237 ‒ Optimizing life for maximum fulfillment | Bill Perkins

1. 0:00 – 0:08

   Intro

   1. PAPeter Attia0:00

      [upbeat music] Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Drive podcast. I'm your host, Peter Attia. [upbeat music]

2. 0:08 – 13:52

   Bill’s upbringing, background, and first job on Wall Street

   1. PAPeter Attia0:09

      Bill, thanks so much for, for coming by. I've been looking forward to this for a long time.

   2. BPBill Perkins0:13

      I have, too. I'm, I'm really honored to be on your podca- podcast, you know?

   3. PAPeter Attia0:16

      So, um, I don't know, a little while ago I made a, a video on Instagram where I talked about sort of three books I've read in the last 12 months that I didn't expect [clears throat] to sort of, A, have such an impact on how I thought about things, but also, B, even though they're completely different books, they strike me as having kind of a unifying theme in qual- in this sort of thing about quality of life. Um, so, so the, the three books are, one of them was, uh, uh, "From Strength to Strength," [lips smack] one of them is "Four Thousand Weeks," and the other one is "Die With Zero." Now, what's interesting is I know exactly who suggested I read, uh, "Four Thousand Weeks," and I'm really good friends with the author of "From Strength to Strength," so that's why I, I just read that knowing it was coming out. I still don't remember who recommended "Die With Zero" to me. Um, but I remember just thinking, "Okay. Well, cool. Sounds interesting," uh, ordered it, and then kind of just couldn't put it down, and, uh, as I think I mentioned in the video, you know, immediately made my wife read it, and then immediately just went out and bought many copies of it, along with many copies of the other two books. So I basically started handing them out as, like, a triplet copy. Like, if someone was over and they hadn't read them, boom, they were leaving with all three copies of the book. So that speaks to kind of why, you know, I wanted to sit down with you. And, um, I guess I just m- let, let's give people a sense of who, who, you know, who you are. So you, you grew up in Jersey, right?

   4. BPBill Perkins1:46

      Yeah, I grew up in Jersey City, New Jersey.

   5. PAPeter Attia1:48

      S- you also, you're an engineer. We have that in common, right?

   6. BPBill Perkins1:51

      Yeah, except, you know, I don't want people to be impressed of as an engineer. You know, we had a saying on the football team, "Ds get degrees," until later I found out, wait, you can't graduate with a D in engineering. You have to at least get a C. So I barely graduated. I was a super slacker. So I don't wanna be like, "I'm an engineer," you know? [laughs]

   7. PAPeter Attia2:07

      [laughs] Uh, what position did you play?

   8. BPBill Perkins2:10

      The bench. I played the bench. But I was a defensive back, a cornerback at the University of Iowa.

   9. PAPeter Attia2:16

      Um, but did it pay for school?

   10. BPBill Perkins2:18

       No. No, I was actually a walk-on. I was trying to get a scholarship. I had a partial scholarship, which means they just give you some food. [laughs] Um, I basically broke my, uh, leg at the growth plate. Was pretty much a has-been before I ever was. But, you know, when you love football, you love the sport, you never wanna let go, right? You're not like, "Oh, I'll just dive into my studies and pl- pick up this hobby." You're kinda like, football is life at that age.

   11. PAPeter Attia2:45

       So, um, [lips smack] what, what took you straight... So you've, you graduate college with a degree in engineering. Maybe you're not first in your class. You decide, though, you're gonna go and instead of going to grad school or something like that, you're like, "I'm gonna, I'm gonna go to New York." Is that your first job?

   12. BPBill Perkins2:58

       Yeah, I mean, you know, uh, I love that, uh, n- not first in my class, the understatement of the year. Uh, so- [laughs]

   13. PAPeter Attia3:05

       [laughs]

   14. BPBill Perkins3:06

       The, um, I was kind of, like, lost. Didn't know what I was gonna do. Really was pretty much a slacker, underachiever at the time. And, um, my godfather calls me with one of those, like, "What are you gonna do with your life?" at the point. And I knew I didn't wanna go into engineering. Um, it was kind of this cookie cutter life. Uh, you know, you don't really have any kinda entrepreneurial spirit in it. You work on, like, a subsection of a chip. Here's your career path, et cetera. It was all kind of laid out for you. And that was unattractive to me. It kinda seemed like death to me. Um, and at the time I saw this movie Wall Street, uh, and I was like, "Oh, that's what I want. I wanna be rich. I wanna go work in stocks." So when my godfather called me, I go, "I wanna be a w- I wanna be a stockbroker or a stock trader." And, and he goes, "I d- I don't know anything about equities, but there's this firm in commodities," I, mind you, I didn't know what a commodity was, "uh, that's looking for screen clerks. Um, you know, go, go check it out." And so I got an introduction, um, came up with my resume, and said-

   15. PAPeter Attia4:14

       And this is, this is what, you're like 80, late 80s, early 90s?

   16. BPBill Perkins4:16

       90, 90, like '91.

   17. PAPeter Attia4:18

       Okay.

   18. BPBill Perkins4:18

       Um, and takes my resume, tears it up, shows me, walks me around the floor. People are yelling and screaming and, you know, they're kind of in casual wear and, and it's like trading places, and I'm like, all this energy. And I'm like, "Wow, if that, if that guy can be rich, so can I." And so they didn't wanna hire me, actually. Uh, they were looking to give the job to someone else, another friend of the firm. So I, like, kinda hung out downstairs, waiting every day, calling, like, "Can I come up? Can I get this job as a tr- as a peon? Can I get... Can I become a peon here? Can I become a peon?" And finally, after three days, uh, they let me become a peon.

   19. PAPeter Attia4:55

       So what did that job entail?

   20. BPBill Perkins4:57

       It's checking trades and sneaking sandwiches on the floor for traders. [laughs] It's, like, literally the, the version, the worst version of the mail room, right? But the system in the old days where guys would yell and scream across a pit and write their trades on a pick card and also in their, their trade book. They'd throw the pick cards into the center. There's a guy with glasses and a, a giant net, and all these cards would go to him. They would catch them, put them in the, in, down the chute, and they would be entered into a computer system, okay? My job was to check the trader's log versus the computer's log, right? And your name becomes your trader. So if your trader was Why Not or SMN, S&M, that was your name. So clerks are running around the floor going, "Why Not! S&M! Why Not?" And then, you know, if you're, if you're Why Not, you're like, "Why Not here. I got a, I got a error here. I, I know selling five lots at 54.80, not three lots at 54.80. What do you know?" And if you know the same trade, then it's a simple process to correct it in the system, right? And if you don't, you're like, "No, no, I definitely know only three lots," right? Then you go to the traders immediately, and they kind of reconcile it. And that was the system, like running around all day, you know, checking trades

   21. PAPeter Attia6:09

       So, uh, this is, uh, this job is down on Wall Street, this firm's on Wall Street, or?

   22. BPBill Perkins6:12

       Yeah, so back when the World Trade Center was there, uh, the, um, this was in, uh, Four World Trade Center.

   23. PAPeter Attia6:20

       And, um, how much were you learning the business? 'Cause I imagine one could take a job like that and not actually learn what's happening, like what the machine is doing.

   24. BPBill Perkins6:30

       Yeah. Um, that's when I decided to turn it on. You know, I, I always tell people like, "Hey, I was pretty much a..." Can I say fuck up? [laughs]

   25. PAPeter Attia6:40

       Yeah, fuck up. I mean

   26. BPBill Perkins6:41

       I was pretty much the fuck up of fuck ups, right? For given what I had, um, before college. But then I decided to turn it on, and like that poverty, that like being a peon and not... and, and that desire to make it forced me to be like, "I'm gonna learn every single thing there is about this business." I was reading books at night about trading, about the oil business, about options, about whatever. I was a sponge, and I really turned it on and said, "I'm going to be diligent. I'm not going to mess around," and as much as I possibly can as a 20-year-old, right? And, and really, really trying to make myself invaluable no matter where I was.

   27. PAPeter Attia7:20

       So where were you living at the time? What part of the city? Did you actually live in Manhattan or did you-

   28. BPBill Perkins7:23

       No, no, no, I had to... I mean, when I first got there, I had to live at home with my mom, which was completely cramping my style, right?

   29. PAPeter Attia7:28

       Yeah.

   30. BPBill Perkins7:28

       And so I was like, I, this, you know... I started, um, driving a limo at night, the company limo at night to make ends meet. And, um-
3. 13:52 – 17:34

   A missed experience and feeling of regret that shaped Bill’s thinking

   1. PAPeter Attia13:52

      So let's go back to when you were on the Upper West Side, 'cause there, you, you [clears throat] you write about this in the book, which was, um, [clears throat] you and your roommate kind of had a slightly different, uh, I don't know, call it a point of view on future earnings and what that allowed you to do with your time. You, you told a story about something you did that, uh, seemed kind of bold.

   2. BPBill Perkins14:15

      Oh, that, that he did that was kind of bold. You, you're talking about when Jason took the, uh, the trip, right?

   3. PAPeter Attia14:19

      Yeah.

   4. BPBill Perkins14:19

      Yeah.

   5. PAPeter Attia14:20

      Yeah.

   6. BPBill Perkins14:20

      Yeah. So-

   7. PAPeter Attia14:20

      Yeah, sorry, sorry.

   8. BPBill Perkins14:21

      Yeah.

   9. PAPeter Attia14:21

      Yeah, yeah.

   10. BPBill Perkins14:22

       Yeah. So, so Jason, um, you know... I, I don't know if our views were very thought out or just wired in, right? But like, I was head down like, "I gotta make it. I gotta become a trader. I gotta have my head down. I'm, I'm, I'm saving money. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm really at this point in my life, like, super diligent," like, you know, trying to convince my boss to get the, uh, on the bus program to save money. You know, not, you know, writing down every single nickel, uh, that I bought, et cetera. I'm really focused on my, my career trajectory. And Jason is like-

   11. PAPeter Attia14:58

       Does Jason work at the same firm?

