"Rule Breaker Investing" Mailbag: More Than a Marathon

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This podcast was recorded on May 28, 2025.

David Gardner: Welcome back to Rule Breaker Investing. Happy end of May 2025 and Nice Bounce Back month for the stock market. Before we get into this month's mailbag six items on tap, along with some Twitter X hot takes, let's just briefly review the month that was for this podcast. We've had three Rule Breaker Investing podcasts in the month of May. We kicked it off with my friends Dave Meier, Nick Sciple, and Yaser El-Shimy. It was Got to Know the Lingo Volume 7, our ongoing episodic series where we try to educate, amuse, and enrich, which is always what I'm trying to do with this podcast, but in particular the first of those, educate. New terms, terms we think you should know from the world of finance, simpler ones and more advanced ones. Thank you again to Dave, Nick, and Yasser.

For got to Know the Lingo Volume 7 that it was my birthday week. It happens once a year, and each year, we make it. What you've learned from me? What you've learned from David Gardner. This was the 2025 edition, and thank you so much for all the notes and encouragement. Then last week, Seth Godin, superstar business author, I was joined by Andy Cross, our Chief Investment Officer. Andy and I got to spend an hour. With Seth Godin, you did, too, if you listened in last week, and if you didn't, I completely recommend that podcast. I would say, in my annual besties awarded in December of each year, I'm going to say that's already a bestie for 2025. I could definitely listen to that one. In fact, I have twice already. Seth is so alluring, so original, and fun to learn from. That was the month that was got to known the Lingo. What have you learned from me, and what did you learn from Seth Godin? Well, I'm opening up the Twitter X mailbag, but before I do, as I shared at the start of the year, my 2025 book Rule Breaker Investing is available for pre order right now. After 30 years of stock picking, this is my magnum opus, a lifetime of lessons distilled into one definitive guide.

Each week until the book launches on September 16, I'm sharing a random excerpt. We open the book to a random page. I read a few sentences. Let's do it. Here's this week's page Breaker preview. It's a full paragraph this time from page 95 of the book, and I quote, "Tesla, Facebook, Intuitive Surgical, Adobe, Netflix, Axxon Enterprise, Salesforce. All are top dogs and first movers in important emerging industries. These SNAP Cola examples are not just correct answers on a Rule Breaker Investing Chapter 7 pop quiz, these Rule Breakers have offered the best investment returns of this generation, and all seven are stocks I picked early and continue to hold years later. They help power market beating results that some academic observers will dismiss as luck." That's this week's page Breaker preview. To preorder my final word on stock picking shaped by three decades of market crushing success, just type Rule Breaker Investing into amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, or wherever you shop for fine books. When you think about it, a great investment book literally pays for itself and then some. To everyone who's already preordered, especially as a birthday gift, a thank you to me this month, well, thank you very much. That means a lot to me.

Let's go to Twitter X. Got four hot takes this month, first one from at Axel Deussen. Writing in from Germany. Happy birthday, David Axel tweeted. There are so many lessons that I've learned from you. The biggest one is in your attitude. Most people, Axel writes are looking for a green light to create something, just looking for something that will make them feel assured enough to leap. In truth, you are the green light. I love that you've created so many great ideas. Well, thank you, Axel. Coming from you, that means a lot. You're such a thoughtful person. I really so enjoyed following you over the years at Axel Deussen, D-E-U-S-S-E-N on Twitter, if anybody else is looking for somebody who regularly puts out wisdom well beyond all of our years. Thank you, Axel, for that very kind note. Another one, the theme for each of these is more lessons learnt from me just closing out May.

This one is from at Landon Meeks. Landon, you wrote, I love the get busy living advice for when the market is going down. Keep buying Motley Fool wrecks regularly, of course, but focus on family and life enriching experiences, and then tune back into the market when things are going well. Well, thank you for that at Landon Meeks. I love that sentiment, too. Here's how I phrased it in the past. In bull markets, I get busy tracking, in bear markets, I get busy living. It works. Fool on, Landon. Two more. Number 3 is from Cameron Archibald at Stock Planter Cam. Thank you for this, Cameron. I've learned so much from you, David. I appreciate how optimistic you are. It's easy and sounds smart, especially in finance to be pessimistic and predicting gloom around every corner. Cameron goes on, your rational optimism is a breath of fresh air. I always think if David can keep going and holding optimistically through uncertainty, so can I. Thank you, my friend, for sharing your courage and optimism and happy birthday.

