"Rule Breaker Investing" Mailbag: Chalkboard Wisdom and Favorite Words

In this podcast, Motley Fool co-founder David Gardner fields listener questions and offers reflections with trademark Foolishness.

Topics include: Should you use forced rankings to evaluate your portfolio? Can AI help guide investment decisions? Do Elon Musk and Tesla continue to reflect your best vision of the future? Why does following the simplest of instructions matter so profoundly?

Where to invest $1,000 right now? Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks to buy right now. Learn More »

To catch full episodes of all The Motley Fool's free podcasts, check out our podcast center. When you're ready to invest, check out this top 10 list of stocks to buy.

A full transcript is below.

Where to invest $1,000 right now

When our analyst team has a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, Stock Advisor’s total average return is 815% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 162% for the S&P 500.*

They just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy right now, available when you join Stock Advisor.

See the 10 stocks »

*Stock Advisor returns as of March 24, 2025

This video was recorded on March 20, 2025

David Gardner: It's that time of the month for Rule Breaker Investing. It is your mailbag. The final Wednesday of every month. A delight. Thank you for stuffing the mailbag with fun this particular month. Speaking of fun, that was the theme of March. It is every year for this podcast, at least for the last couple, as we've filled up March with market cap game shows, specifically our world championships. Congratulations to our new world champion Emily Flippen, who acquitted herself well, taking on Andy Cross, our Chief Investment Officer, last week, but even the previous two weeks, so much fun, the final four. I hope you played along with us. I hope you scored some points too. That was the real focus of March. Usually, at the start of Mailbag, I like to review the different episodes we've done. Usually, we have a motley array of them, but this time, it's just pure madness.

Let's move on then to some hot takes from Twitter to kickoff this week's podcast Pro Shop Guy MF. That's Mike McMahon at Pro Shop Guy. MF1 on Twitter X. Mike, you wrote a biased poll ran during the Monday Morning Show with The Motley Fool's Morning Show, viewers are rooting for Emily Flippen to dethrone reigning champ Andy Cross in the March Madness Market Cap Game on the Rule Breaker investing podcast. Mike, you showed a poll you said admittedly biased. I wasn't watching the Motley Fool Morning Show at the time, but it sounds as there was a plug for Emily, and most people were cheering her on. I realize we often do cheer on the underdog. She was taking on our present world champions. Thanks for referencing that at Neil and Rockville. I think that would be Rockville, Marilyn Neil. You wrote in, please, only one of these three have actually had to fight her way around a desert island. Obviously, Emily will be the final survivor. Neil, you ended up being right. At Pops Spiffy Love Spiffy Pops. You wrote Looking forward to playing along. This is just my insertion, that is, after all, the whole point of the game show for you to play along with us. Andy rocking those pie socks, but also his on shoes. I know the ticker symbol, ON, ON, is popular among Fool members.

Thanks for some fun hot takes mostly centered on the market cap game show, and speaking of which, I was having a conversation with my wife, Margaret, over the course of a long drive in March. She was saying you didn't really go back and redefine market cap at any point. I realized in the early days of the Market Cap Game Show, I made a big point of explaining what market cap is and how it works. Yet, we just went through an entire March. For especially newcomers to the stock market, you would have had to look it up because I never really explained market cap at any point. I thought just a brief rehash of market cap before we get into this month's mailback, the market cap of a company is just simply the number of shares issued, the shares outstanding of that company, multiplied by the share price. When you multiply those things, that gives you a sense of the value of the equity of a company the market capitalization. Now, it is a bit simplified, as I'll explain in a minute.

But most people, in my experience, don't know the market caps of companies. If they're looking at stocks, they often only know the share price of a company, so they'll think, that stocks at $3.29. Well, that would be the one I should buy, say a lot of newcomers who often prefer lower-priced stocks, then, let's say, instead of at $3.29, let's say it was at $32.90 or, heaven forbid, at $329 a share. Now, a lot of people assume that, let's just say, they have $329 themselves. They should probably buy the stock at $3.29 because that would get them 100 shares of a stock rather than just say, 10 shares of a stock at 32.90 or just one share of a stock trading at $329 a share. But again, they're only looking at the price per share of the stock. How many shares does the company have outstanding? You're buying a piece of the pie when you buy stock, a slice. How big is the pie that your slice came from? Market Cap multiplies the price per share of a stock times all the shares outstanding to give you that company's overall value.

