Today we mark our charts for the course ahead, and hear from the delightful crew that we're sailing with on this ship of Fools.
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This video was recorded on March 27, 2024.
David Gardner: Warren Bennis has four lessons, four key principles around self knowledge which he presents in his wonderful book On Becoming a Leader. All four are great and I subscribed to each. Here they are. The first, you are your own best teacher. The second, my favorite of these, accept responsibility; blame no one. The third, you can learn anything you want to learn. The fourth, true understanding comes from reflecting on your experience. It's that fourth that I think most typifies our mailbag. Once a month, we reflect on our experience on this podcast on the few weeks that went before.
You write in with your reflections and I reflect on them and share that back out. We learn together. Mailbag, March 2024, only on this week's Rule Breaker Investing. Welcome back to Rule Breaker Investing. I think there were three big events or themes that played through this podcast over the last couple of months that form the building blocks for this week's mailbag. The first was the visit by Tanya Turner Caroll and Michael Carroll talking about investing in art. Now this may seem like a long time ago. It was early February.
But because building block number 2, my 100th mailbag with live guests, took the place of what I would call a normal mailbag in February. We never really got to talk more about investing in art but you want to, you sent in some great notes. That's building block number 1. Building block number 2, I already mentioned. The one-hundredth mailbag with seven fantastic Fools live guests a month ago this week. Then finally of course, March, market cap madness and the world championship for the Market Cap Game Show
Lots of big events for this podcast over the last couple of months. That's where we're going to be focused on this month's Mailbag. As always, we start mailbag by looking at some hot takes from Twitter. First one-up, Ship of Fools GD @fools_GD, I had an epiphany, you wrote, about how ending in penalty kicks may actually be the most beautiful way to end an epic match. Now Ship of Fools here is talking about the end. Spoiler alert. The end to last week's World Championship. Because sure enough, our 10 questions had our two finalists split 5-5 and you can't end a world championship on a tie and so it went to PKs, a subject of enduring recursion on this podcast.
Ship of Fools you said, it's actually a beautiful way to end, I would say not soccer, but the Market Cap Game Show. Previously, Ship of Fools you said, I thought otherwise. Seven out of 10 is what he scored, which is enough for your own world championship. Great job @fools_GD. Plus you guessed along with us on the PK, it was live nation for the record. You guessed 16-24 billion for that final round but then you chose the wrong player to side with because you can't make your own guesses with those tie-breaking rounds.
Anyway thank you very much for the fun. Got a number of other notes that people playing right along with us. I had enough fun, that might be a March tradition, March market cap madness. Of course we will continue to do the Market Cap Game Show, the penultimate Wednesday of every quarter. Coming soon, late June to a podcast near you. Thanks for that Ship of Fools. Then many reflections on our 100th mailbag. Martin Triggs @Triggs1Martin, congratulations on this special anniversary and achievement to both you and all the listeners. Many great questions asked. Thank you for the helpful answers. Well thank you Martin, and you've made lots of contributions of your own to this podcast and through social media as well.
Thanks for sharing it out. I do think many great questions asked is the right phrase. Beautiful questions, a topic that we've covered on this podcast before. In fact, the author of a More Beautiful Question and The Book of Beautiful Questions, it's sequel, Warren Berger just dropped me a note in the last week saying, hey, the tenth anniversary edition of my book comes out. He had mentioned that when I talked to him this time last year, so a Beautiful Question fans, unite, pay attention.
That's probably worth your summer reading. But Martin, many great questions asked is what I expect from this community and you all consistently deliver. Two more from Twitter, @stockplanterCam, that's Cameron Archibald. I love the variety, Cam you wrote, in everyone's stories and hearing how they all got connected with the Motley Fool and with David, so much wisdom packed into one episode. Great podcast. We're not going to do a live mailbag every time but I'm pretty sure we're going to have more community stories in the year ahead because of how much I enjoy it and I hope many of you enjoyed hearing some of our favorite Fools together.
