In this year's Gratitude episode of the Rule Breaker Investing podcast, a Motley Fool member shares his extraordinary journey from beating cancer to running marathons -- and how investing in companies like Nvidia and Shopify changed his family's future.
Listener stories span the globe, from a school founder in Japan to a Fool in Bangalore with a portfolio full of 10-baggers. Along the way, Motley Fool co-founder David Gardner reflects on the power of community, the lessons of loss, and why gratitude is the ultimate fuel for a richer life.
To catch full episodes of all The Motley Fool's free podcasts, check out our podcast center. To get started investing, check out our beginner's guide to investing in stocks. A full transcript follows the video.
This video was recorded on Nov. 27, 2024.
David Gardner: Thanksgiving, a holiday here in the US this week, but actually something that's even richer if you practice it every day. Thanksgiving is a time for gratitude, reflection, and connection, and I'm grateful to share this episode with you. This week, we're going to explore the power of kindness, the transformative magic of community, and the amazing journeys you've shared with me over the years from marathon stories to life changing investments to thank you notes from around the world. This is an episode about celebrating what we have and those who inspire us to be better. Let's gather at the table of gratitude together. Shall we? Only on this week's Rule Breaker Investing.
Welcome back to Rule Breaker Investing this holiday week here in the United States of America. Bunch of notes coming in from outside the US, even wishing me and us happy Thanksgiving from many well wishers worldwide. Thank you, each for the time that you took to send notes into our mailbag. Our email address has always been, I hope will always be [email protected] so if you ever feel yourself inspired to write in, maybe you highly agree with something, maybe you highly disagree with something, we share all kinds via the mailbag. This week's mailbag, probably because it comes after my annual gratitude podcast, is about the most loving kind mailbag I could ever imagine, and I'm just delighted to share it with you.
But I've taken on many different questions over the years, and I always encourage beautiful questions, hard questions, important questions. That's what we feature at the end of every month, as we've done for years and years now on Rule Breaker Investing. This is the final Wednesday of the Wednesday, November 27, it is your mailbag. Before we get started, let's look back on the month that was for this podcast. There were three preceding podcasts. We kicked it off with tips, tricks and life hacks Volume 10, a long running episodic series. As is the case for this one, every single tip or trick or life hack is new. They're all original so when I say Volume 10, that means we've done something like 75 mental tips, tricks and life hacks over the years. This time, we provided seven unique strategies to make life smoother, smarter and a bit more joyful Hemingway Bridge, anyone, if you listen, you know what I'm talking.
As an audience member, always have a question ready to power the Q&As at the end of every presentation. Tips tricks and Life hacks Volume 10. Week 10 was ChatGPT asks and I answer Volume 2, five pitches. Here they are really quickly. These were the questions that ChatGPT challenged me when I asked AI to ask me about Rule Breaker Investing. We had a hardball, a softball, a curveball, a screwball, and a knuckleball. The hardball was what separates Rule Breakers built to last from those destined to fizzle out? Then came pitch number two, the softball. ChatGPT asked me, can David sum up Rule Breaker Investing in one sentence? Number 3, the curveball. What would make me rethink a long term winner? Then the last two, the screwball was, is there a traditional investing rule that I begrudgingly respect, and finally, pitch number 5, the knuckleball. If I could pass on just one Rule Breaker principle to the future, what would it be? Lot of fun to do that. The second in our series, I think I'm going to have ChatGPT keep poking at me in the months and years to come. I really enjoyed that one.
Then, of course, last week, my annual gratitude podcast always, of course tied up strategically in November, gratitude, in this case, 2024. I want to say that that really spawned much of what you're going to hear on the mailbag this week.
There's probably a little bit of a recency bias, but I also think in this time of gratitude, it's a bull market, and I think we're all feeling that. The market is at or near all time highs. It's always much more fun to be a Foolish investor when things are going up, not down, and it's always more fun to be a podcaster at The Motley Fool when we can talk about the winners that we've had or the year that has been. It has been a wonderful year to be an investor. We'll talk about that a little bit more this podcast.
