The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 373: Bill Perkins - How To Get All You Can From Your Money & Your Life

Episode Date: July 5, 2020

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk Text LEARNERS to 44222 Full show notes can be found at www.LearningLeader.com #373: Bill Perkins is a hedge fund manager, film producer, and high stakes poker player. He is the author of Die with Zero: Getting All You Can from Your Money and Your Life.  Notes: Your life is the sum of your experiences… "The business of life is the acquisition of memories. In the end, that's all there is." - The butler from Downtown Abbey... Excellence: Integrity with your word and yourself -- Don't lie to yourself and others. You can't be flippant with yourself. Don't say it unless you mean it (to yourself and others) How to maximize your lifetime memorable moments with "memory dividends" How to get the most experiences in the optimal time with "experience bucketing" In each season, experiences will forever go away. Map out the experiences you want and what you are saving for. There are some experiences that you can only do when you're young and healthy. There is a deterioration of health. You won't always be able to climb a mountain or wake board. Do those now. Follow your "net worth curve" - "Consume money and convert it into experiences." How to navigate whether to invest in or delay a meaningful adventure based on your "personal interest rate" -- "Should I take one trip today or two trips in 10 years?" Bill shares the life changing conversation he had with his boss, Joe Farrell, a partner at the company where he worked --  Bill was making $18,000/year and had saved $1,000. Joe questioned him... "Go spend that money! Why deprive yourself? You don't think you're going to make more money as you get older?!" Jason Ruffo -- Backpacked Europe when he was young and able even though he didn't have any more. He did it while he could instead of waiting to have enough money. He now has an experience dividend for life that Bill doesn't. What are we saving for? Survival Experiences we want - The memory dividend - "This is the stuff of life." It's a compounding dividend "Who am I? The summation of my experiences." "Money is a tool to have the experience." Die With Zero is about choices - What do you choose to do now? What later? Bill and I have the same literary agent, Jim Levine - Bil liked Jim because he told him that his proposal wasn't good enough to share with publishers when it was first written... Bill appreciated that honest feedback and desire to make it better. "It's hypocritical and stupid to leave inheritance to your kids." (Give them money when they're young and can use it for cool experiences). Behaviors for hiring: Integrity Intrinsic motivation Problem solvers "Aiming to die with zero is the most thoughtful thing you can do."

You retire on your memories. You don't retire on money. Right? When you go over to your old parents' house, whatever, all they talk about the old times, remember your little, and remember that, and remember I told the joke, and milk spilled out your nose,

and you know what I mean? Like, that's the stuff of life. And so, you know, that's the stuff of our lives, right? We're telling when I was a traitor, and the trip, and et cetera, and to have the most full, robust, fulfilling life, you need to actually have these experiences, and you need to time them according to your,

resources when you want to have them and when they're best had. We are opening up applications for our next learning leader circle. We only do this once per year. And think back to the great conversation I had with the legendary Jim Collins episode 216. He said, Ryan, before you get too caught up in the why and the what, you need to first be very intentional about your who. Who will be your friends? Who will be your mentor?

Who will you help? Who will you choose to surround yourself with? That will be the single greatest determining factor in your long-term success. And I would ask you the same question. Who are you surrounding yourself with? Do you want to be surrounded by growth-oriented leaders that are willing to push you? We've added specific curriculum and elements so that by the end of the year, you'll have tangible outcomes to measure your growth and be a more effective leader,

both personally and professionally. These groups are intentionally curated and kept small. Time and again, the thing that people say they love about these groups is the relationships they're able to build with one another in a short period of time. If you'd like to apply, go to learning leader circle.com. That's learning leader circle.com to apply. Welcome to the Learning Leader Show presented by Rixie and Meyer. I am Ryan Hawk.

Thank you so much for being here. Text learners to 4422. In order to join tens of thousands of learning leaders from all over the world. Receive Mindful Monday updates when I'm reading, writing, watching, thinking about. Also give you more details about how my book, Welcome to Management, will help you become a more effective leader. text learners to 442.2.2. Now, on tonight's featured leader, it's Bill Perkins, hedge fund manager, film producer, high stakes poker player, an author of a new book titled Die with Zero, Getting All You Can from Your Money and Your Life. And a quick note, that

book title may turn you off as it did to me initially before I did. dug into it, but I promise his ideas are fascinating and something to think about. A few of the topics we discussed, how to maximize your lifetime memorable moments with memory dividends, then how to get the most experiences in the optimal time with experience bucketing, then how to convert your earnings into priceless memories, by following your net worth curve. Ladies and gentlemen, I promise this one will make you think it's Bill Perkins.

When you think about the poker world and playing poker, how have you used skills from other areas of your life to be a good poker player? And can you flip that too? How have you taken things you've learned from the poker table to make you better in other areas of life? I think, you know, your analytical skills in trading, really helped in understanding kind of the mathematical concepts and the concepts of Nash equilibrium, these things game theory kind of helped. When I actually paid attention, it didn't set my brain on vacation, like, oh, I just want to have fun and gamble and get lucky.

You know, money management, those type of things. And I think poker is just kind of a reflection of risk reward in life. And, you know, a lot of times when you ask people, oh, which in this scenario, what would you do? It's kind of a Rorschach test, right? Like, what is your appetite for risk? How do you emotionally respond to loss? Does that affect your thinking, et cetera? And trying to be stoic about things, not results oriented, right? Making proper decisions and let the results be the results. And so those things go back and forth between poker and trading poker and life, life and poker, etc.

What about, I think for the amateur, when you're watching poker, you still think of tells, you think of reading people. you think of spotting a liar and how those could go back and forth. How much of your poker playing is that versus it's more of a mathematical, analytical game? Well, I think in live poker, it should be more than I actually give it credit or I actually pay attention. If you notice me on poker, I'm having such a good time and goofing off, whatever. I'm not paying attention to all the information people are giving off, right? Like when people have a stronger hand, they're a little bit more serious and not as flipping with the pot, right? Like when they're weak or how they behave based on the strength of their hand, you know, us amateurs give away that information constantly.

It's not an exact read, but it is correlated. And if you're a pro, you're paying attention to these things, right? You know, tread lightly, you know. He may not be bluffing. You know, I need to be stronger. My hand needs to be stronger to continue here versus weaker with this information. And so when I'm paying attention and I'm playing my A game, I'm not goofing off, you know, I'm definitely paying attention to these things. And that transcribes into even just dealing with your kids, right?

