Charlie Collier and Vince Gilligan

Transcript

This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host. This is The James Altucher Show. Today on The James Altucher Show. Die with 0. So I spoke with Bill Perkins, very successful oil trader. He's also a very successful poker player. He's made over $5,000,000 playing poker. I spoke to him while he was cruising on his yacht outside of Croatia, and his whole philosophy is summed up in a book he just wrote called Die With 0. And it doesn't matter we I believe me, I drilled down on this. It doesn't matter your age. It doesn't matter your income category. Your wealth, whether you have wealth or not. He talks about all the reasons why experiences are more important than money and how you can maximize and have an optimal life regardless of money. But his whole point is die with 0. By the way, much to my surprise, there was a special guest in the middle of this podcast on his side. So stay tuned. Here's the podcast. So Bill Perkins on the podcast. Bill, I've heard of you before. I mean, I I was familiar with your work with John Arnold from way back. I was I used to be in the hedge fund business. As way of introduction, you were a a top trader for John Arnold, who's maybe the most successful trader in history. Would you say he traded energy and oil and all this all sorts of, fun stuff down there in Texas? Yeah. I mean, John John is definitely probably the greatest commodity trader there ever was. He trade primarily focused on natural gas. I mean, they dabbled dabbled in oil probably more personally than professionally for the fun. But, he was pretty, stoic and very analytical and put a lot of hours into learning which way the price of natural gas was gonna go, where the spreads were gonna go, what Vol was gonna do. He did a pretty good job for his book and for himself. Yeah. And, you mentioned him briefly in in Die with 0, so I'm I'm curious about that. But you wrote a book. It's coming out, Die with 0, which is getting all you can from your money and your life by Bill Perkins. And the basic concept is at different periods in your life, experiences are are worth different amounts. So as you mentioned, in the book I'm just giving some basic examples. But, like, when you're 80 and you know you have a terminal illness, you much rather would have an experience than make an extra amount of money because the amount of money is gonna be useless to you. Whereas when you're 20, it's a little bit more complicated decision how you balance decision, making money and experiences and so on. And and your point in the book is any extra amount of time you spent earning money that you is then sitting in your bank account when you die is kinda worthless. That time that you spent slaving away over whatever it is that you do earning an extra x number of dollars, if you'd simply have it in your bank account when you die, that all that time was kinda wasted is is my interpretation of it. You got it. You nailed it. Dead on the nose. Right? And so the the what I'm trying to get people to do is utilize, their resources, their money, right, their time, mainly their time correctly. Right? And so you don't want to if you could look from heaven or from, you know, from the beginning and say, okay. This is what I'm gonna spend. You would work those many hours for that money and not a second more. Right? And what we have people doing is, for various reasons, mainly autopilot, which I believe, and Habit, working for no reward because it's money that they're receiving that they're never gonna spend. Right. Right? They're it's just gonna they're just gonna die, and it's gonna go it's gonna get taxed by the government or go off into cyberspace. Yeah. Or even going to the kids is like, I always say about my kids, I'm gonna be dead, so I don't really care if they have money after I die. I mean, I care that they're happy, but happiness doesn't necessarily come from money. And and you refer to this. You it's not like I would leave my kids 0. You just figure it out. Like, they don't need they're probably gonna be 60 years old when I die anyway. So, presumably, they figured it out for themselves by then. Well, there's a couple of points that I I talk about with kids is, 1, when I talk about dying with 0 and using all the money that you have, I'm talking about your money, not your kids' money. So if you're gonna leave something to your kids, there's an optimal time to give them that money. It generally I will I will go on record and say, it's not when you're 85 and they're 61. Right? That that's not the optimal time to give your kids money is when they're 61. Right? So it's not at your deathbed. You wanna basically figure out what you wanna give them, have a plan for them, okay, and pick the time where the money will have the most impact on their lives. So because one of the things we talk about in the book, which is true for you, is the same for your kids, is that your ability to convert your money into meaningful experiences declines over time. Okay? And that's mainly because your mental facilities decline, your bone density declines, your health declines, etcetera. So there's a whole plethora of activities where your enjoyment of these activities starts to go down and down and down until you can't enjoy them, and then you're dead. Right? And so I'm talking about allocating your experiences properly throughout your life so that you get the maximum enjoyment, the maximum ride you can get. And that's true for your kids as well. We wanna separate the money that's the kids for them. Right. So so with dying with 0, I think the big issue a lot of people have is that they're afraid that they'll get to 0 before they die. That's a that's a huge fear. And Even if they have assuming they have savings, by the way. A lot of people don't have savings. Yeah. But it's a it's a it's a it's a huge fear, and I I wanna shift that fear. I'm not saying it's not valid, and these are things that we should prepare for, and and insulate against those risks. But people should fear not having the most wonderful, fulfilling, adventurous ride they could have, not fear running out of money. Right? And because fear is a paralyzing thing. Right? Like, I have kids when when I was teaching them how to swim. They could swim back and forth, and then you try and put them in a deep end. They're like, we can't swim there. It's deep. And it was just like this total block that somehow, if the if the ocean was deep, they would just sink to the bottom. Right? Which which made no sense. And so people have this this gnawing fear of running out of money so much so that they don't live their lives when they have their health, and and and vigor, and they don't chase their dreams, etcetera. And I'm trying to get those people like, people like, oh, I'm saving. So, you know, we have to save for survival, and we have to save for some variance. But being an insurance agent with a client of 1 is not rational, and it's not optimal. Right? Like, if you said, oh, this is an insurance firm. I'm gonna invest in them. What would they have? They have one client. They'd be like, that's the worst insurance firm in the world. Right? Like, it's totally inefficient. And so I try and get people to look at other ways to mitigate those risks and those fears, besides just fittering away their hours and over saving. So so let let's explain that analogy for a second because it's really interesting, and I I've never heard it put that way before. So when you say an insurance agency with a client of 1, that's like me trying to decide how many years I'm going to live and then making all my decisions relative to how much money I need to make, given how many years I'm gonna live and what experience I should have. So I'm, like, kind of becoming an insurance company where I'm the only client, and that's ridiculous because insurance agencies make a living doing the averages over large numbers of people. Right. And if you look at insurance margins, right, like, even if you bought an annuity or you could insure against other products. Right? They have their margin, their business, 6, 8% tops. Right? It's it's a levered business. Right? Then they go lever it with treasuries and free money, and it looks like a 30% return. But but, really, like, the edge is, like, 5 to 8% for an insurance product. Right? Like, if you bought a ring for your wife, you're like, hey. I wanna get married, and here's a ring, and a ring costs $1,000. You don't then go save $1,000 in case you lose that ring. Right? That would be crazy. Right. Right? So that's kinda what people, you know, are roundabout doing, super afraid of running out of money before they die. They're they're they have this stash of cash that they wind up dying with and, basically, this unlived adventure that they never had. Yeah. So so, I mean, there's 2 types of people making money, let's say. There's the people who are taking a job, and they're making an annual income, and and they don't sort of break out of that. And it's harder for them to kind of save significant amounts in x number of years so that for 20 years afterwards or 40 years afterwards, they could live off the savings. Maybe yes, maybe no. And then there's another type that's kinda entrepreneurial where they're really aiming to get that to a number as quickly as possible, and then, they they divide their life into 2 parts. 