In the 18th installment of its "Great Quotes" series, Rule Breaker Investing delves into Shakespeare's As You Like It, the play that inspired The Motley Fool's name. Motley Fool co-founder David Gardner explores five compelling quotes from the Bard's beloved comedy, explaining how they can make us smarter, happier, and richer.
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This video was recorded on April 17, 2024.
David Gardner: This podcast thrives on recurring series, much like how Saturday Night Live reintroduces beloved sketches like Church Lady Back in the day, or Black Jeopardy, or Weekend Update. Ones you're familiar with, you look forward to them. Well, in our own small way here on Rule Breaker Investing, I hope you look forward to our regular features. I don't know, authors in August, in August every year, stock stories, reviewapaloozas back in the day, some segments like the Market Cap Game Show tend to appear quarterly, while others, like the birthday-themed what you've learned from me, occur annually. Then there are staples, the end-of-month mailbags, and this week's focus, Great Quotes. Typically, great quotes is unthemed, typically offering a mix of five quotes aimed at enriching your life, making you smarter, happier, and richer but this time, all five are from my favorite play. It's Great Quotes, Volume 18, As You Like It. Only on this week's Rule Breaker Investing.
Welcome back to Rule Breaker Investing. Yes, we're going Shakespeare this week. I'm going to briefly summarize the play, As You Like It. In case you've never seen it before or would like a refresher. But please rest assured, this is an investing and business podcast. My five great quotes all pulled from my favorite Shakespeare play. All five of them are here to speak to you specifically about your investing, but maybe your business or your life. As You Like It is one of Shakespeare's most beloved comedies that unfolds in the forest of Arden, where characters have escaped the tyranny of the court and their society's constraints. The play explores themes of love, identity, and transformation. Central to the narrative is Rosalind, disguised as a boy, Ganymede, who tests the devotion of her own beloved Orlando. Meanwhile, other characters engaged in pursuits of love and philosophical musings, culminating in a series of no-spoilers, reconciliations, and marriages.
The forest setting allows characters to explore different aspects of themselves, leading to revelations and character growth highlighted by the famous All the World's a Stage monologue, which philosophically anchors the play's exploration of life's stages. It's also worth mentioning that this play contains not one, but two Fools. Touchstone, who is a traditional court jester, and then Jaques, walking through the forest of Arden, encounters Touchstone far away, sees him and his full antiques, and muses on what a life that must be to be a Motley Fool. Well, you can probably imagine what one or two of my great quotes are this particular week, but without further ado, let's get started. Great quote, number 1. It runs like this. Well, the start of it goes all the world's stage and all the men and women, merely players. I'm sure you've probably heard that one before, and I'm going to speak to it in the main, but it's such a great passage spoken by Jaques that I think it deserves our quickly stepping through the seven ages of man because I would feel bad if, after nine years of this podcast I hadn't given you the goods on this, one of my favorite passages from one of my favorite plays of Shakespeare, all the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances. One man and as time plays many parts is acts being seven ages. At first, the infant mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then the whining schoolboy with his satchel and shining morning face creeping like snail unwillingly to school. Then the lover sighing like furnace with a woeful ballad made to his mistress's eyebrow. Then a soldier full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard, jealous and honor, sudden and quick and quarrel, seeking the bubble reputation even in the cannon's mouth. Then the justice in fair round belly with good capon lined, with eyes, severe and beard of formal cut. Full of wise saws and modern instances, and so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts into the lean and slippered pantaloon with spectacles on nose and pouch on side. His youthful hose well saved a world too wide for his shrunk shank. His big, manly voice turning again toward childish treble pipes and whistles in his sound. Last scene of all that ends this strange eventful history is second childishness and mere oblivion. Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. There it is again. The famous line spoken by the melancholy Jaques. That's act 2, scene 7 of As You Like It.