Thank you for that Cam. Finally, Jason Moore who's one of those seven, said this simply on Twitter. Said @JimminyJilickrz, I have a whole new level of respect for Rick and the whole @RBIPodcast production "crew" with a tongue sticking out, laughing emoji because Jason now knows the truth. We don't put it out there too often but, Rick Engdahl is pretty much the entire production team for this podcast. If you looked at our credits, it would just Rick Engdahl as you go down the list. We often make a joke that, our friends at MPR and we love them. I used to do an MPR radio show. Our friends at MPR, when they do their credits, they've got 15 names doing their 60 minute podcasts. We got pretty much one.
I also want to mention Rick is going to be taking a well-deserved sabbatical coming up later this spring into the summer and so new producer Dez Jones is going to be taking over the 17 different roles that are occupied. In your words Jason by the RBI podcasts production, "crew" and yes, a whole new level of respect. Rule Breaker, Mailbag item number 1. Hey, David, writes Eric Easen, right again from Oregon City. Eric, always a pleasure to hear from you. Hey David, my brother John texted this quote to me tonight. I immediately thought of you and our rule-breakers approach to investing business and life. I'm confident it will resonate with you. I thoroughly enjoyed the one-hundredth mailbag.
It was such a treat to hear in-person seven of our star, Foolish community contributors, cheers Eric Easen. Eric, the quote you enclosed, sent to you by your brother John, came to him via Niccolo Machiavelli in his book, The prince from 15, 32. Now I never have read The Prince. I've heard and read much about The Prince. There are mixed views in terms of, who Machiavelli really was and what he thought and I know some of you will know much more about that than I. But let's just stick on the quote of the day here because it's a Rule Breakery quote. Eric and his brother John have a good eye for these things.
I quote, of course an English translation. "It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more powerless to conduct or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things." When I think of the first trait of the Rule Breaker stock, I wrote this in our book, Rule Breakers, Rule Makers, written in 1998, published in 1999. I still feel just the same about it 25 years later. It has guided me to most of the great stock picks that I've made. This one trait, top dog and first-mover in an important emerging industry. I've often said that, when you fish in that pond, it's a stocked pond. Many of the great stocks of the next-generation of every era are swimming in that pond. The one that only admits fish that our top dogs and first movers in important emerging industries and it's not easy.
Is it Niccolo Machiavelli, Eric and John Easen? Dear listeners, it's not easy to be in that poll position. It ought to be remembered, Machiavelli wrote that, "There's nothing more difficult to take in hand, more powerless to conduct or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things." That speaks to me as an investor is I just conveyed, that speaks to me as an entrepreneur myself and a fellow liver of life. As Eric said in his note, he immediately thought of me and our rule-breakers approach. Right. It's shared. It's something that we can all appreciate and participate in together. I really appreciate your note. Thank you for writing in Eric. Wasn't the 100th mailbag fun? Onto Rule Breaker Mailbag item number 2, and actually I have a 2A and a 2B this time.
Let's go with 2A, Brett Wyman. Hey David. I wanted to comment on our listeners suggestion from last month's Mailbag episode that would be two months ago now. About doing an anti pet peeve segment on the podcast. I think this is an excellent idea, Brett writes. By being true investors, we're making a commitment with our money that we believe the future will be better and more prosperous than today. After all, if we didn't believe the market was going to go up, it would be silly for us to invest our money there. An optimism about a bright future is required to be on this path.
Brett concludes. I think it would be well in line with the Foolish spirit to have an episode of the anti-pet peeves, full of optimism, Fool-on Brett Wyman. Fool-on yourself. Thank you, Brett. Two B, and the reason these are connected is because even though I don't think Brett or Zack know each other, they're making the same point and that's what I wanted to speak to with Rule Breaker Mailbag item number 2. Here's 2B from Zack Puccini writing in from Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Zack writes, Mr. David Gardner. Now I very infrequently have anybody doing that. Thank you for a very formal address, Zack. Mr. David Gardner, you are always so positive and a joy to listen to. I wish I'd followed your information when I heard of you decades ago. At this point in the note when I first read it, I was, Zack's probably older than I am. It goes on, however, that is the past that none of us can change.