1 is the money making part, and the other is the experience having part. But what about the people who who that first group, the people who are they're making a living. They're working as, you know, a marketing manager at Procter and Gamble, and then they're a marketing director and then a marketing VP and blah blah blah. I I think look. Well, all of us have, in varying degrees, of time, health, and money. These are the resources. Right? And a lot of times, we spent I think the people you're describing in this example are people who are exchanging their time for money. Right? They don't have a big big savings. Right? They still have their health. Right? And and what I'm what I talk about in the book is basically balance and getting off autopilot. There's nothing wrong with going to make money and and saving up for the future and delayed gratification for some trip or, you know, or or your survival number. Basically, I'm gonna stop working when I'm 65. I need at least x to survive, after that fact, and that's all fine and dandy. What what what I'm trying to get people to to do is also think about, like, listen. Certain experiences are not for after 65. Right? And it depends on who you are. Right? I can't say, like, this particular experience is not for after 65 for this person. I'm just saying, in general, on average, there's going to be a bucket of experiences that are meant for your twenties, that are meant for your thirties, that are meant for your forties, fifties, and so on, depending on who you are. And if you're delaying that gratification for those events to 65, that means you'll never have them. Right. And so we have to constantly check-in with ourselves and go, okay. I know I need to save for survival. That's the experience all of us wanna have forever. We wanna survive. But above and beyond survival, we wanna have these wonderful experiences. Right? And during each period of our life or time bucket, there are certain experiences that that's the season. Like, my glow stick days, they're pretty much over. Right? Like, if I if I didn't go to a club and and glow stick it up and have fun or whatever, I'm pretty much I'm pretty much done with glow sticks. You know? And I I either I did it, and I had fun, and I I can relive those experiences and cash in on what I call the memory dividend, Or I didn't do it, and I'll never do it, and it's over. Right? And and so I'm getting people to seek out their own balance and to get off autopilot of not just let me grind, let me grind, let me grind, let me get to a number, etcetera. You know, the purpose of money is for the acquisition of experiences, and that could be charitable experience. Then that they don't have to be all hedonistic and clubs and glow sticks and and s**t like that. Right? And so, you know, it could be you wanna go help a a village in Azerbaijan or or or Africa or wherever. Right? But it's identifying those experiences that we wanna have and acquiring the capital in order to do those experiences, and and there is a time for each one of those. We got a stranger in the back. Dan Bilzerian just jumped in. Dan Bilzerian. Video, Dan. Wanna get good lighting on the top of the video on the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top? When are you 2 guys gonna do another top of the top of the top? Put what? He's asking when we're gonna do another top prop bet. Oh god. I don't know. I can get him to swim someplace out here. Well, I mean, we're we're right now, we're off the coast of Croatia. So maybe my health. Hopefully, no time soon. Coast of Croatia. Are are people allowed to leave there or get there? You you're definitely allowed to get here. Croatia, you know, I I got some feedback about, you know, some people like, oh, can you come here or not or whatever? And it's just like, you know, a simple Google search would let you know that Croatia is open for business. Yeah. If you're Bill Parkins and you ride a 220 foot yacht, then you can go to Croatia. That's the small No. That's your No. Just to repeat commercial Bill Dan Vazarian said if you're Bill Perkins and you have a 224 foot yacht, you could go to Croatia. I buy I I agree with that. That's true. But you could also go Croatia Commercial. You have to now have passed the COVID, negative COVID test, I think, within 48 hours of landing. So that's the new rule they just implemented, but it it they are open for business. Alright. Why you guys in why you guys in Croatia? Why did you choose there? It was one of the few places that was open for business, and, you know, it had a great coast. I saw the pictures. I'd never been here, except for one time, I came to our friend's bachelor party way back when. I went to Var. I don't remember a thing. It was like a bachelor party. You know how those things can go. And so and so I was like, okay. Let me actually go see Croatia, and it's beautiful. It's awesome. And I know you guys playing poker there or anything? We've been playing other games and cards. We got a group. We we were gonna play some cards tonight, but I told them I can. I got a podcast going on. Excellent. So so okay. So, you know, a a lot I feel like a lot of my life was spent miserably because I was valuing, accumulating enough money to survive, you know, without thinking of experience. And it and it's only when I started blending. Like, I gave up on that goal, and I started blending, having experiences and not focusing as much on money that, a, I I experienced a lot more happiness in life, and, b, I actually experienced more money making opportunities because I had time I had time. And time actually is is a valuable commodity to make money. Yeah. I I think what you did was you got off autopilot. Right? And you found your balance, whatever it is. And a lot of times, you know, we we have to be focused. We have to get there. We have to we have to survive. Right? So that's a good thing. Right? These you developed habits that made you successful. Right? And you went into the grind. What happens, I think, with a lot of people is is that they just stay, you know, they they they stay focused, they stay in these habits, and they forget the goal. Right? The goal was to have an enjoyable, fulfilling life. Right? They wanted to have, like, the best ride they possibly can. And pretty soon, they're like a hamster in a wheel just running and running and running for no cheese. Right? Like, you you don't even have to give the rat cheese anymore after a while. You just you just let it run, and and they forget why they were running in the 1st place or why in our cases, as human beings, why we were working, why we really got good at computers, why we why we went into this trade, why we went into this profession. Right? Like, people didn't go into commercial real estate. Yeah. They might like it a little bit, and they like making deals and there's some social aspect out of it, but they're in commercial real estate for the money. And the money is not just for it to be on a screen like, you know, Mario Brothers high score. It's there for you to convert it into experiences and and and your journey and fun and connecting with people and friends and the world and making an impact. And somehow along the way, the abstract of the money creates this disconnect from what the ultimate goal was, which was a kick a*s fulfilling life. And so with you, you at the age of 25, I guess, you started working for with John Arnold. You mentioned he kept going. He said, stop me when I hit 15,000,000, and then he kept going 25,000,000, 100,000,000. He still wasn't stopped. And now, I mean, I don't know what he's up, but it's it's probably 1,000,000,000. Do you think he made a mistake? I mean, he he I think he I think he enjoyed what he was doing, and he didn't calibrate correctly. But I do believe in the end, he worked past the utility. He worked way past the the, amount of money that he will ever spend or they'll ever get to enjoy or they don't ever get any kind of utility out. So at the end, work became not enjoyable to him. It it it sorta lost his purpose. Right? And it it's like, what am I doing here? And and and why am I wasting my time, my my mental capacity on solving which way natural gas is gonna go, etcetera, when I could be solving the world's problems or this issue or that issue? And so he left trading to go into philanthropy full time and and tackle more interesting problems that he actually enjoys attacking, things that he always wanted to