The Iced Coffee Hour - Spend Your Money NOW - Before It’s Too Late! (Bill Perkins Final Warning)

Episode Date: July 6, 2025

OpusClip: Enter the contest and get free credits at https://www.opus.pro/clip-the-future Notion: Check out Notion, the best AI tool for work, right now at https://notion.com/icedcoffee Shopify: Sign ...up for a $1 per month trial period at https://shopify.com/ich Follow Bill Perkins : On Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/billperkins Website - https://www.diewithzerobook.com/welcome Apply for The Index Membership: https://entertheindex.com/ Add us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jlsselby https://www.instagram.com/gpstephan Official Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeBQ24VfikOriqSdKtomh0w For sponsorships or business inquiries reach out to: tmatsradio@gmail.com For Podcast Inquiries, please DM @icedcoffeehour on Instagram! Timestamps: 00:00:00 - Intro 00:01:05 - When life really begins 00:03:07 - How he got rich 00:04:45 - Why he succeeded 00:08:16 - Lessons from books 00:09:13 - Is his net worth accurate? 00:12:33 - Life expectancy 00:13:14 - Feeling vs. being rich 00:15:06 - Why natural gas? 00:18:09 - Sponsor - OpusClip 00:23:02 - Saving vs. spending joy 00:26:25 - Drawing the line on spending 00:28:07 - Fear of death 00:30:36 - Does money bring happiness? 00:37:10 - Best ROI purchases 00:37:14 - Sponsor - Notion 00:40:40 - Spending $ on happiness 00:43:01 - Money optimization blueprint 00:47:49 - Writing the book 00:49:32 - Breaking his own rules 00:50:58 - Advice for low earners 00:52:26 - Trying new things 00:53:13 - Biggest waste of money 00:54:53 - Worst financial mistakes 00:56:04 - Movie investing regrets 00:59:59 - Maximize your 20s 01:03:03 - Spending young with low income 01:04:58 - Sponsor - Shopify 01:11:10 - Over vs. underspending 01:14:32 - Intentional spending 01:16:36 - Best time of life 01:17:32 - Raising humble kids 01:20:11 - Inheritance: yes or no? 01:21:57 - Would he change the book? 01:24:32 - Where he invests 01:27:03 - Advice for entrepreneurs 01:28:44 - What he learned from Bilzerian 01:32:50 - Most impactful fan stories 01:36:11 - Best health ROIs 01:37:19 - Skincare 01:38:46 - Why they started podcast 01:48:07 - Favorite travel spot 01:49:39 - Places he avoids 01:51:47 - FIRE movement 02:23:17 - Panhandling experiment *Some of the links and other products that appear on this video are from companies which Graham Stephan will earn an affiliate commission or referral bonus. Graham Stephan is part of an affiliate network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites. The content in this video is accurate as of the posting date. Some of the offers mentioned may no longer be available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Okay, when I sell my business, I want the best tax and investment advice. I want to help my kids, and I want to give back to the community. Ooh, then it's the vacation of a lifetime. I wonder if my out of office has a forever setting. An IG Private Wealth advisor creates the clarity you need with plans that harmonize your business, your family, and your dreams. Get financial advice that puts you at the center. Find your advisor at IG Private Wealth.com.
Starting point is 00:00:30 I don't give a shit about saving. I don't give a shit about spending. I care about fulfillment and thriving. We have all learned to focus on saving your money for your golden years. So our next guest says, actually do the opposite. I've read your book probably five to six times because I am the exact opposite. You're afraid of running out of money. I'm afraid of waste of my life. You are living in fear of something in the future and robbing yourself of your current life. Delayed gratification indefinitely is no gratification. And unfortunately, your body has a vote and it's going to decay. And you will not be able to get that gratification to the extent you can now. I mean, Google lists your net worth at over $100 million.
Starting point is 00:01:11 So some people are going to comment that it's not just that easy. For those who are like how average intelligence and lots of hustle, there's so many ways to make money. What's your advice to people with a low income? Like if you're very poor, the first step you're trying to do is Bill Perkins. Thank you so much for coming on the iced coffee hour. It's good to be on. We have two lives and the second one begins when we realize we only have one. What does this quote mean to you?
Starting point is 00:01:41 It means that I think a lot of people behave as if they're going to live forever or they're going to get a second life like in video games. And when you realize that you only have one life, one ride on this planet, you begin to take it a little bit more seriously. You begin to care a little bit less about what other people think. And you begin to dive deep and chase after what you really want out of this ride. It's interesting because I've read your book probably five to six times in total. It's the one book that people keep telling me to read through because I am the exact opposite of everything that you describe in the book. I'm extremely frugal.
Starting point is 00:02:19 I like saving money at all costs and I like delaying gratification. For me, I get a lot of peace of mind knowing that like 30 years from now I'll have enough versus living it up today. Right. But is that a fear-based thinking or is that an optimisation? for fulfillment type thinking. I would say probably 80% fear, 20% optimization. Right.
Starting point is 00:02:39 And so fear is a great thing that we have, right? It keeps us alive. It keeps us from being bears or lions on the serengeti when we were in tribe, right? And it prevents you from getting mugged or whatever it is, right? But it doesn't help you thrive. It only helps you survive. And you're surviving, right? But you're not thriving.
Starting point is 00:02:58 And you're not thriving in probably one of the best periods of your life where you have your health and the ability to take advantage of everything that's around you, whether you want to go heliskeying, swimming, et cetera, your health is not going to limit you. Your mental acuity is not going to limit you. If you wanted to go to school or college or spend money on that, your lung capacity isn't going to limit you. And so you are living in fear of something in the future and robbing yourself of your current life. Your life has led you to have this very interesting philosophy around why you should spend money while you're young, instead of saving for the delayed gratification. For those unfamiliar, how did you make your money? I started making money
Starting point is 00:03:41 as a broker of commodities and then really made significant amounts of capital as a commodities trader in natural gas. And so that's where the money came from. How do you learn how to do that? How do you learn how to trade natural gas and profit from it? I think you have to be a person that is, you know, unafraid of risk has kind of like a stoic attitude about things in order to take the losses and the stress associated with it. I think most people have the intelligence to be a traitor, but they don't have the mental fortitude to be a traitor. And then you just have to want it. And so what I wanted to shorten the story is essentially to be able to exchange a few hours of my time for a lot of hours of everybody else's time, right? That's what money represents is your time,
Starting point is 00:04:25 right? You spend time doing something and you require this thing called money. which is fungible for other people's time, right? And their goods and services. And so I wanted to be rich. You know, I wanted to be rich. I wanted to chase the girls. I wanted to, you know, live the rock star life. You know, that's what a young me, you know, those are kind of the goals, right?
Starting point is 00:04:43 Like on autopilot, right, of what do I think I want out of life? But I don't want to have to choose or be frugal or not buy Starbucks. I wanted to not even care what the price was. I wanted to have enough resources to exceed my wants. And so in that case, are you trading your own money or are you working for a that gives you capital and you're trading that capital and getting a percentage of the outside. Both. Both. I'm a I rent out my brain and I get a percentage of the money that I make for other people. So some people, you know, they rent out their bodies. They do manual labor. I'm a mental.
Starting point is 00:05:16 But what set you apart that you were so profitable at doing this? Like, why were you different than everyone else who's tried doing this and failed? I think it's a curiosity and stoicism. So the ability to handle losses. and still be able to think through things, basically gives you an edge. And that's not necessarily in training. That's in life and romantic relationships, et cetera. When things are going wrong in romantic relationship, the person that's like going crazy
Starting point is 00:05:41 or things are really bad in a relationship will have reactions that are not necessarily helpful and those things add up. And a person is a little bit calmer. We'll think through things, try to come to resolution, we'll do things that are accreative to the relationship or healing to the relationship.
Starting point is 00:05:57 And so that's huge in any field. The other thing is just being very curious and dedicated to it. So you're very good at what you guys do here. You spend a lot of time and effort. You're curious. You're looking at how other people do things. You're incorporating things at work. You're experimenting.
Starting point is 00:06:14 You just become better at something. How did you cultivate this stoicism? Because for me right now, like, it's easy to be stoic when things are good. But right now with like the tariffs and this and that and I see my portfolio. I'm like, oh, my God. Gosh, this is just, he refuses to even open his account. I don't look at my account because I've realized that that's the best way that I can remain stoic in times like this. But if I do check it, I can notice myself getting a little bit emotionally connected to the outcome. And I know that's like for an investor, not what you should want. You kind of just have a method and try and true method. How did you cultivate this stoicism? I think one, training, just reading books, the daily stoic, looking at the quotes, et cetera, just kind of like repeating that. But also losing the ego, losing the ego attachment to the result and learning to enjoy the ride and the process and just kind of sticking with that and being okay with being broke or looking like an idiot or looking
Starting point is 00:07:07 like a fool. And so I kind of developed that over time. You know, I was kind of trained in that as a kid and the environment I was in. And so you just learn not to care what other people think, including yourself. And then you're just kind of detached from all this like fear. What do you mean trained as a kid? Like, how are you? I think, you know, I'm an old guy. right? I was born in 69 and I'm like post civil rights kid where the world was a lot different place growing up. And so there was overt racism like TV shows and stuff that was going on then, right, would just be completely banned or shut out right now. And when, you know, I say this, like when people have kind of like this idea of who you are, let's say you're racist against Indians or blacks or
Starting point is 00:07:57 whatever, right? You learn to know that that's not true. I can either accept that and adopt that attitude or not give a what other people think. Now, little did I know at that time, right, that I was being trained to not give a fuck what people think, right, at all, right? Because it doesn't matter what you do or what you say or, you know, I don't need to prove myself to those other people, right? They have their opinions and that's on them, right? And you read books like, don't take it personal, that kind of quote out of the Four Agreements, one of my favorite books of all time. If anybody asks me, what's the best book on trading? I go, The Four Agreements. What's the best book on this? The Four Agreements. That is a superpower. The don't give a type of people,
Starting point is 00:08:40 I don't care what other people think, including yourself, because a lot of the negative talk that people have comes from themselves. So how did you actually go and make changes from what you were reading, though? Because a lot of people, they face adversity like that, or just adversity in general and it spins them down the negative consequence that sort of life rather than taking it and turning it into a positive like what made you any different nobody learns piano overnight right so if if if if if if i say hey it'll be really great if you ever play piano you're like yeah i really want to learn piano this is great and i come back the next day i'm like you're banging on the piano i'm like this terrible right like you're not going to learn a life i come back in a week you still have it
Starting point is 00:09:20 in a month still haven't learned it but if you keep at it right over the course of you you're going to be like, holy shit, this guy can play piano and he's pretty good. And so I say to realize that whatever behavior you're trying to acquire, whatever mindset you're trying to acquire, you're not going to learn it overnight, right? Like these habits take time and you have to stick with it. And so when you say like, how do you acquire it? It's just practice, practice, practice. So despite all of your challenges in adversity, I mean, Google lists your net worth at over $100 million. And I just have to ask, like, are these Google estimates based in any sort of reality.
Starting point is 00:09:56 Not really. I mean, you can, you can influence what the estimate is. You don't, you kind of don't want your, your net worth out there. Is, is, has it been north of $100 million? Yes, it has been. Has it been, but with these tariffs recently. Yeah. It's going down.
Starting point is 00:10:09 It's a little less than that. Yeah. I mean, I get, I get smashed on days just like the everybody else, right? Like, it's going up and down. I'm looking, I'm like, oh, I have to spend less this year or maybe a lot less from the next five years, you know. Or, or I get to spend more. you know, over the next five years or next year, you know? What's interesting is in your book, you say that you have to pick a time in your life where you
Starting point is 00:10:32 want your net worth to be at its peak. Correct. And then after that, then your net worth should decline as you age, which is completely counterintuitive to a lot of people. They're like, you should always be growing. And as you're growing, you can always just continue scraping a little bit more off the top. What was your age that you picked that you wanted your net worth to be at its peak? It's right about now.
Starting point is 00:10:49 Right about now. And so that can change, right? because it's your biological age, right? Like, if we could just do this simply, like the day before you died, you don't want your net worth going up, right? You want to spend everything you got. But unfortunately, your body decays. It doesn't just die, right? And so long before that, you'll be doing less things and have less use for money, right?
Starting point is 00:11:11 So in terms of your net worth, was this intentional to pick right now? Or was this because the market was going up so rapidly that you couldn't spend? Has nothing to do with market has to do what your biological. age and your body decaying. So how do you test this? This is one of the hardest part. This is reasons why it's not a strict formula. You have to understand, like, there are people smoking, heavily overweight, et cetera,
Starting point is 00:11:36 at 40 who should be spending like rock stars, right? And there are people who are five years older than me who are like, hey, you're actually still in plateau, right? Like they're running Iron Man's, they're running marathons. There's like they have the body of a 30-year-old, right? And they're able to do all the things. right? And so it's really based on like, how are my knees functioning? What's my lung function? Do I have cardiovascular disease? What's my lung capacity? You know, what's my V-O-2 max? Am I able to go to Paris and walk
Starting point is 00:12:05 seven miles and really enjoy Paris? Or am I going to walk one mile? You know, my parents, my mom, it's like, a lot of people have parents where it's hard to even get them on a plane for 10 hours. They don't need any money for traveling, do they? Right. Do they need that international ticket? No. So you can see the utility, their ability to convert their money into experiences or into fulfillment declines as you age. Right. I'm just giving you a couple of examples. And that really depends on your biological age, not just the numerical year you were born. And so a lot of that is just, you know, there's this whole quantified self crowd that, you know, optimize for health like the Gary Brecker's and Peter T.'s and Hubbermans of the world, et cetera, you know, which Peter T. is my doctor.
Starting point is 00:12:48 you know, we do all the stats, etc. And I'm like, okay, you know, I'm a bad boy. Yes, I should be doing more cardio. But given where I am, this is kind of the things I'll be able to do over the course of my life. And this is what the last 10 years in my life is going to look like. So based on that, how long are you expected to live for? I think I'm a 76 to 84 guy. 84 is probably what the charts would say. I've heard for anyone who's under the age of 50 now that they could live past 100 with modern technology. With AI and medicine merge. Yeah, could. And everybody with a biology textbook could get an A in biology, but that's not how it goes, does it? You know what I mean? Like these coulds are just like what is achievable, not what human beings do. Right? It's like, oh, why do some people get A's and why does some people flunk out, right? Like they just don't, they're not, they're out of compliance, right? They don't do their homework. They have other priorities, et cetera. Well, regardless of whatever Google says, you've done really well for your. yourself, made a great living. When did you first become rich versus when did you start to feel rich? I felt rich before I became rich. And I think it was around 25 when, you know, when you started feeling rich. Oh, no, before that, like 22. As soon as I made more money than my mom, it was like the best day of my life. You felt completely. Oh, my gosh, you couldn't have told me. I was like, what sort of lifestyle? And that, and the funny thing is I was still living at home with my mom, not paying rich. I was just about.
Starting point is 00:14:18 to move out to to to the to the the pizza oven that I lived in with jason rufo um but i think you felt richer then or now then i mean just the feeling of just like just the the upward trajectory the the rate of change in my life which is so great and going from straight broke to like fifty something something 50 something thousand dollars that's how much you made to yeah something 40 50 whatever the number is i was like oh i'm a buppy that stands for black urban professional for those people who don't know there's yuppies and bupies and buty's you're and bupies and And I was just ecstatic. Estatic.
Starting point is 00:14:51 I had extra discretionary income. I could take a girl on a date. I could pay for shit. It was the best feeling. I think it was like late 20s, 28, 29. I was rich, you know, millionaire. So you made millions between the ages of 22 and 29? Yes.
Starting point is 00:15:09 What did you do with the money? I didn't really do much the first time. I didn't, you know, I was so inculcated with the hive mind culture, right? I didn't know what to do. go to Vegas, hang out with friends, go to bars, right? Like, I didn't really think about what do I really want, right? I was advertised a lifestyle that I thought I wanted, and I followed that, right? And I was also very obsessed with natural gas trading back then.
Starting point is 00:15:33 I golfed. I hung out with other traders. I went to Vegas. I chased girls. I did those things. Why natural gas over anything else you could be trading? I think, you know, I serendipitously was a peon on the New York Mercantile Exchange. And the natural gas contract was just starting then.
Starting point is 00:15:51 And I looked into it. And I was like, this is the future. New commodity, not that many people into it, place where, you know, there was legacy crude oil traders, right? And this growing efficient fuel was the wave. And I was like, oh, this is where I want to go. And I could, you know, in theory, make a bunch of money. And when did your perspective on money begin to shift?
Starting point is 00:16:13 There was a book called Your Money or Your Life. You probably read it. That completely changed my view of money and what money is. And so if you've read the book, you know that one of the definitions they use that they say holds up all the time is money is something you exchange your time for, right? You change your life. So there's a lot of what I think are didactic exercise is very painful, but you go through them and then you have a visceral understanding of spending your time for money, right? They ask you to count every single nickel and penny that comes into your life, then count every single hour and minute you, you use. in order to achieve that money, right?
Starting point is 00:16:48 Take the taxes out and there's your net true hourly wage. And you've done that, right? You've done that painfully for a period of time. And then after that, you get rid of the dollar signs and it just becomes hours. So whatever you buy is in hours or minutes of your life. And you do that for a while and you go, holy shit. You really get in touch with your values. See, I did that exact same thing.
