The Daily Stoic - Optimizing Your Relationship With Money | Bill Perkins

Episode Date: May 11, 2024

📗 Check out Bill's book Die With Zero: Getting All You Can from Your Money and Your Life at The Painted Porch.billperkins.comIG: @billperkinsX: @bp22📜 Sign up for The Wealthy Stoic: A Daily Stoic Guide To Being Rich, Free, And Happy at dailystoic.com/wealthy✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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something to help you live up to those four stoic virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview stoic philosophers. We explore at length how these stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend, when you have a little bit more space, when things have slowed down,

be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with your journal, and most importantly to prepare for what the, to sit with your journal, and most importantly, to prepare for what the week ahead may bring. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. I get sent a lot of books. I appreciate it. It's an honor.

There was that one time in my life, I gladly accepted every free book that ever came my way from publishers or friends or fans or whatever. Now it's too much. You know, they stack up at the painting porch. If you've seen the Daily Stoke podcast studio, I have to say the wall is literally built out of many, many books that people sent me

that I didn't ask for, that I can't read. We're just not interested in reading. So my point is I get a lot of books. I always look at them, I go, is this something I wanna read? And if I do, I read it. Steven Pressfield has a great little book and there's an essay about this

called No One Wants to Read Your Shit. And it's hard, right? That's the struggle of writing is to get people who've never heard of you, who don't know you, to spend their time reading something you've written. I mean, this is my struggle even now, right? And I understand people are busy. And you know, when you put out a book, like the Justice book is coming

out in like a month, month and a half. By the way, you can preorder it, dailystoic.com slash justice, but get a bunch of awesome bonuses. I'm really proud of this one. Anyways, my point is, it's hard to get people to spend their time on a book, especially a book that they didn't specifically pick out. Like my stack of books that I wanna read is so high, and I don't feel like I'll ever in my life get through all of them. That for a random unsolicited book to make it into the pile,

let alone to the top of the pile is a lot. So this book, Die With Zero showed up on my desk and it's called Die With Zero, Getting All You Can From Your Money and Your Life by Bill Perkins. Now I must've heard about it somewhere because it didn't seem totally unfamiliar, but I didn't buy it, someone sent it to me.

So whoever you are, thank you. Cause for some reason it struck me, I remember I was leaving, we're gonna go to the beach around Christmas and I didn't have anything. So I just needed something for the plane, I grabbed this book, and I straight up devoured it. And then I made my wife read it. Maybe it's because towards the end of the year, I balance all the books for Daily Stoic and for Brass Check, my companies. And I'm finally, I'm doing bonuses for the employees, and I'm thinking you know, finally I'm, you know, I'm doing bonuses for the employees and I'm thinking about charitable contribution.

I'm just like thinking money wrap up end of the year stuff and maybe I've got a little space. So this was exactly the book that I needed, but I devoured this book. I absolutely loved it. And then Rachel, who was the podcast producer for us at the time was like, I think I have a contact with Bill. Bill Perkins is the author.

I'm gonna see if I can get him on. And I put this book in my list of best books that I read in 2023. I've been writing some daily stoic emails. I just, I got a ton out of it. I just really liked this book. Obviously I like all the things I recommend on daily stoic and the real,

but I really liked this one. I took a lot out of it. You'll see it in the interview. We talked about quite a bit of the stuff in the podcast. I really liked the idea of thinking about how little time we have here. And what are you optimizing for? He says in the book at one point,

are you optimizing just to have a large stack of money at the end? Like, what is that about? So it's a book about being intentional with money. Ramit Sethi, my friend who I've also had on the podcast and we grew up in the same little town, we talk about this a lot. He talks about it in his work so much,

it's why I love his podcast. Teaching people how to save and accumulate is one set of skills. And obviously that's the journey most people are on, right? Most people don't have enough, but then some of us are fortunate. Some of us do well in our chosen fields or we come from money or whatever it is.

And we have a different journey. And that journey is like learning how to spend, learning how to protect your time, learning how to think about how you wanna design and build your life. And this is a book about that. And it's got some really smart things to say. I've been raving about it. I really liked it.

My wife and I have been talking about the ideas in the book. And I think there's some great parenting lessons in here, great human being lessons in here, great stoic giving back lessons in here, just a lot of good stuff. I appreciate Bill coming out to the podcast. He's a hedge fund manager, a film producer, and a high stakes poker player.

You can follow him on Instagram, at Bill Perkins. And for those of you who are going like, stoicism, money, this isn't like, the stoics were for the most part, very wealthy people. Obviously Epictetus was not, but we talk about this in the stoic, Daily Stoke Wealth Challenge, which I'll link to in today's show. And it's funny, right? Seneca is probably objectively the richest Stoic, but in some ways the poorest because he seems to need a lot and he gets

hooked and Nero gets his hooks in him. Epictetus being objectively the poorest Stoic, but I think has the wealthier life. Then the other stoics are kind of on this spectrum and Seneca defined money as a preferred indifferent. It's better to have it than not have it, but you don't need it. Anyways, there's a lot of interesting thoughts about that in this interview.

I really liked Daiwa Zero. I'll link to it in today's show notes. We may still have a couple of signed copies left because he signed them when he came out to the store. In the meantime, here's my interview with Bill Perkins. When did the book come out? 2020, so right into the pandemic. Because I feel like I didn't remember it coming out and then I started hearing it's had like a

Yeah, yeah You know, there's you don't write books to make money You're like you're right books to get the concept of things to do And so I was just like I gotta get these I gotta get this out after I talked to run up and so like I just put my guys on and I said listen just Give them a book ask for honest review, we'll sign it, whatever. And we did that and that was going and then.

So you think it was all social media that blew it up? It was, so here's, I do it the same way they do movies, right? Movies, the marketing is essentially recruit ratio. That's how many times I have to run an ad to get people in a seat. Sure. The audience score and the definite recommend.

So it was really audience score and definite recommend once they got the book. So it's marketing. They got to read the book. Then your definite recommend has to be high. Yeah. And I think that it has a high definite recommend. Yeah. And, you know, eventually it's just, it's a long game in books.

I, I, that's the tough thing with books is that almost every book I've ever read, it's because somebody told me about it. I didn't read about it. I didn't see an ad for it. Somebody has to, so books spread by word of mouth, but getting the first people to read it is the tough thing. You gotta get the critical mass, yeah.

Yeah, because, and it's, you have to pay for it upfront, and it takes time. So it's not like a movie and it's, you have to pay for it upfront, and it takes time. So it's not like a movie or a TV, you glance at it, it's free. So the adoption curve of books takes a while, but then if they're good and the concept is perennial, like if you wrote, like, here's all the trendy, fancy financial tools,

then you're up against this clock. But if it's like- Evergreen, yeah. If it's evergreen, then it can be this slow, But if it's like, evergreen. If it's evergreen, then it can be this slow, steady thing and then it really starts. That's exactly what I decided with these guys. I said, okay, I understand what you guys do. You just monetize names, right?

And I realized like, this is a long game. You have to get to critical mass. And so I just have guys out there, they just run it and they just run, like they just keep running and reach critical mass. And so I just saw guys out there, they just run it and they just run, like they just keep running and reach critical mass and then it just went radioactive. Like now it's just getting to the point where it's radioactive.

You know? Yeah, no, no, it takes, like, I think the obstacles away was out for five years before it hit a bestseller list. Yeah, that's crazy. But it takes, it's not like nobody knew about it, but it takes a while to build critical mass. And then once you get there, there's

this sort of pertaining to your thing, there's this angel writer's name, he's Plutarch, and he's quoting someone. They asked him, how did you make your money? And he said, slowly at first and then quickly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Slowly at first and all of a sudden. Which is also quickly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Slowly at first and all of a sudden. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Which is also bankruptcy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I really think. But that's how books work. It's this slow, the first part takes a while, and then the second part is very fast. It's crazy because my book is like, in Japan it's like four years hence. It's like number 107 or one, whatever.

It's one and two in category. They read books, right? That's a society where they actually read and it's so counter to their culture. Oh, the messages? Yeah, the messages, right? Here, it talks, it's really about optimizing for fulfillment, money is a central part in the tool,

but they have an over-saving problem in spades. That whole culture is saving. And so for me to come in with this kind of life optimization fulfillment and you're doing it all wrong is like, oh, it's like coli foreign to them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's also weird to see how books blow up in different markets, like India's this interesting market,

Australia's this different, there's all these different cultures perceive things differently and there'll be these things that books blow up in different markets, like India is this interesting market, Australia is this different, there's all these different cultures perceive things differently and there'll be these things that really blow up in one country and then not in other countries, depending on sort of what sacred cows you're hitting or whatever, it's kind of crazy. But the cultural thing is interesting because when I was reading your book,

I was thinking about something that I thought about when I wrote my discipline book, which is a lot of people, you could even argue most people have the problem of not enough discipline, not enough saving, not enough earning, right? They're not optimized in a pretty basic way. And then there's this other part of the market or part of the population that's over optimized

or has too much discipline. I see it as, I see it kind of differently. I see as different sides of the same coin. It's different versions of autopilot. So certain people are on autopilot and they're just buying the marketing and doing the thing and buying the advertising, living above their means,

not really thinking about anything and they don't have enough money no matter what type of money they make, right? And they're bought into status signaling, et cetera. And then there's the other people who go to work, develop good habits to become good at what they do, but then forget what the reward was about and then just keep piling money and piling money

and piling money and never really live their life. Both these people are doing the same thing, just on one side of the coin and the other. It's all resulting from being on autopilot. I'm not aware. They're not asking the fundamental question of what is this for? What is life for?

