In this podcast, Motley Fool co-founder David Gardner is joined by superstar guests Randi Zuckerberg and Morgan Housel as they each share three stories — one to educate, one to amuse, and one to enrich. From investing lessons that last a lifetime to laugh-out-loud anecdotes and heartwarming life insights, these nine stories are packed with inspiration and practical takeaways.
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A full transcript follows the video.
This video was recorded on Jan. 22, 2025.
David Gardner: What happens when you bring together three storytellers, three themes, and a podcast devoted to making you smarter, happier, and richer? Well, you get Three Fools. It’s our newest episodic series. This week, I’m joined by superstar guests Randi Zuckerberg and Morgan Housel as we each share three stories, one to educate, one to amuse, and one to enrich. Only on this week’s Rule Breaker Investing.
Welcome back Fools. Wasn’t it a treat to have Jamey Stegmaier on the podcast last week? So much wisdom and creativity packed into one episode. If you missed it, go back and listen. Speaking of favorites, next week is our January Mailbag, your questions, our answers. Always one of my highlights each month, a reminder, our email address is [email protected]. If you found yourself moved by anything we’ve yet done this month, or especially by this week’s podcast, I would love to hear your reaction, questions, thoughts, and poems. Our email address again, [email protected]. You can tweet us @RBIPodcast. We’re about to get started with a fantastic episode with my two guest stars. But first, this week’s Page Breaker Preview. 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. It’s a lifetime of lessons distilled into one definitive guide, and each week, until the book launches this summer, I’m sharing a random excerpt.
We break open the book to a random page, and I read a few sentences. Let’s do it. Here’s this week’s Page Breaker Preview, three sentences from early on in the book, and I quote, “Now I want to extend this metaphor in my own way in support of habit Number 1, because to the rowboaters, I say, ‘This toss away your rowboat and at least try a canoe. Because when you’re in a canoe, you’re facing forward. You recognize that what truly matters is what comes next around that bend in the river as you paddle forward, paddle, paddle, paddle, looking the right way.'” That’s this week’s Page Breaker Preview. Of course, I want to add more context, but then if I did, it’s no longer a quick preview. I think many longtime listeners may get where I’m going with that sailboat to pre-order my final word on stock picking shaped by three decades of success, type Rule Breaker Investing into Amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com or wherever you shop for great books.
Randi Zuckerberg is an entrepreneur, investor and media personality, best known for her pioneering work as a Facebook executive and author of three books, including Dot Complicated, Pick Three and her children’s book, Dot. As the founder and CEO of Zuckerberg Media, Randi champions creativity and innovation, inspiring audiences with her expertise in technology, storytelling, and leadership. She’s also a Tony Award winning Broadway producer, and an ultra long-distance runner. Welcome, Randi.
Randi Zuckerberg: Thanks. This is so fun. I love that we get to tell stories today.
David Gardner: I do too, and thank you so much for leaning in. Morgan Housel is a partner at the Collaborative Fund and the author most prominently of the best selling book, The Psychology of Money. I bet you’ve read it. It’s sold millions of copies worldwide, been translated into over 50 languages, known for his insightful and relatable writing on investing, business, and human behavior. Morgan helps readers and listeners alike better understand how to think about money and life. Morgan, a delight to have you back.
Morgan Housel: Nice to see you, David. This is going to be fun.
David Gardner: To you both, it may be too late, but Happy New Year. Let me ask you each, since it’s really cold in the United States this week, where are you right now, Randi, and what is the temperature roughly?
Randi Zuckerberg: I’m in New York City, and right now it feels like six degrees outside, and that’s stupid cold.
David Gardner: Have you been outside?
Randi Zuckerberg: I have. Yeah, I was out running for two hours this morning. Not smart, but maybe no one should be taking advice from me today.
David Gardner: That is phenomenal. Morgan, I haven’t done any running myself. Where I am in Washington DC, it is it’s 11 right now. That’s my answer. Where are you, Morgan?
Morgan Housel: I’m at home in Seattle, Washington, where it is a balmy 27. I might be sweating relative to you guys, but our unique thing right now is it has not rained in Seattle in about 10 days, and there’s no rain for the next 10 days in the forecast. This time of year, that never happens.
David Gardner: I hear you. Well, there’s a lot of things that have never happened before that are happening this week, and this is one of them. Thank you so much for helping me kick off this series, Three Fools. Each of us has brought three stories. The first will educate, the second will amuse, we hope, and the third will enrich. We know and we’re delighted to have these two guests and you with us pull up a chair, maybe get by the fireside if you have one and let’s get started. Well, we drew lots for this, and first up for our first educate story is Randi Zuckerberg. It’s going to go Randi, Morgan, then me. Randi, you’re first. What have you got?
Randi Zuckerberg: My first story is called, How I Accidentally Became An Early Bitcoin Adopter. [laughs] About a decade ago now, I was asked to give a keynote speech about crypto. I didn’t know very much about crypto, but they begged me to give the talk. They were like, “You have a background in technology. You probably know more than the people in the audience.” That forced me to research it, learn more about Bitcoin. I actually got paid for that talk in Bitcoin, which my husband was extremely angry about. He was like, “Why would you work so hard and get pirate money as payback?” He’s not angry about it right now. I’ll let you know. But once I had some skin in the game, it really forced me to pay attention to what was going on and I definitely learned from that experience.