Well, thank you back, friend. I really appreciate that, Cam, and the last one is from Frank. Frank is @129greenmeadow. On Twitter X, Frank, you wrote, I'm a bit late. Happy birthday. I'm a financial advisor and bought Netflix for clients in April of 2021 around $505 a share. We then all suffered a 50% drawdown, held it all the way till now, purely because of your emphasis on holding the "best companies of our time". Well, thank you very much, Frank. It always makes me smile to think of the financial advisors who've used the Motley Fool over the years and in a lot of ways, what you're doing is you're just sharing out our best ideas and enabling even more people than otherwise would have been reached to find, I think, I hope anyway some of the best companies of our time. But as you well know, Frank, and as your clients now have learned, sometimes you have to sit through getting cut in half 50% before watching that stock quadruple from there and you're now sitting on more than a double by being patient together with your clients four years later. Congratulations to you. Great job on behalf of your clients. I hope they learn from your story. Rule Breaker Mailbag item number 1. This one comes from Bangalore, India. Thank you for writing in @amitsomani. Amit writes, happy belated birthday, David, I love this quote, attributed to Mahatma Gandhi, which also personifies you. "Live every day as if it's your last and learn every day as if you're going to live forever". Well, first of all, Amit, I love that quote. I hadn't heard it before. I've often heard the, "be the change you want to see in the world", which I've tried to make this point over the years. Was not actually ever said by Gandhi himself, but you'll see it on bumper stickers and T-shirts. Again, that's the be the change you want to see in the world. What you just rocked was live every day as if it's your last and learn every day as if you're going to live forever. I assume the great man did say that, but whether or not he did, it's just a great line. Let's continue with your letter.

Amit goes on. Your childlike curiosity and enthusiasm for everything in life are infectious. Of course, I'm very grateful for what you share on investing. Can't wait for a copy of your new book. Hoping this time around, Amit writes, I can get it autographed. Well, it's always hard to figure out how to autograph a book from Washington, DC, back out to Bangalore. But if ever we cross paths Amit, I would love to sign Rule Breaker Investing for you, sir. Amit's note goes on, though, Seth Godin is the purple cow. He's original as they come. The AI chat on last week's episode reminded me of an exercise we gave our employees at Prime Ventures, which is a technology venture capital firm at which Amit Works, this exercise that we gave to our employees earlier this year.

By January 2026, we said, each employee needs to ensure 30% of their job is done by AI, or they won't have a job. While it initially had the shock and awe value, Amit concludes, it has opened up doors well beyond ChatGPT and Claude. I wanted to share with you and your listeners Fool on Amit Somani. Well, just a couple of reactions back Amit. The first is, Seth Godin really is the real deal, and I have the pleasure not just of having wonderful guests on this podcast or at fool.com at our events over the years, but often I get to know them outside of just the context of that one interview. For example, the great comic writer Dave Barry, longtime columnist for the Miami Herald, beloved by many for his wonderful sense of humor, I'll always remember that just before I came online to interview Dave Barry once on our radio show, we had the opportunity of asking him to do a couple favors for mega fans of his. Would he read a quick thing for their voice mail box that they were rocking? Of course, he said yes, and he did.

The character that came through after the interview as well, it was so evident to me what a good person Dave Barry is. Well, I'm happy to say that Seth Godin is just the same person, a heart of gold, a teacher, as he referred to himself, many other things too, certainly a giver, but I just want you to know, yeah, he is the purple cow. He is the real deal. Amit about your AI initiative, I got to say, I love it. It's a little bit of tough love there if you're literally telling your employees that they don't have a job one year later if they haven't outsourced, in effect, 30% of their work to AI and yet whether or not you intended to follow through on that, I assume you did, and perhaps a few will still feel that sting. I see what you're doing there. You are transforming your organization, forcing change. Some of us enjoy new technology. We want to figure out AI. When our iPhone updates and the interface for our iPhone changes for a certain app or the phone itself, we're OK with that. But in my experience, a majority of people are not. I know a lot of people who don't like it when the app that they've used on

their iPhone all of a sudden looks different because of an update, a software update they got. Well, that same feeling is what artificial intelligence is doing across the business world and indeed the world at large. I think it's very responsible of you and forward thinking, of course, to get not just some of your early adopting employees, but all of your employees on board with AI. I want to give some credit here to my brother Tom, the CEO of the Motley Fool. I think Tom has done a really good job for us at the Fool. I hope Amit as a member of ours, you're seeing some of the gains that you're getting that we're passing forward through our website, through your interactions with the Motley Fool, thanks to artificial intelligence and our inclusion of it in our services and in our work. Yeah, theyear of AI, and you are especially making it so in Bangalore, India. Thanks for writing in Amit. On to Rule Breaker Mailbag item number 2. This one for Mike Streit. I think it's pronounced that way, Mike, but it could be Streit, S-T-R-E-I-T.

Hello, David. Now that you are semi, he writes, and Parensi is retired, and I'm going to take issue with that in a second, Mike, but continuing forward, now that you are semi retired, I presume you may have less income from your day job. If that's the case, what is your strategy to pay your bills, etc, if you like to hold your good stocks forever? Have you ever taken out loans using your stock portfolio as collateral? This is a tried and true method that's been used to unlock valuable assets without triggering a capital gains event. Mike goes on, whether you've done this or not, I wonder, do you think this is a kin to buying stocks using leverage? Always enjoy your commentary, take care. He signs himself, TMF biggest fan, TMF, of course, standing for The Motley Fool. Well, I appreciate that.