But I think you're seeing a lot of that gratitude pour out of the power of a bull market. Because I think the market's going up next year, so I trust and hope things will continue. Although one year and three, I'll always acknowledge the market drops. No real big market predictions here, but I do want to say about this mailbag, that each of the seven items I'll be sharing this week is really very kind, and I think kindness, well, it's a powerful word for me. I personally uphold it as I think it's one of America's five core values, kindness, and when I hear unkind things said, I always think that's un-American. For me, it's a very meaningful word, but as you'll shortly hear, these notes are not all from Americans, and, of course, kindness is a much bigger force worldwide as it has been for thousands of years. These notes are very kind. I run the risk of looking self aggrandizing to share publicly some of these most kind thoughts. But I've also learned in life now at the age of 58, not to deny others their gratitude.
When someone says thank you, don't say no problem or shrug it off, receive it, and so that's what I'll be doing this week. I don't want to undercut these genuine expressions from people giving their gratitude. We should just receive and say thanks. For each of these, I say ahead of time, thank you, thanks in advance, which in this week of Thanksgiving seems very apropos. A few hot takes from social media on X @LisaA105. Lisa, thank you for this.
Hi, David. Hope you're well. Because of you, I've hit my second goal. I can't thank you enough. Your words to hold the course and not panic. Exceptional advice. Scary to follow. But glad you were in my head when it counted most happy holidays. I responded. I tweeted back so happy to hear Lisa commit to investing your whole life, and a lot of the scariness goes away. You know one year and three will be down. You know about once every decade, you'll be really down, and you know you'll compound 9-10% annually, despite all of that, and I would say even more than that with Rule Breaker Investing, and I'm happy to say Lisa replied back, it's exactly what occurred. As I think about that exchange, I'm reminded that there's something about encouragement and the way it cycles back and forth that is very evident to me. In the best expressions on social media, not all expressions are great on social media, but in the best ones, you see it happening, and I think you really see it happening with this podcast and some of the notes this week. Here's how it works, I think.
We here at The Motley Fool, and I through this podcast, encourage you. We encourage you to save. We encourage you to invest your savings. As I did, to Lisa, we encourage you to do this your whole life. Don't jump in and jump out of the market or get worried or think the market's going to go down. It will from time to time, but you really want to be on that roller coaster all the way through because the stock market roller coaster over the course of your whole life is different from every other roller coaster. Every other roller coaster drops you off right where you started. You've gone up, you've gone down.
It's been exciting, crazy at times. But you end up getting out and you're right where you started. It's completely not the case, though, with the stock market roller coaster, which when you get off that one, near the end of your life, after a life of investing, you are so much higher than you could ever have dreamed and you're looking down and seeing, wow. It's that encouragement that we offer you through this podcast that I've tried for 30 plus years at The Motley Fool to encourage you with, and yet, look what happens. The encouragement comes back, your notes, your expressions, this mailbag, every mailbag. You're basically encouraging me back, which I deeply appreciate, and then just to complete the cycle by simply reading this out and sharing it back, you and I, whoever wrote me, you and me, we've conspired to help nameless others. Tens of thousands of others who are listening and benefiting from the encouragement that you and I are generating, and that is itself an encouragement cycle.
That's what I see, Lisa, in our exchange, and that's what I think runs through this week's podcast. In fact, I think I need to name this week's podcast after that. We'll see. Two more tweets. I want to share @FergusCullen. Fergus, you wrote, great way to start Thanksgiving week 7.5 mile run in crisp 37 degrees, listening to the annual Rule Breaker Investing gratitude episode @DavidGFool. Well, thank you @FergusCullen. I think I tweeted you back. If I were running with you, I could only keep up the first three miles or so. So I'm glad that you can keep going 7.5, even in near freezing temperatures. Really impressive. That's what I want for all of my listeners to be much more physically and mentally impressive than I am. Speaking of which @ErikDeVore wrote, reacting to that. That's great. He said, I listened yesterday on a 12-mile bike ride. Erik went on, It just so happened that I was riding next to something quite big and blue, too, and you're thinking of my celebration of the color blue last week and blue spaces and blue skies and blue ocean opportunities, and thank you for that, Erik. You said, thank you, David, and the podcast for all of our workout soundtracks this year, the gratitude flows both ways. Well, thank you @ErikDeVore on Twitter X, and I think we'll call it there for social media and get right into Rule Breaker Investing Mailbag Item number 1. This one's from Amit Somani. Thank you so much, Amit. Hi, David, like you, I am deeply grateful for the stock market. It is an unimaginable creation for creating passive wealth and participating in magnificent businesses worldwide, and I'm going to say full stop right there, Amit.