do. And so you can you can argue you can argue that he needed to make the billions to do something which is very satisfying to him. Like, maybe philanthropy is the most satisfying experiences he could have. I I I can't speak for John directly. Right? But I I could say that at at at a certain point, I I don't think he'll he'll spend his 1,000,000,000 before he dies, and and the impact won't be made before he dies. And so, yes, I guess, he could say, I wanted to work for future generations to take this money to impact people for future problems. That, you know, that was not a conscious thought in his head. Right? Like, we can backwards adjust it and say, oh, yeah. He had to do this. But, you know, I I would say I would argue that the last year or and a half to 2 years of trading, it was unenjoyable for him, and it was producing no benefit whatsoever that he'll ever get to reap, from it because he will die with that money. His foundation will die. He will die before his foundation runs out of that money, etcetera. So so at what point did you realize, like, you're you're you're a trader, then you ran a hedge fund. At what point did you say to yourself, man, I am just not having fun anymore. I'm gonna go on my yacht to Croatia. So I was trying to find balance. So we when even earlier on, even when I was working for Centaurus, I I was kinda like even the the path I chose, the reason why I got in commodities is that I just did not wanna be a suit going into office checking in every day. Like, it just seemed like you know, I I went to school for electrical engineering, but I knew I didn't wanna do that. Right? Because it just seemed like misery to do that. Right? Just go in, check-in. This is your career path. They would lay it out to you in career day. Like, this is what you do. You work this many years, whatever. And I was just like, oh my gosh. f**king kill me. You know? This is this is horrible. Right? Like, it's not my spirit. Like, for certain people, I'd be like, this is awesome. Everything's laid out for me. Whatever. For me, I was just like, this sucks balls. And so, sorry. I shouldn't have said that. But It's alright. This is the this is the Wild West of podcasts. This is the Wild West of podcasts. And so and so I I I saw trading, and I thought, oh my gosh. This is it. There's, you know, guys in casual wear yelling and screaming and and and figuring things out, and they're making money. And I was just, like, you know, arrogant kid. I'm like, well, if he could be a millionaire, so can I? You know, that type of thing. And and, you know, I always looked at the career path as a way to acquire capital so that I could do whatever I wanted, right, to go go have an adventure. And so even when I was working as a tourist, you know, the technology in the world was changing such that, you know, Internet was there and you could trade remotely and, you know, you know, you know, whatever, 1 g became 2 g and 2 g became 3 g. And so we had an office where, listen, you're responsible for your position. You have your book. You trade. We don't care. As long as you make money, you're alright. You lose money, you're out. And that was kind of the way it was. And so I always found a way to, one, be able to remote in and and, you know, get all the information and trade and be responsible, but basically change my office space. Right? So the off my office space would be the world. And I wanted to see the world, and I wanted to get out, and I wanted to, you know, enjoy my time. I didn't wanna be one of these guys that, you know, slaved away and then, you know, 65 or whatever it was. 55 if early at 55 or late at 65 goes on a carnival cruise and be like, whoopee. This is it. You know? That that was not in my plans whatsoever. I I was becoming aware that, you know, I wanna live life. You know? I wanna live life of a 25 year old or a 27 year old. And when I was in my thirties, I wanna live life of a 30 year old. It whatever my version of that is, people in the audience, they'll have their own version of that. Right? And so I've always been seeking that balance. I never really get it right, but I keep trying to seek it out. So you you mentioned in the book there's there's 3 things. There's there's, money, time, health. And, you know, in your twenties, you have health and time, but not necessarily money. And it starts to change, you know, in your thirties and forties where you have a little bit more money, but a little less health and and actually no time because of the responsibilities. And then when you're older, you have time and the money you've accumulated through savings or whatever. But, now you have no health, so that limits you from certain experiences. So, a lot of people listening to this, they might be in their thirties, their forties, and they might feel like, well, what do I do? I'm in the middle of, you know, I I live a lifestyle. Let's say I spend let's say someone's listening to this. They say I spend a 100,000 a year, but now my job pays me 200,000 a year, so I'm putting a little bit in in savings. And by the way, you you bring up a really great point early in the book, which is that young people should not save because their earnings potential is gonna go up so much faster than their savings account is gonna go up. And I try to tell this to people all the time. No one ever listens because they think even developing the habit of saving is good. So a, good points on telling young people not to save because their earnings are gonna go up so much faster than their savings. But listening to this, someone spends a 100,000 a year, but they have a steady job making 200,000. What do they do? They they hear what you're saying. They want they wanna have more experiences. They're getting bored of their job. Everybody is going through this great reset right now with this lockdown. What what should how should someone think about this now? Yeah. I I I tell people, like, you know, I you know, I'm very adamant in the book. Like, I'm not telling you how to live. I'm just telling you how to think about living. Right? Like, I I so what I tell people to do is get off autopilot. Just take down a piece of paper. Next 5 years, what experiences do you wanna have? Not what you've been trained to think you want. Right? Not what you think a rich guy should be doing or whatever your guys be doing, but what do you wanna do? What experience do you wanna have that are perfect for this bucket? And you should compare that for the next 5 years and the next 5 years. And what you see is start dropping activities, like, say, I wanna climb Mount Everest or I wanna get married or I wanna go to grad school or I wanna go motorcycling across India or whatever they are. Right? I wanna go lead a choir, learn to code, start sprinkling me in in these age buckets. And, really, after you start you get off autopilot and you think about, okay, from now to the grave, these are the experiences I wanna have in 5 year increments loosely. It could be I wanna have you know, and get down to the granule. I wanna have sex a 100000 times, and I wanted that to be 20,000 times between now and here, 10,000, whatever. Right? Like, list them all out. What you're gonna find is you're gonna have a curve. Right? You're gonna have a activities curve, which is gonna correlate to your spend curve, which is gonna tell you when you need to save, right, and what you need to save for or or whether you're undersaving or over saving. And and, also, this this is gonna be a map also on time. So let's say your your current job gives you 2 weeks of vacation a year. And 1 week, you know, you spend with your kids, and another week, you might do other things. And and let's say you have your bucket for the next 5 years includes climbing Mount Everest, you really only have 5 more weeks in your life to climb Mount Everest. Correct. Correct. And so, like, you could overlay your situation on this, and you're just gonna get realistic, and you're gonna go, holy s**t. Maybe I need a different career, or maybe I need to quit this job, or maybe I need to save more, or maybe I need to do x, y, and z. The point is is that not for me to tell you how you should be living your life, but for you to get off autopilot, realize you won out of life, and make sure you approach it so you don't miss out. Right? Like, if you're if you're single and you're like, I wanna get married and have kids, maybe the Everest should come before that. Right? Because right? It's in your time. It's it's gonna go away. Yeah. Correct. And so, you know, those are dynamic decisions. Right? Like, what you had for breakfast this morning, that one breakfast, whether you had a coffee or not, is not a dynamic decision. It's not gonna affect every single other decision in your life. But when you get married and you have kids, that's a dynamic decision. It affects every other subsequent decision in your life. Right? You're switching switches