Mike, let me just put forward a few thoughts, a few answers in reply. First of all, I'm not retired. I don't ever aim to retire. For me, retirement would suggest that I've walked away from the cares of the world, and I'm no longer looking to inject or add value in a broad, professional way to the world at large. Doing this podcast every week, as I have since July of 2015 with no skips or repeats, thanks to some very talented producers, especially my good friend Rick Engdahl, I remain fully engaged with this podcast and, of course, writing my book that comes out this fall, another example of not being retired, but I will confess I don't pick stocks for the Motley Fool anymore. I don't pick for Motley Fool Stock Advisor or for Rule Breakers.

That's the way a lot of the world got to know me, Mike, so I do admit that I am retired from that. As I explained in May of 2021, I just didn't want to have to spend so much time, so much of my professional and really personal life constantly thinking about what stock I would pick next or what might beat the market. Where is the world headed? I continue to ask those questions, but I don't have a deadline, and I don't have to pick a new stock for Rule Breakers and Stock Advisor each month, and I don't have to pick Best Buys now, etc. I continue to remain just as interested in the world at large and invested, which I plan to be my whole life long, so a brief response there. But let me just say in response to your questions about financial strategies, maybe at or in retirement for some people, I think, first of all, being consistent with how you had invested up to that point probably makes more sense than not. I don't recommend a radical relaunch of your new financial life with, let's say, all bonds now having sold out of your stocks. I think a lot of good companies pay dividends these days. Beginning to shift into a mix of companies that pay dividends to give you some of that income back that you're no longer receiving from a full time job makes a lot of sense. It's also worth reminding all listeners that there's a basic 4% rule of thumb.

By the way, rules of thumb are helpful. We're going to have a few more this episode. But there's a basic 4% rule of thumb, where if you can live on 4% or less of your total net worth, for example, if you have total net worth of a million, then 4% of a million is $40,000 annually. If you can live on $40,000 annually, then you probably can safely, I'll put this word in quotes, "Retire." The 4% rule assumes you remain invested with that million dollars all the way through, and you're selling off 4% each year. Indeed, most studies will show that you actually keep making more and more money over the years. This is not just treading water and holding on to that million. The stock market on average rises 9%-11% annualized, depending on which period we're talking about or which stock market index we're looking at, and that will outpace your 4% cost of living. Anyway, a handy I am not a retirement professional, so please don't take me too seriously here. Do your own research, but I think it's worth pointing that out.

Then maybe just two other thoughts in closing. The first is beyond dividends, I do occasionally trim, and whenever I do trim holdings down to raise some capital for expenses or whatever I'm looking to do with that money, I target first my losers. Usually, I reinvest, as a lot of Rule Breaker listeners will know, I add to my winners, not my losers. I'm usually looking to get rid of losers, which can create some cap gain, tax loss, harvesting. We won't talk about that right now, but I usually target losers first. Then after that, I'm going to look at my biggest holdings. Usually, my biggest holdings, I have a large sleep number, which we've talked about in other contexts. I'm not going to explain that here, but I'm willing to allow a stock to become a larger percentage of my portfolio than most people will in my experience. Given that, usually it's that biggest holding that I'm selling off little bits of incrementally over time. It's true of many public market CEOs, somebody like Reed Hastings, the longtime CEO of Netflix, Reed Hastings has a regular programmatic selling where every two weeks or every quarter, he's just selling off a little bit of his Netflix. A lot of us with big winners can do the same thing with our big winner. Then my last thought, speaking to your question about taking a loan out against your portfolio, if you have a very large portfolio and very small expenses, you certainly could simply borrow back against your portfolio and live on margin, assuming that you could do so in a way that is sustainable.

Again, you're going to get into your own individual math here. This is for each person to judge, but it can make sense, in some cases, to borrow against your portfolio to live, assuming you have a very large portfolio and that won't deplete it. Also, when the stock market has a drawdown of 50% from time to time, you need to make sure that you're able to take that, but you certainly can avoid large capital gains bills by occasionally borrowing against your portfolio if that is a prudent thing to do for you. Now, I did drop a note out to Motley Fool Retirement expert Robert Brokamp, just seeking Bros thoughts. He mentioned that 4% rule. He said it's popular with people who retire early ish. Robert said, I actually just interviewed JL Collins this morning. He's the author of a book called The Simple Path to Wealth. Robert goes on, he's considered the godfather of FI financial independence. He confirmed it's a benchmark used by those who want to achieve financial independence, and to generate that income, people start with the interest and dividends produced by their portfolio, and then they still likely need to sell some shares of stock as well.