The podcast is wonderful. I look forward to it every week at the young age of 35. Zack writes, I will be a dedicated Fool,'' capital F, not small f fool,' 'hopefully for the rest of my life.'' I'm just going to pause it for a second and say, he wishes that he'd followed information when they first heard of his decades ago. At the age of 35, I'm picturing him being dandled on his grandfather's knee as his grandfather explains the Motley Fool investment guide to a five-year-old. It was just too early, it was too soon. But here you are now decades later, Zack, with so much ahead of you. Thank you for riding in and he goes on, ''Thank you for spreading positivity and knowledge. Thank you for teaching us about more than investing and bringing your personal touch.
Maybe you can share some tips with us on how you stay positive. How do you get through the tough times?If this is not too personal of a question,'' Zack concludes, ''I look forward to hearing your answer and all of the episodes still to come.'' Love and gratitude, Zack Puccini . Well from Mr. David Gardner, Zack, and Brett, I'd like you to know two things. The first is that I've done some wonderful work on this podcast about optimism before and what made it wonderful is it didn't come from me. I had the pleasure of interviewing Shirzad Chamine, the author of the wonderful book, Positive Intelligence, which teaches us that mirror optimism sometimes for its own sake, might not be that powerful force.
I think optimism is a very powerful force, but if we're ahead faking ourselves into positivity when it's not even justified, we could even be making a mistake. But, just like there is human intelligence which can be measured many different ways, savvy, IQ, that intelligence. There's emotional intelligence. There are other forms of intelligence. Shirzad Chamine says, there's positive intelligence to, and if that phrase is not something you've heard before, dear listener, if you haven't heard about that, Zack or Brett, I highly recommend the book, Positive Intelligence, which will show you the intelligence of being able to rebound fast from difficult things. At its heart, that's what Positive Intelligence measures
In fact, Shirzad says, when you hold your handover a flame, what is your instinct? The correct answer is, of course, to immediately retract your hand from the flame. It's a flame, that's your hand. That is a good instinct and that is the correct answer. But Shirzad goes on to say, a lot of people are unable to do that with their experience or their psychology or their memories. They stay over a flame, they stay in a bad place. They have not learned how to pull back from that in the same way that your physical responses instantly to pull your hand back from that flame. That is positive intelligence. I would say that is a strong source of optimism for me and for many others. There's more we can say about optimism and that leads me to answer a number 2. Answer number 1 was a plug for Shirzad in his book.
By the way, if you don't want to take the time to read the book, which shame on you, you really should, all humans should read that book. But Cliff's Notes, I've interviewed them twice in this podcast. If you just Google Rule Breaker Investing, Positive Intelligence, you'll find not one, but both of my interviews with Shirzad in the past, I think those are really good things to hold onto, especially, if you're going through hard times or it feels like you're having a hard time pulling your psychology out of that flame. I highly recommend those conversations, but point number 2, I'm inspired, Brett and Zack, by your desire to have some optimism on this podcasts. Yes. I tried to bring it every week.
I'm not faking it. It comes fairly naturally to me. But there's somebody I know who knows a lot more about optimism than I do. I decided, let's have them on the podcast next week, my friend Bill Burke, who runs the Blue Sky podcast. He started as a start-up a couple of years ago, the Optimism Institute. He just celebrated his first anniversary of a full-year of podcasts. I had the pleasure of being on Bill's podcasts. If anybody else is looking for another jet of optimism, you could simply Google Blue Sky David Gardner, you'll get to hear me speak for about an hour about optimism, but enough about me. I want Bill on this podcast to speak to this topic. We will do that. We will have fun together, we will all learn together, and I believe come away not just inspired, but a lot smarter for having listened next week to Rule Breaker Investing with Bill Burke on the subject of optimism.
