9 Great Notes About Financial Freedom With Motley Fool Co-Founder David Gardner

This Rule Breaker Investing podcast highlights nine key points leading to financial independence, featuring insights from Greek philosophers, Rule Breaker listeners, and Motley Fool co-founder David Gardner. 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.

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This podcast was recorded on July 02, 2025.

David Gardner: We welcome another Independence week here in the US, freedom is on our minds. For this podcast, of course, financial freedom is on my mind, and I hope yours too. For many of us, especially Motley Fool members and rule Breaker listeners, those two words, financial freedom echo like a liberty bell. Thanks to the fool community writing in from many places this week, you're going to hear echoes of that Liberty Bell coming at you from diverse places and diverse viewpoints, all aiming for liberty. I consider Liberty one of America's five core values, and it's on display this week when we share and RIF on the dream and for some, the reality of the liberty that comes from financial freedom. I can't wait to share and if on these tales of financial freedom as told by you, my fellow fools. Only on this week's Rule. Breaker Investing.

Yes, friends, on this holiday week, I have the privilege of sharing back out your stories, your answers to this prompt question that I provided last week. What have you done in the past year to create financial freedom for yourself and or for others? This unites the work of the Motley Fool Foundation with the work of our parent company, the Motley Fool. That's a sub theme. I think you'll see running through these stories and insights about financial freedom. When we talk about financial freedom for those presently living pay check to pay check, about two thirds of Americans, I think in particular of the Motley Fool Foundation, foolfoundation.org is our website. If you're already there with your own financial freedom, we'd love to hear from you from the Motley Fool Foundation. Certainly, take a look at our website and at our Impact Fool fund, the I fund, also our Fredometer. Now, if those phrases mean nothing to you, just go to our website visit foolfoundation.org to see what I'm talking about. Join us. We'd love for you to get involved with our work at The Motley Fool Foundation. Now, if you're not there yet, you don't have full financial freedom. Well, we've got this other website for you at the Motley Fool. That's called fool.com.

For 32 years now, it's been a beacon lighting the way toward financial freedom for many, and I trust many more in future. It's been really fun to see all these different notes this week. I will be sharing nine different expressions. You might think, is this going to be a really long podcast? I say back, not if I'm doing my job because what I'm really aiming to do this week is just largely share these voices, not comment too much in between. In fact, for each, I'm going to pull out the one thing I particularly liked most as a word of encouragement. We're just about to get started.

But first, as I shared at the start of this 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, I would say it's my own recent best shot at a financial freedom creating tool. Each week until the book launches on September 16th, I'm sharing a random excerpt. We break open the book to a random page, and I read a few sentences, so let's do it. Here's this week's page Breaker preview.

It's a few sentences from Chapter 8 on sustainable competitive advantage, and I quote, "Clayton Christiansen, one of my academic heroes, formed his theories about disruptive innovation largely by examining competitive advantage. He noticed the irony that the larger companies get, the more vulnerable they become as they focus on sustaining their advantages, while upstarts, I call the Rule Breakers quietly revolutionize their industry from the ground up." That's this week's page Breaker preview to pre order my final word on stock picking shaped by three decades of market crushing success. Just type Rule Breaker investing into amazon.com, barnes and noble.com, or wherever you shop for great books. John Mackey, past guest on this podcast, the founder of Whole Foods Market, one of the most avid investors that I've ever met. Was kind enough to say this about my book. David Gardner has written one of the very best books on investing that I have ever read. Rule Breaker Investing is sure to become an investing classic comparable to the intelligent investor, one up on Wall Street and stocks for the long run. Well, thank you very much for that, John, and a special thanks to you, dear listener, if you've already pre-ordered, thanks. That means a lot to me. Let's strap in nine great notes about financial freedom.

Here's Number 1. This one's from Kevin McMahon. Hello, David. I'm now 30-years-old with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering. I currently work as a quality manager of Continuous Improvement. Since starting my first job in 2017, I've nearly doubled my salary through a combination of hard work, promotions, and intentional salary negotiations. What I've learned along the way is that you must always advocate for yourself. No one has a greater stake in your future than you. Even great bosses may not actively think about advancing your salary or career, so never, Kevin Writes, be afraid to ask how you can improve and then hold yourself accountable to deliver. I also strongly encourage people to politely and professionally advocate for a better salary at their current job. It can make a meaningful difference without needing to jump companies. During the pandemic in 2020, I doubled down on my financial education, largely thanks to the Motley Fool. I dove deep into learning about interest, debt, investments, emergency funds, and the differences between Roth and traditional accounts and of course, stocks. With my increased income and growing knowledge, Kevin writes, I built a solid emergency fund and went on to hand pick over 300 stocks across my 401k, traditional and Roth IRAs and individual brokerage accounts.