Now, I said it's a little oversimplified, and it is because if a company were to get bought out by another company, let's just pretend it's a $10 billion company, so it's got a $10 billion market cap, but let's also pretend that they have a wonderful balance sheet. They have $3 billion of cash on the balance sheet and no debt. If somebody else is buying them out, technically, the enterprise value, the actual amount being exchanged, is not 10 billion because you're buying a company with three billion just sitting in the bank.

The enterprise value, you subtract the cash from the market cap to get the enterprise value, which would be $7 billion. That's actually the value of that company, even though its market cap is 10. Now, let's take the opposite example. Let's pretend the company doesn't really have any cash in the bank. It has a lot of debt. We'll say $3 billion of debt on the balance sheet. If somebody else is buying them, they're actually paying basically $13 billion. The 10 billion for the market cap, and then they're having to assume $3 billion of debt. A quick study there on enterprise value, which is the slightly more intelligent, slightly more complicated view of market cap. But of course, to keep the game easy, lickety split, and for the most part, market caps are good numbers to have in mind. Anyway, we made it the market cap game show, not the enterprise value game show doesn't quite come as trippingly to the tongue. I will say this, though, as we get started now with the mailbag, it's not an easy game. The ending of Game 2, if you remember, between Bill Barker and Emily Flippen, they each made guesses around $60-70 billion.

This was the tiebreaker to see who would advance to the finals. Both Bill and Emily, again, guessing around 65 billion the actual market cap of service now is 168 billion. They were both off by about $100 billion, which is a reminder that this game is not easy. It's hard to understand and know so many different companies and what the market caps might be, especially at an inflated value like $168.12 billion. Service now is by now storied market cap. Speaking of Market Cap, let's get to Mailbag item number 1, which is about the Market Cap Game Show. Thank you, Dave Geck. Dave, you wrote Today's Market Cap Game reminded me of two valuable life lessons. Now, I want to hasten to add, Dave, I've abridged your notes somewhat for presentation on the podcast because it was longer at points than I could really share. I tried to tighten this up. It's just so much fun to share, though. Thank you for writing in. Dave, you wrote, again, today's Market Cap game reminded me of two valuable life lessons. First, when Bill and Emily both gave their final guesses on the tiebreaker. I realized I wasn't entirely clear on the rules. That recalled my father's wise advice, Dave writes. Don't play any game where you don't know the rules. Dave said I had misunderstood the parameter. I failed to consider that you were an English major, David, and would come up with rules that required less math. I blame you. However, in hindsight, if you'd intended the parameter to be an average, you probably would have explicitly stated that.

Let me pause there for a quick sec, just to remind that in that final tiebreaker with service now, both Bill and Emily had very similar overlapping guesses. As I already mentioned, I'll just say Bill said 60-69 billion. Emily said 55-73 billion. They were both off by about 100 billion, but since Emily said 73, her top-end parameter. That was closer than Bill's 69 billion, his high-end parameter, and therefore, she won the tiebreaker in advance. But there was debate raised by Bill, and here by Dave, who knows a lot more about math than I do, saying, why don't you take the average and look for the midpoint of each of their guesses? Had I done so, Bill at 64.5 billion would have edged out Emily at 64 billion and won the tiebreaker. But again, as you wrote, Dave, that is not actually the rule. If it was an average, I would have explicitly stated that we've always gone with the closer parameter to the actual market cap.

Anyway, let me more importantly get to your great coming story here, Dave, but you did say, like Bill, I take 100% responsibility for my loss. It's a reminder that details matter, even or especially in games. Now, speaking of details mattering, Dave writes the second lesson came from a math instructor at West Point in 1971. A fellow cadet who was first in our math class got called up to the chalkboard. Yep, real chalkback then to do a proof. In front of the class. Upon completing the proof, you were supposed to write QED and underline it twice with the green piece of chalk. He went through the proof, and it looked good, and it was well explained, and the instructor asked the class what was wrong. At first, no one said anything. Then I piped in Dave writes. He only has one green line under QED when there should be two. The instructor said yes and informed the cadet that he would get a zero for his board work for the day. This was crushing. The probability of him making up the ground to get back to the top of the class that semester was now practically nil. He looked a little stunned, and the instructor asked him if he thought that was too harsh. He admitted that he thought it was in that he solved the hard part of the proof that most people in the basic course could not, but that they could all double underline. He would think he should receive only one or two-tenths off, not a zero.