Truly, I wasn't planning that at all until Brett, you and Zack, wrote me these notes and I thought, that's a great way to kick off spring. Let's do it. Rule Breaker Mailbag, item number 3. This one comes from Rob from Motley Fool Ventures. Oh my gosh, this was an internal email that i got. This did not come through our normal mailbag email address, which to remind you is [email protected]. We treasure your thoughts, stories, notes, questions, challenges, etc. [email protected] is the email address that powers these mailbags month after month, but Rob didn't go that direction. He's one of our employees. I've known Rob for more than 10 years.
He works at Motley Fool Ventures, our venture capital fund. He wrote me this note about investing in art. Thank you, Rob from Motley Fool Ventures. Hi David, thanks for the episode focused at the start of February on art, the meaning of art, the complexities of art investing. I really appreciated the conversation with the Carrolls about buying what you love. That's advice I give to friends or Fools, F, who are curious about art, while also reminding them that I Rob are more of a hobbyist, not a collector. Your question about the percentage of value in the work itself versus the context was extremely important for listeners, and their response was terrific. I'm going to pause that for a sec, assuming not everybody hearing me this week, listened the first week of February to investing in art.
There was a moment later in the podcast and I was just winging it because I was reacting to the old story about, I don't know, you walk into a modern art gallery and you see a huge white cameras with a little red dot in the bottom left. You're like, my kid could have done that. We had a conversation about why that's art and what makes art, and where the value lies. In so many words I asked Tanya and Michael, is the value in the art itself or what surrounds the art? For example, who the artist is, what was their story? What I learned from Tanya and Michael changed my view forever about how to value art and what especially visual arts are. Turns out, the thing itself isn't necessarily where most of the value is tied in, it's the context around the thing, and that's what Rob is speaking to here in his note which I will now pick back up.
Rob from Motley Fool Ventures went on, ''I believe, in the historical context, as well as all of the lived experience that the artists brings to the piece. I'm sure you've heard the line where someone asks the artist, how long did it take you to paint this? The response is, my whole life. In my situation, I tried to connect directly with the artist to see if any pieces are available for direct purchase. That puts all of the money,'' Rob writes,''in the artist's hands.'' Now I realize that's only for situations where the artists isn't being represented exclusively by a gallery. There's also the topic of negotiation with the gallery. I've heard from artists that you should always build a relationship and discuss pricing rather than paying full rate. This of course, varies by type of gallery, Rob adds. ''I want to support galleries too but sometimes their markup can be outrageous.'
Last two points, unless someone is connected to a gallery or auction house, art is very illiquid. ''I tell anyone who thinks they can flip a painting that they're coming at this the wrong way. Occasionally I receive pitches from companies that are trying to democratize art purchasing with technology.'' That makes sense, coming from Rob, from Motley Fool Ventures, we get pitches like this and Rob goes on, ''But so far those companies have been too early for us. The discussion about provenance, the origin of the artwork is really fascinating. Have you watched any of the documentaries about art forgeries? It's incredible how much work goes into the authentication.
There's some examples that mirror the dealer versus collector dispute discussed in the episode. Thanks again, Rob.'' There are a number of nodes I get in any given month on our mailbag where I don't really feel much need to add anything. I'm sharing the note because it's valuable unto itself. Rob, I really appreciate those viewpoints and your reactions to my discussion with the Carrolls. They are of course themselves gallery owners there. URL, as I recall is TurnerCarrollGallery.com. It's a lovely website, but I also, I'm sure they would too appreciate your points about sometimes working directly with artists, or sometimes establishing that relationship with the gallery owner, which probably leads to better pricing for you.