Yes, Kevin McMahon writes, I know my Gardner Kretzman continuum is over 10. Call me crazy with a Winky emoji. Kevin concludes, once I felt confident in my own financial foundation, I began helping others. The moments that stand out to me, A, I recognized that my father had more than enough money to retire and encouraged him to consider part time work. He made the switch, and he absolutely loves it. B, a co-worker, I mentioned in a previous email, wasn't sure she could afford to retire. I suggested she meet with a fee only fiduciary financial advisor. She did and discovered she could retire whenever she wanted. C, a friend of mine was overwhelmed with high interest credit card debt. I explained the importance of paying minimums on all debts and then using any extra funds to aggressively pay down the highest interest card first. Thank you, as always, for suffering a fool gladly, fool on Kevin McMahon. What a fantastic note. My pleasure to lead off with that one. In baseball, we often put our hitter most likely to get on base up first to lead off the first inning. Kevin, it was very easy looking over my murderers row of nine notes this week to make yours the lead off. What a fantastic expression of financial freedom. There's so much I'd like to speak to in this note, but I would encourage any listener simply to hit rewind, I don't know, a couple of minutes or so and just listen to that note again because there is so much intelligence and goodness in it, it brims with it. But I particularly, of course, Kevin, love that you have 300 stocks or so at the age of 30, giving you a GKC score over 10. I do not think you're crazy.

In fact, I think one of the surest paths to financial freedom is to have a broad, widely diversified portfolio. Yes, I prefer that to be in stocks. I love to own companies directly, of course, as a fellow rule Breaker, as opposed to a bunch of funds. I'm sure you have a lot of mix there anyway, and you have a number of different accounts. At the age of 30, what a phenomenal example you are to us all, and I love how you've connected with those around you, from your father to your co workers to help them toward financial freedom, too. You are a model fool, my friend, and I'm honored that you would call yourself a fool. Kevin McMahon fool on back to you, sir. Before I move on to number two, I want to call out my brother, the CEO of the Motley Fool Tom Gardner, years ago, he advocated for with our People Team, and they agreed to have a day or a week where each was encouraged to come to us to ask for raise. It was ask for a raise day. This is a golden era for The Motley Fool. Not every one of our employees had the Guts necessarily or felt the confidence to do so, but all were welcomed, included, and encouraged. That just shows again, the generous spirit of my brother Tom.

Yes, many rays was made that day/month/quarter. It doesn't necessarily make sense to do that every year, and it may not make sense for every business, but if that's an idea for you, dear entrepreneur, for you to try in your own company, just think about the benefits that you get, the trust that you build. As Kevin mentioned, some of your employees might be thinking to leave your company because they don't feel adequately paid. Why not, if you want to keep them? Make sure you actively have those conversations. On to Number 2. This one is from Brian Harris. Brian, thank you, David. I consider myself free. Although I'm still working in my businesses. I have a great team, and they are allowing me to focus on the aspects of the business that I truly value and thrive in. As far as the financial freedom part, we are living each month inside or at least close to our monthly budget. Due to having several income streams, all income flows into one account. Then each month he puts this in quotes, "We pay ourselves a monthly stipend to live on." This has allowed me the emotional freedom to spend more money than I used to. I know that we're living under our means putting money into our stock portfolio, continuing to our 401k, building money for down payments, to invest in vacation rental properties.

This combined with my recent reading of the book Die With Zero by Bill Perkins has allowed me to use my money as a tool and have a healthy relationship with it. I'm currently in Alicante, Spain, with my family of five, starting a five week tour of Europe. I'm excited to be utilizing the money, tools, learning, and strategies to be, at least in my mind, financially free and time free with an exceptional team leading exceptional businesses and allowing me to have some time to make lifelong memories with my young family. Thank you, David, and all those in the fool sphere who've contributed to my journey foul on Brian Harris. Well, so much goodness there. Brian, I love that you took just I hope only a moment out before your five week tour of Europe to script out that note and share it with this rule Breaker community. I particularly loved and want to call out this line from you as you wrote, This has allowed me the emotional freedom to spend more money than I used to. I think that is very financially healthy as our net worth grows over time.