If you want to learn about something quickly, put a little bit of money into it, and then guaranteed you’re going to pay attention. You’re going to follow the trends, you’re going to learn. Over the next 10 years, I started to give countless keynotes, beyond podcast. Because everything is on the blockchain, it’s documented that I’m one of the earlier women that invested in Bitcoin. Now here we are a decade later and what was new and crazy and something that I wasn’t trained in at the moment is now a 10 plus year old industry that I’ve been in from the start lines. I think that’s something that I’ve really learned in my career is, if you can get in at the ground floor of new things, you can develop expertise really quickly because everyone around you is new. So much in life, we write things off. “I didn’t go to school for that. I’m not trained for that.” But those are myths in our heads. I truly believe now the best investments any of us will ever have probably don’t even exist yet.
Morgan Housel: Such a great story, Randi. I think you can almost say that for any new technology that 15 years ago, nobody was an expert in Bitcoin, 10 years ago, nobody was an expert in Bitcoin. Nobody had experience doing that. David, I don’t know if you remember this, but so I was a Motley Fool contractor for about 10 years.
David Gardner: I definitely remember that part.
Morgan Housel: You remember that part, of course. But if you remember this part, I think it was around 2012, the platform that we used to pay contractors, I forget the name of the vendor that was doing it, but they sent everybody an email that said, “Hey, rather than paying you in cash, we can pay you in Bitcoin.” This is probably 2012, and I remember thinking, “What a joke?” Who would possibly do that? Of course, in hindsight, that looks much different back then. Lots of things like that make a lot of sense in hindsight.
David Gardner: Randi, is there a fourth book in you? I feel like there’s a story here.
Randi Zuckerberg: Yeah, I don’t know. Maybe we need to co-author something together, but I hope anyone who’s listening to this maybe feels inspired to get on the ground floor or something new.
David Gardner: Absolutely. What a wonderful lead off. Thank you, Randi Zuckerberg, for your story. Do you have a title?
Randi Zuckerberg: I called it, How I Accidentally Became An Early Bitcoin Adopter.
David Gardner: Exactly. Thank you for double underlining that. That is one to remember. You’re not going to mention the amount that you’ve ended up getting paid for that initial speech, are you? Is that private?
Randi Zuckerberg: I’m not going to say the amount, [laughs] but let’s just say that we’re no longer calling it pirate money.
David Gardner: [laughs] That’s great. Pass the ball over to Morgan. Morgan, you’re up next with your first story to educate.
Morgan Housel: Yeah, I’m calling this, The Best Story Wins, and it’s a story from back in college that I think a lot of people will probably relate to, which is now that I’m 15 years or so beyond college, I look back and I say, “What were the concepts that I remember that I’ve learned the most from?” I’m probably not unique in saying, not that many. Not that many. Every formula that I memorized the night before the final, I don’t remember. Every long complicated theory that I was forced to learn, I don’t remember them anymore, except for one class. The class was Environmental Economics, which, to be true, to be honest, I don’t really have that much of an interest in, but the teacher did something very unique. On the first day of class, he said, “There is no textbook in this class.” He pointed it to the chalkboard, and he said, “I will never write anything on that chalkboard. I’m going to stand here every day for the next semester and just tell you stories about economics.” He was a long time economic consultant. I think he was an expert witness, was his job, and he just sat there and told us war stories about how economics actually works in the real world. It was so useful, it was so entertaining. His name was Charles Tucheti. When I look back at my college years, I remember more from that class than every other course combined. I think the takeaway from that is, people love a good story. They do not want to lecture, they’re not good at memorizing formulas over the long term, they will always remember a good story. You can apply that to almost any other field. Even very technical fields. Stephen Hawkings was a storyteller, Richard Feynman was a storyteller. In physics, the most math based field that exists, they just told stories, and that’s why they were so famous. My friend Nick Majuli wrote blog post this morning that said, “Attention is the new currency.” I think that’s really true. If you can get people’s attention with a story, they will remember it forever. I think that applies to so many things outside of college, outside of economics.
David Gardner: That’s fantastic, Morgan. Do you ever correspond with Charles Tucheti afterward? Is he listening right now?
Morgan Housel: Here’s the interesting thing. I disagreed with him on a lot of things. He was very political in the stories that he told in a way that I didn’t agree with him, particularly at the time, but it didn’t matter. He told good stories that I remember. Even if I could poke holes in them, I remember them. Isn’t there tremendous value in that versus all the other professors for whom I don’t really remember much of anymore?
David Gardner: Randi, do you want to jump in with anything before we move on? Please do.
Randi Zuckerberg: I love that so much, and it reminds me of when I was in college, I was in a giant lecture hall, and the professor kept saying, “I’m going to be having lunch in this cafeteria today, come, spend time with me.” I was like, “I’m one of 4,000 people in this lecture. I’m not going to go do that.” At the end of the semester, I showed up for the lunch, and he was like, “You’re the first person who’s come to see me the entire semester.” It just stuck with me so much. I agree with you. I think sometimes these unconventional ways of connecting with information or with people are actually our strongest assets.
