Spend Your Money NOW - Before It’s Too Late! (Bill Perkins Final Warning)

I don't give a [ __ ] about saving. I don't give a [ __ ] about spending. I care about fulfillment and thriving. We have all learned to focus on saving your money for your golden years. But our next guest says actually do the opposite. I've read your book probably five to six times because I am the exact opposite. You're afraid of running out of money. I'm afraid of wasting my life. You are living in fear of something in the future and robbing yourself of your current life. Delayed gratification indefinitely is no gratification. And unfortunately, your body has a vote and it's going to decay and you will not be able to get that gratification to the extent you can. Now, I mean, Google lists your net worth at over $100 million. So, some people are going to comment that it's not just that easy. For those who are like have average intelligence and lots of hustle, there's so many ways to make money. What's your advice to people with a low income? Like, if you're very poor, the first step you're trying to do is Bill Perkins, thank you so much for coming on the Ice Coffee Hour. It's good to be on. We have two lives and the second one begins when we realize we only have one. What does this quote mean to you? It means that um I think a lot of people behave as if they're going to live forever or they're going to get a second life like in video games. And when you realize that you only have one life, one ride on this planet, you begin to take it a little bit more seriously. uh you begin to care a little bit less about what other people think and you begin to dive deep and chase after what you really want out of this ride. It's interesting because I've read your book probably five to six times in total. It's the one book that people keep telling me to read through because I am the exact opposite of everything that you describe in the book. I am ex I'm extremely frugal. I like saving money at all costs and I like delaying gratification. For me, I get a lot of peace of mind knowing that like 30 years from now, I'll have enough versus living it up today. Right. But is that a fear-based thinking or is that an optimized for fulfillment type thinking? I would say probably 80% fear, 20% optimization, right? And so fear is a great thing that we have, right? It keeps us alive. It keeps us from eating bears or lions on the on the uh Serengeti when we we were in tribe, right? And it prevents you from getting mugged or whatever it is, right? But it doesn't help you thrive. It only helps you survive. And you're surviving, right? But you're not thriving. And you're not thriving in probably one of the best periods of your life where you have your health uh and the ability to take advantage of everything that's around you. Whether you want to go hella skiing, swimming, etc. Your health is not going to limit you. Your mental acuity is not going to limit you. Um if you wanted to go to school or college or spend money on that, your lung capacity isn't going to limit you. And so you are living in fear of something in the future and robbing yourself of your current life. Your life has led you to have this very interesting philosophy around why you should spend money while you're young instead of saving for the delayed gratification. For those unfamiliar, how did you make your money? I started making money as a uh broker of commodities and then really made significant amounts of capital as a commodities trader in natural gas. And so that's where the money came from. How do you learn how to do that? How do you learn how to trade natural gas and profit from it? I I think you have to be a person that is, you know, unafraid of risk. Uh has kind of like a stoic attitude about things in order to take the losses and and the stress associated with it. I think most people have the intelligence to be a trader, but they don't have the mental fortitude to be a trader. And then you just have to want it. And so what I wanted um to shorten the story is essentially to be able to exchange uh a few hours of my time for a lot of hours of everybody else's time, right? That's what money represents is your time, right? You spend time doing something and you acquire this thing called money which is funible for other people's time, right? Their goods and services. And so I wanted to be rich, you know, I wanted to be rich. I wanted to chase the girls. I wanted to, you know, live the rockstar life, you know, that's what a a young me, you know, those those are kind of the goals, right? Like on autopilot, right, of what do I what do I think I want out of life, but I didn't want to have to choose or be frugal or not buy Starbucks. I wanted to not even care what the price was. I wanted to have enough resources to exceed my wants. And so, in that case, are you trading your own money or are you working for a firm that gives you capital and you're trading that capital and getting a percentage of the other? Both. Both. I I'm a I rent out my brain and I I get a percentage of the money that I make for other people. So some people, you know, they they they rent out their bodies, they do manual labor. Uh I I I'm a mental. But what set you apart that you were so profitable at doing this? Like why were you different than everyone else who's tried doing this and failed? I think it's a curiosity and stoicism. So the the ability to handle losses and still be able to think through things um basically gives you an edge. Um and and that's not necessarily in trading. That's in life and romantic relationships etc. When things are going wrong in romantic relation, the person that's like going crazy or things are really bad in a relationship um will have reactions that are not necessarily helpful and those things add up. and a person who's a little bit calmer will think through things, try to come to resolution, will do things that are are accreative to the relationship or or healing to the relationship. And so that's huge in any field. Um the other thing is just being very curious and dedicated to it. So you're very good at what you you guys do here. You spend a lot of time and effort. You're curious. You're you're looking at how other people do things. You're incorporating things that work. You're experimenting. You just become better at something. How did you cultivate this stoicism? Because for me right now, like it's easy to be stoic when things are good. But right now with like the tariffs and this and that and I see my portfolio, I'm like, "Oh my gosh, this is just he refuses to even open my account because I've realized that that's the best way that I can remain stoic in times like this. But if I do check it, I can notice myself getting a little bit emotionally connected to the outcome." And I know that's like for an investor not what you should want. You kind of just have a method, tried and true method. How did you cultivate this stoicism? I think one it's training uh just reading books the daily stoic looking at the quotes etc. Just kind of like repeating that but also um losing the ego losing the ego attachment to the result and learning to enjoy the ride and the process and just kind of sticking with that and being okay with being broke or looking like an idiot or looking like a fool. And so I I kind of developed that over time. You know, I was kind of trained in that as a kid and the environment I was in. And so, you just learn not to care what other people think, including yourself. And then you're just kind of detached from all this like fear. What do you mean trained as a kid? Like, how are you? I think um you know, I'm I'm an old guy, right? I I was born in ' 69. Um and I'm like post civil rights kid where the world was a lot different place growing up. And so there was overt racism like TV shows and and stuff that was going on then, right? Uh would just be completely banned or shut out right now. And when you know I say this like when people have kind of like this idea of who you are, let's say you're racist against Indians or blacks or whatever, right? You learn to know that that's not true. I can either accept that and adopt that attitude or not give a what other people think. Now little did I know at that time right that I was being trained to not give a what people think right at all right because like it doesn't matter what you do or what you say or you know I don't need to prove myself to those other people right they have their opinions and that's on them right and you you read books like uh don't take it personal that kind of quote out of the four agreements one of my favorite books of all time if anybody asked me what's the best book on trading I go the four agreements what's the best book on this the four agreements ment that is a superpower the don't give a type of people uh I don't care what other people think including yourself because a lot of the negative talk that people have comes from themselves so how did you actually go and and make changes from what you were reading though because a lot of people they face adversity like that or just adversity in general and it spins them down the negative consequence that sort of life rather than the taking it and turning it into a positive like why what made you any Nobody learns piano overnight, right? So if if if if I say, "Hey, it'll be really great if you ever play piano." You're like, "Yeah, I I really want to learn piano. This is great." And I come back the next day, I'm like, "You're banging on the piano." Like, "This is terrible." Right? Like you're not going to learn life. I come back in a week, you still haven't in a month, still haven't learned it. But if you keep at it, right, over the course of a year, you're going to be like, "Holy [ __ ] this guy can play piano and he's pretty good." And so I say that to realize that whatever behavior you're trying to acquire, whatever mindset you're trying to acquire, you're not going to learn them overnight, right? Like these habits take time and you have to stick with it. And so when you say like how do you acquire it? It's just practice, practice, practice. So despite all of your challenges and adversity, I mean Google lists your net worth at over $und00 million. And I just have to ask like are these Google estimates based in any sort of reality? Not really. I mean, you can you can influence what the estimate is. You don't you kind of don't want your your net worth out there. Is is has it been north of $100 million? Yes, it has been. Has it been, but with these tariffs recently things have been less than that? Yeah. I I mean I I get I get smashed on days just like the everybody else, right? Like it's going up and down. I'm looking I'm like, "Oh, I have to spend less this year or maybe a lot less from the next 5 years." uh you know or or I get to spend more you know over the next five years or next year you know what's interesting is in your book you say that you have to pick a time in your life where you want your net worth to be at its peak correct and then after that then your net worth should decline as you age which is completely counterintuitive to a lot of people like you should always be growing and as you're growing you can always just continue scraping a little bit more off the top what was your age that you picked that you wanted your net worth to be at it's it's right about now right about now. And so that can change, right? Because it's your biological age, right? Like at the end, like if we can just do this simply, like the day before you died, you you don't want your net worth going up, right? You want to spend everything you got. But unfortunately, your body decays. It doesn't just die, right? And so long before that, you'll be doing less things and have less use for