That is so well put. You're right. It is an unimaginable creation, and it is magnificent. Let's keep going. I've had several highly successful stints in large technology companies, Amit writes that helped generate the capital I later invested. Now, to see that capital compound passively, well beyond the original corpus, admittedly over much more prolonged periods than working at those companies, is mind blowing. I'm using the rule Breaker Investing platform. That would be this podcast. You're using this podcast as your platform, Amit to you write thank the founders of Mercado Libre, CostCo, Trade Desk, NVIDIA, Amazon, and many more.
All these are 10 baggers or more for me. I have yet to experience a 100 bagger, but following folks like you and other Fools makes me believe it's possible. Amit, writes thank you. Amit closes, as my wife has quoted, albeit in a different context, sometimes it's neither the journey nor the destination, but the fellow passengers that make it all worthwhile. I'm grateful to have had fellow Fools, especially you, David, as a co-passenger on this investing journey for several decades. Happy Thanksgiving and Fool on Amit Somani writing in from Bangalore, India. Well, Amit this note made me so happy we could almost just end the podcast right here, but I especially appreciate how you're calling out with gratitude the people who founded the stocks that you and I are invested in the companies, you mentioned Mercado Libre, for example, Trade Desk, Amazon, etc. I think that's completely worthwhile to do, and I try to do it myself too. There would be no great stocks if there weren't great companies, and there would be no great companies if there were not great people, people who are visionary, but didn't just think something, they acted on that vision and they made it manifest in our world.
Then you and I, through that miracle, that unimaginable creation of the stock market got to become part owners of those corporations, of those visions deployed, and so you nailed it, Amit and I really appreciate how well you put that. I also love that you're writing from half a world away and that you and I as fellow Fools, you see what I see, I see what you see, we get it, each other, and thank you for that, that gratitude 2024 podcast last week, I think in my final point, I made a point of yes, as I do each year, especially bull market years to thank the stock market. I think we should all be deeply grateful for it. We should want a good and fair stock market. We should want a transparent stock market. We should want a big and growing stock market, and we should want a great stock market in India.
We should want a great one in the United States of America. We should want a great stock market in Russia. Perhaps one someday may show up, and really every country around the world. I think every citizen anywhere deserves a shot at being a part owner of the great ideas that are being deployed by their fellow humans, whether it's domestically or globally, and these are where the Rule Breakers start. They start with the people that we share the gratitude with. Here it is that encouragement cycle again, Amit, because it sounds like I've encouraged you over the years to invest in the way that you are and you're crushing it, then you're encouraging me back with this beautiful note, and then you and I get to share that through our community encouragement cycle, mailbag item number 1. Let's move on to number two. This one comes from Rich Smith. Things I'm thankful for, writes, Rich. Thank you, Rich. David, I want to drop you a quick message of my gratitude. I haven't much time, so I'll list only a few things. One, free weekly podcasts from The Motley Fool. The price is worth it. It's awesome to know each week, Rich writes, I have a variety of award winning investing content to listen to. Number 2, TMFC. Now, for those who don't know, that is a ticker symbol for The Motley Fool 100 ETF. Anybody can Google that if you want to learn more about that.