Like, is my daughter serious? You know, it's an emotional intelligence, right, of reading the room, her tone, body language, etc. of, you know, did she leave the dishes out or was it her sister? You know what I mean? Like those type of things, right? Yeah, yeah. I know, I know that feeling when they always blame it on somebody. else. It's like, wait, if each one's blaming on the other one, then how do I know which one's

telling the truth? I feel like you have a camera in my house right now. I'm curious, Bill, one of the things I like to ask people who have sustained excellence over many years is really to deconstruct kind of the makings of that and also people who have surrounded themselves with others who have done the same. And I think that's you, especially when we get into some of the topics from your book, there's really some parts of it that I would say, like, almost flipped my thinking upside down and will change my behavior, which I think hopefully is a good compliment to the work you've put out. But I'm curious from your perspective, what have you found to be some of the commonalities among people who have sustained excellence? I think it's integrity.

I think it's mainly integrity is integrity with your word and yourself. I'm going to get up at six. you get up at sex. You know, we lie to ourselves so many times each day, right? I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this diet. I'm going to do X, Y, and Z, et cetera. And I think not treating your word to yourself at first as something flippant that you give freely that you disappoint yourself with, right?

And that spills over to everything. Like, it's okay. It's okay. And, you know, when I've been in a spot where I'm not going to tell myself, even internally, the internal voice, right? Like, I'm going to get up and work out at six. or seven or whatever and then I don't do it. I'm like,

all right, we're not going to say this unless we mean it. We're going to do it. We're going to stay in integrity so that I can build habits, right, and get that reward system going so that I am on a system, a habit of doing things that lead to this excellent result that people say. Yeah. Integrity is the foundation,

you know. I like to that you've kind of held the mirror up to, like the integrity to yourself first and foremost, Because you probably, if you can't be honest with yourself, it's probably a challenge to be honest with others. Yeah. I mean, naturally, you should care about love yourself the most, right? If you're lying to yourself, it's like, it's just absolutely no problem. Yeah.

To be out of integrity with other people outside of yourself, even people very close to you, right? Yeah. You find a way to rationalize it, away, et cetera. And being integrity is tough. It's very tough. I don't want to be like, oh, I'm an integrity. Like I've been out of integrity my life more than enough, right, in different ways, just like everyone has.

And I think that when you're on a task, whether you're a basketball player and your integrity and you're working hard when nobody's looking and practicing your graph or you want to get in shape or you just want to be in a faithful monogamous relationship or whatever or learn a skill, is saying what you're going to do, breaking it up in stats that you are actually going to do and staying in integrity. And you'll eventually get there. Yeah. I want to start from a story perspective.

Let's go to, so you played football at University of Iowa. Is that correct? Correct. And major sat the bench, but yes. Okay, so you're on the team. So you majored in electrical engineering. And I was reading that you'd taken a job in New York City on Wall Street. and I like you to tell this story because I,

and expand on from what I read in your book, but there was a guy, I believe the same was Joe Farrell, who was a partner at the company, and I think you were making $18,000 a year at the time, and you had told him that you were very proud of yourself because you had saved $1,000. And Joe had said something to you that changed your life, as you've said.

Can you share what that was? Yeah, yeah. So I don't know if it was. 16,000, 18,000, you know, this was pre, every record would say, maybe I'll go to the Social Security Administration and try and figure out what it was that year. But I had, you know, I was, if I didn't like buy the monthly bus pass, et cetera, I was out of budget. You know, I was bringing sandwiches to work or if somebody bought me lunch, that was great. And so I had saved up a thousand dollars. And I was like, super proud of myself for being frugal and saving up this money.

Joe, and I was talking to someone, and Joe, here's this, he hears, he hears, he, he's, he's, he, he's, he's, He's there. He's hearing this conversation. He goes, are you a fucking idiot for saving that money? What the fuck is wrong with you? You know, and I was just like, huh? You know, like, what do you mean? Like, I just shrink, right? I'm like, what is it? He's like, you came here, you came here to make millions. Like, you think you're going to be making $18,000 a year? Go out and spend that money and have fun. Like, you're, you're, you're just wasting your time saving that money. And it hit me. You know, he didn't go into this big, long speech about why and the math and excess. but it kind of hit me and it was kind of like, yeah, he's right. I can actually quit this job and make a lot more money waiting tables. I'm not here for a 16 or $18,000 a year. I'm here to

make more. And invariably, I can make more money. And why am I depriving myself, right, of these experiences that this money can buy for a richer version of myself later in my life, right? Like, you know, I'm, I'm 21, but like, by 30, I should be making X, Y, and Z, even if I took the most little path. So why am I depriving myself of activities right now? I'm like borrowing from my poorest self to give to my richer self. And it just didn't make any sense to me. And so it took a while for that to sink in, but it was like, I took it too far at first, you know? I was like, he's right.

And then I just spent money just to spend money. You know what I mean? Like, the more money I made, the more I spent. Like I never had a nickel. My mom would be like, why he always broke? Well, you know, the this, the dinners, the friends. You know, I took it to the extreme. But it was a valuable lesson in that, you know, not to deprive myself of experiences at a certain age.

And one of the other, I think, experiences you talk about is you had a roommate, Jason Rufo. Ruffo, how do you say this last name? Yeah, Jason Rufo. Rufo. So Jason also didn't. have much money, but decided to leave his job in order for three months in order to backpack in Europe and had to borrow money just to afford the trip. And initially, when you hear this, you think, wow, that guy's, you should not do that. That's not wise. I was like, are you crazy?

Like, what do you do? And you're going to borrow money from Bobby? I won't say his last name, but like, Bobby doesn't need collateral. He's got your legs, you know? He's not going to. Why? So why, now looking back and I don't know when you realize this, because I still think about this that like, like advice from from parents, you know, people like, save your money, save your money, 401k, like all this. Like this has been ingrained in us and your book is kind of flipping this upside down. But why did Jason actually make the right decision? Well, I think from my perspective, like when did I realize as soon as he got back? I just like, I had the fomo on.

So share what he did. So he three months, what did he do? He backpacked around Europe. He was riding on trains and meeting friends and going to places. And, you know, this is pre-instagram and photos. Like, if you wanted to see something, you had like a table book that somebody had taken pictures for or you went there, right? And so, you know, he just had this massive life experience that I long for it that I wanted

to do. And I felt like, why was I, why was I so caught up that I had to be here? He came back. There was no real discernible difference in his position in his job or his earnings power. And quite frankly, he could have kept going. So he took this risk and got this reward, right? And the risk was a lot lower than what I perceived it to be. And he had a life experience that I'll never have and that he would never trade for anything, for all the money in the world.

If I say, hey, can I erase your memories of this thing? He'd be like, hell, no. You know, like, it was priceless. And it got me thinking about, you know, he went backpacking and he stayed in youth hostels and met people, whatever. And by the time I was ready to do this, I wasn't like in the backpacking youth hostel crowd, right? Like the time it passed, the season had passed for me to have. You need to be a certain age. You mean to do that.