What is it about? What am I doing? They're just unconsciously making decisions or following patterns. Yeah, exactly. And it starts at a young age. Like you just get unculcated X, Y, and Z, choose the path you wanna go, and this is the path, and starts at a young age. Like you just get inculcated X, Y, and Z, choose the path you wanna go.

And this is the path, you get a house, you get insurance and you whatever, and you keep going and blah, blah, blah. And they've taught this, right? And you have to like straight jacket it because we're wild animals. Like we don't wanna do that, right? But then afterwards you build these habits

and then you start getting good at things and become second nature. It goes into default mode network. And so the things that are good for survival are not necessarily good for thriving. Yeah, it's like we don't teach basic financial skills in school, but we also don't teach basic sort of tried and true meaning, happiness, purpose, why you're here.

So you're ignorant in both areas, and then they're just giving you a bunch of skills that not even in many cases, that should make you thrive in the workplace. But other than that, you're sort of on your own. You're on your own. It's all extracurricular. Well, they're relying on your family or your church

or whatever it is, and that's pretty absent in our culture. So it's like, you can get screwed over either way. Either you get taken advantage of by financial interests or you get taken advantage of by sort of work culture, hustle culture, gotta have more culture. And in no cases are you like, I only have so many years on this planet, what the fuck am I doing with my time?

That's the autopilot aspect that I talk about, it's like a lack of intentionality and just getting caught up in these routines. Whatever subroutine is running, right? And those subroutines are running, they're a system and they're optimizing for something. And so what I say is the number one thing is to optimize for your life fulfillment,

whatever that is, right? Yes. It's value agnostic. Yes. And so like when you start asking those questions, they have, when those answers come back, they have massive implications on everything that you do. Yeah, it's like if you aren't optimizing,

then you will be optimal for someone else's system. Whatever the system is. You'll be the great worker or the great Mark or the great, you know, you'll be for someone else. Well, a lot of people don't realize like they're optimizing and they're on their program to optimize for something else. And they're like, holy shit, this, I didn't, you know what I mean?

Yeah. And because they're optimized for that, and they've been doing it for, you get into a situation where you are inculcated program to optimize for this thing. So you don't even realize it, right? And then what's happening is, is that that 17 year old you, that 16 year old you, that five year old, that dreamer of the life you wanted gets shut down

and you don't exercise those muscles, right? So then people get later, get on later in their life and they get to a certain amount of numbers. Like they have more than enough for the things they wanted to do. As a matter of fact, the things they wanted to do kind of disappeared because they haven't exercised those muscles.

It's like not going to the gym for 40 years and going to the gym and you're just like, I fucking hate this, right? Like you don't want to do it, it's painful. You don't understand the point, there's no benefit, et cetera. And that's the same thing with like people, like they don't know how to meet their neighbors anymore. They don't know where to go to eat unless it's close to their job or on their way to their job. They don't know how to make friends with that, their socializations, their fulfillment, their puzzle solving, like I

like work because I get to solve puzzles and make a difference. They don't know how to do that without this work thing that they've been habituated, right? And so they used to know that. They had all those muscles. When you were a kid, you like trucks? I like trucks. We're best friends, right? Even in college, right?

Like, you know, you like girls? I like girls. We're best friends, right? Like that type of thing. So that gets lost over the years, over 20 years or 40 years of doing this thing, this thing, this thing, this thing, two-week vacation, this thing, this thing, this thing,

this thing, somebody's birthday, you know? Well, do you know Peter Atiyah? Yes, he's my doctor. Oh, really? Okay, figures. Well, I think his sort of theory, I think, is analogous to yours, which is, you know, people wanna live for a long time.

They're like, I wanna survive as long as possible, but they don't put much thought when it would make a difference, you know, in their 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s about what kind of quality of life they want to have. Like I just, I just hurt my ankles. I was doing some physical therapy at this place down the street and you see elderly people in there who have fallen or hurt themselves. They're lucky in that they're 70, 80, 90. But the quality of life must be rough because they're not super mobile, they're not in good shape, they haven't taken care of themselves. These are not the people who are skiing into their 80s and 90s enjoying their retirement. And so I think the fundamental

question is like, why am I here? What kind of life do I want? What am I aiming for? As opposed to this thing which you can default into, which is like, I'll figure, I'll cross that bridge when I get there. And you're talking, I think throughout the book, you're like, in all these different areas, we're just saying to ourselves,

I'll cross that bridge when I get there. And first off, you might not get to that bridge. And second, by the time you get to that bridge, it's too late. Yeah, it's a very lazy way to do it. It's like, you don't incorporate the neurons to think about like, wow, my own mortality. What does the last decade of my life look like?

Yes. That's a Peter question. It's like, what do you wanna be able to do in the last 10 years of life, whatever that is. And I'm like, you know, I wanna be able to pick up a small child, maybe do some gardening, blah, blah, blah. And he'll break it down and say,

well, if that's what you wanna be able to do, your VO2, maybe do some gardening, blah, blah, blah. And he'll break it down and say, well, if that's what you want to do, your VO two needs to be this and whatever. And I'm like, shit, you know, I thought I was in shape, but I'm not in shape for my goals. Right. And so, you know, it's kind of a kick in the ass in the health bucket and that resources, which, which I need, right. Because listen, I am not the guru, right?

I wrote this book to save my own life. Yeah. Like, like, you know, some people journal, right? Like this is my journal for me not to waste my life, right? You're sort of laying out principles that you wanna make financial work, lifestyle decisions now, while you still have the ability

for those decisions to have impact, as opposed to waking up one day, you're 60 or 70, and maybe you've got a huge pile of money, but no interests, no family, you know, you've made all this. I'll go a step further, like fuck 70, 60, 70 year old Bill. I don't want to fuck up 55 to 60 Bill. Sure. Like every dying period in your life, there's a death, like that period is over and gone. So the, you have kids in the house, me is about to end, like my youngest is about to graduate and go to college.

The single me, it died a long time ago before, you know what I mean? Like the wild and crazy me, the first job me, all these periods had in my life, there were experiences that were optimal for them. Yeah. So hanging out with your kids and watching children movies or taking them to Disney World, right?

Like that's not gonna fly too well right now with teenagers, right? And that's not gonna fly too well right now with teenagers, right? And so they either don't transfer well to the other time periods or not at all. And so I am worried about like the total, my total fulfillment of my life is also a optimization of these sub periods. And so, you know, we as humans, I say this a lot,

that we don't net present value well and we don't future value well. Yes. We're not wired for that, right? These things are not like, we're good for like, shit is dangerous now, let me get the hell out. Fire, bear, you know, bad guy, right? Or wanna have as many resources as possible

in the future, save for winter. Lots of food, lots of food, I get food, This is good. Store it up. Put it down. But like small, repeatable actions, right? That are harming us, that are costing our lives. Like, where did my life go? Yeah. Where did my time with my kids go? Where did my time with my wife? How did my marriage get to this point? How did my health? How did I get 40 pounds overweight in two years? 200 calories extra day. You know what I mean? Like nothing, like nothing, like a half of a cookie, half of a thing, you know? And so like, these are the calculations, like why do I have cancer from smoking cigarettes all the time? Like, you know, that's not that

one cigarette that gets you, right? It's like this repeatable auction. So you have to fight that. It takes extra work, I think, of your prefrontal cortex to like sit down, fight the autopilot and really think through like, okay, I wanna thrive. I don't wanna be a survival animal. I wanna thrive. And what does thriving mean to me?

And what does thriving mean in each period of my life? Because you only get that period once. Correct, so you don't have one death, you have many deaths. Well, the Stokes talk about this, Seneca says it's wrong to think of death as this thing that happens in the future or one time. He says, because we're dying every minute, right? He says the time that passes belongs to death.

You have these moments that you don't get again. And I was very struck by that moment in your book, you're talking about there's one day your kids don't wanna watch this movie anymore. And I was thinking about that. I was like, you know what? I feel like I'm working too much. I was like, I'm gonna stop working on Fridays

and just hang out with my kids. And then I realized, wait, I still have to drop both of them off. One of them's in school, the other's in school half day. And then I'm like, oh, wait, the days of a Friday at home with family doesn't exist because now they have their own life. And so it was like, that opportunity is gone.