The instructor got in front of him and said, we are in agreement that underlining twice is simple. However, your demonstrated ability to follow the simplest of instructions may someday get yourself and your people killed. ''Dave closes this stuck with me deeply during my time in military leadership, reinforcing the importance of precision and attention to detail, even in the smallest tasks. Details matter. Thanks again for the Market Cap game and the memories it triggered, Fool on David Geck.'' Well, Dave, that is quite a story. I think it speaks for itself.

I'm sure we can all see both sides of that one, how heartbreaking it was that the guy who is top in the class in math and did everything right except that second double underline with the green chalk would get a zero. We see how seemingly unfair that is, and yet we can also see the instructor making a point that you still remember 50-plus years later, I bet that cadet does, and many others in the class, and it made an important point that might be more important than math. Let's move on to mailbag item number 2. One's from Rod Reid. Thanks for writing in, Dear David, I've been following the Motley Fool since the days of Rule Breakers and Rulemakers and have subscribed to various services over the last 25-plus years. I was listening to last month's mailbag episode where a couple of the contributors asked questions about when and why to sell stocks. Now, as one who almost never sells stocks, it caused me to think about my own practices and wonder if I should approach my portfolio differently and consider the opportunity costs of holding on to some stocks instead of selling and investing in something different.

As I did so, I thought back Rod writes to the way Jack Welch, former CEO of GE, reputedly required his leaders to rank their employees and fire the bottom 10% each year. Now, while I think this is a terrible way to run a company, it made me wonder if it might be a good way to at least evaluate my portfolio. I know you love keeping score and have a scorecard for your own stocks.

Have you ever practiced any ranking system on your scorecard? If so, what factors drive your rankings, and does that system generate any selling considerations when you evaluate your portfolio? Incidentally, Rod concludes I decided to see if ChatGPT could help me out with this process. I entered all the ticker symbols and then asked it to rank my portfolio by predicted return over the next five years. Then I compared the list to the Stock Advisor rankings. I didn't make any immediate sell decisions, but it gave me a different way to think about if and when and why. I should sell. Thank you in advance for considering my question. Fool on, Rod, Reed. Well, Rod, I really appreciate this note, and from many different angles, we don't have time to cover all of them, but I want to start first and foremost by saying, I think it's great what you did. I think it's great to consult ChatGPT. I'm glad you checked our Motley Fool Stock Advisor rankings, which are available to members of Stock Advisor when they want to see our stocks ranked.

I think that thinking through which stocks make the most sense is always a good thing to do. That goes for not every single day, but I would say quarterly. On a quarterly basis, that's a good check in time for a lot of us as investors to just reassess how our portfolio is doing and what we think of our stocks. Again, I realize some people may want to do that more frequently, and some others might just want to do it once a year, or so. But I think doing that work of assessment and reconsideration always makes a lot of sense. I don't like the Jack Welch approach to business.

I've also heard it said of Microsoft at different points. It might be one of those old saws that goes around and people mention it for big companies, really big companies. Usually, when companies get as big as GE did once or Microsoft, some people start rooting against them just because they're so big. They start developing stories or perspectives about those companies that may or may not be reflective of what actually happened in the culture, but just simply taking you at your word, this was what Jack Welch did. I was not a big Jack Welch fan, so I didn't keep up. But I don't think firing the bottom 10% of your employees annually is a great way to create a culture that people want to be part of. But your question cleverly reframes this. You're basically saying, well, what about forced rankings as a good discipline for evaluating our portfolios?

Again, I think that can be helpful. But I would also say, make sure you're not oversimplifying what sometimes can be a nuanced picture because it's not just how you might rank stocks, but it's also the allocations that you presently have in those stocks. For example, if you had one of your very favorite stocks and you were over allocated to that stock. It was outside of your sleep number, you were like, I may own too much of this at this point. That actually might be a better stock to consider selling than one that you don't like anymore, and that is lower ranked. I think a key factor is, of course, what are your actual allocations? I also appreciate you calling out the importance of scoring, and I would say that if you do intend to sell with more frequency than you did in the past, make sure you're scoring what you're doing so that you can see after three or five years of evaluation whether that's working out for you or not. I do favor holding on to stocks for long periods of time, allowing those shares to compound for you. I know you've been around the Motley Fool for 25 plus years so presumably, you've had that happen in your own portfolio. I think that's really a great state to get any portfolio in. I try not to mess too much with the compounding clock that operates underneath all of our portfolios, the stock market rising 10% or so every seven years. If we're outperforming it with rule-breaker stocks, we're doing better than that and you can start seeing the value of holding on and letting a company like NVIDIA or Amazon keep compounding instead of selling against it and trying to figure out where else to allocate that money. I also think that sometimes, it is a good reason to sell if you've got a better place to put the money. If you're fully invested and a new company comes along that you really like. Of course, I think it's a good idea to consider selling something of what you have in order to put it in that new stock. I just want to make sure, Rod and everybody else listening that you're keeping score. If you're going to start a new approach, one that you're not quite sure about, make sure you're keeping score and learning because that creates a learning system. If you're not keeping score, it's hard to know how you're doing or what you should do going forward.