David Gardner: What a great story, and you did just remind me of a moment in my own freshman year, actually, sophomore year, Randi, where I met my wife in a creative writing class, didn’t know it at the time. I invited her for breakfast later that week, and she said, “No, I can’t. I’m going to breakfast with my professor.” I said, “I’m sorry, you’re what?” She said, “I go to breakfast with each of my professors each term. You don’t?” Same university, but totally different approach. Yeah, you’re right, connecting in with people and Morgan telling stories that you still remember and shaped you years and years later. Well, thank you for that. I guess that leaves me with the final educate story. Number 3, I’m going to call this one, Trust the Builder Not the Noise. Growing up as a young investor, ’70s and ’80s, investing was basically like a math exercise back then. You’re estimating growth rates, you’re calculating valuation multiples, projecting target prices. It was basically taught to me as math. Honestly, back then, what else could an armchair investor do? Basically, research meant finding a company investor relations phone number, which was itself its own research task, and calling them and hoping they’d send you a paper copy of their annual report, we were so far removed from the businesses themselves.
There weren’t any websites, you couldn’t see people’s product videos, no YouTube talks from the CEO, and of course, free real time data, forget about it. When we started the Fool and the online medium took off, everything changed. Suddenly, we were basically running our own business, and we were connecting with other businesses. I wasn’t just crunching numbers, I was now seeing how businesses really worked. They had strategies, decisions, they had leaders. It opened a whole new dimension of investing for me beyond my little spreadsheets to the company’s story and its vision and how much those truly matter. I would say the entrepreneur I got to know best back then was Steve Case. He was the founder and CEO of America Online during its golden age, the 1990s. As you’ll remember, that was the decade that America went online. Back then going online was expensive. AOL charged hourly connection fees over dial up. Later, by the way, those would go to flat fees, and that would flatten AOL. But at the time, AOL was the top dog with pricing power, and at one point, they raised their rates. The day the news broke, I happened to be at an offsite with AOL partners. That evening, I remember having a cocktail in hand, I sidled up to Steve Case.
The headlines that day, New York Times, CNBC all day long, basically screamed, “AOL Makes a Horrible Decision, It’s Raising Rates.” But Steve, right there in front of me, calm and confident, asked me a few rhetorical questions. He said, “Don’t you think we’ve already market tested this rate for six months? Don’t you think we know exactly how this is going to play out? Do you really think this is a bad decision?” This was early AOL, early Fool too, but that moment left a mark. The teenage investor in me with his spreadsheets and his math, may well have panicked at the headlines that were coming out that day. But now, as a young businessman, I saw the entrepreneur himself and his team, the AOL people we were working with all felt like the smartest people in the room back then in the early online days. As it turns out, to close it out here, the price hike was brilliant. Consumers basically didn’t blink, the extra cash accelerated AOL’s growth, left their competitors in the dust, and by the time AOL merged with Time Warner, ill fated, it didn’t end well, as we’ll all remember, but the year was 2000, my original pick of AOL stock had gone up 150 times. I had my first 100 bagger. The lasting lesson, visionary entrepreneurs might not get the loudest voice, but they’re the ones who truly understand their business. I would say, don’t let the headlines or your own doubts drown out the wisdom of those who’ve built something remarkable. We’re not going to be right every time when we go that direction, but Ti definitely goes to trusting the builder and not the noise. Early days, by the way, Steve’s going to come back in a few minutes for me, but that’s what I got.
Randi Zuckerberg: I love that so much because having spent my career in Silicon Valley, I got to be right next to so many visionary entrepreneurs who did things that maybe to the public, seemed completely bonkers or completely out there. But I just saw time and time again that people who are truly just so visionary and so connected almost understand what people want more than people know what they want.
Randi Zuckerberg: Time and time again, we would launch things at Facebook or I would see other companies launch things that people were like, we don’t like this, but then they used it more, and it actually enriched and enhanced their lives. I can see how that would be stressful on the investor side of things, but it is really cool to have the opportunity to work alongside people whose minds work like that.
Morgan Housel: I can think of one example of that that might be close to you. I remember when Facebook introduced the News Feed. This is probably 2005, maybe 2006, and the amount of backlash that came from that. Because the narrative back then was, you are bombarding me with useless information about what all these people are doing on a daily basis. Of course, in hindsight, that was one of the biggest moves to creating what social media is today, and it seems silly to think about the backlash that came from it back then, even if in hindsight, it was a brilliant decision.
Randi Zuckerberg: Absolutely. I can think of so many things. People were so up in arms with caller ID. They were like, [inaudible] privacy now. If I don’t recognize a number, I don’t pick the phone. [laughs] There are just so many illustrative examples like that.
David Gardner: I guess the lesson is, let’s maintain our humility and self awareness to realize who knows what’s going to happen next.
Randi Zuckerberg: No one knows.