I think it also makes sense, especially with a young family and or businesses that you may be investing in to spend more money than you did before. I realized this could be taken the wrong way. Some people might start to overspend their means. Clearly, you're not and yet I think there are also opposite examples. People who are too stingy for their own good, it holds them back probably holds those around them back. I do think it is very emotionally free and healthy to spend more as we make and grow more. To me, that's what a life of abundance is all about. Wow, I wish I was in Alicante Spain right now. Brian, have a great time and fool on. Number 3, this from Vicki Huffman writing in from Montello, Wisconsin. Dear David, I've been thinking about writing you for years.

As I notice, Vicki Writes, most of your comments come from male Fools. I became a member of your community over two decades ago after having success with recommendations from your free articles online. Once I discovered podcasts about seven years ago, I've listened to all the Motley Fool has put out. My grandfather got me investing at age 10, where I was introduced to no Load Mutual Funds. I dares not many fifth graders were spouting those words in 1962, and I'm still amazed that today many investors do not know they're being charged sales fees on many mutual funds. I've had the opportunity, Vicki Writes, to meet your brother Tom in Minneapolis at Buffalo Wild Wings, and you at a Fool Fest in Washington, DC. I all caps love TMF events. Well, thank you for loving our fool events. We love you back. Vicki, we love putting on events and convening our members. Always a highlight for us as fellow Fools. Vicki, you go on. This year, I took the step of finding an independent financial planner who would do a review of our holdings and give general advice. I discovered it was quite difficult to find a CFP, a certified financial planner who did not want to totally manage our assets. But I succeeded after a half dozen phone calls. I found an amazing young woman with whom both my husband and I felt comfortable. She confirmed my findings that we have enough to continue enjoying our first class scuba diving and saltwater fly fishing adventures, along with whatever else should interest us. Now I have peace of mind at age 73 that if something should happen to me, the investor in the family, my husband has a trusted person to call, who will know all about our financial status. This, of course, is after more than 60 years of saving then investing and learning from the Motley Fool to let my winners keep winning.

"Also, we updated our wills this year. Fool on, Vicki Huffman." Well, just like every other note this week, there's so much that I'd like to speak to in that, this is not a mailbag, this is What You've Done to Create Financial Freedom Volume 3. There's really two things I want to call. I'm going to cheat my own rules. I was saying I was only going to call out one thing, but the first thing I want to call out here, Vicki is, that you discovered it was quite difficult to find a CFP who didn't want to totally manage your assets, but you succeeded after a half dozen phone calls. So yes and yes. It is true, much of the financial wealth management world wants to manage your assets.

For me, the person who's always going to be managing my own assets, but still appreciates tax advice, wills and estates, kind of stuff, I'm an odd duck. Maybe you are too. As fellow Fools, we are the commanders of our own portfolio. I don't want to give my stocks or investments over to somebody at a big firm who's probably going to swap them out for much more conservative stuff or not let our winners win, which is such an important lesson, Vicki, that you credit learning from us. Thank you. It is, after all, Habit Number 1 of the Rule Breaker Investor, Rule Number 1, let your winners run high. You know that. I want to call you out for making that sixth phone call. You weren't satisfied after five. You made a half dozen and reached somebody who really does align beautifully with you and your husband. I have to praise your industry, your initiative, and your relentlessness. In fact, another of America's core values, to me, anyway, I always call it our fourth core value in America, is resilience. I think you demonstrated resilience with that effort. Then there's a second thing I have to call out right near the end, Vicki, you wrote, this, of course, is after more than 60 years of saving then investing. What a beautiful statement to be able to make at the age of something like 13, you became a saver and you've been that your whole life long and not just a saver, but an investor. You've learned how to make your portfolio reflect your best vision for our future. Very rule breakery of you and you've done so well, and you're able to enjoy first class scuba diving and saltwater fly fishing with a peace of mind that your husband is well cared for as well.