In closing I remember Tanya is saying on that podcast, a good move for any of us interested in art or investing more into art in future is to find out who are the gallery owners in our town or city. These are the people who are most knowledgeable and are going to be your best guides to investing in art. It's about relationships, isn't it? In so many different ways in life and it's true for being a purchaser of local art as well. Those are good, valuable relationships to form. Thank you Rob from Motley Fool Ventures. Onto Rule Breaker Mailbag, item number 4 of seven. This is the second and last one about investing in art. It comes from my biggest fan Jam, and we all got to hear from Jam one month ago when she joined us as one of those seven live voices on last month's mailbag. Hi David and Rick, and everyone at the Fool.
Just finished listening to investing in art with Tanya and Michael. First nominee to the hall of fame, 2024 besties, Jam writes. ''First of all, it's an exceptionally well produced episode full of wonderful information for entry into the art investment world.'' Jam adds, ''or not, LOL.'' Excellent questions were asked and answered very informative, easy to listen to, and understand a very complex world, the world of art. Tanya's and Michael's passion for what they do radiates through the airwaves and I believe that is one of the key ingredients to why they are so successful in what they do. The episode highlights a key point in investment in life very well in order to do something exceptionally well and successfully passion is the keyword.
Also, John writes, know thyself is really important and that reminds me of how I kicked off the podcast this week with Warren Bennis's for lessons of self knowledge. He's speaking to the importance of knowing thyself. I wasn't even making the connection here with John note until now, but I can't not notice that the importance of knowing thyself. By the way, a lifelong journey to keep peeling back the onion of our ourselves and know ourselves better, deeper, and richer. Of course, we change over the course of time as well. Understanding how we change knowing thyself as John writes and Warren Bennis writes.
By the way, it was scrolled on the Greek Oracle at Delphi, know thyself. This is a centuries long human quest. John goes on. There's so many types of investments. You need to know who you are, what's important to you, what it is that you want out of your investments. Tanya and Michael made it extremely clear, at least to me that investing in art, it's not an easy thing to do, especially if we're talking about doing it to make more money. Although there is subjectivity in stock market investments as well, it's much easier to find concrete data. Information about a company is available to make decisions much more objectively on, for example, their valuations. It's clear that to be successful investing in art, you have to have a subject matter expert. Personally, investing in a piece of art is to me, an investment in my happiness.
Every time I look at the peace, it gives me joy. I take great pride and carrying for and admiring it as part of my everyday life. I feel if i purchase it with an expectation that it will grow in value, and how much will I be able to sell it for, that would set me up for disappointment. I guess John concludes essentially, that makes me a consumer of arts more so than an investor and I am OK with that. Forever a Fool John. Appreciate a number of those points. When we first started the Motley Fool, we were very conscious that we were individual investors ourselves. There was this neat tool that had just shown up in our lives.
It was called the Internet. It allowed us, you, all of us, to learn much faster, to connect much better, and pick your topic. Whether you wanted to find collectibles on eBay, whether you want to just find better information on Yahoo. Eventually, [Alphabet's] Google surpassed Yahoo's search engine, whether you wanted to learn more about finance from The Motley Fool. All of these topics are available and generally being democratized, being made more accessible these days, ChatGPT, if you're not already using it, it's free, you should be. I know many of us are these days ChatGPT can further democratize things. Ask it to explain something complex to you, "As if I'm five-years-old." I've done that a few times on this podcast during March, market cap madness.
Occasionally I'd introduces stock to one of my contestants, one of the more complex businesses and I'd asked ChatGPT ahead of time, explain it to me like I'm five or 10 years old. That is a great way to democratize understanding of everything. That is so much how we roll at The Motley Fool and what we're trying to do. In some ways, it's hard to do that with investing, not in stocks but in art. There is a lot of subjectivity there, there is less data, it's more opaque, although i thought Michael Carroll did a great job showing us that there are in fact indices almost like ETFs that price and allow you to buy into bigger baskets of art these days. Certainly, it's probably more accessible than ever before
. But I do think the message, John came loud and clear from the carols. It may be in their own self-interest to say this. I'm certainly not suggesting that, that having an expert, like a gallery owner is going to enable you to make much better investment decisions than on your own. That does somewhat run against The Motley Fool's. Well, the zeitgeist is the spirit of our company and of this age that you can learn with Warren Bennis, anything you want to learn and you, again with Warren Bennis, are your own best teacher. I guess one takeaway here is if you're teaching yourself about investing and art, maybe it would be good to have a guide, a curator, help you make decisions versus doing so on your own.