on and off that you had no idea that you were switching on and off, and I learned that. And I think all parents learn that. Right? Like, as soon as you have kids, it's like, holy s**t. Every single you didn't realize I made 30,000 decisions with one decision of having a kid. But, anyway, just going through that exercise of bucketing your life, like, people have, oh, I have a bucket list. Before I die, I wanna do this. And they have this idea, like, you know, just before they're gonna die or 5 years before the guy, they're gonna run around and tick off the boxes. It's not how it works. Okay? Your health is declining from 33. Right? I guess 33 to 40 is like physical maturity, and 40, it's it's in decline. I mean, there was a doctor on the line. He's like, nope. You're declining right at 33 or 34, whatever it is. And so That's 20 years ago for me and for you. I know. I know. But it's like, you you know how it is. Like, whether you play basketball, hockey, or whatever it is, the memory of playing basketball or hockey or whatever it is is actually greater than playing hockey today. Right? Like, if I got on the field and tried to play football right now, it'd be miserable compared to my memories of playing football 20 years ago. Right? So thank god I played, you know, 20 years ago. Who am I kidding? For, 30 years ago. You know what I mean? And so, like, 32 years ago. Who am I? I'm kidding myself again. But, anyway, you get the point is that we need to slot these experiences in the proper time they're meant to be had depending on the person, and only you could sit down and slot those experiences properly. When did you kind of make the decision? Alright. I'm not gonna devote my resources to expanding my net worth anymore. I'm going to focus on other experiences. I mean, I I I to me, it was a balance. Like, if you people like, oh, I love my job. I'm like, keep working. Just make sure you keep spending, and you and you and you get those other experiences. Enhance your experience. Like, figure out a way to use your resources so you supersize your life to the best of your ability. And this goes for every income bracket. Right? Like, this this goes like you you always have a choice. Right? Like, some experiences don't cost money. Right? Whether you, you know, decide that I'm gonna get off my couch and go for a walk with my daughter in the park or whether I'm just gonna sit down and watch, you know, Top Chef or whatever the show is of the day. Right? Like, these are choices that we have to make, and realize that this this time is fleeting. Like, the walk in the park with your daughter, that's not gonna happen, you know, 10, 15 years from now. Right? Like, the time will pa*s. And so, you know, I made the choice that my life was more important than the money. Right? The money was a tool to enhance my life, and I wanted to make sure I was using that tool properly. Right? And so it's not like I didn't want the money. It's not like I don't wanna accumulate money. But as soon as I get that money, when I'm working for money, I'm like, what experience is this going to? Sometimes it's going to charitable things. Right? IRC, International Red Cross, Days Foundation, whatever charity whatever the charity at the moment. Sometimes it's to be the insurance agent of last resort for my family. Right? Most of us, like, who've become very successful, you are the insurance agent of last resort for your family, whether you like it or not. Right? And so and and and that's, you know, travel given home. And some of it's just, hey. I wanna go rent a boat in the in the off of Croatia and and explore a new culture and meet new people and see beautiful things, and, you know, that's part of it as well. And so for each person at at each resource, level, you're gonna have your own set of choices to make. And what I'm trying to get people to do is make sure it's a choice, not autopilot. That's the main thing. Get off autopilot. Yeah. I think the autopilot is a great analogy or mantra here. And, also, there's kind of this idea that experiences in many ways are greater than possessions. By and large, I found that the experiences that you have, you're interacting with people, going to see things, adventures you tried and failed. Right? That makes your life interesting and fulfilling. When you go sit down with friends, like, most of the time, you're talking about past events, things you've had. Right? And you're creating new memories in of that experience so that that memory dividend of those experiences that you had compounds. You get to enjoy them again and again and again and again throughout your life. So they pay dividends. I like I like this analogy of viewing experiences as as almost like investments. So that they they pay dividends, they compound, you know, you could lose too, but then you learn and and hopefully make more in dividends from from the the the loss of of in an experience? Like, if like, if an experience is a sad one? Yeah. I mean, like, it I mean, the ultimate experience is that we get learn how to navigate the world. When you walk up to a door, you know how to turn the knob because you have the experience of opening a door. Right? And it pays dividends every single time you go up to a door. Right? That's the most rudimentary, example of the of the memory dividend, you know, paying out. Right? But it also happens like the time you played on a sports team and you had camaraderie and you hit the home run. You know, you have fond memories of your first kiss of the time you went on a date and the girl told a joke and the the the milk came out your nose, and then you tell that story and people laugh. And then the next time you tell that story, that creates a new memory and it compounds. And so investing in experiences pays a dividend. Right? It pays a dividend. Like, you when when you when when I talk to you, I'm like, hey. How'd that movie go that you're trying to make a number one movie this week? You know? And so far, the the I think I think we hit number 8 in the country. Congratulations. Right? And then, you know, that that soundtrack might, you know, win a, best Oscar for best song or something like that. Right? Like, because you know? And and and that's gonna pay a dividend. You're always gonna remember. I made this movie. This was the process of making it, etcetera. You'll be telling the story 15 years from now, and you'll be getting enjoyment out of it 15 years from now. It's true. Like, I think about this in terms of I like to think of life as a series of experiments. You know, so an experiment is something that has very little downside. Like, I can easily do it and experience it and potentially huge upside. And at the very worst, I learn from it, and I could tell a story about it. So that, like you say, it pays it pays dividends in a variety of ways. And this is like a way of diversifying experiences by viewing them as experiments. You think about it. When you're saving, right, you're saving the money for something, right, for some delayed gratification. Right? So you're getting a return on your investment, and and you're gonna eventually turn that money into something that you were saving for, some experience. You're delaying gratification for a reason, but, ultimately, if you delay gratification to the extreme, it's no gratification. You basically save for nothing. Right? And so what people fail to realize is that just as money in the bank pays a return and a dividend, so do experiences. And they're actually the return on those are actually greater than the dividends in the bank and market returns. Right. So so you talk about this concept, what you call peak net worth, and this is similar. There was a book, like, 15 years ago. I think it was called The Number, which was, you know, what number do you need to retire? And you basically work out this formula differently of what peak net worth is, essentially, what the number is, because you're assuming, of course, that someone should should die as close to 0 as possible. Maybe not exactly, but you that's the the the aim. And so maybe let let let's walk through this formula real quickly because it was interesting, and I I have some questions about it. So the the one thing, you know, the one experiences that we were modeling is we know that people the the the number one thing they wanna do is survive. Right? So we gotta calculate what your survival number is. Right? That that's the number that we're saving for, whether it's in our twenties, thirties, forties, we're saving for that. That is the every that's common amongst everyone. And then after that, it it's for experiences. So it whatever experience you wanna have. Right? The bigger house, the yacht, put my kids through college. I don't know. Right? Give to this charity, etcetera. But at the end of the day, in order not to waste the hours of our life and waste our time here on earth, we should use all our resources