I can't get that again. Never. And so yeah, that period of my life is dead and gone. And yeah, the 20 year old version of you is dead, 30 year old version of you is dead. Me, one minute ago is dead. And this idea that we're dying constantly. And so when you think about mortality,

it shouldn't be this morbid thing. It should be giving you a sense of like, okay, what is the best decision to make here in the present moment that allows me to actually get the full value of that time? Yeah, I use the vacation analogy. Like when you go to Paris or wherever, whatever place you like to go vacation,

you know when it ends. And it creates a sense of urgency for you to do the things that you wanted to have during that vacation, right? So what I tell people is here is like each time period is a vacation and the total time here on earth, we're on a vacation here on earth. It's an 86 year, 70 year, 60 year, whatever it is for you, depending on your health, right? And where you're going to and what you want out of vacation, you need to be really actively engaged, putting, laying down some plans,

allowing some for your discovery, right? And randomness and constantly revisiting it, right? Like when you go on a vacation, like I wanna do this, this, and then you discover something like, we wanna do this, right? And so that to me, like people are like, it's so morbid you think about that,

but I think it's like, no, it's exhilarating. It forces me to take advantage of the time I have, right? Be intentional and conscious of that time. That is the weird thing. And it's another thing Senator talks about. He's like, we're so protective of money and property. I was thinking about this. My neighbor was building a house next to me

and they put like the dumpster on my property, which was upsetting. And then they were like, they cut down a bush that was on my property in a tree. Like I'm like, this is my line, your lines over here, stop crossing this line, right? And like, you know, I texted him once, then I called him once.

And then it was like, am I gonna have to sue this? It started to become this thing. And then I thought him once. And then it was like, am I gonna have to sue this? It started to become this thing. And then I thought of this thing that Seneca talks about, which is, he's like, we're very protective of time. We're very protective of property. Or sorry, we're very protective of money and we're very protective of property, but we aren't protective of time.

I'm thinking, how do I enforce this boundary? But I'm not, because you're stealing from me. But I don't think, hey, if I spend 20 hours of my life trying to protect this boundary, but I'm not because you're stealing from me. Right. But I don't think, hey, if I spent 20 hours of my life trying to protect this thing, what's actually worth more? Right? So, we are really bad at valuing the one most precious non-renewable resource there is, which is time. Oh, in spades.

It's crazy. In spades. And, you know, we've been, you know, we're susceptible to the advertising, right? Like, a lot of people think like their retirement is going to look like a carnival commercial. I lived in St. Thomas for seven, eight years, right? Like, it's not like a carnival commercial. All the cruise ships come there, right? The carnival cruise is not like the carnival cruise, right? Like, just because, not that they don't have the amenities and all the food and rides, right? They're not false advertising.

You're just false advertising to yourself what you'll be able to do. And a lot of people, unfortunately, they die on these cruises because they'll go kayaking or snorkeling and they can't take it. They have a heart attack. They're out of shape. They haven't prepped for it.

Yes. Right? So not only have they- They deferred till they were older, something they should have been doing. They were only fit to do when they were young. Correct. Yes.

Correct. And they didn't plan and think about it, right? And so, I mean, if that's the type of activities you wanna be doing, you gotta start now, right? Your VO2 has to be this, you have to this muscle wrapped around you, et cetera, right? And so, this idea of like, we just kind of autopilot, like no delayed gratification.

So we have all these people in debt and all these problems and overspending and living with these. And then we have these people just delayed gratification to the point of no gratification, right? Whether it be a period or their entire life, right? And it's, you know, it's suboptimal, right? I like, I wanted people to have the most fulfilling life, look at their resources, apply them correctly at each period

to get the most fulfilling life they possibly can. Right, because the best case scenario is that you're old when you're doing this stuff that you put off till retirement. The worst case scenario and potentially likely scenario is you never get there because you get hit by a bus, you get cancer, the world ends. So, there's- I think it's even worse than that. I think it's like to go, like I talked about this before, like when I went to St. Petersburg three, four years ago, and you know, you climb the steps in the book and you walk around the church, right? Like I saw all the tour buses, not single tour bus of the retirees climb those 111 or whatever number of steps there

were to get around there. So they saw a different St. Petersburg to me. Like I had more of the resources. And so imagine delaying gratification to go to St. Petersburg and looking up and be like, I can't do that. That is worse. I'm saying that's the best case scenario. Yeah, the best case, well, the best case, the worst sounds real. I mean, I think- The worst is that you don't even live long enough

to be able to get to there at all. I don't know if dying, I don't know what's more torturous, dying and not being able to do it because you're dead or sitting there, like salivating like a kid at a candy store. Sure, looking at, on the outside looking in, yeah. On the outside looking it in.

That's a good point. You know, that would be hell for me. Like, I can't believe it. I could have done this, whatever, but now all these activities that make this city so wonderful, 30, 40, 50% of them I can't even do. It is, it's a balance though.

I think you're right, right? So there's the immediate gratification is a problem. The delayed gratification is a problem. What's the balance then? Because if you're never thinking about the future, you're never saving for the future, you're gonna be in bad shape. But if you, if all you're thinking about is the future.

So how do you, what's the mindset then for just like doing it right? I think more of it as a design, right? So I come to people and say, whatever values are, like listen, if your life is like, I wanna go to every single strip club, then we're gonna optimize for you to go to every single strip club, right?

You were like, I wanna build bridges and charitable things and we're gonna optimize for that so that you have the most impact and we optimize for that goal, that's what's fulfilling for you. And so I think what's inherent in that question to design correctly is what do you want? That's the part I don't write about.

People are like, well, how do you figure that out? I was like, well, this is what I do, but there are many books on figuring that out, right? I'm not the guru on that, but once you are more in touch about what you want out of your life, what fulfills you, what really fulfills you, what activities do you wanna be able to do now? How are we gonna move the physical ones forward

and the not so physical ones? I mean, the not so physical ones into the future, forward so that you get the order right, right? So you don't say, hey, I'm going to, I'm going to sit around and play chess all day. And then when I turn 60, I'm going to go play basketball with my boys, right? Like you just got the order right.

Like, so you don't get the high score. If you do it the other way, you get the high score. Knowing that, being intentional about what you want, what your values are, what experiences you have, actually thinking about, okay, 50 to 60, what experiences are very important to me? What does a winning relationship look like to me? What do winning couples do?

Like what things do I wanna do with my wife? What things do I wanna do? What fun things for me? What are the crazy wild things I wanna do? In each what things do I wanna do with my wife? What things do I wanna do? What fun things for me? What are the crazy wild things I wanna do? In each period, and you're not gonna have all the answers right away, because life is discovery. The closer you do that, the more we're designing. Right?

So I can't come up with some, you know, a lot of people like 70% this and 30% that, whatever. No. What do you want? Let's be intentional. Let's get out a sheet. Let's look at your life from now to the grave. What other things are going on there? What makes it fulfilling for you?

Then we start to know, then we can start allocating, okay, that needs a lot of money, that doesn't need money, this, whatever. And then we start to know, saving and spending, right? Yeah. So, I like to go, I know it's a long, long answer. No, no. But I like to tell people, like, hey, if we were in heaven before coming down to go, and it was a long, long answer, but I like to tell people, like, hey, if we were in heaven before coming down to earth, we go to God for the bucket of experiences.

Like, you're going down to earth, you're going on vacation to earth, and you can have these experiences. These are things you gotta do. Here's the infinite, no, here's the infinite bucket of experiences. You're like, great, I'll have 30,000 of that sex, I'll have skiing, I'll get a job,

I want two kids, I wanna start a business, I wanna do whatever, and you just throw them in the dang bucket. You got this huge, and the guy goes, okay, you can have them all, there's only one catch. You gotta get the order right. Life is like Tetris. You gotta get the order right in order to get the high score. And so if you autopilot what people are doing,

whether it be not saving or saving too much, right? They get to the end and like, I can't do all the things that my life has passed me by and I can't do the things. And the other people are like, shit, I don't have the resources that I didn't save and I did shit that I didn't really wanna do. And now I can't do the things that I actually wanna do because I've fitted away all my money

and my other resources and my health. I didn't invest my health. And so that intentionality and getting in touch with what you want is the first step. Yeah, as I think about with momentum worry, it's like if you knew a comet was coming to Earth and we're gonna die at the end of the week, that's very clear and very defined.

So you could make some very obvious decisions, right? The problem is we don't know if it's gonna be next week or a year from now or a hundred years from now, right? And so the tension of like, hey, there's an expiration date on all of this. What makes it so hard is you don't know like how much of a present bias you should have.

Yeah, I think what happens is it's like in poker and games of like limited information, right? Like you work with the best assumptions. And even though not knowing the exact date or working on those assumptions, you're at least optimizing to your along that curve So yeah, like I feel like there's a situation where in a helicopter. We're gonna die We obviously didn't die. I'm here. But like the thing jerks we go around he's got a glen

I hope you missed the power cords will land and I was kind of like I'm a model Like I want more. Yes, but I'm a model. I'm not sitting in this helicopter thinking, you know what I mean? Shit, you know what I mean? Like, I should have done XYZ. Like, yeah, is it perfectly optimal? No, but I'm doing my best to optimize my life

for fulfillment according to my values, right? And so I think most people have regret, like if they bite the bullet or whatever, it's like something they should have done in the time period that has passed. Yes. Right? It's not going to be like, oh, when I was 80, I was going to ride in this train and do this, whatever, and I'm going to miss out on that. Yeah, that's not as biting as, I had the chance to do this. Right?

