audiobook

In this podcast, we’ve got a 5-minute listen from Chapter 3 of David Gardner’s latest Rule Breaker Investing book. In “After Yesterday,” David tells the CNBC story of a co-host stunned that he still liked cloud stocks and why Rule Breaker investors don’t let yesterday’s tape write tomorrow’s script. Enjoy the excerpt, then share it with a friend who could use a smarter, happier, and richer mindset.

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A full transcript is below.

This podcast was recorded on Sept. 13, 2025.

David Gardner: Hey, Fools. Happy weekend. David here with a quick Rule Breaker investing Weekend Extra. I’ve got something special for you today. It’s a five minute listen in from the Rule Breaker Investing audio book, which arrives just days away September 16, alongside the hardcover and the eBook versions. Now, if you’re an audible fan or you just like hearing ideas rather than reading them, this is your sneak peek, or listen. A quick word on what you’re about to hear. This excerpt captures the spirit of my book, practical, optimistic, maybe a little mischievous, equal parts, habits, stock picking traits, and portfolio principles, all in service of making us smarter, happier, and richer. This is the start of Chapter 3. It’s in my own voice, of course, with a few points you may recognize as a regular listener of this podcast and a story you probably haven’t heard yet. If you enjoy it, you can pre order wherever you get your books and audio books. Here’s a pro tip. Pre orders helps signal to the world that investors still read and listen. If someone in your life could use a friendly on ramp to investing, and send them this episode, consider it the audio appetizer before the main course lands on September 16. Enough for me. Let’s queue it up, producer Bart Shannon, five minutes from the Rule Breaker Investing Audio Book. I hope it entertains here on your weekend as a Weekend Extra, and I hope this audio book, pays for itself many times over in the years to come. Let’s get started. Fool on.

You still like Cloud computing stocks? The host queried me during the commercial break. After yesterday, I was co hosting the early morning CNBC market Show with a smart young anchor. Our perspectives couldn’t have been further apart. During the first commercial break, I’d mentioned several of my favorite stocks like Salesforce, and her jaw dropped. The Cloud computing sector had sold off 7-10% the day before. You still like cloud computing stocks after yesterday? My co host, we shall call her after yesterday, wasn’t a day trader or a high frequency trading supercomputer. This was a well educated, successful broadcast journalist who got up at dawn to cover the markets. People tuned in to her to learn the days ins and outs of business and market developments. Except maybe in a sense, she was a day trader. Anyone who follows the markets for a living and makes other people feel like rubes for still liking a stock after yesterday would seem to be day trading the headlines, trends, and buzz, even if not day trading the stock market. If you follow something minute by minute, every zig zag, pass, shot, or tackle becomes noteworthy. You magnify it, and heck, after yesterday isn’t being paid for her financial advice, she’s great at what she does. Anchoring live TV at any hour of the day is a demanding job. Just don’t confuse her perspective with financial expertise or let it guide your money. I’d guess some people watching CNBC think the opposite. In most aspects of life, I’d bet after yesterday is well mannered and exemplary. It’s only with the stock market that she thinks and likely acts contrary to her and your best outcomes, ironic and crazy. If you ever wonder how common capital F Fools like you and me can outperform Wall Street and its indices, you now know your answer.

The surest way to beat the market over time involves maintaining the same equanimity and perspective with your money that you do in other aspects of your life. Maybe Billy Joel crooned the greatest investment secret of all, don’t go changing. In other words, buy stocks to keep them, not trade them. You’ll do so much better if you invest for at least three years. If your absolute minimum holding period is less than three years, you’re doing it wrong. We often misunderstand what invest means and what investing looks like. The Latin root for invest is investire, meaning to put on the clothes, wear the garments. Think of a related phrase like priestly vestments. Picture fans wearing the jerseys of their favorite teams. As they walk to the stadium, find the way to their seats, cheer their team on, they are sporting the home team colors. And whether their team wins or loses, they keep that jersey on. Whether their team has a good or bad season, they keep that jersey on. Why? Because they’re deeply invested. Ironically, many may be more invested in their sports teams than in something of far more value the financial investments they make. Sports fans know their team is not going to win every game or year. Rule Breaker investors know the same of our stocks. If you find a great team, stick with it. Putting on the clothes can be literal. People wear shirts with an Apple logo, love their Lululemon’s, have Harley tattooed on their shoulder. These are not the same people. You likely have logo garments in your wardrobe. My wishes for you are A, that you own those stocks, and B, that those investments will outlast your clothes. Whether or not you have the shirt yet, I want you to love the companies you’re invested in. My portfolio includes enterprises that I believe do good things in this world, are purpose driven, manage for the long term, show resilience, exhibit optionality. I believe their success leads to a better world. When you’re actually invested like this, it’s natural, even in hard times to keep that jersey on. If people treated financial investments like their lifelong emotional investments in their sports teams, they’d be smarter, happier, and richer.