before we die. And I'm saying, once again, for those who are tuning in late, your money, not your kid's money. Your kid's money, you've already given it to them. You already set it aside into trust. It's you're not spending your kid's money. Okay? We're talking about your money. Okay? And so since your body declines and your health declines, right, and your ability to consume experiences declines with age and also whether you could do them or not, not whether not necessarily whether you could do them or not, but your enjoyment of them declines, Right? There is a natural curve to the utility of money. Right? And so what you find out is is that as we're sloping down to 0 and we're trying to match this optimal curve, there is a date in your life, not a number, but a date at which your net worth peak. So so you're saying, basically, there's, you figure out what the cost what what you're spending is going to be from now until the end of your life, and, you know, you could extrapolate that many things. What what what is the day you have to retire before you know, if you're going to spend at a certain amount, given a certain net net worth, and given a certain, amount of interest you're gonna get on your money. And and given these experiences, you know you're gonna spend this amount per year and and so on. And that's how you build the formula for calculating your number. Where where at the end, at the day you die, you have 0. Yeah. I mean, well, I go a little bit differently. So I go to like, you have to know that you have to have an estimate of the day you're gonna die. Right? So you have an estimate. I'm gonna die I'm gonna die in 36 years. Right? That's that's my estimate. Right? And I'm gonna start working. I will have no income whatsoever in, let's say, 20 years or 15 years. Right? So I I need to know what I start to calculate is what is my survival number? Not my I'm going out Starbucks every day, hanging out, going to movies, yachting around number, but what is, like, I have a roof, shelter, you know, food. I could take care of myself. Okay? Then then I start to say, okay. Now after that's calculated, I save for that number. Right? After that, it's experiences. Right? It's just experiences on top of that. Going to the opera, going skiing, renting a yacht, renting a car, driving up the coast, whatever the experiences are, and I start to allocate these experiences properly. But on top of that, what's what's what's hacking these experiences down is is that I can make more and more money, but let's say it's just the day before I die, and I can't move, I'm in a bed, etcetera. Right? I'm not putting experiences to that day. I'm consuming now. And so based on your health decline and how how in shape you are, your net worth should peak at an age. It's a it's a it's a it's a it's a numb it's not a an a dollar amount, but it's a date. Right? Because making more money goes against the resistance of the decline of health and your ability to convert that money into positive life experiences, as I call them. I go in the book about calculating your survival number, and I talk about, like, putting experiences in the right bucket, but it requires it's like an NP problem, but solvable. You're a computer scientist. Right? Like I can tell you a practical engineer is coming through. It it it's it requires a computer to run all these simulations. Right? Basically, to live your life a 1000 times or a 1000000 times or whatever it does, and it says this is the optimal path you can get based on this health decline curve, right, this interest rate. Right, and this should be your spend curve. And it'll calculate it, and it'll say, okay. Your network should peak on this day. Right? And from then on, you could suspend. Right? So so this is the way I used to calculate it, and and it's different from your book, but I'm I'm your book is persuading me. So I would say let's say I'm I'm just making up numbers now, but let's say, it's, I'm I'm 50, and I'm gonna lift to 80 roughly. And I'm let's say I'm pretty healthy, so a lot of experiences I could still have. Let's say my basic expenses might be a 100,000 a year, but then I know my the extra experiences are gonna be 200,000 a year. All of that might decline. Let's assume it doesn't decline for a while. And then I would think to myself, okay. I gotta multiply that by 25. 200,000 by 25 because I think to myself, I'll I'll be able to make 4% after taxes per year. And so this way, I don't touch whatever, you know, that number is. 2, you know, $5,000,000, 200 times 25. And but you're saying and and all these numbers are just making up for the heck of it. Right. You're saying the number in the book, you say the number is roughly 70% of the it's like through in that particular example I gave would be more like 3a half 1000000 because it's okay to decline. And I've never been comfortable with the decline thing because what if I live to a 120? You know, what if they need medicines and I get stem cells and, boom, I'm living to a 150? Yeah. I mean, you know, then you should contract your local insurance agents and look for an annuity to insure against you living too long. Right? Like, you you don't need to be the insurance agent for you living too long. Right? Everybody's familiar with the insurance agent for you dying too soon. Right? But they have insurance products for you living too long. But then I get afraid I get afraid of inflation. Well, I mean, in the book, all the numbers are inflation adjusted. Right? And so we're talking about that. But if you want inflation to hedge, right, go against that in your savings, like, you first of all, you're not like, the data is out there for you to look at seniors. Like, even with medical costs, because I I get this a lot. Right? Like, oh, what but the medical costs and I'm saving for this. Even with medical costs skyrocketing, seniors spend less year after year the older they get. Okay? And it's just that's the way it is. You know, they talk about the go go years, the slow go years, and the no go years. Right? And that's what happens to people. It's like you just lose the ability to convert your capital into experiences, and it just winds up sitting in a bank, and you wind up dying with it. And so when you're like, oh, I need 200,000, I I'm like, if you were spending if your experience bucket is full and you're spending 200,000 at 40 or 50, there's no shot you're spending 200,000 at 75. Right? Like, I'm laying odds against that. I'll I'll start an insurance company. Yeah. There'll be an outlier. This guy, Jack Lane or, you know, David Goggins or whatever. Like, he'll be you know what I mean? David Goggins will still be running around doing everything hella significant. He's gonna be 15 year old years old then. Exactly. He's reverse aging. But, you know, by and large, for more than a super majority of people, you will spend less as you get older. Right? Your time is gonna be spent watching reruns of Jeopardy! And eating tapioca pudding. You know? And and and and I I I'm I'm do now. Extreme. Exactly. That's a little extreme. That's a little unfair, but what it is is that your your health and your taste, it's not just your health. It's your taste change over time, and you and and you just don't spend that much. And it's not like, I'm making this up. It's just in the data. It's in this it's in the census data. There's tons of data out there. There's private wealth managers that talk about how they have problems getting, older couples to, to accumulate, right, to spend down their assets, and they just don't. You can look at the census data. It's like, why are 70 to 75 year olds why is their net worth going up? Like, what are they saving for? Like, when does the party start? You know, that's what I think. It's like, wait. When's the party gonna start? And what happens is is the is the party passed them. Right? The party passed them. So when you say I need 200,000, and I don't need to dip into the principal, I'm like, no. No. No. No. No. No. Like, right here is the golden years. Right? You're 40 to 65. These are the real golden years. So it it's interesting because during the golden years let's say you're working for a bank like Goldman Sachs. There's often kind of, this Wall Street trap, I call it, where, you know, all the other partners are living in, you know, super expensive mansions in in Greenwich, and they're flying their helicopters or planes down to the Bahamas on on their vacations. So you get trapped in this lifestyle. Oh, and by the way, your bonuses and options that vest in 6 years, they kinda have this way of reeling you in. And and I'm taking Goldman Sachs on one end, but every job does this to some extent. You tend people tend to spend what they make even if they don't really love those experiences that much. No. Nobody really needs the 18 bedroom house in in Greenwich, but they do it because that's what all all their peers are doing, so