Yeah, correct. Like, you know, there's your young, young. You're in college and you're raving. You know, there's your rave days. There's your bar, wine bar. phase, you know, there's, there's different phases to your life. And what I had realized later on in life is that that season had passed me. And so that certain experiences and certain adventures that you want to have to have a full life happen during certain periods of your life. And that's, you know,

certain individuals that might be when they're 50, right? But for me, you know, based on the things I wanted out of life, like I wanted to get married, I wanted to have kids, right? That was going to preclude. that would be a dynamic decision that precluded a lot of activities that I wanted to do. So if I didn't do them then, they most likely were not getting done. And if they were getting done, they were getting done in a different way, at a different age, at a different mindset, a totally different experience. And so that was forever lost on me of having that type of experience that he had that I was so amvious about. But it did teach me that like you don't just have a bucket list, right?

Like you don't have just like, hey, I want to do this, this, this, this and this. Yes, you want to do those things. But when, right? If you want to go skiing a hundred times, right? You're not waiting until you're 90 to go skiing a hundred times, right? There's a season for that. If you want to date and be the single man about town, right? That's usually before you get married, right?

If you want to have kids, it's going to be a certain age. You want to go to college, et cetera. And so depending on the person, the experiences they want to have in their life, they're bucketless. They have to be bucketed into a certain time frame. right? And everybody has their own seasons. And what I was doing, um, basically with the excess of savings was basically letting this bucket go empty and disappearing forever. Right. Because you don't just have one bucket for your whole life, right? Like it's broken down in seasons.

And so if you don't, there are certain activities or certain experiences that you want to have. If you don't have them at X time, they're gone. Right. Like I have kids. And if I didn't spend X time with my kids when they're six or eight or nine, you know, they go. They turn 13 and they're like, peace out that I don't want to know you. You're annoying. You're not cool anymore. Stop. You're a hover parent. You know, it's like, and then I'm longing like, oh my gosh, why didn't I watch this kid's movie with them more? Why didn't I do X more? You know, and you realize that not only with kids, but other areas of your life, they disappear, you know? And so. So I think what the whole premise. So your book's called Die with Zero, getting all you can from your money and your life.

And I think what I gather from it, and I think this could be a learning for all, even very conservative savers like myself, which is, you know, during the course of the research leading up to this, because this was scheduled earlier and I know your book release got pushed back. I actually booked this sick house in Florida for my family to go on vacation. And I'm not saying it's 100% because of your work, but it absolutely influenced like, should we go for the like the crazy awesome place or just the kind of low budget one. And I want it for the awesome one that costs obviously like twice as much money because I felt like the experience that will bring to my family and the excitement of showing our daughters the pictures of the house that we've rented that

we're going to go down to and what we could do when we're there. That is like I want to create those experiences for my family. And I think what you're saying and your philosophy is don't just save all this money to do it when you're 60, 70, or 80, do it now, right now. And that's the sense that I got from you, which then was, yeah, let's pay for the more expensive place to go on vacation or let's, whatever may be. And can you share your kind of philosophy on that for us? Well, so, you know, one of the things is that, you know, we're saving and what are we saving for, right? For one is survival when you're not working, right? The number one, experience people want to have is surviving, right? But after we save for survival, then what are we

saving for? Right? We're saving for experiences that we want to have in life. And so pushing, and what do we get out of these experiences, right? We get the, we get the look forward to that experience. We get the enjoyment experience and we get the memory dividend of that experience, right? Like after you, anybody who's had a first kiss or hit a game winning home run, how many times have they told that story or that fantastic trip or that drama with the girl, right? right? This is the stuff of life. Like, this is what you're going to retire on. And those pay a dividend.

Every time you recall that memory, it's almost like you're living it and getting the same, you know, the experience all over again, right? And so, you know, when you're saving, there's certain things that you're delaying gratification for that are not meant for later in life. They're meant for right now. And you want the memory dividends and that experience with your loved ones or whatever it be now because you're going to get to a really. live that, talk about it, grow, et cetera. And it's going to be a compounding dividend to you on these

experiences, right? And so when you think about like the money you have as, hey, I want the experience of survival and then I want all these other experiences. And for each person, they're different. You need to really think about when and how you want to have them and how do I get the maximum yield out of these experiences. And so you retire on your memories. You don't retire on money. when you go over to your old parents house whatever all they talk about the old times remember you're a daughter you're little and remember that and remember i told the joke and milk's built out your nose and you know what i mean like that's that's the stuff of life and so and that's the stuff of our lives right we're telling when i was a traitor and then it's trip and etc and to have the most

full robust fulfilling life you need to actually have these experiences and you need to time them according to your resources when you want to have them and when they're best had, right? You quote the butler from downtown Abbey and it's the business of life is the acquisition of memories. In the end, that's all there is. Yeah. I think like how I look at myself, like, you know, who am I? It's really a summation of the memories of the experience, the experience I've had and the programming that those experiences has formed me, right? And so those acquisitions of those experiences and those memories is basically who I am. And so, you know, I think that positive life experiences is why we go to work.

You know, it's the main reason. Obviously, survival, let's just always say that survival is number one, right? Survival and not working. So can we just talk about the other stuff on top of that? So after we survive, what do we want? what experiences do we want to have? When do we want to have them with? You know,

and I think that people get so caught in a rut of money, money, money, money, money. I got to get this big bank account, whatever, and blah, blah, and I'm going to go to work and save and the iron and its culture that people forget that the money is a tool to have the experiences and to have other experiences you want, you know? So after survival, what experiences do you want to have? When do you want to have them? Who do you want to have them with? What for the for the person listening who's maybe Googling you now who hasn't heard you and says wait wait a second really easy for bill to say bill is a multi-millionaire like some like I don't think you're a billionaire but like maybe close at times.

And so easier for him to say because he doesn't have to worry about money anymore. What do you say to that person? So at various times your life you have money, you have your time and you have your health. Okay. And when I had nothing but time in my health, I've created some of the greatest memories and experiences I could possibly have. And so really this book is about choices, right? It's about what do you choose to do now? What do you choose to do later? And so even if you had no money, right, you can go for a walk, or you can park for your friends, or you can sit there and watch Netflix, right? You have all these different choices that you can do, even with no money as long as you

have help. Once you have no health, it's all over. And so it's forcing people realize that, wait a minute, I have choices until my health says I don't. And that invariably, we all die and our health declines. These are the facts of life right now. Okay, I'm not going to talk post-singularity. But right now, your health will decline and you will eventually die. And that decline of your mental facilities, your ability to walk a certain distance, your lung capacity, your bone, you know, these things happen to different people at different rates. And depending on that rate, that is going to cut the amount of experiences you can have down, right? So even if you have no money and you could go hiking, you know, in a park and you don't do it.

And you wait to your 60 or 70 and you can't hike it because your lung capacity or you've got a broken hip or your knees or you're out of shape or whatever. You forever lost that positive life experience and those memories of walking with your daughter or your friends or hiking, etc. So I am talking about people who, you know, one of the resources is money. And we are talking about dying with zero because if you work for money and then you die with money, you basically work for nothing. And then, you know, the number one thing I'll get back, what about the kids? Like, what do you mean? And there's a whole chapter in there about, you know, your kids, when you die is a date in the future, right? Like one of the main things is like, why would you wait to you die?

let's say you have a long life you live in 90, 60 year old is not a kid. You know what I mean? Like they've started to pass their peak too and their health has started to decline. So the money should be set aside for your kids before you die and should be transferred to them before you die well in advance, right? So I'm not talking about the kids money or the money that you're earning for your kids. I'm talking about your money, specifically your money. You know, the crutch of, oh, but what about my kids is really just a crutch.

If you really think about it, money should be in a trust or a separate account or transferred to them by a certain age, you know? Yeah. And now we're just talking about you. That part really piqued my curiosity, too, Bill, because I run to me with my grandma who she died last year and lived a long, great life into her 90s, mid-90s. But for like the last, I would say, 20 years of her life, maybe 15 years of her life, at Christmas, she gave all of her grandkids and great grandkids $100 and gave my parents, my mom,

it's my mom's mom's mom, significantly more than that. And her one rule was you have to spend it. Can't save it. You got to spend it. So, and just tell me what you buy, video game, candy. I don't care. You just got to spend it. You got to tell me.

And the same with my parents. And so like people were like redoing their kitchens like my aunts and uncles or like going on a vacation because that was her. her way of doing it. And I thought, like, that, that brought her like immense joy and satisfaction to see her kids and grandkids blowing money on whatever. Even some people were just gambling, like, you know, going to Vegas. And I thought that, but she got to see all that for the, for the last 15 years and experience the happiness and the smiles and the pictures and the handwritten notes of all that. And that brought her immense joy. And I think that,

that is, that was a, that's a good reminder to me of not just waiting until like, She's no longer here. And now they all, you know, there was there would have been more money, I guess. But, but, you know, she didn't get to experience any of that then. Yeah. And, you know, when you're giving somebody money, it was like, she's, she's not telling you what to do. She's just telling you what experience to have, but have an experience. Have it.

Don't let this go. It just be digits in a bank account that's sitting there that's off there. She wants you to utilize that and convert that money into positive life experiences. According to you, if that's redoing your kitchen, redo your kitchen. want to eat M&Ms all day? Eat M&Ms. Do you want to go on a trip? Go on a trip. I'm not here to tell you what to do, right? I'm just telling you how to have the most greatest fulfilling adventure of your life and that's converting them into experiences that you choose. And that forces people to think like, wow, well, what am I going to do with this $100 bucks or significant

more something? Like, what do I really want to do, right? Instead of it being this abstract thing called money, right, which is really people spending hours of their lives. It's just, represents hours of people's life, you know? Yeah. And you're like, okay, I want to, I want to take this abstract thing called money and I want to buy the pilots hours and the stewardess hours because I'm going to go on a trip or I want to buy, you know what I mean? Or I want to buy the candy makers hours and the store shop hours hours hours because I want the candy, right? And you're converting into this and they're giving the experience of having candy or the experience of going on a trip or whatever it is, you know. There's there's so we've we've hit on memory dividends. You explain what

memory dividends are. There are really like four key points that I wrote down from your book. So memory dividends is one, two, and I want to, I'll list them and then let's cover each of the remaining three. Two is experience bucketing. Three is converting your earnings into priceless memories by following your net worth curve. And then four is how to navigate whether to invest in or delay a meaningful adventure based on your personal interest rate. So I think there's all critical points to really illustrate that this is not just some rich guy telling you to go on vacation. Like this is a well thought out way to live and and for us to think deeply about this. And so, because initially, I'll be honest with you, Bill, when the PR guys reached out, I was like,

oh, come on. Like, are you kidding me? Like, Bill's saying die with nothing. And, and I thought, oh, but then I dug into the actual work and it changed my mind. So let's start with experience. experience bucketing, how to get the most experiences in the optimal time with experience bucketing. Can you share more about that? Yeah. So essentially going back on to like you don't die just once, right? And this is going to sound morbid at first, but it gets better. You die many, many times over your life, right? The high school student dies, right? The college student dies. Your first job dies. The single you dies. Then you're in the, then the you that has toddlers dies and you that has teenagers and then you're an empty nest or an etc.

Right. And so in each season, right, there are experiences that you want to have that forever go away, that either become impossible or by choice, you're just not going to have these experiences anymore, either be it circumstances, frame of mind, or or other things. And so the thing is to sit down and go, okay, I'm X years old right now. Let's just choose, you can choose five years or 10 years. experiences don't want to have in the next five years, then the next five years after that, until the day I die, right? And so it's a way of taking, it's a way of saying, okay, how am I going to spend my money until I die? What experiences do I want to have now versus

then? What am I saving for, right? And so, you know, I like to take very obvious extreme examples like hellaskiing or something like that that take a lot of physical activity. You know, that's not something I'm going to put in my 80 to 85 bucket, right? I'm going to put chess or opera or something like that, right, in that bucket. I'm going to put heliskeying closer to right now. For me, it's wave running, right? I like wave running, but I have a bad back, right, from my spine. And, you know, shock hurts, right?

And so, you know, I was at a place where, you know, guys were wave running around and weightboarding. And I was like, how do I wait for it? Nah, I'm not. And then I thought about it. I'm like, wait a minute. I don't waitboard now. this may be the last time I have the opportunity set to wake for it. This activity goes in this bucket right now, so I got my ass on the wakeboard, you know?

Because ultimately the deterioration of my back, like people who know about deterioration of cartilage, it doesn't grow back. It just keeps going until you have a complete loss of function, right? And so I was like, now's the time. And I did it. And I had that experience and I bucket it correctly. A lot of people are who are not thinking about it that way, right?

They're thinking, oh, I got this bucket of list and this is what I want to do. And they think, like, one day at 65, they're just going to go through this list and they're going to be able to do it. Like, you know, the Carnival Cruise commercials where people were running around, it's not like that. You know, I went to St. Petersburg,

and it's a beautiful city. It's great. And one of the great things, they let you walk up the church steps and go on the balconies. You see all over St. Petersburg, and it's a great view, right? And I saw it.

tons and tons of tour buses with these older people coming around who were retired, getting off the tour bus. Like literally 300 people. They went into the museum, but not one of them climbed the 212 steps to go up to the top of it. So they have a good time,

but it wasn't the same St. Petersburg for them. Right? The value of that trip actually went down by delaying it further into the future. I'm not saying it's zero value. I'm just saying it's not as great as my trip. And for me, when I was younger,

I lived in France for the summer, just to walk all around. I walked 15 miles a day. You know, to class, to back, French lessons, whatever. I learned in the neighborhood. There was so much stuff. Now, not so much.