That has Roberts and JL Collins' endorsement as a way of thinking about how to live once you're no longer drawing a full time salary. Mike, I hope that was helpful, some thoughts for you and for others who are in or hope to one day be in that situation. Let's move on to Rule Breaker mailbag item Number 3. This from Cliff Kata. Cliff writes, Hi, I'm writing in response to last month's mailbag to Paul, who was, "Having trouble balancing the clear logical advantage of saving early and often with the emotional need of enjoying life now because you can't take it with you." That was a note. I think it was from Paul Essen, last month's mailbag, April 2025. Check it. Cliff is weighing in here with his own advice, which I really appreciate. Cliff, you go on. My simplest rule here is that if you have to take out a loan for something to "Enjoy", you're doing it wrong. Whether that's a boat or a car or a vacation or whatever it is you enjoy. Expanding on this, here are a few rules that worked for me, which is basically Cliff writes delayed gratification. First, of course, I've established my emergency fund. The monthly multiplier is based on one's individual circumstances. Second, I have retirement savings that are based on my current age and my projected retirement age and saving at least 15% of my income, a neat trick, if you can pull it. Well done, Cliff. Third, he writes, I'm sufficiently contributing to college savings for my kids, and this fourth one is optional. I own my house, even with a mortgage.

Only then he writes, can I splurge on that vacation, car or boat? Eventually, the question becomes, how much should you spend? I would say your annual vacation spending should not be more than 2% of your net worth. Your fun car should not exceed more than 10% of your net worth, and you hold it for five years unless you happen to buy something that holds value or appreciates. I've never owned one of these like a Shelby Cobra or a Porsche 911 GT3 RS. Then Cliff ends his note by saying, now, I just made those numbers up. I have no desire to buy a boat, so I don't know how much one should spend on a boat. Cliff concludes, maybe Brokamp has better numbers. Well, first of all, thank you for the note, Cliff. Second, two responses back to you. The first is, I'll just reassert what I said in answer to Paul's note last month, summarize briefly, I basically said, I question whether there actually is a trade off between balancing the clear logical advantage of saving early and often. With the emotional need of enjoying life now because you can't take it with you. I actually think that might be a false trade off. I think it's possible, indeed, it is desirable to live a life where you are saving early and often and enjoying life as you go. In fact, I would even argue that you're going to enjoy life even more if you are saving early and often. That's part of one's confidence and enjoyment. That in brief was what I said last month. But since Cliff ended his note by saying, maybe Brokamp has better numbers, indeed, I did just drop a note via our corporate slack to Robert Brokamp, and he gave me this reply, which anybody can use. Here come a few rules of thumb. Get your pencils out. Hello, David, not sure if these will help address the question you're answering, but I'll start with the 50, 30, 20 budgeting rule which says that 50% of after tax budget should go to necessities like mortgage or rent, dining, health insurance, etc, 50% to necessities, 30% to discretionary, which would include vacations, but also entertaining, dining out, etc, and 20% to savings. Robert goes on as for car buying.

The most common rule of thumb is 20/4/10. Put 20% down, get a loan that'll be paid off in four years or less and don't get a monthly payment that exceeds 10% of your monthly income. Robert adds, others suggest 20/3/8. Another rule of thumb is to drive your car for at least 10 years. If you do that, once your four year loan is paid off, just keep making those payments, but to a high yield savings account or brokerage account. That way, you'll have a stash of money to pay for any maintenance, and ideally enough set aside to pay cash for your replacement car a decade from now. I want to thank Robert for weighing in on short notice via our corporate slack. It was a long weekend this past week, and I did take the full length of it and found myself scrambling a little bit to make sure I had good answers and even a special guest in place this month. But, sure enough, we have those things and thank you again to Robert Brokamp and to Cliff Kata, for taking the time to reflect on last month's mailbag. Part of what we do is we're here to help each other. So you're helping me by writing in brilliant thoughts, thoughts I can share your own ideas or questions, and then I try to help back by sharing it out through this mailbag every month. Robert Brokamp has probably been more helpful for more people across fool.com history than anyone else. Robert, you just did it again. Thank you to Robert. Thank you to Cliff. On to Rule Breaker mailbag item Number 4.

This one from Martin Triggs writing in from Japan. Always a pleasure to hear from you, Martin, to the Rule Breaker podcast. I was wondering, Martin writes, if you might be able to do something very different, and get an expert on international relations to discuss China. I've listened to almost every Rule Breaker podcast, Martin writes, and I don't recall a good discussion on the macro scene in depth. I will agree having also listened to all of them, Martin. I will say I've never done a Rule Breaker investing podcast focused on that. I did visit China some years ago, and I made it like a Rule Breakers guide to China and shared a lot of my personal impressions traveling around that amazing country. But it was more a Rule Breaker abroad, a first person view of things, certainly not an expert, certainly not talking about macro. As you know, Martin, I tend not to do macro too often on the Rule Breaker investing podcast. I prefer focusing on the micro. Specifically, I love to find great companies, not just great economies or great countries, but just great companies, and stay focused on bottoms up, investing organically in great companies, and then hope it all plays out well for them in their industries and their countries and the big macro that others like to focus on. I know you know this about me. Anybody who's listened to this podcast for more than a year or so will recognize I'm not a big macro person or thinker, but let me pick up your note from right there. Martin writes on, I thought about this after listening to Motley Fool Live. That's the television channel on our website. We now call that Fool24.