Congratulations. It's just a delight to be able to find exemplars in this world and through this podcast, share them with you, dear listener, introducing you to people like Vicki Huffman and Kevin McMahon and Brian Harris, and the list goes on. Number 4, this one comes to me from one of my all time favorite Fools. Jason Newman has made numerous appearances on mailbags and other such sundry features offered by this podcast, but I first met Jason at a Motley Fool book signing in the 1990s in New York City. He's been one of my favorite Fools ever since. Jason Newman, you are Number 4. Thank you for this note. You start. "I'm tempted to just copy and paste my note from 2023 and say rinse and repeat, because we often grow tired of sharing the best advice long before it's ever fully heard." Jason goes on, "But for 2025, I'll offer this update. True financial independence is when your kids start to see the light and begin to live out the capital F, Foolish Rule Breakery principles themselves. That's exactly what I'm witnessing this spring," Jason writes, "With two graduates in the house, one from high school, one from college. I'm filled with pride. My oldest now shares takeaways from the Rule Breaker Investing podcast with me regularly. That's right. Brady Newman, you're well on your way to financial independence, and you might not even realize it yet. Time is your friend, my son. Fool on.

Gabe, while you've shown sparks of interest with college still ahead of you, it's more than OK if your focus is elsewhere. For now, it's never too late to start in earnest and we'll keep the light on for you. Jason Newman." That was a lot of fun and truly a privilege to be able to share Jason's messages to his sons directly via Item Number 4 on this year's What You've Done to Create Financial Freedom. I love your line, Jason. True financial independence. Are we hearing this Fools? Do you get it, parents? True financial independence is when your kids start to see the light beginning to live out these Foolish Rule Breakery principles themselves. What a beautifully other minded statement of responsibility, care, and commitment coming from a father that he doesn't really think we're financially independent until we see our kids living that out. Nobody's in control last I saw of their kids, especially as they age. But if we've done our job well, and by the way, it can start today. It doesn't have to be that you were doing this at the age of 13, or when your child was three, it can start with them as adults. But true financial independence, underlining this, is when your kids start to see the light.

Thank you, Jason. Good on you, Brady and Gabe. Fool on. On to Number 5. This one comes from Ed. It's just signed, Ed. "Dear Motley Fool Team, I wanted to take a moment to thank you for the role you've played in helping me take control of my financial future." I want to pause it for a quick sec there, Ed, and say, thank you, Ed, for calling out the Motley Fool Team. Often on this podcast, I find that I'm the recipient, Dear David of notes, but the real work was not done by me. It was done by our 300 plus employees, people who stand up our website, write articles for it, come on this podcast, answer people's questions. It's a huge team effort here, and I want to make sure everybody hearing me knows that I have an outstanding team, including my new producer, Bart Shannon, a pleasure to work with. We have so many Fools who are helping row this boat hard for all of this. Thank you, Ed, for titling this Dear Motley Fool Team. I'll go on. Ed writes, "This year, I finally started managing my own Roth account with 5-8 years to go before retirement and a pension on the horizon. I'm building a diverse portfolio that includes individual long term growth stocks, ETFs, and high yield investments. I'm also taking advantage of this more financially stable time in my life to make additional investments in my Roth and stay committed to long term growth. Your insights gave me the confidence to take that leap and manage my own investments." Ed closes, "My advice to new investors. If you're scared, start with ETFs and keep learning.

Appreciate everything you do Foolishly, Ed." Well, thank you for that, Ed, and I love that you're speaking to those who might be scared and saying, hey, exchange-traded funds, basically, the equivalent of index funds, broadly diversified, low cost vehicles that people can plow their money into very confidently and very well over the course of time. Ed, you know I love stocks. I hope you do too. I think you do. But certainly ETFs can be an answer for many people, their whole lives long. You don't even have to listen to me if you don't want to be a Rule Breaker Investor in stocks. But I can see Ed, you've become to be that, you have 5-8 years to go, and I love that you're building out that diverse portfolio with those long term stocks, but also the ETFs and the high yield investments, which are going to help you out a lot as you eventually retire. Also, that pension sounds pretty good too. Congratulations to Ed for the financial freedom. He's setting himself up to enjoy 5-8 years from now, and I love, especially Ed, how you are broadly diversifying and thinking about baskets of different types of investments, especially that high yield portion, which if you're doing your job right, you're getting enough income that you can let those long term winners among your stocks, you can let them keep growing throughout the rest of your life.