money, right? So in terms of your net worth, was this intentional to pick right now or was this because the market was going up so rapidly that you couldn't spend? has nothing to do with market has has to do with your biological age and your body decaying. So how do you test this? This is this is one of the hardest parts like like this is reasons why it's not a strict formula. You have to understand like there are people smoking, heavily overweight, etc. at 40 who should be spending like rock stars, right? And there are people who are 5 years older than me who are like, "Hey, you you're actually still in plateau, right?" like they're running iron mans, they're they're running marathons, there's like they have the body of a 30-year-old, right? And they're able to do all the things, right? And so it's really based on like how are my knees functioning? What's my lung function? Am I do I have cardiovascular disease? What's my lung capacity? You know, what's my V2 max? Am I able to go to Paris and walk seven miles and really enjoy Paris? Or am I going to walk one mile? You know, my parents, my mom, it's like it's a lot of people have parents where it's hard to even get them on a plane for 10 hours. They don't need any money for traveling, do they? Right? Do they need that international ticket? No. Do they, you know, it so you can see the utility, their ability to convert their money into experiences or into fulfillment declines as you age, right? I'm just giving you a couple examples. And that really depends on your biological age, not just the numerical year you were born. And so a lot of that is just you know there's this whole quantified self crowd that you know optimize for health like the Gary Breers and Peter Tears and Hubman's of the world etc. You know which Peter T is my doctor you know we do all the stats etc. And I'm like okay you know I'm a bad boy yes I should be doing more cardio but given where I am this is kind of the things I'll be able to do over the course of my life and this is what the last 10 years of my life is going to look like. So based on that, how long are you expected to live for? I think I'm a 76 to 84 guy. 84 is probably what the charts would say. I've heard for anyone who's under the age of 50 now that they could live past 100 with with modern AI and medicine merging and Yeah. could. And everybody with a biology textbook could get an A in biology. But that's not how it goes, does it? You know what I mean? Like these coulds Yeah. are are or are are just like what is achievable, not what human beings do, right? It's like, oh, why why do some people get A's and ones why do some people flunk out, right? Like they just don't they're not they're out of compliance, right? They don't do their homework. They they have other priorities, etc. Well, regardless of whatever Google says, you've done really well for yourself, made a great living. When did you first become rich versus when did you start to feel rich? I felt rich before I became rich. Um, and I think it was around 25 when you know when you started feeling rich. Oh, no. Before that, like 22. As soon as I made more money than my mom, it was like the best day of my life. You felt completely Oh my gosh. You couldn't have told me. I was like, what sort of lifestyle? What sort of lifestyle? And and the funny thing is I was still living at home with my mom, not paying rent. I was just about to move out to to to the to the pizza oven that I lived in with Jason Rufo. Um, but do you think you felt richer then or now? Then I mean just the feeling of just like just the the upward trajectory, the the the rate of change in my life was just so great. And going from straight broke to like 50s something,000 a year. That's how much you made to Yeah. something 40 50 whatever the number is. I was like, "Oh, I'm a buppy." That stands for black urban professional for those people who don't know. There's yuppies and buppies. And I was just ecstatic. Ecstatic. I had extra discretionary income. I could take a girl on a date. I could pay for It was the best feeling. Um I I think it was like uh late 20s, 28, 29. I was rich, you know, millionaire. So you made millions between the ages of 22 and 29. Yes. What did you do with the money? I didn't really do much the first time. I didn't, you know, I was so uh inculcated with the hive mind culture, right? I didn't know what to do. Go to Vegas, hang out with friends, go to bars, right? like I didn't really think about what do I really want, right? I was advertised a lifestyle that I thought I wanted and I I followed that, right? And I was also very obsessed with natural gas trading back then. I golfed, I hung out with other traders, I went to Vegas, I chased girls, I did those things, you know, why natural gas over anything else you could be trading? I think um you know I I serendipitously was a peon on the New York Merkantile Exchange and the natural gas contract was just starting then and I looked into it and I was like this is the this is the future new commodity not that many people into it place where you know there was legacy crude oil all traders right like and this growing efficient fuel was the wave and I was like oh this is where I want to go and I could you know in theory make a bunch of And when did your perspective on money begin to shift? There was a book called Your Money or Your Life. You probably read it that completely changed my view of money and what money is. And so if you've read the book, you know that one of the definitions they use that they they say holds up all the time is money is something you exchange your time for, right? You change your life. So there's a lot of what I what I think are dactic exercises, very painful, but you go through them and then you have a visceral understanding of spending your time for money, right? They they ask you to count every single nickel and penny that comes into your life, then count every single hour and minute you use in order to achieve that money, right? Take the taxes out and there's your net true hourly wage. And you've done that, right? You've done that painfully for a period of time. And then after that, uh you get rid of the dollar signs and it just becomes hours. So whatever you buy is in hours or minutes of your life. And you do that for a while and you go, "Holy," you really get in touch with your values, right? See, I did that exact same thing. I must have read that book when I was 14 or 15 years old. And I started looking at every single purchase as hours of my life. But that caused me to not want anything because I would look at like a Starbucks coffee and I'd say I have to exchange 45 minutes of my life after tax to go and buy one coffee and that coffee might last me 30 minutes. So I'm spending 45 minutes for 30 minutes. That's a bad deal. But maybe I could buy a pair of shoes for one hour of my life and I get those shoes for a year. That seems like a pretty good tradeoff for like physical things that last. I went the same way as you. I went super frugal the f when I read it. Um, and the other thing is it's not it's not about the uh it's not about the the time equation like you some of the most enjoyable things in your life will only last two minutes. I'm winking at some of the guys out there. One minute. One minute. One minute. All right. So, so, so it's it's really about it's really about the yield on fulfillment, right? Like cuz I you know around that time I started thinking about like what is it all for, right? There were lots of uh you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a millionaire in lower Manhattan, right? And I'm busted at the time. And I was thinking like, well, I want to be rich before I'm 30, which I think a lot of people say that, right? And I think um in that statement is kind of this understanding that the ability of them to enjoy the money or convert into uh meaningful experiences declines as they age. Nobody says, "I want to be a millionaire by the time I'm 86." Now, when it comes to the Ice Coffee Hour, I just want to say that short form content has been one of our biggest drivers of growth on the Ice Coffee Hour. Like even this episode with Bill Perkins. We'll often clip up the most memorable moments and post them as shorts throughout Tik Tok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, you name it. 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Again, that is opus.pro/clipip-enthe future or click the link down below in the description. Seriously guys, getting clips is extremely expensive and a very long process, but you can just use OpusClip and get them done instantly for a fraction of the cost. So, I highly recommend it. Thank you so much to OpusClip for sponsoring this episode. Nobody says I want to be a millionaire by the time I'm 86 or or 72 or 73, right? It's always before I'm 30. Forbes 30 under 30 under 40, whatever, right? Some age that's below 40. And when I was walking around lower Manhattan looking at these very wealthy traders, I was like, "Yeah, but what's an extra million going to do for them? I mean, what are they going to do? Drive a nicer car, their kids to school in a nicer car? What where's the fun in that?" Right? because I'm a young 20some lyic system driving all my decisions. Like how are you going to get any more girls with that? You can't take any girls on a yacht when you got kids and you got to drive them to school, right? But aside from my goofy thought process, like I had something right and that was basically the uh the utility of money declines as you age to the individual. Like I'm not an institution. I'm not going to I'm not like the United States of America or Swiss bank. I'm not going to last 200 500 years, right? I got an 86-y year ride, maybe if I'm lucky, right? And unfortunately, that ride isn't at a consistent health. It's like, I'm going to reach uh physical maturity, mental maturity, and then I'm going to plateau and decline. And so, I'm like, holy, I got to get rich fast so I can really enjoy my life. And it's like, what's the purpose of getting rich? Like, in that all those all those questions are going on, right? And so that's when I started to think like wow at a certain point the reward goes away right obviously when you die but even before that right because like you're in a nursing home and everybody's seen they've had parents etc you know or or grandparents that are like can't really convert that money into meaningful experiences right aside from survival and so I was like holy what there then there must be a curve there must be a utility and money curve and then when you start thinking about that like wait a minute if you're going to go to work and exchange hours of your life for money and then you don't convert that money into experiences right what and experiences in the broadest sense choice choices right whether it's buying a watch or building bridges for poor people or or etc then you essentially waste your hours of your life and that's the only thing you got right and so and then to think about then there must be a derivative on this there must be a peak if I'm supposed to spend it before I die there must be a peak peak and is that peak a number? And I'm like, wait, wait, no, no, it's not a number. It doesn't matter what the number does. It doesn't matter what your net worth is. It's focused on your health and the decline rate of your health. And so your your net worth peak is not a number. It's a date, right? It has to do with your health and your age. And so that's how I came to that conclusion. Very, you know, I'm condensing it down and leaving some things out, but that's when I was like, holy, right? to be grinding out in your 70s to make more money for a party at 80 is absurd. Yeah. Right. It's easy to point it out that