Modern WisdomWhy You Should Spend All Of Your Money Before You Die - Bill Perkins
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,117 words- 0:00 – 0:21
Intro
- BPBill Perkins
For the person out there who's cookie cutting it, but really yearns to, like, strike out, try anything, move to a new city, chase the girl, say "I love you" first, get in shape, run the marathon, whatever it is, don't waste your (censored) life, dude. Don't do it. Don't let the (censored) judgment of the haters make you waste your (censored) life.
- CWChris Williamson
(wind blowing)
- 0:21 – 9:35
How Bill is Saving Lives
- CWChris Williamson
You said that you wrote this book to save people's lives. What'd you mean?
- BPBill Perkins
Well, the first life I wanted to save was my own. Um, I have a, I have a deep fear of wasting my life, you know, and, and I, I was thinking about this earlier in life, like, kind of, what does it all mean type conversations that people have. And I was broke. I was trying to work my way up in Wall Street, commodities trading. And, you know, there's a lot of frustration trying to obtain wealth and, and get there. And I was like, "Well, what does it all mean? What is it gonna get me?" Right? "What is the extra money gonna get me?" Um, and I was thinking about, "Well, I don't wanna be rich when I'm old, because what am I gonna do with money when I'm old," right? "My life will have passed me by. And what's the money for? What am I gonna buy at different stages in my life, and what are the things that I really want?" And, you know, I was young, so, like, when you're young, you just think, "I just want a bunch of women and, and a guitar and a fast car," and, you know, whatever it is, right? All the dumb things that (laughs) young people think, right? I was kinda on this different advertised autopilot. But I really didn't wanna waste my life. I didn't wanna go to work and bust my butt and deal with the abuse, as clerks deal with trying to get, get rich, for nothing, right? To, to have a picket fence a- and a car and a bigger car and then, and, and drive my kids to school in a bigger car, right? So... And I also didn't wanna go to work for money that I was never gonna spend. I didn't wanna have Chuck e- unused Chuck E. Cheese tokens. I, I use Chuck E. Cheese, but I, I realize that internationally people are like, "What the hell is he talking about, Chuck E. Cheese tokens?" But I guess a lot of people know what Skee-Ball is, when they give you the tickets, and, and you go get the prize, right? You, you don't wanna be playing Skee-Ball, get, like, I don't know, a million tickets, and just walk out, right? And that, that was kinda the idea of, like, working for money that I never would spend or never use. And so, I was like, "I don't wanna waste my life. I don't wanna waste my life." Um, "What does that mean? How do I optimize l- my life? How do I get the most out of my life regardless... You know, h- if I'm gonna spend all my money, when? How does that curve work?" You know, so I looked at life as kind of, like, this optimization prog- program, um, and I tried to distill the variables, and the variables were your wealth, your health, and your time. And I was like, "I wanna get the absolute most out of this life, absolute most." And so that's the save my life. And so I know that's a long answer, maybe we should chop that up a little bit, but I'm gonna tell you, um, you know, something I usually tell people at the end, is that if, if you save somebody who's drowning, right? Let's, let's say y- you walk by and they're drowning, and you go in and you do the mouth-to-mouth and they cough up the water dramatically and you're like, "Oh my God, you saved my life," and I go, "Guess what? They're still gonna fucking die. They're just not gonna die that day." So what did you really do for them? You gave them more I love yous, more walks in the park, more trips, more experiences, basically. And so you've optimized their life for more experiences by pulling them out of the water that day. Um, and so when I write a book about optimizing your life, like, not wasting your time, being deliberate with your money, and getting the most out of it, I feel like I'm doing the same thing, to a certain extent. I'm giving you more I love yous, more walks in the park, more fulfillment, right? Just as you gave that person the opportunity for more fulfillment when you pulled them out of the water. And so I wrote the book to save my life so that I don't drown in the bullshit, right? And then hopefully you read the book, you apply the principles, and you don't drown in the bullshit and you get more life.
- CWChris Williamson
I have to say, man, uh, I think that it will be a, uh, seminal read as, as it continues to grow. I th- I know it already has been super successful, but for me, it was, it was very, um, very impactful to see something that looks like life design with, um, the, the finances side, with this almost sort of stoic memento mori, you know-
- BPBill Perkins
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... me- meditate on death thing that you've got that's going on. I, I really, genuinely think that it's been one of the most impactful things that I've read. I read, like, go through an awful lot of books. Uh, so personal, uh, applicability, it's been very, very important. So you've done amazing work with it, so-
- BPBill Perkins
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... you should be very proud of it.
- BPBill Perkins
I appreciate that. When you're, when you're, when you're going with, like, this, you know... I'll just say it this way, this counter factual regret minimization algorithm solving for net, net fulfillment, right? People are like, "What the fuck?" (laughs) You know what I mean? Like, these are the algorithms that, like, chess computers use, right? It's just what if scenario analysis to... And a chess computer is solving for mate, right? And a lot of people run their lives on a counter factual regret minimization solving for the highest net worth, right? And I'm like, "No, let's run the algorithm solving for net fulfillment, 'cause that's the purpose of life, right?" So we're, we're... Everybody agrees with me. I'm like, "Okay, good. What resources do we have? Well, we're gonna use, uh, your wealth, your health, and your time. How does that apply?" You know, I, I could do it, and again, we, we... you know, we're... There was a lot of debate about how do you sink this message into people, right? Like, people don't wanna look at a bunch of spreadsheets, right? They wanna apply it in a visceral way. How do they get the concepts in a visceral way? And that's why the book opens with my, um, friend's death, right? 'Cause death has a way of waking people up.
- CWChris Williamson
Tell us that story.
- BPBill Perkins
Um, so my, my friend Erin Brodstin, um, her husband, um, he, he, he just all of a sudden got diagnosed with cancer, right? Out of nowhere. She calls me up. She knows I do a lot of archaic research in medical and donate medical. Like, I went deep dive into MS, um, and, and had a, had a study actually published on the cover of Journal of Nature. You only see Small Ventures USA as funding, but I was...... getting the scientists and hiring them and getting the lab and the gene sequencing machine, whatever. So, I, I do the deep dive and then I, uh, I, and the deep dive, like I'm some sort of medical professional. I did the deep dive as in, as in I did enough research to know w- this is it, right? This is over. Um, you know, I said, "Hey, you need to take time off. Spend, spend time with each other. Go with the kids," et cetera. She was already on, on that plan, but, you know, I was there to assist, right? Like, "Whatever you need. Um, do we, uh, you know, go enjoy the last, last time together." And it's hard to say that without saying that, right? Like, you have no hope, right? Obviously, you're always out for hope and they're doing experimental research and, um, he, uh, he eventually, um, was on the East Coast and, you know, as frail as could be, right? Um, died. She violated... She was going to violate a promise she made to him, John, by, by letting the kids see him before he died. So he, he, it was, he was gonna go. She calls me up and she's like, "I, I gotta let the kids see him before he dies. I told them..." Uh, he didn't want the kids to see him in this way, but he told them that. I got her a plane, got him on the plane with the n- you know, all the contraptions, and he died in the air and they had to land. And so, that's that story, right? But, you know, the point of that story is, is that that's everybody's story. It's just, we just have an elongated time frame. You know, John had a month. You have, I don't know. I, I look at mine, you've got 4,000 weeks, 2,000 weeks, you know, whatever it is, right? And so the question is, is with that vacation that we have here on Earth, right? We have a, we have a vacation and it's going to end. What do we wanna do with our time here? What do we want our story to be, right? So, uh, he was an unfortunate event, but that provided clarity on what they wanted to do each day, right? And we have that same unfortunate thing, but it's so far away, we, we're not really paying attention to our death. We're not remembering death. We're acting like this vacation never ends, right? Um, and we're living on autopilot, which autopilot's great. It helps you drive home without thinking too much. It helps you do your job and get good at your job and skills. But it also puts you in this path to survive, not thrive. And so, this kind of, "Hey, you're going to die. Hey, this vacation is going to end." This kind of like, slap across the face, wake up, is, I think everybody needs. And that's why I started with death, because people connect with dying. It wakes them up. They're like, "Oh, shit." You know? "I, I gotta take my life seriously. Like, what am I gonna do? What if, what if I was gonna die in a month? Okay, I'm not gonna die in a month, but I'm gonna die probably in 30 years, 36 years. What, what am I gonna do? My 2040..." Like, you're open to a message, right? You're, you're most open to change, a message, some sort of epiphany when death is on the line.