That's the full monologue, the various stages of a man's life from birth to death. Jaques uses that metaphor to highlight the inevitable roles that we all play throughout our lives underscoring the transient nature of existence. In some ways, you could say maybe the scripted roles that each of us must enact. It's obviously an oversimplification, but it is an absolute classic. The reason I wanted to lead off with it this week is because I think it's helpful to recognize that we're all playing roles and things out there are playing roles. If you can see the roles that they're playing with self-awareness, that's so helpful. Let me give a quick couple of examples. Public companies, stocks, the kind that we recommend or don't at the Motley Fool. For me, I've recognized the roles that they're playing, and I formed it up this way. Listeners of this podcast will know where I'm headed here. Some of them, I think, are rule-makers. We grew up as kids in this society where we recognize the big dogs out there. Microsoft, Walmart. The list goes on.
The companies that have been so successful and are such mainstays in our society that they really are the ones that have come to make the rules in their industries. Without being nefarious because for the most part, I think these companies are good. They're large employers. They're hiring lots of people. Probably you know some people who work for these companies, and they're trying to do the right thing in the world. Especially here in the United States of America, where I think we practice conscious capitalism better than most other countries in the world, but by no means are we the only ones. These are the rule-makers. That's the phrase that my brother Tom and I came up with as we wrote our third book, Rule Breakers, Rule Makers.
We said you know the story of business and of investing is the story of rule-makers, the Goliaths out there but listeners of this podcast will know, I've always favored the Rule Breakers, the ones who come along and they know not to play the game the way Goliath wants you to play, because David is only going to win if he takes this surprising and different approach to competition. Those are the companies breaking the rules. The story of business. For me anyway, the pattern recognition that I've tried to give you and use myself as I think about the world around us and think about what do I want to buy stock in, the name of this podcast is Rule Breaker Investing, for a very specific reason that I've just laid out for you. I champion and love those companies that think different and not just think different along with Apple or Steve Jobs, but in fact, act different. They change the game by introducing new products, new services, using new technologies, or new business models. Those are the Rule Breakers. When you recognize that all the world's a stage, you start to be able to see what roles different players are playing.
You can start to see the bigger picture and form strategy and have that pattern recognition that I think is so helpful for us as investors or for those of us who are entrepreneurs as well or just Intuitive fellow livers of life. Pattern recognition, recognizing what's on stage and who's doing what. I think it's worth mentioning before we go onto quote number 2 that the stock market over the course of your lifetime and mine is going to rise and it's going to fall. It's helpful to see it for what it is. It's going to make exits and entrances. You, as an investor in your time, will play many parts. If you're truly invested as I am for your whole lifelong, then you'll recognize that sometimes it's going to be good, sometimes it's going to be bad. You're going to foster resilience by investing all the way through. All the world's a stage, and all the men and women, and companies too, are merely players. On to quote number 2. This line appears in act 4 scene 1 of As You Like It. It's spoken by Rosalind, who's the protagonist. She's disguised as a boy named Ganymede. As I mentioned earlier, it occurs during a conversation with Orlando. This is the man that she loves, but she's disguised as a boy, and Orlando's unaware of Ganymede's true identity. This quote cleverly hints at the fluidity of identity and the disguises I would say both literal and metaphorical, that people wear. This is maybe too grandiose a description for what is a rather simple and great line. Here it goes, 'twas I, but 'tis not I. On the face of it, what the line is saying, especially in the context of the play, is, there is something that I did earlier, earlier in time, earlier in the play, 'twas I but in so many words, I have changed. That's not me anymore 'tis not I.
You know Amazon started as a bookseller. I still have my Amazon Original mouse pad here at my computer. As I do this podcast, it says, "Earth's biggest bookseller", Amazon it was just a bookseller, but not anymore. The only constant in life is change. Teladoc counted for a whole lot when we were all panned in for more than a year because of an unfortunate pandemic. I picked a five-stock sampler years ago called five stocks for the coronavirus right in the face of that time and boy, if those stocks didn't sore over the next year or so, because I had indeed picked five great stocks for the coronavirus. But here's the good news, bad news. Bad news first, the bad news is those stocks ended up doing years later horribly. It's my worst ever five-stock sampler, even though some of them had tripled in their first year. That's the bad news. It was pretty much my worst five-stock sampler and longtime listeners will know through the Review of Paloozas how they did and what we ended up concluding from that. That's the bad news. The good news though, the good news is the coronavirus is for the most part over, and we're all back for the most part to whatever we think of as normal life or pre-pandemic life.