Rich writes, "By my count, it's kept pace with the NASDAQ Composite with QQQ over the last five years. Really, since TMFC started back in 2018, according to my stocks app," Rich writes, "just one way to get some Foolish stock picks using an ETF approach." Finally, number 3, he calls out the Australian Fools, whom Rich writes, "I also listen to." Their investing insights are just as relevant and it offers a perspective from the other side of the pond. This isn't a repeat of number 1, that would be the one where he just calls out free weekly podcasts because the Aussies bring a special energy to their show. But yes, it does help that it's free, as well. Again, apologies, the list isn't longer, but I wanted to send this in before the Monday recording. I hope everyone in the Motley Fool Kingdom has an especially Foolish week can enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday regardless of where they may be or even if they don't celebrate Thanksgiving, many thanks and foul on Rich. Well, you are so welcome, Rich and thank you for writing in. I'm glad that you called out our Motley Fool Money podcast. We have a very famous one here in the United States of America, Award winning, as you have noted, but we also have a very famous one half a world away in Australia, where every few days, it seems, for years now, Motley Fool Australia longtime leader Scott Phillips and former Motley Fool analyst and longtime investor Andrew Page have a very lively Motley Fool Money podcast, but all for Australia.
Of course, it's not just for Australia, as Rich Smith has just pointed out and yes, it's free, too. Rich, really appreciate you calling out Scott and Andrew and their fine work there. For anybody who wants more Foolishness, can't get enough of Motley Fool podcasts. I want to make sure you know there are two Motley Fool Monies and they're both great. Before we move on to number 3, I also want to call out a few other Motley Fool delights.
I've really been enjoying our Breakfast News. If you're a Motley Fool member, you know that you have access to our Breakfast News. Breakfast with a Fool every morning, somewhere around 7:30 AM Eastern here in the United States, you will get a quick look at the market in the day ahead, maybe a big earnings report or what to watch out for. We always have some Foolish fun thrown in there as well. Breakfast News is something we've done on and off over the years. It is very much back on and just in recent months, it has been spectacular. I also want to call out the Motley Fool. I really have enjoyed using our app. I know it's me touting Home Cook in here, but I think if you haven't had a chance to download and use the Motley Fool App, dear listener, I think you'll really enjoy following the market. We're making constant improvements.
Between Breakfast News and the Motley Fool App, we have some more delights for anyone listening. Let's move on now to Rule Breaker Investing Mailbag item number 3, this one from Kevin McMahon. Hello, David, I love how you've given the oral history of NVIDIA's stock multiple times on air. Recently, Kevin, I'll pause it there. Kevin is pointing out that I think it was point number 2 of gratitude last week where I talked about NVIDIA, and I took you as a listener. From the dawn of the first time I picked it, which would be tax day, April 15th of 2005 and I take you all the way through on a journey, a 19-year and counting journey of holding, sometimes adding to never selling NVIDIA stock and how those numbers roll up, it's especially fun that I don't use any stock splits.
Our original cost basis of $19.56 cents, the stock has since split several times to the equivalent of you now have 120 shares of NVIDIA for every one you started with in 2005. But if you don't do those stock splits, it's really fun to see how the numbers roll up. Of course, stock splits are just a bookkeeping error. No value is being created or destroyed when stocks split. But anyway, thank you, Kevin. That was a lot of fun. You go on. I was wondering if you'd consider a new series where you describe the stock graph of other Titan companies that you or your brother Tom have picked over the years. You could obviously include other picks from other Fool analysts as well, example companies could include Mercado Libre, Intuitive Surgical, Facebook or Meta platforms, Amazon, Netflix, Tesla. I know that the list goes on and on. I recognize, Kevin closes that your stock stories episodic series here on the podcast is similar, but it would be awesome to hear more about what you or others were thinking at the time when you bought these specific incredible winners. The series could be called Turbulent Titans.
Take care Kevin McMahon. Well, first of all, Kevin, I really did enjoy doing that last week, though I will say it felt a bit unwieldy. Probably better done maybe in book form or maybe a video with visuals. My podcast is a purely audio medium. We don't have any video component to you listening in each week. To talk a listener through 19 years of stock movements up and down is not the easiest thing to do. It sounds like it was successful enough that you appreciated it. Kevin, it gave you a good idea. I want to mention with regard to your idea, I do enjoy telling these stories. I do think they need to be told.