- CWChris Williamson
It's a profound story and (clears throat) creating that sense of urgency around your time on this planet is finite.
- BPBill Perkins
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
You know, you don't know how finite, but it's finite. And you have these nine principles that you run through-
- BPBill Perkins
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... that I wanna go through with you today. The
- 9:35 – 20:12
Maximise Positive Life Experiences
- CWChris Williamson
first one is maximize positive life experiences.
- BPBill Perkins
Right. So, you know, it's kinda like how do I have this broad definition of what is the purpose of your life, right? And when I say experience, I really mean your choices, right? Like, you make a choice. I have, I have a choice. I can wake up, I can come on this podcast, I can drink water, or I can drink, drink a sugary drink, et cetera. And those choices drive our fulfillment, right? And they're different for each person, right? Somebody might be like, "I'm maximally feld, fulfilled playing a game of chess." Somebody's like, "It's swimming." For me, it's travel. For me, it's doing charity work and doing..." You know, I make no judgment about what that is. But what I say is, is that life is the sum of your choices. Life is the sum of your experiences. Life is the sum of your positive experiences. And so, if you're trying to get the most out of this life, let's make the high score positive life experiences. So, let's maximize those, right? So, now we have a metric that all of us can think about.
- CWChris Williamson
S- something we're optimizing for.
- BPBill Perkins
Right, we're optimizing for, right? And so, we, we, we have this kind of, um... It's a variable, right? And that variable means different things to different people, right? And different, and different, you know, mixes, right? But we know we're solving for that, right? And we, and if we, if that, everybody kinda gets on board, like, "I agree," right? I'd have an inbound like, "No, that's not what I want." I say, "Well, experience can be anything. It can be charitable, it can be hedonistic," right? For s- some of my friends it's as many girls as they can get.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- BPBill Perkins
And for some of my friends, it's as many lives they can impact and, and, and, and, and change in a positive direction, right? I cast no judgment. I just say, "Hey, what you're solving for, this is how we get the maximum."
- CWChris Williamson
You say most people fear running out of money. What you should really fear is wasting your life.
- BPBill Perkins
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And I think that that blend between if what we want is positive life experiences and the things that we need in order to be able to get that are wealth, health, and time-
- BPBill Perkins
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... working out the trade, working out the appropriate trade between those two and where you can give it up and where you're refusing to give it up-
- BPBill Perkins
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... is one of the, I guess, big takeaways for me. And I think a lot of people that are listening will be part of this cohort of, I don't know, like, guilty savers-
- BPBill Perkins
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... I would call them.
- BPBill Perkins
Yeah. A lot of it's conditioning, um, and, and there, there's some sort of, uh-... pride. I remember when I was like just, on the fire movement. I read the book, uh, Your Money or Your Life, and I, I was like so proud of myself (laughs) saving, you know? And- and- and- it- it- there was this kind of this like smugness about it, like even though you got a million dollars. But yeah, I know how to sa- you know, I know how to get a coupon to the train and do X, Y, and Z. And I did this, and I'm just happy because I am so right in my s- my judicious saving, you know? And, um, and, you know, I got called a fucking idiot and kind of woke up (laughs) woke up to that by- by my boss at the time. But, you know, generally in this book, like I'll- uh, you'll find other people, like they'll sacrifice all other variables for their health. Or they'll sacrifice all other variables, you know, for their- for their money, or all for their time. And they'll end up, they take these three variables and we're solving for maximal fulfillment. So we will burn money for fulfillment. We'll even burn some health for fulfillment, right? And we will burn time for fulfillment, right? And so and depending on who you are, that's going to be, you know, that- that mix in what you do and what activities fulfill you, you- th- that's gonna be, uh, an individual decision. But the formula still remains the same.
- CWChris Williamson
What if somebody says ... and I was asked this question yesterday ... "What do you want in life?" And when they're asked that question, they find it very hard to answer.
- BPBill Perkins
That is- that is, um, that is the biggest trick or the biggest requirement, um, that's kinda not there in the book, right? We discuss it. You have to get off autopilot. You have to understand what fulfills you and what you want, right? And a lot of people, uh, myself included, 'cause I wrote the book to save my own life, so don't- don't think that like I'm the Dalai Lama of like net fulfillment and I got it all figured out, right? I- I had this- I wrote this book to slap my own face to get off autopilot. But a lot of times like I have to get off autopilot on the sentence like, "What really do I enjoy? What really fulfills me? What would I really rather be doing now? What is just autopilot, marketing, uh, inertia, right, in my life?" You know? And if there is inertia in my life that I identify, do I wanna keep some of that inertia? 'Cause it's okay. You know, it's good. It's fulfilling and- but I need to dial it back, and what is that ratio, right? Um, that's the first step.
- CWChris Williamson
What have you come to believe about that?
- BPBill Perkins
Um, I come to believe a lot of the things that I enjoy now, um, even things that fulfill me, is been marketing and culture. And culture is a form of marketing, right? It's things my parents wanted, and they wanted for me, and- and they enjoyed, and foods they ate, and foods they fed me as a kid, which then I come to love. You know, I always tell people, "The reason why you don't eat fried crickets is because you weren't raised in China. But if you were in China, you'd be like, 'I- I really want a f- fried cricket on a stick right now.'" You know? It's just l- like a lot of your food choices are just cultural, right? You've been programming. And some of the programming is good. It's fulfilling, right? This is great programming, I love the programming, right?
- CWChris Williamson
And there can be wisdom in programming too.
- BPBill Perkins
Yes. Yeah, yeah. It's not like, you know, these humans were just, you know, randomly picking up things. But they were making do with the resources they had and they ate the foods that were around them and- and that's how their palate was formed or that- maybe that was wise, maybe it was unwise, right? Um, and, you know, you have to sit back and think about these things w- with your prefrontal cortex, not be on autopilot, right? And go, "Is this a good thing? Is this good for me? Do I really like it? It's good for the environment? Is it healthy?" You know, all- all these other things, right? It's a- it's a lot of energy, right? And I- I'm just talking about food choices. Nevermind like, "Do I really wanna go live in Norway? Or is it too cold? Why don't I like the cold?" You know what I mean? (laughs) Like these are- these are- these are a lot of questions, right? (laughs) And so that's the most difficult thing, but these are some things that we have to be prodding ourselves and asking ourselves, right? Like, "Is this what I really, really, really want?" You know, people wake up, you know, usually after some traumatic event, "I got fired," or, "Somebody died," or, "My dad died," or- or something like, "I don't even know why I'm doing this. I don't even really like this." You know? "Why am I here?" You know? And- and they're- they're- they have this crisis because something snapped them off autopilot and they've- they've looked at their selves and they look- and they realize how they're living is not what fulfills them and it's not even how they want to be fulfilling, it's just how the autopilot of their life has taken off.