Let's go on to Number 6, longtime fellow Fool, Vince Graneri. Thank you for this note, Vince. "Hi, David. I appreciate the opportunity to talk about what I hope to look back on as a pivotal year in achieving financial freedom. I provided a glimpse of it back in the December mailbag when I wrote about reducing my portfolio from over 650 positions to 85 and focusing on adding a dividend strategy to my existing growth strategy." Vince goes on, "All this brought on as I am approaching 70-years-old and getting ready to hang up the spikes. Suffer this Fool to fill in more details." Well, I will, Vince. Let's go to this. First, let me say that my contributions to the Motley Fool Foundation were at a personal high over the past year. Helping others achieve financial freedom is a laudable goal, and I am fortunate to be among those who are able to support it. Obviously, I'm going to pause it there and just call you out, Vince. Thank you for your support of the Motley Fool Foundation and our work there, I am honored that you've leaned in with us. Thank you for making it a personal high gift for you just in this past year alone. We really appreciate that. Back to Vince's note. "Last July 4th, my portfolio was earning a wopping half a percent annually from dividends. Today, that's 1.25%. With the dividend portfolio, that's 40% of my invested funds," Vince writes, "earning 3.1% as a dividend yield, and, of course, the growth portfolio earning 0%." When you take it as a full mix, he now has a 1.25% yield. That means just over 1% of all of his investments are coming back to him in the form of regular annual interest payments in the form of dividends. Of course, basically the interest amount you get paid for holding the stocks that you do. Some companies pay dividends.

Back to Vince's note. "This doesn't include any earnings from the cash portfolio, which consists of money market, treasuries, and muni bonds. I didn't really have a cash portfolio a year ago. Another thing I looked at was the nature of my investment accounts, which are a taxable account, a traditional IRA, and a Roth IRA. I did some basic scenario forecasts and was shocked to discover a time bomb lurking in my traditional IRA in the form of RMDs, that would be required minimum distributions, which would begin in a few more years for my bride and then for me not long after. This is not tax or investment advice for anyone," Vince goes on, "but for us, I found it better to convert as many traditional IRA dollars to Roth IRA dollars at marginal rates under 24%, pay the taxes now and avoid bigger tax bills in the future, your mileage may vary. Turning to the nitty gritty of concentrating the portfolio, I found it relatively easy to cut from 191 positions a year ago to 159 just by last August, by eliminating very small positions that were unlikely to move the needle. It became more difficult," Vince goes on, "from there. I developed separate investing checklists for each portfolio. I created a list of advisors to cull out new ideas and analyze existing positions.

Of course, the Motley Fool was among these advisors. I developed strategies to size positions for an overall asset management strategy. For example, I wanted my dividend portfolio to have 10 core positions of at least 4-6% of my total assets and 10 with 2-4%, and then 20 of 0-2% starter positions." Vince goes on, if you will. "I need to close this, even though I could go on and on, suffice it to say that I'm still a work in progress with respect to all the above, but the groundwork has been laid. I also realize that some of the above may break ranks with Rule Breaker investing principles, but I hope you see that I have maybe compartmentalized them rather than abandoned them as I turn the page to a future without a steady paycheck. In closing, I feel it's appropriate to rechristen myself in Fooldom. I've been going with the screen name FoolforZTribe@fool.com in our community since 2003. That would, of course, be a testament to my love for the Cleveland baseball team. A few years back, though, they saw fit to change their name, and despite my feelings about that decision, it's time to turn the page on that as well. Henceforth, I am just plain old Vinnie G. Fool on, Vince Graneri." Well, that's the longest note that I'm going to share this week, but it was worth doing, Vince, because I really appreciate the amount of time and effort and thinking that you're bringing to planning your portfolio, and I especially wanted to call out how you're transitioning from maybe pure stocks. You had 650 positions not that long ago. I'm sure a lot of them are Rule Breaker picks.

A lot of others are maybe Motley Fool picks that aren't Rule Breaker picks, because we're very Motley. I'm just offering one flavor of investment approach. The Motley Fool has many other ways to invest, and I gather you're probably using a lot of them. The thoughtfulness that you've put into transitioning to a dividend oriented portion of your portfolio and then how you built out that basket. Again, a lot of listeners, I hope nobody was lost in the longer nature of that note with numbers, but especially some of you, I think you might want to hit rewind and hear this one again and take some notes on what Vince has done, because what he's done is very thoughtful, very rational, very planning oriented. Vince, I thank you for sharing that. You did mention at the end that you may have broken ranks with my approach. I think that's great, of course. Our effort is to get each of our Motley Fool members to a place where they're making the best decisions for themselves. I'm largely just a stock picker. I'm putting out what I think wins on the markets. That's what I've done for 30 years, so I'm not trying to individually tailor my ideas to any single person. In fact, as has often been pointed out, no one cares more than Vince Graneri, about Vince's portfolio. No one cares more about your portfolio, dear fellow Fools, than you. It makes a lot of sense, since you know you better than I do for you to make it your own by combining whatever styles or approaches you think would work best in the basket that helps you toward financial freedom. Of course, Vince, you've helped all of us a little bit.