I don't think a lot of people invest F foolishly. I don't think the majority of the world understands to buy and to hold and to be willing to sit there and lose money, not just one year and three, but sometimes get cut in half more than once, which has indeed been the case with NVIDIA stock holding it for 19 years for Motley Fool Stock Advisor members and counting or many of the other stocks that you mentioned that are also long term holds, Mercado Libre, Intuitive Surgical Netflix, the list goes on. I think most people don't have stories to tell like this because they don't hold stocks for much more than a year or three. I do agree with you that these stories do need to be told and we might do that. This is not exactly your idea, but I've considered going back to my five stock samplers, the 30 baskets of five stocks that I picked, 30 podcasts in the past and that we kept up with. We saw how they did over the succeeding three years. Well, I've kept watching well past the three-year expiration date for each of those fun contests. I can tell you it's eye popping how those stocks are doing. I just took a look at my spreadsheet today. Here's some more Thanksgiving. The 150 stocks that I picked on this podcast for are now up as a group, 233.2%. That's all 30 of those stocks with their long term returns averaged together. The S&P 500 by direct comparison, up 116.5%. The highly math inclined will recognize that we're now beating the S&P by 116.7 points. In other words, we're pretty much exactly double.
For those 150 stocks, the market averages, we've rolled up to 17,508 points of Alpha, but who's counting? I really am just so delighted to think back on that series and maybe return to it in future and tell some of the stories. Stocks like The Trade Desk picked as a five stock sampler a few years ago on this podcast are now 10 baggers. Again, this too is something a lot of people miss because they're not willing to take risks and buy these rule breakers in the first place and then often they're not willing to hold them as they should be, like a fine wine, allowed to mature over time and rack up big time wins for you and me as investors in them. Maybe we'll do something in that direction. Kevin, I really appreciate you writing.
Before we move on to number 4, Kevin had a postscript to his email. I just thought this was such a show of generosity. He wrote, "I've previously written into this mailbag and have had my inputs read by you on air. Please do not hesitate to choose someone else's note to read over mine, as I know it will make their day like it previously did mine." Well, that is such a small show of fine character. Kevin, it is indeed my pleasure to try to find the best people I know and to make the best impression on them that I can over the long term. That's one way to score life. It's just a small delight for me that somebody like you showing kindness and generosity, just as a throwaway in your postscript that you would write that. Thank you for that. Let's keep moving. Rule Breaker Mailbag item number 4. This one from my friend Jum. Hi, David and the Motley Fool family. Jum writes. "I can't believe it's almost Thanksgiving again. I'm trying to practice every day gratitude, but it is also now the time of year I reflect on what and who I'm thankful for you in the Motley Fool community are still at the top of my list. A quick note," Jum writes, "of gratitude. This year has been an exceptionally busy and a very good year for me. I traveled back to Thailand and took my whole family to visit Japan.
My mom came and stayed with me for six months. During this time, we took a trip to Hawaii, traveled to visit Italy, and various places within the US. All of these wonderful experiences have been made possible by being financially independent. I'm extremely grateful for discovering the Motley Fool and its great stock recommendations at the right time in my life. However," Jum goes on, "what I'm most grateful for is this community and our ability to learn from each other, especially the right investing mindset.
My wealth can be taken from me, but what I have learned will remain and I can also pass that knowledge along to my colleagues, friends and family so they can build wealth for themselves. Thank you, David, for creating a Rule Breaker Investing podcast with all its creative episodes. Can't wait, " she writes, "for the 2024 besties." Which, by the way, are coming in two weeks. Our annual Oscars for this podcast, the 10 best of 2024 will celebrate two weeks from now. Also, Jum concludes, "For letting it become a platform where all listeners are welcome to share amazing ideas, let their voice be heard and learn from each other. I am deeply grateful to have become a part of this wonderful community. Happy Thanksgiving to you and everyone at The Fool until next time, Fool on forever a Fool, Jum." She always signs it my biggest fan. Well, I'll just say back, you get it, Jum as per usual and I love how you called out community, specifically, learning from each other and that's really what these mailbag episodes.
We've done more than 100 of these for more than 100 consecutive months, going back years and years and again, I'm going to call the community encouragement cycle that is so evident that is powered on and operating at the speed of 11, especially this week on this podcast this week of gratitude. But I so appreciate you recognizing that this is a platform where all listeners are welcome to share as Jum writes, amazing ideas, let their voice be heard and learn from each other. Happy Thanksgiving, Jum.