- CWChris Williamson
Why is life energy important?
- BPBill Perkins
It's- I- it's- life energy is the, you know- the definition of life energy is really kinda like the time you have, right? The hours you have as a human being, as a functional human being, right? And so it's the only resource you really have and when it's gone, it's gone. That- that is it, right? Your money can go and we can still use the principles in Die With Zero to achieve fulfillment, right? 'Cause then it becomes a life ordering problem, right? Do I visit my grandmother and go- will walk with my grandmother or do I play cards with the boys, right? And- and the life- you know, the optimization program would say, "Well, I can play cards with the boys for the next 10 years. Grandma's probably got two. So it's probably time to do grandma stuff now and play cards with the boys later, right?" I- I- I tell people, like it's not in the book, um, life is like Tetris. E- everybody- you know the game Tetris? You know, I use the example, let's say you're in heaven and you're about to be born and God's like, "Here's the infinite bucket of experiences. Choose what you would like on your adventure." And you're like, "Okay. The sex thing seems interesting, 10,000, maybe 15,000 times. Okay, uh, I wanna ride a bike, I wanna get a job, I wanna get graduated. I think I wanna get married and have kids. Yeah, I wanna marry and have kids. I want ... You strip clubs. That's interesting. I'll throw in a couple of those. You know, biking. Eh, I wanna get an award." And you know, you just- whatever. I'm just making these things up, right? "Play baseball." God goes, "All right, you can have 'em all. The only one thing- only one thing- only one condition, you gotta get the order right."... right? And so the people that, like, do the marriage thing and have kids and then put the strip club afterwards don't kinda get the high score, right, 'cause it interferes with it. These are dynamic decisions, right? Or they put the heli-skiing Mount Kilimanjaro at 86, it's kinda in a wrong spot, right? Like, they don't get fulfillment for it and they can't do it, right? They waited too long. They, they should have put that there and then this here, right? They didn't get the order right. And so that's true for everyone, right? Like, we have a lot of th- the, the order ... There are certain places and certain time periods of our life where things are, are more optimal to happen and if you don't put them in that time period, yes, maybe you can do them in another time period in your life, but it might be sub-optimal and cause problems for other things around you. Or you might not be able to do them at all. Right? The last day of my, uh, wakeboarding was four years ago. The speed of the board and the collisions are too bad for my back now. I can wake surf, I picked up wake surfing, but, um, wakeboarding days are gone. Going tackle, playing tackle football, 20 years ago. It's-
- CWChris Williamson
So had you have never decided to go wakeboarding four years ago, your last time of wakeboarding would-
- BPBill Perkins
Would've been-
- CWChris Williamson
... have been five years ago?
- BPBill Perkins
... another, uh, y- yeah. Oh, more. Further. Further. Seven years. As a matter of fact, it was a conscious decision on the beach. My friends are like, "We're gonna go wakeboarding." I'm like, "Ah, I'm kinda hanging out. It's nice." And I thought about it. I was like, "If I don't go wakeboarding now, when is the next time I'm gonna have an opportunity to go wakeboarding and will I be able to?" And I was like, "This may very well be the last wakeboarding trip, last wakeboarding opportunity." And so I took it. And I went, I jumped the wake, I even landed jumping the wake and-
- CWChris Williamson
Fuck, yeah.
- BPBill Perkins
... that was it, right? (laughs) I went out, I went on a high, right?
- 20:12 – 28:06
What Most People Misunderstand About Money
- CWChris Williamson
uh, o- one of the, the core resources that we're gonna talk about today is money.
- BPBill Perkins
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
As somebody that has spent his entire life either investing with it or betting it against other people-
- BPBill Perkins
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... what do you think most people misunderstand about money and what it's for?
- BPBill Perkins
Yeah, I think, um ... I, I know I like to talk by analogies but I think pe- most people m- misunderstand m- that money is just a tool. You know, people ask, "Does money make you happy?" And I'm like, "Well, do hammers and saws build houses?" You know? Like, it, i- th- they, they can build houses but you need to know how to build a house. Right? You use those tools to build your house. And a lot of people think the purpose is just to keep acquiring hammers and saws. They're like, "Look at all these hammers and saws I have. Oh, and I got some nails, and a nail gun, and so-and-so." And they keep, they keep acquiring all the equipment to build a house, right? Like different, shiny forms of it. "I got these Swiss blades too," and whatever. And they have a pile of fucking equipment to build a house. They don't build the house. Right? And in this analogy, the house is happiness, right? (can opening) So you need to know how to use those tools, right, in order to build the house. So there's a lot of people, you, you shower on them with money and you think, "Okay, it's fulfillment, it's happiness, go be happy." And they fuck it up 'cause they don't know how to use the tool. Right? They don't respect the tool, they don't understand the power of the tool, they don't know how to ... that this tool is for your fulfillment. Right? These, this hammer and saw, this is what you're supposed to do, is build a house with it, not collect hammers and saws. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Why do you think it is ... And again, this is speaking to a very particular cohort of people. There are people out there who have less disposable income than they would like and there are people out there who have lots of disposable income and don't seem to be able to stop spending it. This conversation isn't for either of those pairs of people, really.
- BPBill Perkins
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
Why is it that we find it so hard to spend money?
- BPBill Perkins
Uh, (sighs) I, I think there's, um, you know, I, I think one of the best arguments I've heard, uh, is that people have this kinda hedonic value, ego value associated with the number that they don't lose attachment with. Right? Like, it makes them feel good that they have this many zeros in the bank account. Right? They, they, it's just like watching a show to them. And, and, you know, my argument is that i- you k- if you take a, a rat and you can train it to run in a wheel for cheese, right? Y- you've seen these experiments, right? Runs in a wheel for cheese. Eventually, you could just show them the wheel and never give them the cheese. They'll just run. And that's kinda what I think a lot of work and, and, and the money, right? In the beginning when you were young and you were close to fun and you went outdoors and you played and you interacted with people, et cetera, the money was like, to go to the event, to the college, to visit your friends, to go to the concert, right? It was a, it was the tool you needed to have the f- to get beers, whatever, for your friends. Then you went to work and it was like, to pay your bills and need more, or whatever, and it's like this safety blanket and I need it for this, and you, you keep doing that. And then eventually we just take the reward away. The abstraction of money takes you away from what it was for. Right? So at first it was just, like, instant, like the money goes in, it turns into a beer, you're hanging with your friends, you're having fun. "I need more of this stuff to get this activity. We're going to spring break, we're going here, we're traveling." Whatever.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- BPBill Perkins
And then you're just accumulating it for future trips. "I know, I know it will do the thing," right? This abstraction, these power units, right? These tools. "Ah, yes, I'm gonna build a house." Right? "More, I need more saws, more saws. More nails. (laughs) More paneling. More, more whatever." You just keep doing it and you never ... you just don't build the house, right? Like, then you're like, "All right, I built a small, tiny house."But hey, I can, maybe I'll build 10 more houses. I need, I can build 30 more houses, 40 more houses, thousands of houses, right? And you never really use it. You never really attach this abstraction to what it was for, to fulfill you. To get the stuff that, that drives your fulfillment.