Of course, in closing, Vince, you've got closer and closer yourself, and you're sharing it as you go with everyone listening. I thank you, friend. Fool on. Number 7. This one came in response to a tweet that I put out on Twitter X. By the way, I'm at @DavidGFool, if you ever want to follow me on Twitter. This podcast is at RBI podcast. My correspondent here for Point Number 7 is Andrew Gibson, who is @AndrewGibbs53446 on Twitter X. Andrew share, "Two habits have been instrumental in my personal growth. First, the automation of fund transfers into savings and investment, which has allowed me to cultivate a disciplined approach to wealth accumulation. Second, I've been fortunate to receive guidance from esteemed mentors, whose wisdom I eagerly absorb, and I make it a point to surround myself with individuals whose accomplishments and expertise far surpass my own, thereby fostering an environment conducive to learning and self improvement."

Andrew also tacked up a few bullets, other things that have helped him toward financial freedom. He added picking companies that get on base. He added money ball. I won't explain these things. They're there for you to interpret as you will. He added, no debt policy and sideline question he added at the end, David, what are your Top 2 favorite baseball players of all time and Top 2 favorite CEOs of all time? Andrew said, can't be Jeff Bezos. I feel like he is your favorite. Well, I'll speak to that in a sec. Thank you, first of all, for taking the time to reply on Twitter X to my prompt this week, what have you done to create financial freedom in the past year? I especially wanted to call out your habit of surrounding yourself with esteemed mentors, people from whom you can absorb wisdom, and that you make it a point to find people who are extremely accomplished and have expertise that surpasses your own. We should all be trying to do that as often as possible. What I've told my kids who are now 31, 29, and 26. What I've told my kids for a few decades now is in any room, try to find the best person, try to hang out with them. As you grow with your understanding of human character, try to strand yourself with the best people that you can. It is our friends and the time that we spend with other humans that will most greatly enrich us in every way, making us smarter, happier, and richer.

I can see, Andrew, you are living that advice with your own approach to life. You ask, who are my two favorite baseball players of all time? Had to think about it. I'm going to go with Babe Ruth. In fact, no baseball player is mentioned more in my Rule Breaker investing book than Babe Ruth. There are several reasons I won't bore you with, but a lot of baseball fans might appreciate that Ruth was so far surpassing anyone else of his era. He had years where he hit more home runs than the combined players on whole teams. That is simply unheard of.

Of course, Shohei Ohtani is in some ways a modern recreation of Babe Ruth. But since Shohei doesn't play for my team, he's not on my favorite list of all time baseball players, but Babe Ruth definitely is. Then I would say, second, Satchel Paige. What a phenomenal pitcher. What a great athlete. I once read a biography of Satchel Paige. I've not done that with many baseball players. I loved it. Satchel Paige had a fastball that outran time itself and a wit that turned every mound into a stage. I think to me, Satchel Paige reminds us that baseball's greatest grace is the way that one man, in this case, Satchel Paige's ageless spirit could outshine the boundaries of leagues, eras and prejudice. Babe Ruth and Satchel Paige. My two favorite CEOs, I'm just going to go with the one who's given me the highest percentage return for any pick I've ever made. That would be Jeff Bezos and Amazon, where my cost basis is 16 cents. How could I not, you're right. Andrew, how could I not have Bezos on my list? Then the CEO who's made me the most because I've made even more money as an investor in a stock that is a 600 plus bagger from Motley Fool members, and that would be Netflix, and its founder and CEO, Reed Hastings. Jeff Bezos and Reed Hastings, I'm going to put up as my two top favorite CEOs of all. It's a very personal list.