But Martin said he was listening to Fool 24 on March 6th when they talked about Apple and its exposure to China, possible Chinese malfeasance, how this risk may not properly be priced in. This, of course, is not only true for Apple, Martin writes, but many other popular favorites like Starbucks, Nike, and Taiwan Semiconductor. I've heard experts say they may have to simply bomb and destroy all Taiwan semiconductor plants in Taiwan, Martin writes. I believe Georgetown University is near you. I recall they have a great they do international relations department. Could you get a guest with no background in investing, give an informed talk about international relations? What is happening in China and Taiwan, and what may happen soon? Thanks, Martin. Well, let me just say back, sounds like a good topic. It's not something we regularly do on this podcast. It's not really within the focus I bring from one week to the next, but we're nothing if we're not Motley at the Motley Fool. I love taking up and trying new things. I think that's a great suggestion. Martin, I live just a few minutes away from Georgetown University. I grew up in the shadows in Georgetown myself, of that university. I think it would be great. Maybe I'll try to reach out and find a China expert or two. Sometime this summer, if I get my job done, if I do it well, we'll have that podcast on one week of Rule Breaker investing. Thank you for the suggestion.

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David Gardner: Two more, including a special guest coming right up. But first, let me mention the Motley Fool's Breakfast News. You can start your day. I do with The Motley Fool's free daily market email newsletter. That's Breakfast News. Daily expert market analysis and company updates sent straight to your inbox, all I would say a bite-sized portion every weekday at 7:30 AM Eastern. You can sign up for the Motley Fool's Breakfast News at www.fool.com/breakfastnews. Onto mailbag item number 5, this very thoughtful note from longtime fellow Fool Eric Eason.

Eric writes, Hi, David. This morning, I awoke to an unsettling yet fascinating dream, one which I deliberately anchored upon awakening so I could write this letter to you. Within the dream, I received a phone call from my dad, which went on for many minutes. As the conversation came to a close, I asked him to call me again on Sunday at 10:00 AM my time, as I knew I would be unable to call him. He hesitated, a bit confused at which the call suddenly ended with a two-second flat electronic tone. What made the dream so unsettling is that even within the dream, I knew that my dad had passed away. Yet there he was calling me. Was it truly him calling me from the spirit world, as in a good ghost story, or something more troubling, for the ramifications were clear to me even while in my dream state that AI can already today pose as the dead, giving us the opportunity, essentially, to speak with the dead. Your brother Tom Gardner and Motley Fool Chief Investment Officer Andy Cross have already demonstrated a video they made using AI in which they appeared to be having a video conversation together, yet the entire thing was a simulation and a surprisingly good one at that. I'm going to pause it there for a sec before continuing Eric's note, because, yes, we did that for our AI summit. If you're a Motley Fool member and signed up some months ago, as you began to watch via Zoom, our virtual summit, you saw a conversation between Tom and Andy kicking it off, and then all of a sudden, you realized it wasn't Tom, it wasn't Andy. It was pure AI. That's what Eric is referencing now, back to his note. While we don't have the video and personality data available to simulate my parents, for example, there is enough to simulate media personalities, and perhaps enough for those who post sufficiently on social media.

Now consider the benefits such a tool could offer to a psychoanalyst to help bring closure for the living with those who've departed, but also the grave danger it can present when used by charlatans or worse by those with malintent. Eric closes. Having lost your mom a decade or so ago, I know my dream will speak to you as well. Give this some thought, if you would, and share your reflections with us, your friend and avid fellow rule Breaker Eric Eason. Well, just a few thoughts back, Eric.

First of all, I think the possibilities are fascinating, and I think it's really quite remarkable that we can even be having this conversation, speculating what it might mean to capture both the video and the voice and to be able through AI to, with generative language models generate our ancestors speaking to us. The possibility of you and I being recorded and then being watched, let's hope enjoyed seven generations hence, is truly remarkable. I would love to see some of my great-great-grandparents and hear their voice and think some of their thoughts. Even if I know it's not real, it's close enough that it could really be a hugely educational and inspirational tool. Of course, anybody could have filmed themselves on video, just turn your iPhone to you, do a selfie video and say, for two minutes, what you hope your great great grandkids will do or how they'll think or what they can learn from you, we can already be saving those remarkable experiences without AI, but you're right.

AI can be generative, and it can be used for good or for ill. That's my first thought, just fascinating possibilities. My second is, and I've always said this, and I'll keep saying this till the cows come home, the good guys in this world way, way outnumber the bad guys. Unfortunately, the bad guys tend to get the headlines if somebody shoots something up, plows into a crowd. The bad cops, the bad CEOs, the bad people tend to generate so much of the headlines and so much of the interest as covered by our news industry. A lot of people are left to believe that there are a lot of bad people out there. While there certainly are some bad people out there, they are so hugely outnumbered by people who are kind, people who are trying to help each other. You and me, a lot of people listening right now, we way outnumber the bad guys. In that same way, I believe and trust into a future where AI will more than often be used for good rather than bad. I was saying the same thing 30 years ago, as the Internet started up. We can all see how powerful a tool the Internet would be and has become. Sure, it can be used and is used by bad people for bad things. But the vast majority of what we get from the Internet, I believe, is good and is helping, whether you're buying something from somebody on eBay, or thanks to the Internet, listening to this podcast this week. The good guys way outnumber the bad guys, which means good things ahead, I think, for those who, in your words, Eric, I'm just leaning into it here, want to speak to the dead. It's a remarkable thing to think about.