- CWChris Williamson
I realized this yesterday over lunch with this friend of mine that I've just been introduced to, and he had a very, um, interesting perspective on wealth generally, and I realized that there is shit tons of advice online about how to become rich and almost no advice online about how to be rich.
- BPBill Perkins
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
That accumulating wealth is taught-
- BPBill Perkins
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... but enjoying wealth is not.
- BPBill Perkins
Yeah. Yeah. And I, I have friends in different areas that like (laughs) I, I, I'm gonna get lambast. We always say rich guys are the dumbest, um, because (laughs) y- you, at the end of the day, they found a thing and a niche and they've unlocked the key, right? Like who, who... It's like slaying the dragon, getting the treasure. They go through all the stuff and there's treasure. We're just gonna sit around and shine and take pictures of it, and that's it. You know? Like it, that, that, that treasure's go out, get the girl, build a house, build a life. You know what I mean? Not to splash around in it. Scroo- Scrooge McDuck style. Um, and I, I think it's just conditioning and training. And y- you, you've, you gotta think, like, people are successful have gotten really focused and really trained on doing something very well. And sometimes they do this for 10 years, 20 years, 30 years. So all those other muscles, I'm gonna call them muscles, like the, the, the, the go socialize with your neighbor muscle, the go travel and explore muscle. The, the, the, the, the discovery muscle. All those atrophy. And the only muscle they've been building is, I know how to conquer this vertical. Right? I've conquered podcasting, I've conquered gym shorts, right? I've conquered real estate or whatever, and they just keep going and going and they're absolute fucking beasts. But they now have forgot about life. Guys don't know how to say hi to their neighbors or invite somebody to dinner. They don't know how to pick a restaurant that it's not close to where they work. They don't know how to meet people that's not a work function or a conference. They don't know, you know, they, to travel? Is it a business meeting? They don't even know how to think of ideas. Like, wait, this is painful for me. It hurts. It hurts. Like when you, you know when you go to the gym and you haven't worked out in a while, and you do it and it hurts? It, that's what it is for people like, "Oh, take, take a month off." They're like, "Ugh. I don't know what to do." You know? And it, and, and, and that's a natural... Like I tell people, it's like, relax, relax. It's a natural, you, like, it's relax. It's your first time back into humanity. (laughs) You know? It's your first time into, you know, being you, you know? You, you, you've, you've, you let that person die 20 years ago, 10 years ago. Right? And so I, I think that that habituation and that focus takes away from the rest of their, the, their, their corpus, right? The rest of their body. Their, I'm talking about their holistic body, right? And, and so that atrophy is real and it takes a while to build it back up. And it's painful, right? Like y- when you see people on New Year's come into the gym, they're not bullshitting. They really wanna do it, right? They got the motivation, they wanna do it. It's just fucking painful. Whereas for you, you go back in the gym, this is my routine, buddy, here we go, you know? I'm used to the pain, I'm used to the feeling, like the gains, et cetera. They, they don't see the gains, they just feel frustration, sweat, and pain. They're like, "This shit sucks." And that's what it's like for like successful rich people when it's like, okay, let's go be human. What? Uh. It hurts.
- CWChris Williamson
The next principle is invest in experiences
- 28:06 – 38:40
Can You Delay Gratification Too Much?
- CWChris Williamson
early. And one of my favorite quotes from the book, "Delaying gratification in the extreme means no gratification."
- BPBill Perkins
Yeah. Um, you know, when, when they talk about investing, they talk about the power of compound interest, right? And, and, and, um, you know, if you put the money in the bank, in t- 10 years you're gonna have, you know, let's say double your money. 20, $20,000, right? And okay, now you have $20,000 and that's meant for you to do something with, right? Maybe it's, some of it's paid bills, but some of it's, it's ski trips or travel or birthday presents or charity or whatever it is of the numerous things you can do with the money. People, um... And that's okay if, if you feel like not having those experiences now is worth more experiences later in your life, right? But there's a... And, and that's what the interest does, right? It, it, it pays out and then you're able to have more experiences and, and in theory you'll have more fulfillment later in life, right? By saving those experience dollars and letting them grow. But there's also something, uh, interesting, fun and wonderful about experiences. And, and I call it the memory dividend. You, you don't just get pleasure from when you have the experience, right? Say you went, gonna go fishing with the, with the fellas. And, um, it's great. You went fishing, but you also have a positive experience when you recall that fishing experience. It was great hanging out with my friends, we caught up, I caught the fish. There was one big one that got away. Of course there's the big one got away story. You'll probably tell the big one got away story 1000 times, right? (laughs) Never met a fisherman without a big one that got away story, right? And so and over those years, that is going to provide you little pieces of fulfillment as well. And that's called the memory dividend. So the same way you get interest in the bank that's paid quarterly, right? You get a memory dividend that provides you fulfillment and, um, each time you recall and discuss that story. And it compounds, right? Like you might go out to dinner with someone new-... and they're a fisherman, or they're okay hearing your fish story, and you tell the story and you guys bond over the story and, and, you, you know, "This is the fishing hole," et cetera, and that creates a new experience that will then also have its own memory dividends associated with it. And so, you know, Warren Buffett famously says, you know, when it comes to investing, start early, start early, start early to take advantage of the compounding interest of, of, of money, right? The money compounding over time. And I say the same thing with experiences. Start early, start early, start early to take advantage of the compounding memory dividend. And it's also a tool to help you decide where should I, should I save this money and have two ski trips 10 years from now? Or should I take one ski trip now and have all the associated memory dividends, and will that be a more fulfilling thing?
- CWChris Williamson
Do the two, uh, strategies of market investment and memory investment not conflict with each other though? That we need to... The, the power of compounding is such a powerful tool financially that pushing for experiences early can curtail great gains financially down the line. Is that not an issue?
- BPBill Perkins
Yeah, it could be. I mean, it, it, it, it, it's, it depends on the interest rate, right, and how, how, how, what experience we're talking about and how powerful. Like, I wouldn't miss my, like, daughter's wedding, right, for, w- for, for five other people's weddings down the road. That's a fantastic return, right? Five weddings to one in 10 years. (laughs) You know? So like, it depends on the experience, how, how, how, what... Is it irreplaceable? Um, you know, w- how compounding... And also it depends on your age, right? Like I talk about, um, you know, your personal interest rate. I'm 80. Let's say I'm 80 and you're like, "Hey, um, I, I, I can, I can put this money in the bank and it's this fantastic return and you take it out 10 years from now and you'll be able to do all the stuff." And I'm just like, "Eat a bag of bleep." (laughs) You know what I mean? Like, no shot. No fucking way. Uh, you know, there, the discount rate on my, uh, time, my own interest rate, my... The discount rate on me delaying gratification is going to infinity, right? Like the day before you die, your interest rate is infinity, right? No- there's no delaying gratification. The next step is the grave, right? So you're not like the d- there is no day after tomorrow, right? So you're gonna spend all your resources, everything you got, you're gonna lay it on the field right now, this day, right? And so if you just run like kind of this iteration, okay, well, one day before I die, two days before I die, three days before you die. So you can s- clearly see that, you know, there is this push-pull between, yes, I want certain things, I should delay gratification, I need to delay gratification for survival 'cause that's ultimate, right? I don't wanna die. But after that, it's where do I sprinkle the activities and where do they belong, you know? And there's certain activities now that, you know, I, I would, I would pay an inordinate sum of money to get certain experiences that I gave up when I was saving, that I, I turned down when I was saving, when I was in my 20s.