Again, that's not really what i prescribed for stocks, but John, that is how i heard it and how i felt after learning from the carols. Thank you again for writing in. Onto Rule Breaker Mailbag, item Number 5, we're moving topics now. Hi, David writes Peter Corn and writing in from Fort Collins, Colorado. Hi Peter. Long-time Fool member here in some time listener wondering what happened to my favorite topic in the Rule Breaker Investing podcasts, that being the Review-a-Palooza As far as I can tell Peter writes, it's been several months since you've had one thanks and fool on. Well, first of all, thank you for your long term membership as a fellow Fool. Peter, I really appreciate that.
That means a lot to us at our company. I also appreciate you being a sometime listener of this podcast. If you were an every week listener, which I certainly don't prescribe to anybody but some people actually do listen this podcast every week. I think you might have picked up how Review-a-Palooza's work and where we've been headed with that. But I'll briefly explain because many others probably don't know either. For years, I did what were called five-stock samplers, where I would pick a small basket of stocks to a certain theme on this podcast, aiming with those five stocks to beat the market over the next three years.
Now, anybody who listens to me and understands how I invest and what we advocate at The Motley Fool knows that we're not about three-year investments. In fact, three years would be a dead minimum. I would never really want to make an investment with a shorter time-frame than three-years. I always say three years, preferably three decades. With that said, as I pick those 30 consecutive five-stock baskets, I was conscious that if we kept reviewing them in Years 4 or 5, 6, 7, 8, 12 years later, there wouldn't be any other content on this podcast. We'd be doing constant reviews of older stock picks. We started to do our Review-a-Palooza episodes where we would combine a few of those like, let's review a few of these altogether two years after we picked them or one year after we picked them
There have been many Review-a-Palooza episodes in the past. I think you know that Peter and you're saying you're missing them. Where are they? Well, because I no longer pick stocks actively and have it at The Motley Fool since May of 2021. I made that summers final five-stock sampler, my final for this podcast. But what that means is of course, that we do check in one-year afterward. This is what we do with Review-a-Paloozas. We do then check-in two years after each of those baskets was picked, and then we check in three years, and that's when we end the game and I give the final accounting.
If you're doing the math with me, if the last five-stock sampler was typically picked in June of 2021 then you would recognize that the final Review-a-Palooza review will be June of 2024, i.e. about three months from now. With most of those 30 now having finished their three-year games, we don't review them anymore. We just look at the tail end of last few that I picked. By the way, some bad performers, a good one here, their. Overall, I will be reviewing the entire program of the 35 stock samplers later this summer. Talk about true understanding being when we reflect back on our experience, i will reflect overall on the 30th five-stock samplers and their Review-a-Palooza when I have a chance to take a breath and think about at all a little bit later this summer.
But in the meantime, Peter, I want you to know there are still occasional Review-a-Palooza episodes. There will be another Review-a-Palooza coming in the coming weeks because there are still two active five-stock samplers racking up numbers from one day to the next that we're going to reflect on and one that has finished that I haven't closed out yet, so I'm going to hold that one. One finishes on April 7th of course, next month. I think I'll put together Review-a-Palooza episode, looking back on those two five-stock samplers sometime in April or May. Maybe a long answer to a short simple question. But I wanted to make sure you fully understood the context and with many new listeners, they may or may not know what Review-a-Palooza are or what the five-stock samplers. I want to say we're but are.