Most of us know we can never go back and things have changed in lots of profound ways, but the only constant is change, and that's a pretty good reminder. Teladoc these days is a pale shadow of its former self because as it turns out, when we all could only consult a doctor from our den or our apartment, that made a lot of sense, but years later, maybe that's not as much interest. Of course, Teladoc remains a stock that we've recommended and back, I hope it comes back to us I, but it is not I. It's crucial for us as investors to stay informed and responsive. Don't hold on to tightly to your past perceptions when new data shows up and suggests a different narrative Twas I, But Tis Not I. We interviewed the CEO of Blockbuster on the Motley Fool radio show back in the day and back in that day, Blockbuster was the Goliath and Netflix was an upstart, and I'm not going to blame the management of Blockbuster, I'll let them blame themselves. Or maybe it was just the technology rolling over the world like a steam roller. As Stewart Branches said, "When a new technology hits, it's like a steam roller, you're either part of the steam roller or part of the road." Blockbuster versus Netflix is a great reminder for those of us who've been around 20 years or more of how the world really can change. I don't sell very often as an investor, but what I do, it's generally for one of three standard reasons and one of those is that maybe I've found a better stock that fits my portfolio goals or in some ways replaces an older stock, maybe a longer-term holding. You don't have to do this all at once. But if you start sensing, the world has changed enough on one of the stocks in your portfolio, you might want to consider selling. Again, I don't sell very often. The two other reasons I sell usually are tax-loss harvesting when I've just given up on his stock and I want to cash it in as a capital loss offsetting my capital gains.
The third reason I'll speak to this a little bit later is when a stock exceeds my sleep number, but each of these is generally about recognizing that things were once one way, but they're not that way anymore. Before we move on to quote Number 3, let me just say it's not just the companies themselves that we invest in that change, although they do, we change too. One man in his life as Shakespeare wrote in Quote 1, "One man in his life plays many parts and that's why lifelong learning is so critical for all adult." What's a way you can ensure that you don't have any blind spots and that you can be relevant whatever changes in technology occur next? Robert Brokamp did a great job on last week's show speaking to this, he said at one point on telling their stories, Robert said, he makes a point of updating his resume every year or two. I'm happy to say Robert's been with us for 20 plus years. It's not necessarily that he's looking for other jobs, at least we've loved having him at the Motley Fool for 25 years or so, but that practice of saying, I did this new thing, I learned this new thing, I can put it up on my resume is a demonstration to himself that he is engaged in the lifelong learning that we all need to be, especially in an increasingly technology driven world. I'll also mention Crucial Conversations, that's a book many of you will have read. I have too. In fact, we have a great interview with the CEO and one of the bright lights of the Crucial Conversations World on this podcast years ago, just go ahead and google Rule Breaker Investing crucial conversations, and you'll hear her and me talking about crucial conversations.
But one of the key elements of being a great listener and a participant in really important conversations, especially when there's surprises, all of a sudden, that friend or spouse or partner says something that really surprises us and all of a sudden we realize we're in a crucial conversation. What you need to do in that context, we learned is to actively observe, to pay a lot of attention. By the way, not just to what is being said, what is being felt by your conversation partner, the crucial conversations crowd. You can get a certification in this, by the way. This is a professional practice these days, but they call it learn to look at content and conditions. Especially in conversational contexts, they say learn to look for silence or violence. It's helpful to have words that nearly rhyme for memory's sake. Learn to look for silence in the conversation that you're having, is your conversational partner starting to shut down? You probably need to change your vibe. You only notice this if you're actively observing or instead of silence, are they opting for violence? I.e. they're getting angry, they're getting livid. You can see it in their face. Both signs, silence or violence, that in this crucial conversation it's going the wrong way, you can only realize that if you're actively observing, you can only realize that the Internet or artificial intelligence or streaming services, Blockbuster might overtake your business model if you're actively observing in a world, where, Twas I, But Tis Not I. Onto great quote number 3. This one comes from Act 2 Scene 1 of, As You Like It.