Starting point is 00:17:10 I must have read that book when I was 14 or 15 years old. And I started looking at every single purchase. as hours of my life. Yeah. But that caused me to not want anything. Because I would look at like a Starbucks coffee
Starting point is 00:17:24 and I'd say, I have to exchange 45 minutes of my life after tax to go and buy one coffee and that coffee might last me 30 minutes. Right. So I'm spending 45 minutes for 30 minutes.
Starting point is 00:17:35 That's a bad deal. But maybe I could buy a pair of shoes for one hour of my life and I get those shoes for a year. That seems like a pretty good tradeoff for like physical things that last. I went the same way as you. I went super frugal when I read it.
Starting point is 00:17:50 And the other thing is it's not it's not about the, it's not about the time equation. Like you, some of the most enjoyable things in your life will only last two minutes. I'm winking at some of the guys out there. One minute. One minute. All right. So, so it's really about the yield on fulfillment, right? Like, because I, you know, around that time I started thinking about like, what is it all for?
Starting point is 00:18:14 Right. There were lots of, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a millionaire in lower Manhattan, right? And I'm busted at the time. And I was thinking, like, well, I want to be rich before I'm 30, which I think a lot of people say that, right? And I think in that statement is kind of this understanding that the ability of them to enjoy the money or converted into meaningful experiences declines as they age. Nobody says I want to be a millionaire by the time of 86. And when it comes to the ice coffee hour, I just want to say that short form content has been one of of our biggest drivers of growth on the ice coffee hour.
Starting point is 00:18:47 Like even this episode with Bill Perkins, we'll often clip up the most memorable moments and post them as shorts throughout TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, you name it. But let's be honest, it also takes a lot of time to do it correctly. That's why tools like our sponsor OpusClip are a game changer. And right now, they're celebrating their two-year anniversary with a huge giveaway. They're giving out a $5,000 cash prize, exclusive swag, and even a MacBook Pro to one lucky winner.
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Starting point is 00:19:58 So I highly recommend it. Thank you so much to Opus Clip for sponsoring this episode. Nobody says I want to be a millionaire by the time I'm 86 or 72 or 73,
Starting point is 00:20:08 right? It's always before I'm 30, fours, 30 under 30, under 40, whatever, right? Some age that's below 40. And when I was walking around lower Manhattan, looking at these very wealthy traders,
Starting point is 00:20:21 I was like, yeah, but what's an extra million going to do for them? I mean, what are they going to do, drive on a nicer car, their kids to school and a nicer car? Where's the fun in that, right? Because I'm a young, 20-something, limbic system driving all my decisions, like, how are you going to get any more girls with that?
Starting point is 00:20:35 You can't take any girls on a yacht when you got kids, you got driving them to school, right? But aside from my goofy, thought process. Like, I had something right. And that was basically the, uh, the utility of money declines as you age to the individual. Like, I'm not an institution. I'm not going to, I'm not like the United States of America or Swiss bank. I'm not going to last 200, 500 years, right? I got an 86 year ride, maybe, if I'm lucky, right? And unfortunately, that ride isn't at a consistent health. It's like, I'm going to reach, uh, physical maturity, mental maturity, and then I'm going to plateau and decline.
Starting point is 00:21:08 And so I'm like, holy shit. I got to get rich fast so I can really enjoy my life. And it's like, what's the purpose of getting rich? Like, all those questions are going on, right? And so that's when I started to think, like, wow, at a certain point, the reward goes away, right? Obviously when you die, but even before that, right? Because, like, you're in a nursing home and everybody's seen they've had parents, etc., you know, or grandparents that are like, can't really convert that money into meaningful
Starting point is 00:21:38 experiences, right, aside from survival. And so I was like, holy shit, then there must be a curve. There must be a utility and money curve. And then when you start thinking about that, like, wait a minute, if you're going to go to work and exchange hours of your life from money and then you don't convert that money into experiences, right? And experiences in the broadest sense, choices, right? Whether it's buying a watch or building bridges for poor people or et cetera, then you essentially waste your hours of your life. And that's the only thing you got, right? And so that they have to think about, then there must be a derivative on this.
Starting point is 00:22:14 There must be a peak. If I'm supposed to spend it before I die, there must be a peak. And is that peak a number? And I'm like, wait, wait, no, no, it's not a number. It doesn't matter what the number does. It doesn't matter what your net worth is. It's focused on your health and the decline rate of your health. And so your net worth peak is not a number.
Starting point is 00:22:31 It's a date, right? It has to do with your health and your age. And so that's how I came to that conclusion, very, you know, I'm condensing it down and leaving some things out. but that's when I was like, holy, right, to be grinding it out in your 70s to make more money for a party at 80 is absurd. Yeah. Right. It's easy to point it out that way with those two numbers.
Starting point is 00:22:52 But it's equally as absurd, you know, what we were talking about earlier, what you're doing. Like, you know, when I became very frugal, my boss, you know, I saved some money on like no salary and my boss called me a idiot. I was like, wait, what? you know, and I ping ponged on autopilot to the other way. I began spending money crazy, which is not what you want to be doing either. That's not what I'm advocating for. What I'm advocating for is people to think about what are the things that they're fulfill them. And what they think those experiences they want to have on their way to the grave,
Starting point is 00:23:25 whether it's in your 20s, 30s, 40s, et cetera, or break them down at five years period, see what they are, right? And then go out and pursue those. What would you see to the people who get more fulfillment from saving than spending? Let's assume they're my very close friends. because at the end of the day, I can't tell you, I can't tell a addict that one's bad for them. I mean, I can tell them, right?
Starting point is 00:23:47 But, you know, they're like, you got a problem. I don't have a problem. I can't feel great, right? You know what I mean? Like, you have a problem with my heart. You know what I mean? That's the people with saving, right? But at the end of the day, what I try and point out is, like, it's suboptimal.
Starting point is 00:24:00 Like, the point of saving, yes, there is some hedonic value to know you're doing the right thing, etc. But the purpose of delayed gratification indefinitely is no gratification. And unfortunately, your body has a vote and it's going to decay. And you will not be able to get that gratification to the extent you can now. And so the purpose of working is the reward. And the reward is not the token. The token is useless. Who gives a shit? You care about the experiences that it's going to afford you, the life it's going to afford you. Like builders don't really give a shit about hammers and saws, except to the fact that it helps them build houses. If they didn't, they'd thrown them away. And so imagine you had to, you know, people that are just saving money to be saving money
Starting point is 00:24:45 are just collecting hammers and saws to never build the building. What if they're collecting options in terms of they're collecting the ability to have the choice to do whatever they want? I think that's great. And I think there is a place for saving, but those options expire, just like you will. And not only will you expire, this time period will expire. So it's not just the one death you have. It's the mini-deaths you have, the single you, the you without kids, the you with small kids, the you with kids out of the house, the you that can actually sprint, the you that will never sprint again for the rest of your life, right? I'm just pointing out some, there's lots of them, right? And so in each period of your life, certain activities,
Starting point is 00:25:26 choices are optimal, you know? And in certain periods, they don't transfer well or they don't transfer at all. And so depending on who you are and what you want to have out of your life, when you get off autopilot, you think about what experiences I want to have in my life, then, you know, you can allocate your funds correctly. You can save for the things that are, you know, you get the spend burn ratio right, right? But just to say I'm preserving options, like, who gives a, like what option you're saying for? List them to me. Tell me what they are. To have this nebulous thing is just fear-based thinking and just trying to justify it by saying, I'm saving for options. I'm like, you're full of f***. You just.
Starting point is 00:26:01 haven't really done the homework about your life. You haven't really thought about what you wanted out of life. And you're hiding behind this like, I have a bunch of money thing to justify the laziness of not really getting off autopilot and thinking about what experiences you want to have any period of your life. Right. Like the purpose of the money, right, is for your fulfillment, right? And part of the fulfillment is planning the activity, doing the activity, and then reliving the activity and talking about the activity. Like before we got on, we were talking about your wedding and how you thought it was great. And he was saying, hey, you thought you could have made it better if you loosened up a little bit, right? And so when you talk about your wedding and it was great, et cetera, you're getting fulfillment from
Starting point is 00:26:40 that, right? Zero cost fulfillment. How did you pay for that? You pay for it earlier when you spent the money and now you're reaping the dividends. And so if you delay gratification pretty far enough, you don't get that many memory dividends. You get less fulfillment. Local news is in decline across Canada. And this is bad news for all of us. With less local news, noise, rumors, and misinformation fill the void, and it gets harder to separate truth from fiction. That's why CBC News is putting more journalists in more places across Canada, reporting on the ground from where you live, telling the stories that matter to all of us, because local news is big news. Choose news, not noise. CBC News.
Starting point is 00:27:24 Less high score and less ability to do some of those activities. Now, this might be oddly specific, but where do you draw the line for operas? opportunity cost if you're in an area or time of your life where your, where your time, working hours are really valuable. Whereas in the future, you don't think you're going to have the same ROI as you do today. Yeah, that's like, these calculations are tough and everybody's going to have to, you know, that's why these like variables come in there, but you just want the mental model. Like, how am I thinking about this? This is okay. 25. I can take, uh, three ski trips when I'm 30 or one ski trip now because I'm going to give time out. Like, is,
Starting point is 00:27:59 what is a better deal for me, right? You might say, well, I'm going to be 30. I'm still physically fit, right? I don't use physical maturity until 33. That's a great return. And I still get many years in a memory dividend. I'm going to grind it out and have three trips later. Plus, as a young male in your 30s, the sexual power dynamics, you know, I'll be able to meet a lot more girls as a 30-year-old with my shit together, as opposed to a 25-year-old went out my shit together. So you might make that decision. When you're 60, you might not make that decision saying three trips at 65 versus one trip now. I don't know. My knee hurts. My back hurts. This might be my last, you know, ski trip. I might not even be able to ski.
Starting point is 00:28:43 You know, the friends that are with me that would go that actually add to the enjoyment, they might not be around. George is 70. He might be dead, you know, whatever it is. Like, I'm just making up these scenarios. So that thought process, right, like not kind of that autopilot like, oh, I'm just going to save, save, save, save. Just thinking it through. And so I think like a 25-year-old will have a lot of arguments and probably tilt towards like, hey, I'm going to take three ski trips later. And Mr. 60-65-year-old might be known. Speaking of death, when is that something that you started to consider? When did that start creeping in that all of a sudden your life isn't just going to last forever?
Starting point is 00:29:18 It was kind of early. But more profound, you know, when I started thinking about like money, its purpose, books like your money or life, fulfillment. and kind of like where are you going to get the maximum enjoyment out of your life? Like, where is most of your fulfillment going to come for your life? And so I thought it was like being aware of your death and that you're going to expire kind of like cuts through your ego, right? Like if you're in a plane crash or like you were terminal disease, you know, you're going to die. You're going to have great health, but you're going to die in a year. Like it's going to cut through all the ego and you're going to live the life you really want
Starting point is 00:29:55 to live, right? You're going to do the things. You're going to say that I love you. you're going to take the risk. You're going to do all the things because you're going to die in a year. And so, you know, you don't live each day as if it was your last. You live each day with death in mind in the future, right? The things you do now are actually influenced by the day you die. It's just a little bit more remote, right? Because a day before you die, you would do certain things, the two days before you would die through certain things, a month before, a year before, et cetera, and so on.
Starting point is 00:30:25 And so how you behave, whether you save the risks you take, the things you do are really influenced by the day you die and the deterioration rate of your body. Right. It's just an integral, right, over time. And so being aware of kind of the idea of like when you're going to die, you know, getting a range of that date and your health is extremely, extremely important for you to have the courage to implement, you know, this holy. I'm not going to be as rich as I was last year. I need to convert them in experiences. Like, I need to live the life I want. It, like, kind of forces you to live and take it seriously. Like, when you're on vacation and the vacation, you know, it was never going to end. You might never, like, when I lived in New York, I never went to New York.
Starting point is 00:31:10 I never went to all these stories, unless somebody came in town. Because I could always do it, right? But then when it came in town, it's like, oh, they're here for a weekend. They go see the things. They go to the plays. They go, whatever. They take full advantage of New York. And so I think kind of life.
Starting point is 00:31:25 is that way. A lot of people think, like, it's always going to be there. I'll always be able to go to Japan. I'll always be able to do X, Y, and Z. Later in life, these things are going to happen, right? And then they let their lives pass them by. One thing that is a bit of a taboo topic, but would you say money buys happiness? I've seen, like, I'd rather be crying in a Ferrari than a civic. What do you think about that? Yeah, I actually think it does, but you need to know how to use it. You know, you have these Chuck E. Cheese tokens, right? And you need to know how to know how to go to the and exchanged them for the comb or the doll that Chuck E. Cheese. And it's kind of like a joke. But what I'm trying to say is that going back to the hammers and saws, right, it's a tool. And so I can give you all the power tools and all the things to build a house. But if you don't know how to use those tools, you will not build a house. And so I can give you a ton of money, right? And if you don't know how to use that tool called money to build a life of happiness, then you won't.
Starting point is 00:32:24 you'll just have a bunch of money. And so what you find is when people point out examples of like money ruined this person or money didn't make them happy is generally they did not know how to use the tool. When do you feel like it starts tapering off in terms of satisfaction with money? Is there a point of diminishing returns? I think it's person specific. Money for all the things you want plus a little bit more, right? So that depends on the things you want.
Starting point is 00:32:50 And what happens is with money is that you discover a lifestyle. and things that you want that you never knew. Like, you don't come out of the womb knowing that you like chocolate and you hate onions and I like France and I don't like Thailand or whatever the mix is, right? You go out in life and you can discover the things you like and you want, right? I remember when I never wanted to leave Jersey City. I thought it was the best place in the world and I never want to leave. Why would anybody leave Jersey City, right?
Starting point is 00:33:17 Went out, discovered, like, what a f***a that was. Nobody needs more than $150,000 a year, blah, blah, blah. make $250,000 have zero left over. You're like, oh, what an idiot I was. I can really use $250,000. That's even being efficient and frugal like you, right? I can still spend it. Then it becomes a million, right?
Starting point is 00:33:36 And so when you say the average person, it's very easy to pick a number that's like double what they have or triple what they have or $2,000 income. Then you meet somebody that's made, making $5 million years, et cetera, and you're like, it's not even close, right? It's not diminishing at the same rate, you know. And I think it's when the person is now having capital that they'll never spend and living that life, right? You can just point it out. They don't even realize it, right, but you can just point it out.
Starting point is 00:34:08 Then we're at enough. I saw a study on CNBC that actually said that in order for people to feel rich, they need double from what they currently make. And they found that across pretty much every single income group, whether you make 100, you need 200. If you make 200, you need 400. 500, you need a million. Yeah. It just kept going. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:34:26 People are not finding the concept of enough, right? Like, they're not in touch with what they want. And part of that, which I think is going on is discovering the world, right? You don't know what it's like to be on a super yacht until you can afford to run a super yacht. And then you're like, holy shit, I would like to be on a super yacht a lot more. You know, I need to make more money to rent super yachts, right? And so, you know, and it's like I'm actually much happier on a super yacht than I was, not on a super yacht, right?
Starting point is 00:34:50 And I'm getting fulfillment out of it, et cetera. I didn't know I like to travel as much as I did. I didn't know I like Japan as much as I did. I didn't know I like X, Y, and C. And so I think part of that is going on, but also people just aren't having a concept enough, right? Like, you know, there is, that is not taught here. It's not part of the culture, the concept of enough. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:35:12 I think Tai Lopez was telling us that 10 million was the point of diminishing returns, where everything beyond that point, you start getting a little less than what you're you could get going from like zero to 10. That wasn't true for me. I thought it was like what he said was a few million, single digit million dollars. That was that was per year income. Oh, 10 million dollars in terms of net worth. Okay. Or two million dollars a year was optimal if you want to do like 99% of things that you could do. That was enough to buy it. I went to Thailand and I saw people that were visibly like I felt were extremely happy and more fulfilled than I was at the time that I went that were at like fractions of income or close to no.
Starting point is 00:35:55 And I've seen scenarios where personally, like, I'm happy. I'm very grateful where I'm at. I live in gratitude. I can't believe the life I get to live. But I'm like, oh, I can convert more into more fulfillment and more happiness. And so, you know, I'm not going to cry if I go back to like sleeping on a couch, right? I'll be like, it sucks, but I'm going to have a great life.
Starting point is 00:36:18 And I'm going to get as much as I can out of his life, no matter where I'm at with the resources I have. But if I'm giving more resources, I'll know how to use them. I agree with travel being a massive, like, opening of the third eye. Like when I, it's interesting because a lot of the time that we spend now, Graham, with like our friend group and stuff like that, like we're around people that for the most part have like comfortable financial lives. And then when I went to travel in like Southeast Asia and like Manila, Philippines and stuff
Starting point is 00:36:46 like that, like I saw a completely different, like way different than the United States too. Like, like, low levels of, like, poverty in United States is completely different. Right. Then, like, low levels in Southeast Asia. And for me to see that. And a lot of the times, it seems like they were, they were pretty content with, like, for me, that was just like, it was mind. Yeah. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:37:06 And it completely, like, re-shaped my entire understanding of, like, you know, what is needed in America. Yeah, it's not need. Like, when we left the caves, we left living in a world of need. We live in a world of want. We don't operate on a need basis. We operate on a want basis. And so a lot of the questions for us in the Western world is like, what do you want? What do you want your ride to look like?