   12. BPBill Perkins14:59

       Uh, he works at a- another firm, right in a... Th- if you look at the old pictures, all the phone booths are right next to each other.

   13. PAPeter Attia15:04

       Yeah.

   14. BPBill Perkins15:04

       He's like right next to me, even though he's not at the same firm. We're all crowded into-

   15. PAPeter Attia15:08

       Mm-hmm

   16. BPBill Perkins15:08

       ... one area. Uh, and Jason's like, "I'm gonna go backpacking for a year or for a couple months." [chuckles] I'm like, "Wait, what?" And, and I'm like, "What? How, how are you gonna do that?" "Well, I'm gonna borrow money from, from this guy who was a loan shark."

   17. PAPeter Attia15:21

       [chuckles]

   18. BPBill Perkins15:22

       And I'm like, "Wait, wait, what? You're gonna borrow money from this guy?"

   19. PAPeter Attia15:30

       Who's gonna break-

   20. BPBill Perkins15:31

       "And you're gonna go, and you're gonna go backpacking in Europe?" I'm like, "This is insane." I'm like, "This is insanity. My head is about to explode." I'm like, "You're gonna miss out, and what if they hire another screen clerk and your job's not there when you come back? And how are you gonna pay this guy back if you don't pay him back?" This is not like, oh, penalties and interest. This is like, you know, knees and ankles, right? [chuckles] Uh, uh, and so I, I just didn't get it. Like, I just didn't get it. Like, that experience and that, you know, I wasn't thinking about, like, Die With Zero and certain experiences burnt, belong in a certain period of your life, et cetera. I was just, like, ultimately on this autopilot of trying to be successful and make money, right? At that time in my age, at that time in my life. And Jason was like, "I'm going backpacking." So he went. I stayed. He came back, had a screen clerking job, you know?

   21. PAPeter Attia16:25

       Different firm or same firm?

   22. BPBill Perkins16:26

       Same firm. Same firm. Wasn't that much noticeable different. Like, I moved up a little bit, but it wasn't that mos- noticeable different. But he came back richer, right? He came back with stories and experiences and romance and lifelong friends, and I was like... You know, in the beginning I was kind of, "Oh, wow, I, maybe I missed out. Maybe I could've jumped in for a week," you know, that type of thing. And as time went on, I really, really regretted not joining him on that trip. I was like... The, when I, the, when it finally came time where I was like, "I'm gonna go Europe," right? "I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go have this backpacking experience," I was too bougie. I had money. I wasn't gonna go stay at youth hostels. I wasn't gonna capture these trains. I, I was gonna have an experience, but a different experience. The type of experience he had was for that time in your life, and the type of experience, even though it was wonderful, it was not as rich as his experience, right? Because the time had passed me by. A- and it's one of my, it's one of my big, big, big regrets in life.

4. 17:34 – 29:22

   Thinking in terms of time, and the relationship between money, time, and health

   1. PAPeter Attia17:34

      So how did you start to formulate this understanding about these different types of resources, be it time, be it money, which is the resource I think a lot of people think about, experiences themselves as, you know, for lack of a better word, an asset or a thing, the actual experience, uh, the people you're meeting, all of these different things? H- when did you start to coalesce around some of the ideas that, that ultimately, of course, would go on to become the thesis of this book?

   2. BPBill Perkins18:00

      It, it, it was slowly over time. You know, even when, um, you know, I got to the exchange, I was like in this hurry to get rich, right? Um, and the reason why I was in a hurry, because I had this bias, I had this belief. I was like, "Yeah, there's rich guys here, but they're old." Like, what can they possibly do with the money, right? Like, I'm young. I'm 21. Like, I'm ageist. I, I, I can't imagine, you know, the use of a million dollars when you're 40, [chuckles] right? Like, what are you gonna do, buy a nicer car to drive your kids around? Like, you know, it, it just seems like lost on them, right? Like, they don't get to do fun things. Now, I was wrong about that, but I was right about the utility of money over time, right? And I, and I was also read this book at this time called Your Money or Your Life that kind of transformed my understanding of what money is, right? It's a very detailed book that has these exercises that [lips smack] has you look at how you spend your hours from going to work, getting ready for work, the things you spend on work, and really figuring out what your true hourly wage is, right? Like, after tax, this is what an hour of your time, of your life is worth. And then it has you not think of everything in money, but in time. So instead of going to the movies and say it cost me $10, it's like, that cost me one hour and 15 minutes of my time to go to this movie. To buy this shirt, it cost me three hours of my time. And so you get this idea that I'm exchanging my life for certain things, right? The experience of buying a shirt, going to a movie, going on a trip. [lips smack] And that hit me hard.

   3. PAPeter Attia19:41

      How... And, and where were you at this point? This is before you went to Houston? This is-

   4. BPBill Perkins19:44

      Before I went to Houston.

   5. PAPeter Attia19:45

      Yeah.

   6. BPBill Perkins19:45

      Before I get to Houston. That hit me hard, and that's what really turned me into like, "I'm going to save," right? The two things I got out of it is I want a lot of money, and I'm going to, like, become this very frugal person. You know, there's this movement called FIRE, which that book is kind of like the bible, the precursor to the FIRE movement, which is financial independence retire early.

   7. PAPeter Attia20:03

      Mm-hmm.

   8. BPBill Perkins20:03

      And I was kind of like an early FIRE guy, like I'm gonna save my way to riches, right? [chuckles] I'm gonna save and then retire early. And, [lips smack] um, uh, I had this-

   9. PAPeter Attia20:14

      And, and sorry, did you know what you wanted to do-

   10. BPBill Perkins20:17

       No

   11. PAPeter Attia20:17

       ... when you retired?

   12. BPBill Perkins20:18

       No. I just went on... I went onto another autopilot. I went on another version of autopilot. I read a book. I got these concept out of it, right? And I was like, "This is what I'm gonna do," right? I didn't think about the big picture of everything, but some certain concepts were coming to me, right? Like, I exchange hours of my life for money, and then that money is used for the things I want. Let's take the abstract of money out of it and look at what I'm... what hours of my life are being exchanged for, right?

   13. PAPeter Attia20:45

       Mm-hmm.

   14. BPBill Perkins20:45

       That was a great concept for th- to sink in very viscerally. Um, [lips smack] the idea that-

   15. PAPeter Attia20:51

       It, it's also, just to double-click on that, Bill, it's also visceral when you start to think of the difference between using money for activities or trips versus, uh, things. So, uh, you know, you... I buy a shirt, and this shirt basically works out to three hours of what I make per hour. So this is a $3 shirt... I mean, a three-hour shirt.

   16. BPBill Perkins21:13

       Right.

   17. PAPeter Attia21:13

       Um, conversely, [lips smack] like I take my daughter out overnight. We do like a daddy-daughter date night, go out to dinner, stay at a nice hotel, have a fancy, you know, breakfast the next day. Uh, that's, you know, that's five hours of my time in terms of work.

   18. BPBill Perkins21:30

       Right.

   19. PAPeter Attia21:31

       But do you see those sort of differently at the time? That, that one of those is like an experience and one of them is a thing?

   20. BPBill Perkins21:36

       Not in a way that you're properly analyzing it, but in more of an intuitive way. My value... Because when you start to think about things in time, it's like, wait a minute, three hours for a shirt versus, you know, hour... you know, th- going here, having a sandwich, and hanging out with my friends or whatever it is. Your values start to... You really get in touch with your values, right? Because it's not an abstract land. It's like when you're in a casino and they give you chips. It's one of the greatest things to do is give you chips. It's not money. You're tipping $25. You're throwing let it all ride because it's so abstracted from money. So it's an abstraction on an abstraction, right?

   21. PAPeter Attia22:09

       Yeah.

   22. BPBill Perkins22:09

       By removing that abstraction, right, you get closer to your values, right?

   23. PAPeter Attia22:15

       Right. Imagine that you have $25 chips. You figure out your hourly after tax all in wage is 25 an hour. Every time you flick a chip, that's like I gave an hour of my life.

   24. BPBill Perkins22:25

       Right.

   25. PAPeter Attia22:25

       Boom.

   26. BPBill Perkins22:25

       Right.

   27. PAPeter Attia22:26

       Boom, boom.

   28. BPBill Perkins22:26

       So when you start thinking about ti- things in terms of hours of your life and you have finite hours, you start to really get closer to your values. You can still be on autopilot, but you're closer. And so things like this were happening. And, and, you know, at that time, at the exchange, like most people, y- I had like, "What is it all for?" Like, "What do I want?" You know, I'm here to get rich, but, but why? Right?

   29. PAPeter Attia22:49

       Are you having that discussion with other either people who are your peers, who are presumably on the same treadmill, or the people who are already rich but still presumably killing themselves, trading their health for wealth?

   30. BPBill Perkins23:01

       No, I'm, I'm generally having it with myself and reading books, right?
5. 29:22 – 38:56

   Solving for net fulfillment and allocating your time based on the seasons of life

   1. PAPeter Attia29:22

      let, let's also pivot and talk about, um... 'Cause, 'cause I remember one of the stats that always stuck with me, um, was during 2008. So a really good friend of mine named Jim Lambright, who was at the time the president of the Ex-Im Bank, um, when the TARP program kicked on, because he was close with Hank Paulson and had already spent so much time in China and had, had government clearance, basically Hank brought Jim Lambright and Neel Kashkari, who was with him, uh, already at the Treasury, I believe, to run TARP.

   2. BPBill Perkins29:50

      Okay.

   3. PAPeter Attia29:50

      So basically, Jim and Neel are doing all the deals for TARP. And Jim is getting steeped in how bad is this going to be.

   4. BPBill Perkins30:00

      Right.

   5. PAPeter Attia30:00

      Right? Like, what is this going to mean for the average person? And I remember one day he called me with a stat that I couldn't believe, and I forget the stat, so this is only directionally it, but it was what fraction of people in the United States ... could not produce $1,000 with three days' notice, meaning they, they didn't have-

   6. BPBill Perkins30:22

      Yeah

   7. PAPeter Attia30:22

      ... that excess liquidity of $1,000.

