April 2025 Mailbag: Better Than it Seems

Independence Week in the United States is the perfect time to explore financial freedom. This week’s podcast highlights nine key points leading to financial independence, featuring insights from Greek Philosophers, Rule Breaker listeners, and David himself. Rediscover Ask For a Raise Day and living below your means. Learn from listener stories about the importance of resilience, avoiding debt, multiplicands or multiplican'ts, and when your kids begin to see the financial light.  Real stories and inspiration helping you achieve financial freedom, American-style. Host: David Gardner Producer: Bart Shannon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

June brings us another motley mailbag, where your notes nudged David to share, among other things: *his top quantitative traits for a great stock *summary thoughts a few years later on Michael Hebb’s Let’s Talk About Death (over Dinner) *consideration of a Peacock streaming road trip show with Fools that never happened *a trip back in our time machine to see what was Amazon’s market cap in 1999! Companies mentioned: AMZN, BRK.A, BRK.B, WMT Sign up for The Motley Fool’s Breakfast News here www.fool.com/breakfastnews Pre-order David’s upcoming Rule Breaker Investing book here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1804091219/ Host: David Gardner Producer: Bart Shannon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The penultimate Wednesday of every quarter… it’s time again for the Market Cap Game Show! This time around, longtime Fool Jason Moser and podcast debutant Loren Horst step into the ring to guess (and second-guess) the value of some amazing (some of them amazingly boring) stocks. As always, you’re invited to play along at home: Can you beat our talented Foolish guest stars? Companies Discussed: SFIX, ISRG, U, TXNM, ODFL, JPM, FIX, TDG, TREX, DIS Host: David Gardner Guests: Jason Moser, Loren Horst Producer: Bart Shannon Engineer: Dan Boyd Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here's an experiment: Take a young artist with no interest in investing, no financial savvy, and a ton of debt, and then drop him into the deep end of Foolishness. Wait 25 years, and what do you get? A Fool for life! This week, producer Rick Engdahl comes to the other side of the glass to reflect on what he's learned from 10 years of RBI and a career at The Motley Fool. Host: David Gardner Guest: Rick Engdahl Producer: Bart Shannon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week our old friend Shirzad Chamine is back to remind us who we are and who we've always been. Embrace your superpowers and defeat your saboteurs, because you have everything you need to be happy right now! Host: David Gardner Guest: Shirzad Chamine Producers: Rick Engdahl, Bart Shannon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Whether you're taking another lap around the sun, buying to hold for decades, or literally running for miles on end, life is more than a marathon. Where you come from matters. Where you're going matters more. How you'll get there? Well, as your mailbag contributions showcase, that's the fun part! Sign up for The Motley Fool's Breakfast News here www.fool.com/breakfastnews Pre-order David's upcoming Rule Breaker Investing book here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1804091219/ Host: David Gardner Guest: Randi Zuckerberg Producer: Rick Engdahl Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

AI, marketing, brand, creativity... just a few of the subjects that Seth Godin can talk about with eloquence and insight. This week the "Purple Cow" author is here with David and guest-host Andy Cross to shed light on what earns attention, transaction, and loyalty. Hosts: David Gardner, Andy Cross Guest: Seth Godin Producer: Rick Engdahl Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The best gifts are the ones that keep on giving, and that's what this episode is all about! Today's show highlights the things you've told us that you learned from David, called out and amplified to help us all navigate another challenging year. Now that's an awesome birthday present. Thanks! Companies mentioned: AAPL, ACHR, AMZN, CMG, DIS, MELI, MSFT, NFLX, NVDA, ODFL, SHOP, TSLA Host: David Gardner Producer: Rick Engdahl Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If knowledge is power, today's show will give you superpowers! Our all-Fool cast is here to help you understand some common and not-so-common investing terms, so that you can leap tall buildings, swing from a web, and more importantly, be better investors! Are we heroes? Are we zeros? Keep score and let us know. Host: David Gardner Guests: Nick Sciple, Yasser El-Shimy, David Meier Producer: Rick Engdahl Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tariffs, corruption, political posturing... it's no wonder that the market is crashing! But wait, is it? Back up that graph a bit and the market is still near all-time highs. In today's mailbag we strive to find happiness, maintain rational optimism, and see through the dark clouds plaguing the headlines. Plus, some tips on diversifying your portfolio, voting with your wallet, and challenging the umpire. Companies mentioned: DUOL, GE, ISRG, MELI, NFLX, PLTR, RKLB, TOST Host: David Gardner Producer: Rick Engdahl Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices