I'll never forget the day I heard those two words. ...

It was December 1999. I was on the phone with a pal who'd crossed over to the Wall Street dark side. Last time we'd talked, he'd been salivating over a genome-buster based out of my hometown.

That was all I needed to hear. I took a flyer -- bought the stock and promptly forgot all about it. Then, suddenly, after a listless summer and forgettable fall -- boom!

Have you ever caught lightning?
By Christmas, this flyer was my entire portfolio. And now it was doubling weekly. News flow was positive, but this had to be something else. My old pal was on the phone, telling me what it was.

Apparently, a fellow named David Gardner over at The Motley Fool had tapped the stock for a spot in his Rule Breaker real-money portfolio. At last, I'd caught lightning in a bottle! Rule Breaker.

Well, you may have heard that Rule Breaker investing is back. But it's probably not what you think. I know this because the very same David Gardner and I crossed paths, and he told me what a Rule Breaker was.

Here's what I remember of our chat
Ok, so AOL (now Time Warner (NYSE:TWX)) and Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) headlined David's original Rule Breaker portfolio from 1994 and 1998, and left millionaires in their wakes. And, yes, both were still way in the money when the tech market bottomed.

But Rule Breakers are not all glamour and tech. To hear it from David himself -- who, by the way, still owns both stocks -- it's low-tech Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX) that's the consummate Rule Breaker. Who else but Starbucks, he asks, sensed a need, met it, branded it, then spread it across the country?

But you know what really makes Starbucks a Rule Breaker? There's no second fiddle. I mean, where's the Pepsi to Starbucks' Coke? There isn't one. Starbucks is a Rule Breaker. If you bought the stock in the late 1990s, you're one, too.

Rule Breaker Lesson No. 1: It's not about tech. Exhibit A: Starbucks.

Martha, Martha, Martha
Not convinced? By 2002, David had moved on to Motley Fool Stock Advisor. But my impressions of The Motley Fool were still tangled with the human genome, Amazon, and the profits booked on Amgen (NASDAQ:AMGN) and eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY). One word would change all that.

Martha. As in Martha Stewart. I remember Mark Hulbert, who watches over the investment newsletter industry, commenting that David was the only advisor recommending Martha Stewart's beleaguered company to his readers. Small wonder -- Martha was a pariah.

That was November 2002. The stock was trading at $6.03. David closed out Martha Stewart at $9.05 for a 50% gain. The stock summarily ran to more than $35. Tough break. Here, I learned two lessons in one.

Rule Breaker Lesson No. 2: Buy when nobody else will -- especially if you love the business, the financials, and most of all, the brand. Rule Breaker Lesson No. 3: Let your winners run. Exhibit B: Martha Stewart.

So, who's breaking the rules today?
How about Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), which I'd contend is today's consummate Rule Breaker? After all, we can debate valuation all day long, but Google's a mere baby, and already it's a verb, for Pete's sake.

Or how about JetBlue (NASDAQ:JBLU), which by some miracle routinely gets me where I'm going on time? Expensive? Maybe. But unless you get in at the very bottom -- like David did with AOL in 1994 -- it is almost always painful to buy truly great stocks.

Of course, this is also why buying these mavericks -- these Rule Breakers -- can turbocharge your long-term returns. Don't bet the farm, but great growth stocks never look cheap(at least, not until they're cooked), and there's a funny thing about people: They're often wrong.

Rule Breaker Lesson No. 4: Don't listen to people. Exhibit C: Google and JetBlue.

So, just what makes a Rule Breaker investor?
I asked David Gardner that very question. "Simply, it's one who can embrace the contrary nature of paying up for great growth stocks." That's straight from the horse's mouth. Should you take David's word for it? I would.

Turns out, when David shuttered his real-money Rule Breaker portfolio, he'd managed a 20.1% annualized return. That was in mid-2003, after the bear market. Compare that with 9.1% for the S&P 500 and 7.3% for the Nasdaq over the same period. Those are the kinds of results that made legends of Peter Lynch and Bill Miller, and rightfully so.

What to do now?
Aggressive growth investing is not for everyone. But let's face it, the very best investments -- the ones you brag about -- are the stocks of high-growth companies that seem to come from nowhere and change our world. Companies like Amazon, AOL, and, yes, even Google.

The trick, of course, is spotting these companies early and having the courage to take the plunge. I don't have to tell you that this can be scary business. Or that isolation is deadly. But there is a solution.

David is offering a 30-day free trial to his Motley Fool Rule Breakers advisory service. This way, you can see exactly what stocks David and his team are looking at now and decide for yourself if lightning can strike twice, without risking a cent. Simply click here to start your free trial.

Since David launched his new Rule Breakers service in October 2004, his picks are up an average of 20.1%, vs. just 6.1% if you'd bought the S&P 500 instead. You can view theentire scorecardwith your free trial.

This article was originally published on Dec. 16, 2004. It has been updated.

Fool writer Paul Elliott doesn't own any of the stocks named here (but he does still own his genome wonder, Celera). Time Warner, Amazon.com, eBay, and JetBlue are Motley Fool Stock Advisor recommendations. Coca-Cola is a Motley Fool Inside Value recommendation. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy.