I Fought The Law (And The Law Won), Vol. 3

In this episode of Motley Fool Rule Breaker Investing , Motley Fool co-founder David Gardner explores a handful of memorable laws and principles that help explain how people, businesses, markets, and institutions actually behave — from the sublime to the silly.

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David Gardner: “I'm breaking rocks in the hot sun. I fought the law and the law won. I fought the law and the law won. I needed money because I had none. I fought the law and the law won.” The songwriter was Sonny Curtis. The year was 1958. I wasn't around back then to hear it. But then in this century, Rolling Stone put it as Number 175 on the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time List. The Crickets recorded it in 1959 as Sonny Curtis took the place of guitar from Buddy Holly, who tragically been lost to a plane crash earlier that year. Speaking of laws, there are actually two right there: the law of gravity, the law of mortality. Two laws. To me, rules govern many aspects of our lives, but are often, as is said, made to be broken. Breaking rules is, of course, what we’re all about on this podcast, breaking rules and investing in business and in life. Rules are rules, but laws are different laws. At least, how I'm framing things here this week, they run deep. The consequences of fighting them not good. Many of these are natural, like the natural law of entropy that matter over time gravitates to its lowest, most disorganized state. Other laws are societal choices. Thou shalt not steal. This week, I want to bring you a Foolish set of laws that apply to investing, business, and life. Some are sublime, some are silly. Each will be explained and illustrated. The aim? That's what The Motley Fool's aim always is to make you smarter, happier, and richer one law at a time. Only on this week's Rule Breaker Investing .

Welcome back to Rule Breaker Investing , Happy June. On the face of it, laws and rules don't sound like the way that you and I might want to spend our time during, let's say, a 45-minute jog, cutting the lawn, or driving somewhere, as many people do as they listen to this podcast. But as I did with the first in this episodic series, which was Sept. 1, 2021, I'm going to try to make it fun. Now, before we get to laws, let's talk briefly about rules. The main difference between rules and laws, as my Googling revealed earlier today, is the consequences of breaking them. You fight rules, you break them. You might have improved the world forever. Maybe you knocked out a Goliath as you broke the rules. As you fought the rules, you replaced him with something better in the same way that streaming video has ultimately replaced a few generations later. Do you remember these VHS tapes? You fight rules. You break them, you can break through, and breakthroughs power so much of our culture and our world today. That's breaking rules. But if you break laws, if you fight them, the consequences are not going to be good. Breaking rocks in the hot sun is a great example of the consequence of fighting the law. What I want to do this week is to introduce you to six compelling insights that we'll put forward as laws or something very near it. Now, these are eponymous, which means each one carries the name generally of the individual who came up with it, or to whom we ascribe this law. We're going to go as I already have in the first two episodes of this series. We're going to go from the sublime to the silly.