Starting point is 00:37:29 What do you think are the biggest mistakes that rich and poor people are making when it comes to their money? Not realizing that whatever it is, like it's a tool for their life, for their fulfillment, right? They're realizing that like if you're very poor, the first step you're trying to do is survive. right? Like once you have survival covered, the rest is your choices. It's like, what kind of ride do you want to have? Right? How do you want to live your life? And so I think a lot of people think that money is a goal and it's not. It's just one variable out of like the three macro variables, your wealth, your health, and your time, right, to drive fulfillment, right? And so I think people get that formula backwards. And what would you say are the highest ROI ways to spend
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Starting point is 00:39:34 Thank you so much to Notion for sponsoring this episode. We were just talking about that. Like some of the horrors, in terms of fulfillment, the things that I found are, for me, anything that I'm able to do things. experience new things with friends, right? Like, most of the time, like, I joke that if you go to the movie yourself, you're either a critic or a psychopath. That's not true, right?
Starting point is 00:39:57 Like, some people like to go to the movies themselves. But, like, we are wired to connect, right? We have whites in our eyes. We can tell if somebody's looking at us from a faraway distance. I think an evolutionary biologist told me that, like, we're one of the few animals that can do that, right? All babies dance. You can go into a jungle that nobody's,
Starting point is 00:40:15 ever met this tribe, start playing a beat and the baby will start dancing, right? And it's a, it's a method to connect with each other, right? And so a lot of the fulfillment for me and a lot of other humans. I'm not saying that. Every single human is doing interesting things, learning things, having fun with other humans, right? Because we're wired to connect. And so games, very cheap. You can make them up yourself or hikes or walking, right, cost nothing to pay to go into a state park and go see the wonders of the state park with people you love and love hanging out with and share that experience. You can tear up a piece of paper and play a werewolves and write the rolls down and play a game right there. That's a card game for those. It's a board game and you could just
Starting point is 00:41:03 cut up a piece of paper. Yeah, the same thing with cards. Like, well, you can't do with cards because a card. Then people will know, no, you got the sense. But cards, board games, things like that. I think that it was the highest R-R-wise. Then when you get it's like money, it's like boat, boating trip, buying the bike tour. Like when you go into a city and you're visiting friends, get the tour with your friends. Make it a goofy tour. Wear different hats. Like, those are amazing, right?
Starting point is 00:41:30 Those are supersizing your trip. Like, one of the best parts of like a very expensive yacht trip with friends, etc., was like going on shore and taking the bike tour with the guides, with the e-bike tour. It was like, this was the best day ever. you know so now that you're at the point where I there's probably very few things financially that you want that you can't really afford like at that level what are the things that you spend your money on that really give you the most amount of joy I think I think um anything that like I think my boat so the wake surf boat I have a wake surf boat that's awesome I got addicted to wake surfing and that's got to be the highest ROI thing I bought because You can put 16 people on the boat. Everybody's cheering. You're having the times of your life.
Starting point is 00:42:16 It's a memory maker in space. It's memory dividends upon memory dividends and new ones coming out and people, you know, giving them that experience and teaching them how to wake surf, hanging out with my daughter's friends. It's just absurd the return on that boat, right? People look at it and be like, that's a expensive boat. I was like, do you understand how many core memories I've had and great times and other people have had great times and connecting times that are radioactive, like friends meeting friends
Starting point is 00:42:44 and talking on and them learning a wake surf and then doing it on their own, et cetera. It's amazing. How much was the boat? My boat, because I think it was like 300,000 or something. Oh. I have a very fancy boat. Okay. Right.
Starting point is 00:42:56 It's like it's a high or I. And like even a like in St. Thomas, like I was like in St. Thomas. I was like, oh, do I want to get a boat? And I was like, let me get a dingy to see how like I got a dingy. He said cruise around. I'm just called dingy days all around the island. And it's like go to the Ose and a BVI and a dingy and whatever. And I was like, this is amazing.
Starting point is 00:43:14 And then I bought, you know, you know, it's one man's trash is another one's treasure. Like the boat I have that people are like, oh, you got a nice, really nice boat. It was their tender. So I bought this. Yeah, I bought this as of it that was like another guy's tender, right? It's my boat. They're like, that's a great boat. You know what I mean?
Starting point is 00:43:33 It was his tender. And he's like getting a new one. And I have like the most amazing time. You know, friends go down and like take my boat out. have a great time. So for me, that has been, you know, an amazing, amazing memory maker, amazing fulfilling times. One of the best investments that I can make that, like, costs money, right? But there are other things like taking a hike with friends that cost no money that are very fulfilling, that are really amazing times as well. So if you're giving people a blueprint,
Starting point is 00:44:05 where do they start? If there's like five steps that they need to do to reach this, point where they truly optimize their money. First, I think the first step is, like, figure out the day you think you're going to die. There's actual oral tables. You can go see your doctors, et cetera, and your health, right? Like, that is, like, number one, right? Like, when you're going to die? And then the second thing is, like, whatever periods you want to break them down, five years,
Starting point is 00:44:33 10 years, et cetera, break them down and write as much as you can, the type of life you want to have spiritually, physically, physically. activities wise, etc. What you want in those buckets, right? Like you want to have a kid and you want to see your kid go to kindergarten, you want to graduate school,
Starting point is 00:44:50 you want to go to Japan, you want to learn whatever, right? Put those in each period. The further you go out, it gets harder and harder, right? Because it's hard to know what you want. You're going to discover, right? So you have to leave some for discovery, right?
Starting point is 00:45:02 I'm going to try this thing. I'm going to try and learn French, whatever. Right? And then when you discover, it's like, holy shit, your life can go on these past. So you have to, you have to,
Starting point is 00:45:09 you have to constantly update this this thing. But that is the first, first, first, first step, right? Is what do I want out of this ride? Before we spend a nickel, before we even think about the money, what do I want out of this ride? Because you might, right, like on one extreme, it's like, all I want to do is take walks in the park, visit with grandma and play chess. I'm like, well, quit your job.
Starting point is 00:45:33 That miserable job you hate. Let's get this other job. This is the amount of money you need, right? Like this is the whole your money your life, the fire financial independence, retire early. Like what do I really want out of life? Once you know that, right, we can start talking about spending, saving, grinding, not grinding, etc. Right. What does the arc of your life look like?
Starting point is 00:45:54 You know, are you the type of person that's like, I just want to garden, hang out, play chess and checkers with my friends? Or you're like, I want to travel the world and be on yachts, etc. Is that fulfilling for you? You know, so I think knowing who you are and what you want in our life is kind of the first step. And then after that, how do you get over the fear of spending down your money? What helps me, every day when I wake up and I go into my closet, there's a clock that tells me the percent of life I've had left. You can look it up online. There's this guy that makes these clocks and you put in your birthday and it'll say like 50, 70 percent, 69 percent, whatever, wherever I'm at, right?
Starting point is 00:46:34 And I also have your life and weeks calendar. And you mark off each week, right? And I think that, that awareness of your demise and helps you get over fears, right? You get really bold when you know you're going to die. Yeah, that's one of those weird panics I get every now and then is I just think to myself, usually people believe that like your 50s is middle age. But when you look at the average life expectancy is like 78, it really occurs. before the age of 40. Correct.
Starting point is 00:47:06 And like really 39 is kind of like middle age. And then I have this existential panic. Like two o'clock in the morning, I'll wake up and be like, wait a second. And a few years, is it half over? And I freak out. I'm like, wait a second. I can't be half over. Well, don't freak out.
Starting point is 00:47:24 I mean, like, just take it seriously. Just realize like, wow, I have this, you know, you're young. You have a body that can tranchevue. You have this biosuit that responds to your wants. If you want to run, it'll let you run more. You want to lift heavy things? It'll give you muscles to lift heavy more things, right? Like, it will do what you want to do, right?
Starting point is 00:47:42 But eventually, and also it's like it will say, I will last longer in the state for you, too, right? I will carry you further because you are doing things, right? And so you're in a great, great, great spot, right? Like you got like what most Americans don't have down the ability to optimize and get more out of every single dollar you have, right? and you're in touch with things that you value, you don't value. You're like, I don't value that Starbucks coffee, right? A lot of people are on autopilot the other way, right? That's why I've sold more books in Japan than I have in the U.S., right?
Starting point is 00:48:14 I've sold over 500,000 books in Japan and like 200,000, 200,000 books here, right? And it's been out in Japan for far less time that it has been here, right? Because the Japanese are notorious savers, right? Like, they don't have the like, we're a broke problem. And, you know, this book isn't just for the rich people. It's really about how do you allocate your life resources? If you have zero money, you still have a decision on whether or not you go goofing off and playing cards with your friends or you go to go to grandma and hang out with grandma before she dies, right? It's a book about choices.
Starting point is 00:48:52 How long did it take you to write the book Die with Zero? You can say a lifetime because the ideas didn't come like, oh, I got it overnight, right? There were like events that happened in my life and I wrestled with this idea. for a long time. But it took like 18 months, I think from like, okay, I'm going to write this book to getting an outline to, you know, working with a writer, going through it, writing chapters, tearing them out, giving to a friend, him reading it, giving feedback. I'm like, you're right, that doesn't make sense. This is too confusing. Going back and trying to get a book that speaks to the most people, right? I wanted something to save my life, right? And I've said this before,
Starting point is 00:49:30 and people like, what the fuck do you mean save your life? And I'm like, Like, well, listen, if he got hit by bus, right, or whatever, and I went in and did the cardio and then mouth to mouth or whatever, all the things, and he came in life, like, oh, you saved my life. You know what's true? You know what's the most true thing about that? He's still going to die. He's a hundred percent going to die. He's just not going to die that day, right?
Starting point is 00:49:56 And so what does he get when he doesn't die that day? Well, he gets more I love you, more walks into parks, more trips to Japan, more. all the things he wants out of life, right? All the fulfillment that he wants out of life. He gets more to do that before his final destination. Okay? So when I write a book that teach you about optimizing your life and having more fulfillment as opposed to wasting it away, right?
Starting point is 00:50:18 I'm saving your life. I'm saving a piece of your life. I'm giving you more the same as this in the case where I did that for him. And so I thought about that for me and I was like, you're afraid of running out of money. I'm afraid of waste of my life. that is my number one fear is wasting this ride. How often do you not follow the rules of your book? Often, often,
Starting point is 00:50:40 because autopilot, I think, is the default mode of humans, right? I think we become good at things in different areas, and they become automatic, just like driving, right? Like, when you first went on to drive, it was like chaos, right? It was like, I got a signal, and you thought, hit the signal button, check the mirror, you know, is very like, uh, right? And park and whatever. And now you're driving home, you know,
Starting point is 00:51:01 and on the phone. You don't even know how you got to where you were, right? It just becomes automatic, right? Even your job, like editing a video, putting the thumbnails, right? Like, at first it was hard and do I put it here and then you're like cut, cut, snip, snip, snip, whatever, right? And there's some creativity and changes, right? Anybody who does sales or exciting, their job becomes easy to them and becomes a routine.
Starting point is 00:51:21 All their activities are routine, and that helps you survive, right? You don't walk up to a door, like I say in a book and go, is this a door, you know, round things. seems like a door. You're just like door, open door, go, right? Memory of a dividend right there and autopilot, serving you well. But that doesn't help you thrive, right? And so I need to be reminded by my wife, by what I wrote, viscerally to get off autopilot and think about my decisions so that I have the most fulfilling life possible. So that when I'm back on autopilot, I set up the processes and systems that I have a very fulfilling ride. What's your advice to people with a low income? I mean, for everybody, it's the health aspect of it. Like, there's no bigger single determinant on your fulfillment than is your health,
Starting point is 00:52:12 right? And those choices to be healthy, right? And you can be healthy with low money or no money, right? You can hike, you can walk, you can avoid eating. Right. But it's really to think about your life, the same thing to think about what choices can you make and what will be more fulfilling for you, right? It's that mindset, right? Is, you know, should I spend time with my daughter, reading books with my daughter, or hanging out with my friends, or should I be going to grandmother's house? Like, what is going to give me the most fulfilling ride? Right. Right. It's not a rich person's books. It's a living person's book, right? This is a book is about living. right like you know there's lots of quotes about like most people most people most people die in
Starting point is 00:53:03 their 30s and and I'm buried in their 70s you know what I mean right like like do you just don't want to be that and and when you travel the world you're like holy these these poor people are living here right they're having a great time they're doing things they're they're they're happy uh they're having a fulfilling life, right? They're living life. And a lot of people are rich on autopilot, saving, saving, saving for another day, for another life that they're not going to have. How often do you try new experiences to see if you enjoy them? Often. I try and just like what-ofs, you know? I'm very much in around to find out mode. That's kind of like my life. Like, one of the best experiences I had or I discovered is like writing a train. And like there's these
Starting point is 00:53:44 trains that go on tours. And I was like, I don't want to go on a fancy-ass train. You got to wear a or whatever to go in a dining car or just, you know, somewhat formal. And I was like, okay, reluctantly went on this Orient Express for three days and turned out I loved it and discovered this whole world of riding trains cross Canada. There's one. My friends were on in Peru. I did one in Japan was like one of the best trips of our lives. And so I realized that it'd be a world if I knew it all and that I don't know it all. And one of the things I don't know is what I like.
Starting point is 00:54:16 Yeah. What would you say are the biggest waste of money that you've personally spent on? Or things that you spent money on expecting fulfillment, but it ended up just being nothing. Oh, cars. Like, like, I thought, like, when I first got rich, I was like, oh, yeah, I chopped up a Lamborghini. I had a McLaren. And I kept buying these cars thinking, like, I'm going to like the car. And I just felt like a douche driving around in the car.
Starting point is 00:54:39 I didn't like it. They were loaded ground. They couldn't handle potholes. I'm in Houston. And I was just like, I hate this. I really hate it. I don't like it. I feel awkward in it.
Starting point is 00:54:49 And it's just not me, right? Now, somebody else might get value out of it. But I was just like, I didn't know how to be rich for me. I knew how to be rich for what was advertised on TV, right? I was an idiot on autopilot. This is a different kind of autopilot, right? Like I was the super save everything, blah, blah, blah guy autopilot. And I was the idiot spending money on goofy autopilot.
Starting point is 00:55:13 And the only reason why it was goofy is because it wasn't me. I didn't sit down, get in touch with myself, understand like, what do I really enjoy? What do I really like? What is the car really for? So what car do you drive now? I usually Uber or something, but I have a Toyota Sequoia.
Starting point is 00:55:31 The funny thing is I did buy a Ferrari spider that I never drive, just because it's such a beautiful piece of machinery. And you can get enjoyment out of, like, looking at it and stuff? I do. I just don't drive it as much. It's like, you know what I mean?
Starting point is 00:55:45 It's like, To me, it's just weird. It's just weird. I mean, like, if I was a race car guy or whatever, I would just drive it all the time, like, this is what I do. I drive fast cars. But I don't even like driving. I hate driving.
Starting point is 00:55:57 What would you say are your biggest financial failures? I guess I tried to do this big, large infrastructure project in El Salvador and California and took like X years permitting this thing, won a contract, and then they voided the contract, and the whole thing was rigged, and I couldn't do it. Right? I learned a lot on it, but vaporized a ton of money. And then movies. I did movies.
Starting point is 00:56:20 You did movies. But the movies wasn't financially, that wasn't a disaster. The bond part, like back in movies. That was like the biggest. Could you explain the difference? I'm not familiar. So there's financing of movies, right? And there's all the structures, right?
Starting point is 00:56:34 There's the equity. There's the debt and there's a senior debt, right? And I took on a significant position in a firm that did like the debt, right? Thinking it was safe, wiped out. But you produced movies. You funded the production. I did it. I was on the set.
Starting point is 00:56:51 I grinded it. I've edited. What movie? Written sides. I've done the whole thing. Like big movies? That one would be... I don't know.
Starting point is 00:56:56 Bad movies, but big movies and bad movies. I mean, I don't know. Have you ever heard a movie movie called Unthinkable? I'm not a big movie. Baytown Outlaws. Cat Run. Dark Under the Stars. I don't know.
Starting point is 00:57:06 Eight, nine movies. I'm done. And where do you think you went wrong on those investments? Well, the movies weren't like wrong on the investment. Like, you know, I went into a movie knowing you're not going to make money the movie, right? Like, if you look at the movie business as a whole, right, like back in the day when actually they released movies, there would be like 160 to 200 movies released per year. And like the top 50 make all the box office and no independent movie is ever in there, ever,
Starting point is 00:57:34 ever, ever, ever, right? If it's not picked up by a major studio. But there's 600 film, there's there's at least 600 to a thousand films with a budget over a million that get a rating, which means they intended to be released, right, or sold over a million dollars a year. And you're not a studio. So all the movies that are independent, they are in this other field trying to like sell rights and like Europe, et cetera, and grind it out. And the only people making movies and money in the movies are the actors and the unions helping you, you know, key grip. and those guys, right, on salary. Right.
