We work hard for our money. Why would we forfeit the enjoyment and utility of using this capital now? As investors, we forgo the instant gratification of spending and take on the risk that we may even lose it all. Why? As David explains, it’s for all the right reasons.
Rule Breaker Investing
Why We Invest
It's the Rule Breaker Investing Podcast with Motley Fool Co-Founder, David Gardner. Welcome back to Rule Breaker Investing Season's Greetings to you, whoever you are, wherever you are, whatever you believe, and a foolish new year, I hope, in the year ahead. Well I mentioned last week that I was going to do something simple and well special just in the sense that it's outside of our normal format, not that we really have one in the Rule Breaker Investing Podcast, but this will only make us slightly more motley. What I want to do is just share with you just a short read of one of my favorite columns that I've written in the last 10 years or so. I first wrote this on November 19th of 2010, and I'm going to paraphrase it slightly because it was written at the time for Motley Fool Stock Advisor for my members, and I know I have a lot of them listening to me today, and maybe you'll remember this column, probably not. I don't think people will really remember what I write, but five years ago, maybe echoes of familiarity will come through, and I'm going to share this column, then I'm going to share a, this is kind of fun, a community-generated haiku that reacted and riffed a little bit on this column, and that's all we're doing this week, that's our podcast this week. And this week might be one for the friends and family as well, so maybe play this one again in the car, or perhaps over a crackling fire with hot apple cider in your hands. And this column is entitled Why We Invest. Here it goes. My favorite episode of my favorite miniseries, Band of Brothers, is called Why We Fight. Without spoiling the story for those who haven't seen it, and by the way, do such people exist, I won't give away the answer to the question, why we fight. But the episode is a beautiful, sad, and gripping piece of Hollywood poetry, and the phrase Why We Fight has stuck with me, and it's begun to morph into my own phrase, my brief reflection with you this week, Why We Invest. At the root is this simple reality. We work hard to build up savings. That capital represents the sum of our life's efforts expressed monetarily above and beyond what we've spent. And when we invest, we're doing something very wonderful and very difficult. We're forfeiting the enjoyment of using this capital in the short term. All our instincts and temptations, many of our peers, perhaps even a spouse, urge us directly or subtly against this. Spend it now. Read or sing or shout thousands of messages confronting us every day, especially I might add this month, but investors take at least some of their capital and do the exact opposite. We forgo the instant gratification. That on its own is admirable, but we go one step further. We investors, we crazy investors forfeit the enjoyable, immediate use of our capital for no certain reward. As stock market investors in particular, we invest knowing that our unspent and unenjoyed capital may actually disappear. If there's a better reason for us calling ourselves fools, I don't know that the world will ever find it. In particular, practicing my own unique style as a rule breaker, a more aggressive investor seeking to maximize my returns, I flat out know that I will lose money on many occasions. Throw in the academic studies that say investing in individual stocks isn't worthwhile because you can't reliably beat the indexes. And now you can see why do it yourself investing. Do it yourself. Equity investing is a niche. It's a niche that we've been helping to grow at the Motley Fool, but it is a niche. Here's why we invest for our children and grandchildren because our parents and grandparents did and made our lives so much better because every dollar we invest supports the companies and businesses that we admire because we love and celebrate ownership. And we believe this world will be far stronger for more owners, not more renters because the academics are wrong because with Arthur O'Shaughnessy and his Ode, we are the music makers and we are the dreamers of dreams. Investing as our instrument and making dreams come true, sorry Disney is a very real Motley Fool goal. I see it happen with amazing testimonials bull market or no every day on our discussion boards and from your emails and a hundred other reasons besides, these are all in part or in whole, why we invest. And after I wrote that column in 2010, a pair of sisters who clearly come from a really fun family. We've got to know them a little bit there and they live in West Virginia and they have a screen name on our Motley Fool discussion boards that they'll sign on under sometimes and compose and it's Captain Haikou. So Captain Haikou in my mind is kind of a superhero who sometimes just jumps into their community and shares a Haikou for whatever investment purpose or point, bearish or bullish that the sisters want to make. So after reading the column that I just shared with you, the sisters wrote something that I think is much more impressive than what I did, it is a series of Haikou's. It's in stanzas form but since they're Haikou's it doesn't really take too long to read. Here's what Captain Haikou says in response. Why do we invest so that our hard work endures beyond our short years so that our children start their journeys on a hill and see the mountain. We build battlements that endure, shelter others from the worst of storms. We launch sturdy ships. We will not see the far shore but have no regrets. We are a small part of all we set in motion and thus, we invest. So thank you. Thank you for your time invested in this podcast today during this busy, busy season. Last week, one of these past few months ever since Rule Breaker Investing launched in July. Thank you. I think I'm actually yes. I thought it was Shakespeare at first but it turns out at St. Paul's 2nd Corinthians chapter 11 verse 19, the illusion here. Thank you for suffering this fool gladly in 2015. We'll be back next week with our December Mailbag. Fool on. As always, people on this program may have interest in the stocks they talk about and the Miley 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. [MUSIC] [BLANK_AUDIO]