   8. BPBill Perkins30:23

      Right, right, right.

   9. PAPeter Attia30:25

      Again, I don't remember the number, but it was in the ballpark of, like, 30%.

   10. BPBill Perkins30:29

       Yeah.

   11. PAPeter Attia30:29

       Like, it was a, it was a high number.

   12. BPBill Perkins30:30

       It's a-

   13. PAPeter Attia30:31

       And so I don't know what those stats are today. I've tried to look some of them up, and they're not maybe quite as, um, as, as dire as that, but they're not that much better.

   14. BPBill Perkins30:42

       No, they're not great.

   15. PAPeter Attia30:43

       Yeah.

   16. BPBill Perkins30:43

       It's not great.

   17. PAPeter Attia30:44

       So, so I, I'm... What's the natural history of that person who's 40 years old, whose total net worth is $50,000 and their available liquidity is $1,000? And they're, you know, they're thinking, "I'm gonna work till I'm 65 or 70 or whatever, and then I'm gonna collect my Social Security." Does this thinking still apply there?

   18. BPBill Perkins31:09

       Yeah. It, it applies in different, in, in, in different ways. So what I've come up with this book is there's three variables: your wealth, your health, and your time. And we're taking those three variables and we're solving for net fulfillment.

   19. PAPeter Attia31:23

       Mm.

   20. BPBill Perkins31:23

       Right? So we're not solving for maximum wealth. We're not solving even for maximum health.

   21. PAPeter Attia31:29

       And time. Yeah, yeah.

   22. BPBill Perkins31:29

       Yeah, w- w- maximum time. We're solving for net fulfillment, right? I'm saying that's your purpose. If you're with me, we're solving for net fulfillment. And so, you know, one of the things we look is at, at the total arc of your life, right? Given the resources you have, how do we allocate them, right? A lot... We, we definitely wanna focus on the money, right? That's a big... Everybody wants to talk about the money and the resources. But there's decisions that you make even without money. Whether you go on a walk with your daughters or you play cards with your friends late at night. Do you tuck them in at night or do you go hang out with the boys, right? And so in the book, we talk about the seasons of your life. Certain activities transfer nicely to the next season in your life, from 20 to 30, to 30 to 40, and some of them don't transfer well, they're less enjoyable, and some of them don't transfer at all. It's impossible, you know? So one of the things, you know, when the 40-year-old who has $50,000, it... You know, one of the things I would say is, is what's your survival number? Have you calculated that at retirement? Are you surviving retirement or are you in serious negative dire straits? And once we've calculated that, [lip smack] "Okay, I need to work and save this much, and plus Social Security, I've, I've had my survival number. Now the rest is for experiences, things I wanna do, an allocation of my time. How do I allocate it?" Right? Is it the cruise at 70 or is it the ski trip right now, right? [chuckles] And that's gonna be different for every single person, right? Or is it a shirt or whatever fulfills them, or to go play in this chess tournament and pay the, pay the entry fee. And for people with zero money, you still have an allocation game to play, right? You still have your health and your time, right? You can still decide, "Hey, um, I'm gonna sit down and watch 'Friends,'" you know, or, "I'm gonna go hang out at my mom's house and make a meal and spend time with them because I'm only gonna see them 20 times before they're gone." Right? So this type of thinking about allocating your resources at the proper place, getting off autopilot, holds at all wealth levels. It doesn't hold at all health levels, 'cause if you have zero health, you have zero. You're done. It's over. But it holds at all wealth levels. So that type of thinking to maximize fulfillment and knowing that you have seasons of your life, that your body decays, your attitudes change, and, and they pass, that type of thinking in that I need to get things in the right order and use my resources properly, that's gonna help you have a more fulfilling life, whether you have zero money or $100 million, right? There are many people with zero who are having a way more fulfilling life than Warren Buffett, I would say.

   23. PAPeter Attia34:19

       Yeah. I, I think one of the things about the way you framed it, Bill, that I really like, um, [lip smack] is the... It, it's a very nonlinear problem, right? So let's take a look at, look at those three variables. At the surface, one might suggest, well, wait a minute, it is a min-max game with one of them. You always want max health. But technically, even that's not true.

   24. BPBill Perkins34:40

       Right.

   25. PAPeter Attia34:40

       Because if I told you, "Bill, I have the secret for you to have max health. I can preserve your healthspan and lifespan indefinitely, but here's what it's gonna cost you. Every minute of the day, you have to be working on your health. So from the moment you wake up from sleep, you have to do a two-hour meditation. We then have to go and do this yoga. We then have to go and do this workout. When you're done that workout, you have to go and do this, da, da, da, da, da, da. And then you have to go to bed." You'd be like, "Well, Peter, that sucks because yeah-

   26. BPBill Perkins35:11

       Yeah

   27. PAPeter Attia35:11

       ... I'm gonna live for 100 more years and I don't get to spend any of that time doing anything other than improving my health."

   28. BPBill Perkins35:18

       Correct.

   29. PAPeter Attia35:18

       It's a, it's a glib example-

   30. BPBill Perkins35:20

       Yeah
6. 38:56 – 46:22

   How Bill thinks about risk, opportunity costs, and the difference between fear and risk tolerance

   1. PAPeter Attia38:57

      So how do you think about your own risk tolerance? Now, a- again, this is... I guess there's a, maybe a caveat the listener needs to understand at this point, which is what you do for a living today.

   2. BPBill Perkins39:09

      Yeah.

   3. PAPeter Attia39:10

      So you are an energy trader, among other things. You're, you know, you do many things. But, but is it safe to say that the majority of the wealth you've created came through your ability to-

   4. BPBill Perkins39:20

      Predict. Yeah

   5. PAPeter Attia39:20

      ... understand how natural gas-

   6. BPBill Perkins39:22

      Yeah

   7. PAPeter Attia39:22

      ... moves and trade on that?

   8. BPBill Perkins39:24

      Yeah. The majority of my wealth came from predicting the future, and then that's generally the future of natural gas prices.

   9. PAPeter Attia39:31

      Um, John Arnold, who is, you know, one of your closest colleagues-

   10. BPBill Perkins39:34

       Yes

   11. PAPeter Attia39:35

       ... uh, someone who I've had on the podcast, nicknamed the King of Gas, the greatest gas trader of all time. Um, do you look at a guy like John and say he has a high risk tolerance? Do you look at someone like yourself and say you have a high risk tolerance? Or do you not feel that way at all and feel like, "Nope, I'm completely in control of calculated risks, and th- that's why they net out to be positive." In other words, I'm less swayed by short-term volatility because my methodology, you know, doesn't feel like I'm gambling.

   12. BPBill Perkins40:04

       I, I think the, the, the best traders I've seen have been pretty stoic about, about things. They think about, very robotically about expected outcome, and they don't seem to be disturbed about negative outcomes as much as the average person.

   13. PAPeter Attia40:17

       Tell, tell folks what expected outcomes mean-

   14. BPBill Perkins40:19

       Oh, yeah. So-

   15. PAPeter Attia40:19

       ... because they wanna understand the, the probabilities and how these work.

   16. BPBill Perkins40:21

       Right. So like, if you, if you, if you, uh, place a bet and the payout is one in four, but the odds are 50/50, right? You're, you're gonna get... Half the time you're gonna get four times your money, and half the time you're just gonna lose one times your money. So that's positive expected outcome, right? You're gonna make money. This is a great trade. But remember, 75% of the time you're gonna lose. Uh, right? [laughs] R- r- or in this scenario... No, no, the payout. If it... Half the time you're gonna lose. Half the time you're gonna lose. The payout's one in four. So half the time you're pissed. You're upset, right? Um, and a lot of people can't deal with that. They need four or five or seven positive events emotionally, psychologically, for every, every negative event. In trading, that just doesn't exist.

   17. PAPeter Attia41:13

       Yeah. In trading, if someone is right half the time-

   18. BPBill Perkins41:16

       They're, they're, they're pretty good, right? If their, if their rate's 55%, 65, 60% of the time they're r- Like, think about the casino's edge-

   19. PAPeter Attia41:23

       Yeah

   20. BPBill Perkins41:23

       ... in blackjack. It's like po-

   21. PAPeter Attia41:24

       Could be 51/50. Yeah.

   22. BPBill Perkins41:25

       Yeah, yeah, .07 or .09 in blackjack. In craps it's like .03, right? Like, they're wrong, like, a lot of the time, right? A- a- but ultimately, the law of large numbers, they make a bunch of money. But if your emotional calculus is different, uh, where such that you need a, a greater, a greater being right ratio, then you're not gonna make it because stress clouds your thinking and your judgment, right?

   23. PAPeter Attia41:51

       So with that said, if someone says to you, "Bill, you, you just have a really high tolerance for risk. I, I don't. You know, I'm very risk adverse. I, I have... I, I, you know... I, I don't like to take big risk. I never wanna have the chance of losing something. Uh, you know, loss aversion is a greater motivator for me than gain." Uh, how do you talk to that person, and how do you help them think through the difference between fear and risk tolerance?

   24. BPBill Perkins42:18

       Yeah. Well, the first thing I do is just try and break down, like, what are they actually afraid of. A lot of times when people say, you know, the bad thing is not as bad as they imagine it in their head. And a lot of times, uh, you know, quite frankly, it's really the fear of judgment more than the actual thing. Right? They, they, or find out that they can survive the potential negative financial hit. What they can't survive is, "Oh, my friends, my colleagues, my spouse, my mom, my dad, the shame, the, the, the, you know, I got it wrong, the I told you sos," et cetera. There's a lot of that fear baked into... disguised as, "I can't risk these dollars." I'm like, "Yeah, you can." You know what I mean? You make m- you know, that, that, that type of thing. Then the other thing is, I'm trying to think, is get them to focus... They always focus on the monetary cost of losing, but what about the cost of inaction and the opportunity cost, right? And by talking about the opportunity costs, I get them to see the asymmetry of the risk, right? So I'm, I don't think I'm... Maybe I have a greater tolerance for risk, but w- what I do is, is that I fear, you know, my fear is reversed. I fear missing out on the opportunity cost. I fear not getting the max. You know, a lot of people fear running out of money. I fear wasting my life, right? I am more worried about looking back and being like, "Shit, I wasted my only ride that I had," than running out of money, right?