And I think it's even more biting when you lose other people. Yeah. You know, you're not apt, cause there's all these sub-optimizations that go on, right, in terms of like your relationship with people, your parents, you know, like, oh my God, this person disappeared and- We didn't have that conversation.

You didn't have that conversation, we didn't have that time, didn't whatever. So you're just kind of on the autopilot, talk to you, talk about the weather, et cetera. And so we do it in all kinds of ways, right? It keeps us alive, right? Like we cannot think about all these things deeply, right? But we do have to cut aside some time

to think about the things that fulfill us. So relationships is gonna be one of the buckets. Maybe it's traveling the world for me, you know, all these other things, whoever you are. And then like, the what do I want, and what fulfills me, and the when. When does it belong? I'm Afua Hirsch.

I'm Peter Francopone. And in our podcast, Legacy, we explore the lives of some of the biggest characters in history. This season, we're exploring the lives of some of the biggest characters in history. This season we're exploring the life of Cleopatra. An iconic life full of romances, sieges and tragedy. But who was the real Cleopatra? It feels like her story has been told by others with their own agenda for centuries. But her legacy is enduring and so we're going to dive into how her story has evolved all the way up to today.

I am so excited to talk about Cleopatra Peter. Love Cleopatra. She is an icon. She's the most famous woman in antiquity. It's got to be up there with the most famous woman of all time. But I think there's a huge gap between how familiar people are with the idea of her compared to what they actually know about her life and character. So for pyramids, Cleopatra and Cleopatra's nose.

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or the Wondry app. I think about, yeah, so to be facing potentially your imminent demise and feel like you did a pretty good job, like you're like pretty good job. You're like, I'm good. To be basically playing with house money, that is the richest place a person could be. Because you think about how many people

have however many billions and they have regrets, or they have things that they need to do in the future to make it all worthwhile. That's the most impoverished place you could be. They've been hacked. They've been completely hacked. And they've adopted the culture and the programming as their own root programming.

And they're just, it's really sad. When I look at it, it's sad, but you can't, people, you can't tell people what they like. I'm like, listen, that may be the most fulfilling thing for them. And all the universes, the multiverses, this is the most fulfilling thing for them and all the universes, the multiverses, like this is the most fulfilling path for them given the resources they have.

It might be, it's like you can't tell a heroin addict they have a problem with heroin. You know what I mean? Like they're like having the time of their lives. They're like, I'm happy. But there are some very poor rich people in the sense that, yeah, like, you know, there's obviously two definitions of poverty.

One is, you know, you don't have your basic needs met and that is a real shitty place to be. So we don't wanna be flip about that. But it doesn't matter how much money you have if what you desperately need is more or you desperately need this kind of approval or this much, if you need, if your happiness is conditional

on something happening in the future, you are also very, very poor. Yeah, that concept of enough, I got a visceral understanding of it after reading the book, Your Money or Your Life. That book really cracked my head open. And how, if you never have, if you don't set that, if you don't understand a concept,

it's never enough, you're always poor. Yes. Right. And so having a visceral understanding of what enough means for you, and that involves getting in touch with your values and then things are gonna fulfill you, right? Then you can be rich. Otherwise you're just chasing the wind.

You're waiting for good dough. You ever talk to people who have a number? They're like, oh, I need this. And I've never met someone who was like, I hit my number. No, I haven't because they're optimizing for the wrong thing. And so when you find people in the machinery, in the financialization of this world, et cetera,

and they think in terms of a number, I'm like, I always ask the question of my close friends, like, well, what's it for? Like, what are you gonna buy? What experiences does this get you? And a lot of times they're like, how am I gonna, how am I gonna, you know what I mean? Like, it's like a honeymooners episode, right?

Like, they haven't really thought it through. They just thought this number, you know, in the rap videos or in the life or in the movies represents this and I want that. And they don't even know if they like it. Like I was that guy. Like I remember when I first got like a fancy car or whatever and I was like, I'm not even a car guy.

What am I doing? I feel like a douche in this car. But I was just doing what I thought a rich guy should do. You know what I mean? Like I wasn't in touch what I really wanted. And so I see tons of people like that with the number and I was like, okay, you tick the status symbol. What is it you really want?

And they haven't really, at least my friends, I'm not gonna, you know, I'm not the guru, right? They haven't really thought it through, right? They've just been optimizing for the wrong thing. Well, I hear this with authors all the time. I'll be like, so you're working on this book and I'll be like, what does success look like? And whenever I hear a number or I hear bestseller list,

I go like, not interested. Like, because I know they are thinking about the wrong thing. If they said, I have this idea and I think as many people in the world as possible should hear about it, or I wanted to challenge myself on this project, I just wanted to do something different.

When they go, my goal on this book is to sell 1 million copies. I just know, I go, because I've done it enough times, I go, oh, why a million? And it's because they heard somebody else, some book that they like sold that many copies. So they just pluck this number based almost entirely on their comparison to another person.

If there was some actual functional reason that one million or 100,000 or 10 million was a number that meant something, I would buy it, but it doesn't, right? And so when you hear people that, you know, I'm gonna make $20 million and then I'm gonna retire, what is it that you think $20 million is gonna give you that $10 million isn't gonna give you

that you couldn't almost certainly also afford right now. It's never like, well, I needed to buy this, I needed to buy DaVinci's notebook, which costs exactly $1 million. You know, it's never a precise thing. It's some sense of what a lifestyle would be. And in fact, that lifestyle is a series of actually pretty accessible things.

Going to the beach, having a nice out. Well, it's just, they're not, you're actually pretty accessible things. Going to the beach, having a nice out. Well, it's just, they're not, you're right. They think they're thinking about it, but in fact, they haven't thought about it at all. So for me, I have to avoid that trap and I always attach the money to a thing. I'm like, what am I risking my time for now?

What is the reward? And it can't be money. I have to express it. If, you know, it could be a boat trip, whatever, like a plane, a boat, whatever, an object or a vacation or a series of vacations or whatever it is, right? But if I have to know what I'm working for, right? And the greatest trick you can do is just make it money.

It represents everything and then you don't really think about it, and then you just, it's an abstract, right? It's this abstract, so it's a, and then you're like, I'm just working for this abstract, and I have more of the money, and the more is better. But not if you don't want the shit that money buys, right? Like, now you're just giving up your life for nothing, for no reward.

And so that happens, that happens. And you know, my goal for the book is to change the culture. Yeah. Right, like I want, like it's a long game, right? And as more people talk about it and they adopt one piece of advice or one thing to optimize their lives better, like their life is more fulfilling,

the people's lives around them are more fulfilling, they get more of what they want out of life, like things start moving, right? And you can- Well, you have a great line in the book, you said like, if your goal is just to have a large pile of money when you die, I guess that's fine, but that's probably not honestly your goal,

you're just not thinking about it. And I think there is just this implicit assumption that success is having accumulated a lot and it all more or less being in one piece as you're at the end. And I thought you made a really interesting point in the book too, even about inheritances, right? Like people wanna make money

then I'm gonna give it to my kids. And then they give it to their kids when their kids don't need it anymore. Like what's the average age that- 60, it was like 60 at the time. It may be moving forward or moving back, but like the bottom line is they're not kids. Like you're not leaving money for kids, right?

They've been paying their student loan debts for 25 years by the time you're giving them their inheritance. They're like 60 and they're 50s. I'm like, we're not a kid. Like, you know, like- It's crazy. What about when I was like, you know, how to start a home or whatever,

or we could all went on a vacation together, right? Like, you know, one of the things I hit on is like the absurdity of thinking the laws of physics are different for your kids than you, right? So if you're unable to convert money and an older age into experiences, right? Like a smaller and smaller subset of experiences that you're actually able to get utility money.

Same thing applies for your kids. So you have to give them more and more and more money. You know, I'd rather have 30,000 at 30 than 200,000 at 67, right? So like, or even 500, depending, right? Like so, and the other thing is, is that, people who have lost a parent, right? That had a relationship or lost a loved one, right? They would much rather have more time and experiences

with them alive to look back on and cash in on those memory dividends than a pile of money, right? And I guess there could be a certain pile of money, but like, okay, I didn't wanna hang out with you that much. But part of the inheritance that they want is experiences with you, which requires you to take the money you have and spend it in the present now

and include them, right? So find ways, you know, if it's like spending time with your daughter, it's like, you can take walks in the park, you can do whatever, or you can supersize it and do something really fun and amazing, and you know? Or just these basic things, it's like, I see this with my parents all the time, where it's like, so to save $80,

you booked the flight that cost you a half a day with your grandchildren. You know what I mean? And so you took the worst flight to get in after bedtime instead of the earlier flight that was more expensive that would have given you one more dinner. And at some point you would trade anything for one more of those things.