Starting point is 00:58:14 So it was funny because we would be on set and some of the, they would be complaining. Like, you guys are making them money. I was like, I will gladly give you my points if you will work for free. You can, if you guys, if you guys will do all the street, I will gladly give you all my points. What does you expect the ROI to be? Negative 33%. So why would you, why would you put money in an investment that you expect it to lose money? Why do people do art?
Starting point is 00:58:37 It's not an investment, right? Like, if you're, you're, this is why I tell my friends. Like if you're going in a movie business, you either want to go to the parties and sleep with stars. You want to make a piece of art that's never been done, you know, or be a patron art or say something, right? Make a piece, right? Like those are the, there's ways your returns coming from. Because I always tell them, if you're in it for the money. There's more to life than finding the perfect car.
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Starting point is 00:59:55 and TD Easy Trade is made to help. Download it now. You're not going to do that. Actually, I would say if you're in it for the money back in the day, you used to be able to go to Sony and be like, I want to invest in your slate and give them money and they would put you in their slate
Starting point is 01:00:10 and you make like an 8% return, right? They'd have a flop, a flop, a hit or whatever. Because if you don't have that distribution and that power, you're done for. Interesting. Now, there are always exceptions to the rules. Like, if you make a horror movie where people do not care about the actors and the cast, etc., you can make a low-budget horror movie, grind it out, sell it and be profitable and keep doing that. But if you're trying to be creative and I just want to make a movie about this story and this is a great idea, you're done for. So here's another thing is how do you balance enjoyment, saving, saving, spending in different areas of time?
Starting point is 01:00:42 time in your life, like 20s, 30s, 40s, 50, 60s. For me, when I'm considering, okay, I'm 26 years old, I can go out on a Friday night. For example, two nights ago I went out and got a really nice dinner with my friends. And then after that, we went to some bars like over in Las Vegas on the strip. And I stayed out until probably like 3 a.m. Right. And now I'm like, okay, how does that affect my lifespan, right? Like, the amount of money that I spent, like, in your 20, should you be doing these sorts of things that could shorten your lifespan? Yeah. I, you know, I'll also. I'll on Peter Atia's podcast, and we talked about this, and the purpose of your health is to drive your fulfillment, not the other way around. And so it's not about being in maximize health. Like, I don't want to be the healthiest that ever lived, like Brian, Brian Johnson. Brian Johnson, right? Because why? I don't want to be in a lab, like a boy in a bubble, right, in the most shape, right? Not having a fulfillment. So that's an extreme example, right, of me saying that your health is a tool for you to be fulfilled. your wealth is a tool for you to be filled.
Starting point is 01:01:44 Your time is your tool for you to have a fulfilling life. And so for you, that time you're your friends that you can't get back if that was fulfilling. Yes, you know, you'll die a minute earlier. Who cares? It's not about living the longest life. It's about having the most fulfilling life. And if you accept that, right, that axiom, then yes, there's times you should do things that are unhealthy. What about for the audience watching?
Starting point is 01:02:04 They're in their 20s. Let's just start there. What are the experience that you found to maximize your 20s? I mean, every single story I tell, aside from like personal feasts that I need to overcome, involved other friends, involve things, right? Like, we scrounged up to people and we went on a trip here and hilarity ensues and learnings and fun and sometimes fights and disasters and whatever. But like now it's like, oh my God, remember that time, right? So I would do so much more of that that I didn't do in my 20s, right? And, you know, you think your core friend group,
Starting point is 01:02:44 who you're still going to love throughout the rest of your life, you get to spend all this time with them. You don't. You don't. They pair off. They have kids. They have other priorities. They chase jobs.
Starting point is 01:02:54 They have other dreams, et cetera. And so I would create more moments, activities, and excuses to spend time with them. I actually say that most of the things I do or the activities we have, it's just an excuse to hang out with our friends and do comedy show, a trip. boat ride. Yeah, like wake surfing, whatever, but I don't do it alone. Yeah, I like movies, but I don't watch them alone. Yeah, I like
Starting point is 01:03:18 clubs, but I don't do them alone. You know what I mean? And so, I would look for more activities to do that. What about in your 30s? One thing in your book that really hit is that there are times in your life to enjoy certain activities. And there's no sense wasting time,
Starting point is 01:03:34 let's just say, hypothetically, in your 20s going on a train, when your 20s could be spent hiking up a mountain that you can't do in your 60s. Right. I think there's a balance. I don't think it's zero of that, right? But, you know, what you want to, what you want to do is, is like, if you're forced
Starting point is 01:03:50 into a decision, right, point between a more athletic and physically demanding activity versus a more sedentary type activity, you want to shift those more athletic activities to your 20s and 30s and early 40s and the more sedentary activities to later in life, right? if you're trying to get the high score, right? Because just think about it was a video game, like, and we got fulfillment points for activities and we laid them out there, right? If you have your character, right,
Starting point is 01:04:19 and his character has this, the K curve, right? If you have your character trying to do all the physical activities later in life, like, you know what I mean? Then you're not going to get to do them all and you're not going to get the high score, right? Like you reverse them, right? And you'd be able to do them all and you get the high school, right?
Starting point is 01:04:35 And so life is like Tetris, you know? You kind of got to get the order right. It's the same thing, what activities in your life, right? Like if you delay hiking Kilimanjaro to your 80s and heliskiing and walking all these cities, right, like until you're later in life, you're probably not going to get the high score, right? There's kind of that meme that floats around about the couple's sleep in the gondola. Have you ever seen that one? No, I haven't. Look it up on the internet. There's like this older couple asleep and it's like reasons why you should travel when you're young.
Starting point is 01:05:07 One thing that's a little bit harder of a conversation is if you're younger, let's say in your 20s, maybe early 30s, something like that, or even late teens, and you're working a job, and maybe you can save, you know, $500,000 if you're lucky at the end of every month. Like most people out there, like it's hard to have a big financial cushion, maybe even it's just like a couple hundred bucks. Right. How do you justify then spending that money on experiences and activities rather than putting that in something like a Roth IRA or cutting out on certain experiences and activities to then
Starting point is 01:05:41 be able to at least have some sort of like minimum financial standard. How do you draw the line on? Well, I think, you know, in each individual person, they're going to have a certain financial trajectory. Are they going to be making more money in the future or less? Are they going to be making the same? For those who are going to make more money in the future, it's a no-brainer. The experiences you can have higher, have a higher return. on fulfillment, then the 8%, 10% return, you're getting in a Roth IRA. And on top of that, you are taking from your poor self and giving it to your future rich self.
Starting point is 01:06:16 So it's just completely backwards, right? For those who are going to have steady or declining income, then, you know, we're bumping up against survival and we need to save money for survival. So it's really a question of where are we on the survival curve and is our income going to be growing outside of savings, right? So you just have to consider your job. Is it scalable? Do you think that your income is going to be going up over time? You have to have an honest conversation with yourself if you think that you have the skills and wherewithal to be able to make more money when you're old. Correct. And I don't get into like the making money and earning money, but there's like there's side hustles. There's all kinds of ways. Like one thing I realized like for those who are like have, you know, average intelligence and lots of hustle, there's so many ways to make money. Well, a really quick, fun story here. But when Jack and I first started the ice coffee,
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Starting point is 01:08:26 You can change your life forever at Shopify.com slash ICH, a lowercase. There's also a link down below in the description. Thank you so much to Shopify for sponsoring this episode. One thing I realize, like, for those who are like have, you know, average intelligence and lots of hustle, there's so many ways to make money. Do you think that applies to the average person? Because I realize where we're sitting right now. And for those that aren't aware, this is Caleb Hammer's studio.
Starting point is 01:08:49 And all the time is people on this side of the desk that have blown thousands of dollars on trips or experiences. And they're going into credit card debt because they spent all of their money. and then their car broke down. We're not saying to be foolish, right? Like, I mean. So where do you draw the line between like? I mean, like, you, you want to, you want to consider these things, right? Like, there is a line, right?
Starting point is 01:09:13 Like, I've been on both sides, right? I've been on the super frugal and I've been like, I have no money. Like, I have, I literally have no money and I have credit card debt. And I make an obscene amount of money, right, for my age at the time. But what we want to do is thinking like, what are the fulfilling things I can do within my budget? And what is my future income? look like, right? And for each person that's going to be different, am I, you know, am I eventually going to hit a home run type of guy or am I a guy that's like, I'm going to
Starting point is 01:09:39 have a safe job and this is it and this is my income and what I save is going to have to sustain me for the rest of my life, right? And there are all kinds of different people with different type of risk appetites with different types of opportunity sets. It made me think back to something I haven't thought about in probably 15 years or so. I was 11-ish around this time. And I remember. So envious. I went to Chase Bank or Washington Mutual, whatever it was back at the time, a long time ago. And I deposited, I think it was like 50 or so bucks.
Starting point is 01:10:12 Because it was like my birthday money or something. And then I looked at the amount of money I had on my savings account and my brother went with me. I mean, it was Christmas because we both went together. And my balance was like $400. I was lucky. Like my parents, you know, I'd get some money and stuff for my birthday and Christmas. So I had like 400 bucks by like 11 or something like that. And then my brother...
Starting point is 01:10:31 had 700. And he's two and a half years older than me. And I was like, wow, like, if I save my birthday and my Christmas money, in two and a half years, I'll have $700. Right. You know? But I also remember, like, there were games that I wanted. Pokemon had came out.
Starting point is 01:10:46 And, like, I wanted to buy Pokemon, but it was, like, 50 bucks. And, like, all my friends had it. And I became very frugal because I saw my brother was very frugal. And he was able to save $300. And now I think, like, wow, like $300. like like obviously that's a sizable chunk of change you could still do some really cool things with that but like the amount that it means to me now versus the amount that it meant to me when I was 11 or 12 is just like incomparable right you have a you have it's like and now I like I try to apply that between now and you know wherever my future is at while obviously remaining you know like have it was a conscious and like accurate hopefully but yeah it's it's completely I don't know what the right answer is for you but if you are thinking about it and you're modeling it out you are closer to an optimal life than just autopiling it, right? Like you were taught a very good skill and something to have in your toolkit, which is saving at a young age.
Starting point is 01:11:39 But you remember at the expense of a fulfilling childhood, like buying a bike would be much better for you than that $400 bucks. Like you can't remember $400 bucks, right? If you had a bike, you would remember all those times biking around with your friends and all the memories you have. And that's what you'd be talking about instead of this like I had $400 saved in a bank. story that you have right now, right? The skill is useful, but the fulfillment and the memory divisms are completely missing at that age, right? And so what you don't want to have happen is that happen now. And at the same time, being mindful of like, I don't want to be busted. Right. The trick is to be mindful, but it's hard because, like you said, it's developing the skill of
Starting point is 01:12:18 saving or, like, developing the anti-skill of just spending all of your money and getting stuck on this, like, hedonistic pursuit of life. Yeah. The skill is living. The skill we want is living we want to thrive, right? And what thrive means to each individual person is different, right? So I don't give a shit about saving.
Starting point is 01:12:36 I don't give a shit about spending. I care about fulfillment and thriving. Those are just tools for the big F, the big fulfillment, right? My health, my wealth, my time, all my decisions, right? It's all for my fulfillment.
Starting point is 01:12:49 And then the hardest question which I don't write about in the book is, what is fulfilling? I'm like, I don't know. That's up to you, right? Like, there's tons of books on like how to live a fulfilling life.
Starting point is 01:12:58 and you can believe one or whatever, according your values, your religion, whatever, whatever belief system you have, like, you kind of have an idea what you're from with this, but like you need to get off autopilot and think about that what that means in each period of your life. But saving, spending, I don't give a fulfillment. What do you think is more dangerous? Overspending or underspending? From my fear point, it's underspending because the thing I'm worried about is wasting my life. life. Because I think for particularly you guys, right, like, do you have no risk? If I take all your money away from you guys now, you're going to make it back, right? You're going to go get a job. You'll have a well-paying job. You're going to have a great life. I can vaporize your money right
Starting point is 01:13:44 now and you're still going to have a successful life. You have zero risk. Zero. You guys are intelligent people with great skill sets, right? Subject verb agreement. You know, you think through things you are blessed with mental acuity you have zero risk zero it's so funny i see us have a lot of risk i know you you live in fear yeah you you get there's monsters under the bed type of guy you you have monsters under bed but like i look at you guys i'm like these guys i was i was even telling jack i'm like you jack we should prepare for like the podcast maybe not doing as well because of what's happening in the markets and i'm like the last time these have happened like we ended up losing out on quite a few contracts.
Starting point is 01:14:26 It might happen. It might happen. You might lose it all. I'm just saying you're going to be fine. I'll come to you in 10 years and I'll be like, did it matter? But like, no, we figured this out. I got a job here. I got whatever.
Starting point is 01:14:36 Like, you're easily to employ and you're also easy to start another business, whichever path you choose, the safe route, working for somebody else or the wild adventurous side of an entrepreneur. And I think entrepreneurs are like, holy shit, I can die, I can die. The business can die. You won't. In fairness, here's a, here's another thing, is that. Some people just have differences in terms of where they get their enjoyment from in terms of expense.
Starting point is 01:15:00 Like Graham, the things that he likes in his life tend to be a little bit more on the pricey side. Like he wanted an aquarium. And kudos to him for doing this, but he spent a lot of money on this aquarium. He wants experiences, for example, once again, not trying to say the group, but like he took this group out, the index on this very lavish trip. Oh, 40 grand. It's amazing. He dropped 40 grand for two days on this group that he has. And for him, like, that is like what he wants to be doing.
Starting point is 01:15:29 For me, pickleball. And the cost is maybe $300 a year. And that like, like, so it's easier for me to have, you know, I don't see money and happiness in the same sort of thing. Whereas other people, they, their money is directly tied to their, like some people are also more materialistic. Like Graham genuinely does get happiness, like the guy that has that nice cars in the group. Like having nice cars and having nice watches and this and that. I would say to a certain degree, I like collecting things. I'm a collector.
Starting point is 01:15:58 So you have zero, zero, zero, zero risk. Like, you should be taking maximum risk, right? Like, and he has a little bit of risk. But, like, you're young, you're still going to discover things that you like. You didn't know Pickleball existed four years ago. True. Right? So now you're like, it's Pickable, right?
Starting point is 01:16:13 But four years from now, it's going to be the other thing, right? It's always going to be pitiful. He's like, no, it's pickable. I love her. She is my best. It's always going to be Pickleball. But you're going to discover other things that you're, like maybe Pickleball will always be number one, right? But there are other things that drive your
Starting point is 01:16:27 fulfillment, just like he will as well, because life is discovery. And the more you live it, the more you'll discover and the more you learn. It's a very sad, sad, sad world if you discovered it all. So to be intentional about how you should be spending your resources, time, money, etc., mental energy, what do you think? You just read certain books. Do you meditate? Do you write down and just sit in a way? Oh, wow. Like, I think what we went over like one of the first steps is like, be aware of what you die, break your life off into periods. I call them time bucketing, right? And then think about the experiences you want.
Starting point is 01:16:57 But realize, like, you are going to discover what you like. Like, you didn't know your wife at one point, right? Or your girlfriend or pickleball or whatever. Like, you discovered these things and realized, like, that is life, right? Life is going to be discovery. And you're, and I think, like, you know, my belief is, is having a fulfilling life is continual discovery. And so you're going to be out there.
Starting point is 01:17:20 You didn't know you wanted to do a podcast. You didn't know you wanted to have this guest. You didn't know you liked the book Diewood Zero. Do you like it? I hope you like it. Anyway, like, you know? So like, just remember that. Like, that is what's going to be driving it.
Starting point is 01:17:32 Like, there's a, there's a, um, you ever hear the thing like, would you rather be the king of England and 15 something or, or like, lower middle class or poor today? Right. And I think the answer is obvious, uh, you know, poor today. Right. And people cite reasons, different reasons, right? But I think. think one of the main reasons is the speed of travel. The average poor person could live
Starting point is 01:17:58 the entire life of the king in two months. Right. They could take a bus to Florida. And you know what I mean? Yeah. They can probably buy a super saver ticket on Southwest and go, you know, have an adventure and go around, which would take a lifetime for a king, right? And on the way, he did this and all he went to this concert and he did that and then he saw a show and whatever king can do that right aside from that he had straw for tall the paper and would die of like simple things or whatever forget all that just the speed of travel which allows you to move through this world and experience more right allows you to condense more right what period of time in your life has been the best so far now it's always now But I think, you know, I was the good old days.
Starting point is 01:18:49 Like, I think courting my current wife and the engagement and my daughters, you know, one just turned 21, one just turned 18. It seems like it's the best time, right? But I've been grateful for every period. Like sometimes I'll go back and be like, oh, those were the greatest times in high school, hang out, we had no money, et cetera. Like being busted in New York City trying to make. it was like an amazing time in my life. But it was a different, it was filled with activities that
Starting point is 01:19:22 were meant for that period that don't really transfer, like running around and spending money and bringing broke and trying to make it in New York City and chasing girls don't fit into this time period of my life. But it was a great time. It was a great time being young and single in New York. Right. And how do you balance this book with raising your daughters and making sure they don't grow up spoiled, but they appreciate the work and sacrifice that went into this, but also in enjoying life. It's the same thing. Like my message, the physics that govern my body are the same physics that cover my daughter's body, right? Like, they will grow, they will reach mental maturity, uh, calculation power at 28. They will reach physical maturity at 33. They will plateau and decline. And so, you know, I want them to go out and
Starting point is 01:20:06 what resources they have their health, wealth, and time, right? And whatever resources I will give them, right, which would be part of their wealth. To use that to drive their fulfillment. You know, my goal is to give them the value system and the answer is to help them navigate the world and then to let them go out and make their own mistakes. Right? Like, I've made millions and millions of mistakes.