David Gardner: That’s great. Well, Randi, you’ve operated at high level, seeing things that I will never see, and I’ve not spent nearly as much time as I’d like to in Silicon Valley. But at least over here in Washington DC in this area, for AOL back in the day to be here made it a big deal for the greater DC area, even though AOL has disappeared over the last 20 years. But thank you each for our educate section. I think there are already a lot of takeaways. I’m writing down my own. I hope that listeners at home, as Randi just said, will be inspired to think different. Take some new actions. We are doing this in the first month of the year. I think we already said Happy New Year possibly too late. Let’s move on to section Number 2. It’s our Amuse section, and by lot, I drew myself, so I’m going twice in a row. Probably I should have designed the show better. But I think I can carry forward what I just said, because the title of my amuse story, story Number 1, our Amuse section is actually Steve. It has nothing to do with Steve case, but I have Steve on the brain this week. This one also goes back to early days for me. This is freshman year of college. I went to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Morgan took that meaningful environmental economics course, I took a course in speech. It was an intro to speech course. It wasn’t that great a course in retrospect, and I’m not going to say my professor spellbound me with stories that I can still remember today, but I do remember our first exercise. Our first exercise was, you had to introduce yourself next week in a way that people would remember. Introduce yourself by first name in a way that would be memorable for your classmates. I premeditated, I thought some about this over the weekend and I decide, this would be silly.
This will be funny. I’m going to say, my name is Dave, and I’m going to be increasingly animated as I do that, and then I’m going to say, and you might think I rant and rave, but it’s lemon meringue pie that I crave. Then I’m going to pie face myself with a lemon meringue pie, and surely people will remember my name. I did it. My name is Dave, and you may think I ran rave, but it’s lemon meringue pie that I crave, wham. I was laughing. I think people in the classroom were laughing. I wasn’t laughing as I had to clean up after class because there was a lemon meringue pie all over the wall behind me. That is slightly amusing, but what amused me in some dark ways going forward in a lesson that I’ll always remember was what happened in the spring term. That was fall freshman year. Spring term, there’s a guy walking across campus just like I am, and he starts gesticulating to me, like his hand to his face. It was clearly a guy in our class, and he’s like, hey. Then he points, and he goes, Steve.
I was like, hey, thanks for remembering. That’s awesome that I don’t even know you and you’re halfway across campus, but you’re gesticulating with pie face. Thank you. That’s so dear of you. Steve. Now, I think you both know my name is Dave, and that’s what I said as I ran it and rave. Then fast forward to sophomore year, junior year. Just chance meetings. Same guy, cafeteria, maybe outside a dorm. Hey. Steve gesticulation. Each time I’m in a little bit deeper at this point, I’m like, yeah. We had that relationship for three more years, and each time it became increasingly stressful because it would have been the ultimate awkward moment for me to finally admit to him after allowing him to Steve me the whole time that I was actually Dave all time. I would have friends walking around me and I’d see the guy coming up and I’d be like, please, guys, just for the next minute, I’m Steve, and no one would know why. I think my conclusion is, and my important lesson is correct early, correct, direct, or you too may live the legend of Steve.
Morgan Housel: I love it. David, that’s such a good story. I have a very quick story. I will not monopolize the response with another story, but it’s so related to this. It was a story that I heard from our friend at the Motley Fool, Steve Broido, and this was many years ago, and I think it was a Motley Fool holiday party, and Steve and your brother, Tom, were at the holiday party, and your late mother who we were talking about earlier, starts approaching them. Steve turned to Tom and said, “Tom, I’m so sorry. I forget your mother’s name. What’s her name?’ Tom said, “Babra.” Then your mother walks up to Steve and Steve goes, “Babra, nice to see you.” Of course, your mother’s name is not Babra. Tom just did it just to make it so awkward for him, and I love that. It’s such a funny story, such a good prank to play on people.
David Gardner: It’s so completely unfair, but my brother, with his impish sense of humor, gets people every time. Thank you for that, Morgan. Offline before the show, I was mentioning it’s my mother’s birthday. She’s not with us anymore. She died in 2008, birth, January 21st, 1937, she would have been 88 today. It was Mary Dennett, not Babra. [laughs] But for one moment, it was Babra or Steve. I think the key is, we need to nip it in the bud and let people know upfront. Otherwise, Randi, it becomes painful.
Randi Zuckerberg: It does. We couldn’t figure out why our next door neighbor had such a bad attitude with us for so long. We were always so friendly. We were always like, hey Bob. Hope you have a great. How’s your kids, Bob? Anyway, turns out his name’s not Bob. [laughs] God [inaudible] That’s why he hated us, because we’ve been calling him Bob for like four years. Why didn’t he just tell us sooner? [laughs]
David Gardner: Well, since you’re laughing, Randi, you get to go next. This is story Number 2 in our Amuse section brought to you by Randi Zuckerberg.