It's spoken by Duke Senior. These words are part of his reflections on exile because he's been exiled by the court to the forest of Arden. Despite being basically usurped from his Duke dome and sent into the forest, the Duke finds solace and happiness in the natural simplicity and freedom, freedom from courtly pretentions. He begins to see his misfortune as a chance to lead a more authentic, a more interesting life. Here's the quote, "Happy is your grace that can translate the stubbornness of fortune into so quiet and so sweet a style." That phrase, stubbornness of fortune, that basically means the inherent uncertainties of investing. What's the market going to do tomorrow, next quarter, over the next five years? What is that stock going to report next quarter or three years from now? The inherent uncertainties of investing Shakespeare captures pretty elegantly in the phrase, stubbornness of fortune. For those uncertainties, that stubbornness of fortunate to be translated into, here's the other part of the lines, so quiet and so sweet a style, is for me anyway, to hold, to ride out the cycles quietly and sweetly, to buy and to hold the investments that you make in a world by the way, where most people don't. Most people think in terms of three months, not three years. Most people, if they think in terms of three years, they're probably not thinking in terms of three decades. So for me, happy is your grace that can translate this stubbornness of fortune into so quiet and so sweet a style. The style that we're talking about is our classic Motley Fool style 1, heavily endorsed and exemplified by my brother Tom and by me, and it leads to, for me, one of my favorite words in the English language, serenity.
That's a word that anytime I say it, it just immediately a wave washes over me and I smile and it just calms me that word, serenity. It makes me think of the morning shower. I bet you take a morning shower from time-to-time, I do pretty much every day myself. Why did we tend to have so many great ideas in the shower? Is it the warm water rushing over us? Well probably that matters some, but I think for many, the most likely serenity we can manage to inject in our daily schedule is that 5-10 minutes of time that the shower gives you, and look what ideas and perspectives we gain from the shower. The single best response you can make for your financial future in the face of market sell-offs, is to buy, that's not easy, is it? When all your instinct, probably the influencers in your life on the television set at the water cooler in your own home are saying the opposite and that's by the way, why it works. Because when you're buying in the face of market sell-offs, you're being a Fool, F, when the wise thing to do is supposedly follow others to the exits. Now, I'm no hero at this myself, I feel the same emotions everybody else does when the market drops and we've seen it happened a whole bunch of times and just the 30 years of The Motley Fool or my 20 plus years before that and I suspect over the next 50 plus years going forward, it always feels bad, but that's why the single great power tool that will help you, in Shakespeare's words, translate the stubbornness of fortune into so quiet and so sweetest style is dollar-cost averaging is saving some money every two weeks from your paycheck, is lumping money up monthly, if you like, or quarterly, so that on the same day, every two weeks, every month, every quarter, every year, the same day, no matter what the market's doing, you're buying. You're taking those new savings and you are investing them into the market, that's called dollar-cost averaging. You might be buying the same stock over time. Each time you're averaging out the dollar cost of that stock as you add it at different points, high and low.
Any Rule Breaker investor knows we like to add to our winners. Typically I like to add new money into the market to the things that are going up, not the things that are going down. That itself is a very contrary approach. Most people think it's the opposite, but that single great power tool to help you translate the stubbornness of fortune into so quiet and so sweetest style is just to be always be buying ABB, dollar-cost averaging. One of my Internet friends, Twitter fellow Fool Matt Hard at 3:07 Fool on Twitter. I know some people call it X I'm still going to call it Twitter. Matt, every Thursday comes on and posts just a few lines about the stocks that he's just added to that Thursday, every Thursday. In the face of markets going up and down, news headlines roiling our economy and sometimes our world.