they feel it's part of their career. Yeah. I I think that's a that's basically one of the forms of autopilot and how they get you. Right? Like, I mean, I'm I'm enjoying life because there's people out there who've, like, been habituated into slaving away and some job putting out some product, making something free, some app I'm using, whatever, and they're not living their life. They're freaking in a dark room coding for more and more money that they're never gonna spend. And I'm like, that's great scam. You actually have a slave there. He's a well kept gilded slave. Right? Like, he's got a nice mansion, right, and and whatever. But he is working, and you keep throwing digits into this bank account, right, this this whatever, but he's never gonna touch it. He's never gonna spend it, and he's gonna keep producing for me. Right? Because he's on autopilot. He's just chugga chugga chugga chugga chugga. So so what's what's a good way I mean, so you're talking about a mindset change, but often, it's very difficult to think your way into a mindset change. Like, because you have no experience with the habits. Like, someone could be listening to this saying, he's right. I'm gonna change. But then it's very hard to change the physical habits. You could change your thinking, but you might not be able to change your actions. And so what are what are some things, some easy steps someone could take to get into the autopilot where they could start do even doing the math? Like, we we almost went too fast into the math of how to calculate this out. This is a great question, and and I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna talk a little bit out of school. So there there's a I actually took a behavior design class recently, by BJ Fogg. Right? Oh, great guy. Yeah. And so Tiny Habits. Good book. Yeah. Great book. And so I I actually took a boot camp. I went to a boot camp. It was, like I think it was, 3 weeks long, and we went over behavior design. And, essentially, I would recommend, pretty much what he recommends. First of all, no behavior happens without a prompt. That means, like, a a a thing to go do it. Like, call your mom. Right? Usually, it's internal. I remember to call my mom, but external prompts are better, right, because you can forget. So no behavior happens without that. So I would say, hey. Post a sticky note somewhere and then take a tiny step towards what your goal is. Right? Because you're motivated to change. Obviously, like, I wanna change. I wanna do this, whatever, and make it something that's very easy or something that you could do. It doesn't have to be very easy to do, but something that you have the ability to do. And just take tiny steps towards making those changes. So that that's how, you know, behavior design and how you you break these habits is by creating these new ones and making a step towards your goal. Tiny steps. But the first thing you need to do mentally is just be aware of that. Wow. I am actually on a treadmill. That used to be good. It got me in shape, and I used to get rewards. I used to give me cheese, but somehow the cheese is just piling up in the back of the room right now. Right? And I'm still on this treadmill. That awareness is the first step. So you have to, like, kinda, like, mentally get off autopilot, and then you have to take deliberate steps to get the most out of your damn life that you possibly can. What would be an example little step? And, again, I I I I understood that you don't know you're you're just guessing about someone's lifestyle, but just just guess. Like, make up a human who's making a 150 a year as a middle manager somewhere. I'll give you I'll just use myself as an example. Right? Like, I will go down the rabbit hole of research on anything, right, of the the nth degree. Right? Like, when I'm trading natural gas, which I still do, like, I'll go to the nth degree. Oh, these companies are going bankrupt. Well, how many companies are going bankrupt? Well, let's look at the bankruptcy reports. Well, what is or whatever. And I'll go down there, whatever. And I'm like, you know what? I got analysts. Push it off to them. Close the computer. Let me ask my daughters how their day was going. I mean, they barely talked to me now as teenagers, and pretty soon they're out out the house. So, like, I I'm I can't miss this moment. This is a time bucket that has this is a season that will end. Right? And I need to get off this autopilot of going down, drilling down to the nth degree of confidence about what production is gonna be in a month, and I need to go and spend this time here with my daughters. You know? Yeah. So may maybe maybe one thing is then making a list of future regrets if you don't change. I think that's great. I I think, you know, the the thing I like you know, I I I in the book, I suggest what I call time bucketing your life, those time buckets. Just taking out a piece of paper. You don't have to get it perfect the first time, and just write down the things you want. And and you could shorten it. You could make it 1 year over this just this 1 year. What are the experiences I really wanna have? This over the next 5 years, what do I really wanna have? And and and then from from so let's say you're 30 30 to 35, 35 to 40, sprinkle it. Right? Come back to it again. Right? And just think about it. And it like, okay. Then you have it. Let's say it's like, I really wanted to run the Boston Marathon. This is experience I wanna have in my life, and I wanna get married. And I gotta do a lot of training. So let's break that down. How much training or whatever this and that. You know what? I'm gonna actually go you know, there's a specific method for trap training for a marathon, but I'm actually gonna go run 2 miles today. Right? You build up your stamina, etcetera. But, like, you have to we we were younger. We were very much connected with the things we wanted and what we wanted out of our life. Right? I wanna act. I wanna be a fireman. I wanna go do this. I wanna whatever. I wanna backpack through Europe. I mean, it was just like you didn't think in terms of dollars. You thought in terms of experiences, and it was very natural. Right? It's true. I would say the the day my youth ended was the day I started thinking in terms of dollars. Right. And so that and you went into the world, and he says, okay. I have this field. I kinda enjoy this field. I have an aptitude for it. I wanna make money. And with this money, I'm gonna do these these experiences. Right? The 17 year old in me, an 18 year old in me, whatever. Somewhere along the line, we forgot. We got disconnected from them, and our taste changed too. And we have we spend so much time working and hustling and worrying and Twitter battles about politics and blah blah blah. We forget what we want, and we it takes work to reconnect to those things. And so, you know, I strongly advise people to reconnect with themselves, right, about what experiences they wanna had out of life, like when they were 17 or 18. A lot of people, they get to retirement, they don't f**king know what to do. And they're depressed or they go back to work or something. And I was like, that's because you spent your whole life working on x and not yourself and your hobbies. That's why you don't know what to do. You're a robot. You've turned yourself into a money making robot. Right? So let's say someone is that. How do they and they've been doing it for 30 years, so that's their habit. How do they find out? I mean, I often tell people, well, just look at the last 50 pictures you took on Instagram, and that gives you some clues. But how do people figure out, I don't even know what I want. You realize it's gonna take times. Right? Like, you you got good and you've created this habit over 30 years. You're not gonna, like, instantaneously go, boom. This is what I wanna do. I wanna skateboard and be a skater or whatever it is. Like, you know, I'm gonna go deliver water in South Sudan. I I I don't I don't I don't think that's gonna happen instantaneously, like an epiphany, like you fell off your horse on a way to Damascus or something like that. I think it's gonna be, I think it's gonna be something where it's gonna be taking time and focusing, silencing everything, going in a room, meditating, thinking about it. Like, what would I enjoy? What kind of randomness could expose me? How could I get exposed to random things to see what I can enjoy? Life is discovery. You don't know what you want. You discover what you want. Right? So as a kid, you discovered this. You're like, s**t. I wanna be a fireman. That s**t is cool as s**t. You know what I mean? Like, it's the same it's the same thing as an adult. Like, I don't know what I like. I have to discover what I like. You know? Well well and I like what you said about the marathon where you might not do the typical training, but you might say, oh, I'm gonna, run 2 miles