Randi Zuckerberg: This one’s called how to star on Broadway, learn how to code. I’m going to talk a little bit about a passion that I had that went a little bit sideways. My whole life, all I wanted to do was sing on Broadway, like from the time that I was a little girl. Both of you told stories about how courses you took in college changed your lives. Well, I got to college and I promptly got rejected from the music major. My lifelong dream and passion got crushed at age 18, and I did OK for myself. I found a passion in marketing and business and had this wild ride career in Silicon Valley, but I always had in the back of my head, that I gave up on my dreams. I did little things here and there. Inside Facebook, I started an ’80s rock cover band. I was one of the lead singers, and we would go perform. We were terrible, but luckily, the standards are pretty low in Silicon Valley for ’80s rock rock bands. [laughs] I think it was my 32nd birthday. I had just found out that morning that I was pregnant with our second son, and I got a call out of the blue from the producer of this Broadway musical Rock of Ages. He was like, we have this ’80s rock musical on Broadway, and we are looking for a tech personality to come star in this Broadway musical. Do you want to be on Broadway? I thought I was getting punked. I was like, did my brother put you up to this? [laughs] But it turned out it was real. They were looking for a new stick and their stick, they were going to go with a tech personality. After all of that, after giving up on my dreams, having this wild ride at Silicon Valley, becoming a mom, I actually moved back to New York City and starred on Broadway after all. It taught me that there are a lot of ways to accomplish a dream, and you don’t have to necessarily go about it the way everyone else is.
David Gardner: I love that story, Randi, and thank you. One of the earliest times that I met you, you were at a Motley Fool gathering, one of our Fool fests. I know some people listening to you right now were there that day, and you sang, and you, of course, sing beautifully. You’re such a talent, which causes me to think if that ’80s band that you were in Silicon Valley wasn’t very good, I know you’re great. That means they were really, really bad, and the average was mediocre, but I really so appreciate. Not everybody is even going to accept our invitation to speak at our gatherings. You both have, but to actually sing, and I think it was humorous lyrics that you’d made up to a popular song. This is years ago. Full disclosure, Randi is on the Motley Fool Board, which is how I’ve gotten to know her much better over the years. But that is such a fantastic story about when you wish upon a star and you just keep wishing, it does come true. Sometimes, Morgan, the danger is the things that you really want to come true do happen, and then sometimes that puts you in a bind, not Randi in that situation.
Morgan Housel: That’s right. I love it.
David Gardner: Morgan Housel, are you ready to amuse us?
Morgan Housel: I will try, and this is less of a story that’s happened to me and more of an observation that I’ve had over the years. I call this true geniuses. I tweeted this many years ago, and I tweeted it after thinking pretty hard about this, which is that I think the greatest psychologist of all time, which has been important to me because my field is behavioral finance. I think the most insightful psychologist to ever live are George Carlin, Jerry Seinfeld, and Chris Rock. [laughs] I could put this broader and say, comedians, I think, are the most talented psychologists exist, and I think they are the only thought leaders who are truly worth paying attention to. I think there’s two reasons for this. One is because what a good comedian does is take something that you already know, you intuitively know, but they put it into words that you have not or could not do yet. When you’re watching a good comedy, you don’t need to think, is that true. You just sit back and you listen to it and you’re like, of course, that’s true. What you just said is obviously true, and I’ve never heard anyone put it into words like you just did. It’s a very effective way to communicate. They’re doing it for things that are really fundamental and important in life. Jerry Seinfeld, he once gave this interview and they asked him why he quit the show in 1998. Why did he stop? He basically said, I’m going to paraphrase him, but he basically said that he and Larry David became so famous that they could no longer observe society without being bombarded.
They said, look, in the early days before they were famous, they would go sit in a deli and watch how people ordered their food and make a skit about that. It was observational. As he became megastars, they could not go sit in the deli and observe people. They couldn’t do it. He said he quit the show because what made them so good at comedy, it was just being pushed to the side, they couldn’t do it anymore. I think the other thing why people love them so much is because a comedian wants to deliver their insight and just make you laugh, whereas so many other people who are trying to make you smarter want to make themselves look good. It’s almost the exact opposite. If you are a PhD talking head going on TV, and look, maybe I would put myself in this category as well, you want to deliver insight by making yourself look smart. A comedian wants to deliver insight by making you laugh, the audience member. It is so different and it is so much more effective to do it that way. Of course, I will end with one of my favorite comedy bits that I think is so incredibly insightful, if you think deep about it. George Carlin said, “Have you ever noticed that everybody driving faster than you as a maniac and everybody driving slower than you as an idiot.” [laughs] It’s so true. It’s so funny, but it is one of the best ways to contextualize that your view of the world depends on where you are. It’s relative to everybody else, and I think you can take that so much broader.
Randi Zuckerberg: It’s so good. I actually took a class about how using comedy in speech writing or even in a board meeting is a superpower. I truly believe that comedians are geniuses and that if you want to connect with people, making them laugh is the best way to do it.
Morgan Housel: Absolutely.
David Gardner: The beauty is it really is a gift. I love the point that you’re making, Morgan, and I too, have been a talking head at different points in my life. I think we all have. But the difference between trying to make yourself sound smart and making someone else laugh is all about the other. It’s not about self aggrandizement. It is truly giving a gift. We all want to laugh. We all love to laugh. You both have made me laugh already a bunch of times, and I know I’m not the only one listening this week, but what a wonderful insight. I thought you were going to say that you’ve decided that all of the people who are the most important psychologists or scientists in this day were crazy. I thought you were going to go that direction because it’s probably also true.
Morgan Housel: There are lots of comedians too who are also crazy. There’s a quote from Chris Rock that I love that he says, “Anybody who thinks for a living is going to be depressed.” He was talking about himself in his own field. Anyone who just sits in a room and thinks about how the world works is probably not going to be the most happy, joyful person because of it.