Anyway, a great note, I would never want to let go the bottom 10% of my employees but I would consider letting go the bottom 10% of stocks that I didn't like. The little selling I do usually are stocks that just haven't worked out for me, and I'm reducing my capital gains by getting rid of losers from my portfolio. I've always had some losers, and we as rule-breaker investors always will have some losers, so it's something that comes rather naturally to me.

On to Mailbag item Number 3. Hi, David. Long story very short. I'm a long time Berkshire shareholder and one of the stories of the recent decade. Frank writes is how much GEICO has lost ground to Progressive? The biggest reason, Frank writes, Progressive embrace technology by trying to use telematics to underwrite smarter. Now, this is David now speaking not Frank, our correspondent. I'm not a big insurance industry follower, so I want to make sure I define telematics for all of us if you too are not somebody who follows this very carefully. Telematics is the use of telecommunications and informatics. If you put those two things together, data transmission and data processing, you can get real time information about vehicles or machinery, or equipment.

Think about using something like GPS technology. Then you've got the on-board diagnostics in cars. You have sensor, wireless communication, the vehicle location, its speed, its fuel usage. Its maintenance status can all be monitored and analyzed remotely. You can see how auto insurers can monitor driving patterns like your speed, your braking, your mileage to offer personalized premiums to their customers. That's what's going on here with the backstory of telematics and Progressive. Picking it up there from Frank's note, Frank writes, progressive was behind GEICO in 2011 in market share, and now they are firmly ahead with 50 more business than GEICO. In the mindset, the Rule Breaker mindset of winners win, look for the top dogs, smart backing matters, etc. Berkshire is now trying to catch up firmly playing Pepsi to progressive Coca Cola.

Frank continues, I decided to buy some progressive stock ticker symbol PGR today. When it comes to telematics and data usage, PGR is the top dog and first mover. The CEO, I believe, is an example of smart backing. There's strong recent price performance, a lot of the traits we look for in Rule Breaker stocks. In some of my very brief homework, David Rubenstein, who has an interview show on Bloomberg is also today the principal owner of the Baltimore Orioles an incredibly generous benefactor in the greater DC Baltimore area. David Rubenstein interviewed Progressive CEO back in late 2020. The stock back then was around $85 a share. Now, Frank goes, I have a very small snippet of how he opened the show. He said he thought he missed it by saying the next company she goes to, I will buy the stock. Frank says, this is classic, and he sent us the audio from the opening of Rubenstein's show, which we will now for 33 seconds, share right here.

In United States today, there are only 38 women who are serving as CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. One of those with the best track record is Tricia Griffith. She is the CEO of Progressive Insurance, one of the largest automobile insurance companies in the United States. She started out as a claim adjuster and worked her way up over many years to become in 2016 the CEO. Since that time, the stock is up more than 175%. My big mistake was I didn't know her then and I didn't buy the stock in the company. If she ever leaves that company and goes anywhere else, I'm going to buy that stock right away.

Picking it back up with Frank's commentary, you see he said his big mistake was not buying the stock when she took over. I think the bigger mistake, Frank writes, was not buying the stock after the interview. Now, it happens to be a rec on Stock Advisor on your brother Tom's side.