   25. PAPeter Attia43:45

       One of my patients said something to me once. Um, he was about to do something that I just thought was really risky. Um, now, it was a very unique opportunity. Um, and he said, "You know, Peter, I'm gonna go and do this thing." And I said, "I think there's a, I think there's a significant risk to you in doing that." It wasn't a financial risk. It would've been a, a-

   26. BPBill Perkins44:06

       Physical

   27. PAPeter Attia44:07

       ... health risk, a physical risk. And he said, "I... You're right, Peter. I, I acknowledge that risk. That, that, that is the, the risk. But I'm optimizing in a risk... uh, pardon me, a, um, a regret minimizing framework-"

   28. BPBill Perkins44:24

       Yes

   29. PAPeter Attia44:24

       "... not a risk minimizing framework."

   30. BPBill Perkins44:26

       That, yeah. That, that, that, and that's pretty much... For me, it's risk-reward, right? If I really love cigarettes, like love them, I'd smoke cigarettes. You know what I mean? If I really love skydiving all the time, I went twice, but it, it was diminishing returns, I'd go skydiving, right? It's what fulfills you, right? And so I, I'm, I'm a risk-reward guy. Is the reward commensurate with the risk?
7. 46:22 – 55:55

   Optimizing for fulfillment, finding purpose outside of work, and more

   1. PAPeter Attia46:23

      How variable do you think people are in their, um, kinda stratification of what encompasses net fulfillment? Um, and, and, and maybe a better question is, do you think people are even understanding about and deliberate about what that means? Like, that's, that doesn't strike me as something that the average person could articulate very clearly what it is that will be their fulfillment maximizing function in terms of experiences. And also, I think, I, I wanna reiterate a point you made, which is it's not just the experience, it's when they occur.

   2. BPBill Perkins46:59

      Correct.

   3. PAPeter Attia46:59

      Right? So, so the combination of which experiences and when they occur and who they occur with, do you get the sense that the average person can actually articulate that?

   4. BPBill Perkins47:09

      I, I think they y- they, they had the ability earlier in life, and then they get habituated out of it. So we all go into autopilot, right? Like, we have this default mode network. It, it, it helps us survive. It helps us drive without thinking, "Ah, I gotta turn." You know, when you first learn how to drive, like it's, everything's happening fast. You have to deliberately think about everything you're doing, and then all of a sudden it goes into default mode network, and it's easy. That happens with work, right? And you're like, "I need to work to survive, and I need to do this," and you're panicking, whatever, and the next thing, you're in the groove, and you're just constantly working, right? Constantly working. And at some long along the wa- somewhere along the way, with the abstraction of, you know, going to work to make money to survive and get the things we want, we forget about the things we want. We just go to work to work, to just make more money, to go to work to make more money. And the things we want either get pushed far ahead or forgotten about because we're on autopilot, right? It was a good thing 'cause it makes us good at our jobs. It's like, "I can do this job with my eyes closed. I can do this, and I'm getting promoted and getting rewarded." And there's certain things about the jobs that you like, but you're forgetting why you did this thing in the first place, right? People aren't like, "I really wanted to be a plastic salesperson. I really love selling plastics, more and more plastics, and piling up numbers in a bank account." Those numbers in a bank account were really meant for, "I wanna hang out with my buddies, and I wanna go skiing, and I wanna get married, and I wanna donate to this charity, and I wanna do X, Y, and Z," right? But we, we kinda forget that. Right? And, and since we forgot about it, we're not even thinking about when the best time it is to happen, right? It's just completely like, "Oh, I'll eventually do it," or, "When I get more." So we're completely out of touch of what we want, what's enough, the concept of enough, what that means for us, and the concept of when.

   5. PAPeter Attia48:53

      Now, I had a discussion with a patient just yesterday, [lips smack] um, so runs a hedge fund, and not surprisingly, given the economic climate we're in, you know, hedge funds aren't doing particularly well-

   6. BPBill Perkins49:04

      Right

   7. PAPeter Attia49:04

      ... especially long, long hedge funds. Um, and, you know, th-this, this guy doesn't need to be working. I mean, e-even though he's now having a down year, I mean, he could certainly return all the capital to his investors and manage his own capital indefinitely or do nothing, literally do nothing.

   8. BPBill Perkins49:20

      Right.

   9. PAPeter Attia49:20

      Um, but he said, "What would I do?" Like-

   10. BPBill Perkins49:23

       Yeah

   11. PAPeter Attia49:23

       ... what, I mean, what would I do?

   12. BPBill Perkins49:25

       I have that.

   13. PAPeter Attia49:25

       Like, I'd sit around for three months, and it would feel really nice to have no stress for three months, and then I'd be bored out of my mind. So he's like, "No, I gotta keep going."

   14. BPBill Perkins49:35

       Yeah. I, I've, I've, I've had this... You know, amongst my friends, you know, it's one of the things, like, people ask the question, "Why do people do this?" And, and, and I've had direct conversations with my friends. And, you know, with a friend, I'm very, very aggressive with them, attacking their walls they put up. And, and what I tell them is, is that you have made your work your god. It's who you meet people. You eat around where, where work is. You've learned... You've given up learning how to socialize and meet your neighbors. All the people you know are some kind of work or work-related. You haven't exercised those muscles for years, 10, 20, 30 years, right, sometimes, that people have... Their whole life revolves around work. And all the other muscles, and I'm, I'm, I'm using muscles as an example-

   15. PAPeter Attia50:22

       Yes. Yeah, yeah

   16. BPBill Perkins50:22

       ... have atrophied. Like, how do you socialize without a job? How do you meet people without a job? Where do I go eat without my job? Like, I eat obviously somewhere within five miles of this place, and people recommend, all the things I get recommended, the camaraderie. Everything that, you know, they... When people list what they like about work, that used to happen without work, right? And they've atroph- atrophied those muscles. So when you take that away, they're like, they don't know what to do. They don't know what they want. And their dreams have left them, right? The ski trip, they haven't thought about that or hang out with their buddies or whatever. All that stuff has left them, and they, they haven't worked those muscles out. And I, I say, "Listen, just let's start working on those muscles and building them up, and you'll have plenty to do," right? You have plenty to do. You've let autopilot and habit put you in poor health in these other activities, right? You're in poor health on how to meet people and socialize outside of work. You're in poor health on where to go eat lunch, [laughs] you know, except for the places near work or wherever you go, right? You're in poor health on trips that are not business trips, right? You're in poor health about thinking about what fulfills you and discovery, just plain old discovery 'cause you don't know what you want. You discover what you want. Nobody comes out of the womb like, "I don't like onions, and I love chocolate, and I wanna go to Japan, and I love F1." Like, you get exposed to it, and you discover what you want. So a lot of life is discovery, but-

   17. PAPeter Attia51:51

       I think my kids did come out of the womb loving F1.

   18. BPBill Perkins51:53

       No, no, he, lo- lo- loving F1 [laughs]

   19. PAPeter Attia51:54

       Well, they didn't have a choice, but yeah. No, no. Yeah, yeah.

   20. BPBill Perkins51:55

       They didn't have a choice. Yeah. But look, but these people are out of discovery. They're in the familiar, habituated routine. They are a rat in a wheel that doesn't even need cheese anymore. It just runs in the wheel.

   21. PAPeter Attia52:10

       Now, how do we differentiate that from people who, uh, and I would put myself in this category truthfully, where, you know, a big part of their work is their fulfillment, and they do feel a sense of purpose in what they do beyond just the making money part of it?

   22. BPBill Perkins52:28

       Correct.

   23. PAPeter Attia52:28

       And, uh, I, I suspect that, like, again, just to k- make caricatures of things, right?

   24. BPBill Perkins52:33

       Mm-hmm.

   25. PAPeter Attia52:34

       So maybe the person who works in the widget factory that makes the widget, that they don't even know what the widget plugs into, but they need a job. Like, and it... And if, if they, you know, w- inherited a big lump sum of money tomorrow, they would qui- happily quit the widget job.

   26. BPBill Perkins52:48

       Right.

   27. PAPeter Attia52:49

       Um, but maybe they'd get bored, and they'd wanna go back and start volunteering and doing something where they don't actually get paid, but they're really enjoying what they're doing. And then, of course, you have the group of people whose job is doing two things. It's providing money for all the things that you need, both in approximate sense and distally, but also it is a sense of purpose-

   28. BPBill Perkins53:11

       It's a, it's a... Right

   29. PAPeter Attia53:11

       ... and therefore it fits into their fulfillment. But there's... But, but these things can be very slippery, and I would certainly put myself squarely in that category, right? Which is I still work harder than I should.

   30. BPBill Perkins53:21

       Right.
8. 55:55 – 1:01:26

   Thinking about the order of experiences you want to have based on seasons of life

   1. BPBill Perkins55:55

      right?

   2. PAPeter Attia55:55

      Well, I, I think that that's probably the part of the book that most kind of resonates with someone like me, which is, um... E- especially when it comes to kids, right? It's that you have... And, and I have, I guess, the... Maybe it's an advantage, maybe it's a disadvantage, but, uh, my kids are sort of separated in age by a bit of a gap, right? So my daughter's 14, and then the boys are five and eight. So in other words, I now know what it's like to have a teenager. I now understand all the things that you kind of give up when your kid's a teenager. And, and our daughter's-

   3. BPBill Perkins56:33

      Yeah

   4. PAPeter Attia56:33

      ... an amazing kid, but the reality of it is like she doesn't really want to be around me.

   5. BPBill Perkins56:38

      No, they don't wanna know you when they become teenagers.

   6. PAPeter Attia56:39

      Yeah.