Starting point is 01:20:26 I will continue to do that. I'm a mistake-making machine, but that's part of the ride. Do you think there's an amount of money that you could give them that might stifle some of their creativity? Yes, 100%. Okay.
Starting point is 01:20:36 It's funny because I was talking to a friend and kind of shifted my view a little bit. He's like, look, our kids, you know, they want an iPad. They get an iPad. You know, they, we didn't have iPad. Like, you know, even if we were well off, like, we, necessity was part and struggle was part of the ingredients that made us, right?
Starting point is 01:20:59 There wasn't like the only ingredient, but it was part of the ingredient. And they are missing in many ways, not completely, that ingredient, right? That gave us like whatever advantage, right? The sum advantage. And so, you know, my friend is like, you have to pay for that. you have to cover that because you rob them of the struggle. Right? And you don't mean to rob them, but like if you made it, like, you don't want to like, it's like, oh, I don't want to live a busted life.
Starting point is 01:21:28 What was the purpose of making it? Like, I could have, I could have made that choice. I could have said, you know what, living a farm. We're going to grow our own potatoes. We're going to live a simple life or whatever. And my kids will be like, okay, I have this grit and necessity. And if I want an iPad, I got to go hustle. And then if I want these things, I got to go hustle.
Starting point is 01:21:45 and they would have that as part of their, you know, repertoire at a greater, greater index than than what they have now. And they can go out and make it. And I've robbed them of that because I didn't want to go live on a farm. You know, I'm using extreme examples, right, but you get the idea. And so if I keep giving them money, I would completely, they would lose it all, right? You know what I mean? They would lose it completely, right?
Starting point is 01:22:07 Like, not have that necessity. And I think it's, it's part of the ingredient of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, navigating the world. And how do you balance giving to your children versus giving to yourself? I pick an amount that I'm going to give them. I don't know what the, like in the book, I talk about when you should be giving the inheritance to the kids and not make it a bequest, which is absurd, but not the amount, right? It could be zero. It could be a zillion dollars. I think that's very personal. But for me, the thing is, is you need to come up with a number. So you're not just using that excuse of, Oh, it's just going to go to my kids when I die and they're 60, which is absurd.
Starting point is 01:22:47 It's just an absurd thing. They're not kids then, right? Like more than two-thirds of their life has passed them by, right? And their ability to enjoy that money is declined, et cetera. You're giving them money at the wrong, wrong time. And it's completely not thought out. It's not deliberate. It's random.
Starting point is 01:23:04 It's silly. What you should do is figure out what you want to give them and then spend all your money down until you die. And then they have their money. It's protected. You get sued. I mean, it doesn't take that money. You know, you do something stupid and you lose all your money.
Starting point is 01:23:18 Their money is protected. It's separate. It's their money. It doesn't mean they get to go spend it when they're 19 or 20. It's in a trust and it turns over to them when it turns over to them, right? And if you don't have all the money made, you just get put money in yearly until it gets there, right? If there's some uncertainty, but there's ways to do it. But the whole book is about living off autopilot and being deliberate and thinking these things through, not just be like, oh, when I die, my money, I'll go to my kids.
Starting point is 01:23:40 right that worked when you know a couple hundred years ago where you were a farmer your kids were a farmer they're going to be kids were going to be a farmer etc right so like you died they take over the farm they do the same thing and he takes a farmer he's a blacksmith my son's a blacksmith they'll always be blacksmiths we're the smiths right like that's not how it works nowadays right you know yeah you don't just turn over the family enterprise and that's what they do now since you wrote the book is there anything that has changed your perspective or that you would change about the book if you had the power to snap your fingers and edit it. No, I've never been, like, I've done, I think, over 54 podcasts.
Starting point is 01:24:14 I've done a couple talks. I don't like doing talks in the beginning. Like, they want you to go around and do all talks. Nothing where I've been done to stump them, like, oh, my gosh, I should change this, you know, as a principle. Like, I think it's, like, very axiomatic. It's not, like, new. It's full life cycle hypothesis, like, laid out, right?
Starting point is 01:24:32 Like, have you guys heard of that? It's essentially income smoothing about, like, basically, you know, taking from you're rich yourself in the future and giving to you now so that you have a more fulfilling life, et cetera. Two guys, I think they want a prize for it. So you can look it up. But what is the life cycle hypothesis? It's essentially, it's basically the income smoothing.
Starting point is 01:24:54 Like when you're in your poorer self right now, you should be going to somewhat in debt, okay, because your income is going to grow and you're going to be able to extinguish it in order to get the experiences you want to have now. So it's exactly. It's essentially what you're. Yeah, like, it's like, I didn't know about full life cycle hypothesis. I learned about it when I hired an economist when I wanted to make this program. And I was like, holy shit. It's like, to me, it was like a sign that like I am thinking about this life problem correctly. Right. Like if people discover the laws of physics, right, they didn't invent them, right? Like you just, you discover a truth, right? And so I discovered a truth. I think, you know, I have friends that are like, we want the 600 page version of this. We want like, I didn't want. Like, I didn't want. I didn't want. to write it like a cookbook, like do this, do that, do this, do that. Like, it's modeled a lot on your money or life where there's like exercises at the end or like suggestions at the end. So there's
Starting point is 01:25:48 a couple suggestions at the end. But whenever I go give a talk, they're like, I want the cookbook. You know what I mean? I want more examples of how to do this, right? I want more examples to how to spend my money or how to save. I want more examples of annuities and things or how they work. I want more examples of grant or annuity trusts or ways to transfer your money. Like a 600 page version will give people like kind of like what to do. But I didn't think most of the value is getting the concept. Right. It's like just getting the concept.
Starting point is 01:26:20 Right. Once you get force equals mv squared, right? Then you do all kinds of wonderful things. Right. Once you get E equals MC squared, you get satellites that get the timing right and all these other kind of things. So it's like really about getting the formula right. and the concepts rights, and then people can apply them individually as they see fit. So where do you invest your own money?
Starting point is 01:26:40 I am not an example. Like, I tell this people, like I, I, like oil futures. I'm not a role model. I think I can be an inspiration, right? I make way too many mistakes to be a role model. Like, do not live my life. You are. But I think I can be an inspiration.
Starting point is 01:26:58 You know what I mean? I think I can be inspiring. And so, you know, I take maximum. some of risk, right? Like most of my money is either tied up in my fund, right, or the, the things I have that. I have a lot of private placement, too. Like, I probably have way too much money in venture capital and private placement, right? Like, because now, like you, say, like, I'm a liquidate. Like, what do I want to go here? I don't, I can't get the cash, right? And so, that's generally where it is. And now I've actually put a needle scratch to all that because of my age.
Starting point is 01:27:29 A lot of friends are like, oh, yeah, and you're going to make money in 10, you? I'm I'm like 10 years. Yeah. Trying to have a party now. So do you have just cash on the side that you're like, this is my money that I don't touch that is there for a rainy day if I absolutely need it just in case? I used to. I don't.
Starting point is 01:27:45 Because I have houses and assets that I can liquidate in a fire sale. And even if it's half, it's like I'm okay. I'm quite okay and quite planning to have a lot less money. Not right now, but like if it happens, it happens. I'm not ego attached to it. It seems like this has been something. it has been you for decades, though. I mean, just to be able to trade.
Starting point is 01:28:07 Yes. Like, I've been trading. Like that and take on that risk, I think your risk tolerance is probably 10 times higher than mine. Yeah, it's very high. And, you know, one of the things people say, like, what would you say to somebody in their 20s or 30s? Like, what advice do you give to them?
Starting point is 01:28:21 I say, in every area of your life, take the most risk you can possibly stand and then add a little bit more. So I guess here's my philosophy. I feel like you could take a ton of risk when it comes to your time and career. But then when it comes to your money and investments, you could play it safe there. And so that's like maybe a good balance where like go gung-ho on like making as much money as you can. But then once you have it... I would say take all that money and invest it in yourself.
Starting point is 01:28:48 Go start the business that you have inside your head. That's the riskiest thing you could probably do, right? That's going to give you the most yield. I'd say, fuck the savings. But that's just me. Remember? That's just me. You can always go get a job.
Starting point is 01:29:02 you're not going to be broke. You will never be broke and he will never be broke because you can always go get a job. So what's the safety for? Do you have any advice for people who want to start their own business? Make sure you're the type of guy that can be an entrepreneur and take the risk. I think a lot of people, it's romanticized a lot and not everybody is cut out to do that. Maybe you're the guy that needs to get paid first, right? Not the entrepreneur that's dipping into a savings to pay the employees and do the vision, et cetera, that hold it and like do your best. Like a lot of people think an idea is the thing and it's actually the execution. I'm sure you're very well aware of that, right?
Starting point is 01:29:37 Like, podcast sounds like a great idea, but people don't realize like how much work goes into editing, getting the thumbnails, getting the guests, coordinating with the gas, running around, you know, dealing with sponsors, you know, not being too commercial so people turn out, like just so much that goes into making this podcast entertaining and running it as a business than just like,
Starting point is 01:29:56 I got a great idea, right? And so make sure you're that type of person and that you can take that risk. How do you know if you're that type of person? I mean, you can develop it. Like, you know, are you the type of person that's okay going Busto for a bit or having to go back to work? You know, I always like people like yourself that are like, you can easily get a 50, 60, 70, 80, $800,000, $200,000, $200,000 year job. Like, you have no risk.
Starting point is 01:30:24 There's no real financial risk. You only have you go risk, you know? It seems like the common thread between everything you're saying is just being hyperintentional. Yes. About everything. You got the book. You got the book. The book is about being intentional, living an intentional life.
Starting point is 01:30:38 And there's a lot of other books out there that come at it from a different angle, right? They talk about different things about intentionality, being aware, being conscious, living a conscious life. But that is the whole book in a nutshell. What have you learned from Dan Bolzerian? I've learned that I don't want to be too famous. That's one of the reasons why I don't, like somebody's like, you did TED Talk. I was like, no way while I do a TED talk. I wanted to do a TED talking originally, but like, I don't want to be famous.
Starting point is 01:31:03 I don't want to be too famous, right? You want to be like Z level famous. You get a nod, a little dopamine hit. You're legitimized, but like you can be anonymous. Like you can walk around. Like one in 300 people recognize you, right? What's the risk with being too famous? For the life I want to leave, it robs you of your life.
Starting point is 01:31:22 I will completely lose because you cannot enjoy life. Like, you cannot, when you are famous, like, it's constant people coming up to you. wanting a picture, wanted to talk to you, trying to force a conversation to connect with you. So they're not bad people, right? But like, they get to see somebody's famous and they want to take a picture. Like, when else are they going to bump into you? And they want to have a conversation about somehow you're connected or how they know you. And you're robbed constantly. Like, you're in a bubble. You have security and you can't go anywhere and you can't do things. And like, I like to travel Europe and walk around the shops and meet the people and not be known. And
Starting point is 01:31:58 And it's a great, great life of discovery. But like if I was famous, it's gone in a heartbeat. And then I have too much money because I can't spend it on the things I like doing. And then you have to worry about people who are, you just were hurt animals, right? Like we get fame brain. So people act different around you and you can't have authentic connections with new people because the fame is always in the way. You know? And so it's of.
Starting point is 01:32:24 It's really, really bad. The only thing fame gets you is sex with the eye. opposite. So if you're a famous woman or a famous man, you can have all the sex you want with all types of people. What else did you learn from Dan? Kind of the idea of what is more powerful as a sexual attractant, whether it's fame or money. And we always knew it was fame, not money, right? You always know, like, the broke drummer in the band is going to get way more laid than the rich guy, right? He's the first guy's not even getting in the club because he's not cool, right? He's got to buy his way in if he can.
Starting point is 01:33:01 But we didn't realize like it was a hundred times more powerful or a thousand times more powerful. It is way, way, way, way more powerful than anything. We had Greg Doucet on and not that he's like a love guru or anything, but he said he read a study that what was it, $30,000 in income, every increment up $30,000 is the equivalent of one extra inch on your height. And he says that height is like super important. That's what he said. Yeah, I think for the average person, non-famous, height matters. Dan's short, right? But he's famous.
Starting point is 01:33:40 It doesn't matter. I don't care how tall you are. You'd be six for three, trust fund, whatever. The famous guy wins. Prince was short. He f*** everybody, guys and girls. I'd be curious to see. Like, these guys are short.
Starting point is 01:33:52 Like, most actors that you see that are, like, you know, people are screaming at and girls are throwing their bras at, they're short. It doesn't work while long. Tom Cruise is short, you know? I'd be curious to see the correlation between one inch of height and 10,000 followers and just see, like, where the optimal is. Because I'm sure being six foot two is equivalent to like, yeah, for the average person that's out there, like, just overall. There's got to be some sort of. A comedian said this, I'm going to steal it. But he's like, height is to guys what titties are to women.
Starting point is 01:34:22 hide it's just titties. You know what I mean? It's like, you know, like it's like, it's like, oh, wow, he's got nice dits. Like it's an attractive, right? Like, and so like, you know, I don't know. Like those things matter. But, you know, the experiment that Dan ran was, what does fame do for you? Right.
Starting point is 01:34:43 Like in the pursuit of getting famous in order to, to get women. And that hedonic treadmill, fame is extremely powerful. And it taught me that I don't want to be famous. Like I was wanted to go that route And then I was like, oh, no, no, no, no, no. So for the people who come up to you and recognize you, what are some of the most impactful stories that you've heard from people who have read your book and changed them?
Starting point is 01:35:04 Yeah, like, originally it was like, oh, because I'm a trader. Like people knew me from natural gas and trading, like very small niche. And then it was poker because I played poker on TV in the movies, et cetera. And then recently it's all been like, you're real poker and you wrote the book, Die Wood Zero. I get a lot of stories about how, people have completely needle scratched their life and woken up and now they're pursuing their life. And so it could be time of like, now I spend time with my family or I take my whole family on
Starting point is 01:35:33 his trip or now we're doing this. You know, I'm, I haven't been living and now I'm living. But it's some version of they were on autopilot and now they're not, right? And it's, it's an amazing. It's a great feeling. Like, it's overwhelming, though, it's a little bit because it's like, oh, I can't, you know what I mean? Like, one of those guys that can't take it up. Little old me. Yeah. I just can't take it. It's like, it was, this. This was a side project, right? This was like a side thing. Like, fuck it.
Starting point is 01:35:56 It's like, it's a side quest. Yeah, it was definitely a side quest. Like, I'm going to write this book. I'm going to save my life. Like, the doctor's like, you need to write a book. I'm finally going to write a book. I've been talking forever. It's time to back it up.
Starting point is 01:36:06 You know, went through the grueling process, wrote the book. I really wanted to get out there. But now I'm like, holy shit, it's out there. You know what I mean? It's coming back. Ever had someone come up to you and say, hey, man, I spent too much money. Never. Never in my life.
Starting point is 01:36:19 I mean, I get, I mean, I get the beggars in Instagram, like, I went broke gambling or whatever or something like that, but never. It's like, I read my book, your book, because it's not about spending all your money like an idiot. You know what I mean? It's about having the most fulfilling life. Like the title is catching, right? It's supposed to catch you in an airport. It's like, what the fuck does he mean die with zero? This is, you know, read the book.
Starting point is 01:36:40 Holy shit. It's not what it says it, right? Like, so the book is about, you know, if I wanted to have like a kind of like, I don't know, what is the, the own network type title. You know what I mean? It would be like, have the most fulfilling life. You know what I mean?
Starting point is 01:36:57 Get the most fulfilling life. Or fulfillment, it's for you or something like that, right? And I'm like, no, let's stick with the axiomatic principle is that you should use all your resources up before you die. I'm in a lot of financial independence groups
Starting point is 01:37:12 and your book is the only one that's consistently mentioned, probably on a daily basis. Yeah, like the fire guys. Yeah. There was a Mr. Money mustache, right? Like, he's one of the guys who read the book and, like, kind of shifted. And, you know, they always like, have this, like, allergic reaction at first to the book, right?
Starting point is 01:37:26 Because they're baptized in fire. Like, I was baptized in fire. And, like, I just tell them, like, what happens to the principal? This episode is brought to you by FedEx. These days, the power move isn't having a big metallic credit card to drop on the check at a corporate launch. The real power move is leveling up your business with Fed. FedEx intelligence and accessing one of the biggest data networks powered by one of the biggest delivery networks. Level up your business with FedEx, the new power move.
Starting point is 01:38:03 Whatever, you know, they're always like, I'm going to spend 3% of my money. I'm like, what happens to the principal? So whatever you have of the principal, right, like whether it's a million, 500,000, whatever, take the hours of your life that it took to build up that principle. That's a waste. You have to spend down the principle. The principal has to go to. And they're always like, ah, you know what I mean? They freak out, right?