today. And then you might decide, you know, that wasn't so much fun. So that's what I call experiments. Like, you could do little experiments to figure out. Like like, I might make a list for the next year, and it just might be too big. But the way I but then I can make a list of, here's how I can experiment with each item, and I'm gonna find items I don't like by doing these experiments. It it's important, but it's not a test and you're not being graded. So, like, doing these experiments and getting out there, taking the time to think about it, to focus on it, to try, that's the process. Right? Like, how I if you were working for me and how I got you working like a slave and never taking the vacation that you were supposed to take, right, never taking your time off or whatever, it's created a habit, and you're a great employee. But you're being really you're not really that great to yourself, to the vision of your life, to the things you like, to the experiments that you should be running for your life. Like, yeah, you've done great experiments for our company. This one didn't work. That didn't work. This one was great. This whatever. But you're not doing that for your own life. You know? And and you you your point earlier is you can people don't realize this, but maybe they're realizing this now because of the lockdown. You can switch careers. Money is a bucket too in this list of buckets, and you could decide, you know what? I could still make money, but maybe I need 2 thirds per year of what I'm making or or half or double for a year or 2, whatever. Yeah. I mean, you've heard of the fire people. Right? No. The the well, there's the the the financial independence retire early people, and their whole stick is, like, you know, I I they almost got it perfect. Right? Their whole stick is like, I don't need all this fancy car. I don't need this. They really get in contact with, in touch with what they really want out of life. Right? I don't need these ego trappings. These are the things I really want. They figure it out. They they save like mad. Okay? And then they retire early. Right? I disagree with them. The part I disagree with them is is that they're delaying experiences past their due date too often. Right? The fire the fire people are. But what they do have right is is that they do take the time to get in touch about what they really want out of life, what makes them happy, what they want their journey to be. Right? And so, you know, they switch careers. They they go here. They move out of towns. They go whatever to get have a living a fulfilling life and not be addicted to the money or the status of money or etcetera. And, you know, I take it the other way. I'm like, look. I love the money as long as because money isn't for money. I don't like money for money's sake. It's f**king useless. It's for the experiences. I have an experience lined up for every dollar I make. You know what I mean? Like, it's going to something, whether it be a charity, my kids, myself, a trip up the coast, or whatever. But to earn a dollar that I'm not gonna spend is ludicrous to me. Right? Like And and, you know, there's an interesting point too, which is that you can't there there comes a point you can't tell the difference between a billionaire and someone with, say, I don't know, some amount a tiny tiny percentage of that. Like, you could live the same life of a billionaire without anyone without any difference in lifestyle even though you might have 1% of the money or half a percent of the money. Correct. I mean and and this is what I tell people also. There's there's 2 things. One is is that every exotic place I've been, every experience I've been, I could look around and see somebody with 1 1,000th of money enjoying themselves just the same, taking in the same view, and sometimes even having a better experience because they're not as coddled and and and removed from the, you know, from the people. Right? They might have a a richer experience. And I talk about that in my book about my friend backpacking. The other thing is I tell people is that you could never pay me enough to be Warren Buffett in his life. Right? Like, I'm just like, no shot. Right? Like, that does not seem like an adventurous life. Great guy, nice person. To me, it's like a monumental waste of of a ride. You know? So so what do you what do you worry about? Like, in this whole, situation right now, do you worry that there could be so much unrest and cataclysmic political or geopolitical change that your money is is worthless, your banks shut down, and and, you know, I don't know, s**t happens? I mean, I I I there there's you know, I I think the United States and the world is always in crisis. Right? If you go to any period a decade, there's always crisis. Vietnam War, Cold War. You know, when I was a kid, I used to literally I guess maybe it was the media or the hype or maybe it was the real situation. I was like, is a nuclear bomb gonna go off one day? You know, in the eighties back with Reagan and stuff like that. And so, I mean, there's just one crisis after another, and I'm not saying that these crises can't happen and and, you know, my money can be useless, etcetera. It's something in the back of my head to have some sort of insurance plan on the middle of survival. But, you know, I I would've been busted a couple times in my life, and I've enjoyed it. Right? Like, I've I've had great times then, great times, when I'm rich as well. You know? And I my thing is, like, whatever resources I have, I'm gonna use them to the best of my ability, right, to to get what I choose in my life. And that's what I want people to do. It's like, I don't care if you have, like, a dollar in a bank or $0 in a bank. You still got your time, your health. You're still breathing. Let's make non autopilot decisions to get the maximum out of this situation that you have going on right now. Do do you ever worry about, your your relevance on in life? So kind of like your imprint on the world. For instance, you wrote this book presumably because you have a message and you want and you want your name out there and you want your voice heard. I I mean, I I wrote the book because I I you know, I've I've encountered and seen people with with a life unfulfilled and and and and and regrets. Right? And and the concept of too late really f**ks with me. Excuse my French. But it really, really, really f**ks with my soul, that times period. And and I've experienced this having kids. Right? And I talk about it in the book about, you know, watching certain movies with them that were great, and, you know, they'd wanna watch it again and again. I'm like, no. Whatever. Blah blah blah. And then the time came where I was like, hey. Let's watch Pooh's Heffalump movie with my daughter. And they're like, no. That that's a baby movie. I don't wanna watch that. Whatever. And I was like, holy s**t. Had I known this date you know, had I if you told me December 15th, you know, whatever whatever date it was that they will no longer like this movie, I might have watched it 10 more times than I had and then savored those moments a little bit better. Or or college or, you know, the college professor that you don't see or or or the friend you don't see anymore, the last time you you went outside and played with your friends. You know, people heard that statement before. And so the biggest thing that worries me is being out of balance and not taking advantage of the things I have around me. Right? And so COVID kinda, I think, has shaken myself up and a lot of people up. Right? They look kinda like, holy s**t. You know? And so after getting shaken up, I was like, okay. Okay. Alright. What what activities this is a time period. What activities can I do now? Oh, I can go hiking. I can go driving up the coast of California with my girlfriend. I can spend time with my daughters and try and get close to them, much to their dismay. Right? They're like, dad, you're so weird. Nobody hangs out with their dad this much. What, dad? Dad? You know, that How old do you get? 13 and 16. And so, you know, I I just took advantage of what resources I had, which the resources were I had a lot of time with my children. Right? I had the ability to walk around. And then when I was in Saint Thomas, I had the ability to go on my boat and go and enjoy nature and connect with people. And then my family you know, I was like, oh, my family now wants to talk to everybody because they can't. I mean, relatives that I normally don't talk to were on Zoom calls chitty chatting. Right? So that was great, taking advantage of that. And so, you know, that's that's my my biggest fear is wasting my life, you know, wasting my resources. And and and and so to not waste my life and waste my resources, I I have to really pause, get off autopilot, get off my phone, think about it. It's like, okay. What do you really want? And that and that's