   7. BPBill Perkins56:39

      I didn't wanna know my parents when I was a teenager, right? [laughs] Like-

   8. PAPeter Attia56:41

      Yeah, yeah. Whereas conversely, the boys can't leave us alone, and it's tempting to sort of say, "I wish they would just leave us alone." But now knowing that, oh, actually, in like six years, you'll kill to be back in this situation-

   9. BPBill Perkins56:57

      Correct

   10. PAPeter Attia56:57

       ... makes it infinitely more easy-

   11. BPBill Perkins56:59

       Correct

   12. PAPeter Attia56:59

       ... to appreciate.

   13. BPBill Perkins57:00

       Correct.

   14. PAPeter Attia57:00

       Um, [lips smack] so that's, that's kind of one thing that I think is helpful for people to understand the seasons and this, this, uh, this idea of seasonality.

   15. BPBill Perkins57:09

       Right.

   16. PAPeter Attia57:09

       Um, like you, I, I probably think back to things I didn't do for different reasons, right? So when I was in college, I mean, I couldn't have worked harder. Like, it's... I mean, I was out of my mind how hard I worked.

   17. BPBill Perkins57:26

       Right.

   18. PAPeter Attia57:26

       Um, the... My night off, there was one night, which was Friday, when I only worked till 9:00 PM. It was my break.

   19. BPBill Perkins57:36

       Wow.

   20. PAPeter Attia57:36

       And from 9:00 PM till 11:00 I would go-

   21. BPBill Perkins57:38

       See, I needed a little bit of you, and you needed-

   22. PAPeter Attia57:39

       Yeah, yeah, yeah

   23. BPBill Perkins57:39

       ... a little bit of me. [laughs]

   24. PAPeter Attia57:40

       I would, I would go and do laundry after 9:00 PM on a Friday. That was, that was my way to just take a little time off. But other than that, it was six hours a day of work outside of class. And I think of all the things I didn't do in college. So first of all, my only memories of college are pure misery. I hated every minute of college. I didn't have-

   25. BPBill Perkins58:01

       Didn't have the college ex-

   26. PAPeter Attia58:01

       ... many... I didn't have this-

   27. BPBill Perkins58:02

       You didn't have the co- the experience.

   28. PAPeter Attia58:03

       Yeah, yeah. Now, you know, I could say, well, th- a lot of good came out of that 'cause I did really well and-

   29. BPBill Perkins58:08

       Right

   30. PAPeter Attia58:08

       ... did well. That set me up for the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. But like, I coulda traveled, right? I didn't-
9. 1:01:26 – 1:13:00

   Bill’s unique perspective on philanthropy and a more impactful way to give money away

   1. PAPeter Attia1:01:26

      One of the other things that you talk about, and, and you've mentioned it already today a couple times, is philanthropy. So, um, there's a story in the book about a woman who dies and leaves a large gift. Uh, t-t-tell that story again.

   2. BPBill Perkins1:01:39

      Yeah, so there's, there, so there's, there's a w- woman, she, she, she s- she... It's one of those, you know, secret millionaire stories, right? And they're, they're, they're all out there. Like, there's a secretary, and then when she died, you know, she, you know, she had, you know, $10 million of Tootsie Roll stock or whatever, right? Like, the, um... And so this woman was a, I believe a, a, worked at a law firm. Um, you know, saved her money. Lived a, a, by all, by all accounts, a very frugal life. And then when she died, she gave a, a multimillion-dollar gift to, uh, education. It was a, a charitable ed-education. And, you know, everybody was like, "You know, that's so charitable, and that's, that's, that's, um, um, um, such a great thing." And, you know, I had a different pers-perspective, right? Like, um, I, I, you know, my perspective was when you're dead, the money isn't yours, right? And so... And also that the, the target for h-her, you know, her bequeath after her death would've been much better off receiving the money much earlier, a lower sum much earlier, and that the return on her charitable investment would be greater than any of her investment returns, right? And so, you know, I can't really, uh, get into her head to determine if it's charitable. Like, like, like, I'm knowingly thinking I'm doing the right thing. I'm going to, to save all this money, and it's gonna grow to a bigger pile, and I'm gonna give, give it to a charity. But, but to me, it appears to be a tip on the way out, right? The money's gotta go somewhere. It was gonna go either to the IRS, who, you know, it's the government will redistri-redistribute the money the way they see fit, usually into wars and stuff, but I'll, I'll [laughs] I won't go into that subject, right? Uh, or, or, or, or, or, or heirs or et cetera, but it, it's going somewhere. It's not yours, right? It, it's, it's gone. So, the fact that it just wound up into this, um, educational charity, you know, I, I didn't see it as charitable as much and as impactful as just giving the money earlier. Like, life is urgent. Life is now. And I argue that the return on investment in your charitable endeavors is greater than any return in the market you can get.

   3. PAPeter Attia1:04:00

      Well, and this is sort of interesting because, y-you know, think about what our mutual friend John Arnold did 10 years ago-

   4. BPBill Perkins1:04:07

      Right

   5. PAPeter Attia1:04:07

      ... which was-

   6. BPBill Perkins1:04:09

      Yeah

   7. PAPeter Attia1:04:09

      ... before he even hits the age of 40-

   8. BPBill Perkins1:04:12

      Yeah, it's great

   9. PAPeter Attia1:04:12

      ... he decides, "I'm no longer gonna do this full time. My full-time job is now giving this money away."

   10. BPBill Perkins1:04:19

       Right. It, it, it was... It's, it's, it's great. John's great, and we've had a lot of conversations about this, about like, you know, making sure the money actually gets distributed, gets, gets, gets into the purpose, you know, the, uh, uh, helping causes. But John decided that, "I've been solving the problem natural gas long enough. I have more money than I'll ever spend or need, and I really want to dedicate my neurons to solving other problems," right? So he takes an analytical approach, a database-driven approach to solving some of society's ills and solving some problems and trying to get it in ahead of some of these intractable problems, which is, which is awesome. And, and the fact that he's doing it so young. I even argue with John, like, he did it too late. He's still late. You know what I mean? Because he was on autopilot, too, in my opinion, trading, right? Like, it's like, what are you working for? You know? Like, if, you know, like, j- you know, I have this conversation with John, it's like, w-what's the money for? W-w-what can't you buy? You know? [laughs] And, and to a certain extent, the money became a detriment. You know, there's, y-based, based on your value system, right? Like, if you're like, "Hey," and I mention this in the book, if like, "Yeah, I can have Maroon 5 play in my backyard every day," et cetera, but you don't wanna ruin your kids by spending the money and consuming that way. And I'm using the Maroon 5 as an exa- as, like, a exaggerated example. But, like, there's all kinds of consumption that you don't wanna have because you don't want your kids to have that. Then the money became a negative, right? Like, you really worked too long for it because you're working for money that you cannot spend, you cannot consume, right? And you could start giving it away and having an impact on the other things you wanna do now.

   11. PAPeter Attia1:06:02

       A-a-and I think one of the things that John exemplifies is how to give money away thoughtfully.

   12. BPBill Perkins1:06:10

       Correct.

   13. PAPeter Attia1:06:10

       And what you realize when you spend any length of time with him, which you've spent more than I have, um, it is really hard to give money away strategically and thoughtfully, which is why I suspect John and Laura set themselves up with 50 years of a runway to give.

   14. BPBill Perkins1:06:28

       Yeah.

   15. PAPeter Attia1:06:29

       And, um, I don't know. There's a pretty good chance they still won't be able to give it all away, right?

   16. BPBill Perkins1:06:33

       Well, I think, I think what they're doing is, like, effectively giving away, right? Like, they, they wanna solve problems, database deci-decisions, and like, there's, there's-

   17. PAPeter Attia1:06:41

       But it takes time. I mean, that's the other point, right?

   18. BPBill Perkins1:06:42

       It definitely, it definitely, it definitely takes time.

   19. PAPeter Attia1:06:44

       You have to, you have to invest the time to try something out, see if it works. If it does, double down. If it doesn't, learn why it doesn't, pivot. And, um, you know, you can't do that if you say, "Look, at the end of my life, I'm gonna give away a billion dollars."

   20. BPBill Perkins1:07:00

       No

   21. PAPeter Attia1:07:00

       ... like it won't be effective. So there, there's a double issue here. There's the issue you already said, which is the compounding issue.

   22. BPBill Perkins1:07:07

       Right.

   23. PAPeter Attia1:07:07

       No. If you give a billion dollars away-

   24. BPBill Perkins1:07:09

       That's right

   25. PAPeter Attia1:07:09

       ... in 50 years versus giving away half a billion dollars or, you know, $100 million 30 years sooner, that y- that money will do more good. But there's another layer to that, which is you have a chance to learn from what that money did and make corrections that themselves-

   26. BPBill Perkins1:07:26

       Yes

   27. PAPeter Attia1:07:26

       ... allow for more-

   28. BPBill Perkins1:07:28

       Yes

   29. PAPeter Attia1:07:28

       ... thoughtful giving.

   30. BPBill Perkins1:07:29

       Yeah. They're, they're immediately jumping into the problem and let the experiments run their course-
10. 1:13:00 – 1:25:27

    Applying the principles in ‘Die With Zero’ to maximize fulfillment

    1. BPBill Perkins1:13:00

       right?

    2. PAPeter Attia1:13:00

       Yeah. How do you help a person do the math? Because we've talked about this quite a bit, and you've alluded to it. There is really a curve. And, um, you know, this is where both your background, uh, primarily as an engineer and a trader come into solving what becomes a mathematical set of equations.

    3. BPBill Perkins1:13:22

       Right.

    4. PAPeter Attia1:13:23

       Where you have certain variables you need to understand, right? So you... If, if you're, if you're... So i- let's say we're solving this for, for me or for you or, you know, an arbitrary person who's sitting here who's 50 years old, okay? So 50-year-old person is listening to this or 30-year-old person. I mean, we should do it... Maybe we do a few different scenarios. So let's start with the, with the kind of 50-year-old who is firmly planted on the treadmill of autopilot, okay?

    5. BPBill Perkins1:13:48

       Right.