Starting point is 01:38:24 Because they've been there, they have this religious belief about this 3%, 4%, whatever rule they are that keeps them safe and living that life. And I'm like, the goal is fulfillment, not to have a nest egg. The goal is not the money. The goal is fulfillment. And the only way to use all up your resources is to spend all the money, have great health, and be, be conscious about your life. In terms of being healthy, what have you found to be the,
Starting point is 01:38:49 the best ROI activities. Let's say a gym membership. Is it food? No, no. It's walking and hiking by far because it's free. You actually enjoy it with friends. You can do it with a group. Like, let's go hike.
Starting point is 01:39:02 People go in California running in Canyon. Let's go hike all these trails around here. You experience nature. You're actually having an experience, like a fulfilling experience, while also improving your health. And, you know, like all the doctors are like sitting as death. You know, people like this gym or that gym. I'm just like free activity.
Starting point is 01:39:18 And, you know, running and walking, if walking three miles and running miles is almost the same thing, right? It's the same amount of energy, right? Except for running is inefficient from going up and down. So it's like 10% more or whatever or how inefficiently you run 10 or 15. So walking, running, it's just a physics equation, right? And so you're creating a memory, having a fulfilling time, and preparing yourself for future enjoyment by getting yourself in shape and your lung capacity, right? than, you know, calisthenics and all these other things like that. And so I think those are, that is a very, very, very high RRI is hiking.
Starting point is 01:39:56 What's your skincare routine? I don't have, I mean, I just wash it and then I put some. Like very, very young. Oh, that's, I mean, well, I think, I haven't been told this. I think one, I have good genetics, I think. I'm just lucky. Two, though, I don't smoke. I don't really drink that much.
Starting point is 01:40:14 I'm a vegetarian. So I think these things matter, right? And then so, like, if you're out there smoking, you're up late at night, and you're drinking, and then it's a... And then you just hydrate your face, and then you should be okay. Do you have, like, wear sunscreen? Because you have no wrinkles. It's like, I have some wrinkles here, you know, do this, whatever. But, like, just hide your face.
Starting point is 01:40:34 Just, like, get some vitamin E oil and put it on in the morning, and you're fine. Like, Botox, facials, or, like, nothing like that. You get the Botox. You get the Botox up here. Yeah. But I still got it right there. Like if you, but you get the oil, man. Just get the oil.
Starting point is 01:40:47 Don't smoke. Do you smoke? No. Do you drink a lot? Rarely. Okay. Just do you, and then just like, you know. Might have one drink a month.
Starting point is 01:40:55 I mean, that's it. Eat right exercise, you know. Eating diet, there's, there's, you can't really, like, as you get older, like, unless you're a limpid athlete, you can't, you can't, you can't outdo your diet. Right? It's like 80, 85% of it. Like, you just can't do it. Like, if you're eating shit in a bunch of chemicals, it's going to get.
Starting point is 01:41:14 you it's going to pierce through your skin it's going to your liver it's going to you know it's going to put your metabolism like you're young yeah you can you can but eventually it catches up do you have any questions for us or any comment yeah like why did you start this podcast well this was really the the brainchild of jack back in 2020 my theory is that he saw that joe rogan sold his podcast exclusivity to spotify and he came to me he was like dude we got to start a podcast and this was may of 2020 and i said sure let's give it a shot Is that what happened, Jack? No, that is not what happened.
Starting point is 01:41:47 All right. But it was funny because we, we, it was like nearly exactly after he sold his podcast is when we first uploaded our video. And like, we were, you know, Graham was a finance channel. And so I have all the top comment was like, Graham Steffen, sees Joe Rogan sells podcast for 100 million starts a podcast. But in this case, no, is because I watched a lot of podcasts or I listened to a lot of podcasts. Right. Throughout the day I'd go on a walk and just binge that type of stuff. and I figured that Graham could connect with his audience better if he had a more candid conversation. Because the content he was putting out online was all heavily scripted and planned.
Starting point is 01:42:26 But I thought he could cultivate a stronger connection with his audience if it was more just kind of impromptu. And we always had kind of funny random banter. And people were also aware of my existence, even though I wasn't publicly facing just because Graham would randomly bring me up. I'm like, oh, well, maybe we could try this out. What's the number one activities or activity or activities you want to have in your 20s? I want to travel a lot. That's the only thing is I went on my first ever like real vacation, maybe a year and some change ago. And it like I felt like I had finally experienced a sort of happiness and fulfillment that I just didn't even know existed.
Starting point is 01:43:05 And this was like my first, I would say, awakening because I never. words can't describe how, like, how happy I was for like two weeks straight just traveling with my best friend, like going all around. Your pictures of the choir, I get it. And then since then I'm just like, wow, I want to do that more. You know, and I think that every time I go on a little trip, like, it's going to get, I'm not going to enjoy as much as that first time,
Starting point is 01:43:28 but like every single time I get out of the day and have a purely personal vacation, it's incredible. Well, you know what I'm saying travel is the only thing you can spend money on that makes you richer. That's awesome, yeah. What about you? I would see Japan was definitely a really fun experience. I want to do that again, but I don't know. Part of me, because I was thinking through as you were saying that.
Starting point is 01:43:48 Like, some of my best days are when I just lock myself in the office and just crank out a video. And it's one of those times where it's like you get in the flow state and just you lose track of time and you're so in it. And then at the end of the day, you have like a finished product that I'm really proud of. And then it's fun to put it out there and to see. how it does and get like the immediate feedback. So some of my like favorite days are just like being able to have the opportunity to do that. So creating also yeah, but then I also sometimes don't know if that's because I love the creation process and being in the zone or if I'm conditioned to feel good about being productive and working. Yeah, that's a that's a good point. I don't know. Because I think like a lot
Starting point is 01:44:29 of people get habituated. Yeah. Uh, into, you know, let's say you're selling plastics and you're like, you get good at selling plastics. And then all of a sudden you're like, I love someone. I love someone. And it's like, did I just get inceptioned and habituated to be a rat in a wheel selling plastics and thinking I love selling plastics at the expense of the rest of the world? I don't know. Yeah. People enjoy what they're good at. And that's kind of just like a natural human thing. If you're good at something, it usually ends up being fun to you.
Starting point is 01:44:55 But then what happens is that you believe that that is the thing. Yes. I don't know. I always love having something to do. And there was a, this is about a year ago, I painted the entire garage. And the garage is like 20 feet tall. It's like a big garage. And I spent all weekend.
Starting point is 01:45:14 I'm probably talking maybe like 18 hours, maybe 20 hours, painting this garage. I loved it. But I also don't know if I like just being busy and feeling like I'm doing stuff. You can do some great travel, charity work. You would love that. You were like doctors without borders or, you know, doing some charity work where you're like busy and doing something and fulfilling. I think you might like it. But my other thing is that I like having the ability to stop at any point.
Starting point is 01:45:38 and just return to whatever I was doing. So it's like, so like freedom, freedom and creativity. Yeah. So if I had the ability to like, yeah, go across the country, but I can snap my fingers and be back in a heartbeat, I would do it. Like, so I like having that freedom of just, I wake up in the morning and I just say, I want to do this or I want to do this. And that's some of the hard thing with even traveling in the podcast.
Starting point is 01:46:01 Sometimes I'm like, yes, I really want to travel on other days. I'm like, I just don't feel like it. So it's hard to lock myself in six months from now because, I don't know how I'm going to feel. What do you think you got this fear from? What do you think is driving your fear? I think I just naturally always kind of been like this. I mean, because I'm thinking like, I'm trying to go through my childhood.
Starting point is 01:46:20 And we certainly didn't have money. I know money was definitely, it was scarce. But I didn't even realize that until probably I was like 15 years old. And my wanting to save money has been around since like five. Like I do remember my grandpa having like rare coins. And me thinking that's so cool that there's like a 19. So I'm going to save these. You're like saving Christmases and birthday money.
Starting point is 01:46:42 So I've always been like that. It's a great skill of how it's not. I don't know. Part of me thinks that like maybe I was a bit wired for the propensity of like saving money or delayed gratification. And that's just how my mind works. But I can't think of like there's a trigger point of like, oh, this happened and I like shifted my. Because I've tried to think through this. So have you, and you don't have to list them all, but if you have something, when you say delayed gratification, I'm just like, okay, what are you delaying? What's the gratification? I would know what the prize is. Like immediately what I really want right now. The only thing I want is a really nice house with a big yard and a view of the Las Vegas strip with a coy pond somewhere in front. He's got it down. Very specific. He's got it down. I check Zillow every day because I'm thinking like, listen, if the perfect house comes up like, I'll, I'll jump on it.
Starting point is 01:47:37 Like, but it's got to be perfect. But then I'm thinking, okay, that house is probably going to be about four to seven million bucks. Let's just say for like that sort of house with like greenery. It's really inspiring. I'm thinking, do I need that now? No. It's like it's better for me to like still play it smart to, you know, optimize what I'm doing with work to invest the money. And like that house isn't going to go anywhere over the next 10 years.
Starting point is 01:48:04 I mean, it's always going to be about it. Like you're wearing it up. Yeah. What's going to be the most fulfilling, right? Yeah, so I'm thinking, like, that's a delayed gratification thing where it's like, it would be irresponsible for me to jump on that now when I feel like I could still enjoy that just as much when I'm like 45. Travel is another one where it's like I would love to fly first class. If money were just like nothing and I could set my fingers, it's everything is free, like, yeah, I would love to do that. But at the same time, like business or premium economy, that's what it is.
Starting point is 01:48:34 The premium economy is like 80% of the experience for like 10% of the cost. And so I look at that and I'm thinking, that's a better deal. Yeah. So I do the premium economy. Just curious, Grant, when you have those days where you lock in and I know you enjoy these, and I don't doubt that for a second, but do you have like memory dividends from those days? Certain days, yeah. So here's a good example of this.
Starting point is 01:49:00 when the Japanese yen was absolutely collapsing, it was like 11 p.m. at night, East Coast. And I was telling Jack, dude, I got to get out of video on this. I got to get it out. And Jack's like, it really doesn't make any difference either way. If you post the video, great. If you don't post the video, like, it's not going to make a material change in your life. And I was like, you know what, that's true.
Starting point is 01:49:22 But, man, I had a great time filming that video. And even the memory card, I filmed the whole video. And the memory card corrupted. And I had to refill this thing and edit at like one o'clock in the morning. Wow. I look back at that. And it was a fantastic video. I remember the time of you because I was sending notes in our Tokyo travel group and
Starting point is 01:49:41 we're like, we should go back to Japan now. It's on sale. We can have the same experience for like 20% off, you know? But yeah, but certain times like that, I'm so glad I did that because I remember that. I had a great time. I spent like an hour setting up in an Airbnb, like a little studio set with just whatever I could find in the kids. That was a great time.
Starting point is 01:50:03 I even did this last night and my memory card corrupted again. It's terrible. You might have to invest in a new system. The first time was a fluke the second time I just was. Wrong setting. Did you guys go to Team Labs, Borderless,
Starting point is 01:50:16 in Tokyo? Love Team Labs. Amazing, isn't it? Yeah. Did you do Team Labs? No. That's the interactive. I know.
Starting point is 01:50:22 Which one did you do? Did you go to Borderless? No, I just went to the one. They have planets and borderless. Planets. You've got to go to Borderless. Okay. Borderless is the real deal.
Starting point is 01:50:31 Okay. I'll do that. I mean, Plants is great. I mean, borderless is next, next, I will 100% do that, yeah. Because it was closed for a while.
Starting point is 01:50:37 They were redoing it. Yeah, I'm going to go later this year. Yeah. Yeah, Team Loves, borderless is just absurd. It's absurd. Where's your favorite place to travel? Wow. It depends on what type of vacation you have.
Starting point is 01:50:50 Like, Japan is my favorite. I did the countryside. I did Kyoto, Fukuoka, Tokyo, visited with the Gashis in Kyoto. Yeah. It was amazing. But, That's a different type of trip.
Starting point is 01:51:01 The reason why I love Japan so much is it's like a modern culture, first world culture, that is completely different than any place else, right? I think you would have had that experience before they became a monoculture in the world. Like when you go to Europe, you go in some place, you're going to hear hip hop, right? Like, it's very, they're losing the, the distinct, you know, the French being the French. I mean, there's French things, right? French culture, Germans being Germans. I think in the 40s and 50s, it was very distinct and very unique and not Americanized so much.
Starting point is 01:51:37 But Japan is wildly different, wildly different, right, and modern. So it's kind of odd, right, the way they think, the whole existence of it. And it's really amazing to discover. But the Met is amazing. Like Italy, the Malfi Coast, that whole area is an amazing playground. Amazing to go to Discovery, go to Pompeii. learn all kinds of different terrain, Greece, that whole area, then into the other side. Croatia is amazing.
Starting point is 01:52:05 I mean, that whole European area. Then also, I love Denmark and Amsterdam in the summer, only in the summer. You know, Europe's great. There's a lot of travel around there. Is there anywhere you wouldn't go? I think I wouldn't go places where the death rate or was extremely high. Like, I would even go to places where it's like, this is going to be a struggle. Like, I'm not going to like it at first, like, resistant.
Starting point is 01:52:29 but just to do it. You didn't mean? And feel it. You know, the last time I went on safari, there were so many bugs in my room. It was crazy. And I'm not a bug guy. And then by the third day,
Starting point is 01:52:42 I was like, okay, I'm, I'm used to these bugs. Like, it was in, and it was like in a nice place, but our roof, the thatched roof got infested with termites and then the bugs could get in. Oh, wow.
Starting point is 01:52:53 And it was just like the net, the bugs and cups and the shark out of bugs everywhere. But, but safari's amazing. I highly recommend Safari. Before you die, do Safari. And your least favorite place to travel. Like, if you were to name or call out a destination and say, this was not worth it,
Starting point is 01:53:10 or I didn't like it and I would not go back again. I think anything that's designed for tourists, like I didn't like going on a cruise. I mean, I see the value play in it, et cetera, but it wasn't me. I could do that when I'm 80. You know what I'm 75, right? Like it's like basically taking like a little bit of America sticking on a boat and doing this thing on a boat with a bunch of people. Sure. Doesn't have to be on a boat.
Starting point is 01:53:37 Consuming. You know what I mean? And then you're like you're on their schedule. So you have to get on and off the boat on their schedule. And you first you're like, this is great. Like look at all this food. And then like 10 pounds later when you get off the boat, you're like, what the fuck did I just do to myself? You know what I mean?
Starting point is 01:53:53 Yeah. And it's very canned. you know what I mean? Sure. Now, I could see myself, like, later in life really enjoying, like, the piece of a cruise and the food's over there. It's always there. There's always food out and snacks out and everything being your spot. And America is just cramped on this thing and you're just enjoying the view. But at this age, I hated it. I hated it. Now, maybe it was the type of cruise I was on, but I wouldn't do it. So anything like that. What do you think of what the fire community has become? I mean, I think fire is a great skill set, especially like there's no fire in Japan. Like this is them. They say they give to their community. They don't, you know what I mean?
Starting point is 01:54:38 Like they have a simple life. They understand the concept of enough, et cetera. And I think when your money or your life, when that came out, which launched the fire community, that's kind of like their Bible, right? You know, I think they went into the extreme. It's become this like, how can I? re-freeze popcorn to get the popcorn out, right? And it's a lot of people, it's become savings porn, right? Which, you know, your money or life was about getting in touch with your values and having a
Starting point is 01:55:07 fulfilling life. That's what the book is about, right? And it suggests ways at which you can do that, like even taking less salary by not commuting as much and looking at your hourly wage, right? And I think the fire community has kind of lost that. right they've gone on to this like a version of not completely but a version of is like I'm going to do 15 years in Sing Sing and then when I get out I'm going to live the life you know and I won't have to work anymore etc and I'm like listen while you're in jail life is passing you by you know you're not meant to be in any kind of jail whether it's your own jail of your mind that you're creating by not enjoying life now or actually going into Sing Sing for some like prize or some Mr. Beast prize I got 50 million. or somebody who would do 15 years in jail, you know, that type of thing. And so that's my criticism of the fire movement. On the flip side, though, here in America, there is an epidemic of careless and wasteful spending and people living above their needs and not thinking consciously about earning and saving. And so that's a good part about the fire movement. But I think it teaches people to be like not live their life.
Starting point is 01:56:20 So what if a person says, hey, I went 30 grand into debt so I could go and travel the world. But now my credit cards are all maxed out. I'm making 20 bucks an hour. It's going to take me a decade to pay this thing off, but I had an epic time. It might be worth it. I don't know. It's really about like I would go into debt if that was the experience that I could have. And it depends.
Starting point is 01:56:45 Like the fire people are doing it in reverse. Right? They're like, I'm going to grind out for 20 years and then I'm going to have this great trip. And this guy's like, I went into debt and I'm at to grind this way, right? Isn't this the same thing, right? I guess so. It's a version of autopilot, right? Like, they didn't think it through.
Starting point is 01:57:00 It's like maybe there was a better way to do this or maybe that was a proper way to do it. Yeah. You know? Right. They're just doing it in reverse. Right? They're just grinding it out, grinding it out, grinding it out. And then when I'm 45, I'm going to have this great wonderful life, right?
Starting point is 01:57:13 Like, and this guy's like, no, I'll go into debt and I'll grind it out later, right? Struggling flipping burgers or whatever, right? But I think there's an in-between conscious way to think about this. It's like where experiences belong, where, what are my resources, what are my future resources going to be like? And how do I allocate my resources through this period? Right. That's the real way to do it.