way with those two numbers, but it's equally as absurd. You know what we were talking about earlier what you're doing like you know when I became very frugal my boss uh you know I saved some money on like no salary and my boss called me a idiot. I was like wait what you know and I pingponged on autopilot to the other way. began spending money crazy, which is not what you want to be doing either. That's not what I'm advocating for. What I what I'm advocating for is people to think about what are the things that they're fulfill them and and what they think those experiences they want to have on their way to the grave, whether it's in your 20s, 30s, 40s, etc. Or break them down in 5 years period. See what they are, right? And then go out and pursue those. What would you say to the people who get more fulfillment from saving than spending? Let's assume they're my my very close friend because I'm at the end of the day I can't tell you I can't tell a addict that's bad for them. I mean I can tell them right but you know they're like you got a problem I don't have a problem right like you know what I mean like you have a problem with my you know what I mean that that that's the people with saving right but at the end of the day what I try and point out is like it's suboptimal like the point of saving yes there is some hydonic value to know you're doing the right thing etc but the purpose of delayed gratification indefinitely is no gratification and unfortunately your body has some has a vote and It's going to decay and you will not be able to get that gratification to the extent you can now. And so the purpose of working is the reward and the reward is not the token. The token is useless. Who gives a you care about the experiences that it's going to afford you, the life it's going to afford you. Like builders don't really give a about hammers and saws except to the fact that it helps them build houses. If they didn't, they've thrown them the away. And so imagine you had a, you know, people that are just saving money to be saving money are just collecting hammers and saws to never build a building. What if they're collecting options in terms of they're collecting the ability to have the choice to do whatever they want. I think that's great. And I think there is a place for saving, but those options expire just like you will. And not only will you expire, this time period will expire. So, it's not just the one death you have. It's the many deaths you have. The single you, the you without kids, the you with small kids, the you with kids out of the house, the you that can actually sprint, the you that will never sprint again and for the rest of your life, right? I'm just pointing out some R. There's lots of them, right? Yeah. And so in each period of your life, certain activities, choices are optimal, you know, and in certain periods they don't transfer well or they don't transfer at all. And so depending on who you are and what you want to have out of your life, when you get off autopilot, you think about what experiences I want to have in my life, then you know, you can allocate your funds correctly. You can save for the things that are, you know, you you get the spend burn ratio right. Right. But just to say I'm preserving options, like who gives a like, what option are you saving for? List them to me. Tell me what they are. To have this nebulous thing is just fear-based thinking and just trying to justify it by saying I'm saving for options. I'm like, you're full of you just haven't really done the homework about your life. You haven't really thought about what you wanted out of life and you're hiding behind this like I have a bunch of money thing to justify the laziness of not really getting off autopilot and thinking about what experiences you want to have in each period of your life, right? Like the purpose of the money, right, is for your fulfillment, right? And part of the fulfillment is planning the activity, doing the activity, and then reliving the activity and talking about the activity. Like before we got on, we were talking about your wedding and how you thought it was great. And he was saying, "Hey, you thought you could have made it better if you l loosened up a little bit, right?" And so when you talk about your wedding and it was great, etc., you're getting fulfillment from that, right? Zero cost fulfillment. How did you pay for that? You pay for it earlier when you spent the money and now you're reaping the dividends. And so if you delay gratification pretty uh far enough, you don't get that many memory dividends. You get less fulfillment, less high score, and less ability to do some of those activities. Now, this might be oddly specific, but where do you draw the line for opportunity cost if you're in an area or time of your life where you're where your time, working hours are really valuable, whereas in the future, you don't think you're going to have the same ROI as you do today. Yeah, that that's like these calculations are tough and everybody's going to have to, you know, that's why these like variables come in there. But you just want the mental model like how am I thinking about this? This is okay, I'm 25. I can take uh three ski trips when I'm 30 or one ski trip now because I'm going to give time out. Like is what is a better deal for me? Right? You might say, "Well, I'm going to be 30. I'm still physically fit, right? I don't reach uh physical maturity until 33. That's a great return and I still get many years in a memory dividend. I'm going to grind it out and have three trips later." Plus, as a young male in your 30s, the sexual power dynamics, you know, I'll be able to meet a lot more girls as a 30-year-old with my together as opposed to a 25-year-old without my together. So, you might make that decision. Um, when you're 60, you might not make that decision, saying, "Three trips at 65 versus one trip now. I don't know. My knee hurts, my back hurts. This might be my last, you know, ski trip. I might not even be able to ski." you know, the friends that are with me that I would go that actually add to that enjoyment, they might not be around. George is 70. He might be dead. You know, whatever it is, like I'm just making up these these scenarios. So, that thought process, right? Like not kind of that that autopilot like, "Oh, I'm just going to save save." Just thinking it through. And so, I think like a 25-year-old will have a lot of arguments and probably tilt towards like, "Hey, I'm going to take three trip ski trips later." And Mr. 60, 65year-old might be no. Yeah. Speaking of death, when is that something that you started to consider? Uh when did that start creeping in that all of a sudden your life isn't just going to last forever? It was it's it was kind of early. Um but more profound, you know, uh when I started thinking about like money, its purpose books like your money or life fulfillment and and kind of like where are you going to get the maximum enjoyment out of your life? Like where is most of your fulfillment going to come for your life? And so I thought it was like being aware of your death and that you're going to expire kind of like cuts through your ego, right? Like if if you're in a you're in a plane crash or like you were uh terminal disease, you know, you're going to die. You're going to have great health, but you're going to die in a year. Like it's going to cut through all the ego and you're going to live the life you really want to live, right? You're going to do the things. You're going to say that I love you. You're going to take the risk. You're going to do all the things because you're going to die in a year. Um, and so you know, you don't live each day as if it was your last. You live each day with death in mind in the future, right? The things you do now are actually influenced by the day you die. It's just a little bit more remote, right? Cuz the day before you die, you would do certain things. The two days before you would die to do certain things, a month before, a year before, etc., and so on. And so how you behave, whether you save, the risks you take, the things you do are really influenced by the day you die and the deterioration rate of your body, right? It's just an integral, right, over time. And so being aware of kind of the idea of like when you're going to die, you know, getting a range of that date and your health is extremely extremely important for you to have the courage to implement, you know, this holy I'm not going to be as rich as I was last year. I need to convert them into experiences. Like I need to live the life I want. It like kind of forces you to live and take it seriously. Like when you're on vacation and the vacation, you know, it was never going to end. You might never like when I lived in New York, I never went to the Empire State Building. I never went to all these stores unless somebody came in town because I could always do it right when I But then when I came in town, it's like, oh, they're here for a weekend. They take they they go see the things, they go to the place, they go whatever, they take full advantage of New York. Um, and so I think kind of life is that way. A lot of people think like, it's always going to be there. I'll always be able to go to Japan. I'll always be able to do X, Y, and Z. Later in life, these things are going to happen, right? and then they they let their lives pass them by. One thing that is is a bit of a taboo topic, but would you say money buys happiness? I've seen like I'd rather be crying in a Ferrari than a Civic. What do you think about that? Yeah, I I actually think it does. Um, but you need to know how to use it. You know, you have these Chuck-E-Cheese tokens, right? And you need to know how to go to the desk and exchange them for the comb or or of the doll that Chuck-E-Cheese. And it's kind of like a a joke, but what I'm trying to say is is that going back to the hammers and saws, right? It's a tool. And so I can give you all the power tools and all the things uh to build a house. But if you don't know how to use those tools, you will not build a house. And so I can give you a ton of money, right? And if you don't know how to use that tool called money to build a life of happiness, then you won't. You'll just have a bunch of money. And so what you find is when people point out examples of like money ruined this person or money didn't make them happy is generally they did not know how to use the tool. When do you feel like it starts tapering off in terms of satisfaction with money? Is there a point of diminishing returns? I think it's person specific money for all the things you want plus a little bit more. Right? So that depends on the things you want. And what happens is with money is that you discover a lifestyle and things that you want that you never knew. Like you don't come out of the womb knowing that you like chocolate and you hate onions and I like France and I don't like Thailand or whatever whatever the mix is, right? You go out in life and then you discover the things you like and you want, right? I remember when I never wanted to leave Jersey City. I thought it was the best place in the world and I never want to leave. Why would anybody leave Jersey City? Right? went out discovered like what a idiot I was. Nobody needs more than $150,000 a year. Blah blah blah. Make $250,000, have zero zero left over. You're like, "Oh, what an idiot I was. I can really use $250,000." That's even being efficient and frugal like you, right? I could still spend it. Then it becomes a million, right? And so when you say the average person, it's very easy to pick a number that's like double what they have or triple what they have or 2,000 income. Then you meet somebody that's made five making $5 million years, etc., and you're like, it's not even close, right? It it's not diminishing at the same rate, you know? And I I think it's when the person is now having capital that they'll never spend and living that life, right? You could just point it out. They don't even realize it, right? But you can just point it out. Then then we're at enough. I saw a study on CNBC that actually said that in order for people to feel rich, they need double from what they currently make. And they found that across pretty much every single income group, whether you make a 100red, you need 200. If you make 200, you need 400. 