Matt and his ilk, I would say probably a lot of fellow Fools hearing me right now recognize that translate the stubbornness of fortunate, so quiet and so sweetest style is just to be there every Thursday or every blank, whatever your rhythm is. Onto quote Number 4. So a contact center for this one. This is advice given by Roseland, the heroine of the play, still disguised as Ganymede. She's giving it to Phoebe in Act 3, Scene 5. Now, Phoebe is out there on the countryside, she's a proud shepherdess and she is being wooed by Silvius, who is a country pumpkin and doesn't seem very effective in his wooing. They're both comic figures in the second half of the play. This advice is given by Roseland to Phoebe, Who's scorn fully rejecting the love of Silvius and Roseland's warning her to be more pragmatic in her romantic choices because she might not always keep attracting suitors. It's a humorous but pragmatic reminder of the fleeting nature of opportunity, shall we say, and here's Great quote Number 4, sell when you can, you or not for all markets. First, I just love that Shakespeare turn romantic advice into the language of business and investing. I think that's in part why when you see this production wherever you are, whenever it happens for you, that line sell when you can, you or not for all markets gets a big laugh every time and while this great quotes is largely focused, obviously on the more serious work of Rule Breaker Investing, extracting investing trues this week from the Bard. Let's not forget that as you like, is a comedy. It's actually my favorite Shakespeare and comedy actually my favorite Shakespeare and play and don't we love people who make us laugh and Shakespeare does that as well as anyone.
I came across this great line from Audrey Hepburn, the phenomenal old-school Hollywood's Starlet, who said once, "I love people who make me laugh, I honestly think it's the thing I like most to laugh. It cures a multitude of ills, it's probably the most important thing in a person.'' That's not a Shakespeare in great quote. But I do love that Audrey Hepburn quote because yeah, I do too. I bet you do too. I love people who make me laugh, sell when you can you or not for all markets. We can certainly think of companies I already referenced a few earlier didn't really managed to translate their success from one technology era into the next. This is probably the Number 1 reason that Rule Breaker's emerge. When new technologies show up, all of a sudden the opportunity to break the rules emerges as well and I think of the ones that have really worked out. I already mentioned Amazon, Nvidia, one of my, maybe my greatest stock pick of the last 20 years, just a phenomenal company and a number of times in the past of this podcast, I've told you the story of where I recommended Nvidia, what it did next. When I rerecommended it, what was happening? You can go back and google this. I'm not going to go through this again, but the roller coaster of having held Nvidia stock, which tripled and then gave it all away and then did nothing for five years and went sideways and all of a sudden, years later it's up hundreds of times in value. You'll recognize the incredible benefit to not listening to Roseland's advice, sell when you can, you are not for all markets. Almost anytime in the last 25 years, it was a wrong move to sell amazon.com.
That even includes when Amazon dropped 95-7. I just kept holding it didn't feel good at all by the way, have you ever had a stock do this to you, do something that bad to you? I have. It's not the only one watching a company lose 85% plus of its value and keep holding it. Once you see what eventually happens to Amazon, if you held it all the way through. You've been given a front row seat to a play that most people will never see. The inspiration and the insights that you get walking away from that experience can enrich the rest of your life as it has indeed mine. But not every company is Nvidia, not every company is amazon.com, I think of AOL. That's where The Motley Fool launched back in the day. AOL was a true Rule Breaker that became a rule-maker, especially when it merged with Time Warner in the year 2000, I think it was and that was pretty much the peak for AOL stock. It was pretty much all down from there as increasingly broadband took over and dial up over your telephone became the old school way that you probably wouldn't anymore want to access the internet because it was really slow and you could get knocked off line on your phone in a way that broadband doesn't.
Broadband killed the AOL radio star and it's a reminder, sometimes it is the right move to sell when you can, because sometimes not every company is for all markets. I already mentioned earlier the three typical reasons that I sell. One of them is once a stock has overgrown my sleep number and I referenced that very briefly. Let me go back there now and just to remind you of what I mean by that phrase again, longtime listeners know exactly where I'm headed. We have many new listeners every week and every year, so I never assume everybody already knows all my Rule Breaker investing language. What is your sleep number? Well, those of us who have an intelligent mattress, I don't have one of these, but I know that some mattresses, you can dial the firmness of the mattress up or down based on the sleep number, I think it's 0-100 where 100 would be the rock hard mattress that most of us would never want asleep on and zero would be the ultimate in wishy-washy, end up in a puddle of use somewhere on a spot, somewhere on that sunk and mattress. So 0-100 is the sleep number for mattresses. But I've co-opted that phrase because I love this way of thinking about your sleep number. Your sleep number dear listener, is the percentage that you would allow your largest position in your portfolio to occupy of the overall pie of your portfolio. What percentage would you allow that to be and still be able to sleep at night?
