Your friend had gone all in, which is, I think always a mistake, but as a consequence with nothing happening for a fuse just felt like I need to get out of this because all my money is not doing anything. So the difference as you say, of diversification, Jason Moore.

Jason Moore: Thanks, David. I've got a couple of quotes that are ringing around in my head that are coming off from this one. The first one comes to probably my most listened-to episode of RBI with Frank Reich, Two Fools, from a few years ago, July 4th, '21, I believe. [LAUGHTER] Frank says, "No man becomes suddenly different from his habits and cherished thoughts." How does that play into my investing? Well, there's another great quote from somebody who may go unmentioned on this one. It sounds something like, "Make your portfolio reflect your best vision for our future." Some of you might know that one as a David Gardner special, something he will go to the grave well-known for. The final one comes back to a quote that I've been saying for 25 years now and it's unattributed, but it's been mentioned here before, is people of integrity expect to be believed and if they're not, they let time prove them right. When I look at the combination of all three of those and how they tie in together, I look back to my very early days of starting to invest in individual stocks and trading in and out. Really what that was is that I didn't have a system and I didn't have a belief, something to help me as a North Star going through my investments. When a little bit of bad news came around, it was very easy to sell it off and then you would learn to regret that later on. As I have really centered in on these three quotes, it helps me understand, A, what I cherish the most, and B, what companies I want to invest in because of what they believe and where I believe they're going. Focusing strictly on those two, it allows me to sit through stormy waters that their stock price may reflect, even though the business themselve are still heading toward that direction of growth.

David Gardner: What a great combination of three wonderful quotations. Well, at least two of them, since one of them is mine, I won't say that. But but really appreciate that, Jason, because conviction has to come from somewhere and it needs to be in place for somebody to hold something that's underperforming or if the entire market is dropping, you have to have conviction, so where does your conviction originate from? I think it's one measure, knowledge base. Being an electrician and seeing Tesla in a way that I couldn't see would be an example of that. But also your hope and your passion, we talked about that earlier this week on the Mailbag Show, when you really hope for something, you make it much more likely that your own actions will be in accordance and alignment with that hope, not disbelieving yourself, trading out. What a sad reflection for any of us, and we can all have it because we've all done this before and we'll probably do it again when you had a conviction, but you didn't have the courage of your conviction and as a consequence, you missed out on the reward that you deserved, but you didn't have the mindset or habits in place to benefit from that. Dave Geck.

David Gardner: Yes. I was thinking about how back in 2008, the plant that I was running. The night before, it was about 10 o'clock at night and the next day was going to be a horrible day because I was going to have to go in and tell everybody we were shutting the plant down. This was going to affect 500 people or so. I get a call from my boss at about 10 o'clock at night saying, "Dave, we don't have the money. You're going to stay open until the economy turns around." I said, "What? This is General Electric. How could we not have $1 million to close a plant that's going to lose over $1 million in the next year." He said, "We don't have it." At that time I told my wife, I said, "Well this is quite amazing." She says, "Maybe we better get out of the market and sell everything that have." Then I said, "No, there's no place to run if GE is going to go under." This is either going to be the best time or the worst time, but I had no place where I can run. I said, OK, redoubled my efforts, and stayed the course. Unfortunately, I knew I was going to have a job because they couldn't afford to close me. Sure enough, about 10 months later, they did give a call and they said, "Things are looking today, go ahead and make the announcement tomorrow." It was tough on one side, but on the other side, I said, "Okay, good. I'm glad I stayed in and things just shot up there."

David Gardner: Wow. Well, to reflect back on that time, there was so much stress. I think most listeners, whether or not they were investors at the time, most were alive at the time, and just the systemic shock, the gut punch that our entire banking and mortgage system took and all of our financial markets, it's hard to get back in touch with how scary that was and really how painful that was. Dave, you in the position of leadership that you were and having to gut it out over months, some combination of trying to think about your own Nasdaq and what your conversation is with your wife and think about your employees and the decisions being made by the leaders at a big company, it's a swirl of goodness and badness and hard and easy. But I'm glad it got easier from 2009 on. In retrospect, we all look back and say that was an incredible time to be buying stock, like a Qwikster moment as Jason Newman mentioned for Netflix a few years later. As we close out this weekend extra and a special week for this podcast with my hundredth mailbaggers, let's confront this final open-ended question. I'm going to call this one the ripple effect of foolish investing. Investing isn't just about personal gain, it's about impact, so could any of you share an example of how your investment decisions have led to positive outcomes beyond just your portfolio? Might be influencing your community, maybe family or others, someone around the water cooler at work, or maybe promoting innovation, opening eyes around you about the ways things could actually be, or maybe some contribution to community or social change. Some aspects where there was a ripple effect that you did that thing that you did as an investor? Jason Moore?

Jason Moore: Yeah, sure. I'll jump in on this one. I might have mentioned it, I can't remember in a Mailbag or in a tweet somewhere. But when I was a lot younger, my very first introduction to investing, I suppose looking back on it was that my older brother had taken some of his hard-earned money and as a teenager had made an initial investment in a few companies and it just so happened to be right around the time of the dot-com bubble and so he put an initial investment as things were going up and very quickly lost most of his money at that point, sold everything that he could, and basically vowed not to do something ever so crazy again. That was one of my takeaways is going through my 20s as well. As I started getting back into investing and understanding the difference between investing and trading and the ups and downs that are associated with that, I've had several different conversations with him along the time and sharing the wisdom I've learned through Motley Fool, but also through the books that I've read as a side project to that, I've got him back interested in it, at least at this point. It's only one small impact. But certainly, the conversations that we've had have helped me as I talked to several other people, my kids included, and letting them know that there's no way to tell when your first decision to invest, when that might be. But as it's been stated so many times, given enough time, it tends to go up and to the right. If you can have that conviction within it, things will work out for the best.