Even if it isn't wholly real, it really can be, I think, inspirational, emotional. It probably does help psychoanalysis. I think a lot of good things can happen from it. I do think that we're at such an early stage for AI that it's very hard to make any firm predictions. But I'll say that right now, it's a bit of a wild west. You can't really know if a video is deep-faked or not. While I'm not the technologist who's going to figure out how to imprint things that are real and make it clear when things are not real, I do believe in the future of technology, there will be more trust building, maybe even some regulation in some cases, more trust-building software, and tools that enable us to know that something is AI-generated or not or to what extent it is. That won't be true in every case, but right now we're operating largely without any awareness of what those things might be. I just bet that as humans, we're trying to build trust with each other for our mutual benefit. There will be more trust-building around generative AI, whether we're talking about text, audio, or video. We'll see. The last thing I want to say to you, Eric, is thanks again for your note. I always love hearing from you. You are a fellow Rule Breaker. I know your background in astronomy. You're a big picture thinker, and you're a scientist, and it's my pleasure to be your friend.

Now, Eric included a quick postscript to his letter. He wrote this a couple days later and sent it here in May, and I'm going to read this and share this because thereby hangs a tale. Here we go. I quote, Eric writes several months ago, you had a conversation on your podcast with Randi Zuckerberg and Morgan Housel. Near the end of the conversation, Eric writes, Randi spoke of her self-doubts and also shared she was training to run a marathon. Later this spring, I'm going to put an asterisk there because it was a little bit more than a marathon, as I think we're about to talk about, Eric, but thank you for that. Eric goes on, I appreciated her openness before a large public audience. Her words remind us all that everyone, no matter how successful, has their own burdens to bear, for we are all human. I want to tell her, Eric Eason writes, thank you. To ask her how she did on the run, as I was thinking of her climbing her Mount Everest. Perhaps she ran with the Fools Chris Hill, who's also taken up the marathon challenge. I'm not sure Chris was out in Arizona, but Randi Zuckerberg, I think, is back from Arizona, and I'm really delighted to reintroduce Randi for this cameo on Rule Breaker Investing. Hi, Randi.

Randi Zuckerberg: Hi. David, I'm so glad it worked out to pop into the show today.

David Gardner: I'm really delighted because I had not gotten to check back with you. I believe you did an epic run. You're going to tell us the details. I think this was in April. This is about a month ago. I think you ran across the state of Arizona.

Randi Zuckerberg: [laughs] Yes, I ran 257 miles from Black Canyon City to Flagstaff, Arizona, from May 5th to 10th. I ran for 113 straight hours. I think I took six total hours of rest across five days. It was both just the most epic adventure and a tremendous suffer fest all in one.

David Gardner: I thank you for the corrections. It was May 5th-10th. Takes five days, as it turns out, you don't sleep much when you run across a large state. What was it like being up 113 hours 24 times, four is like four days, and some you didn't really sleep.

Randi Zuckerberg: About four and a half days that I went for almost five days. The cutoff time was 125 hours. If you wanted to be a finisher and have a Western States qualifier and get a belt buckle, you had to do it in 125 hours. I crossed the finish line in 113. I beat the cutoff by 12 hours, which I was really thrilled with. It was wild weather. I trained for months for hot desert climate, which it has been every year. This year, it poured torrential rain on us for three straight days. It snowed. I did not wear any of the hot desert gear I brought. I wore a Parka, beanie hats, and hand warmers, and about half the field dropped out and got a did not finish. People were getting hypothermia. The weather was really extreme. Even just to have a finish this year was a big deal.

David Gardner: That is so disorienting to be training as you did and have natural expectations of what Arizona weather would be. Then, the rug was pulled out from under everybody. That had to have been emotional for you, Randi. Did you know the day before that it was going to snow, or was this all surprise?

Randi Zuckerberg: It was very surprising. I saw about two days before that it looked like a cold front was coming through, and then the night before the race, it started to rain. We did a huge emergency REI shopping trip for winter running gear. But nothing can really prepare you for trudging through slippery, thick mud for three days, which was not something that I'd really practiced. It meant that I did have to readjust a lot of my goal times and change my strategy along the way because the mud and the rain really slowed everyone down. I had to take extra time to take care of my feet for blister prevention, things like that. The times across the board were just a little slower this year, and that's something that you need to make peace with when you're out there.

David Gardner: Randi, can you remind us what is the longest distance you'd run before that 257 miles?