- CWChris Williamson
What like?
- BPBill Perkins
Uh, my friend borrowed money from a loan shark. I talk about that. Jason Rufo, and he went, he went backpacking through Europe in his 20s. And, and I would be like, "H- how many millions would I pay to have taken that trip right now, to go back in time?" Even, even if, e- people say, "Well, it's easy because you have millions right now," I, I, I would just say I would... Uh, there's a significant percentage of my net worth that would be outsized that I'd give up, um, to go, go back and not make that decision.
- CWChris Williamson
And be in the pocket of a loan shark.
- BPBill Perkins
Yeah, yeah. (laughs) Be in the pocket of a loan shark, pay the exorbitant interest rate, work my butt off or whatever so that I would have all those memory dividends and that experience and those friends and that, that meaning and that adventure that belonged in that time period of my life. And it's not... Uh, you know, I don't have like a deliberate answer like, "Yes, you should do this." People are like, "Well, should I do this or should I..." I'm like, "This is for you to decide. This is just a framework for you to think about it."
- CWChris Williamson
Another interesting reality, I suppose, about Warren Buffett is that even though he's a super billionaire, very few people, if given the choice, would swap places with him. Well, why? It's because he doesn't have as much time as you do to spend that money.
- BPBill Perkins
No.
- CWChris Williamson
So it's not about the money. It's not about the money. It can't be about the money 'cause if it was just about the money, you would exchange places with the super rich guy regardless of his age.
- BPBill Perkins
Right. We, we, we got on board in, in, in the beginning of the book, it's like life is about fulfillment. It's not about the money. The money is a tool to drive fulfillment, right? Yes, we'll take more money, right? And we'll convert that into more fulfillment, but we're all about fulfillment. And if we're talking about Warren Buffett, he's got X years left. Doesn't look like that much. He d- doesn't have that many more opportunities to fulfill them, so...
- CWChris Williamson
Right.
- BPBill Perkins
If you got put into the body of Warren Buffett. Whereas you, the listener now, healthy, wise, doing all the cold plunges and whatever you're doing, right? (laughs) Lifting weights, making sure you have enough muscle mass, uh, you have many, many, many more opportunities for fulfillment and you're gonna have a high, high fulfillment score. You'll take... I think a lot of people, like I'll take $0 than being, being Warren Buffett, which is, which is the truth, right?
- CWChris Williamson
I have a friend, Alex, who said, uh, "I know for a fact that all of the wealth that I'll accumulate between now and in 20 years' time, in 20 years' time I would give to be right back in this place with this health and this body and all of the time that's left ahead of me."
- BPBill Perkins
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
Which means that right now is more important than all of the wealth that I will generate over the next two decades of my life.
- BPBill Perkins
Right. He could take that, he could take that now to the memory dividend and experiences and be like, "All right, well, what experiences belong right now that you can't have in 20 years?" 'Cause what he's basically saying is that in 20 years' time-... okay? There are certain activities, certain experiences, my attitude will change, my aptitude will change, my lung capacity will change. There are certain activities that belong right now, that I need to be doing right now. So, you should take that line of thinking to like, "Okay, what do I do right now these next two years, this next year, this next month? What, what am I on, on autopilot? Like, what am I missing? Let me get out my sheet, okay?" Trips, entertainment, love life, family, whatever, he can, he can categorize them any kind of way and be like, "Okay, zero to three years from now, what, what belongs right now?" Because I already, I already have the concept in my head that I'm gonna be dying to be back here. So, if I can't come back, I need to make sure I get everything out of this time period that I possibly can.
- CWChris Williamson
Die with zero, aim to die with zero.
- BPBill Perkins
Yeah, this is a, this is one of the axioms of the book, um, it, you know, it just goes, it's kind of logical that if you're expending hours of your life, that you could be doing anything, right? You could be backpacking, panhandling through Europe. You can be a volunteer, you can do whatever, but if you're spending hours of your life for money, right? That then converts into experiences that you may have, right? Travel, charity, whatever, um, if you go to work and exchange hours of your life for money that you never use, you're de facto wasting your life, right? You're not gonna go spend hours and hours rolling a Skee-Ball. (laughs) I mean, you might enjoy some, there is some fun in getting Skee-Balls, but you're not doing it to accumulate tickets, like, "I gotta get these tickets. I gotta get these tickets," and then not go get the silly prize, right? Use all your tickets. No cash value on the way out, right? Chuck E. Cheese tokens I like to use, but not that many Chuck E. Cheeses in the world. Um, so the- these, these, uh, you know, a rational person would be like, "Okay, the hours of my life that I exchange, that I give up, the only thing that I have in exchange for money, I will use all that resource so that I not waste my life." Right? It's just, it's just suboptimal.
- CWChris Williamson
Consumption
- 38:40 – 46:13
What is ‘Consumption Smoothing?’
- CWChris Williamson
smoothing is a term that I'd never heard of before and seems like something that should be taught to 10-year-olds, to me.
- BPBill Perkins
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
For the people that aren't familiar with it, what's consumption smoothing?
- BPBill Perkins
Well, it's, you know, um, there is, uh, the current you, for, for a lot of people, there's a current poor you, young you, right?
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- BPBill Perkins
Th- th- you're young and you're poor to... And you're future richer you, right? You're going to make more money, you're gonna get successful, you're gonna have a promotion, you're gonna... et cetera. And, you know, when I was younger, I kind of had it backwards, um, for s- for some time, and then I went crazy and went the other way. But I was, like, making no money, driving a limo at night, and saving money, just saving. Like, "I have $1,000, I have X, Y, and Z." I, and s- I had this miracle savings that I'd saved up and what I was really doing was I was borrowing from my future... I was borrowing from my poorer self to give to my future richer self. So, Bill Perkins now is looking at Bill Perkins, 21, and be like, "He's fricking idiot. I, I couldn't, I don't care about $1,000." See, I don't even, I don't recognize the guy (laughs) , you know what I mean? Like, somebody, you know, I, I, I, it's, it's, it's like it means, it means nothing. Like, you, you shouldn't went out on that date, or you shouldn't went out on that trip, or you shouldn't went to Florida or U- you know, backpacking for at least a week, or, or whatever. You should've been having an adventure and, and I would have those memories, and I'd be telling interesting stories on this podcast. Except now I'm an uninteresting guy-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- BPBill Perkins
... (laughs) telling boring stories 'cause you, young Bill Perkins-
- CWChris Williamson
I've gone up, gone $1,000.
- BPBill Perkins
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- BPBill Perkins
Yeah, I tried to save $1,000. I'm fucking pissed at that guy. I'm so pissed. Uh, you know, and so consumption smoothing allows you to borrow from your richer self to finance your poorer self, and vice versa.