You know what I mean? It's a different Paris for me. You know what I mean? I'm not saying it's not fun. It's no value. It's still Paris. But it's like that experience of walking the city, you know, goes on.

And that's for every city. that I go in. Like, am I really going to walk around this city the way I did before when I was younger? No. So maybe some of those trips where there's a huge, you know, a lot of the value is walking around, seeing the architecture, finding random restaurants, the culture, etc. Maybe I need to bring those forward and push maybe things like going to the opera, hanging out, you know, Carnival Cruise Line. Maybe I need to push that later, right? And so I think everybody, I'm just using very simple examples, but everybody can see that, you know, I As your health declines and as your situation changes, the other choices, whether you have kids or not have kids, get married, get divorced, et cetera, those affect what can go in that bucket. And if you don't think, at least sit down with yourself, clear your head, get off autopilot and think about what experiences you want, you will not get the maximum that you can get out of this life. I think one of the things that relates to this, Bill, is sometimes a friend reach out and say, hey, I'm going for this big job. and I'll and I always say well okay you know like let's you know I'll try to help or do whatever I can to help you get it and I'll say well first let's talk about the job why do you want the job and they'll say actually it's not really going to be that good of a job but I got to do it in order to get this other big job and so I have to suck it up for like three or four years and do this job and then maybe I can get the big job and I'm like well why do you want the big job you know and I'm like well because that's the BP or whatever. And I'm thinking, so first of all, let's say like you, it actually goes perfect to plan and then three or four years you get the big job. Why would you throw away three or four

years of your prime to get some job that you have no idea if you're going to like or not because of the title or the money? That feels similar to me where I always question that. And then sometimes I think people stop, will stop asking me for advice because it doesn't make any sense to me of why you would throw away those years with doing a job that you don't like or you don't want to do because of a title or money or the potential for the next job after that one. Yeah. I think, I think, you know, if you eliminate the money first, it's like, I want these experiences, right? And so it's like you have to, you really have to break down.

Like, I, you know, I knew I was kind of like brainwashed into like what experience I want to have. It's like, oh, I want to have a lot of money so I could do what I thought rich people do. right i didn't have the pallet to even be rich at the time and so um but you know i quickly learned that like hey you got to figure out what you want like the adventure is what you want like these experiences are what you want and and this job may lead to like some money that doesn't give you uses up all your time and you miss out all the adventure you want to have right so i i see people out there who have far less money but are making deliberate adventurous choices and have any experiences.

I'm like, they're doing it right. I'm doing it wrong. I need to rethink about what I want to have because I'm out here pretending, you know? I need to get back into the cave, sit back and be like, okay, what do you really want out of life? What experiences do you want to have in the next five years? So the, so we hit memory dividends. We hit experience bucketing.

The third one is how to convert your earnings into priceless memories by following your net worth curve. Can you share more about that? So it's really about the utility of money, right? And so it's kind of obvious that, you know, when you're a baby, money's fairly useless to you, right? I can throw a million dollars in your crib and you'll gum it and throw it out, right? And even as a teenager, right, you're generally controlled.

And then as a young adult, right, you have certain activities that you can do. You have your health. You know, maybe your mental facilities are not fully gelled. They usually get there around 28. But you can start consuming money and converting them into experiences. Right. And then you hit 33 when basically you've peak plateaued and you're starting your decline, right? And if the purpose of, and then let's go all the way to your deathbed, right? Trillion dollars are in your deathbed means nothing. When you can just blink your eyes and do nothing. You cannot convert the money into experiences. And so it stands the reason that, okay, there is a curve in which your ability to convert. your money into positive experiences, you know, that it follows, right? And so like if you, if you look from the day you die, two days before you die and go backwards, right, there's this

curve on the utility of money. And one of the biggest drivers of it is your health and deterioration of your health. And so depending on who you are, it makes no sense to continue to try and earn money and delay gratification because you won't be able to convert that money into gratification. So if you're 70 and you're saving for 75, the activity you were saving for it, you can no longer do, right? And so there's a bucket of them. And so that then means that at a certain point, your net worth should peak. Right? At that point, there's a certain age, depending on who you are, where your net worth should never go up. You can earn more money.

You just need to be converted into experiences, right? Because the decline becomes so steep, right? Depending on your net worth growth versus the experiences you can purchase. It's like you're working for nothing. You cannot convert them. You cannot convert them into experiences. And so that, you know, the number that you're reaching for is like, oh, wow, I'm not reaching for a number.

I'm reaching for a date. There is a date at which I should be spending down to the grave or else I'm going to be left with all this capital for what it could have should is that I can't do. What about Bill for the person? So I've recently been messaging with some professional coaches, one in the NFL, one in a big time college basketball. And the commonality with those guys is like they love that job. I mean, they work insane hours. But I ask them about it. I'm like, why do you do that?

And they're like, man, like, I can't imagine and I don't want to do anything else. Like, this is what I love to do. And I, and there are other people listening who work in corporate America who may say the same thing. Like, I genuinely, what's that? I said, that's awesome. And I'm not telling people to quit their jobs. Yeah. I'm telling you that you're getting this resource to you, it seems free, this money, right?

I'm saying just spend the resource. You're not, I don't think anybody's that one dimensional. Maybe they are and I'll be like, fine. You can't, you know, then give them. it away, put it into your charitable bucket and your time is now to give it away. But I'm saying that you can work to the day you die. I'm saying that you need to consume the money that you earn for working, right? Gotcha. Other things, right? Maybe it's hiring a bunch of analysts on the side to help you with your basketball coaching or your game or data scientist or a programmer. Maybe it's a vacation,

you know, bigger, batter vacation where you invite more relatives on the vacation. You pay for them to come on to have a bigger experience while you're alive instead of them going, oh yeah, I remember them once whatever on your deathbed, right? Like, you know, like you want to create memorable experiences with them now where you're, where you're vibrant and alive. You know,

I don't know what it is. I'm just saying that I'm not against people working and loving what they're doing. I'm saying that you're getting this resource to have experiences, and you need to need to use that experience, use those resources wisely to have other experiences because I don't believe you're that one dimension. right and you have other free time you have other hobbies and interest or give it away to people that will actually utilize those experiences now and get the most most out of it how do you charity or a

relative or whatever yeah how i think there's probably a question that a lot of people are thinking of is how did you earn your millions um i i i guess right on natural gas i'm in i'm in the uh i'm a commodities trader mainly focused on energy and within the energy sector my primary focus is natural gas futures and options trading can you explain for a person who doesn't understand what you just said what that means okay so um most people understand oil right yep yeah so let's say you're talking to one of your your kid when she was in second grade i would say that daddy guesses where the price of gas is going to go whether it's going to go up or down and i look at how many people are driving or not driving or how much oil is coming out of the wells to figure out,

is there too much oil and the price is going to go down or there's not enough than people want to drive and they're willing to pay more money to have other people not drive and they get to drive. How did you get good at that, at least obviously better than most? Because when you describe it like that, like, well, let me sign up for that job so I can get millions. Like how did you get good at that? I was very lucky to come into a niche where to understand the fundamentals of natural gas.

it's difficult, but not intractable. But not that many people were doing it. And so to be better than par, to be better than the market was easier, you know. So your timing was good, you're saying? My timing was impeccable. How much luck was involved? I think there's just, there's single moments in my life where it steered me this way or that way. As far as this industry, you know, it was serendipity that I got introduced into it.