500, you need a million. That just kept going. Yeah. That they people are not finding the concept of enough, right? Like they're not in touch with what they want. And part of that, which I think is going on, is they're discovering the world, right? You don't know what it's like to be on a superyacht until you can afford to rent a superyacht. And then you're like, "Holy, I would like to be on a superyacht a lot more. You know, I need to make more money to rent superyachts, right?" And so, you know, and it's like I'm actually much happier on a superyacht than I was not on a super yacht, right? And I'm getting fulfillment out of it, etc. I didn't know I like to travel as much as I did. I didn't know I like Japan as much as I did. I didn't know I liked X, Y, and Z. And so, I think um part of that is going on, but also people just aren't having a concept enough, right? Like they, you know, there is um that is not taught here. It's not part of the culture, the concept of enough. Yeah. I think Tai Lopez was telling us that 10 million was the point of diminishing returns where everything beyond that point you start getting a little less than what you could get going from like 0 to 10. That wasn't true for me. I thought it was like what he said was a a few million single digit million. That was that was per year income. Oh, $10 million in terms of net worth net worth. Okay. Or $2 million a year was optimal if you want to do like 99% of things that you could do. That was enough to buy it. I went to Thailand and I saw people that were visibly like I felt were extremely happy and more fulfilled than I was at the time that I went that were at like fractions of income or like close to no. And I've seen scenarios where personally like I'm happy. I'm very grateful where I'm at. I live in I live in gratitude. I I can't believe the life I get to live. But I'm like, "Oh, I can convert more into more fulfillment and more happiness." And so, um, you know, I'm not going to cry if I go back to like sleeping on a couch, right? I'll be like, it sucks, but I'm going to have a great life and I'm going to get as much as I can out of this life, no matter where I'm at um, with the resources I have. But if I'm giving more resources, I'll know how to use them. I agree with with travel being a massive like opening of the third eye. Like when I It's It's interesting cuz a lot of the time that we spend now, Graham, with like our friend group and stuff like that, like we're around people that for the most part have like comfortable financial lives. And then when I went to travel in like Southeast Asia and like Manila, Philippines, and stuff like that, like I saw a completely different like way different than the United States too, like like low levels of like poverty in the United States is completely different than like low levels in Southeast Asia. And for me to see that and a lot of the times it seems like they were they were pretty content with like for me that was just like it was mindblowing. Yeah. And it completely like reshaped my entire understanding of like you know what is needed in America. Yeah. It's not it's not need like when we left the caves um we left living in a world of need. We live in a a world of want. We don't operate on a need basis. We operate on a want basis. And so a lot of the questions for us in the western world is like what do you want? What do you want your ride to look like? What do you think are the biggest mistakes that rich and poor people are making when it comes to their money? Not realizing that there whatever it is like it it's a tool for their life, for their fulfillment, right? They they're they're realizing that like if you're very poor, the first step you're trying to do is is survive, right? Like once you have survival covered, the rest is your choices. It's like what kind of ride do you want to have, right? How do you want to live your life? And so I I think a lot of people think that money is a goal and it's not. It's just one variable out of like the three macro variables, your wealth, your health, and your time, right? To drive fulfillment, right? And so I think people get that formula backwards. And what would you say are the highest ROI ways to spend your money? Although, really quick, I just want to mention that our sponsor, Notion, has helped keep us running smoothly on the iced coffee hour. We've used it for everything from guest planning, tracking sponsors, keeping our schedule organized. It is the glue that keeps us together. And now with Notion AI, it's gotten even better. So, we were honestly just really stoked when they offered to sponsor this episode. Notion AI is allin-one AI powered by your work, and all in one place. 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If you're not using it, you're behind. And it's absolutely free to try out at notion.com/iced coffee. We also have a link down below in the description. Try it there. Thank you so much to Notion for sponsoring this episode. We were just talking about that like some of the hard in terms of fulfillment the things that I found are for me anything that I'm able to do things and experience new things with friends right like most of the time like I I I joke that uh if you go to the movie yourself you're either a critic or a psychopath that's not true right like some people like to go to movies themselves but like we are wired to connect right we have whites in our eyes we can tell if somebody's looking at us from a from a far away I think a evolutionary biologist told me that like we're one of the few animals that can do that, right? All babies dance. You can go into a jungle that nobody's ever met this tribe, start playing a beat, and the baby will start dancing, right? And it's it's a it's a method to connect with each other, right? And so a lot of the fulfillment for me and a lot of other humans, I'm not saying that every single human is doing interesting things, learning things, having fun with other humans, right? Cuz we're wired to connect. And so games very cheap. You can make them up yourself. Or hikes or walking, right? costs nothing to pay to go into a state park and go see the wonders of a state park with people you love and love hanging out with and share that experience. Um you can tear up a piece of paper and play werewolves and write the rolls down and play a game right there. So that's a card game for it's a board game and you could just cut up a piece of paper and Yeah. the same thing with cards, right? Like well you can't do it with cards because the card then people will know you got the six but but cards board games things like that I think those are the highest ROIs. Uh then when you get into like money, it's like boats, boating trip, buy buying the bike tour. Like when you go into a city and you're visiting friends, get the tour with your friends. Make it a goofy tour. Wear different hats. Like those are amazing, right? Those are superersizing your trip. Like one of the um best parts of like a very expensive yacht trip with friends, etc., was like going on tour and taking the bike tour with the guides, the ebike tour. It was like this was the best day ever, you know. So now that you're at the point where I it's there's probably very few things financially that you want that you can't really afford like at that level. What are the things that you spend your money on that really give you the most amount of joy? I think I think um anything that like I think my boats so the wake surf boat. I have a wake surf boat. That's awesome. I I got addicted to wake surfing and that's got to be the highest ROI thing I've bought because you you can put 16 people on the boat. Everybody's cheering. You're having the times of your life. I I it's a memory maker in spades. Like it's memory dividends upon memory dividends and new ones coming out and people, you know, giving them that experience and teaching them how to wake surf, hanging out with my daughter's friends. It's just absurd the return on that boat, right? People look at it and be like, "That's a expensive boat." I was like, "Do you understand how many core memories I've had uh and great times and other people's had great times and connecting times that are radioactive?" Like friends meeting friends and talking on and them learning to wake surf and then doing it on their own, etc. It it's amazing. Um, how much was the boat? My boat because I I think it was like 300,000 or something like I have a very fancy boat, right? But it's like as bad as I thought. No, it's a higher RA and like even a like in St. Thomas like I was like in St. Thomas was like, "Oh, do I want to get a boat?" And I was like, "Let me get a dinghy to see how like I got a dinghy." He said, "Cruise around." And we just call them dingy dinghy days all around the islands like go to the ocean and the BVI and a dinghy or whatever. And I was like, "This is amazing." And then I bought, you know, you know, you it's one man's trash is another one's treasure. Like the boat I have that people's like, "Oh, you got a nice really nice boat." It was their tender. So I bought this Yeah. I bought this as that was like uh another guy's tender, right? It's my boat. They're like, "That's a great boat." You know what I mean? It was his tender and he's like getting a new one and I have like the most memor amazing time. You know, friends go down. I'm like, "Take my boat out. Have a great time." So, for me, th that has been, you know, an amazing amazing memory maker, amazing fulfilling times, uh, one of the best investments that that I can make that like cost money, right? But there other things like taking a hike with friends that cost no money. that are very fulfilling, that are really amazing times as well. So, if you're giving people a blueprint, where do they start? If there's like five steps that they need to do to reach this point where they truly optimize their money, first I I think the first step is like figure out the day you think you're going to die. There's actuarial tables, you can go see your doctors, etc., and your health, right? Like that is like number one, right? Like when you're going to die. And then the second thing is like whatever periods you want to break them down, five years, 10 years, etc. Break them down and write as much as you can the type of life you want to have spiritually, physically, uh, activities wise, etc. Um, what you want in those buckets, right? Like you want to have a kid, you want to see your kid go to kindergarten, you want to graduate school, you want to go to Japan, you want to learn whatever, right? Put put those in each period. The further you go out, it gets harder and harder, right? because it's hard to know what you want. You're going to discover, right? So, you have to leave some for discovery, right? I'm going to try this things. I'm going to turn try and learn French, whatever, right? And then when you discover, it's like, holy, your life can go in these past. So, you have to you have to constantly update this this thing. But that is the first first first first step, right? Is what do I want out of this ride before before we spend a nickel, before we even