- CWChris Williamson
How should someone tactically get into the mode of applying consumption smoothing?
- BPBill Perkins
Um, I, I, I, I always advise like, you know, you're getting into, like, financial planning-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- BPBill Perkins
... right? And, and you, you should have a financial planner or at least have a spreadsheet or at least go through it, right? But you're gonna think about, like, where is the area you're gonna consume the most, uh, and have the most experiences in your life, and where, where do they fit? And, you know, one of the things people do is, like, they over save for retirement, right? They're like, "I'm gonna need all this money for retirement." (laughs) And, uh, uh, I mean, I'm sure everybody's like, "Well, this exception." They'll point out the exception case, but by and large, the data is just overwhelming. Old people don't spend money. Their net worth just keeps growing, right? They just don't... Even adjusting for healthcare costs, and no ******* "Healthcare," and yada yada, right? First of all, there's insurance products, et cetera, but even without insurance products an- and a- all that, that net worth just keeps growing. And I get asked, "Why does that happen?" I was like, "Because they can't spend the money." They cannot. Their aptitude has changed. They don't like doing the same things. Their bodies have changed. They have the inability to do the thing. And it's not, even if they can, it's not enjoyable. Like, their joints hurt, their back hurts.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Renting a Ferrari to go to skydiving when you're 45 versus renting a Ferrari to go skydiving when you're 75, two very different experiences.
- BPBill Perkins
Yeah. E- even, even things that you like to do, like, uh, I, I mentioned Greg Whaley in the, in, in the book. You know, uh, a friend of mine that likes to go, go skiing and, you know, he used to ski, go skiing and, and he'd have seven runs or eight runs a day. Now it's two or three. Knees start to bother him, right? Doesn't, doesn't mean that he loves, loves skiing. He's just not getting as much use out of that ski trip.So, that turns into less passes on the mountain, so he'll spend less money skiing. So, a lot of people think their lives, when they retire, is gonna look like a Carnival commercial, right? It just looks like it's freaking chaos, right? (laughs) Like, they're going down slides, they're eating, there's photos, they're running around, they're traveling, whatever and a lot of it's like, sitting around talking with your friends and visiting grandparents and, um, you know, your grandchil- grandchildren in this case.
- CWChris Williamson
All very inexpensive (whimsical music)
- BPBill Perkins
Yeah, inexpensive-
- CWChris Williamson
... pursuits.
- BPBill Perkins
... low dollar amounts. Like, "I don't wanna be bothered, I wanna sit and watch reruns of Jeopardy." Like-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- BPBill Perkins
... "Leave me alone," type things, right? And-
- CWChris Williamson
The- the- the other super interesting thing that I found a- when looking or thinking about consumption smoothing is, most people's earning capacity is going to steadily increase, and sometimes rapidly increase-
- BPBill Perkins
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... over the next two, three, four decades of their life. Everybody that's listening to this will probably be earning way more money in 10 years' time than they are right now-
- BPBill Perkins
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... and way more money-
- BPBill Perkins
Yeah.
- 46:13 – 56:53
Is the Sigma Grind Mindset Healthy?
- CWChris Williamson
sigma grind mindset trend that we're seeing at the moment? So, i- it's got a number of different iterations, but the one that I'm thinking about is this kind of monk mode-
- BPBill Perkins
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... guys in their 20s, get your head down, reject family life, reject, you know, distractions, any kind of hedonism really, b- b- broadly a lot of adventures as well, accumulate wealth as much as you can, uh, you know?
- BPBill Perkins
Yeah, I know, I know exactly. It sounds like a version of FIRE. Um, and, you know, I- I like FIRE because the... F- FIRE is financial independence, retire early. It- the- for people who don't know that. And, um, that- that's a whole, like, reject materialism, you know, get in touch with enough, what's enough for you, uh, save, save as much as you can, and then retire and live life. And I'm like, you know, my biggest problem with that is it's- it's fucking go to jail for money. That- that- this monk is another version of go to jail for fucking money, right? And so for me, there are people out there who, like, you can pay them $5 million to do a 10-year stint in Sing Sing. I'm not one of them.
- CWChris Williamson
What's Sing Sing?
- BPBill Perkins
It's a prison. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Okay.
- BPBill Perkins
(laughs) Rahway State Prison, whatever, you know?
- CWChris Williamson
Okay.
- BPBill Perkins
Rikers. Rikers is not, you know, but like, I'm not, I'm not, you know... The- the guys who go to prison for 10 years wrongly accused, or 15 years, or 20 years, when they come out they're not... They'll go, "Thank God I got wrongly accused, 'cause now I got $7 million." They- they- that's never their story, right? They're still crying in tears and happy they have freedom. It helps, yes, but they would gladly give you that money back and- and get that- that time back. And so, you know, this reject friends, reject family, reject all hedonism, reject that awa... And then there is some promised land, uh, later in the future is some version of let- let's go to jail for a certain amount of time and then we're gonna get a reward. And yes, I believe in delayed gratification, and yes, I do believe in, you know, um, some work, but I- I think those schemes are way out of balance-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- BPBill Perkins
... way out of whack.
- CWChris Williamson
The problem that we have is we know that delayed gratification is a useful skill-
- BPBill Perkins
Correct.
- CWChris Williamson
... for people to have, you know, to be able to put off eating the cookie, um-... succumbing to the distraction in order to be able to focus on the thing that you're doing now, it feels to me maybe, like, delayed gratification in the micro is useful and delayed gratification in the macro gets significantly less useful.
- BPBill Perkins
I- yeah. I, I, I think, like, you have to look at your life as a complete system from cradle to grave and then you break it down, right? Like, the 20-year-old single you is going to die, and you'll get married and whatever. The, the father wi- young children, the, the, the, the I w- I was actually growing and getting stronger and now I'm in, in, in decline, right? Um, that, there's all different phases to your life, your first job you, your so-and-so, your first business, et cetera, right? And those periods, they die, they had, th- they, th- they, they go away. Single you will go away, and there are things that single you are to do and only meant for single you. Right? And so, yes, delayed gratification is great, but if you look at the totality of the system, if you delay things that belong in single you to later, it means you're never going to have them.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- BPBill Perkins
And so that's okay if you've decided and you're consciously saying to yourself, "I am never going to experience this in my life. This is not gonna be part of my story." Right? "I don't want these things. I don't want that adventure. I don't want that ride." But what I find is a lot of people just adopt these kind of, like, uh, programs or algorithms, go on autopilot without thinking of the total system of their life, right, and what belongs where.
- CWChris Williamson
So another example might be, uh, you go to work the season abroad somewhere. M- people in the UK often go to Ibiza-
- BPBill Perkins
Right, right.
- CWChris Williamson
... or Majorca or somewhere like that, and they go and work as a club rep or whatever else, drug dealer.
- BPBill Perkins
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
And (clears throat) it would be like deciding that you were going to go out there and spend all of your time outside of whatever job it was that you were doing in the apartment that you were staying in.
- BPBill Perkins
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Because this is how I'm going to optimize this particular period, it means that I get to save more, my sleep's going to be better, so, you know, the, uh-
- BPBill Perkins
Correct.
- CWChris Williamson
... wealth, the health-
- BPBill Perkins
And the time.
- CWChris Williamson
... yeah. Uh, and you go, well, I mean, why have you bothered to go and work abroad?
