Hi Scandium,
The Motley Fool can work any way you want it to, and they have multiple services to choose from. Most services are recommendation services, meaning that they will suggest stocks, and then it is up to you to review and decide if you are interested and want to purchase shares of those companies. (It is easy to make mistakes with those recommendations, and some of those recs turn out to be dogs) If you pay more for a portfolio service, there will be specific recommendations on what to own, but of course, these are their suggestions. I belong to a portfolio service, and I choose to only buy about half of what is suggested, I buy the ones I like and that I understand the most.
There are no guarantees, of course!! The benefits I appreciate are hanging out with smart people who are into stock investing. Like I said, check out Saul's board, for free! He is excellent at picking out high growth companies. (High growth is not the only way I invest, but he's smart and very fun to hang with, and I'm going with a couple of his favorites as a part of my port, and those companies are doing great!) It is very possible to lose money, and anyone who invests *will* make mistakes. Getting burned is how you learn (if you are smart enough to learn). As Paul said, many times the problem is you and your behavior and your emotions.
Successful stock investing takes time and interest. Many people view it as a game, as much fun to build wealth as it is to play a video game. And all investing takes work and practice. Real estate investors can build wealth or they can also lose.
So, it's not appropriate to say - show me the magic pill, because there isn't one! But there are plenty of successful, profitable companies that are growing and have very interesting businesses that you might want to benefit from partial ownership of.
I could beat the S&P 500 if I pick a few stocks that are in the top half of the companies in that cohort, and if I don't get stupid with trading. I enjoy the learning and the process. Putting your investments on autopilot is fine too. Whatever works!