But in the present moment we go, trade anything for one more of those things. But in the present moment we go, well, I'm comparing these two things. So obviously the one that costs less is better than the one that costs more. And that's almost certainly not the case when you start to think about time and experience. That routine, that subroutine of optimizing for saving,

especially in like, I'm Gen X, but you know, the boomers and older, like that is like hardwired, right? Like, and they've been practicing this for like, I don't know, 40 years, 50 years. It's hard to turn off. Yeah, it's hard to turn off. So like, you know, this thing is running and they're running that optimization.

They're not thinking about, wait, I'm supposed to be optimizing for net fulfillment. What fulfills me? Yeah. Time with my granddaughter. Yeah. Fuck the money. Yeah. Get the earlier flight. Matter of fact, flying a day early and pay triple. You know what I mean?

So they're unconsciously optimizing for the wrong thing. That is the autopilot that we're trying to smash. Yeah. Right? Yeah. It's like the thing that allowed you to accumulate money to a point where you have a surplus, that to you was your superpower. That was your strength.

That was the thing that most people in your peer group, by definition, didn't have. To make it into the 1%, obviously there's luck and stuff involved, but mostly it was your ability to defer and delay gratification, to make the harder choices, to put in the work. And then it's hard to look around and go, I won, I did it.

Now I gotta develop a new set of skills and a new way of thinking. I would even say, I would even add to that and say, you've developed habits. So it's like your habits determine your success. Yeah. Right? You know, the guys that take like, I don't know, they did something on Steph Curry,

and it's like 1% of his shots are the shots in a game. Like he shoots like thousands, and like, and you know what I mean? Like it was like, 0.01% of his shots are in the game. Most of them are in practice. Most of them are in practice. And it's like, so like he's developed habits to do this. Right?

Like, is he gonna break his habit and have a bad shot? No. Yeah, sure. So you're gonna break your habit and all of a sudden, like, oh, I'm gonna optimize for your life? It takes time. And so what I tell people is, and I tell this in relationships or anything, and I'm no guru, I just say, like, look,

for you to learn something, actually neurons have to grow. Pathways have to be created. It's a lot of work, right? So if you and I, like, I think you should play piano. You're like, yeah, you should play piano. To keep our relationship healthy, you're going to play piano. Come back two weeks later, you're like clunk, clunk, clunk, after you listen to something. I thought we said greed, you were going to fucking play piano, right? I'm not mad at you because it takes practice. Like, for those neural pathways, for you to play

anything that's resembling, it's going to take some time. And so people have this idea that like, oh yeah, I should think more about like optimizing for my kids or I should not have this response when my spouse is angry at me, whatever. And it's like, I told them not to have that response and he did it again. I'm like, first of all, the erase button is very hard and two, it takes time and practice to get those neural pathways in a way to get back on path, right? And so you're stuck, you're stuck. And what, you know, but the good news is, is that if you realize that, hey,

just like playing piano or learning soccer or learning to become a wizard in this field, that these habits, it's gonna take time to reestablish those habits and those routines to be off autopilot, to optimize for happiness with my children, to learn how to socialize without being dependent on complete homework and all these other things, right?

Well, Aristotle talked about virtue not as this thing that you had or didn't have, it was a thing you did, right? So courage is the act of making courageous decisions, not once and then you are that thing, but it's are you that thing day to day? I think generosity is a great example. You're not just naturally a generous person. It's a muscle that you build by being generous.

So if you're someone who's like, okay, I've succeeded to this point, and now I have more than I need, I wanna be a philanthropist, I wanna be generous. You spent the last 40 years of your life accumulating or developing the stinginess self-interest muscle, and now you've gotta build the generous muscle. You've been 40 years out of the gym,

all of a sudden you think, show up one day, bench 225, do 25 pull-ups, it's not gonna happen, right? Like, this is the same thing, like you've developed other muscles and all these other muscles atrophied. And so what I tell people is don't get discouraged. You just gotta keep going at it, right? Like, cause when you first came into work,

you were not the wizard, right? You had to learn a lot and you kept doing it. And then all of a sudden things that dazzle people outside of your field, they're like rote nature. It's like driving home, you don't even think about it, right? Like driving is in default mode network after you like done it for a while. So for a lot of people, this work and this way of being

is in default mode network. To change that takes a lot of effort. And it takes a while, I think, to accommodate to your surroundings. So like when you were a kid, what was like a large amount of money to your parents? There's something about that number that stays in you, even if you make three, four, five X what your parents made.

So like, you know what I'm saying? So- Oh, I remember when I made like 30 something thousand dollars and I was so happy because I made more money than my mom or something like that. I did a penny and I was like, I'm a yuppie. I make more than, I actually said, I'm a buppy, black urban professional.

I make more money than my mom. I was like, literally at the World Trade Center, like happy, you know? When I dropped out of college, my first job, I worked at this talent agency in Hollywood and my salary was $30,000. And I remember thinking to myself, what am I gonna do with all this money? I was myself, what am I gonna do with all this money?

I was like, what am I gonna do with all this money? So there's some part of me that thinks whatever I was making then is a large amount of money. But as you make more and more, you have to update. It's like, when you're 22 years old and you make an extra $500, you go, I'm gonna put $100 in my 401k or my Roth IRA. That feels like a big commitment to you.

And now you're making a lot more, if you're only putting in things $100 at a time, you're way underfunding your potential return. You have to update what a number is, just like in investing, it's like, hey, you were cutting a $1,000 check, now it's a $10,000 check, now it's, now a $100,000 check is a small bet for you.

And updating that number requires a lot of work, but also time, just getting comfortable and updating some of those assumptions. But I tell people to be careful, like don't update those numbers without updating what it's for. Because I don't like to think in the numbers. I like to think in what is a reward?

Why is a number going up? Yeah. Like, did you all of a sudden need a Ferrari? What's going on here? Sure. What's going on in your life, the arc of your life? What activities are happening that all of a sudden you're not stopping, you need a couple million dollars more? Yeah.

Tell me. And I always ask people, our friends, I'm getting older, they're getting older. I'm just like, okay, when's the party? Yeah. It's not today, it's okay. Just tell me, when's the fucking party you got all this money. Mm-hmm And the party doesn't mean necessarily like raging with glowsticks. It just means your reward What are you gonna be doing a little like what are the things you want to do? What is this a parade? Yeah, when's the parade? Yeah, and I'm like if you're gonna tell me the parade is when you're 70 That's okay. I'll show up at 70

Yeah, I'm gonna pray but I said it on purpose because they know the fucking parade is not in their 70s. The parade is now. Yeah. And they just haven't thought about it, right? Like, it's like, what is it for? Yeah. You know? What is it for?

Which means, ask another question. What fulfills me? What is my life for? Yeah. And so, that always gets down to this fundamental why. And that fundamental why is different for every person. But if we keep talking in abstract and money, we can stay there all the time.

Those numbers can change, you keep going up and up, and I'm like, but why? What are you gonna do with it? And the tricky thing too is there's always someone who makes a lot more, right? You'll meet someone and you're like, today they made more money than I will make in my entire life.

But before I knew that, I felt like I was winning. I felt like I was great, right? So that's the problem is it's pretty, it's not easy, but it's pretty simple and straightforward to get to the place where you have enough. Cause you have your needs, you have what's making you happy, you like your life. It's only when you go, oh, there's all these things

I didn't even know about, or this person's so much more than me, that that sort of takes you away from the contentment of your situation and then gets you back into the, I gotta accumulate, I gotta delay gratification, I gotta get to there. Yeah, I did a lot of work, just a lot of thought in that. And there were things that I've been like, oh, I want this, I tested it, I was like,

no, I don't really want this. Now I don't have to work as hard because I don't wanna buy this thing. because I don't want to buy this thing. Or I don't need this stuff or this fluff in my life, or I can do it this way. This is actually a richer way to do it and a cheaper way. Like a richer experience way. And so, you know, I run through that exercise

and try and reset to figure out as I discover things, like you're saying you discover, oh, this guy's richer and he's got this thing. And I'm like, that's great for him, but you know what? I'm not gonna give up a year, two years, seven hours, whatever it is in life, risk adjusted to go for that thing. It's not that fulfilling. The trade-off is not there.

I'd rather do these other things. And when you stay in that realm of like, okay, I'm gonna give up time in my life now for this future reward, is a reward worth it? I think the math works better, like the emotional math, the fulfillment math, right? And a lot of people are just doing the numbers math.

Yes, you can have a bigger plane or you can have whatever, but is that what you really want? And it's not always money too. I remember I got offered a couple years ago, I got offered a job in Washington DC. And it was like, but I like my house. I like where I live. I like the time I get with my family.

And I tried to flash forward and I go, okay, I'm flashing forward five, six years. I'm divorced. I went in this very different direction in my life. It took me away from the things that, and I go, oh, this decision that I'm, I've got off of this thing, which seems crazy to turn down, but what will it actually cost me?