Starting point is 01:57:35 Right? Not like give up 10 years of life so that you die with 10 years of your life to go to taxes and whoever randomly is going to get it. You know? So I think, you know, fire is great. And America needs more fire than it needs the latter, but we need to be a little bit more conscious and intentional about these things. And I think fire is great that it helps people get in touch with their values, right?
Starting point is 01:58:01 When you start shedding the marketing and the, right, I think they get more in touch with their values or what matters to them. They lose their ego, which is a great thing, et cetera. But they kind of get into this robotic thing, right? This kind of like addiction. and see, look how much money I have, 3%? Look, I did this. But on the flip side, as much as I mock that, right, these guys are finding out all the hacks, right?
Starting point is 01:58:25 Like, I often say that, you know, I can be on a super yacht in the Amalfi Coast or whatever, and somebody somewhere is on a boat, on a ferry, having the same experience, soaking it all in and enjoying it, right? They're getting the same fulfillment, and they're with their buddies and they're having a great time, right? So I think at all income levels, you can have that adventurous and fulfilling life.
Starting point is 01:58:48 And you can top grade in and glaze it over if you want as you make more money. Right. And so I think what the fire guys do is they figure out like, you bought a house for this. Well, I found this deal. And you got a mortgage for that. And I found this deal. And like you're buying shirts from here like shirts online for this. Right.
Starting point is 01:59:04 And so what they're doing is they're reducing amount of life you have to give up for this level of fulfillment. and that's a subcategory of like the wealth, right? And so it's fine. That's me to a T. Yeah, like trying to figure out what is the best value for every single thing I could spend. I could use you. I could use it.
Starting point is 01:59:26 I'd be like, you know, this million dollars is going to go a lot further in fulfillment, right? Like they're in the, I'm at the top level, right? Like I'm like your wealth, health and time. And these guys are at us optimizing one of the columns, right? They're optimizing the wealth bucket.
Starting point is 01:59:39 So that for every dollar you spend, you get that much more fulfillment. Yeah. So what I would tell these guys, like, let's not do without, but let's just find the most efficient way to do it. Like, let's still get all these things, right? Let's still go to the club, but let's find the cheaper, more fun club with the better specials. Right. I mean?
Starting point is 01:59:55 The bottles here are, the bottles here of $6,000. The bottles here are 2,000. I put a whole video on this, like seven years ago. I went through all of my expenses and talked about ways to optimize them. And one of mine was like, I had a buddy who got a Thanksgiving bonus of like $200. This is when I was, like, 21 years old. spend it all of the bar the entire thing that night. I was like, it's ridiculous because you could have the same experience
Starting point is 02:00:18 had he just gotten a bottle from the grocery store for 20 bucks. The whole thing, split it with his friends. Oh, this is something I learned from Dan. Yeah, just do that. And then you go to the bar and like, that's what I would do. I would never spend money in the bar. I would always just get a bottle from the grocery store. Sometimes you get in the parking lot.
Starting point is 02:00:36 But then bring in the parking lot, but then go into the bar and then I just order waters, the entire night. Well, this is one of things you said. What I learned from Dan and Dan would be like, look, why would you spend all this money in a club? We can spend like that much money, control the environment, have a party at our place, rent a place, have a party. You control the environment. You control the guest list.
Starting point is 02:00:56 You're the man. So you have all the girls there, et cetera, right? You're the one throwing the party, et cetera, as opposed to like one dude at a many, right? And like, those are the things you would do. It's like, why would you spend thousands of thousands of dollars to keep going to club with? take that throw one party and you are the man. The other thing that reminded me of going out to restaurants. Throughout my early 20s, I would never want to spend money at restaurants,
Starting point is 02:01:20 but I still wanted the experience of going out with friends to restaurants. So what I would do is I would eat at home beforehand, but then go to the restaurant and order the least expensive thing on the entire menu, which is usually like a $10, a $10 salad. And then what I would do is I'd bring cash. Because what would happen is that everyone would be like, oh my God, how do we split the bill? We have to throw on a credit card. And I want to throw on a credit card when their bills are like 100 bucks, mine should be 10. So I'll bring like 20 bucks cash.
Starting point is 02:01:47 And I throw on my 20. I'm like, all right, I'm set. I don't have to worry about splitting this check. They hated them. Both the restaurant and his friends. But yeah, I get it. There was one time even. This is going to sound awful.
Starting point is 02:01:59 There was one time I went to the restaurant. I asked them if I could bring in a subway. And I brought in a subway because there's a subway like a few little. They let you bring in a subway. They let me bring in a subway. Jesus. No, listen, I was in a group of like 12 people. So I just asked for a plate.
Starting point is 02:02:15 It's very nice. It was super nice. I mean, I left a tip. But I brought in a subway, and my meal was $6. It was everyone else is like $40. It's the same experience. I don't know if it's the same experience because you're not eating the same food. I loved the community.
Starting point is 02:02:28 I love Subway. The chicken and bacon ranch is delicious. And the thing is, he also plays the waiting game and he's like a scavenger where if they don't eat food, he'll also get a little taste at the end. I have a thing for food waste. I hate. wasting food. And so sometimes I'll see someone order like a big steak or something like this. They eat half. And then they send it back to be thrown away. And I'm like, that's $50 worth of food that they're throwing away in the
Starting point is 02:02:54 trash that I would be happy to eat. For granted, it's always about increasing value. So like as long as he's better off, he's just better, better, better, better. Steak right here. You took a bite out of this carrot. Okay. Like, you know, if I could avoid your teeth marks on the carrot. So I see that. me getting paid for doing nothing. So let's just say in that situation, we're all allowed to eat at a dinner. We're all paying for own meals. And you have half a steak that you're going to throw away. And your half of steak is worth $40.
Starting point is 02:03:23 Me having your half a steak that would be thrown away is the equivalent to me making $40. That's how I see it. I mean, you're not wrong. But, you know, there is some entrepreneur out there who built this restaurant whose hopes and dreams that he doesn't want them to be inefficient. he wants him to eat the whole thing, but they didn't, that you're crushing. Because you're taking up the chair. That could be another patron who's a paying patron.
Starting point is 02:03:49 And you're robbing him of his services indirectly. So, I mean, what you're saying is correct. You are getting paid. This is full optimizing your gaming man, but you're going to go over the entrepreneur. But the food's going to be thrown away. So it's weird. Their work is wasted. Isn't there work better off?
Starting point is 02:04:05 Let's put it down at the bottom of this video. Please don't waste food. Order appropriately. You know, don't waste food. Yeah. Order appropriately. We can put that in the bottom, and then you can go in and you can order your own food and support the business. Yeah, but to Jack's point, though, there are some people that I would consistently go out with, and they would always have, like, half of their food thrown away.
Starting point is 02:04:24 So I got in the habit of there's no sense of me ordering. You sound like my mom. My mom was like, well, some members of depression. Yeah, but I wouldn't, I purposely wouldn't order because I knew there's four people that I'm meeting with. This is amazing. That's two equivalent, two full meals because they throw it away. This is going to be on a cutting room floor, isn't it? This is not going to make the episode.
Starting point is 02:04:43 Licking his chops beside them. They're like, oh, you know what? Actually, you can have it. It started to be a running joke, but like, but they would come over and throw away the food. Like, and I say, oh, wait, actually, could we get all this to go to go? You should just. And I would eat for, like, days. Stand outside and panhandle for scraps.
Starting point is 02:04:59 Why even, why pretend? Just stand outside and panhandle for scraps. People definitely be like, just stand out and be like, like, hey, whatever you don't eat, because you pack it up and to go. And they will do that. I wish I honestly, I wish there were a service that would just go around restaurants. It'd be like whatever you're about to throw away, just put in this side of the restaurant. They have that.
Starting point is 02:05:20 They do have that for the homeless. Like they do give that house. There are those services. They're generally for the homeless, not you. But, you know, you could start a new trend. I heard that they're not allowed to give that food to homeless because no, some of that's sick from it. Now it's not. Not the half-eaten ones, no, but the ones that are not sold.
Starting point is 02:05:36 So, Graham will take this stuff that the homeless people reject. Well, they won't allow. They won't allow it legally take. Homeless people can't even ingest it. Yeah, but if you stand outside the restaurant and be like, hey, whatever you don't eat could you put into a go? I'm sure everybody will. Listen, if it were not for people like Jack and my wife just getting really embarrassed by that and for like social norms, like I would be doing a lot of this stuff. I feel you.
Starting point is 02:05:58 Like the hive mind is like, no, this isn't right. And you're like, no, this is right. Well, I hold back out of fear of embarrassing the people around me. And I appreciate that. Sometimes like, yeah. Like, yeah. Even last night, which is fine, but like we were checking into our hotel. And, like, you know, the guy who was like, oh, do you live here in Texas?
Starting point is 02:06:17 And Graham's like, no, why? And he's like, oh, because I said no. I said no, why, you know, I'm not going to lie. And then he said, oh, because there's a locals discount. And Graham's like, oh, well, in that case, we live here in Texas. And then the guy's, the guy was like, oh, ha, ha, ha. And Graham's like, no, seriously, like, you know, do you guys have a discount or anything? He's like, yeah, it's a little bit of a discount.
Starting point is 02:06:39 And Graham's like, well, what, like, the guy's kind of trying to, like, swat him away like a fly. Like, he was laughing. He was laughing. He was laughing. Like, granted, I'm making it sound worse than it is. He really is. He was kind of laughing and playing along a little bit. But still, like, if I get one rejection for, like, Graham, like, finally on his, like, third or fourth time of like, what will we have to do, you know, to try to get a little. Well, with this, with this restaurant thing, he's going to save more money than he ever made.
Starting point is 02:07:01 Because he's got a fucking be getting free food. He's like, well, I view that as 40 bucks. I'm like, he keeps doing things like this. And they, they ended up giving us, you know, some. sort of a discount at least. Yeah, they did. It is nice. But he was, yeah, oh, yeah, successful.
Starting point is 02:07:13 But he was laughing. Oh, yeah, it wasn't that. Jack said, no, we didn't. And I'm like, do we get a discount if we do? And the guy said, yeah. And I'm like, well, in that case, yeah, I guess we live in Texas. And he laughed at it. And then I jokingly said something like, you know, are you able to apply something
Starting point is 02:07:29 if we're like visiting friends in Texas? He's like, you know what? Yeah, I could do that. Like, something like that. To me, it's just like, I don't know. Maybe it's an ego thing, too. But I'm like, I just don't like defying social. Well, I think it's negotiated, like hotels and mattresses, you can always negotiate on.
Starting point is 02:07:44 Always. So he's found something, right? Like that ones and your ego's like, I don't want to look like an idiot. You should lose that part. But like the food one, nah. Yeah. Pick and two battles maybe. I mean, we're going further and further along the spectrum.
Starting point is 02:07:58 See, almost anywhere I go. If I'm alone, I ask for the employee discount. But I want to say, like, discount tire. Oh my gosh. I saved like $300 bucks recently. just because there's joking with the guy and I'm like, you know. I need this guy in my life.
Starting point is 02:08:12 There's like, he's gonna, but I want to see. You are a subroutine that needs to be running and everybody needs that subroutine to certain degree. But yeah,
Starting point is 02:08:19 but I'm never a Karen about it. But it's always like, like a really joking friendly sort of like, hey man, could we hook this up? Or like, but usually they're all like, all right,
Starting point is 02:08:29 yeah, okay. And then they type in like a few things and then they're never, they're never like, of course, man, I'd love to give you the same thing I'm giving everyone else, but for a little bit cheaper.
Starting point is 02:08:38 Like, They're never, like, enthusiastic to do it. But Enterprise, Jack, that you benefited from that. So this got me to a question, like a question for both of you that I think is, is like, it seems like you spend a lot of time and a lot of mental energy on the saving side. How much mental energy do you spend on the revenue side? See, as much. Because I went the opposite way. When I read your money or your life, it was like all these frugal exercise in saving money.
Starting point is 02:09:02 I went that way. But what it really wanted me to do is like, oh, there's another way to solve for this problem. Having so much money that you don't give a... Such that it's not worth my time to even ask for the discount. Like the two minutes speaking for the discount? Wow, it lost so much money. Yes and no. I see my time as having different values throughout different times of the day.
Starting point is 02:09:23 Like right now, my time is really, really, really valuable. But at 10 p.m. at night, my time is worthless, for the most part. So if my time is worthless, I may as well utilize that time effectively. Same thing with on an airplane. my time is worth zero. So I try to do an activity where at least it's not worth zero. So if I'm out at AutoZone
Starting point is 02:09:45 and getting my tires replaced, it's going to be, I'm there regardless. So like spending that extra two minutes is going to be the same thing. So I may as well optimize it. I can see some of the variable value in a person's time. I don't do that as much,
Starting point is 02:09:58 but to that extent, but I do realize like my free time is way, way, way more valuable than my work time. Because that's the reward. You don't want to fuck up the reward. So it's like time with my daughters. If something comes up,
Starting point is 02:10:09 and everything's out, right? Unless I absolutely have to hire obligation, I made a commitment. But if it's like, oh, these things that are going to go away, and I'm not going to get to spend less time with, if they like, oh, yes, I will spend time with you, everything stops. So there is some variable in the value of time,
Starting point is 02:10:29 but not that much. It might be different with kids. Would you say that's the case? Oh, yeah, it's always. I mean, it's just, it's really your priority stack, right? Like you'll have this priority stack, you know, whatever it's going on, your kids, your family, your friends, your hobbies, your interest, your work, whatever, and you'll arrange this priority stack. And they have the way to interrupt your subroutines, right? Like this one, the highest one
Starting point is 02:10:51 can interrupt this one, this one, and it shouldn't go this way, you know, that much, you know, very, very hard to go this way, very easy to interrupt going that way, right? And so that's kind of the way I look at it, the mental model I have in my head. But, even with, you know, you can get to a wealth level or earnings level where none of it matters. Like, you know, people write these things like if Bill Gates dropped $100, it wouldn't be worth the time that he'd spent to pick up the $100 type of thing. I mean, that's kind of like this big extreme example. But you can get to where it's like it's not worth negotiating.
Starting point is 02:11:28 It's not worth even talking about. It's not worth wasting the neurons even thinking about it. That's kind of what I wanted, right? That was, I haven't gotten there, but that's the goal, right? I don't worry about it. I don't ask the price. Not worried about the price. It's not going to affect my life.
Starting point is 02:11:42 I have a problem. In the beginning when we were talking about, like, this guy has a need to spend money. And the only way he can immediately search out is $10,000 model at the club. Right? Like, I have a need to convert it into experiences and I can't really focus on the savings part. Right? That's where I wanted to be. And so I wonder, you say you spend a lot on the revenue side, but do you spend, what
Starting point is 02:12:06 would you say is more revenue or savings? I would say the, what would you say probably 50-fifty? Yeah, savings. I save more time on savings. Yeah, I would say a substantial amount more on savings. Like, like, I mean, all day to day, I'll come to Graham for like a certain deal or this or that. And he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever you think, whatever you think. And which is fine because I like to have control over stuff like that. But at the same point, like Graham will spend, I mean, how much time have you spent, you know, on bring a trailer, cars and bids, looking at the price of a certain vehicle. And you're like, oh, it's just not, you know, it's just not that great of a deal. Like, like, oh, it's just not that great of a deal.
Starting point is 02:12:44 Like, on Zillow, like, all of these things scouring to just try to save a little bit more money on something you could potentially buy. Yeah, which is my guilty pleasure, cars and bids or bring a trailer. And I look at certain cars that I've wanted. And I'm like, if it sells at that price, I can't say no to it. I love a deal. So it's like, everything at a certain price, I'm like, I'm a buyer of that. But the difference is if you spent all of that time that you've spent on bring a trailer, you can probably buy the cars that you're looking at.
Starting point is 02:13:11 Right. So, yeah, but then you miss the opportunity. And I'm going to pay you like kind of a backhanded compliment. I would think that like at your level of intelligence and hustle, et cetera, that you are incorrectly allocating your mental energy on savings because the revenue side that you can yield would blow away the savings. Right. So he's saying you're spending over 50%? I spent time thinking about savings. And it was like, if you just focused your mental energy on, like, how can I generate
Starting point is 02:13:40 revenue, like, like significant capital, like more money than you actually need to live? I think you would be successful. And I think it would dwarf all your savings. What about the enjoyment of the hunt and feeling proud of a purchase? That is a thing for Graham. Like, there's the cars that I bought, I'm like, that was a great price. Like, that was a good. And I wouldn't have found this.
Starting point is 02:14:02 Graham, right. I paid for is for GT. I could see a little like spark. Oh, yeah. Okay. Let me put it to you this way. I think you have probably superior mental acuity than me. How would it feel to buy a hundred old scars and not care?
Starting point is 02:14:16 How about the enjoyment? I mean, we need a hundred. I know, but I'm just saying like or hundred or other things. How would it know to feel like your kid is going to college and not have to worry about things? How would that feel? Do you think you get fulfillment from that? I don't, but the part of, so my counter to that would be, to me, it's, seems like a like a disrespect of money.