Randi Zuckerberg: I did 100 miles on foot back in September 2024. To go from 100 to 257 is a huge jump because 100 miles, you can power through of not sleeping for one night, and you don't really feel the effects of the sleep deprivation. For me, the sleep deprivation really hit on the start of Day 4. I could muscle through on adrenaline from Monday morning to Wednesday. But by Thursday and Friday, I was hallucinating.

Randi Zuckerberg: I was losing my ability to regulate my emotions and my body temperature. It's really hard to train for that sleep deprivation and what happens to you. That, I think, was definitely the hardest thing to manage of the race.

David Gardner: Will you share with us part of a hallucination? What were you seeing?

Randi Zuckerberg: We had this 16-mile hike out of a canyon, and I saw what I was so sure was a treasure chest in the middle of the trail. I kept asking, my pacer, who was with me, for some of the difficult sections later in the race, you're allowed to have a pacer with you for safety, especially as you start to get more sleep-deprived. I kept telling my pacer like, Could we go open the treasure chest? He was just like, playing along. He was like, Yeah, let's open it. Let's see what's in it. It was not until we got right up to it that I was like, What was just a rock, just a giant folder. I was like, so short.

David Gardner: Randi, as you finished, a couple of questions about that. First of all, I imagine it was emotional. I'm curious, were you by yourself? Was your Pacer with you? Were there three other people finishing along with you or was nobody else left around? What did the finish line movie look like?

Randi Zuckerberg: The finish line is a huge spectacle. This is one of the longest ultra marathons that exists in the world. It really captures the running community's attention. There's a big live stream 1 million people were tuned into live stream this year. It was huge. I got to cross the finish line. My parents were there. I got to run in the final mile with my entire five-person support crew and my husband joined me for the final mile of the race, which is really just so special because even though I was the lone racer who got credit, it really was a team effort. I couldn't have done it without my five friends who came out to support me. It was really special to all get to run in that final mile together.

David Gardner: I can imagine it does take a bit of a village, but the truth is that I don't think anybody else was going to join you for the other 256 miles. You really were there by yourself in some important ways because very few of us would be willing to do that. Even if we were willing, fewer could actually make it. Randi, I'm so delighted to have you back. First of all, it's always fun to hang out together. Second, I just love closing the loop on that. This was all, of course, inspired by one of our listeners who loved your story a couple of months ago and was just like, What happened? I'm just so glad Eric took the time to write in. Randi, before I let you go, how about a reflection or two, just on the experience, the achievement? Look forward, look backward, or just look at the present. I think all of us would love to hear the mindset of somebody who's just done that and what we can learn from you.

Randi Zuckerberg: Thanks so much. Gosh, I've been reflecting a lot on the experience. I think two things that I really take away from this is first, this is now something that I have in my life that is entirely mine. I think a lot of our accomplishments in life people try to credit them to, Oh, you have financial means or you're related to this person, or they try to find reasons why you are successful that are outside of your own work. It is undeniable when you run 257 miles. No one can do that for you. This is something that I have in my life that is all mine and I feel like I carry myself differently in the world, knowing that and having done that.

But I think that the other biggest thing I learned out there was how important self-talk is. It's something I've really struggled with my life. I'm a great hype person for other people. I'm really good at cheering other people. But the second I make a mistake, my self-talk is so negative. It's like, you're unlovable. You're unworthy of anything good happening. You suck. Over the last two years, I've worked really hard on having more positive self-talk. I think that was so important out there because whenever things got painful or got tough, which was a lot, I was able to just constantly tell myself, Randi, you're making yourself so proud. You're making your community and your family so proud. You're doing something that 99.99% of the world would never have the courage to do when you're out here. I think when you talk to yourself kindly that way, you really manifest success, whether it's in business or life or a big endeavor.

David Gardner: Thank you, Randi Zuckerberg, you're not just making your family proud, although, no doubt. You're making your friends proud, too. I'm one, but I think you have a bunch of others who have gotten to know you a little bit better as a consequence of two wonderful appearances on this podcast. Randi, a delight for me to be able to share somebody who's really special and who should have constantly positive talk. What a delight to feature Randi here at the end of May. I'm not going to ask you, are you going to run farther? I'm not going to ask that question. We don't need to do that. You are enough.

Randi Zuckerberg: No, I think I've hit my distance PR. I'm OK with that. It was a really amazing adventure to have had.

David Gardner: Indeed. Well, thank you so much for sharing it with us. Have a great summer. I hope you get to relax some. Go to the beach.

Randi Zuckerberg: Thank you. I don't know if that's in my vocabulary, but I'll try.

