July 2026 Mailbag: Year 12 Begins

In this episode of Motley Fool Rule Breaker Investing , Motley Fool co-founder David Gardner dives into the Mailbag, covering questions about investing, artificial intelligence, financial freedom, World Cup soccer, custodial Roth IRAs, Rule Breaker stock selection—and even a soundtrack for Foolish living.

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David Gardner: Back in July of 2015, I hoped there might be enough ideas, enough thoughtful listeners to sustain a weekly investing podcast for a while. Well, here we are. This month marks the beginning of Year 12 for Rule Breaker Investing . One new episode every week, no skips, no reruns. One of the happiest discoveries along the way has been this: some of the very best episodes are the ones that you help create. Every month, I get to host my favorite co-hosts. They live all over the world. They don't know each other. They ask better questions than I would have thought to ask myself. They challenge me, teach me, make me laugh, and occasionally move me to tears. As we begin our 12th year together, let's do what we often do best. Let's open the mailbag. Only on this week's Rule Breaker Investing .

It was mid July 2015 when Rule Breaker Investing launched. If you scroll all the way back in Apple Podcasts, I assume the same is true of Spotify , you'll see our first three episodes we pinned up all on the same day. July 8th, each one was 8-10 minutes. I think I did one the week after that, and I've been doing one the week after ever since. Here we are with the 129th consecutive mailbag. Welcome. Thanks for joining me here at the end of July. Let's review the month that was, July 1st, the first day of the month. It was what you've done to create financial freedom, Volume 4. We had some remarkable listener stories, revealing that financial freedom is ultimately about hope, perseverance, and passing opportunity on to others. A week later, Great Quotes Volume 22:.A Nation Forever Young . It was America's birthday. I gave you five of my favorite quotations, ranging from self-knowledge to immigration. That combined into a meditation on why curiosity and renewal keep both people young and also nations to a nation forever young. The third week of the month, it was 10 years later, five Brexit-inspired stocks, a decade after Brexit rattled the world. My pal, Karl Thiel, and I, a couple of weeks ago, reopened the time capsule of my July 2016 five stock sampler to see how five optimism-inspired investments actually fared and what 10 years can teach us that three never could. Finally, last week, Five Idle Thoughts of a Summer's Day, Volume 3 , a midsummer sampler of curiosity. We wandered from AI to soccer to literature and beyond. I ended with a whimsical two-page story that I hope, in a little way, at least, expanded your universe.