- BPBill Perkins
Right.
- 56:53 – 1:05:01
Bill’s Tactics for Enhancing His Life
- CWChris Williamson
is use all available planning tools.
- BPBill Perkins
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
What have you accumulated after having written this book, after having created a philosophy, when it comes to trying to get tactical and create frameworks with this? What have you started to rely on? Do you have an assistant?
- BPBill Perkins
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
Do you have somebody that helps you to do this?
- BPBill Perkins
Absolutely, yes.
- CWChris Williamson
A-
- BPBill Perkins
So a-
- CWChris Williamson
... life manager?
- BPBill Perkins
... oh my gosh, this is gonna be like probably the most obnoxious a- a part of the interview or most, I don't know, ostentatious. So I have assistants. I have a boutique travel firm. I have, you know, I have meetings about ideation, about things to do. Because there's the things I wanna do, and these are the things that I've been culturally trained to do or, or people I interact with, right? That I'm gonna do that thing, right? But it's still kinda like comes within this bubble of my universe.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- BPBill Perkins
And I need some random stuff that I would normally not do to expand my life, to not have just a cookie-cutter life, 'cause one of the things I don't wanna have is a cookie-cutter life. Okay? That's, um, fulfilling to me not to have a cookie, cookie-cutter life. And so there's a lot of, of, um, you know... There's assistants to remove the minutia of my life, right? So that I can do the things I wanna do, but they're also there to curate experiences for me. And then there's this boutique tra- travel is one of the things that fulfill me. I think it's one of the things you spend money on that make you richer, right? So it's ideation, meetings, constant planning about when you can do this, who can come along, what's this next trip, when you gonna do the Japan train thing. You know, I learned I love training kinda randomly. Like, I thought I would hate it. I was like, "I don't wanna go sit on a train with a bunch of old people on the Orient Express. You gotta wear a suit. I hate wearing suits when you go into the bar car." It, it ... I was just like, "This is gonna be the worst trip of my life, but you know what? I'm gonna do it just because." See, Orient Express, people do it, and I can't just do the things that I normally do or else I'm just cookie-cut-
- CWChris Williamson
Was this a suggestion of one of your ideations?
- BPBill Perkins
Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah, ideation. This is, yeah. So I go, I go on this thing. I, I, I, I, I, I get to two extra. I, I bring my friend, Cooper. I'm like, "Let's go on this train." And he's like, "I can only come for this small portion of it," right? Got on it, I fucking loved it.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- BPBill Perkins
I fucking loved it. I fucking loved it. I loved it.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- BPBill Perkins
I, I, I, I hate to admit, I loved it. It was so peaceful. There were views you can see that you can't see by car, because no- there's no road. You can't fly low and see it. There's towns. It was beautiful. It was wonderful. You can read, you can relax. I met all kinds of interesting people in the car. I didn't know there was a training society. There's trains all over. They go through all kinds of places. I was just like-
- CWChris Williamson
Oh fuck, you've been adopted by now.
- BPBill Perkins
... re- I, I've, I've, I've, I l- I absolutely loved it! And I was like, "This is something I can do till I'm 90," you know? Like, "I can do this for the rest of my life." And I was all excited when I first got off. We were like, "We're gonna take the train up to the Machu Picchu, and there's this other one that goes through the desert and you can go across Russia." Can't go across Russia now, but ... You know, like, and the Japan train. And, and we were actually planning a trip. We're like, "Okay, we're gonna do this summer, we're gonna do this." And we thought about it. We're like, "Wait a minute, wait a minute. You can ride a train at 86, but can you go walk around the city streets and climb the Steps of Italy at 86 and get around? Maybe, maybe not. So let's push training, not that we're gonna do none of it, right? But we're gonna do less of that now and more of that later," right? That's the kind of die with zero thinking, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- BPBill Perkins
That's me. (snaps fingers) Hey, don't go on autopilot just 'cause you-
- CWChris Williamson
(clears throat)
- BPBill Perkins
... have a dopamine hit going on a train, right? It's great, but let's, let's be thoughtful about each time period in your life when we do-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, so a- autopilot rears its head even-
- BPBill Perkins
E- e- all the time. All the time. All the time. It, it's great. Autopilot's great, man. I do so many things, uh, driving-
- CWChris Williamson
You found something that you love. Brilliant.
- BPBill Perkins
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, go do it. Just keep doing it.
- CWChris Williamson
Rinse, repeat.
- BPBill Perkins
Y- exactly, just keep going, you know? And, and it, it, it relieves the strain on your prefrontal cortex. But if you wanna thrive and you wanna optimize, you gotta use your prefrontal cortex a lot.
- 1:05:01 – 1:11:38
How to Die with Zero
- BPBill Perkins
right?
- CWChris Williamson
Okay. So if die with zero, how do you work out when you're gonna die?
- BPBill Perkins
So I, I, I look at actuarial tables. There's even fancier tests that look at like, you know, your methylization, methylation of your, of your, of your, of your cells, telomeres, et cetera, but you can get a pretty accurate, uh, estimate and you can continually uh, update this, right? It's like if you're 86 and you're not like, "Oh, it said I was gonna die at 86 February 2nd and I'm still dead."
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- BPBill Perkins
You know? No. You're like, that, that continually gets updated, right? So that, that kinda, you know, it's not like a static... This whole methodology, this whole, um, um, thought process, right? This whole, um, way of thinking is a continually updating model, right? We're constantly, okay, when's my death date? I'm, I'm alive today. That basically pushes you further in the future, et cetera, and just the probabilities, this is how much money I have. These, I just discovered I like training. That gets dumped into the model, gets run around in its proper time bucket of when I should be doing training and activities, et cetera. So this is just a way of thinking about your life and running this routine constantly. Um, but it is good to have an estimate of when you're gonna die, right? It's good to have an estimate of what are gonna be the 10 last years of your life, right? And what do those 10 years look like, right? Wh- how, how in shape are you, right? How, how much have you been doing things that, like Peter Attia says? Have you wrapped enough muscle around yourself with your VO2, right? Have you been thinking about these things? Are you, are you able to walk and pick up a small child in your last 10 years? Yes, no. That's gonna change a lot of things where, where you're gonna live 'cause you wanna hang out with your grandchildren, right? It's a pain in the ass. Like every parent knows this and then they all do the same thing. "Oh, it's such a pain in the ass to go visit grandma. We gotta go all the way across town or we gotta go another state or go to no wherever, blah, blah, blah." Right? And, you know, my mom moved to Virginia, right? And we're in Texas and my sister is in New Jersey and whatever, and she complains about like how we don't see her.... and come to her, right? And it's hard on her to travel, right, like to dr- drive and it was like, this is a calculation, you know, maybe staying in Jersey City, you know, o- obviously she, everybody's gotta choose how they live and die and she chose that path, but it comes connected with... It's a dynamic decision that aff- affects other things in your life. And so, you know, your health in your last decade of your life is going to determine whether or not you're pretty much cool getting on a plane and traveling by yourself to go visit your grandkids and you, you know, spoil them and ru- ruin your kids, right? (laughs) Like, "Fuck, Dad, why'd you give them all the candy and shit?"