think about the money, what do I want out of this ride? Because you might write like on one extreme it's like all I want to do is take walks in the park visit with grandma and play chess. I'm like, "Well, quit your job. That miserable job you hate. Let's get this other job. This is the amount of money you need." Right? Like, this is the whole your money or your life. The fire, financial independence, retire early. Like, what do I really want out of life? Once you know that, right? We can start talking about spending, saving, grinding, not grinding, etc. Right? What does the arc of your life look like? You know, are you the type of person that's like, "I just want to garden, hang out, play chess and checkers with my friends." Are you like I want to travel the world and and and be on yachts etc. Is that is that fulfilling for you? You know so I think knowing who you are and what you want out of life is kind of the first step. And then after that how do you get over the fear of spending down your money. What helps me every day when I wake up and I go into my closet there's a clock that tells me the percent of of of of life I've had left. Um you can look it up online. uh there's this guy that makes these clocks and you put in your birthday and it you know it'll say like 50 70% 69% whatever wherever I'm at right and I also have your life in weeks calendar like and you mark off each week right and I think that that uh awareness of your demise and um helps you get over fears right you get really bold when you know you're going to die yeah that's one of those weird panics I get every now and then is I just think to self. Usually people believe that like your 50s is middle age, but when you look at the average life expectancy is like 78. It really occurs before the age of 40. Correct. And like really 39 is kind of like middle age. And then I have this ex existential panic. Like 2:00 in the morning, I'll wake up and be like, "Wait a second. In a few years, is it half over?" And I freak out. I'm like, "Wait a second. That can't be half over." Well, don't freak out. I mean like just take it seriously. Just realize like, wow, I have this, you know, you're young. You have a body that can trans. You have this bio suit that responds to your wants. If you want to run, it'll let you run more. You want to lift heavy things, it'll give you muscles to lift heavy more things, right? Like it will do what you want to do, right? But eventually, and also it's like it will say, I will last longer in the state for you too, right? I will carry you further because you are doing things, right? And so you're you're in a great great great spot, right? Like you got like what most Americans don't have down, the ability to optimize and get more out of every single dollar you have, right? And you're in touch with things that you value, you don't value. You're like, I don't value that Starbucks coffee, right? A lot of people are on autopilot the other way, right? That's why I've sold more books in Japan than I have in the US, right? I've sold over 500,000 books in Japan and like aund 200,000 books in in here, right? And it it's been out in Japan for far less time than it has been here, right? Because the Japanese are notorious savers, right? Like they don't have the like we're broke problem. And and you know, this book isn't just for the rich people. It's really about how do you allocate your life resources? If you have zero money, you still have a decision on whether or not you goofing off and playing cards with your friends or you go visa and hang out with grandma before she dies. Right. It's a it's a it's a book about choices. How long did it take you to write the book Die with Zero? You could say a lifetime because the ideas didn't come like, oh, I got it overnight, right? There were like events that happened in my life and I wrestled with this idea for for a long time but it took like 18 months I think from like okay I'm going to write this book to getting an outline to you know working with a writer going through it writing chapters tearing them out giving it to a friend him reading it giving feedback I'm like you're right that doesn't make sense this is too confusing going back and trying to get a book that speaks to the most people right I wanted something to save my life right and I've said this before and people like, "What the do you mean save your life?" And I'm like, "Well, listen. If he got hit by a bus, right, or whatever, and I went in and did the cardio and then mouth to mouth or whatever, all the things. He came to life like, "Oh, you saved my life." You know what's true? You know what's the most true thing about that? He's still going to die. He's 100% going to die. He's just not going to die that day, right? And so, what does he get when he doesn't die that day? Well, he gets more I love yous, more walks in the parks, more trips to Japan, more all the things he wants out of life, right? All the fulfillment that he wants out of life. He gets more to do that before his final destination. Okay? So, when I write a book that teach you about optimizing your life and having more fulfillment as opposed to wasting it away, right? I'm saving your life. I'm saving a piece of your life. I'm giving you more. The same as this in the case where I I did that for him. And so I thought about that for me and I was like I you're afraid of running out of money. I'm afraid of wasting my life. That is my number one fear is wasting this ride. How often do you not follow the rules of your book? Often. Often because autopilot I think is a default mode of humans, right? I think we become good at things in different areas and they become automatic just like driving, right? Like when you first learn how to drive it was like chaos, right? It was like I got a signal and you thought hit the signal button, check the mirror, you know, it's very like h right and park and whatever and now you're driving home, you listen on the phone, you you you don't even know how you got to where you were, right? It just becomes automatic, right? Even your job like editing a video, putting the thumbnails, right? Like at first it was hard and do I put here and then you're like cut snip snip snip whatever, right? And there's some creativity and changes, right? Anybody who does sales or etc. their job becomes easy to them becomes a routine. all all their all their activities become routine and that helps you survive right you don't walk up to a door like I say in the book and go is this a door you know round thing seems like a door you're just like door open door go right memory of a dividend right there and autopilot serving you well but that doesn't help you thrive right and so I need to be reminded by my wife by what I wrote um just really to get off autopilot and think about my decisions so that I have the most fulfilling life possible so that when I'm back on autopilot I set up the processes and systems that I have a very fulfilling ride. What's your advice to people with a low income? I mean for everybody it's the health aspect of it. Like there's no bigger single determinant in on your fulfillment than is your health, right? And those choices to be healthy, right? And you you can be healthy with low money or no money, right? You can hike, you can walk, you can avoid eating, right? Um but it it's really to think about your life the same thing to think about what choices can you make and what will be more fulfilling for you, right? It's that mindset, right? is uh you know should I spend time with my daughter reading books with my daughter or hanging out with my friends or should I be going to grandmother's house like what is going to give me the most fulfilling ride right it's not a rich person's books it's a living's person's book right this is book is about living right like you know there's lots of quotes about like most pe most people most people die in their 30s and and are buried in their 70s you know what I mean right like you just don't want to be that. And and when you travel the world, you're like, "Holy, these these poor people are living here, right? They're having a great time. They're doing things. They're they're they're happy. Uh they're having a fulfilling life, right? They're they're they're living life. And a lot of people are are rich on autopilot, saving, saving, saving, saving for another day, for another life that they're not going to have." How often do you try new experiences to see if you enjoy them? Often. I try and just like whats, you know? I I'm very much in around to find out mode. That's kind of like my my life. Like one of the best experiences I had or I discovered is like riding a train and like there's these trains that go on tours and I was like, why don't I go on a fancy ass train? You got to wear a suit or whatever to go in the dining car or just, you know, somewhat formal. And I was like, okay. Reluctantly went on this Orient Express for 3 days and turned out I loved it and discovered this whole world of riding trains across Canada. There's one my friends were on in Peru. I did one in Japan was like one of the best trips of our lives. And so I realized that it'd be a world if I knew at all and that I don't know at all. And one of the things I don't know is what I like. Yeah. What would you say are the biggest waste of money that you've personally spent on or things that you spent money on expecting fulfillment, but it ended up just being nothing? Oh, cars. Like like I I I thought like when I first got rich, I was like, "Oh, yeah. I I chopped up a Lamborghini. I had a McLaren and I kept like buying these cars thinking like I'm going to like the car and I just felt like a douche driving around in the car. I didn't like it. They were loaded ground. They couldn't handle potholes. I'm in Houston and I was just like I hate this. I really hate it. I don't like it. I feel awkward in it. Uh and it's just not me right now. Now somebody else might get value out of it, but I was just like I didn't know how to be rich for me. I knew how to be rich for what was advertised on TV, right? I was an idiot on autopilot. It's a different kind of autopilot, right? Like I was the super save everything blah blah blah guy autopilot. And I was the idiot spending money on goofy autopilot that and and the only reason why it was goofy is because it wasn't me. I didn't sit down, get in touch with myself, understand like what do I really enjoy? What do I really like? What is really fulfill? What is the car really for? So what car do you drive now? Uh I I usually Uber or something, but I have a Toyota Sequoia. The funny thing is I did buy a Ferrari Spider that I never drive just because it's such a beautiful piece of machinery and you can get enjoyment out of like looking at it and stuff. I do. I just don't drive it as much. It's It's like you know what I mean? It's It's like It's just to me it's just weird. It's just weird. I mean like if I was a race car guy or whatever, I would just drive it all the time. Like this is what I do. I drive I drive I drive fast cars, but I don't even like driving. I hate driving. What would you say are your biggest financial failures? I guess uh I tried to do this big large infrastructure project in El Salvador and California and took like a x years permitting this thing. Won a contract and then they voided the contract and the whole thing was rigged and I couldn't do it right. I learned a lot on it but vaporized a ton of money. And then movies I did movies. You did movies. Um but the movies wasn't financially that wasn't a disaster. The Bond part like back in movies that was like the biggest Could you explain the difference? I'm not familiar. So there's there's financing of movies, right? And there's there's all the