What direction, how will it take me away from things that are actually important to me? And we don't do that math. We just go, of course, promotions are better. More money is better. The big city is better. You know, we just default to what course, promotions are better. More money is better. Right, power-saving. The big city is better. You know, we just default to what you're supposed to do. As you said, it's just on autopilot,

you take the next thing as opposed to going, I'm good. Yeah, you just did the fulfillment thing. You're like, what really fulfills me? What do I want out of life? And you read it and it's like, no, this is actually a net negative. This is actually in my counterfactual regret minimization algorithm of my life,

which I'm optimizing for, not checkmate, but I'm optimizing for life fulfillment, right? You went through on a couple exercises. At the end, you were just like, oh no, fuck that shit. You're like, oh hell no, right? So most people though, no, autopilot, more money, power prestige, bigger network, blah, blah, blah,

more things, yada, yada, yada, not really getting in touch. What do I really want? Yeah. Let me try and remember when I was in heaven, what was in that box of infinite experiences I wanted. I seen this, and that's not in it. You know what I mean? That type of thing.

But it's very hard to say no to money, and it's very hard to say no to status, and it's very hard to say no to money. And it's very hard to say no to status, and it's very hard to say no to things that other people are saying yes to. That's why this book starts out with a death. Right, so you write a book and you're like, we checked it goes where and how's this gonna flow and where you going?

And it's like, I wanted to jar it up with an accelerated death, because it kind of cuts through your ego and wakes people up. Yes. Right. And you know, you're like, yeah, of course, fuck the money, spend time, do this, do whatever,

and blah, blah, but even though the person's life I described in the book is compressed, we all have the same issue, the same thing. Like we have this much more time, what goes in here, you know, and you like, I need to be optimizing to my values, to my fulfillment. And it's very easy, especially since we're seduced

in culture, rap videos, music, everything, school, to be optimizing for the wrong thing because you need it, right? It's a tool, right? But we're like buying hammers and saws and shovels to build a house, but we never build a house. We just keep buying more hammers and saws and shovels, right? And the money is a tool like a hammer and saw

to build the life you want, right? Those tools are to build the house you want. So what people do is keep accumulating, oh, look at all these power tools I got, whatever. I'm like, when are you gonna fucking build a house, dude? Or speaking of building a house, you have this great thing in the book that hit me. Your friend was building a vacation house or something

and he was like, you know, he was thinking about whether it would be a good return on investment or not. Yeah, yeah. And you're like, the point of a vacation house is to have wonderful vacations. Correct. Optimize for that.

But so even in the context of things we're doing, we default back to is this financially sound or not? And I think there is some freedom in going, not everything should be about making more money. Like my friend James Altucher said this one, he's like, you don't have to put your money to work. There's not like a law that says you have to do it. You should do it,

you should probably put the bulk of it to it, but not everything you spend, everything you do should be optimized for making more. You should do some things because they're worth doing and you'll get contentment and happiness and joy and meaning and maybe even make the world better by doing them. Yeah, I'm kind of a zealot. I'm actually, everything is about driving fulfillment

and the wealth, the health and the time is all about driving that variable. So if making more money, you know, falls in the loop and actually drives more fulfillment, because I get to, you know, go on the vacation or provide for my parents or whatever, then I will, at that time period, I will drive that. But the, the fuck the money.

Yeah. I don't care. And fuck the health too. Like I am not going to go into the gym and be a gym. Like I got the doctors try and make you live forever, but I am not going to give up three hours a day, right? Doing quackery, you know, some of the quackery out there, you know, to live an extra week at 86, at the time that the health that everything like it's all To drive fulfillment and you have to know what fulfills you and discover what fulfills you right? And so I always look at the money as a tool. My health is a tool Yeah, you know my time is a tool to drive fulfillment

Yeah, right. And so when you start saying, oh, I'm gonna use fulfillment, and the function I'm optimizing for is money, and fulfillment is on this side of the equation, it's all fucked up. It's all fucked up. That's how you get to the end of your life or end of your period,

and you're just like, what the hell am I doing? You gotta remember that these tools are to build the house, not the hell am I doing? Right? Yeah. You know, you gotta remember that these tools are to build the house, you know, not the other way around. And I try to be very clear, is like once I made a decision where money was not my primary variable, right? So like when I decided to open this bookstore,

I was doing because I thought it'd be cool. My wife and I thought it'd be fun. We thought it'd be meaningful. We thought it'd be a challenge. Obviously we weren't trying to lose money. Correct. But if our primary't trying to lose money. Correct. But if our primary goal is to make money, it would have been better to take all the money

and just put it in an index fund or to start a business that could scale and have an exponential return. So we chose not to do that, right? So then I try to remind myself as I'm making decisions and I go, oh, okay, you know, hiring another person is gonna make the whole thing run smoother. It's gonna be less of an imposition,

but you know, it's gonna eat into the margins a little bit. I go, oh yeah, this was never a margins-based thing to begin with, you know, like when I go, why did I get into writing books? Certainly wasn't because I was hoping to get rich. I should have gotten a job in Wall Street. I should have traded crypto. There's so many better things to have done

if money was what I was optimizing for. So then when you remind yourself, oh, I didn't do this to optimize for money, it should give you some clarity about the day-to-day individual decisions that you're making. Yeah, what I like about this bookstore and what you're doing with your wife is, is like, you would have put the money in some bond fund,

whatever, to take that money, then go do something you and your wife wanna do together. Or when we retire to then open a bookstore. So you're putting it into Ford and then you go to bookstore. When you could just open the fucking bookstore. And then on top of that, your experience, your wife, the choices you put here, the design, the interaction you have, like you guys are creating tender moments, probably some arguments, what? This

goes here, but a lot of fun that you guys will look back on for years and years and years. And so when you retire, the value that you're going to get, you're going to retire on those memories, right? You're going to look back fondly on this period. Like, remember we opened that bookstore, whatever, and we did it, right? Like, we did it, not we bought some fucking government bond. They dealt 8% and now we can go get extra tapioca. You know what I mean?

Down the way, right? Yeah, now we can have our own room in the retirement facility. Exactly. No, you're like, we had a rich experience, we had rich friends, we had people come over, like our lives were full. When we think about that, like when things are tense,

it's like, we don't need to fight about this or argue about this thing, because it's not like, this is this thing we have to get absolutely right to maximize the return when we exit it. The whole point is that it's an enjoyable, sustainable experience. And so it helps turn down the volume on things. If everything you're doing is about setting yourself up

to do some future thing, then you're always delaying gratification, contentment, peace, enjoyment in the present moment, instead of going, hey, no, my job is to have fun running a bookstore. Not my job is to be miserable running a bookstore so someday I can not be running a bookstore. Like the goal is the thing. Yeah, you know the hustle bro culture

where like doing the thing, like you gotta do the thing. But you and your wife doing this experience together, you're doing the thing, you're doing the wife thing to get, you're doing the marriage thing, you're doing the partnership thing, you're doing the thing. Investing in school bonds is not doing the thing. You're doing the wife thing to get, you're doing the marriage thing. You're doing the partnership thing. You're doing the thing. Investing in school bonds is not doing the thing, right? So like, it's almost like hustle bro culture, but like taking it seriously,

like your relationship with your wife, the activities you wanna do, the experience you think that will like open your minds and bring you closer and bring you joy fulfillment and also bring you memories to look back on fondly. Like you're doing the thing. And that's it. That's like amazing.

And I love people seeing doing whatever their thing is. Guy Raz's, How I Built This is a podcast where each week he talks to the founders behind the world's biggest companies to learn the real stories of how they built them in each episode, you hear these entrepreneurs really go into their story. And Guy is an incredible interviewer. He doesn't just dance around the surface. He has real questions

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You know, I didn't want to, I was like, I don't want to be a follower. Hi, I'm Jason Concepcion. And I'm Shea Serrano, and we are back. We have a new podcast from Wondery. It's called Six Trophies. Woo! And it's the fucking best. Each week,, Chase Serrano and I are combing through all the NBA storylines,

finding the best, most interesting, most compelling stories, and then handing out six pop culture themed trophies for six basketball related activities. Trophies like the Dominic Toretto, I live my life a quarter mile at a time trophy, which is given to someone who made a short term decision with no regard for future consequence. Or the Christopher Nolan Tenet trophy, which is given to someone who did a short-term decision with no regard for future consequence. Or the Christopher Nolan Tenet Trophy, which is given to someone who did something that we didn't understand. Catalina Wine Mixer Trophy. Ooh, the Lauryn Hill, you might win some, but you just lost one trophy. And what's more, the NBA playoffs are here, so you want to make Six Trophies your go-to

companion podcast through all the craziness. Follow Six Trophies on the Wondery app, or wherever you get your podcasts, listen ad- free right now by joining Wondery Plus. When you meet athletes, especially ones that are either near retirement or have retired, as a rule, they all, they don't go, I wish I was way more intense about it while I was playing. They're always saying, I wish I enjoyed it more while I was doing it.