Anyway, I just wanted to share this with you because in the years gone by, I would also have said, I missed it. But now, I'm learning and taking a position. Fool on Frank I. Well, Frank I, thank you very much for going above and beyond sharing the audio clip from five years ago. But of course, I esteem your viewpoint and I love the lesson that you've learned. In fact, Frank went on to include the data of how progressive stock is done against the S&P 500 from the day that interview aired, which was October 7th of 2020. The stock from that day has gone from 96-281 or so, and that means the stock is up 220%. The S&P 500 just up 79%. We can both smile askance a little bit at each other Frank, to think that a billionaire investor as successful as Rubenstein has been thinks that he missed a great company because he wasn't there early days when she signed on as CEO. Yet, the stock has more than tripled from the day of that interview five years ago. I did tweet out on Twitter X where I'm at David G Fool, if anybody wants to follow me. I did tweet out last July the following. I said five of the most harmful words for a potential Rule Breaker investor looking at Rule Breaker stocks. Here they are. I guess, I missed it. So much money left on the table, such an opportunity cost around that mentality. Most great Rule Breakers and you've made a good case, Frank, for Progressive being one of it's funny because I don't follow the insurance industry. I just see all the funny ads from Progressive and GEICO, and all of their competitors. They're trying to out funny each other, especially on sports broadcast, especially throughout this March.

I've seen so many television ads. State Farm is going really big in March madness this year. They're all quite funny, but they all blend in together. I myself didn't realize how Progressive has started to dominate GEICO based on a fantastic CEO and a real commitment to technology. Thanks for helping us realize not just the state of the insurance industry today Frank, but also I missed it being one of the most harmful mentalities we can have as investors. Usually, as Frank understands, the winners keep on winning. Well, I've done this all month long on this podcast. It's half time, and I'll do it one more time. This is the last halftime we'll have. I don't think we'll do this anymore in April, but I've been doing my page breaker previews as halftime entertainment throughout this month.

As I shared at the start of the year, my 2025 book Rule Breaker Investing is available for pre-order 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 16th of this year. I'm sharing a random excerpt. We just break open the book to a random page, and I read a few sentences. Let's do it here. This week's page breaker preview for your March 2025 Mailbag. Three sentences from early on in the book, and I quote, "For me, I like to think forward 42 years which allows that seven year double to happen six times. What does that mean?

It means every dollar bill you're holding or spending at Starbucks, or investing today is actually worth $64 to your future self." That's this week's page breaker preview, every dollar is actually $64. To pre-order my final word on stock picking shaped by three decades of success, just type Rule Breaker Investing into amazon.com, Barnes and noble.com or wherever you shop for fine books. I want to thank everyone who's already pre-ordered. That means a lot to me. Onto Rule Breaker Mailbag item Number 4, really appreciate the whimsy here. Thank you, Chris Abels. You write, Dear David, I'm curious. Do you ever collect words that you find particularly interesting or meaningful? Here are a few I've come across. Chris writes, that I quite like. I'm going to note before I share these that each of these is of foreign derivation. None of these is English. I appreciate your global view, your global sharing here, Chris. Here's the first one. Number 1, Sisu, S-I-S-U. Chris writes this finish word embodies the concepts of determination, perseverance, and resilience in the face of adversity. It's a fundamental aspect of finish, culture, and identity Sisu. The second one of Chris's 3 is Wabi Sabi.

Chris writes, this Japanese aesthetic appreciates the beauty found in imperfection, impermanence, and incompleteness. Finally, Number 3, JUGAAD, which is spelled J-U-G-A-A-D. I might be butchering the pronunciation, I'm doing my best. Chris writes this Hindi word describes a flexible approach to problem solving that utilizes limited resources in innovative ways.

Chris signs his note. Meaningfully to me, KaluKale Crisabelas When I think of KaluKale, I think of the poem Jabberwock. Where the Jabberwock, my son, the teeth that bite, the claws that snatch, beware the Jubjub bird and Shun the Frumious Bandersnatch. KaluKale to you as well Chris, a fellow lover of language and of poetry. No doubt, as well. Well, I'm so glad that you wrote it. First of all, I love each of your three words Sisu, Wabi Sabi, and JUGAAD. I think what's special about them is each of them comes from outside the English language, and yet that attempt to convey the meaning of a word in another culture, a concept that we don't necessarily have in our culture, but when you share it, it makes a lot of sense. It sounds really good. Wabi Sabi, that Japanese aesthetic appreciating the beauty found in imperfection and impermanence. I love it.