Quick examples. A lot of people have a sleep number, probably somewhere around 10. Because once the stock gets to be, let's say, 10% of their whole portfolio, 10% maybe of everything they have in the world, they, based on their own internal instincts, or maybe those older people who wants to coach them, say, I think I should sell this one-off back down at 10%. Because I can't sleep at night, the thinking goes. If this thing is worth, if anything, is worth more than 10% of my overall net worth. That's a perfectly valid reason to sell. Indeed, most of my own selling over the course of my life has been because a single stock has just outgrown my own sleep number. AOL was one of those companies back in the day that, when it went up 150 times in value after our recommendation in 1994, when by the year 2000, it was up 150 times in value, if you ever have a stock that does that in your portfolio, it's going to occupy a very large percentage of your portfolio. Usually upwards 80% or more unless you're selling it off piecemeal here and there, maybe donating some shares at that charitable time of year. That's a nice thing to do, too. Unless you've been giving it away piecemeal through one way or another, if you don't, you're going to end up with a gigantic single holding dominating your overall portfolio. That's what great Rule Breakers like Amazon, NVIDIA, Starbucks, Intuitive Surgical, Shopify, the list goes on and on of Rule Breaker companies that have done this to Motley Fool member portfolios. That's why it's important to establish your sleep number to know ahead of time, what is that number that you just won't sleep well at night if any stock represents more than that for your portfolio? Getting to know ourselves as investors is such a valuable thing to do. Sell when you can, you are not for all markets. One reason to sell when you can is when a stock has exceeded your sleep number. My favorite reason to sell. In conclusion, on quote number 4, it's worth pointing out your life is actually for all markets. I've already spoken to that. If you're investing for life as I am, that means you're staying on the boat. I like to call it the ship of Fools. You're a board, the ship of Fools, your whole life long. That line, that advice from Roslyn: sell when you can; you are not for all markets. I want to say this back to Roslyn on behalf of Rule Breaker Investing, if you buy and hold for life, you are going to live through every good and bad market.
Far more good than bad, but every bad market too. I wouldn't take this advice as a suggestion. You should try to time your way in and out of market cycles or trends, or your favorite stock. That final thought, as we close out, the penultimate great quote this week, quote number 4. Sell when you can, you are not for all markets. Which brings us to great quote number 5. Long-time listeners will remember, I do try to save best for last many a time, not every time. But I think I have tried to do it once again here because my favorite quote, the greatest quote in my mind anyway, from As You Like It, is from Act to Scene 7. It's spoken by Jake Wheeze. As he describes meeting the court jester, touchstone in the forest of Arden. I mentioned this at the top. Jake Wheeze is fascinated by touchdowns, witty insights, and he's dressed up in a Fools garb. But Jake Wheeze sees the depth, the wisdom that's hidden beneath folly. The whole scene celebrates the subversive wisdom of the Fool. It is the greatest scene in all of Shakespeare, I might say the greatest scene in all worldwide drama. Celebrating Fools and foolishness, of course, a recurring theme, especially in Shakespeare's works. Great quote number 5. A Fool, a Fool. I met a Fool in the forest. A Motley Fool.
It was that very line that gave birth to our company name. I was flipping through a book of quotes. It was the Penguin book of quotations. It was April of 1993. We were going to launch our first edition of our print newsletter, The Motley Fool in July of 1993, so it's about six weeks beforehand. I'm trying to figure out what are we going to call this thing? I talked to my brother Tom and our pal, our co-founder Eric, and we were all trying to figure out what would we call our new investing print newsletter. It was that very line that jumped out to me; it's a nondescript line, a Fool, a Fool. I met a Fool in the forest, a Motley Fool. But as I sat there, I was thinking, that's actually a good position to be coming from, because we're all going to be fools, f. I've made so many mistakes over the course of my first 57 years, we're all going to make mistakes throughout life. Therefore, some of our stock picks are going to be bad. Therefore, it's good to have told people ahead of time that we're Fools. Maybe you're a fool too, dear listener, dear reader, we would've said back in the day. We're all fools. But it's also worth pointing out that it's a lot of fun when you are winning, when you're doing things well, when as touchstone, your impressing those others who are seeing you far away in the forest, looking at you admiring what you're doing. Isn't it great rather than to pump yourself up and say, I'm Michael Jordan or I'm Elon Musk, just to say, actually, we're, fools? Whether things are going well or whether things are going poorly, calling oneself a fool always works.