Right? They don't go, I wish I enjoyed it more while I was doing it, right? They don't go, I wish I'd like beat the shit out of myself one more season so I could have one more ring or one more win or get one more big contract. They all go, I wish I'd had more fun playing while I was playing, because they miss it now. And I think there is something about like, whatever it is that you're doing,

chances are you got into it because you liked it. So the reward for being great at it or making a lot of money at it, shouldn't be that you suck all the fun and enjoyment and presence out of it. You should, the ideal, a truly rich way to go to have an experience is to obviously be well compensated for it,

but enjoy it while you're doing it. Well, that's the ride. I'm just like, you gotta enjoy the ride. Like I see people, I'm like, enjoy the ride, man. You're on a different ride, this is your ride. Everybody's got different goals. This guy wants to build this or do that. I'm like, just enjoy the ride.

That's all you got. And I've tried to become less miserable as I write. When you do stuff that's hard, like writing a book is hard, it kicks your ass. But I tried to go, hey, like today is the only day that I know for sure that I got to do this book, right? Cause I could die tomorrow, it could get canceled, it could come out and fail.

So if I didn't enjoy doing it today, then the only reason I'm doing it is for these potential compensations down the road, which may or may not happen. The thing that's in your control is, are you enjoying the ride while you're on it? Yeah, and I've been working on that a bit with myself is like, shifting my attitude.

Like, I don't gotta do this, I get to do this. Yes, sure. And a lot of it's I get to. And it's amazing how the terminology you use in your head. How it affects your mood and everything. And one of the things I've been working on is how I respond. It changes my fulfillment. It's one of the sub hacks that are out there.

It's like I come from Jersey City, I have a lot of baked in, wow, where'd where that impulse lack of impulse control come from? Like, why did I go from zero to 10? Right? Yeah, I could have responded a million different ways. Why did I choose that one? And is that consistent with my goals and what I'm trying to do here? Yeah, what's the most important thing? And so I'm like, Oh, wow, I got to reframe how I think to reframe how I respond. And I got to practice it because I'm playing bad piano right now, you know what I mean?

Yeah, we all have this kid inside of us Yeah, they call it the adapted child like the kid that you had to be as a kid to survive where you were Yeah, and that kid is probably not super well suited to Thrive in whatever world you're in now particularly particularly, especially if you've succeeded, right? And now things are awesome. You're still this like angsty teenager or scared seven-year-old or whatever. And so yeah, you gotta like do work on yourself

to be able to thrive and then also appreciate and enjoy and not be miserable with all the stuff that you have. If you're still this person who's trying to prove to your dad that you're awesome and you never got that, it's gonna prevent you from enjoying, you are awesome. The fact that your dad didn't appreciate it doesn't mean you're not. And I think the one thing that I remind myself

and I remind all my friends, whatever, and these type of things is like, whatever you've gotten good at, whatever you're like awesome at, that shit didn't happen overnight. Like it took a lot of practice and a lot of reps. So even though like, yeah, you got the quotes or you read the book and you're like,

I agree with it 100%. That doesn't, you know what I mean? You have to do work and anybody who's done work gone to the gym and worked out, you know, gotten in shape, you know, learned a skill. It takes time and a lot of work. And so learning is hard, you know what I mean? And it's unpleasant, but you start to see results

and you get that cycle in there and then you're like, wow, I've transformed, I can now play piano. Or I can now not scream at somebody when they give me this response. Or I think positively about this thing, or I think about the opportunity set as opposed to the negative. And all these things, I think,

you know, when we're off autopilot, we have the ability to address, see how we can make changes in our life and have a more fulfilling life, and dedicate resources to proving ourselves. So obviously giving your kids money, that's one form of inheritance, but a magical thing you could give your kids

would be a healthier approach to these things than maybe we got. How have you thought about that? Yeah, you know, I, specifically what my kids in a lot of teenagers, like I remember my friends, this, oh, you have two daughters? Oh, they go on the dark side of the moon

right around 13, whatever you're talking about. Like they go around the dark side of the moon and they come back around 17, 18. So what I try and do is keep the channel communication open. And I'm vulnerable with them when I see things that through osmosis and observing me, they've absorbed from me. And I've said, listen, you're like me. I have a problem with this. I'm working on it and I'm very vulnerable, like, you know, like about the mistakes, the many, many, many, many mistakes I've made in my life, right?

And that it's okay, but like, this would be a better way. I would like for you to, you know, think about this. And a lot of times you tell something as a kid, they registered it, but it doesn't visibly remember. It's not till later in life, they're like, oh, that crazy old motherfucker was right. Dad knew a couple of things. It's not like I'm smart.

It's just like, I've fucked up so bad in so many different ways. Like I'm like, I got a lot of ways not to do it. You know what I mean? So here's the ways I have to do it. And then here's the optimal way that I've learned from other people, right? That would have made my life a lot easier and I could have done my best a lot better. I was reading this thing about Tom Brady.

He watched his oldest son was playing a video game and he loses and he gets so mad. He like breaks the video game controller. Now this is the guy who's notorious for breaking surface you know, surface tablets and helmets on the sideline. And Tom Brady was like, dude, I've been down that road. I have that in me.

You don't want that. Exactly. But it's this tension where that's also part of the driver of Tom Brady's greatness, right? And so I think if you're a driven, successful person who got really good at something, you have this thing in you and you know that there's a good part about it and a bad part about it.

What I would say is that that drive, there's many facets to express that, right? And when you get frustrated, how do you express that? Wouldn't a better thing to be like, hey, let's go play the game 10 times and just play the scene where you're at? Like, let's get angry that way. Like there's just ways, there's just so many different ways you can react. Right. Like, and so yes, be frustrated, be in touch with

your feelings, but what you do with that frustration matters. Right. Like, so like, you know, I'm from Jersey city. There's a lot of, there's a lot of ways I deal with frustration that do not work, do not work, right? And so I've had over the years, develop new neural pathways, new response cries, new ways of being when these thoughts come or these feelings come, right? And it's work, it's work changing come, right? And it's work, you know, it's work changing that, right? And I think with my kids, I, you know, aside from whatever wisdom I may have, right?

Like, just, this is how I fucked up. You do have the ability to change the way you think and the way you respond to certain things, you know? It takes time. This is going to serve you so much better and you'll have a much more fulfilling life. You avoid so much pain. Yes, yes.

Or if you think that achieving these things is gonna give you something, like there's a different, like, I try to think about doing it from a place of emptiness, like needing to prove something or get something, that can be very obviously motivating, but it renders the accomplishment. It doesn't do it for you.

But when you're doing it from a place of fullness, you still do the thing, but you're not hoping that getting that thing is gonna magically unlock something. No, yeah, I try and get my kids to be like, one of the things I don't want them to be afraid of is afraid of failing. And like just doing it, like, and embrace the failure.

Like, I'm like, in relationships I failed, scuffed up on the face, business, scuffed on my face. You know what I mean? All kinds of scuffs. I got scars. I'm like, that ride, that journey, that like, let's do it. Let's go learn. We had a shot, didn't go right

wrong with this way. I was idiot. I fucked this one up. This one was just bad luck, whatever, right? Like I want them to have that type of ride, you know, or at least have that gear, right? And a lot of people don't have that gear because they fear failure. And so that's one of the things of like, let's get your thinking about how you think and get that amounts out right and let's unleash the fear a little bit and that fear of judgment. Because I think a lot of people who don't do the thing,

who don't try, they can handle the financial risks. I talk to them, you can handle the financial risks. What you can't handle is looking like an idiot to your friends. You can't handle that. You can't handle starting back at zero and everybody's here and you're just like, ah, they're here and I'm here,

and your ego can't handle that. And they're just like, whispering around you. People that you thought were your friends are whispering behind your back, and the people that are secretly rooting for you to fail, and you know they are, but it's kind of like this under thing, right? You know, I would say people like a success,

but they love a failure. And I say it's because it exposes their own cowardice, right, because they wanted to do the same thing. They had their own dreams or whatever, and they played it safe. But you go out there and buck the trend and you do it, you know, it's like, fuck, fucking coward, right? and they played it safe. But you go out there and buck the trend and you do it, it's like, fuck, I'm fucking coward, right? But if you fail, you validate their cowardice,

you're like, ah, see, I did the right thing. I stayed in my boring, soul-sucking job and this guy went out and tried to do it and look what happened to him. Now he's a waiter at so-and-so. And I'm middle manager, right? I'm exaggerating this to the core, but that is the thing that people fear

because that's what they fear more, not the economics, not the whatever. Yeah, we care what people think. And I'm like, you have the Stoic quote better than I do, right? But like, why? But why? You know, it's like, but why?

You love yourself more, right? Like- Yeah, we love, Marcus Ruiz said, we love ourselves more than other people, but we care about other people's opinions more than our own. Which is- It's insane.

It's insanity. And I'm just like, you gotta, if you love yourself more, you gotta love your own fulfillment. You gotta go out there. Yeah. Like, and when you were a kid, I think you kind of had that,

like you kind of had, like, I just went on a team think you kind of had that, like, you kind of had, like, I just went up a team, you run, you did the ball, you'd strike out, you'd, you know, dive, and then all of a sudden this judgment, you know, we- Well, you're not even aware that other people are thinking about you. You're just thinking about yourself, right? There's almost something to this self-absorption of childhood that allows you to be in your own bubble. And then as I think middle school and high school, you start to get this sense like,

oh wait, there's this group of people and they could be talking about me and they could be talking negatively about me and then that could be bad for me. And so you start to become self-conscious in that negative way. That's one of the biggest battle I had with my kids. So I was like, nobody cares.