David Gardner: Great line, and a great way for us to close our Amuse section in this first ever episode of Three Fools. Thank you so much, Morgan. Thank you so much, Randi. We’ve educated, we’ve amused two down and rich to go. First, a quick, Foolish plug. Start your weekdays as I do with The Motley Fool’s Breakfast News. This is one of our new offerings over the last year. It’s our free daily market email newsletter so you get expert market analysis in brief. It’s there for you with breakfast. Company updates sent straight to your inbox. Every weekday at 7:30 AM Eastern here in Washington DC. It felt like four. Sign up at www.fool.com/breakfastnews. We move on to Enrich. Morgan, we have you leading off our Enrich section. Are you ready?
Morgan Housel: I’m ready. Let’s do it.
David Gardner: How much richer are we going to get with this one, like if you were trying to gauge it?
Morgan Housel: Look, let’s set expectations low, but I’ll do my best. [laughs] This is something that I just did a week ago. This is a very recent thing, but it was one of the most haunting, but I think enriching things that I’ve done in a long time. I went to ChatGPT, and I fed it a bunch of accurate biographical information of myself through about age 20. I said, this is who Morgan Housel was at age 20. This is where he grew up. This is where his parents were. This is how he did in school. These were his hobbies, a bunch of things that was all accurate through age 20. Then I said, tell me a story about what happened over the next 20 years. I was starting at an accurate point, and I said, make a story about how the rest of Morgan’s life turned out. I did this late into the night. My wife was wondering what the heck I was doing, sitting in front of the computer so late, but it was so incredible and haunting, I would say, because a lot of the stories that it came up with were really sad, and stories of how my life spun off the rails and stories of how this didn’t happen, and there were tragedies in my life. Some of them were incredible, some of the stories that came up with us, man, that would have been a great life, too. It was so incredible to think of all the different ways my life could have turned, and anybody could do this, of course. You realize that the life that we have right now is one of infinite other possibilities. It could have turned out in infinite number of different ways, some of which may have been OK, some of which would have been incredible, some of which would have been really sad and bad. I think it made me appreciate a lot of the things that I have in my life right now. I did not tell it to do this, but most of the stories that ChatGPT came up with.
Morgan Housel: It was, hey, here’s Morgan’s life through H20. Here’s what happened over the next 20 years. It was a story of a downfall. I don’t know why it did that, but it was haunting because the stories could have been accurate. Since I was feeding it accurate information. It was going in paths that were almost the path of least resistance of where I was at that age in life.
David Gardner: Did you let it know it was you?
Morgan Housel: Yes, I did.
David Gardner: That probably has to affect it a little bit. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle, we’re changing it a little bit by letting it know we’re observing, being observed itself. I wonder if ChatGPT, if you defended it Morgan the day before or something a week before, and it was taking a little bit out it. Like, it didn’t have to go negative that much.
Morgan Housel: Some of the story if I remember, some of it was in the Great Recession in 2008, I lost my job, and I never recovered after that, and I became an alcoholic and whatnot. Some of those, it’s like, that could have happened. That easily could have happened. One of them was, I had a great life, and I married and had two kids, which is accurate. [laughs] One of those kids got cancer and died at age 5. It was one of these things where it’s like, look, hey, both of those things happened to many people. These are not pie-in-the-sky theories. Again, I think the point for me was realizing all the different ways all of our lives could have turned out.
Randi Zuckerberg: It really makes you wonder, how much of our lives are really luck and how much is really in our control. It’s a bit of an existential moment over here.
Morgan Housel: Absolutely.
David Gardner: Morgan, was there a reason you cut it off at 20? Maybe that’s your college years. But obviously, it occurs to, I’m sure all of us, that we could all do the exact same exercise today, and maybe through enriching us, that’s what you’re inviting us to do.
Morgan Housel: I don’t know why I picked 20. I don’t know if there’s any. I think it was just I just picked a number at random, but I do think there is a thing that for me and probably a lot of people, 20 is around the age where you start transitioning from kid to adult. Even though at 20, you definitely are an adult, but it’s really when you start trying to find your own independence and voice in the world that is less anchored to what your parents raised you as. Maybe that was one of the reasons why.
David Gardner: Thank you for that, Morgan. Yep, I’m up next. I’m the one who made the roster. Here I am. I definitely didn’t want to go last, so, Randi, you got to close it out. But my story, my enriched story, I will call the greatest secret of all. I guess I’m going autobiographical again this week. Each of my stories I’m now realizing is pulled from my early days. Maybe it’s because those stories stick because, compound returns, their lessons grow bigger over time or seem bigger to us as we age. I think I first told this story 10 years ago on this podcast. Don’t think I’ve told it since. By the way, Morgan, Randi, thank you both for joining me. This is the 500th consecutive weekly episode of my podcast, and I’m honored to be spending it with you both.
Morgan Housel: Congrats.