A little bit of the secret sauce, I'm going to hint at it now that I'll be rocking in the summer, is that even though each of those closed out three years to the date after I picked it, I've continued to track every one of those five-stock samplers and we'll have live updated numbers for their performance. Because fellow Fools, we're not investing for three years. It was a fun game to plan this podcast. Three-year, five-stock samplers, it made sense to play as a game but how are those samplers doing in Years 4, 5, 6. This is the real game of investing that we've been talking about for several decades at fool.com and that I love to talk about on this podcast. We'll keep some of that drum beating for a long time learning together.
Thank you. Peter Corn. Onto item Number 6, this from long time, Fool and writer and listener Joe Crivelli. Thank you, Joseph. Hey David, just a quick hello and note to disclose a pet peeve that I've been carrying around for about 25 years. Joseph says, I'm 59 for reference. It is the unqualified abuse of the word quality. Unqualified without including high or low. Especially in investing. Joseph writes to suggest your investment is in, "quality company" with "quality earnings" run by a "quality management team" to tuck into a "quality portfolio." Is none other Joseph Crivelli writes then low quality communicating.
Please spread the insight. Something's quality refers to an aspect of the thing itself. The question is, how should we consider that aspect? Do we think highly of it, or do we hold it in low regard pleadingly, Fool-on Joseph Crivelli. Well, Joseph, I appreciate the point and I have to say I agree with you, and I am guilty as charged. I'm pretty sure if we went back through this podcast of the years, I probably am rocking quality as an adjective. Thinking, yeah, everyone knows that's high-quality it's a good word an adjective with a positive connotation.
But just in the same way that I pointed out that when people say that was life-changing, this is one of my pet peeves. I think you know this, Joseph, when people say that was life-changing, unlike, but, but tell me something more because, the only constant is change in life. So calling something life-changing, does it actually tell me anything? I've said someone cynically, I think what you actually mean, right? Is life improving. Whenever you want to say something really enthusiastic about, I don't know, a diet or a new idea, or a stock or an event that for you was life improving. Many of us say life-changing, but I think you mean life improving.
So given that, that's one of the things that Iraq as a pet peeve, Joseph, I have to be open to your notion that quality is not enough on its own as an adjective, because somewhat humorously, sardonically, it could be low quality that is being implied. So I received this, I encourage you to follow this podcast and my use or misuse of the word quality, I will try to make this part of my game going forward. I realize here with Mailbag item number six something we're like, I'm still listening to this podcast. They're talking about pedantic language here. I don't know, 40 minutes in. Is this worth my time? Dear listener I hope it is, because I think language counts for so much in this world.
Language is the garment of thought. I had to check it. Samuel Johnson, the 18th century British writing genius, Samuel Johnson, languages the garment of thought. I strongly agree with that. As somebody who's looked carefully the language of the investment world over the years. I feel as if it's given me some really good insights when I see where it's like correction being used to describe always market drops. From my earliest days as a young man, like an 18-year-old investor, I was calling this outgoing. Why is that correct? Two years out of every three, the stock market goes up.
So why is it correct when it goes down? In fact, when the market's down and it goes up, that feels more like a correction to me if you're actually looking at the true story here than the way people, everybody is still now, clearly I'm not winning this battle 30 years later, everyone's still saying correction. When's the correction coming? People who call companies names, I know they're referring to the stocks but, names, I don't I don't like to refer to corporations living, breathing human creations driven by passion and smart founders conscious capitalism.
My favorite companies, human companies, enterprises that are trying to win for everybody, turned on names to me. I realized if you're a trader, if you're a Wall Street in an ad type, they might just be names, but I will never call a company or a stock a name. So yeah, I think language matters a lot. It is the garment of thought with Samuel Johnson. I am very receptive to people's pet peeves around language and have regularly featured them on this podcast and mailbags and in my own pet peeves episodes over the year, Joseph Crivelli, you stand shoulder to shoulder with me in that tradition. You have helped me, sir, I will try to say high-quality or low-quality in future.