David Gardner: Well, a tough act to follow, but let's go on to our final Mailbag Item Number 6, coming in from Armando Sardi. David, thank you very much for your friendship and knowledge throughout the years. I had the honor of learning about you in the early 2000s. I've been a member of the Motley Fool for many years and have had the opportunity to learn a lot about investing. The most important gift I've received from knowing you in terms of investing is the ability to consider the long-term outlook and the power of compound investing. I used to get scared, Dr. Sardi writes and buy or sell without a plan. As you can imagine, looking back, I left a lot of money on the table. Most importantly, I've been able to share my knowledge with my coworkers, children, and now grandchildren. It's opened up a world of opportunities for all of them, showing that with saving and investing, you can not only help your family but also many others around you. On a side note, I've given your original book, The Motley Fool Investment Guide to many of them, and plan to do the same with your new book in September. Another important realization is that by doing it yourself and taking charge of your financial future, you can often do much better than by working with a financial advisor. It took me several years to understand that and to commit to learning how to make it happen. Thank you again for all your insights, a big hug, Armando Sardi. Well, this letter means a lot to me, and let me give a few reasons.

First, I became aware of Armando as he and his wife would attend Motley Fool events over the years, events like Fool Fast. I came to learn more about him and his story. I referred to him earlier as Dr. Sardi which indeed he is. He is a cancer doctor operating out of the Baltimore, Maryland area, and he is a miracle worker. I'll mention that in a minute. But I came to learn from him that part of his medical practice and part of what he did for the nurses and the helpers around him in the hospital, those who reported to him, is he gave them each a copy of the Motley Fool Investment Guide. Then beyond just the book, he would then host a little mini investment club, a gathering from time to time after hours at the hospital where he would answer questions, and they would learn together how to save and how to invest. Here you have somebody whose full-time job, and I'll mention a little bit more about how full-time that is in a minute, whose full-time job was to heal people. Heal people from very difficult cancers, and yet his secondary job was just sharing out his love and his growing knowledge of investing.

I'm so grateful for that Armando, thank you. I said this letter means a lot to me for a few reasons. The second one is that I later came to be invited to an embassy. That's something that you get to do sometimes if you live in the Washington, DC area. You might have a friend who works at an embassy or you might have a charitable event at an embassy. I went to the embassy for the nation of Colombia, which is where Dr. Sardi is from originally. It was a supper event at the embassy. It was honoring him and his work. The present name of his organization is Partners for Cancer Care and Prevention, and their website is pfccap.org. His work includes rare and advanced gastrointestinal and gynecologic malignancies. I got to watch that night as one healthy adult after another stood up in front of the assembled crowd and explained how Dr. Sardi gave them hope for a cancer that no one else could solve and that through special procedure of his own invention, which often can take as many as 10 hours, sometimes even longer, incredibly painstaking work. Had cured them. He had saved their lives. To think about Dr. Sardi and his ten-hour surgery, saving lives of people who had no hope is something I'll never forget.

That's why I hasten to mention that if you'd like to see more of his work, just go to that website again, pfccap.org. If you feel motivated to make a donation in support of his work, I would encourage you to do so. If you yourself have or if you know somebody who has a very difficult cancer, especially of the abdomen, you might want to click around that website and discover some of how they work and what they do. There might be a cure for you or your loved one there, as well. I would be remiss if I didn't also mention that Dr. Sardi having become a real friend of mine and of the Motley Fool over the years, is a very generous benefactor of our Motley Fool Foundation. As well, foolfoundation.org is our website. But I'm not here to plug what we do at The Motley Fool. I'm here to share out his work, inspired by the note that he took the time to write for this month's May 2025 mailbag. Whenever I think about my company's purpose, it makes me so proud. I love that the Motley Fool is here to make the world smarter, happier, and richer. We started our website. It was actually an AOL site before the web existed. We started with a keyword, Fool on America online on August 4 of 1994 and from that first day, it said on the front of our AOL page to educate, to amuse, and to enrich. If you think about smarter, happier, or richer, that's the outcome. These days, we rock a very similar. It's a parallel term, but we think not so much about what we do, which is what we were saying back in those AOL days.

The Motley Fool educates, amuses, and enriches. We decided to instead make it about our outcomes, what we do for you to make you smarter, happier, and richer. What inspires me to no end is not just when I do this, or my brother Tom does this or our stockpickers, or my radio producer Rick does this, we're all working for profit, trying to do that well every day. But what particularly inspires me is when members of our community are instrumental in helping others in our community become smarter, happier, and richer. Dr. Armando Sardi is one such. He is a superhero, and I mean that in the genuine sense of the term, not just for his patients, that, too, but for us at The Motley Fool. Thank you, Armando, for taking the time to write in. Thank you for leaving the campfire one day, as we all shall. One day, you will. One day, I will. I hope better than we've found it, that's something we can all aspire to, and something you've been doing your whole life long and may continue for many years going forward. Thank you for a wonderful month of May. Wonderful mailbag. Thanks again to Randi Zuckerberg for her cameo appearance. Thank you to each of you for taking the time to write or tweet our way. Our email address is rbi@fool.com. I hope you're rubbing your hands together already to drop me a note sometime in June because I love hearing from you and I love having the conversation back and forth that's inspired each month by our mailbag. In the meantime, Fool on.

David Gardner has positions in Apple, Intuitive Surgical, Netflix, Nike, Starbucks, and Tesla. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Adobe, Apple, Axon Enterprise, Intuitive Surgical, Netflix, Nike, Salesforce, Starbucks, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, and Tesla. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.