But since you open this can of worms, I do keep a list of my favorite words, and I have 20 of them. I'm not going to explain each one. They're all English, so you're going to know most of them. Maybe there are one or two stories here, but thank you for giving me a platform. About 10 years since I started this podcast to share my 20 favorite words, these didn't come to me all at once. It's just when I heard one, let's say seven years ago or three years ago, I had to add it to my list. Here, they are alphabetically. The first one is balmy. I love the feeling of balmy. I love the word balmy. The second is camel case. That's describing not upper case letters or lower case letters. But if you think about something like iPad, where that P is capitalized right in the middle of a word like a camel's hump, that is truly camel case. I just love that there's a word for that in the English language. Number 3 is crackerjack as something excellent. I was looking up the etymology of this one. The year was 1893, it became a US colloquialism. Fanciful construction that caramel coated popcorn and peanuts confection was said to have been introduced at the world's Colombian exposition the World's Fair in the year 1893.

Supposedly, a salesman gave it a name when he tasted some and said, that's a crackerjack because at the time, the phrase crackerjack meant something. That's something excellent. The name was trademarked in 1896. The prize in every box by the way, introduced in 1912. I just like Crackerjack as an adjective. That is a crackerjack stock pick. The fourth and fifth on my list of 20 favorite words are dreams because it's such a beautiful word, and it means so much to so many of us. Number 5 is Excelsior, which means ever higher in Latin. It is my Motley value here at The Motley Fool. In Rule Breaker Investing when it comes out on September 16th, the final chapter is entitled Excelsior. My next five freedom global.

These are just words that I think are important, and I think that's in part why I love them. Joy. Number 9 is Lucubration. That one needs brief explanation. If you've ever pulled an all night or if you've ever worked by lamplight, if you're a regular candlelight person, that's what you're doing. You're Lucubrative. You're working by lamplight, Lucu speaking to the Latin for light, that first half of the word, abrasion, about work, so work by lamplight, I love because I've done it throughout my life. I am a Lucubrator, and perhaps you are, as well. Number 10 is meliorism.

Now, of all of mine, this is the one you have to look up in a dictionary to understand what's happening, M-E-L-I-O-R-I-S-M. Of course, once I tell you the concept, you'll see why I love it so much. It's a metaphysical concept, but it's the belief that the world tends to become better or is capable of improvement. I think that explains as much as anything why the stock market goes up decade after decade and century after century over long periods of time, from lower left to upper right, despite people thinking, My gosh, it's different this time. It's all going to end badly. It hasn't ever. I do believe things will continue to become better, not every day, and not in every way. But if you take the long view, as an investor, your whole life long, meliorism is a huge reason you're going to profit. Well, those are words 1-10. I feel like if I go on too long and I'm being too self-indulgent, I'll keep moving here. Number 11 is mystery. Just love the word. Love the concept. Number 12 is nocturne. That does, of course, come from, I think it's the French, so it's not exactly an English word, but the musical composition of a dreamy character, a composition appropriate to the night, nocturne's a beautiful word. Number 13 is a little bit of a 10-cent word. It's nugatory. Look it up, N-U-G-A-T-O-R-Y, basically means something that's useless, trifling of no value. Nugatory.

But if you look at the etymology, you'll see why I love this word. The Latin nugatorius did indeed mean worthless, trifling, futile, but it came from nugator, which was a jester, or a trifler or a braggart, but nugatus passed participle of nugari to trifle, jest. Play the fool. So you can see why I love the word nugatory number 13th on my alphabetical list, because first of all, it's such a dramatically overstated and complicated word for just the meaning of useless. Nugatory itself feels futile and invalid as a word, but that it all derives from the court jester, from playing the fool, has special meaning to me, and I suppose many of us as well. Word number 14, Oligophagous, another 10-cent word, comes from, if you know what oligopolies are, oligarchies, rule of a few, economic domination by a few.

That's the oligo part, and phage means to eat. When I came across this word in my reading 20 or 30 years ago, I was like, My gosh, there's a word for that. That's me. People who eat a few things. I am not somebody who's particularly daring when it comes to going out to restaurants, or my palate is quite limited. I tend to eat the same things over and over again. And the word Olegopagus O-L-I-G-O-P-H-A-G-O-S is, of course, for me, maybe for you, too, if I've just described is on my list of my 20 favorite words. I'll just run through my last six quickly. Again, each of these words I love, but most of us understand what these are plucky is number 15. Number 16 is racy. Number 17 is rapt as in R-A-P-T. Number 18, sang foie. Of course, this from the French, as well. Just means coolness, mental composure, sang foie, cold bloodedness from the French, and my last two are treasure, and then whimsy. I always think of Dorothy Sayers, the novelist, and her character, Lord Peter Whimsy, and his coat of arms, his family motto, where my whimsy takes me. I think for a lot of us, that's true of life. Often, if we let our whimsy take us places, we find treasure. So those last two words connect for me.