Not just, I never said this, but I loved your line. We're going to close with it. Not just a quotes quality company with quotes quality earnings run by quotes, Quality management team to talk into a quotes quality portfolio. Thanks Joe. Alright, best for last, you tell me Vincent Greenery took the time to write this lovely note reflecting on his time listening to this podcast. Especially I think after the 100th mailbag that we all got to enjoy last month. Vincent, this note is a gift. Thank you. Hi, David, Rick, and all Fools who bring us the Rule Breakers podcast.
First, let me congratulate you on the 100th collaborative effort which is the monthly mailbag. I have not missed a single Rule Breaker Investing podcast and we're capable of succinct messaging. It would be complemented enough to say that those instances where my submission is chosen for the Mailbag podcast are always red letter days. For me, Vincent writes a source of happiness for sure, as well as bragging rights to friends and family. It is always an honor. But, since I'm not succinct, let me add a couple of things. It's fair to say that one of my life best decisions behind finding my wonderful bride of nearly 42 years, Irene, and a spiritual direction for my life.
Is that fateful day? Twenty years ago when I came across the Fool on AOL broadband and thought to myself, these guys have funny hats, but they make sense. I dip my toe in the water with Stock Advisor. But soon after added hidden gems, and inside value, my relationship grew and I became an inaugural Duke Street member, which is now called Motley Fool One. Rule Breaker picks of note in my portfolio include Amazon.com at $4.11 a share, Netflix at $3.88 a share, Nvidia at $3.94 a share, and Tesla at $1.96 a share. So much for the richer part.
You've been very generous with your picks handing out for the most part market beating five-stock samplers, that smart investors would have followed to the tea, but it doesn't stop there. I'm sure I'm not the only one to become smarter through your instructional podcasts, that taught us how to spot a Rule Breaker or assess risk. Then the myriad of authors, without the Rule Breaker Investing podcast, I may never have discovered. I've not invested much time in reading for enrichment in the past 20 years. Vincent rights, but your authors in August series has contributed the bulk of my efforts. Finally, there is that other side.
No better examples for me are the Motley Fool Foundation, which you run, and you're highlighting the parents circle families forum. Who's laudable goal is to help find common ground among Israelis and Palestinians. These are constant reminders that we should be ever grateful. With our likely standing in the words of Peter Parker's uncle, band, with grade power comes great responsibility, wrapping up all the above have greatly contributed to my personal happiness. I should also mention the many contributions of fellow Fools who've written in with often brilliant commentary, further enriching the community. That's what we are, a community
After all. Fool-on. Vincent Greenery. Notes like this remind me that I guess I can sit in front of this microphone largely talking to myself each week, although there's Rick or does with me and next week I'm going to have Bill Burke with me. But a lot of the time, it's a lonely thing here, sitting in one room at home, which is where I often do this podcast, talking to a microphone. My regular microphone actually has the brand blue on it, which is funny because I was going to say I can put out my principles till I'm blue in the face. But what I'm really about, is the actions that you dear listener take as a consequence of this podcast every week of your Motley Fool membership of InvenSense case, you're long association with our company.
We can put out our principles till we're blue in the face, but it's following the principles. It's taking real action that gives us pride and joy as Motley Fool employees. It's the results we generate having single-digit cost bases for the great stocks of our time by holding those companies over years and years. That's exactly what we do, Vincent and that's exactly what we've been encouraging the world to do. I think it's a much better world that does that.
I know one thing, it's a smarter, happier, and richer world that results from that. As I said at the start, thank you. Thank you for that note. Vincent Greenery, thank you, fellow Fools for powering the 101st mailbag in this podcast history. In the early days of the Fool, as I tried to convey to people what we were trying to do. I remember saying and I'll say it here in conclusion. You know what, we're really after. We're after the good opinion of good people. Vincent Greenery, it's great to have yours.