Like in college, I was like, I saw Wall Street. I was like, oh, I want to do that. Like, I want to be rich and I want to be Gordon Gecko and I want a cell phone. You know what I mean? The big giant one, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, I don't want to be evil. I just wanted to be rich.

And I got introduced to refined energy, a firm on the floor with a future commission merchant. I didn't know what that word meant either at the time. It doesn't really matter. I sort of as like a peon. And I saw people basically yelling and screaming and the energy. And I was just like, oh, this is for me. And I was pretty also arrogant. I was like, well, if that fat slop can be rich, so can I.

You know what I mean, that type of thing, you know, that young arrogance that you have, you know, coming out of college. And I found, I found something that was like a puzzle, and I like puzzles, that wasn't intractable. And, you know, just kind of worked my way up, worked really hard, got lucky, and just, you know, kind of journeyed my man into a position, journey man my way into a trading job and where I was, you know, successful. Do you still do that? Yes, I do. I run a hedge fund called Skylar Energy. Okay. And so, and so how is that related to what you did?

Or is this all part of it? It's all part of it. It's all part of it. It's basically working for a firm than having your own. So instead of working for a hedge fund, now I have my own head fund. Okay. So is part of your job hiring others? Yes. So how do you go about doing that? Like, what are some things you you look for in someone to hire to be part of your team? Quality, characteristics, behaviors, things like that. Generally, it's very specialized. So we look at basically their internal motive, you know, their skill set, of course, right? Their integrity, what have they done?

And then also kind of like their self-motivation or they are fire and forget muscle. Right. I generally, like even in other fields like I have other business ventures and companies, etc., you know, the more I can just tell you what I want, and then you go figure out and get it done, the more likely I'm going to hire you, right? I just want to point the missile in there, shoot it, and then it just automatically finds the target, right?

So I want a bunch of fire and forget missiles. And so when I find people who are like, you know, problem solvers, self-motivated, you know, that can be fire and forget muscles, they move high, high, high up the list. Got you. And I don't even have to have, Sometimes I don't even have to be the skill set.

They just have to be like, hey, I'm going to look like one of my, my analyst clerks, self-taught himself AI programming, machine learning, et cetera, built a AI ship tracking map for us, you know? I was like, he didn't even know, you know, he self-taught himself programming, right? Like, these are the type of people you get, you give them the platform, right? They want, what they want is security. They want the paycheck to show up, right? And the health care, right? I give them that. And then they're willing to put their energy, heart and soul, and their enthusiasm into any project or problem.

Sometimes someone who is really good as an individual contributor struggles when they make that jump to running their own show where then they become a manager. And that's kind of what you've done. What's been your experience as you transitioned from being just a guy who was good at a singular thing? Now you're running something with other people where you're dependent upon the work and the motivation. motivation of others in order for your company be successful. How is that gone for you? I'm going to say my blunt answer and then I'm going to go into the other one. I get the fuck out of the way.

But you can't do that. And if you don't have good people, though, you could do that. Your business is gone. If you, okay. So I had to, you know, I originally started building and hiring, finding the right key people and delegating. Like when I don't have the air, it's often said, I get asked a lot of questions.

And a lot of times I'm like, oh, that's above my pay grade or below my grade grade. I don't know, but it's not me. And, you know, I am a master delegator. So I have learned to delegate. And it's been a long process, you know, you stumble, you take gambols on certain people. You're like, oh, that didn't work or that didn't work. But I've been able to build a team and I know when to get out of way and let them do their job and then, you know, give me what I need back. If I was a guy like trying to do this and even hiring, right, like, I'm the last.

guy, but it goes through like three people before it gets to me, right? They understand it, what we need, skill sets, whatever. And then it's like, okay, let's see if the rapport, and I'm like the worst interviewer in the world. And so I'm like, because I'm just like, hey, you're hungry, you're self-start, you're hired. You know what I mean? The other guy's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, let's just make sure they have the skill sets and yada, yada, yada, and background check and all these other things. But the main thing to be me managing me, is to get the hell out of the way and let the experts do their job. Right. And so, To run this organization or do all the projects I work on, et cetera, I really have to be work on my

business instead of in my business. A lot of people work in their business, right? That's the difference having a pizza parlor or having pizza hut. Yeah. How many, like on an average week, how many hours is spent working for you? That's a good question. Since I'm always responsible, like this is a, this is the one thing about trading that's kind of terrible. Since you're always responsible for the position and you're the steward of other people's capital and the information is 24-7 coming out, you're technically always working, right? The investors don't know. Even when you're on your bow, I've seen the Wi-Fi you got set up on your boat.

Yeah, yeah. If the information is out, I have to analyze and respond to it. So like, you know, trading in some ways, you know, yes, there's a luxury lifestyle, but it's like being a firefighter or an emergency room doctor. Not in that it's important to your saving lives, but in that you get called like that and it's firefighting time, right? Like, you just got to get into it. It's straight. It doesn't, you know, if something happens or blows up, or there's a storm or a herking coming, it doesn't matter what day of the week is. It's Christmas. You can move on mom's birthday, whatever. You've got to

analyze and act and react, right? And there's also times where it's just like, it's chill. You're doing nothing. You have your position on. You did your fundamentals. It's a seasonal trade. So, you're just kind of relaxing, et cetera. But in any moment, you know, the alarm goes off. You're on duty. I was going to say like what happens like I'll take you inside a moment you Dan Bilsarian and a number of his friends are on your boat you've probably imbibed for a few hours I'm guessing and you're in the middle of off the coast of the Virgin Islands where you've got this beautiful boat and there's a fire metaphorical a fire work wise let's just say Transco pipeline blew up whatever so

What happens and what's Bill Perkins life like at that moment where you got Dan over there doing his thing saying like, are you working right now? Like what's happening? I get so much flack from that. I mean, the beauty of the modern age is that we have all these tools to allow us to work remote. And that's a blessing and a curse. Right. Because it's like, oh, grab the phone.