On to Mailbag item number 5. This one from Martin Triggs, "Dear David and the Motley Fool team. I'm full of gratitude for the incredible work you all do preparing and producing top quality investing and business insight and personal finance podcasts weekly with the Rule Breaker podcasts and now daily with your award winning Motley Fool Money podcast. These are a wealth of riches, Martin writes, "all given to us with listening ears and hungry hearts for free." I thank you. "No one ever taught me these things," Martin writes, "until I came across your services and books, which I have devoured. Thank you, Motley Fool, for the amazing investing ideas like all of the magnificent seven stock picks, many of which I own and have a good magnificent seven score." I know what you're doing there. Martin and I love it. But there are also many other magnificent seven like stocks that various Fool services have recommended to me over the years that have also crushed the markets. For example, Shopify, Mercado Libre, Axon Enterprises, The Trade Desk. Martin also calls out Netflix and Sweetgreen to name just a few.
Certainly, there have been some big losers, too, but that's investing. My winners more than makeup for any of the losers as I hold them, let my winners run high and never rebalance. Martin goes on, "I've had two great conversions in my life. One is from being a Protestant to a Roman Catholic and the other is to adopt a business focused approach to investing as done by the Motley Fool. My superpower is always to try to recognize the truth through pattern recognition and then to stick with it through richer and poorer." Martin concludes, "I always had an alphabet soup report card in school. I went to Last Chance in Ottawa, Canada and I'm now a simple ABC teacher teaching kids at my own school I started with two employees. Yet my portfolio jiffy popped the week after the US election and went up more than a yearly salary. If I can do it," Martin writes, "anyone can do it. Thank you and also, I'm very grateful to America that made all this possible. Thank you. America. Regards Martin Triggs."
Well, Martin, writing I know it's not there in the note, but you've written in the past, longtime listeners. Part of this community of Fools will recognize that you are living in Japan as an expatrit. You've started your own financial literacy school. You have employees at that school. I think you're living your best life, Martin, and I'm just delighted to be able to share your story. There's only one correction I want to make to your note. This is a pedantic point of mine, but one I hope you'll appreciate. You wrote in your note, "My winners more than makeup for any of the losers as I hold them. Let my winners run high and never rebalance." I love that, but I'm going to change one word because, Martin, I think we can cross out the word any.
This is very important, not just for you and you already know this, but for anybody new to Rule Breaker Investing. Cross out the word any and substitute the word all. Let me now read that in its new form. My winners more than makeup for all of the losers as I hold them, let my winners run high, and never rebounce. Why am I making this correction? Well, one of the profound insights that it took me investing for several decades to know because you can't know until you have a scorecard and numbers. When we're practicing an approach to investing that many people have never tried before, it's all experimental, isn't it? It's been fun to share the experiment and the results all the way through. It took me a few decades to realize and recognize this. That is, that if you invest the Rule Breaker Investing way, and you hold your winners, as Martin mentions, let your winners run high and never rebalance, as Martin advocates, what you'll discover is not that your winners make up for any of your losers.
It's that your winners make up for all of your losers. Any loser I've ever had, even my very worst, I once held Enron down to just about 100% loss. That sounds really bad until you remember that a 10 bagger is actually a 900% return, 900% is a 10 times gain, and 900% is way bigger than minus 100%. If you really find the best companies of your time along with me, and we buy them together as Rule Breakers and as Rule Breaker investors with the proper six habits, and Martin was calling out one or two of them in his note. If you follow the program, you will discover this is miraculous. This is magical.
That your winners will actually wipe out all of your losers and leave a lot of money on the table. That is a profound insight, since most of us are trying to avoid loss, and often that costs us in terms of the big gains we could have made. This is a profound insight that I wanted to underline. Martin, thank you for allowing me to use your note as a platform to make that important point. But I'm really proud of you and your efforts to bring financial literacy to the world, starting most of all, of course, with your school in Japan. I think that's awesome and I wish you a happy Thanksgiving. Thank you for calling out America because I'm very grateful for America as well. America, like any long term investment, has had its wins and its losses, and those will continue into the future. But we've won far more often than we've lost, and I think our winners have wiped out all kinds of mistakes we've made in the past, even though we'll keep making mistakes into the future because we're human. We have two final mailbag items this episode. Let's move on to Number 6, Jason Moore. Hi, David. Listening to the gratitude 2024 episode this week, reminded me how much there's to be thankful for, and it's hard not to start with you, your podcast, and the incredible Motley Fool Community.