structures, right? There's the equity, there's the debt, and there's a senior debt, right? And I took on uh significant position in a firm that did like the debt, right? Thinking it was safe, wiped out. But you produced movies. You funded the production. I did it. I was on the set. I grinded it. I've edited written written sides. I've done the whole thing. Like big movies. That one would be I don't know. Bad movies, but big movies and bad movies. I mean, I don't know. Have you ever heard a movie called Unthinkable? I'm not a big movie fan. Baytown Outlaws, Cat Run, Dark Under the Stars. I don't know, eight, nine movies I've done. And where do you think you went wrong on those investments? Well, the movies weren't like wrong on the investment like you know into a movie knowing you're not going to make money in the movie, right? Like if you look at the the movie business as a whole, right? Like back in the day when actually they released movies, there would be like 160 to 200 movies released per year. and like the top 50 make all the box office and no independent movie is ever in there ever ever ever ever right if it's not picked up by a major studio but there's 600 film there's there's at least 600 to a,000 films with a budget over a million that get a rating which means they intended to be released right or or sold over a million dollars a year and you're not a studio All the movies that are independent, they are in this other field trying to like sell rights in like Europe etc. and grind it out and the only people making movies in and money in the movies are the actors and and the unions helping you, you know, key grip and those guys writing on salary, right? So it was funny cuz we would be on set and uh uh some of the they would be complaining like you guys are making money. I was like I will gladly give you my points if you will work for free. You can if you guys if you guys will do all this for me, I will gladly give you all my points. What do you expect the ROI to be? Negative 33%. So why would you why would you put money in an investment that you expect to lose? Why do people do art? It's not an investment, right? Like if you're you're you passion project. This is why I tell my friends like if you're going to the movie business, you either want to go to the parties and and sleep with stars. uh you want to make a make a piece of art that's never been done, you know, or be a be a patron art or or or say something, right? Make a piece, right? Like those are there's where's your returns coming from? Because if I always tell them, if you're in it for the money, you you you're you're not going to do that. Actually, I would say if you're in it for the money, back in the day, you used to be able to go to Sony and be like, I want to invest in your slate and give them money. And they would put you in their slate and you make like an 8% return, right? they'd have a flop flop a hit or whatever because if you don't have that distribution and that power, you're done for. Interesting. Now, there there are always exceptions to the rules like if you make a horror movie where people do not care about the actors and the cast, etc. You can make a low-budget horror movie, grind it out, sell it, and be profitable and keep doing that, right? But if you're trying to be creative and I just want to make a movie about this story and this is a great idea, you're done for. So here's another thing is how do you balance enjoyment, saving, spending in different areas of time in your life like 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s. For me, when I'm considering, okay, I'm 26 years old. I can go out on a Friday night, for example. Two nights ago, I went out and got a really nice dinner with my friends. And then after that, we went to some bars like over in Las Vegas on the strip, and I stayed out until probably like 3:00 a.m., right? And now I'm like, okay, how does that affect my lifespan, right? like the amount of money that I spent like in your 20s should you be doing these sorts of things that could shorten your lifespan. Yeah. I I you know I was on Peter Atia's podcast and we talked about this and the purpose of your health is to drive your fulfillment not the other way around. And so it's not about being in maximized health. Like I don't want to be the healthiest that ever lived like uh Brian Brian Brian Johnson. Brian Johnson, right? Because why? I don't want I don't want to be in a lab like a boy in a bubble, right? In in the most shape, right? Not not not having a fulfillment. So that's an extreme example, right, of me saying that your health is a tool for you to be fulfilled. Your wealth is a tool for you to be fulfilled. Your time is your tool for you to have a fulfilling life. And so for you, uh, that time you're at your friends that you can't get back, if that was fulfilling to you, yes, you know, you'll die a minute earlier. Who cares? It's not about living the longest life. It's about having the most fulfilling life. And if you accept that, right, that axiom, then yes, there's times you should do things that are unhealthy. What about for the audience watching, they're in their 20s. Let's just start there. What are the experience that you found to maximize your 20s? I mean, every single story I tell uh aside from like personal feasts that I needed to overcome involved other friends, involved things, right? Like we scred up the people and we went on a trip here and hilarity ensues and learnings and fun and sometimes fights and disasters and whatever, but like now it's like, oh my god, remember that time, right? So, I would do so much more of that that I didn't do in my 20s, right? And you know, you think your core friend group who you're still going to love throughout the rest of your life, you get to spend all this time with them. You don't. You don't. They pair off. They have kids. They have other priorities. They chase jobs. They have other dreams, etc. And so, I would create more moments, activities, and excuses to spend time with them. I actually say that most of the things I do or the activities we have, it's just an excuse to hang out with our friends and do comedy show, a trip, boat ride. Yeah, like wake surfing, whatever, but I don't do it alone. Yeah, I like movies, but I don't watch them alone. Yeah, I like clubs, but I don't do them alone. You know what I mean? And so, I would look for more activities uh to do that. And what about in your 30s? I mean, the thing in your book that really hit is that there there are times in your life to enjoy certain activities. And there's no sense wasting time, let's just say hypothetically, in your 20s going on a train when your 20s could be spent hiking up a mountain that you can't do in your 60s, right? I think there's a balance. I don't think it's zero of that, right? Like, but you know what you want to what you want to do is is like if if you're forced into a decision, right, point between a more athletic and physically demanding activity versus a more uh sedentary type activity, you want to shift those more athletic activities to your 20s and 30s and and and early 40s and the more sedentary activities to later in life, right? If you're trying to get the high score, right? Because just think about it was a video game like and and and we got fulfillment points for activities and we laid them out there, right? If you have your character, right, and this character has this decay curve, right? If you have your character uh trying to do all the physical activities later in life, like, you know what I mean? Then you're not going to get to do them all and you're not going to get the high score, right? Like you'd reverse them, right? And you'd be able to do all them all and you get the high score, right? And so life is like Tetris, you know, you kind of got to get the order right. It's the same thing with activities in your life, right? Like if you delay hiking Kilamanjaro to your 80s and hella skiing and all and you know walking all these cities, right? Like until you're later in life, um you're probably not going to get the high score, right? There's a kind of that meme that uh floats around about the couples asleep in the gondola. Have you ever seen that one? No, I haven't. Look it up on the internet. There's like this older couple asleep and it's like reasons why you should travel when you're young. One thing that's a little bit harder of a conversation is if you're younger, let's say in your 20s, maybe early 30s, something like that, or even late teens, and you're working a job, and maybe you can save, you know, $500, $1,000 if you're lucky at the end of every month, like most people out there, like it's it's hard to have a big financial cushion. Maybe even it's just like a couple hundred bucks, right? How do you justify then spending that money on experiences and activities rather than putting that in something like a Roth IRA or cutting out on certain experiences and activities to then be able to at least have some sort of like minimum financial standard? How do you how do you draw the line on that? Well, I I think it you know in each individual uh person they're going to have a certain um financial trajectory. Are they going to be making more money in the future or less? Are they going to be making the same? For those who are going to be make more money in the future, it's a no-brainer. The experience is you can have higher have a higher return on fulfillment than the 8% 10% return you're getting in a Roth RA. And on top of that, you are taking from your poor self and giving it to your future rich self. So, it's just completely backwards, right? For those who are going to have steady or declining income, then you know we are bumping up against survival and we need to save money for survival. So, it's really a question of where are we on the survival curve and is our income going to be growing um outside of savings, right? So, you just have to consider your job. Is it scalable? Do you think that your income is going to be going up over time? You have to have an honest conversation with yourself if you think that you have the skills and wherewithal to be able to make more money when you're older. Correct. And, you know, there, you know, I don't get into like the making money and earning money, but there's like there's side hustles. There's all kinds of ways. Like one thing I realized like for those who are like have uh you know average intelligence and lots of hustle. There's so many ways to make money. Well, really quick fun story here, but when Jack and I first started the Ice Coffee Hour, we had to figure out everything ourselves from the best cameras to use, how to edit, how to pick our guests, tracking sponsors, you name it. Every single day was a new challenge. That is why if you're starting a business, you know exactly how relevant today's sponsor is, and that would be Shopify. Shopify is basically your all-in-one business partner. They power millions of businesses worldwide. From major brands like Mattel and Gym Shark to entrepreneurs just getting started. And here's a fun fact. 