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- BPBill Perkins
"God damn it," you know? Like, when you get your kids back, right? For, for, for being shits, right? Uh, or- or not, like, it's a pain in the ass and I need, uh, I need help and a guardian or whatever, so I have to wait for them to come to me, and they have busy lives and their own lives, right? So all these, all these things matter. They matter a lot, um, and I think, um, as humans, I- I always say we don't net present value well. We're not, we're not good with future value and net present value. We're very good with the immediate like, "Oh, tiger, run," or, "Bear, run," or, "Salty thing," or, "Sweet thing, eat," you know? That- that type of thing. Not really good at like, "Hmm, if I eat this sweet thing every day, it's an extra 250, 300 calories. So in years, that's f- two years is 40 extra pounds of weight." No, you know what I mean? Like we don't, we don't do that, right? We just do the thing, right? And we don't think, um, uh, yeah, if I'm out of shape and I can't walk and I can't pick up a small child, that based on where I am right now, that's very likely gonna happen. It's absolutely a certainty for a lot of people, um, therefore, I need to live close to my grandkids if I wanna see them, you know, that type of thing, so I better plan on retiring near them or seeing them less or whatever.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. What are some of the other, uh, planning tools that people should be aware of?
- BPBill Perkins
Well, uh, actuarial tables, when you're gonna die, any kind of calendaring. Um, I- I like, I like, uh, you know, on my, on my phone I have my, a countdown clock of when I'm gonna die, right? It's just kind of this like ƒ...
- CWChris Williamson
Totally not morbid at all.
- BPBill Perkins
No, it- it- it's- it's been known when you know the vacation is gonna end, you take the trip more seriously. Like, if you woke up in Paris and you're like, "This is great," like, "I'm in Paris," and you di- and you- you- you didn't know it was gonna end in a week, you'd be like, "Ah, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna sleep in today," whatever, blah, blah, blah. But if you're on a week, you're running around like a madman-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- BPBill Perkins
... soaking it up as much as you can.
- CWChris Williamson
There... Just to interject there, this is why, uh, short trips, like aggressively short trips, 36 hours, 48 hours in a particular location, I think is an undervalued way to do travel. I managed to do, I- I- I think it was like eight different things in 24 hours in Miami. It was 24 hours from the plane landing to the plane taking off.
- BPBill Perkins
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And I did so much stuff. Met up with tons of different people. I played pickleball. I met the- the head of legal for Yeezy at some backyard barbecue. I gave a talk at a conference. I did like a this and this and this thing, and it was... I wasn't being driven around. I didn't have like a fancy team that was helping. It was Ubers. Uber and a v- very-
- BPBill Perkins
You're an animal.
- CWChris Williamson
... very aggressive Mexican lady who, uh, beat a ton of traffic to get me back in time for the plane. I probably shouldn't have been able to fit number eight in. Uh, but my point being, when, uh, like Parkinson's law just fist fucks everything else, right? Work ect- expands to fill the time given for it.
- BPBill Perkins
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
And, uh, your, uh, lackadaisicalness about how hurried you're going to be to get things done will also fill the, uh, expand to fill the time that's, that you believe that you've got for it.
- BPBill Perkins
Yeah. So- so the- the fact that you knew you only had 24 hours drove that activity. I wonder if I stretched it out, would you even have done it? You know what I mean?
- CWChris Williamson
Probably, I would have probably done-
- BPBill Perkins
You would have done...
- CWChris Williamson
... no more things in more time.
- BPBill Perkins
Yeah. Y- y- you know, loafing to something, loafing to something, soaking up the atmosphere, but I- I'm just saying like with life, I'm trying to create a sense of urgency, right? And I- and then there's other things like daughter's graduation, she's gone, that's it. I'm like, "She's out of the house," like, oh my gosh, like we- we constantly talk like, "This might be the last summer, because next summer she might want to go with friends or something like that." We're constantly...
- CWChris Williamson
That's- that's something that's really interesting and, uh, I've heard you talk about it and, uh, other parents as well say similar things.
- 1:11:38 – 1:15:24
Making the Most of Having Children
- CWChris Williamson
S- Sam Harris talks about why, uh, this might be the last time that you ever bounce your daughter on your knee.
- BPBill Perkins
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, he always... And it was really profound story. How did you, when your kids were growing up, how did you really, uh, sort of sink into that sense of urgency during a time when you're sleepless and, uh, it's difficult, and there's dirty nappies-
- BPBill Perkins
Oh, man, I- I- I-
- CWChris Williamson
... and all the rest of it?
- BPBill Perkins
I'm gonna, I'm gonna be honest, like I- I've fucked it up many times. I messed it up many times. I did not have the sense of urgency. I did not... You think they're gonna be these little sweet things that are gonna wanna hang around you and you're gonna be God to them forever and it- it's not true, and there, you know, there's a couple more stories I wish I read, you know? There's a couple more times I just hung out, not done the business thing or the travel thing or whatever the other thing, right? And I got the order wrong. So I'm hyper-conscious of like, "Let's get the order right now," you know?
- CWChris Williamson
What's the order that you should... uh, you know, for the parents or fledgling parents that are listening, what's the period that you need to prioritize with your kids?
- BPBill Perkins
I- I think you need to really prioritize the period that they want to be with you, and that's usually 12, sub- sub 12, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Because at 14 you're uncool?
- BPBill Perkins
At 13 you're uncool. You know, it's- it- it starts... E- every parent knows, it starts like, you know, it starts drifting and maybe a little bit earlier or whatever, but like through 10 it's like you- you... where you wanna go, they wanna go, where- where you wa- you know, where we're gonna be, this is what we're gonna do, they're more amenable, you know, et cetera, and then it's like...Nah.
- CWChris Williamson
One morning you wake up and you're the lamest person in the world.
- BPBill Perkins
You don't know anything, Dad.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- BPBill Perkins
You don't know anything. You may have money, but you don't know nothing, Dad.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- BPBill Perkins
That's dumb. "You're so- you're so strange." I am strange and so absurd, but it- it- it's so annoying. "You're so annoying," you know? It's just like, it's going to happen, right? And you just enjoy it, you just deal with it. You roll with it, right? But-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- BPBill Perkins
... you- you're still like... You go from like, "Wow, how do I get time to myself," right? With little kids, right? Babies, et cetera. Like I have no time and parents are like, "I need rest," or, "We don't have sex anymore," or whatever it is, to, a- ah, you're begging to spend time with your kids. Like you- you- it's literally like being... Like, I don't know if you've ever been in a social situation where you wanted to hang out with a group, but they don't want you. That's- that's your kids. Like (laughs) for- but for a lot of parents, maybe some parents are... God bless them, you know? What's your secrets? But like, for a lot of it's like, "Oh man, I can't hang out with the cool kids. I can't..." Whatever. So you- you- you know, my- my hack around that was l- late after my daughter was like, "Oh, I need to be the Uber driver." Like I get to talk to them when I'm driving them in the car. They need me to drive them to their friend's house or to go to the thing.
- CWChris Williamson
Wow.
- BPBill Perkins
So that's my- that's my hack, right? I'm like, majority of the time that I'm gonna spend with them... Actually, the most time I'm gonna spend them, with them is when I'm driving them around Houston. And Houston's like one of those cities where you gotta drive freaking everywhere, right? So that's my hack. Like, okay, I- I've dr-... I- I eventually went from, you know, fighting about who's driving the kids to, I will wake up, I will fly in from another city to drive them, right? Like I- I will-
Episode duration: 1:52:55
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