You'll never see these people again. Yeah. But it's like, they don't care. You think they care. Look, dude, they have their own lives and their own stresses and their own homeworks and their own boyfriend, girlfriend problems, they don't care. Well, I say that about imposter syndrome.

Nobody is trying to find you out because they're worried about being found out. Like nobody's thinking about you. We're all self-absorbed. Yeah, well, I'm always just like, listen guys, I'm winging life just like everybody. I'm fucking winging life. I wrote a book to help me less wing life,

to try and get more, don't fuck this up Perkins, that's what that book should say, Perkins Don't Fuck This Up, that could be the alternate title. You should just get that tattoo. That tattoo, like do not fuck this up. But the biggest battle is this hyper caring of their perception and persona at an age that I didn't have at their age, you know what I mean? The biggest battle is like this hyper caring

of their perception and persona at an age that I didn't have at their age. You know what I mean? Like you get it a little bit later, but I don't know, I'm a little wacky. You know, like I think it's a blessing in many ways, a net blessing, sometimes it's a negative. It's like, you should care a little bit more, you know? No, I was talking to a woman, she was 95

and she was saying one of her big regrets is that she tried to make her house look like she didn't have kids. She was saying she spent all this time, so when people came over, they'd be like, doesn't look like you have kids. You know, like what we all think when we have people over and we go, sorry, it's a mess, right?

And it's like, why are you sorry? Why do you care? You know, and she was saying the amount of effort she spent trying to keep things tidy and neat and clean was a regret because, not because it's not nice to have clean. How many of you should calculate the hours?

Probably so many. But what we don't calculate is the amount of conflict, because your kids are the enemy of your house looking like you don't have kids. Your kids are the enemy of your house being clean. Because they're living their life, they're making a mess. And so we spend all this time trying to keep this picture of things

and it causes conflict and strain on the things that deep down we know mean the most. I've been trying to work on that. Like it's a tension though, right? Because like my parents were really obsessed with stuff. Like the car had to be neat, don't put holes in the wall with your poster. You know, like that.

And so with my kids, I try to be much more relaxed about it. And at the same time, I don't want them to, like I can have that attitude because it's my stuff and I paid for it, I know money doesn't matter. But that's not respecting stuff is a dangerous attitude for a five-year-old or an eight-year-old to have because they just beat the crap out of things and break it and they just expect me to buy them a new one.

That tension of like not caring about money but also developing conscientiousness in your kids and respect for places and things and people, that's a tension I feel like. Listen, I just tell my kids like, look, I fucked you up in some kind of way. Like, I didn't, like, even if they gave me the manual, I didn't read it well enough, I'm like, in some kind of way,

you know, because whatever, and it's just like, here's the things that I got, you know what I mean? Here's the things that, whatever, and like, when you can finally get to a point where, you know, keeping that dialogue open with them to like, just keep the channel open, keep dropping wisdoms to try and repair in ways that have fucked them up, right? You know, it's like, oh yeah, you got that from me.

I'm sorry, that's just, you know, the, you know, like, it's been passed on for generations from pre-slavery on down, here we are, you know, like, you got it. But you know what I mean? It's like, you want to be chill, you don't mean? It's like you want, you want to be chill. You don't want to delay gratification. You don't want to be obsessed with money.

And at the same time, you don't want to create spoiled entitled children. No, no. And that's kind of like, if you, if you, if you're intentionally, you're not on autopilot and like, you know, I have the mental models in the book, like that allows for that. Like I think deliberate thinking and getting in touch with you want like not the advertising or what you want, what you really want, what fulfills you kind of takes the spoiledness out of it, right? Like, because I think a lot of spoiledness

is like this obsession with one facet of your life. Like, I want attention, I want attention, I want this, you know what I mean? I want status, you know, and this is hyper-ocus on one facet. People are like a thousand faceted diamond, okay? You know, we're all great, we're all generous, we're all this, we're all assholes, we're all whatever.

We're all hypocrites, we're all like have cognitive biases. Right, and so the key is like, thinking about what you want and what experience you want, what you truly want, what type of human being, what your values are will help like balance those facets, right? Minimize the negatives. And I think the through line is talk about it, be intentional about it.

Like, yeah, you don't wanna raise your kid to think that things that are not normal are normal, right? Like we're flying, I've got some gigs in Australia this summer, so I'm gonna bring my family. And so I'm just booking the tickets and it's like, we're gonna fly business class or wherever. And I'm gonna talk, like, I've got some gigs in Australia this summer, so I'm gonna bring my family. And so I'm just booking the tickets and it's like, we're gonna fly business class or wherever. And I'm gonna talk, like, I don't want my kids to think it's normal to fly business class to Australia.

These are tickets are tens of thousands of dollars. But I also don't wanna ruin the whole trip by being exhausted and miserable if I can afford not to be those things, right? So we're just gonna go like, hey, look, there's a lot of people on this plane, only some of us are staying up here, and here's why the math worked for us,

it didn't always work for us, but here's why it worked for us, and here's why we made the decision we made, as opposed to just be like, by the way, this is normal. Like there's a line about the royal family, the royal family thinks the world smells like fresh paint, because they go around everything. And so if you're not taught, if you go,

hey, look, this place doesn't normally look like this, they cleaned it up for us, then it can counterbalance just the unreality of the situation, you know what I mean? Yeah, it's very difficult when you've worked hard, right? Or got lucky, whatever it is, and you get to the reward phase of your life. Then you have kids like a little later on,

you know what I mean? They're not at that phase. They're not at that phase. So by living your life and they're in your house, they're reaping the reward without going through the thing. And so like that is like people, I get asked this, I'm like, well, how do you, I'm like, I don't know. I probably poorly.

Like, I mean, like I hear some of the things I do. And I love like when my kids go to college, they're like, oh, it's real out here. You know what I mean? It's not really real, but they're like stepping down at least. It's like, nope, figure it out. You know, like, and so like that, that like, and then also their exposure,

like when I lived in St. Thomas, right? In like a very poor area and they have friends, et cetera. It's like being in that environment, they're like, oh, I'm, it's not like that. You know what I mean? This is not, this is actually more normal. My dad is somehow out here, you know, a couple of standard deviations to the right.

You know, that kind of resets them, right? And not letting it, yeah, not letting it be on autopilot for you or for them. Exactly. By talking about it and explaining it and contextualizing it instead of just allowing it to feel very normal when it's not normal, or it's just, it's not representative of most people's experience.

Yeah, yeah, like, you know, we have all these talks and decisions and, you know, my eldest daughter, like, you know, I just say, all right, it's time for you to start, like, I keep saying, you gotta take a finance course. You have to take a finance course. Cause I need to be able to speak the same language to you when you get in these situations. You cannot come out ignorant and scatterbrained about,

you know about your wealth or what you're getting, right? And so it's gonna be ordeal because I was on autopilot. It's just like everybody else a little bit. And I was like, weee, look at the fun things I get to do and come on, and not having as many of those conversations about like, hey, let me tell about the time I had to sleep on a train and I was a screen clerk.

You know what I mean? Like, let me tell you about the time that I went busto and it was super stressful, you know. You know, they don't, they're not seeing that. They're not seeing like the relentlessness and the risk I was willing to take. Like, I was willing to be, you know, your manager at the paint shop or whatever it is

for a shot where it was. Like I was willing to risk it all. And they didn't see that. They just, you know. They just woke up one day with all the stuff. Wow. Yeah, exactly. Like, this is normal, dad.

Yeah. Like I put them in a bubble, you know. Your I put them in a bubble. Your success puts them in a bubble. And it's, I have to say, I have not been the best about piercing that bubble and keep it real. I have done work. I haven't been completely a loop in on autopilot, but I have not done the best.

Yeah, but it's not too late. I mean, that's the whole point. No, it's not too late. Luckily, I'm still alive. Yeah, hopefully I'll still be alive and I and and there's You know a dialogue path, right? So I can download these ideas and concepts into their head Sure, they can receive them. I can still inception in them with ideas that yeah, maybe won't take hold right now because you know 1920 you know to be like couldn't tell me shit 20 I mean I didn't figure this stuff out when I was 20 why should my kids know it

yeah but it's in there they'll be like I remember my dad said that like I still pull out lines my dad told me I was like 16 like this fucking guy and now I'm like damn well and then you can make them read your book all of my kids like if I want to like torture my kids I go like we're gonna put on one of my videos and they're like oh yeah they can't put on one of my videos. And they're like, no! Oh yeah, they can't handle it. They don't like, they're allergic to the attention. Like they don't like that, like their friends know who I am or something like that.

They're just like, dad, so weird. Well, I thought the book was awesome and I'm so glad you came out. And you wanna go check out some books real fast? I want you to see them. Yeah, I definitely, I definitely wanna check out some books. Sweet. Thanks so much for listening.

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