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We've had several people on this podcast that have become millionaires because of their Shopify store. So, it's a $1 per month trial. You can change your life forever at shopify.com/ic all lowercase. There's also a link down below in the description. Thank you so much to Shopify for sponsoring this episode. One thing I realized like for those who are like have uh you know average intelligence and lots of hustle, there's so many ways to make money. Do you think that applies to the average person? because I I realize where we're sitting right now and for those that aren't aware, this is Caleb Hammer's studio and all the time he has people on this side of the desk that have blown thousands of dollars on trips or experiences and they're going into credit card debt because they spent all of their money and then their car broke down. We're not saying be foolish, right? Like I mean so where do you draw the line? I mean like you you want to you want to consider these things, right? Like I I there there is a line, right? Right? Like I've been on both sides, right? I've been on the super frugal and I've been like, I have no money. Like I have I literally have no money and I have credit card debt and I make an obscene amount of money, right, at for for my age at the time. Um, but what we want to do is thinking like what are the fulfilling things I can do within my budget and what is my future income look like, right? And for each person that's going to be different. Am I a, you know, am I eventually gonna hit a home run type of guy or am I a guy that's like, I'm gonna have a safe job and this is it and this is my income and what I save is going to have to sustain me for the rest of my life, right? And there all kinds of different people with different type of risk appetites with different types of opportunity sets. It it made me think back to something I haven't thought about in probably 15 years or so. I I was 11ish around this time. And I remember so envious I went to I went to Chase Bank, right? Or or Washington Mutual, whatever it was back at the time, a long time ago. And I deposited I think it was like 50 or so bucks, right? Uh because it was like my birthday money or something. And then I looked at the amount of money I had on my my savings account and my brother went with me. I mean, it was Christmas cuz we both went together and my balance was like $400. I was lucky like like my parents, they you know, I'd get some money and stuff for birthday and Christmas. So, I had like 400 bucks by like 11 or something like that. And then my brother had 700 and he's 2 and 1/2 years older than me. And I was like, "Wow, like if I save my birthday and my Christmas money in 2 and 1/2 years, I'll have $700, right?" You know, but I also remember like there were games that I wanted. Pokemon had came out and like I wanted to buy Pokemon, but it's like 50 bucks and like all my friends had it and I became very frugal because I saw my brother was very frugal and he was able to save $300. Um, and now I think like wow, like $300 like like obviously that's a sizable chunk of change. You could still do some really cool things with that, but like the amount that it means to me now versus the amount that it meant to me when I was 11 or 12 is just like incomparable, right? So you have a you have like Yeah. and and and now I like I try to apply that between now and you know wherever my future is at while obviously remaining you know like I would say conscious and like accurate hopefully. Um, but yeah, it's it's it's completely I don't know what the right answer is for you, but if you are thinking about it and you're modeling it out, you are closer to an optimal life than just autopiling it, right? Like you were taught a very good skill and something to have in your toolkit, which is saving at a young age, but you remember at the expense of a fulfilling childhood. Like buying a bike would be much better for you than that 400 bucks. Like who gives a you can't remember 400 bucks, right? If you had a bike, you would remember all those times biking around with your friends and all the memories you have and that's what you'd be talking about instead of this like I had 400 bucks saved in a bank useless story that you have right now, right? The skill is useful, but the the the fulfillment and the memory divisions are completely missing at that age, right? And so what you don't want to have happen is that it happen now and but at the same time being mindful of like I don't want to be busted, right? The the trick is to be mindful, but it's hard because like you say, it's developing the skill of saving or like developing the anti-skll of just spending all of your money and getting stuck on this like hedonistic pursuit of life. The skill is living. The skill we want is living. We want to thrive, right? And what thrive means to each individual person is different, right? So, I don't give a [ __ ] about saving. I don't give a [ __ ] about spending. I care about fulfillment and thriving. Those are just tools for the big F, the big fulfillment, right? My health, my wealth, my time, all my decisions, right? It's all from my fulfillment. And then the the hardest question, which I don't write about in the book, is well, what what is fulfilling? I'm like, I don't know. That's up to you, right? Like there's tons of books on like how to live a fulfilling life and you can believe one or whatever according to your values, your religion, whatever whatever whatever belief system you have. like you kind of have an idea what your fulfillment is but like you need to get off autopilot and think about that what that means in each period of your life but saving spending I don't give a fulfillment what do you think is more dangerous overspending or underspending from my fear point um it's it's underspending because the the thing I'm worried about is wasting my life because if I think for for particularly you guys right like you have no risk if I take all your money away from you guys now. You're you're going to make it back, right? You're going to go get a job. You'll have a well-paying job. You're going to have a great life. I could vaporize your money right now and you're still going to have a successful life. You have zero risk. Zero. You guys are intelligent people with great skill sets, right? Uh subjectverb agreement. You know, you think through things. You are blessed with mental acuity. You have zero risk. zero. It's so funny. I see us have a lot of risk. I know. You live in fear. Yeah. You you there's mon opposite of that. You're monsters under the bed type of guy. You know what I mean? You have monsters under bed. But like I look at you guys, I'm like these guys I was I was even telling Jack I'm like, you know, Jack, we should prepare for like the podcast maybe not doing as well because of of what's happening in the markets. And I'm like the last time these have happened like we ended up losing out on quite a few contracts. It might happen. It might happen. You might lose it all. I'm just saying you're going to be fine. I'll come to you in 10 years and I'll be like did it matter? like, "No, we we figured this out. I got a job here. I got whatever." Like, you're you're easily to employ and you're also easy to start another business. Whichever whichever path you choose, the safe route working for somebody else or the wild adventurous side of an entrepreneur. And I think entrepreneurs like, "Holy, I can die. I could die. I could die." The business can die. You won't. In fairness, here's a here's another thing is that some people just have differences in terms of where they get their enjoyment from in terms of expense. Like Graham, the things that he likes in his life tend to be a little bit more on the pricey side. Like he wanted an aquarium and kudos to him for doing this, but he spent a lot of money on this aquarium. He wants experiences. For example, once again, not trying to say the group, but like he took this group out, the index, on this very lavish 40 grand. Yeah. He dropped he dropped 40 grand for two days on this on this group that he has. And for him, like that is like what he wants to be doing. for me pickle ball and the cost is maybe $300 a year and that like like so it's easier for me to have you know I I don't see money and happiness in the same sort of thing whereas other people they they their money is directly tied to their like some people are also more materialistic like Graham genuinely does get happiness like the guy that has that nice cars in the group like having nice cars and having nice watches and this and that I would say to a certain degree I like collecting things I'm a collector so you have zero 000 zero risk. Like you should be taking maximum risk, right? Like he has like a little bit of risk, but like at what what you're young, you're still going to discover things that you like. You you didn't know pickle ball existed four years ago. True. Right. So now you're like, it's pickle ball, right? But four years from now, it's going to be the other thing, right? It's always going to be pick. He's like, no, it's pickle ball. I love her. She is my best. It's always going to be pickle ball. But you're going to discover other things that you like. Maybe pickle ball will always be number one, right? But there will be other things that drive your fulfillment just like he will as well cuz life is discovery. And the more you live it, the more you'll discover and the more you learn. It's a very sad sad sad world if you discovered it all. So to be intentional about how you should be spending your resources, time, money, etc. mental energy. What do you think? You just read certain books? Do you meditate? Do you write down and just sit and like I think what we went over like what are the first steps is like be aware what you die. Break your life off into periods. I call them time bucketing, right? And then think about the experiences you want. But realize like you are going to discover what you like. Like you didn't know your wife at one point, right? Or your girlfriend or pickle ball or whatever. Like you discovered these things and realize like that is life, right? Life is going to be discovery. And you're and I think like uh you know my belief is is having a fulfilling life is continual discovery. And so you're going to be out there. You didn't know you wanted to do a podcast. You didn't know you wanted to have this guest. you didn't know you like the book Die with Zero. Do you like it? I hope you like it. Anyway, like you know, so like just remember that like that is what's going to be driving it. Like there's a there's a um you ever hear the thing like would you rather be the king of England in 15 something or or like lower middle class or poor today, right? And I think the answer is obvious uh you know poor today, right? And people cite reasons, different reasons, right? But I think one of the main reasons is the speed of travel. The average poor person could live the entire life of the king in 2 months, right? They could take a bus to Florida and you know what I mean? They could probably buy a Super Saver ticket on Southwest and go, you know, uh have an adventure and go around, which would take a lifetime for a king, right? and on the way he did this and oh he went to this concert and he did that and he saw a show and whatever. King can do that, right? Aside from that he had straw for toile the paper and would die of like simple things or whatever. Forget all that. Just the speed of travel which allows you to move through this world and experience more, right? Allows you to condense more, right? What period of time in your life has been the best so far? Now. It's always now. But um I think you know I was the good old days like I I think um courting my current wife and and and and um the engagement and and and my daughters, you know, now one just turned 21, one just turned 18. Um it seems like it's the best time, right? But I've been grateful for every period. Like sometimes I'll go back and like oh those were the greatest times in high school hang etc. like like being busted in New York City trying to make it was like an amazing time in my life. But it was a different it was filled with activities that were meant for that period that don't really transfer like running around and spending money and being broke and trying to make it in New York City and chasing girls