    6. PAPeter Attia1:13:48

       So their, their kids are in, you know, middle school and high school. They're... I mean, they realize how much money they need for college for their kids. They've got a mortgage payment. They've got a good job. Um, and they have a fuzzy notion that they're gonna work another 15 to 20 years. And they come to you and they say, "Bill, um, I read the book. I buy the thesis. I don't know how to implement it for my numbers and for my fulfillment curve." H- how do you help them think about it?

    7. BPBill Perkins1:14:19

       I mean, the, the, the ma- the main thing is, is it's very individual, right? It's like, what do you want? Like, if, if you're, if you, if you're sitting there like, "I just like working and going in, and that's all I do"-

    8. PAPeter Attia1:14:27

       No. Okay, so I'll be the guy.

    9. BPBill Perkins1:14:28

       Yeah.

    10. PAPeter Attia1:14:28

        So I'm gonna say, um-

    11. BPBill Perkins1:14:30

        Yeah, you be the guy.

    12. PAPeter Attia1:14:30

        Yeah. So, so Bill, no, I, I, um, I do have interests, but I gotta be honest with you, man, I've, I've backed away from them. You know, I've kind of let them go. I've let myself go a little bit. Um, so I... M- before my wife and I had kids, we loved traveling. Uh, and before our kids were born, we, we hiked the entire rim of the Grand Canyon. We went down to the Colorado River, back up.

    13. BPBill Perkins1:14:50

        Mm.

    14. PAPeter Attia1:14:50

        Probably the greatest thing we ever did. And then once the kids came, we were kind of head down in work, and I just wanna make sure that my kids don't have debt when they go to college.

    15. BPBill Perkins1:14:58

        So w- what, what I, what I do is, is like, okay, will your kids have... When in debt... I, I, I get... What's reality and what's, what's, what's, uh, you know, just fear, fear-based thinking?

    16. PAPeter Attia1:15:09

        Sure.

    17. BPBill Perkins1:15:09

        Right? So we try and get on that. And one of the things I'd look for is like, why don't you go traveling with the kids? And you're like, "Well, it's a pain in the ass," whatever. I was like-

    18. PAPeter Attia1:15:16

        Well, no, I mean, it's also so expensive, Bill.

    19. BPBill Perkins1:15:18

        Right.

    20. PAPeter Attia1:15:18

        I mean, do you understand what it costs now?

    21. BPBill Perkins1:15:20

        That's where I get into.

    22. PAPeter Attia1:15:20

        I mean, right now-

    23. BPBill Perkins1:15:21

        Yeah

    24. PAPeter Attia1:15:21

        ... if we wanted to take... I mean, you know, one of my kids has a friend who did this African safari a year ago. They said it was amazing, but I, I... You know, to price that trip, Bill, today, $30,000 to go do that African safari now. With the, with the airlines, with the safari, I mean, it's... That's a lot of money.

    25. BPBill Perkins1:15:37

        So what I tell you is is when you die, we, we... Like, will you have $30,000? Are you on track to die with $30,000, $50,000?

    26. PAPeter Attia1:15:44

        Y- uh, yeah, I, I hope so.

    27. BPBill Perkins1:15:46

        Okay. So then would you rather consume that $30,000 now or... and, and have this experience with your kids, et cetera, or would you rather ha- have $30,000 left over when you die? And then-

    28. PAPeter Attia1:15:58

        I, I just wanna be safe. I mean, how do I know?

    29. BPBill Perkins1:16:00

        Okay. So then-

    30. PAPeter Attia1:16:01

        What if I'm wrong?
11. 1:25:27 – 1:29:51

    How to break out of living life on autopilot

    1. BPBill Perkins1:25:27

       It's wonderful

    2. PAPeter Attia1:25:27

       You know, it, it's, um, it is one of the biggest cliches ever, which is the person on their deathbed who says, "I wish I didn't work so hard."

    3. BPBill Perkins1:25:34

       Right.

    4. PAPeter Attia1:25:34

       And yet we all know this cliche, and yet many of us still work too hard.

    5. BPBill Perkins1:25:38

       Habits are powerful. Like, one of the things I took away from, like, you know, the habit books, like Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg, uh, is, is a great book, is that they're powerful. They're extremely powerful. And so we have... w-we get habituated in many different ways, right? For, for good or bad, right? Like, if you, if you have the snacks in your house and you eat 200 calories a day, you know, in, you know, two years you're, like, 40 pounds heavier, [laughs] right? 200 extra calories, right? Like, how did that happen, right? You know, how did I forget, you know, how did my life pass me by? How did I not go on these trips? How did I not have these experience? How did I not call my mother? How did I not say I love you to these people, even pick up the phone? Because my habits took over, right? They took over towards this purpose, and it just absorbed my life. And so, um, you know, I, I, you know, outside the book with my friends, you know, I really, um, talk about, you know, the good of habits, right? You can form good habits that keep you healthy, but some of the habits, you know, the consequences of some of our habits to be successful and how it takes away from other things, right? And so-

    6. PAPeter Attia1:26:43

       So how... Has that been a struggle for you?

    7. BPBill Perkins1:26:46

       Oh, yes. I wrote that book for me. I wrote it to save my li- people think I didn't... I, you know, the first life I wanted to save was my own. Put your life mask on first. You know, I am just as guilty as the next person as being on autopilot. I constantly have to remind myself that I'm going to die, that life isn't forever. This period ends. These seasons with my daughters end. These seasons at, at my startups end. All these things. And I have to think about, like, h- what do I want? How do I balance them? What's optimized, right? And I don't get it exactly right, but I do it better than if I was just completely on autopilot. And then sometimes I ca- I was like, "Oh, shit, I was on autopilot. Why didn't I think about this?" You know? Um-

    8. PAPeter Attia1:27:25

       And what do you use to help jar you out of autopilot on these things?

    9. BPBill Perkins1:27:28

       I, I mean, the f- the, the, the f- the first macro thing is, is the death clock. Or right now I have this, this, this calendar up, and it's, it's, it's, uh, 4,000 weeks. And you mark off each week, and it's a very visceral, uh, representation about, like, life is finite. You know, this period... And not only will you, you know, die somewhere around here, but this period is going to end, right? And, and a lot of times when people go on vacation, right, knowing that the vacation ends on Friday snaps you up. You're like, "Oh, shit, I'm gonna go here and do this, and I'm gonna stay out. And, you know, we only have a couple of days, so let's do the cafe and let's, you know, do X, Y, and Z." And you actually get more out of the trip knowing it's gonna end as opposed to living obliviously, you know, and all of a sudden, "Time to go. Wait, it's time to go? I forgot to do this," or go see the Eiffel Tower or go whatever it is on your trip. And so same that way with life. When, when, when you know life is gonna end, it becomes more urgent, right? And even n- even the segment in your life, when you know, you know, your early 50s are gonna end, you're like, it becomes more urgent. You become more deliberate. You get off autopilot. So that's the first layer that, of, of, of, uh-

    10. PAPeter Attia1:28:41

        So each week you do check off a box on the calendar?

    11. BPBill Perkins1:28:43

        Each week I check off. Now, I've been in Austin and traveling, but when I come back, I see it. I see... It's in my closet. So I walk by it every day. It's a constant reminder, right?

    12. PAPeter Attia1:28:51

        Where'd you get this calendar, by the way?

    13. BPBill Perkins1:28:52

        I... Online. It was, like, some sort of stoic reflections out there.

    14. PAPeter Attia1:28:56

        Mm-hmm.

    15. BPBill Perkins1:28:56

        A memento mori, remember death.

    16. PAPeter Attia1:28:58

        Yep.

    17. BPBill Perkins1:28:58

        You know? And, and so I, I saw it, and I, I used to have it on my phone, and it used to count down backwards to my estimated death date. Uh, that, that, that app no longer works, but the, the, the, the seeing it every time, you know, is, is, is great. You know, if they get, if I get another widget that counts down, I'll have both of them.

    18. PAPeter Attia1:29:16

        Mm.

    19. BPBill Perkins1:29:16

        Right? And I used to do it for other things, like till Christmas, till your daughter's 14, till, till, till the job, the 15-year anniversary, right? It's like, wow, my daughter's gonna be, you know, 16. She's gonna be driving. What... How am I gonna pry experiences out of my daughter? 'Cause your daughters don't wanna know you, right? Before she's really gone, right? And she gets a car, and she's, "See ya. Deuces." You know? That, that type of thing. So that really helps me, you know... It gives me kind of an alarm that wakes me up out of autopilot, right? And, and, and, and that's the thing I personally use.

12. 1:29:51 – 1:34:12

    When should your net worth peak?

    1. PAPeter Attia1:29:51

       How do you help somebody think about when their net worth should peak? Because a, a clear, uh, implication of everything we're talking about is net worth probably needs to peak a lot sooner than it currently does.

    2. BPBill Perkins1:30:06

       Yeah.

    3. PAPeter Attia1:30:06

       As you said, I think the default for most working people is that net worth peaks sometime after retirement-

    4. BPBill Perkins1:30:13

       Right

    5. PAPeter Attia1:30:13

       ... or certainly around the time of retirement, even if they're thinking about drawing down. But again, for most people, given the age of retirement, there's a, a mismatch between when they're hitting peak net worth and when they're hitting peak capacity to utilize net worth.

    6. BPBill Perkins1:30:28

       Yeah. This is a massive, it's a massive mismat- mismatch. You know, I, I... You know, one of the things I wanted to do, and, and I, I wish I knew you back then because you coulda, you coulda helped me, is I was like, I wanted to know about all these frailty curves, like bone density, lung capacity, and what activities-

    7. PAPeter Attia1:30:42

       Yeah

    8. BPBill Perkins1:30:42

       ... become less enjoyable first and then unable to do, right? Because that determines a lot when your net worth should peak. So I, I estimated it somewhere in your 50s.

    9. PAPeter Attia1:30:55

       Wow.