I'm so glad that Tom and Eric agreed and that we all decided to launch the Motley Fool as the print newsletter, first issue, July 1993, and everything that's come since and so many good things have come since, derives in some ways from that line from act 2 scene 7 of As You Like It. So much of the Motley Fool today, Rule Breaker Investing itself, it resonates deeply with this ethos, celebrating the wisdom that can be hidden within folly. It's a core principle that shaped our approach to investing in life. I hope yours too. That's the first thing I want to say just about that line itself, its significance to me personally, but I hope to you and historically to literature into the world what it says is so powerful, I love it so much, act 2, scene 7, of As You Like It. As I was thinking more about it, I was thinking about how it encapsulates the value of unconventional wisdom, the power of seeing the world differently. I mentioned earlier Apple's line, Steve Jobs's line, think different. I was also reminded that our very first newspaper column was in Smart Money Magazine. We were invited by Smart Money in the first year, two of our business one which we launched on AOL. We had a following, and they're like, Hey guys, why don't you take over this column, the previous writer has left, and we'd love for you to do it? What was the title of that column? Unconventional Wisdom. It was really rather perfect now that I think about it in retrospect.
About a year in, I think we probably started turning in our columns a day or two late. We were getting a little slow and distracted. We decided, let's stick with the Internet, maybe not with print media. I remember I think we handed off that column to Roger Lowenstein, who I'm sure did a much better job than we did. But thinking different and acting differently, that unconventional wisdom, that's what stocks I love to find and strategies, I love to find the ones that seem foolish, the consensus, but they hold untapped potential. I think, for example, of the third trait of Rule Breaker stocks, outstanding past price appreciation. Most people here buy low, sell high. They think you should find all the penny stocks, all the things that have really low numbers or have gotten crushed or kicked off into the gutter. Those are the stocks you should buy. If everybody thinks that, if that's the conventional wisdom, you understand why Rule Breakers like me, and I hope you prefer the exact opposite. I like to buy stocks that have done great, that are doing great, and have done great. That very trade has been implicit in any of the great stocks I've mentioned in this episode, from NVIDIA to Amazon, the list goes on. Amazon had doubled in the months leading up to our first recommendation of it. It was painful, by the way, to be knowing I was going to be recommending it and researching and some and writing up the report as the stock doubles in the weeks leading up to our recommendation. But it took me a few years later to recognize that's actually a great trade you should be looking for in the stocks, the rule-breakers that you're thinking of investing in outstanding past price appreciation. The third trade. It works so well again because it's unconventionally wise.
I guess there's one last thing that I wanted to identify that brings a big smile to my face as I share it with you. Next time you go to a Shakespeare play or read one, and I'm quite sure many of you have done more of this than I have in the course of my life, I just have an undergrad English degree. I took a few Shakespeare courses. I'm by no means an expert. But once you start to identify who the fools are, especially in his comedies, and start cheering them on, that's pure fun. Shakespeare's fools have a unique view of the world. It's often laced with humor, of course. I'm not sure there are many other characters that people of all ages can get behind, can cheer on, can see themselves in than these fools, these truth-telling, wisdom-weaving, wise crackers. Once we start to see where on their side, it brings us a sense of joy and liberation. I would say similarly Rule Breaker investors, we find joy in pursuing that road less traveled. Embracing this playful and fearless approach to investing not only will differentiate you from the crowd, but also it enhances your own satisfaction when you win. Because you've aligned your actions with your own conviction with unconventionally wise insight, rather than following the herd, that is the most fun way to win of all. That's what leads to a far more fulfilling and interesting life. Well, there you have it. Five of my favorite great quotes from Shakespeare's greatest play, As You Like It. Just to summarize, all the world's is stage, and all the men and women merely players. It was I, but is not I. Number 3, happy is your grace that can translate the stubbornness of fortune into so quiet and so sweet a style. Number 4, sell when you can, you are not for all markets. Finally, a Fool. A Fool, I met a Fool in the forest. A Motley Fool.