scary. Like, I'm the fat coach on the sidelines. Like like, trust me. I wrote the book about this, and it's still very hard. Like, you have to disconnect and go, what do I want? Alright. What resources? What can I do to take steps towards those to those goals? What can I do now? So if you do that every day or, like like, when's the last time you said, you know what? I really wanna have this experience, and so you started aiming for a particular experience. It was it was actually this trip to Croatia. It was the, like, the last the the big on a big note, it was this trip to Croatia. Right? It was like, I gotta get out. I gotta find a place in the world that I could go to, that I could enjoy, that I could take my friends and my daughters, and that I can explore. And now's the time. I don't care what what it cost or whatever. I don't know if we're gonna have a 3rd wave and that we're gonna die, if this thing's gonna, like, infect our brains. You know, there's all kinds of information coming back and forth. I have no clue. You know what I mean? I don't know if we're gonna have riots and wars and the money's gonna be useless. All I know is I have today. I have the capital. I'm getting older. You know what I mean? I was like, I wanna take this trip. And it was the also the trip I took to Aspen to go hiking, and I was like, oh, I'm gonna go hiking. Should I hike Ajax with David? I was with David Coggins, and I was like, yeah. I need to hike Ajax with Coggins. I'm out of shape, but it's not like I'm gonna be more in shape 20 years from now. So, like, now is the time. Right? It's But were you did he obliterate you? Like, were you ashamed to be hiking next to, like, the perfect specimen of human? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That that that was, I told I told David. I said, listen. This is a leisurely hike. Right? Like, you he's like, okay. I'll go run a bunch of miles beforehand and do my business, and then I'll come in and do a leisure hike. So, you know, David go ran umpteen miles. Right? And then he was very kind to go very slow up the mountain with us. And and and it was great because you just don't want to look like a complete pansy, you know what I mean, in front of David. So I wouldn't quit, and we got up to the we got up to the top. And it was a great experience, and I'm glad I did it. And here I am cashing in on the memory dividend of Hiking Ajax on this show right now. I'm cashing in on that right now, that experience of hiking, huffing and puffing, almost dying, 169 heart rate, but I got to the top. You know? That's great. It's such a great analogy, and you're right. I think it could be applied at any age and to any income group and can get people to start thinking if they haven't been maxima you know, let's say the stock market typically returns whatever you wanna say, 5 or 6%, whatever. Memory dividend should probably be, you know, return similar or more because they're they're less risky. Let's put it this way. I can access the memory bank infinitely. So once you make a deposit into the experience bank, right, the bank of memories, you can withdraw infinitely. I I love this analogy. And so so I get to withdraw from that forever. Right? I'm still withdrawing from my first kiss. You know what I mean? And I'll be 80, and I'll withdraw from that. Right? Like, my with the the birth of my daughters, I'll be withdrawing from that forever until my brain doesn't work anymore. Right? And other things, my the time I had to sleep on a train when I didn't have any money to get home. Right? And I was working. I wanted to be you know, I had I I I didn't have any money. I was busted as a screen clerk, and I had to sleep on a train because I I didn't have money. And I was gonna hop the turnstile, but they had cops there, and I didn't wanna you know what I mean? I couldn't do it, so I just slept on a train, went to work the next day. Right? Like, I I access that memory even though it was bad at the time. All the time. It's great conversation material. People love that story. You know? And, you know, when you invest in a stock market, you could get a couple withdrawals. It's about it. You know what I mean? So I I tell people invest in experiences early because you get to with the those the dividends often add up more than the more the original experience. Let's say the original experience was, like, let's say, call it 10 experience points. I'm just making up a number. Right? But the dividends from that might be a 100 or 25 or 12. Right? Right. Because you could say maybe every time you tell a story, it's like a half an experience point. You tell the story 200 times, boom, 1000% return. Or you might be laying in your bed thinking about a night. Listen. I this is a I don't know. This is my this is a little off color. This is a it's okay. We have a soft porn podcast here. Okay. Okay. So I was just gonna say, like, anybody who's ever masturbated truly understands the the memory dividend. You think about it. Right? Like, you get the memory dividend. Right? Anybody who's ever masturbated to a prior experience What's the equivalent money thing? What's the equivalent of money? It's probably not an equivalent. No. There's not a it's not an equivalent. But I'm just saying, like, you get the memory dividend. You're getting pleasure from a prior experience. Right? And so you you but companies cash in on this memory dividend. Like, there's been, studies done where they, you know, they put fMRI on people's heads and see what areas their brains light up when they do stuff. And when they're drinking Coca Cola, not only you're tasting the Coca Cola, but you're tasting the memories of every single Coke commercial. Those brain centers light up every time you drink a Coke. That's why Coke tastes better when you know it's a Coke, and Pepsi tastes better when it's a it's a blind taste test because of you're consuming all the memories of I like the world, dah dah dah dah. In perfect harmony. You're drinking that. Right? And so people should take advantage of it. Facebook and technology companies are taking advantage of the memory dividend. You post up these pictures, etcetera, and they give you, remember this, 3 years ago, and then it's a picture. And then you go and tell your friend, like, hey. Remember that time? This picture just came up, and you you get this activity, and you become a daily active user. Because they're cashing, actually. They're cashing in on your memory dividends. Right? They're cashing in on your memories, and your activity spikes and you call your friends and blah blah blah. And meanwhile, while you're on the page and sharing with your friend, an ad pops up. Well, lo and behold, you know, Google does the same thing. My Google Photos goes 5 years ago on this date, and I'm just like, oh. And I love them for that because it sparks the memory, and I I get to enjoy it, but they built a business on that. They are cashing in on your memory dividend. And what I tell people is, listen, they're multibillion on their way to a $1,000,000,000,000 companies. Cash in yourself. And you know how you're cashing yourself? You have f**king experiences. You invest in spirits now, and then you can cash in for the rest of your life. I I love this. This is this is great. This is this is basically how I've lived my life the past 10, 15 years, and it's it's worked largely. There's good experiences. There's bad experiences, but they all have memory dividends. So that's a good way to put it. I love the analogy. Yeah. And and so, like, when you're when you're when you're delaying gratification I'm not saying that you shouldn't delay gratification for certain events. I I'm saying that you get to weigh these things. It's like, wow. If I do I go on 2 trips 10 years from now or do I go on one trip now but have, like, 10 years of memory dividend associated with that trip and experience or whatever? You know, it's who knows? Depending on what your age you are, maybe 2 trips later. And, you know, if you're if you're 20, it might be 2 trips later. But if you're 50, 60, 70, it might be no. One trip now, buddy. One trip now. I'm not I I don't have the energy 2 trips later. You know? Well, listen. Bill Perkins, it's been so enlightening having you on the the podcast. We we have so many coincidences in common. One is you you you made a movie that was directed by, a friend of mine, my my wife's ex brother-in-law, actually, John Stockwell. John Stockwell. Yeah. You play poker. You play chess. All my favorite activities. Yes. My my experiences are super cheap. I just like games. So Yeah. Games, podcasting, and writing. So the the the book is Die with 0. I really believe in this philosophy. You you should read it and see all the different, you know, methods and philosophies and ways to figure this out in your own life and by Bill Perkins. Bill, thanks so much for coming on the the podcast. Thanks for having me on. It's been great.