Libraries across the United States are cutting back on ebooks, audiobooks and loan programs after the Trump administration suspended millions of dollars in federal grants as it tries to dissolve the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Federal judges have issued temporary orders to block the Trump administration from taking any further steps toward gutting the agency. But the unexpected slashing of grants has delivered a significant blow to many libraries, which are reshuffling budgets and looking at different ways to raise money.

Maine has laid off a fifth of its staff and temporarily closed its state library after not receiving the remainder of its annual funding. Libraries in Mississippi have indefinitely stopped offering a popular ebook service, and the South Dakota state library has suspended its interlibrary loan program.

Ebook and audiobook programs are especially vulnerable to budget cuts, even though those offerings have exploded in popularity since the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I think everyone should know the cost of providing digital sources is too expensive for most libraries,” said Cindy Hohl, president of the American Library Assn. “It’s a continuous and growing need.”

Library officials caught off guard by Trump’s cuts

President Trump issued an executive order March 14 to dismantle the IMLS before firing nearly all of its employees.

One month later, the Maine State Library announced it was issuing layoff notices for workers funded through an IMLS grant program.

“It came as quite a surprise to all of us,” said Spencer Davis, a library generalist at the Maine State Library who is one of eight employees who were laid off May 8 because of the suspended funding.

In April, California, Washington and Connecticut were the only three states to receive letters stating the remainder of their funding for the year was canceled, Hohl said. For others, the money hasn’t been distributed yet. The three states all filed formal objections with the IMLS.

Rebecca Wendt, California state library director, said she was never told why California’s funding was terminated while the other remaining states did not receive the same notice.

“We are mystified,” Wendt said.

The agency did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Popular digital offerings on the chopping block

Most libraries are funded by city and county governments, but receive a smaller portion of their budget from their state libraries, which receive federal dollars every year to help pay for summer reading programs, interlibrary loan services and digital books. Libraries in rural areas rely on federal grants more than those in cities.

Many states use the funding to pay for ebooks and audiobooks, which are increasingly popular, and costly, offerings. In 2023, more than 660 million people globally borrowed ebooks, audiobooks and digital magazines, up from 19% in 2022, according to OverDrive, the main distributor of digital content for libraries and schools.

In Mississippi, the state library helped fund its statewide ebook program.

For a few days, Erin Busbea was the bearer of bad news for readers at her Mississippi library: Hoopla, a popular app to check out ebooks and audiobooks, had been suspended indefinitely in Lowndes and DeSoto counties due to the funding freeze.

“People have been calling and asking, ‘Why can’t I access my books on Hoopla?’” said Busbea, library director of the Columbus-Lowndes Public Library System in Columbus, a majority-Black city northeast of Jackson.

The library system also had to pause parts of its interlibrary loan system allowing readers to borrow books from other states when they aren’t available locally.

“For most libraries that were using federal dollars, they had to curtail those activities,” said Hulen Bivins, the Mississippi Library Commission executive director.

States are fighting the funding freeze

The funding freeze came after the agency’s roughly 70 staff members were placed on administrative leave in March.

Attorneys general in 21 states and the American Library Assn. have filed lawsuits against the Trump administration for seeking to dismantle the agency.

The institute’s annual budget is below $300 million and distributes less than half of that to state libraries across the country. In California, the state library was notified that about 20%, or $3 million, of its $15-million grant had been terminated.

“The small library systems are not able to pay for the ebooks themselves,” said Wendt, the California state librarian.

In South Dakota, the state’s interlibrary loan program is on hold, according to Nancy Van Der Weide, a spokesperson for the South Dakota Department of Education.

The institute, founded in 1996 by a Republican-controlled Congress, also supports a national library training program named after former first lady Laura Bush that seeks to recruit and train librarians from diverse or underrepresented backgrounds. A spokesperson for Bush did not return a request seeking comment.

“Library funding is never robust. It’s always a point of discussion. It’s always something you need to advocate for,” said Liz Doucett, library director at Curtis Memorial Library in Brunswick, Maine. “It’s adding to just general anxiety.”

Lathan writes for the Associated Press.