Anyway, thank you, Chris Abels, for giving me an opportunity to share my 20 favorite words, which I've never gotten to do before in this podcast. I'll probably never do it again, but I hope there are a few there that popped out for some of you and might enter your own favorite words list. On to Rule Breaker mailbag item number 5. This one from Bruce. Bailey, thanks for writing in. Bruce is a longtime Motley Fool subscriber and listener to the Rule Breaker Investing podcast. I appreciate your stance that, generally speaking, you avoid any involvement in political statements or analysis. On the other hand, Bruce writes, I have heard you say many times that, "Your portfolio should reflect your best vision for our future." Words to that effect.

With that in mind, Bruce asks, I'm wondering if Elon Musk and Tesla continue to reflect your best vision of the future signed Bruce Bailey. Well, Bruce, thank you, first of all, for understanding and knowing how I think about these things. You're right. Even though I grew up in Washington, DC. I don't spend a lot of time thinking about the political world. I've benefited Net N, I think not being part of the news grind, it's exhausting these days to follow the news, and yet, I never really have followed the news very much. I do follow news of my companies. I tend to follow the private sector much more carefully than the public sector, and I think I've been well rewarded for doing so.

There are a lot of reasons why I think the private sector is actually what runs our country far more than the public sector, which is often how newspapers or academia tends to talk about our country. Of course, understandably, if you're president or in Congress or you're a Supreme Court justice, you have real responsibility felt by so many Americans, but at the same time, if you are every day delivering packages to my doorstep, if you're serving me my morning coffee, if you're making sure I have insurance, if you are filling my refrigerator or my wardrobe with the things that make my life good every day, you have a much more intimate and important role in my life, typically, than Congress. I've said that from time to time on this podcast in the past.

Now, you specifically, Bruce, are asking about Elon Musk, and I understand why and Tesla by extension. And I realize for a lot of Americans, they're very, very divided on Elon Musk and his role, both in the private sector and now the public sector, as well. I am generally pretty neutral here. I'm pretty arm's length.

I want to say, most Americans, I think it's true of a majority of Americans, we do believe the federal government should be smaller. It has grown over large. It's maybe doing a lot more than we needed to in some ways. And so I think there's something about courage and vision, even though I'm not always a big fan of how it's been done or what's being done. Nevertheless, I think, looking back, history may see that some of these decisions were good but hard decisions, even if again, they weren't done very well. So I think a lot of people hearing me, especially in the US, recognize that that can be a good thing.

On the other hand, Elon's direct alignment with one of the parties, not the other, I don't think leads to my favorite view of America. I prefer a United America where we all realize we share a lot more in common than what drives us apart. I do feel as if the present political milia often tries to do the opposite, and Elon has certainly bought his way into that. But apart from just reading political tea leaves, I want to say, as far as Tesla and what Tesla has done in this world, I think what Tesla has done is wonderful. For the most part has spurred a revolution, obviously, starting with vehicles to get us to more sustainable uses of energy.

By the way, electric cars have a lot of superior benefits above the traditional gas engine cars that we all grew up with, the lack of maintenance and a lot of the other expenses that are necessary for vehicles that I grew up with are now gone from the electric vehicle life that I've been leading personally for the last 15 years or so. So I think what Tesla does is really quite wonderful in the world. I realize some people are now equating Elon with Tesla. I would say, If you know anybody who works at Tesla, you're going to have a lot of different types of people who work at Tesla. I'm sure some of the people working at Tesla don't like how Elon has been behaving himself.

Others may be solidly behind him. From my standpoint, I'm looking at the company and its effects on the world. For me, I would say, Bruce, in conclusion, Yeah, my portfolio, which owns Tesla, does reflect my best vision of the future.

And I would be the first to say, I have many friends who do not like Tesla now or Elon at all. Maybe they never did. I would be the first to say, Don't own that stock. Because you're right, Bruce, I think your portfolio should reflect your best vision for our future. Each of us sees different things. I think our money should be where our mouths are at all times. I think your portfolio should express yourself. For my own part, I'm not a huge Elon fan boy, but I am grateful that Elon was on this earth when I was the value that he's added, whether we're looking at outer space, or we're looking at new areas like robots, there's Neuralink. Of course, PayPal in his past, there are all kinds of innovation and value that Elon Musk has brought.