    10. BPBill Perkins1:30:56

        Right? Like, like... And the data kinda shows that. Like, when I, when I went to St. Petersburg and climbed the 200 and, I'll think it was 11 steps to walk around the banister. There's all these tour buses coming to St. Petersburg, Asian, whatever. Not one person over those tour buses that was elderly climbed the 211 steps. So St. Petersburg was a different St. Petersburg for them. They didn't have the same experience. I got more out of St. Petersburg for them. Now, I'm not saying it wasn't a wonderful trip and a nice trip for them, but they probably pushed St. Petersburg too late in life.

    11. PAPeter Attia1:31:29

        Yep.

    12. BPBill Perkins1:31:30

        And so- You know, there's so much hidden data and data out there and reports if you read it where, you know, we talked about it earlier, like trying to get people to spend their money down, right? And one of the things, answers I give, you know, they say, "Well, why do you think people are still... their net worth is still going up into 72?" And, you know, part of it is, you know, asset appreciation and going faster than they can spend it, but the real answer is they can't.

    13. PAPeter Attia1:31:59

        Yeah.

    14. BPBill Perkins1:32:00

        They cannot spend it down. Life has passed them by. They no longer have the attitude or aptitude, you know, to do this. Like, they c- they can't do it. You, you'd be surprised how many people die on those cruise ships trying to swim when they get to St. Thomas. It's, it's, it's, you know... They, they it's, "I'm gonna do this," and I'm... You know, they think their life's gonna be like a Carnival commercial, and I'm like, "That Carnival commercial will kill most Americans."

    15. PAPeter Attia1:32:26

        [chuckles]

    16. BPBill Perkins1:32:27

        Right? They're having heart attacks going down those slides, right? Uh, and so, um-

    17. PAPeter Attia1:32:33

        And that, of course, just speaks to the imbalance between the three variables.

    18. BPBill Perkins1:32:39

        Correct.

    19. PAPeter Attia1:32:39

        It's like if you spent a little bit more of your time-

    20. BPBill Perkins1:32:41

        On your health

    21. PAPeter Attia1:32:42

        ... on your health-

    22. BPBill Perkins1:32:42

        Yes

    23. PAPeter Attia1:32:42

        ... you would buy yourself a bigger runway to utilize your wealth on the experiences.

    24. BPBill Perkins1:32:47

        Right. So f- particularly for Americans, like, this book, my book is most successful in Japan, which is, which is strange.

    25. PAPeter Attia1:32:53

        Yeah. Say why.

    26. BPBill Perkins1:32:54

        Um, I, I think, one, you know, you... I, I believe you'll get value out of this book and the way of thinking even if you have zero wealth, but Japan has a savings-

    27. PAPeter Attia1:33:04

        Problem

    28. BPBill Perkins1:33:05

        ... problem.

    29. PAPeter Attia1:33:05

        Yeah.

    30. BPBill Perkins1:33:05

        Like, the, you know, Japan saves, saves, saves, then they die, and they give the money to the next generation, and they save, save, save, and I'm just like, "Well, what generation actually has fun?" Right? So I'm really counter to the culture there, right? We, we hear, you know, one of the criticisms of the book will be like, "Well, there's so many people that have zero and trying to make ends meet." And I'm like, "I get it. They can still get value out of this about getting the Tetris of their life right." But maybe, you know, a wealth building book or, like, how to make dollars book might be, you know, more useful to them at this time in their life, right? In Japan, it's the opposite. And also Japan- Japanese, um, they're healthier. Like, when I... You walk around-
13. 1:34:12 – 1:38:45

    Taking calculated risks

    1. PAPeter Attia1:34:13

       Let's go back to risk again. You, uh, we were talking before about how, uh... What, what's the mantra of the energy trader or the gas trader?

    2. BPBill Perkins1:34:21

       [chuckles] Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Uh, the name of the game is to stay in the game.

    3. PAPeter Attia1:34:24

       Right. Like, sort of like Simon Sinek's book, "The Infinite Game," right?

    4. BPBill Perkins1:34:27

       Yeah.

    5. PAPeter Attia1:34:27

       It's not about winning. It's about k- being able to keep playing-

    6. BPBill Perkins1:34:30

       Yes

    7. PAPeter Attia1:34:30

       ... over and over and over again. So inherent in that is never making a bet or a trade that can completely wipe you out and take you out of the game.

    8. BPBill Perkins1:34:38

       It, it, it... I mean, by nature of the business, even the smallest position can, can, can take you out of the game. It's really about taking prudent risk-reward-

    9. PAPeter Attia1:34:47

       Mm

    10. BPBill Perkins1:34:47

        ... and then stopping out when you can, right? Life is risk, right? You can get hit by a bus. A meteor can hit you. You know, you can get some sort of crazy infectious disease. Like, you can get a bum deal, right? Just going out. But you're not gonna live in a bubble. You're gonna take calculated risks.

    11. PAPeter Attia1:35:01

        Yeah.

    12. BPBill Perkins1:35:01

        So in trading, you jo- the, the, the, the... we're optimizing for profit, right? You're going to take risks that in a tail scenario can blow you out. The key is taking prudent risk-reward decisions, right? Like, you know, I don't smoke. It's not a, it's not a, it's not... The reward's not great enough. I did go skydiving. The first time, the reward was great. The second time, it was half as great. I didn't do it the third time because the risk was the same, and the reward wasn't, right? The reward was going down, and the risk was still the same.

    13. PAPeter Attia1:35:31

        Yeah.

    14. BPBill Perkins1:35:31

        And so this is the same thing in trading, right? Like, you, we, we look at everything on a risk-reward basis and, and the likelihood of dying, right? And if things go awry, can we get out, right? Have I sized my position? Can I get out? Is the liquidity there? And all these things are going on all the time, right? You have to-

    15. PAPeter Attia1:35:47

        And how do you think about that in a person's life? I mean, I like the example of skydiving. How do you think about this now in terms of the seasons of the person's life? Where are there... Are there certain seasons where certain risks make sense, um, be it financial risks or-

    16. BPBill Perkins1:36:03

        I can... I, I'll give you, I'll give you a great example of physical risk.

    17. PAPeter Attia1:36:05

        Yeah.

    18. BPBill Perkins1:36:05

        Okay? So I have a, a cartilage disappearing in L3, L4, right? Bones are hitting each other, so I'm... They... I'm, I'm advised against doing impact things. And I was 50 years old in the islands, and guys were gonna go wakeboarding. And I was like, "I don't wanna go. I don't wanna go. I'm gonna hang out on the beach. I'm gonna loaf." And then I thought about it for a second. I said, "I don't have many wakeboarding times left." Like, I'm not going wakeboarding at 60, right? I have a, I have this degenerative back thing. You know, cartilage is... You know, it's gonna be more dangerous for me, et cetera. If I am to wakeboard-

    19. PAPeter Attia1:36:46

        It has to be now

    20. BPBill Perkins1:36:47

        ... it is now. The, it is in this time period. And then I thought, "Okay, it's in this time period." I'm like, "Okay, how many times am I going to be in warm water with my buddies where there's a wakeboarding boat ready to go in the next two years? I don't know. This is it." [chuckles] I don't foresee it happening, you know? Like, I could make a special effort for it, but, like, it's just there in my lap, and I don't have something else to do, et cetera. And I was like, "I'm gonna go wakeboarding. This is probably the last time I'm gonna go wakeboarding." That was the last time I went wakeboarding. Um-

    21. PAPeter Attia1:37:20

        How much did it hurt?

    22. BPBill Perkins1:37:22

        It didn't hurt. It didn't hurt. I actually jumped the wake too. I made a nice jump at a wake. I said, "I'm gonna send it." I sent it, you know? It didn't hurt that much. It wasn't like that. But afterwards, like, there was a little tension in my back, et cetera. And, you know, stretching and trying to, like- You know? But, like, I was very conscious, like, "Okay, I gotta be, you know, careful," right? Coming across it. And now I wakesurf, right? Like, I do the low-impact version of the sport, which I absolutely love. Uh, until, you know, there's some tech- technique to, like, put cartilage in my back and re-strengthen my back. I, I... You know, I'm waiting for the technology to catch up, so maybe I'll get my back back. But right now, it's the last time I went wakeboarding, you know? That was the risk was worth the reward. There was no other time that I'm... You know? Now, as I get older, wakeboarding is much more dangerous, right? And so I've gone to a sport where the speed of the sport, you know, a lot of people think, you know, well, um, you know, if you're going 10 miles per hour versus 12 miles per hour, it's only two miles per hour difference, but it's a 44% difference in force, right? Because force equals MV squared.

    23. PAPeter Attia1:38:23

        Yeah.

    24. BPBill Perkins1:38:24

        And [laughs] so, you know, people don't realize that. Well, I, I'm r- I'm acutely aware of it, and, and I'm like, "Okay, I wanna be in a s- a, a, a, a, something that I can get fulfilled where the, the risk is not as great," right? And so I, I have a 44% reduction in, you know, force, which is great. You know? Great for me when I fall. [laughs]

14. 1:38:45 – 1:49:24

    Bill shares a lesson from his incredible birthday

    1. PAPeter Attia1:38:45

       So what year was it that you had that incredible birthday?

    2. BPBill Perkins1:38:50

       Gosh. Uh, I'm pretty sure it's 45, right? But I've had incredible birthdays since then, but, like, the one in the book is 45.

    3. PAPeter Attia1:38:59

       And-

    4. BPBill Perkins1:38:59

       I'm pretty sure it's 45

    5. PAPeter Attia1:39:00

       ... and, and-

    6. BPBill Perkins1:39:00

       I think it's... I think it... Well, how about this? M- m- uh, it was 2008. Right around 2008.

    7. PAPeter Attia1:39:10

       Okay.

    8. BPBill Perkins1:39:11

       No, no, no, there was a second one. I had two b- birthday parties. It was 45. 45. Let's say 45.

    9. PAPeter Attia1:39:15

       All right. So at the time, you spend a lot of money. Was it, for you, enough money that you were like, "Am I crazy doing this?" Like, did you have second thoughts about it?