David Gardner: This is 500 and thank you very much. Anyway, this one comes from the day I turned 25, so 19 years earlier, my grandfather had passed away. He left a portion of his estate for each grandchild to inherit at the age of 25. My Uncle Jean, a brilliant investor who ran his own firm in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, managed that money. That May of 1991, I drove with my dad to Uncle Jean’s office in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and I discovered what I now call the greatest secret of all. Well, for investors, anyway. Uncle Jean handed me a brokerage statement with about 25 stocks. Companies like Berkshire Hathaway, ABC Cap Cities, which these days is part of Disney, defense contractor Martin Marietta, I’m trying to remember the Washington Post Company. Warren Buffett was on the board there. But what floored me wasn’t really the companies. It was the cost basis of each of the stocks. I would look at this sheet then. The stock was at 98, but Uncle Jean had bought it 19 years earlier at four. Another was at 337 purchased at 10. Nearly all the holdings had been held for all of those 19 years. That’s when I saw it. The key to building wealth is finding excellence and holding it. It’s not about hot tips. It’s not about meme stocks or trying to time the market. It really is, sounds boring. It’s about patients.
Most of us grow up hearing phrases, deadly phrases, I think, like Blow, sell high. Which creates a mindset that makes you think as soon as you bought, you probably need to sell or have sell discipline, a phrase I love to take shots at, or a target price that you’ll be selling at. That mindset that Blow sell high leads to constant churn, and I would say missed opportunities. I would say, instead, we should focus on just buying right as my Uncle Jean did and holding on. That morning in Lancaster shaped basically how I’ve invested ever since. I stopped thinking about selling. I started thinking about owning. I think the world gets better when more people invest, not trade, but truly invest in great companies over time. As I think back to close here, friends, I’m thinking about, we look at other companies, family based companies. Let’s go with Old Dominion Freight Line, which is a multigenerational public company, fantastic trucking logistics company. We tend to look at those and go that family’s got to be very rich. They’re third generation. They own such a big, impressive company. The reason that families become rich, especially with their own businesses, is because they don’t sell. They actually hold it. It’s Gramps, and then you and her you’re running it. You might sell off a part or you might merge or do other things over time, but for the most part, generational wealth is basically created by people not selling. To me, that’s the greatest secret of all. I would say, Randi, part of the reason it’s a secret is because it really isn’t practiced at any big institutional level. Mutual funds are in and out. You never really hear about big money holding, maybe Warren Buffett, but I still think it’s a great secret.
Randi Zuckerberg: It’s such a great secret. I feel like it goes back to even a little of like what I was saying about the Bitcoin stuff earlier that if you put a little money in something, if you put skin in the game, you’re going to get all sorts of benefits. Maybe you’re going to dial into the shareholder meetings. Maybe you’re going to pay more attention when that company comes up in the news. It really forces you to become a citizen of business and a student of different industry. I think there’s so many incredible things that come with investing.
David Gardner: I agree. You think about the private sector in our country, which to me is the real story of America. We’re here with inauguration and a lot of politics on our minds these days, maybe. But the vast majority of us, I’m speaking to two others, work in the private sector, and we’re trying to not cause half of America to shout down the other half, we’re trying to sell to all of them. You’re only going to buy from us if we’re offering something that’s worth it. Ideally, above our own prices, which creates profit, dividends, and ownership. But thank you for that thought. Morgan, any additional thought about never selling?
Morgan Housel: One thing that comes up is most investors focus on the wrong metrics, and it is a knee jerk reaction. It is intuitive to say, I want to focus on my annual returns. How could anyone disagree with that? But I actually think what you want to focus on over time is just not the returns you can earn, but the number of years that you can maintain those returns for because the secret in investing is that earning great returns for a short period of time is sub par to earning good return, merely good returns for a long period of time. Even for a lot of investors, if you can be average for an above average period of time, you’ll end up with an extraordinary. If you can earn index fund returns for 30 years, you will probably be 95% of hedge fund managers. 98% of hedge fund managers. It’s just focusing on the wrong return, rather than focusing on what are the best returns that I can earn? You want to focus on endurance and longevity.
David Gardner: Brilliantly said. You could really only see this if you watch the narrative arc of history, your own life or those of others who’ve come before, who’ve invested or built, started something, and persisted it over time. Thank you for those thoughts and we get to close it out with Randi Zuckerberg and her final rich story, Randi, you go.
Randi Zuckerberg: This is high pressure. I’m going to let you guys decide if this is enriching, exciting, or maybe a cry for help this story. You get to let me know at the end of this, because I just signed up for the most insane foot race ever before I tell you what that foot race is and I guess this story doesn’t have an ending yet because this is in May. But I just want to give you a little bit of a backstory of my running journey because I don’t want anyone listening to think that I’ve been like this lifelong athlete and runner. I am a mom of three who two years ago, could not run a mile. Coming out of the pandemic, I just I felt I was really lonely. I had just had a new baby before the pandemic. I just felt like very isolated. I didn’t take care of my fitness very much for a long time. I stumbled upon this group of women that would go run these five and 10K races in Central Park and then go have brunch together on the weekend. I thought, I don’t think I like running, but I love brunch, and I’m really lonely. I think I’m going to join these women. The first race we did was a 10K race, so about 6 miles and it was all women. It was like 10,000 women running in Central Park.