As long as I got 4G, I'm good. I can bring up the trading thing. I can read the report and send a WhatsApp. or a signal to one of my analysts, is this really a big deal? How much gas is offline for how long, whatever. Does this affect this basis point, to that paces point, whatever?

All right, action plan, right? Am I gonna, as a market, and then it's really, has the market underreacted or overreacted to this event, right? And so that I need to go off in a quiet place or whatever and just be in my phone, right? Usually I can't hear anybody if I'm looking at my phone and just like get laser focused.

and then I deal with it. I deal with that fire. It doesn't require me to be there or be in an office, etc. And that's great because I have my office is like, wow, I'm on a boat. This is my office, you know. But it also is terrible in a way because you have some moments that you have reserved for a certain activity or a certain experience that get crashed, you know, crashed by the market, right?

But the market's like, no, we need your attention. Pull yourself out of the situation. Yeah, I gotcha. I want to get back to the fourth one that I had highlighted earlier to close this loop. It's how to navigate whether to invest in or delay a meaningful adventure based on your personal interest rate. Yeah, so, you know, trying to understand whether you should save for something or not, you know, using monetary and interest rates, it's kind of like a, it's an esoteric term, right? Right, like not a lot of people on finance. And so, you know, I try and give examples, concrete examples to people that they can relate to, you know, just anybody relate to. And so one of the things, you know, one of the thought experiments I go through is, is like, if you're going to date, die tomorrow, how much do I have to pay you not to have an experience today, right?

And the answer should be infinity because you don't get to do it, right? You know you're going to die tomorrow, right? And so then you can just keep going back, you know, one day, two days, et cetera. Basically, the interest rate is infinity the day before you're done, right? You're like, hey, no, give me the money. Well, invest it. You'll have more money tomorrow and you can do more stuff tomorrow. And you're just like, nah, I die tomorrow.

It doesn't matter if the interest rate's infinity. I'm doing it today, right? And so, you know, you can think about things of like your own personal. As you get older and your body decays and these, these activities, are disappearing, the return on the money to not doing an activity starts to trend towards infinity, right, until the day you die, right? And so that's your personal interest rate, right? It doesn't matter what their interest rate is or whatever. Like, there's no return you can offer me the day before I die for me to give you my money. I'm going to spend it

on whatever it is. Might be pizzas, might be a trip around the world. It might be, who knows, you know, getting dropped out of an airplane with 50 people holding me so I don't die. I don't know, you know. But and as you look forward, it's like you can think of yourself. It's like, okay, would I rather have a trip today or two trips 10 years from now? Is that a better deal for me? Right. And you can think about that each person might be different, right?

And at certain points your age, it's like, yeah, five trips, five years from now, I'd rather delay this trip for five years because I'm at the same experience. I can do this. Then I can go on a trip with my family. Then I can do the boy's trip. Then I can do a so-and-so trip. So I'll take five trips five years from now when I'm 25 versus one trip now. Talk to me when I'm 70.

No shot. Right. And so really you can look at what a five trip costs. Let's say five trips cost 10,000. You know what I mean? That's five extra money in five years. We can calculate with that interest rate. It's like for sure, I will delay.

Right. But at a certain point, it becomes neutral and a certain point it becomes no way. And that's how you can figure out kind of like your own personal interest rate. what return on investment or what return on delayed gratification do I need to get in order to delay this, right? And it's really not like this hard, fast, like your personal interest rate is X. It's a thought exercise to get you to start thinking about delaying experiences into the future and what return you need in order to delay experiences into the future, right? So if I'm 35, an interest rate is 2%, let's say survival.

Remember, in the beginning, we always said survival is taking care of, right? We're already saved for survival. And so if I'm, if I'm, you know, 35 and I'm looking at, like, saving for an experience and an interest rate is 2%, right? I'm only getting, you know, what am I getting for delaying now? I'm missing out on the experience right now, and I'm also missing out on the memory dividend, right? You have an experience.

You know what I mean? You deposit it into the bank. Net bank kicks out dividends, kicks out memory dividends, right? You're missing out on that too. So you're weighing like, wow, well, I'll be able to take 1.5 more trips or experiences more in 10 years. I'm like, eh. You know what I mean? I'll take the trip now and live off the memories of this trip the next 10 years.

It'll almost be as good, right? I really love the phrase memory dividends because. Like, I just think of my own family and us talking about the pool we had in Hilton Head. And, yeah, even some of the negative memories like, oh, you got stung by a jellyfish. But like, oh, we let you ride by yourself to the general store to get an ice cream cone. And that was like the excitement and the sisters getting to do that. Like little things that still are talked about years later, that is a memory dividend. And I never thought of it that way.

And that's what I urge people to think about is like, how can you create as many of those. as possible, it's so worth it. And it actually is changing my behavior as I look to create experiences. Yeah. I mean, often, especially if you do them early, you invest, the dividend, right, like let's call them experience points, right? You do something, you get 100 experience points. But often the memory dividend over time will be more than the original experience. Right? Over time, right? Because you relive it. I can. see how excited you just talked about recalling us you know it's like the endorphins of flowing you're reliving the experience you're telling me i'm getting experience from it it's just like wow great

memory divina right and had you not done this or had you not had you not had this experience with this person that person or whatever it is your choice because i'm not telling you what experiences to have i'm saying just have them right it's not just about like travel too i think we're talking a lot about travel but it's it you're not you didn't you haven't said specifically travel it may be travel for you we're talking about as experiences yeah it could be a walk in a park It could be charity. It could be building a bridge in a third world country. It could be the time you help the homeless person.

You got out in the street. You say, you know what? I'm going to do something. I'm going to get out. I'm going to help these five homeless people, right? And you're going to have that experience dividend for the rest of your life for helping them. And you're going to talk about that experience. And so I know it sounds very hedonistic, but it's not hedonistic.

It just experiences is just a very broad word and covers every activity that you can possibly do. The memory dividend is kind of like what we're living for. And sometimes putting money in the bank won't produce a dividend greater than your memory dividend. Right. And I'm trying to get people to think about these things and have a way of thinking about these things so they can make this decision. Right. What about how you're, so there's a lot of people who are leaders within a company right now and they're thinking, okay, how can I take Bill's message from a leadership perspective with my team, not only leading myself to do it, but also that maybe I could share this with my team. And you have people who work for you, work within your companies.

How do you message this type of die with zero message to the people that you're leading specifically that work for your companies? Yeah, I mean, I guess from my perspective, I'm very much on having like a fulfilled life, right? Like the experiences you want to have. using your hours wisely, getting the absolute last drop of life out at every moment. Like it was lemonade. Like I want you to savor it and be like, like, like, you know what a fucking ride. I want you to, I want you to, you know, on your deathbed be like,

I fucking rode this bitch to that death. You know what I mean? Like, woohoo. You know what I mean? And so, and I would wish that for everyone. And so what I try and do is, one, design my office and my hours. and my time and the work. And so that people have that freedom to have those experiences, right?