And I would say I'm grateful that he's here in the United States of America. I'm sure glad that he's one of ours as opposed to in another country, maybe a country hostile to the United States of America. I think he is an incredible asset. If you disagree, I'd be the first to say, please don't buy the stock. There are many other stocks you could have in your portfolio. I'm not even asking people to mirror what I'm doing. I'm here saying, make your portfolio reflect your best vision for our future before we go to our final mailbag, just want to briefly look at Tesla's stock.

On November 1st, just days before the US election months ago, it was at $250 a share. On December 17, it hit a high of $475. It nearly doubled over the course of a month and a half. And by March 10, it was back where it started on November 1 at $250 a share. As I'm recording this podcast Tuesday afternoon, it's back up over $280 a share. This has been a phenomenal stock, no matter how you look at even the prices where it is now having come down well down from its pricing in December is still well ahead of where it was a year ago, especially five or 10 years ago. And I think Tesla is going to continue innovating in ways that benefit the world.

Yeah, I'm going to personally remain invested in a stock that has added a lot of value to my portfolio, but I think a company that's added a lot of value to the world. If your mileage differs, I'm good with that. Just make sure you're invested in a way that's true for you. Before our final mailbag item, let me just mention the Motley Fool's Breakfast News. You can start your day with our free daily market email newsletter. That's Breakfast News from The Motley Fool, daily expert market analysis, company updates sent straight to your Inbox.

Every weekday, 07:00 or 07:30 A.M. I'll be there. Without fail. You can sign up for the Motley Fool's Breakfast News at www.fool.com/breakfastnews. It's part of my every morning. I hope you're enjoying it as well. Our final mailbag item, this one, probably the shortest of the week, a throwaway, but I wanted to honor a tweet dropped to me by Daniel Trindade Daniels at Daniel T-R-I-N-D-A-D-E seven at Daniel Trindade 7, who wrote, Hey, David, I'm listening to your recently released mailbag episode. That would be February last month.

Daniel said, There's a small pet peeve that I'd like to bring up. You've been calling Axon Enterprise, Axon Energy. Multiple times. Happens to all of us. Daniel kindly writes, cheers, and speak soon. That was the tweet. I said, First of all, I love it when people correct me because I don't want to walk around saying the wrong thing. I want to say the right things. I've always known it was Axon Enterprise. I've recommended the stock multiple times. It's in lots of Fool's portfolios, our family portfolio, as well. And I can't believe for one mailbag I was saying Axon Energy. It doesn't really make any sense. Axon has nothing to do with energy. But I also wish it wasn't Axon Enterprise. Daniel and others, every business is an enterprise. I'm not sure or clear why Axon needs to have enterprise on the back end of its corporate name. So here's a quick question for the Smith family founders of Axon. Do we need the enterprise? Can we just shorten at some point to Axon? I actually think that would be stronger from a branding standpoint.

And it would cause me not to make silly mistakes like the one I made apparently all last month's mailbag long. I want to thank Daniel Trindade for correcting this Fool. Even as I try to end this week's podcast, in my ear, my producer Heather Horton lets me know, David, there actually is an Axon Energy. It's out there. Look it up. Indeed, I'm looking I'm on the web right now, just google Axon Energy Services, and you're going to see this is its own company, but it's not ticker symbol A-X-O-N. It's not Axon Enterprise. It looks like it's based in Houston, Texas.

Anyway, I sit I'm going to say doubly corrected. I blew Axon Enterprise last month, and I wouldn't want anyone to think Axon Energy isn't a thing because it is. Well, from military mathematicians who score zero, they didn't double underline to how Progressive became a Rule Breaker in the otherwise staid world of insurance, to some of our favorite words, to making sure your portfolio reflects your best vision for our future. Thanks for joining me this week and really all march long on this mad, fun month. It was where our Whimsy took us. Fool on.

John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. David Gardner has positions in Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, PayPal, Starbucks, and Tesla. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, Axon Enterprise, Berkshire Hathaway, Microsoft, Nvidia, PayPal, Progressive, Starbucks, and Tesla. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft, long January 2027 $42.50 calls on PayPal, short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft, and short March 2025 $85 calls on PayPal. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.