I would encourage a lot of us to start with whoever has made you the most money out there as a CEO. Jensen Huang would be an answer for a lot of Motley Fool members, I suspect. But those are mine. Thank you again, Andrew Gibson. Number 8. This one from someone whose name I now realize I've been mispronouncing. Cliff, you've written in a few times over the years, and you took the time to give me the phonetics of your last name in this note. Turns out C-A-D-A is pronounced kata. I think I was saying, kata, in the past Cliff, I apologize. Number 8 is from Cliff Cada. First off, thanks for reading my note on air last time, Cliff writes, and onto what I did for financial freedom this year, I helped my daughter open an IRA and promised to match her contributions. I also pointed her to fool.com to learn the basics. Of course, the saying, you can lead a horse to water is appropriate here, Cliff writes. I just hope she takes the necessary steps early in her life. This might be for your later pet peeves, but Cliff goes on, you always say multiplicands to refer to both numbers in a multiplication operation. But I remember that in elementary school, one is a multiplier, and the other is a multiplicand. However, when I was helping my same daughter with her math several years ago, I don't think they use those terms anymore and simply used the term factors.

Thanks for all you do, happy 4th of July, Cliff Cada. First of all, I had to include your note because I love that you got your daughter started with an IRA and that you hope she takes the necessary steps early in her life. You've set her up to do so, Cliff, and I don't think there's much more we can do as parents, so great job. But I love that you're coming after me, and rightly so, as it turns out, with a potential pet peeve, which is, and I've been doing this for almost every market cap game show intro for years now. I've been talking about multiplicands, as if they're the two things we multiply together. When we're talking about market cap, it's, of course, the total shares outstanding multiplied by the price per share of the stock. I've been saying those are multiplicands, but I checked in with my AI friend, ChatGPT, on this one, Cliff, and my pal, ChatGPT, has me issuing a mea culpa. Let's do this. By the way, all future market cap game shows will now be slightly better thanks to Cliff Cada. ChatGPT wants me to say to you, thanks for catching that. You're right. The traditional vocabulary is multiplicand times multiplier equals product. ChatGPT goes on to say, nowadays, most elementary texts, just call both numbers factors and move on. I've been lazily saying multiplications, treating both numbers as if they were the thing being multiplied, and that isn't the classic usage, so math pedantry scores, Cliff Cada, one, David Gardner, zero. Well done, Cliff, and thank you and Fool on. On to Number 9. Often I've said in the past, best for last, but I always leave it up to listeners to decide. I've enjoyed all nine of these. Here comes Number 9. It's signed by Foolish leprechaun. This note literally comes from a leprechaun apparently, but not just any leprechaun, a Foolish leprechaun. Thank you, Foolish leprechaun. Hi, David. Thank you for suggesting that we take the time to think about our financial independence during your most recent mailbag episode.

On the podcast, you gave many examples of some seemingly small life situations that lead to independence, which have made me think, wow. That's how I got here. Before I go on with Foolish leprechaun's Number 9 note, I do want to just go through that list really quickly again. It was a quick, bulleted list of steps that you, dear listener, may have taken in the last year, and I'm encouraging you. I'm awakening you to realize if you weren't that these steps, every one of them helps you toward financial freedom. Just a fun list to tick down really fast. Did you pay off the last student loan or a credit card balance? Did you set up automatic transfers to an index fund or a 401(k) match? Did you negotiate a raise? We heard something about that earlier this or switch jobs for better pay and culture? Did you launch a cash flowing side hustle or small business? Did you teach kids money basics with a family bank or first stock purchase? Did you help a parent or friend open their very first brokerage account? Did you build a six-month emergency fund? If so, I bet you're sleeping better already. Did you donate time or money to boost someone else's financial literacy? Did you declutter your life, sell off some unused stuff and invest the proceeds? There you go. Nine is our magic number this week.

That was a list with nine financial freedom notes. That was a list of nine bulleted examples of real-world steps toward financial freedom. It was that list, I think, that inspired you Foolish leprechaun to realize you've been doing this and write us this note. We go back to their note. To some, I am considered uneducated. Not having the family, financial support or wherewithal, honestly to go to college, I was blessed to get a 9:00-5:00 job right out of high school at a company you might remember, Telerate. Major financial companies would use Telerate to get the latest quotes, prices, whatever on everything around market data. I have to pause briefly just to say, Telerate was one of my early stocks. I think I was about 18 or 19 years of age, so we're talking about the mid-1980s. Absolutely. I remember Telerate. I bet many listeners who are of our vintage do, many today would not ever have heard of the company before Bloomberg showed up, before the Internet showed up, this was a company providing quotes and prices and market data. You bet I remember Telerate. I love that you're rocking it, Foolish leprechaun. My brother, Yugoon, also worked for Telerate and strongly suggested that I set up a 401(k). I didn't particularly like having money taken out of my check at that age, so I only went with a small percentage of my salary toward it, but at least it was something. My father was a blue collar worker, didn't know anything about investing, but he knew enough to instill in me to try to avoid debt.