All ages, all body sizes and I just feeling so inspired and being like, all these women are showing up for themselves. Maybe I can show up for myself a little more in my own life. I started training and getting more into running. I signed up for a half-marathon, and I guess all the good runners were not in New York that day because I broke the tape. I won it with my 4-year-old daughter right at the end screaming up and down, you’re winning, mom. Fast-forward from there, since then, I’ve run 12 marathons and eight ultramarathons in the years and I have now signed up for a 250 mile race that’s happening this May across the state of Arizona. It starts in Phoenix. You run to flagstaff. You have five days to do it, and I have a support crew of four friends driving a van alongside of me to support. I think this is hands down the craziest thing I’ve ever taken on in my entire life, and we’ll see how this story ends.
Morgan Housel: That’s incredible, Randi. I really commend you for doing that for journey for the last two years. I’ve driven from Phoenix to Flagstaf. It’s a long drive. I can enjoy the drive, let alone running. I would imagine I’m curious your take on that, particularly for a 250 mile run. I would imagine that is 10% physical and 90% mental. What odds would you put it on?
Randi Zuckerberg: I think you’re totally right and so I’ve been working with a lot of experienced ultra runners to get their advice on how to train for this, and almost all the training is mental training. They’re basically like, your base is there. Your running base is there now we got to train the mind. I do crazy things like run up and down staircases for two hours. On Sunday, I ran around a 0.5 mile parking lot loop for four hours. I just do, like crazy things like that because you need to be you know, I can’t outrun people, but I can out suffer and outtugh people. If you can train your mind, you can do almost anything.
David Gardner: I’m trying I’m grasping after the right big question to ask, Randi. What I come up with is why? What drives you? It’s unbelievable what you’re doing. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that transformation in such a short period from starting where you did and existing where you are. Why?
Randi Zuckerberg: Let’s just get vulnerable at the end of this show. I think my entire life, I’ve been a really awesome sidekick. I have a lot of sidekick energy. I helped my brother build his company. I’m Brent’s wife. I’m Asher and Simy and Shea’s mom. I sit on boards, where I help founders, and I love being a sidekick. It’s such an important role but, I had a realization a few years ago where I was like, If someone was going to write the story of my life, would I even be the main character in the story of my own life? That was a dark thing to realize, being in my 40s. When you run 250 miles, nobody can say that it’s because you’re someone’s sister or because you’re or you’re someone’s mom. This is the first thing in my entire life that is all mine.
Morgan Housel: That’s incredible. I love that.
David Gardner: I’m wondering whether this should be typed into ChatGPT, and we find out whether Randi finishes, Morgan, exactly where this leads because. [laughs]
Randi Zuckerberg: I fail rate at this race I’m going to grit it out. I’m going to do it.
David Gardner: I know you will. Just absolutely phenomenal, Randi and I’ve only ever known you as a star. I think anybody who has gotten know you over the years thinks of you as a focus of their attention and a star. But if not always feeling that way causes you to be more awesome and lift all the rest of us up, I’m going to keep slightly disrespecting you. [laughs]
Randi Zuckerberg: I love it. Go for it. I love language.
David Gardner: Truly incredible. I’m really glad I dropped you both a note a few weeks ago and said, Hey, would you join me? This was such a fantastic near hour together, and any final thoughts from each of us. I can close this out, but, Randi.
Randi Zuckerberg: Well, first of all, David, thanks for inviting us. I loved this format. I learned a lot and grew a lot. I definitely you definitely made me think more about how I can be more mindful about investing and purposeful, especially with my own children. Morgan, I’m going to load up my podcast now with comedy when I go run across Arizona. Even in my suffering, I’m laughing out loud and thanking you for that. [laughs]
Morgan Housel: I love it.
David Gardner: This has been so much fun to hear both of your stories. Randi, your story about running is incredible and doing something that’s going to make you the main character of your story, even though I think you always have been is incredible. I think if there’s a common denominator to a lot of this, it’s a lot of activities that we think are technical are actually psychological. That’s true and investing, where it’s not necessarily can you pick the right stocks? It’s do you have the fortitude to hang onto them? It’s true for running, where it’s not What is your physical shape, even though that’s part of it, it’s do you have the mental energy to be able to last 250 miles. Many things fall under this umbrella of psychology and behavior. Most of the attention is on the technical side, but most of the outcomes and results fall on the behavioral psychological side.
David Gardner: As it does with money coming from the author of the Psychology of Money, that was brilliantly summarized. Thank you. Morgan. What a journey we’ve just been on together. Nine stories that educated, amused, and enriched. Well, at least we hope delivered by two friends who I find brilliant and engaging. I know you did, too. Randi, Morgan, thank you both for bringing your passion, insights and storytelling magic to this first ever three-Fools episode to everyone listening I hope these stories sparked ideas. Laughter, vulnerability, inspiration for your own journey persist feels like a really important theme that came out right at the end. Thank you, Randi.
Randi Zuckerberg: It was awesome. David, thank you.
David Gardner: Thank you, Morgan.
Morgan Housel: Thank you, as always, David. This is fun.
David Gardner: Until next time, Fool on.
Mary Long: As always, people on this program may have interest in the stocks they talk about, and the Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against, so don’t buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. Learn more about Rule Breaker Investing at rbi.fool.com.