David Gardner: Thank you for that, Jason, well said. Mike McMahon?

Mike McMahon: I think I mentioned on the Wednesday podcast about investing in yourself or investing in myself. I still recall reading one of the first books that I read when I was a teenager about doing a number of different steps to goal setting and stuff. But one of them was to create a bucket list. As a result of creating that bucket list, I had one of them that said that I would run for public office. Starting in 1996, I ran for school board, lost. '98, ran again, lost. Ran in 2000, lost. Then finally in 2002, I was elected to local school board. As a result of that bucket list item, I served for 12 years. It got to the point where I think people came up to me and initially thought they were voting for an incumbent by the time I was running a fourth time.

David Gardner: What a wonderful example. Mike, you've talked a lot about journaling and that was in fact earlier this week referenced by one of our other members, the importance of doing so in future. I know how contemplative and reflective you are as a person that's clearly been there all the way through your life, but I see it in you as an investor. Earlier this week on the mailbag, you talked about how you're really only just starting as an investor and you're aiming for 25-plus years going forward, you have been investing for several years now. Warren Bennett said one of the four lessons of self-knowledge is, and it's number 4 actually, he closes with this one; the importance of reflecting in order to learn going forward we have to reflect on our past experience. I think the stock market gives us a great opportunity, not just our own experience but to reflect on the world at large or companies. Even though I don't use graphs or charts, I think that's a mistaken approach to trying to pick stocks. I love stock grafts because they show me graphically where something has been. Any quick thought back from you about that, Mike?

Mike McMahon: I think you missed one of the contributions I made to your RBI podcasts with Bill Mann's 150-word summary. I sent you one that you were able to read, which is exactly to the same point.

David Gardner: I'm channeling. I can't keep up or remember all of the mailbag contributions, even from my most esteemed contributors. But yes, that's a good example of me just sort of inculcating or bringing in what I've learned and then just saying it and not remembering where it came from, which I think is going to happen increasingly for me going forward. I think it's already happening. Jumm.

Jumm: Yes. Well, as you know, they come to a close here, I was wanting to say something, I was able to change some people in my life, change someone's mind about capitalism by introducing them to the conscious capitalism ideas. One thing that really stuck with me is what Raj Sisodia has said in one of the podcasts that you interview him. It said that, "If you cannot respect the way you earn it, money has no value. And if you cannot use it to make people's lives better, money has no purpose." That is what stuck with me and that's what makes me want to help other people get on building their own wealth, so that when we have more people become more financially stable, then we can help more people paying it forward. That was one thing that I have done in my own life, is getting people started in investing.

David Gardner: That is such a gift that you are giving. You probably will never fully be able to understand the value of that gift that you've been giving. It's probably been three degrees of influence. It's probably been spread in concentric circles outward from that person, whether through word or deed. That's really wonderful, Jumm, and I'm so glad you shared that Raj Sisodia quote, what a great quote.

Jumm: Thanks, Dave.

David Gardner: Alright, Dave Geck, take us home.

David Geck: It's going to be a long one. One of the things is that when I think about impacts outside of why investments is that, when I was a TE, my boss's boss came by every so often. This was the first time I was going to meet him. He had about 100 plant managers under him of which I was one. Every time he told me he would have the young and upping rising stars of the company join them in the plant managers were there to go also. For some reason, it was just part of the culture that there was way too much drinking at this festivity. But that's the way it was. But it just so happened that I was under some medication at that time, so I didn't drink at all and I kind of stood out on the thing, I got to admit. But afterwards, couple of the people came up to me and said, "I'm so glad you didn't drink." I don't drink, but God, it shows me that I don't have to go along with everything just because that was like, I probably would have been drinking. After that, it set me to in fact that I couldn't drink at these functions anymore. So I didn't because I always felt a responsibility to those that did not want to. One time my boss's boss says, "I noticed that you don't drink at these functions, maybe personal, but is there a reason, and do not drink at all?" I said, "No, I drink. I don't drink at these functions." He goes, "Why not?" I didn't want to let in on those, so I said, "Well, I just remember something that my dad always told me." He said, "What's that?" I said, "Don't drink around people you don't trust." They just kind of gave me a shocked look. Then he said, [laughs] "Darn good advice." Afterwards when he retired, I got up with him and then we drank to excess just to show him that yeah, I did it intentionally the first time.

David Gardner: A great Dave Geck story there, and many to close. We are going to close it out right now. I really want to thank again my guests and my contributors. Not all could be part of this weekend extra, but I want to reflect again the names of Jason Moore, Dave Geck, Jumm who like, I don't know, Charo or Prince only needs one name because we know who that is. We don't need a surname. Not only Jumm, Jason Trice, Adam Nelson, Mike McMahon, and Jason Newman. Thank you to each of you for these extra contributions. But most of all to the mailbag that we've shared together, number 100, for Rule Breaker Investing this week. My friends, Fool-on. Well, I think we can put a wrapper on February, especially because it's not even February anymore, it's March. If you've followed our podcast in recent weeks, you know what to expect for the first time in Rule Breaker Investing podcast history. They do this in college basketball too, but we're bringing March Madness to Rule Breaker Investing. It's March Market Cap Madness, bringing back four past champions of the Market Cap Game Show. Over the next three weeks, this final four will do two semifinal shows and a finals show, naming the 2024 Market Cap Game Show national champion for the first time. Very excited already, rubbing my hands together for March Market Cap Madness, coming soon.

In fact, this coming Wednesday to a podcast platform near you. Yes, I'll be watching some basketball too. If you're a fan, perhaps you will, but I hope everybody will tune in for March Market Cap Madness. See you soon. Fool-on.