That stuck with me over the next 40 years. To me, that meant, spend within your means, pay all loans off early, etc. Over that time, I've opened a Roth IRA for myself and our children, a separate 401(k) with my existing employer, a couple of life insurance policies, and my wife has her pension and 403(b) along with a wedding fund. 529 plans have been a huge help, being able to send our kids both off to college now, which I'm so proud of, since I did not get the chance. I've tried to preach compound interest to them and their friends, but they're laughing at me, LOL. I'll keep working on them. All of the above has been slow and steady over time. In the end, as we know, it's very difficult to achieve any type of financial independence without a steady stream of income, and I'm fortunate to have remained blessed with employment throughout my life. I only started stock investing in 2020 during COVID, but that's another story for another day, maybe a mailbag item. I can't thank everyone at the Motley Fool enough for all the daily insights to help my journey along the way. All the best. Foolish leprechaun. Well, to paraphrase, I think the favorite comment I ever got on a college paper from a favorite professor, I say to you, Foolish leprechaun, A, for the paper, and A for life. I particularly loved you pointing out that your father, a blue collar worker couldn't afford to send you to college, but we're not going to have parents who know everything about all things money.

In my case, my dad is an incredible stock market investor. I've learned so much from him, but he has other people do his taxes. Nobody is necessarily trying to be awesome at everything when it comes to our financial lives. But for you to be able to pull away from him, a relatively unsophisticated man when it comes to investing to avoid debt. Think about how powerful that lesson is that he lived and conveyed to you and how much that means to you and yours now going forward. I just love sharing out that lesson to all Fools listening to us this week. I'm going to snatch just a few lines from my Rule Breaker investing book because early on in the book, I say this, and I "Being a good steward of your personal finances is what enables successful stock market investing." This is an investment book, not a personal finance guide, so little ink will be spilled on personal finance basics, but I need briefly to shout out their foundational role, forget about a whole page. Here's a line. I urge you to live below your means every day of your life. That habit, I write, enables financial resilience and long-term wealth building.

Without it, even the best investments won't save you from financial stress, and I absolutely insist you eliminate any double-digit interest rate, credit card debt before buying stocks. Again, just a quick quote from my book. That's from a little section entitled Personal Finance in One Page, because this podcast and certainly my book by the same name is not trying to be a personal finance guide, but how much personal finance has been woven through this week's podcast, and it's there and present for anybody who's an investor, you have to save more than you spend over the course of your life. That's why I tried to give a shortcut line early on in the book and just say, I urge you to live below your means every day of your life. That's my personal finance advice, and that's exactly among many other good things what you've been doing, Foolish leprechaun. Well, thank you to all of my Foolish correspondents this week. What a treat it was to share such good stories of exemplars that we can all learn from and be inspired by all fellow Fools and rule Breakers, all as well. I want to say in closing, of course, happy Independence Day to my fellow Americans celebrating this week.

But as we saw from a number of our correspondents, foolishness and financial freedom and Rule Breaker investing are everywhere. They know no national borders. Sometimes, in fact, the irony may be that the biggest border for many is maybe their own mindsets. That aside, it's also very clear to us at the Motley Fool, especially the Motley Fool Foundation, and thank you for the shoutouts this week, that doing work every day with people taking small or bigger steps toward financial freedom for all, it's just very clear that there are many impediments, and some of them seem outside of our own control toward our own financial freedom. It's not achieved overnight, as Foolish Leprechaun put it. All of the above has been slow and steady over time. But then again, most every good thing does take time, as the Greek philosopher, Epictetus reminds us in a great quote that I once rocked on a great quotes podcast here for Rule Breaker Investing, and I quoted here again, no great thing is created suddenly. Well, happy freedom week then to those who have financial freedom. We celebrate that for you. We earnestly hope you will work to enable the same for others. Happy freedom week as well to the many who do not yet have their financial freedom but, and you heard their voices loud and clear this week, they see that light at the end of the tunnel, they are taking steps every day toward that light. My favorite of all, through sharing of themselves and their stories this week, they're helping all the rest of us toward that light, as well. Financial freedom for all. 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. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.