    10. BPBill Perkins1:39:25

        I, I had second thought... Like, you know, the, the events and the things I was planning-

    11. PAPeter Attia1:39:29

        Remind me what was the... It was down in the-

    12. BPBill Perkins1:39:31

        Oh, so, so-

    13. PAPeter Attia1:39:31

        ... Caribbean?

    14. BPBill Perkins1:39:31

        ... so I, I, I, I, I, I went to St. Barts. I love St. Barts. It's, it's where I had my honeymoon. It's a great island. I think it's one of the best islands in the Caribbean. Um, I, I... Obviously, not everybody can go to St. Barts, and, you know, I tell people that become successful, um, you either get new friends or you scholarship your friends, right? Because you, you wanna do experiences. A lot of times, a lot of people wanna do shared experiences, right? They want their friends to come. They, they can't afford to just pop up and spend thousands of dollars to go to St. Barts or do X, Y, and Z when you're s- You know? And it happens in various levels of success, right? Whether it's on a trip to Chicago, you know, or super... Like, I can't do that, you know? Like, some people can and can't. And so as you become successful, you know, one of the experiences you wanna have is to be around your friends and have shared experience with your friends. And so I, I, I coach people. I say, "You have to lose this attachment that they have to pay," right? Or they need to pay or whatever. Like, you have to think what's the most important to you. Get off autopilot. It's to have shared experiences. And is it worth it for you to have them around? For me, I've had good friends throughout [laughs] the years. It's, it's, it is, it's unequivocal yes, right? Friends and family. So... But it gets expensive, right? And you have this, [lips smack] you know, you gotta rent out the hotel rooms, et cetera, and entertainment, and plan this thing. But I was like, "What... Some of these people, you know, they have their own lives and own complications and, and, and conflicts. You won't get the time to do with it. Uh, some of these people won't be alive, right? May or may not be alive. You may drift apart. This is, this is the time," right? "I wanna do this." And so as I was, you know, adding these people in and, and having my mother down and, uh, and all this stuff, I had just, like, a heavenly experience. You know? Like, walking on the beach. My mom's coming out of her beach house. My friends are hanging on the balcony looking down. It's beautiful. The birds are out, et cetera. And hi, all the people I love, and we're gonna do this fun activity, and we're gonna listen to music, et cetera. You know, I imagine that that's what heavens is like, right? Like, you're just, just having this experience. And [lips smack] what I did was I convert... You, you know, I realized that that's what I was working for. I was working to create these experiences. These are the things that fulfill me, right? When I was planning it, it's like, "Oh, shit. This is a lot of goddamn money." [laughs] You know what I mean? Like, "What am I gonna do? Is, am I doing the right allocation," right? Like, you never know if you get it exactly right, right? Nobody gets it perfectly balanced. But this was the right direction, right?

    15. PAPeter Attia1:42:11

        You know, it reminds me of something, um... So wh- when my wife and I got married in 2004, um, it was... Uh, I remember, um, looking... So, you know, we got married at a golf club, you know? We did, we didn't have two nickels to rub together, right?

    16. BPBill Perkins1:42:29

        Right.

    17. PAPeter Attia1:42:29

        So it was like, I think, the, the wedding, the ceremony, the reception were all at the same place. The whole thing cost less than $20,000. But it was obscene amount of money for us at the time, right?

    18. BPBill Perkins1:42:38

        Right.

    19. PAPeter Attia1:42:39

        And, um, and it was amazing because everybody we actually cared about in our lives was there. We were really fortunate that, hey, almost everybody could make it who we invited.

    20. BPBill Perkins1:42:49

        Right.

    21. PAPeter Attia1:42:50

        And, you know, there were almost 200 people there. So at one point, I, I grabbed my wife and, um, we, we kinda walked out onto a balcony and could see everybody, and I said, [lips smack] "Do you realize that this is one of only two times in our life that we will be surrounded by everyone who's meaningful to us, uh, who's alive, and the only other time it's gonna occur, we're gonna be dead. We'll be in the casket."

    22. BPBill Perkins1:43:16

        Correct.

    23. PAPeter Attia1:43:16

        "We'll be at our funeral."

    24. BPBill Perkins1:43:17

        Correct.

    25. PAPeter Attia1:43:17

        "So we gotta really take this in."

    26. BPBill Perkins1:43:19

        Yeah.

    27. PAPeter Attia1:43:20

        And I, I realize now there was a, there was a huge error in my logic, which was that was totally untrue. That didn't have to be true at all.

    28. BPBill Perkins1:43:28

        You can create it.

    29. PAPeter Attia1:43:29

        You can create that any time you want.

    30. BPBill Perkins1:43:31

        Right.
15. 1:49:24 – 1:58:05

    How Bill’s philosophy has evolved since writing Die With Zero

    1. BPBill Perkins1:49:24

       fulfilling to me

    2. PAPeter Attia1:49:24

       ... what, what year did you finish writing Die With Zero?

    3. BPBill Perkins1:49:27

       Ah, let's see. It had to be... It, it was supposed to come out in 2020, so it was probably 2019. 2019?

    4. PAPeter Attia1:49:37

       So-

    5. BPBill Perkins1:49:38

       2019, 2020

    6. PAPeter Attia1:49:38

       ... in the, in the three years-ish since you've written the book-

    7. BPBill Perkins1:49:42

       Yeah

    8. PAPeter Attia1:49:42

       ... um, has your thinking changed in anything? Have you evolved? Are you more nuanced in anything that you wrote about?

    9. BPBill Perkins1:49:50

       I'm, I'm more... I'm... You know, it's kind of like when you write a formula, um, you know, and it's not like I, like, came up with this formula, this life cycle hypothesis thing, which is basically the book, right? This counterfactual regret minimization algorithm, and I'm solving for net fulfillment. It, it, it's not as if these ideas weren't out there, right? Like, I always say, like, anybody could have, like, just thought about it and wrote this book. It's, it's, it's how I present it so that it hits the widest audience and so that it hits them viscerally, so they actually apply it, right? And so I think about it deeper and deeper, layers of it, right? And sometimes I go deep into the subcategory, 'cause I use these variables wealth, health, and time, and I'm like, "What's the maximum level of health I should be?" There's tons of health books out there, right? Tons of health... Like, I'm not writing a health book, but I'm like, "How can I optimize this," right? How these two interplay, the time and health. How much time do I really want to spend on the Peloton? How much time do I really want to, like, regimented eating all the time and being a pain in the ass, you know? How, or, and how much time-

    10. PAPeter Attia1:50:56

        Yeah

    11. BPBill Perkins1:50:56

        ... how many chocolate chip cookies do I want to eat before I die, right? And just suffer. Like, you know, I, I have to think about that. Like, if dying one year early means, uh, you know, living one more year but I don't get any chocolate chip cookies, I'll take the chocolate chip cookies. I want a fulfilling life. Like, thinking deeply about these things.

    12. PAPeter Attia1:51:12

        Yeah.

    13. BPBill Perkins1:51:13

        You know, that's kind of a cartoon version of it, but, you know, and I, I hear other people think about, like... I wrote the basic macro formula, but there's like, you know... It's very fulfilling to see other people, like, they've set up spreadsheets. Like, this is how you die... This is the optimal way you would Die With Zero. They've done it better than me, right? These, these financial planners, and they built these spreadsheets, and your returns, and these are the things you like to do, et cetera. It's a v- you know, I'm like, "This is great," you know? So they've taken the ball and run with it, and I've taken the ball a little bit and run with it a little bit myself, and the way I'm applying it mainly is, um, more socially. More, more these things like, uh, you know, at my wedding, I said to somebody, I said n- "Probably no one in this room will see each other more than 50 times, and most of us will probably only see us 20 times in the times of our lives," right? You know, just-

    14. PAPeter Attia1:52:08

        How many people were... This is the recent wedding, right?

    15. BPBill Perkins1:52:09

        We, we, 117.

    16. PAPeter Attia1:52:11

        117.

    17. BPBill Perkins1:52:12

        117. And my, uh, um... And so, you know, that's, that's, you know, kind of hit people. They're like, "Yeah, you're kind of right." Like, I, I put the over-under at the max at, like, 50 for any, any pair that's not, you know, married obviously.

    18. PAPeter Attia1:52:26

        Married, yeah, yeah.

    19. BPBill Perkins1:52:27

        And, and, and, and probably 20. And so then that, that made me think, like-

    20. PAPeter Attia1:52:31

        So you, you-

    21. BPBill Perkins1:52:31

        ... nah, I don't w- that made me think, "I don't want 20. I'm gonna throw parties." Like, my whole... I've taken throwing parties and social things very seriously because I thought about what fulfills me. So the l- last party I had, which you were invited but you didn't come [laughs] .

    22. PAPeter Attia1:52:47

        I was throwing a party that night.

    23. BPBill Perkins1:52:47

        You were throwing a party that night at F1.

    24. PAPeter Attia1:52:49

        Yep.

    25. BPBill Perkins1:52:50

        Um, I went all out. I'm like, "This is, this is, this is, this is what, this is what I'm going to work for, to have these types of experiences." Like, there's other things, right? But this is in the category, in the top of the category. Socializing, seeing my friends happy, having a good time, et cetera. Travel is a big one. Charity's another big one, you know. My kids' money is their money. It's not my money. It's in a trust. It's already taken care of. They'll get their money turned over when, somewhere between 25, 26 and 33, right? Because that's the optimal time for them, right? When they're mentally mature and at physical maturity, pa- you know, not in decline.

    26. PAPeter Attia1:53:30

        And how much will you talk with them about, you know, what you think or don't think they should do with that money? Is that one of those things where you feel it is your responsibility to say absolutely nothing and let them figure it out on their own?

    27. BPBill Perkins1:53:45

        No, no. I def-

    28. PAPeter Attia1:53:45

        Or do you feel like you-

    29. BPBill Perkins1:53:46

        I, I, I want to give them a roadmap, you know.

    30. PAPeter Attia1:53:48

        Mm.

Episode duration: 1:58:05