You've helped build something that goes far beyond financial advice. It's a space that inspires connection, curiosity, and personal growth. Over the years, Jason writes, "I've been lucky enough to connect with many Fools through your podcast, Twitter, and other avenues. Although I'm not nearly as active on the X platform, these interactions have introduced me to people whose generosity, insight, and humor have enriched my life, the 100th Mailbag episode earlier this year being a prime example of this. Longtime listeners will remember Jason as one of my participants in Mailbag 100 from February of this year, which certainly is going to win a bestie when they're announced in two weeks.
Anyway, continuing on with Jason Moore's note from sharing market missteps to engaging in meaningful conversations about purpose, values, and personal growth, this community consistently lifts each other up. Your reflections on the gratitude 2024 episode resonated with me, especially when you revisited the idea that losing someone means also losing a part of who we were with them. Although thankfully, your story on Nvidia also struck a chord." Jason writes, and you're calling out maybe one of my favorite passages or points from last week's episode. If you listen, you know what I'm saying and if you didn't, I encourage you to listen. But it's the part of me that is only with you that Jason is speaking to.
As I think you know, he goes on, my dad passed away earlier this year. We just passed what would have been his 77th birthday. I feel for you and your wife in this shared experience of losing her father earlier this year, and I thank you for sharing that story. In the years leading up to my dad's passing, I had the chance to connect with him in ways I hadn't before, building a relationship that I will always be proud of. It was through the conversations inspired by our Rule Breaker Investing death over dinner episodes that Jason found the courage to have those deeper, more meaningful talks with him. Jason writes your words reminded me not just to reflect on who he was, but also on the parts of myself that he helped shape. Those pieces that I now carry with me moving forward as so many have done before us. Before I go, Jason writes, "I also want to give a quick shout out to Craig Hawkins, who is at Craig's brain on Twitter X, and his November gratitude a day challenge, which he started with his kids.
It's a simple practice with profound results, and it reminds me of the ethos of this community, finding joy and meaning in the everyday. Thank you, David, for building a platform that's smarter, happier, and richer in every sense of those words, you've created a home for Rule Breakers everywhere. I'm endlessly grateful to be part of it Fool on Jason Moore at Jiminy-Jillikers on Twitter X. Well, here we see again, Jason, the community encouragement cycle. You have been such a key part of that for years now. You're someone who's always gotten it, Jason, and I so appreciate you sharing out what you've learned and your journey, your experience. I love that you share out the work of others. You called out Craig Hawkins. I see Craig sometimes on social media. I did double check in terms of what is his gratitude to day challenge since Jason Moore mentioned it in the note I just shared.
This is what Craig Hawkins, who is a long time Foolish investor in the state of Alabama, this is what he's done. He wrote, "In November, I'm asking my kids every day to tell something they're grateful for." If they write them out in a list, by the end of the month, they'll each get a special reward. In addition, Craig writes to becoming more grateful. He calls this out and says, "This November Gratitude to Day Challenge was inspired by and thanks to Jason Moore." Jason, yourself are being thanked and called out by the person that you are giving encouragement to cycling it once again. I really appreciate your note, and I love that gratitude today challenge you have in mind. I bet some of us listening are going to try that maybe next month or maybe next November. Thank you, Jason Moore. Did I save the best for last? I'm not going to say so. I love all my children. Here comes Number 7 from Boyd Dunleavy.
Hi, David, Boyd Dunleavy here in Canada. I've been a Motley Fool member since late 2018. I'm very grateful to be alive and share my story with you today. I have a very public story of overcoming blood cancer twice, in eight months to run the Boston Marathon. If you do a quick Google search of my name, Boyd Dunleavy and Disney, that will bring up my story quickly. I was diagnosed, Boyd writes with acute myeloid leukemia in 2011 and given less than six months to live. After going through about five rounds of leukemia and blood cancer twice in eight months, I had a lifesaving stem cell transplant from an unrelated donor in May of 2012. We found out in the spring of 2013, it was an American naval serviceman named Nathan Barnes, who was in Japan, when he got the call to save a stranger's life in 2012. The transplant worked, and I was given a second chance at life. It was a very difficult process, and for anyone to come through that is a miracle. In spite of some serious complications from the chemotherapy and radiation, a traumatic brain injury and spinal cord trauma, I became a marathon runner. It helped with my mental health.