Like not have work be as the least burden it could possibly be, right? So we went to closing the office on Fridays. Really? This is pre-COVID. We closed the office on Fridays. We're like, look, if you got to work, work from home, whatever, blah, blah, blah. We were already experimenting work from home. Now to this COVID, and we had the experiment and we put on the systems and protocols for work,

We're like, everybody work remote. Why spend an hour or 90 minutes in traffic fighting back and forth where you can roll out of bed and be instantly at work? You know what I mean? And have the expenses associated with living close to work, right? That hidden tax of having to like live in a city and you have to pay a higher rent or buy a more expensive house because you've got to be next to this office, right? And having to choose and live in a city that maybe you don't even want to live in or a region you don't want to live in, right? And then the commute costs, right? And then your time, right?

Like let's say your time is worth $35 an hour and you're spending, you know what I mean, 90 minutes a day, five days a week traveling. That's a significant amount of money, right? And so, you know, and money is really hours of your life. Like when I say money, I mean hours of your life because you exchange hours of your life for money. That's all it represents is hours of people's lives, whether it's the doctor, the dentist, a pilot.

you know what I mean at a certain rate and so I try and give them back those hours in structure and less hassle right so that they can live it from the line and then I remind them I'm like hey this is all about like you know I openly talk about like why are you here working right we're not guessing on the price of natural gas because we just came out of the womb like we want to guess on the price of natural gas right we're guessing the price of natural gas because we want to have the means to acquire other experiences, right? The first one, obviously survival. But after that, you know what I mean?

There's an adventure that we want to have, right? And so, you know, I try and facilitate, you know, less hassle associated with work, give them hours back for their life, you know, so they can have this adventure instead of commuting to work or, you know, all the hassle. I don't have this. I have like a very, you know, even the vacation plan, it's like, look, I don't care if you're sick. or whatever. These are how many days, do whatever you want.

Mental health day. You feel like farting in bed and watching Netflix. I don't care. Here the days. You know what I mean? Like I try and make it, trying to easeify their lives, you know? Yeah. No, I think it's, um, I, the reason why I was initially skeptical, uh, and then my mind was changed is because as I, as I briefly mentioned before, this die with, die with zero style or methodology is not selfish. In fact, I think it's important to spread this message to other people because there's a lot of benefit. It doesn't mean you don't give to charity.

You don't give to kids. You don't give to people who need it. You certainly are still doing all of those things. Yeah, go ahead. Let me interrupt you. On the contrary, not only that, it requires you to think about your kids now, not as an afterthought on your deathbed. Like taking care of kids is not a tip when you die. You know what I mean?

It's not like, oh, well, here's what I didn't spend and here you go. It's deliberate planning, right? So they can get the maximum out of their life at their peak of their life, right? You want them to have that money when they're able to convert it into experiences at the right time too, right? Like you don't want your, you don't want to die like let's say 100 and give it to a 70 year old, right? Or you know what I mean? Like that's not really thoughtful. planning and taking care of your kids. So I think aiming to die with zero is the most thoughtful

thing you can do, right? Because it forces you to be like, okay, what am I going to give to my kids? What do I want to do? When do I want to give it to them? What charities do I want to support now? When do I want to give them? Okay, what's left over? Okay, what do I want to do and when? Let me bucket that. Okay, I want to do this five years. This five years. Okay, let me go ride this ride, right? This much I want to be potluck and now let me go ride this live. So you actually wind up having to go through a process of taking care of things external to you first, right? Or at least identifying those things, right? And then figuring out what's yours, whether it be at a rate over time or just a lump sum of money,

and then go making sure that you do not waste a drop of that money. You do not waste a drop an hour of your life working for nothing. I cannot say it any better than that bill. I am very appreciative of you've won for writing this book, Die With Zero, getting all you can from your money and your life, highly encourage people to buy it and read it and buy a copy for their friends. Even if you go in skeptical like I did, it'll probably change your mind if this conversation didn't in its own right. Bill, where would you send my listeners and viewers to learn more about you online?

Oh, wow. I mean, well, the book, I would go with Die With Zero Book.com. I think that's kind of like the best place, given what we're talking about. I mean, if you Google Bill Perkins, I think I'm the first one that pops up besides the senator. You know what I mean? So like I'm there. But I think the book, you know, we'll keep updating the website. We're going to release like an app also when the book comes out that actually helps you through some of these processes.

Like, you know, fuck it your life. You know, it's really, you know, the funny thing I want to say is that this is, this is, I believe, you know, I'm not the first one to think of it's called full life cycle theory or something like that, that economists have thought about it that basically a rational person would aim to spend all of his money before he dies, right? He or she does, right? It's out there. You know, I thought about it in a different. I came upon it on it on a different way through, you know, experiences throughout my life and just kind of thinking through it and arguing we're friends for five years. But, you know, that is. out there, but I'm like a fat coach on a sideline sometimes. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I know the right thing to do, but I'm out of shape. I'm like, run faster, but I can't run. You know what I mean? So it is very difficult to sometimes sit down and actually quiet your mind and think about the experiences you want to have so that you can have the best ride. And so I'm putting out some tools on the website, which will be coming out to help people go through that difficult process.

Because I wrote the book and I'm like, oh, man, this is a lot. shit is hard. You know what do I want? We're so busy and we're so on autopilot like going to work and clicking this and buying our Starbucks and all these habits that we formed from culture that we don't go off autopilot and really think about the arc of our lives and what we'll be able to do and what age. And so I just want to let the people know that not only is there a book that I want you to live it, right? But there will be tools to help you as well. I love it, man. Well, thank you. you for investing an hour with me more than an hour with me today bill i really appreciate that um and i would love to continue our dialogue as we both progress man okay yeah i definitely love being on

thank you for having me awesome thanks so much man appreciate it my conversation with bill was certainly one of those that made me stop and think and that's one of the primary reasons that i truly enjoy doing this podcast is to have conversations with people like this that I probably would have never spoken with. But it makes me rethink some of the decisions I've made and will make moving forward. And I would urge you to do the same, to think about some of these ideas, and maybe it will adjust some of your decision making. A few of the key points that I jot it down follow your net worth consume money and convert it into life experiences and maximize your memory dividends the earlier you create the memories the more time you'll have them sound simplistic

but so true and then his behaviors for hiring what he values integrity intrinsic most motivation and people who are proactive problem solvers. It sounds really like a good way to hire people to me. I hope you enjoyed this one with Bill Perkins, certainly different than most of the ones you'll hear, but that's why I love doing this. Because you continue to spread the word to one person at a time, You are continually giving me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis.

And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so much. Talk with you soon. Can't wait.