Friends,
On the surface, David Gardner and Aaron Rodgers don't have much in common. The former co-founded The Motley Fool before establishing himself as one of the greatest growth investors of our time; the latter has won four NFL Most Valuable Player awards during his career.
But their professions share a lot in common: they've repeatedly made high-stakes decisions while facing a world designed to be nearly impossible to predict. While neither is perfect, they've both handled the task quite well.
How did they pull that off?
My guess (Stoffel, here): It started with board games.
No, I'm not kidding.
Gardner's style began taking shape in college. After repeatedly getting trounced by his roommate in the board game Pursue the Pennant, Gardner asked what the secret was.
The answer: don't pay attention to headline figures like batting averages. Look at less appreciated -- but more impactful -- figures like on-base percentage.
Gardner took the insight of looking for under-appreciated but impactful signals and applied it to investing. He developed his six signs of a Rule Breaker to help buy -- and hold -- stocks like Amazon, which has returned over 100,000% since.
Rodgers followed a similar path. In his recent Netflix documentary, Rodgers talked about how he'd play baseball board game Strat-o-Matic for hours as a kid.
When asked if mathematics played a role in how he saw the football field, he said:
"You're throwing the ball to the open guy. You're going through your progressions. But in the end, it's all percentages."
Few have played those percentages better. From 2010 to 2021, only 1.4% of his passes were intercepted (the lowest on record). And he still has the highest QB rating of anyone who's ever played the position.
Inspiration can come from funny spaces. But the lesson remains the same: if you want to succeed in a realm governed by uncertainty, develop a system that helps you focus on finding the few things you can know for sure and remain laser-focused on those things.
In the world of investing, we believe that means finding mission-driven, wide-moat companies that trade for reasonable valuations and holding them as long as they have those characteristics.
Wishing you continued investing success,
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Brian Feroldi, Brian Stoffel, & Brian Withers
Long Term Mindset
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