My goal was always to one day meet Nathan. It took seven years to meet, but we finally met at Disney in late 2019. I was at my neighbor's home in 2018 when they told me they self invested with The Motley Fool Investment Services. I was curious, as one of the things we did when I was diagnosed was to make sure something would be left for my wife and kids if I should pass. Being given less than six months to live, my insurance paid out a claim, so we had a small amount of money but nothing to retire from. I started small with your services, and to be totally honest, if I didn't have a few winners out of the gate, I may have mailed it in and went back to having someone else manage our money. We picked a few companies like Nvidia, Shopify, and the Trade Desk, and I couldn't believe how well these companies took off.
I eventually moved my entire retirement portfolio to self directed investing and couldn't ever imagine going back to paying someone else to make me 5-8% returns and tell me what a great job they were doing. Goes with the smiley emoji there. Little bit of humor. Thank you, Boyd. It took me a while Boyd goes on to learn proper Motley Fool investment strategies, and I panicked and sold a few companies too early, but others that I held absolutely took off like a rocket. I still appreciated your self deprecating humor, laughing at your own mistakes in your podcasts that when I made a mistake investing Boyd writes, "I was able to forgive myself quickly and try to learn the lesson life was teaching me about investing for the long run in quality companies, et cetera." We made another really good financial choice, moving far East from Ontario to New Brunswick, Canada in 2021, and we're able to pay our home off in our mid-40s. I won't share publicly what our gains have been via The Motley Fool, but it's fair to say that adding a zero or two to your net worth is absolutely life changing. I had tweeted to you about Nvidia being up 2,000% for us, but it's not our only superstar. I have about 45 stocks. I think my GKC score is just under one. I turned 50 this year. Boyd writes, "But these companies are absolutely incredible. Many I've held for 5 to 6 years. My friend and I were talking one time. He was telling me he had shares in Apple." I said, "Yes, Apple is my ninth or 10th best stock pick." His jaw, Boyd writes, "Hit the floor." I should mention very briefly, he was calling out the Gardner-Kretzmann Continuum.
Again, longtime listeners will know exactly what that is and that he rounds to about one with 45 stocks turning 50 this year. But if you don't already know, dear listener, just Google Gardner-Kretzmann Continuum, Kretzmann spelled with a K-R and two Ns, and you will I hope discover what we're talking about there. Sometimes I love inventing language and having fun with language. That's part of me, the English literature major who loves Shakespeare and Fools. We have some fun with language on this podcast. Let me close out Boyd's note. You said something years ago about not mailing it in. That touched me. I've run the Boston Marathon multiple times because someone said I couldn't do it. Or survived cancer because some doctor said, "I wouldn't do it." That's self belief. I can do this somewhere along the way your message got through and PS, I just ran my 17th marathon and emailed the doctor who gave me six months to live more smileys in the email. I'm incredibly thankful for you, David, and wanted to reach out today to thank you for all you do. It's literally changed not only my life, but that of my wife and children. One last thing. I nearly died in a car accident a year ago.
I've spent the last year living my best life and letting those people who have blessed me know how much I care. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, your friend Boyd Dunleavy. Well, Boyd, talk about encouragement. Thank you for encouraging me and really all of us from Ontario to New Brunswick, and from Bangalore to Alabama. Thank you for the gift of the encouragement you just gave us that you and I together could help send out through this podcast, 1,000 places into contexts too many to understand. Some people listening to us right now are in hard places as you once were. Some people are in easier places, justly enjoying the just desserts, the fruits of their investing. That's this podcast. That's gratitude. That's my mailbag, but not mine. That was your mailbag. Dear fellow Fools, happy Thanksgiving all. Fool on.