Starting point is 02:14:36 No, you're disrespecting your mental neurons and the allocation of it. You were, we're just talking about fulfillment. Yeah. And you're saying, I love getting a deal on a car and doing that. I was like, do you like traveling? Are there other things you like in life? I mean, I'm not saying that it's not fulfillment. Sure.
Starting point is 02:14:50 I mean, it's nice, but you don't have to do the all the time, right? Like, there's other things in life. And I'm just saying that if you allocated your mental neurons to the revenue side, giving how bright you are, right, and the hustle you have and your work ethic, okay, that it would dwarf the fulfillment of getting the deals that you're getting. I'm just pointing that out. That might not be true, right? It'd be wrong.
Starting point is 02:15:13 So I'm just saying, like, from the outside, a guy knows I could be dead wrong. Because you don't know what the thing you're talking about. A lot of times I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm just saying that I think you're misallocating your resources. Like if I got to play the game of your life. Sure. With your resources and your abilities, right? like focus on saving deals all the time or spend time dreaming up ways and reviewing deals and making
Starting point is 02:15:34 money, I'd be like this one. This is the more fulfilling life. 50-50 or 80-20. I like 80-20 this way. So I think just from an allocation, you have finite mental capacity. You have finite mental capacity. Yeah. Right.
Starting point is 02:15:48 Finite hours, right? I would just say that I think you're over-allocated the wrong way. Okay. I could be dead wrong, right? But I'm just saying, and you're like, well, I get fulfillment out. I'm like, well, there's a lot of fulfillment in $10 million, right? And you're the type of guy that can make $10 million in a year. And so is he.
Starting point is 02:16:04 Yeah. Yeah, like I said, I don't know if it's the enjoyment of saving or I don't know if I'm programmed to think that I enjoy that because that's all I know. I would bet a lot of money. It's the programming. I mean, I've known him a long time and I've said the same thing over and over again that is programming. But he really does enjoy a deal. And I'm not just saying this to offend him. I'm just saying like, well, programmed.
Starting point is 02:16:25 That would be it too. He is very, very well programmed. And the only thing that I feel like as a friend that I could recommend to him, and I want to hear your perspective on this, is that he should get uncomfortable a little bit more often. Because at this point in Graham's life, he is a very, very strong tie to just being comfortable. And it boils down to things as simple as like the temperature in a room.
Starting point is 02:16:47 But I feel like what it comes down to is never trying something new and challenging yourself. It's like you've been rewarded financially. That's where the growth is, right? For yes, and that's why I think like maybe just maybe you try to like spend some money and just see if you like it. Maybe you try like when you got uncomfortable and you skipped a posting and you decreased the upload frequency on your main channel, your life has improved drastically. And it took you years to get there. But realistically, you could have done it two years before. You really, really could have.
Starting point is 02:17:16 I begged it. I begged a difference. A year before. Like you, it didn't need to be exactly at that time. And I think that just and not going all in. with trying something new and getting uncomfortable, but doing little, like, experiences and, and trying out small things every once in a while to get to get out.
Starting point is 02:17:34 Or even focuses on a revenue side. Like, you don't have to go 80, 20, like I said, you can just spend 10% more. I mean, there's just, like, a lot of, there's a lot. Like, you're just like, I really enjoy you get a deal. And, like, I'm pretty sure your audience would be like, yeah, there is a lot of fulfillment in $10 million. Like, what are you talking about?
Starting point is 02:17:49 Like, if I told you for a fact, okay, let's just take all the risk out of it. that if Graham only focus 20% of your mental energy on savings and 80% on like making money, revenue ideas, deals, whatever, and you are guaranteed to have $10 million extra. Would you take that deal? Yeah. Okay. So then you already agree that if the reward is $10 million, so somewhere between $0 and $10 million, it makes sense. You should calculate what that is and then see if it's achievable and then run it out.
Starting point is 02:18:24 Yeah. You follow me? Like, that's just consciously thinking about. Like, we just pooh-poot it right away. No, I get it. I enjoy getting a deal. I'm like, well, let's think about this for a second, right? Somewhere between zero and $10 million, you should be spending more of your time focusing on. Yeah. And then we should think about what's realistic. And I, I think that, you know, not, not immediately, like, nobody's going to learn how to play piano overnight. But I think there's like a lot of yield in your time. Like, everything you created comes from out of your mind. This whole podcast, all your success. You don't go dig ditches or you're not a construction worker or whatever. It all comes from here, right? And then you executing on that, right? So more of that is more revenue. And you've gotten comfortable where you're at. And you're like, all my fulfillment comes from making deals. And I'm like, well, there's a lot of fulfillment and having the capital and being able to spend that.
Starting point is 02:19:12 And also obligations, feature obligations have to be met. You said you want a big family. Well, it's a lot of obligations. So you should think about that. And then maybe you might go, well, 10% more on revenue side, mental. focus or 20% or 30% or 80% or maybe even 90 more than Bill said, right? Because that's that's that's kind of the conversation I had with myself, right? Like, am I going to save myself into the life I want? And the answer was no, not the life I want. Maybe some people can, but I couldn't. I wasn't going to save it. I'm like,
Starting point is 02:19:41 I'm going to have to take big risk and make a lot of money. It's weird. Not to dig too much into like my own personal matters, but like I think I've already done that where I'm like, I'm spending an amount that I'm comfortable with assuming a 50% market drop, like, you know, family obligations come up, you have a kid with a disability that needs some parents,
Starting point is 02:19:59 like all of these things happen at the same time. I'm talking like, oh, and then our income goes to zero. And so I'm like, I'm like, in that case, can I still live the exact same? And if the answer to that is yes,
Starting point is 02:20:09 then I'm comfortable. And then I'm good. Right. Well, then you need no more. There's no, then the answer would be, honestly, that no, copy, pace, repeat.
Starting point is 02:20:19 Like, I'm not here to change your life. I'm not here to save your life. I'm just here to tell you that there are ways that you can look at things and see like, hey, yes, $10 million I have use for it. What you're saying is I don't have use for $10 million. I'm happy. I don't have any wants. Well, the thing is, 10 could be five. And then at five at a 4% withdrawal rate that's 20 grand.
Starting point is 02:20:39 Hey, there goes. You know, after tax, now you're with 170 and then, you know, overhead. Yeah, I'm just saying, like, however you convert it to fulfillment is your way. Like, whether you spend it or. or 4% a year on getting deals at restaurants, that's up to you, right? I'm just saying, like, where is the best allocation of your resources, right? And right now we're talking about your health and roughly your mental health, right? Where are you sending these neurons?
Starting point is 02:21:09 What problems should your neurons be working on? And it seems like your neurons are heavily focused on saving. And I'm like, you know, those are some really good neurons, right? These are good neurons. Well. They're right. They're right. They're right.
Starting point is 02:21:21 They're right. He's got some good neurons, right? Like, you guys got good neurons together with your friend, together, these neurons. I'm like, should I focus those neurons on the revenue side? Me, evil Bill Perkins. Yeah. Right? I'm like, give me those neurons.
Starting point is 02:21:33 Let's focus on the revenue side. No more standing outside trying to get leftovers. Yeah. You know what I can commit to a few months of trying that out. Like two months is an experiment. And what is that going to look like in an application? I would say instead of being so focused. on the saving little aspects here and there of just being more focused on the revenue generating side.
Starting point is 02:21:58 Yeah, but he needs an action plan. Like, what is that? We're going to meet on Tuesday and go through ideas, stocks, investments, business building. Like, what are we going to? Tell me, what are the things you're going to do? I mean, we don't have to lay down now, but you should commit to that. It would probably just be less focused on like the little tiny details, which maybe that frees up an extra 10% or. Yeah, but the brain has to then take those neurons and apply them.
Starting point is 02:22:20 to like, what is your action plan? But we don't have to go into that right now, but like offline, you guys should be like, okay, every X day at whatever o'clock, we're going to have a meeting and we're going to go over these things and get action items on like whatever, and we're going to execute on one of these plans.
Starting point is 02:22:35 Well, I'd say one of the biggest ones is office space. Jack and I right now don't have an office. It's out of a bedroom, which I love. It's convenient, but it also doesn't lend itself to working together. How does that yield more money? Because we're focused on the rubber side. Yeah. Whereas back in the day, like someone who come up with an idea and the amount of time between idea and execution was a lot longer because we had a text. And, you know, I'd only see Graham once a week or this or that. But I think that if we had an office, we were all meeting in person, you're 100% right. The speed by which things will get done is a lot fast.
Starting point is 02:23:08 So the way I'm understanding is that if you put out more content, it equals more revenue. And your audience grows. More content, but also just like in terms of just like communication and coming up with, you know, guest ideas. And then- You know, yeah. So you have, you have more content, better guest ideas, better quality show, better execution, more money. So here's what holds me back from a finance perspective. We have it so well in the house. It's easy.
Starting point is 02:23:32 There's no commute. The cost of each episode to produce is like a few grand as it is. And I'm like, if we tack an office on top of that. The cost per episode. Now the cost per episode more than doubles because we don't film every episode in our office. We film maybe half of them in the office, and then the other half, sorry, half of them in the home studio and then either half on the road like we are right now. And so if we only film two episodes a month in an office space that we now rent, the cost per episode skyrockets. And now our threshold is so high.
Starting point is 02:24:09 And I'm like, do we need that? Well, it depends on the production value and what goes into it. The only answer is, is it net more revenue and does it grow the platform? I would say the quality is going to be the same. I don't think quality is maybe a marginal improvement. Quality will be improved a little bit. I think the main thing is just that we're kind of talking every day. You know what I mean?
Starting point is 02:24:28 So idea generation. Idea generation, yeah. So what he would say on his argument using his neurons, he would say that why don't we just have a mandatory zoom every day that we discuss this? And it's a 20-minute zoom. Amazon presents Jeff versus Taco Truck Salsa. whether it's Verde, Roja, or the orange one. For Jeff, trying any salsa is like playing Russian roulette with a flamethrower.
Starting point is 02:24:59 Luckily, Jeff saved with Amazon and stocked up on antacids, ginger tea, and milk. Habaniero? More like Habinier, yes. Save the everyday with Amazon. There's something else here now. Something new. From, exclusively on Paramount. Plus. It's the series Stephen King calls Scary as Hell.
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Starting point is 02:25:47 I just, I don't think we would. Like, I think, like, we can come up. Would? You don't think you would? I don't think we would do the Zoom. No, we'd be like, I don't really have anything to talk about today. But if we're, like, in the office and we're just kind of working on something, oh, this is interesting. And then I run it by hand. So you're saying that there's a fault, like, what if you had a mandatory meeting place that you went to?
Starting point is 02:26:02 So it wasn't an office, but like every X time we have to go to Starbucks or wherever the place that people hang out and use it. The thing is when you pay for something, you're going to value and use it more. and it's like an expensive gym membership where it's like, oh man, if I don't use it, now I'm wasting money. That's how I, that's a motivator for me.
Starting point is 02:26:24 That's what you need to get him to go to ID8 to create the more money than I guess that's the only way you can do it if you can't force yourself to meet at a meeting place or whatever. But like this whole exercise, and I'm not saying that you come to the exercise, is that this is how you should be spending your neurons
Starting point is 02:26:37 more so than the food example. Yeah. That's just my two cents, right? I think that's what's going to drive you to the level of comfort that you aspire to to live and the level of pickleball travel that you want to live more so than saving. Panhandling for halfies and sushi. Panhandling, I've panhandled before as an exercise. How was that?
Starting point is 02:27:00 It was eye opening. It was awakening and it was, it helped me realize that no matter what, you can make money. Were people nice to you? No, it was a little dangerous. It was a dangerous job. A lot of people were. nice and there was some danger associated with it. What happened?
Starting point is 02:27:17 Oh, there were some, like, gangbangers that were going to fuck me up. You know, like, get out of the street or do whatever, you know what I mean? Like, just because you're low, because they can, right? Humans are humans. And there were people who were very nice and very sweet. How much did you make? Enough to be on pace to make like $60,000 to $70,000 a year tax free. Whoa.
Starting point is 02:27:38 Right. But I stopped, I stopped the experiment. It was part of an emotional intelligence class, right? Like facing your fears about. things and I went out and did it and it was very liberating. And I was just like, yeah, you're just going to be all right. And that was meant to teach people that no matter what, it was my exercise. No, it wasn't like everybody does this exercise. I see. Okay. It was like my exercise. Like some people had to go to something way high, whatever. Like, but like it was a great exercise. It was like, this is a hard job.
Starting point is 02:28:06 Yeah. But it's a lucrative job. Was there an effective way, like a sign that I didn't even have a sign. Like I was, that's why I was like, oh, I know I can really crush it if I had a sign. So what's like the optimal way to panhandle? I don't know. I was only out there for like one day, a couple hours. You got to see Graham out of the corner. Graham's got up got it. He's like, he's like, what freeway is the best? I think I think a sign would be better. I think looking destitute is fine, but not completely like disheveled or smelly or like scary. and being at a very busy intersection and it's going that has a light
Starting point is 02:28:45 and that allows people to give you money. So I think the it's a, it's always going to boil down to a numbers game. That reminded me. I remember in 2009, I believe it was, I would get off a freeway exit
Starting point is 02:29:03 in Studio City on a regular basis driving from Glendale to Beverly Hills and there was a guy who was constantly on the side of the freeway, but he wore a suit, like a decent looking suit. He wore glasses, clean-cut sort of guy, but he said he lost his job. Like on the side, he says, like, he lost his job, looking for work, anything helps. And the fact that he wore a suit and seemed clean-cut, I'm like, this is the guy who gets my money. So, like, usually what I do is I'd pack neutro-grained bars, actually, on my drive,
Starting point is 02:29:34 knowing that when he's there, I'd give him a neutr-grain bar, or I'd give him a water or something like. that but did that just popped into my mind like that I mean I don't know I mean the answers I don't know I don't think yeah he could just be like 90 minutes or two hours out there wherever time I was out there opts in his Ferrari and goes straight to you don't know that one lady pretended to be disabled yeah and then she you see her just like wheeling off a few blocks I mean if you're gonna be disingenuous yeah hops into a Mercedes right she was making like a hundred grand a year you can I mean you can do well I mean but I think that would be
Starting point is 02:30:03 an effective allocation of your mental resources but I could see him like maybe Yeah, yeah, I can see I'm like gamifying it and getting some fulfillment out of it. It's like optimal. I like optimization. It's like, yeah, I go on a hike in a morning and then I panheadle for half an hour. My time is worth zero anyway. Yeah, he's got this zero time count going. Anyway, I don't have that many, you know, I can ask a zillion questions, but I don't want to, I don't want to tick up all our time.
Starting point is 02:30:30 How about this? If you guys enjoy this episode, if you want a round two at some point, let us know in the comment section. We'll do my, I'll do my best to read as many. I think you guys had enough. I feel like I can't take this. I can't take this sushi. But if you do,
Starting point is 02:30:42 we can do it around too. Yeah, and also for anyone who made it to this point in the episode, because I'm really curious about the retention graphs, if you've made it to this point, if you wouldn't mind
Starting point is 02:30:50 giving us a comment, let us know you made it to the end. That would be awesome. Also, what you liked and what you disliked, that would also be very nice. Yeah. Yeah.
Starting point is 02:30:58 Well, you've got to edit up and put bookmarks. People got to skip around. Oh, yeah. There's a lot of way. Yeah. Yeah. So,
Starting point is 02:31:03 and we're also going to link to all of your info in the description along with your book. I highly recommend it, by the way. And if you want to be a part of the group, the index, that link is also down below. The index, huh? What goes on in the index? So, oh dear, he's like, why did you ask? What? Why? There's our third index slot in the video. We could cut it if you want to, yeah. The index is an amazing group. I attended the, it was Disneyland, and there was like a tour, and then a very fancy dinner. Like Graham said, he dropped 40,000. The idea of the group is to get a
Starting point is 02:31:34 bunch of young, wealthy people together to have experiences. I like it. And a lot of the money that is paid by the members of the group gets cycled into these really lavish experience. We do, we do really unique experiences that I would never do on my own, but I could justify it in a group like this. Because you get the discount. Because I get the discount.
Starting point is 02:31:52 But then I could also, I reinvest, like a lot of the money that goes in is just I spend it back on those experiences. But we've cultivated a really cool group of like 13 people so far. And our vetting process is like we go through. through like multiple rounds of phone calls, just to make sure everyone's the right culture fit. Right. But yeah, like the group that we have so far is incredible.
Starting point is 02:32:10 And when I submitted the first application, we got like 3,000 people applying. And out of those 3,000, so far we picked like 13. That's great. So you guys are like investing experiences. So at the end of your life, when you retire, you retire on those memories. Yeah.
Starting point is 02:32:24 And I like how involved everyone is. Like, we've met some really cool people and one guy, like, how do you go to say 3,000 applicants? 3,000 applications. Some of them, I don't want to give the secrets away for how we how we sort through, but we have a method for going through them that. It's not just me, but I have a partner.
Starting point is 02:32:45 Offline, I'm going to find out what this. Listen, you're invited. Index. Just tell me when you go someplace fun. Just tell me where you're going, but like, all right. Disneyland would be out. Andy's a huge fan of you. So if you want to say hi to Andy.
Starting point is 02:32:58 Hi, Andy. Hi, Andy. Thank you guys for watching. Until next time. Thank you.

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