don't fit into this time period of my life. But it was a great time. It was a great time being young and single in New York. Right. And how do you balance this book with raising your daughters and making sure they don't grow up spoiled, but they appreciate the work and sacrifice that went into this, but also enjoying life? It's the same thing. Like my message, the the physics that govern my body are the same physics that govern my my daughter's body, right? Like they will grow, they will reach mental maturity, uh calculation power at 28, they will reach uh physical maturity at 33, they will plateau and decline. And so, you know, I I want them to go out and um what resources they have, their health, wealth, and time, right? And whatever resources I will give them, right, which would be part of their wealth to use that to drive their fulfillment. You know, my goal is to give them the value system and the answers to help them navigate the world and then to let them go out and make their own mistakes, right? Like, I've made millions and millions of mistakes. I will continue to do that. I'm a mistake making machine, but that's part of the ride. Do you think there's an amount of money that you could give them that might stifle some of their creativity? And yes, 100%. Okay. Uh it's funny because I um I was talking to a friend. It kind of shifted my view a little bit. He's like, "Look, uh our kids, you know, they want an iPad, they get an iPad, you know, they they they they we didn't have iPad. You know, even if we were wealth, like we we necessity was was part and and struggle was part of the ingredients that made us, right? It wasn't like the only ingredient, but it was part of the ingredient. And they are missing in many ways, not completely, that ingredient, right? That that gave us like whatever advantage, right? This some advantage. And so, you know, my friend is like, you have to pay for that. You have to cover that because you robbed them of the struggle, right? And you don't mean to rob them, but like if you made it like you don't want to like it's like, "Oh, I don't want to live a busted life. What was the purpose of making like I could have I could have lived a simpler life." And I could have made that choice. I could have said, "You know what? Live on a farm. We're going to grow our own potatoes. We're going to live a simple life or whatever." And my kids would be like, "Okay, I have this grit and necessity. And if I want an iPad, I got to go hustle. And then if I want these things, I got to go hustle." and they would have that as part of their, you know, repertoire at a greater greater index than what they have now and they can go out and make it and I've robbed them of that because I didn't want to go live on a farm. You know, I'm using extreme examples, right? But you get the idea. And so if I keep giving them money, I would completely they would lose it all, right? You know what I mean? They would lose it completely, right? Like not have that necessity. And I think it's it's it's part of the ingredient of of of of navigating the world. And how how do you balance giving to your children versus giving to yourself? I pick an amount that I'm going to give them. I don't know what the like in the book I talk about when you should be giving um the inheritance to the kids and not make it a bequest, which is absurd, but not the amount, right? It could be zero. It could be a zillion dollars. I think that's very personal. But for me, the thing is is you need to come up with a number so you're not just using that excuse of, "Oh, it's just going to go to my kids when I die and they're 60, which is absurd. It's just an absurd thing. They're not they're not kids then, right? Like more than twothirds of their life has passed them by, right? And and their ability to enjoy that money has declined, etc. You're giving them money at the the the wrong wrong time. And it's completely not thought out. It's not deliberate. It's random. It's silly. What you should do is figure out what you want to give them and then spend all your money down till you die. And then they have their money. It's protected. You you you get sued. You know what I mean? It's it doesn't take that money. You you you know, you do something stupid and you lose all your money. Their money is protected. It's separate. It's their money. Doesn't mean they get to go spend it when they're 19 or 20. It's in a trust and it turns over to them when it turns over to them, right? And if you don't have all the money made, you just get put money in yearly until it gets there, right? If there's some uncertainty, but there's ways to do it. But the whole book is about living off autopilot and being deliberate and thinking these things through not just be like, "Oh, when I die my money will go to my kids." Right? That worked when you know a couple hundred years ago where you were a farmer, your kids were a farmer, they're going to be kids were going to be a farmer, etc. Right? So like you died, they take over the farm and they do the same thing and he takes over farm or he's a blacksmith, my son's a blacksmith, they'll always be a blacksmith. We're the smiths, right? Like that's not how it works nowadays, right? You know, you don't just turn over the family enterprise and that's what they do. Now, since you wrote the book, is there anything that has changed your perspective or that you would change about the book if you had the power to snap your fingers and edit it? No, I've never been like I've done I think over 54 podcasts. I've done a couple talks. I don't like to do talks and in the beginning like they want you to go around do all talks. Um nothing I've been stumped. I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I should change this, you know, this principle." Like I think it's like very axiomatic. It's not like new. It's full life cycle hypothesis like laid out, right? Like have you guys heard of that? It's essentially income smoothing about like basically you know taking from your richer self in the future and giving to you now so that you have a more fulfilling life etc. Uh two guys I think they won a prize for it. Um so you can look it up but um what is the life cycle hypothesis? It's essentially it's it's basically income smoothing like when you're in your poorer self right now you should be going to somewhat in debt. Okay. because your income is going to grow and you're going to be able to extinguish it in order to get the experiences you want to have now. So it's exactly it's essentially what your yeah like it's like I didn't know about full life cycle hypothesis. I learned about it when I hired an economist when I wanted to make this program and I was like holy it's like you to me it was like a sign that like I am thinking about this life problem correctly right like if if people discover the laws of physics right they didn't they didn't invent them right like you just you discover a truth right and so I I discovered a truth I think you know I have friends that are like we want the 600page version of this we want like I didn't want to write it like a cookbook like do this do that do this do that like it's it's modeled a lot on um your money or life where there's like exercises at the end or like suggestions at the end. So there's a couple suggestions at the end, but whenever I go give a talk, they're like, I want the cookbook. You know what I mean? I want more examples of how to do this, right? I want more examples to how to spend my money or how to save. I want more examples of annuities and things or how they work. I want more examples of granted annuity trusts or or ways to transfer your money. like a 600page version will give people like kind of like what to do but I I didn't think most of the value is getting the concept right it's like just getting the concept right once you get force equals mv² right then you do all kinds of wonderful things right once you get E= MC² you get satellites that get the timing right and all these other kind of things so it's like really about getting the formula right and the concepts right and then people can apply them individually as they see fit. So where do you invest your own money? I am not an example. Like I I tell this people like I I futures and I'm not a role model. I think I can be an inspiration, right? I make way too many mistakes to be a role model. Like do not live my life. You are but I think I can be an inspiration. You know what I mean? I think I can be inspiring. And so you know I take maximum risk, right? Like a lot most of my money is either tied up in my fund, right? or or the the things I have at I have a lot of private placement too. Like I probably have way too much money in venture capital and private placement, right? Like cuz now I'm like you say like I'm going to lick it. Like what if I want to go here? I don't I can't get the cash, right? And so um that's generally where it is. And now I've actually put a needle scratch to all that because of my age. A lot of friends are like, "Oh yeah, you're going to make money in 10 years." I'm like, "10 years?" Yeah. Trying to have a party now. So, do you have this cash on the side that you're like, "This is my money that I don't touch that is there for a rainy day if I absolutely need it just in case?" I used to. I don't because I have houses and assets that I can liquidate in a fire sale. And even if it's half, it's like I'm okay, right? I'm quite okay and quite planning to have a lot less money. Not right now, but like if it happens, it happens. I'm not ego attached to it. It seems like this has been something that has been you for decades though. I mean just to be able to trade. Yes. Like I've been trading like that and take on that risk. I think your risk tolerance is probably 10 times higher than mine. Yeah. It's it's very high. I And you know one of the one of the things people say like what what would you say to somebody in their 20s or 30s like what what advice do you give to them? I I say in every area of your life take the most risk you can possibly stand and then add a little bit more. So, I guess here's my philosophy. I feel like you could take a ton of risk when it comes to your time and career, but then when it comes to your money and investments, you could play it safe there. And so, that's like maybe a good balance where like, yeah, I mean, go gung-ho on like making as much money as you can, but then once you have it, I would say take all that money and invest it in yourself. Go start the business that you have inside your head. That's the riskiest thing you could probably do, right? That's going to give you the most yield. I'd say the savings. But that's just me. Remember, that's just me. You can always go get a job. So you're not going to be broke. You will never be broke and he will never be broke because you can always go get a job. So what's the safety for? Do you have any advice for people who want to start their own business? Make sure you're the type of guy that can be an entrepreneur and take the risk. I think a lot of people it's romanticized a lot and not everybody is cut out to do that. Maybe you're the guy that needs to get paid first, right? Not the entrepreneur that's dipping into a savings to pay the employees and and do the vision, etc. that hold it and like do your best. Like a lot of people think an idea is is the thing and it's actually the execution. I'm sure you're very well very well aware of that, right? Like podcast sounds like a great idea, but people don't realize like how much work goes into editing, getting the thumbnails, getting the guests, coordinating with the guest, running around, you know, dealing with sponsors, you know, not being too commercial so people turn out. Like there's so much that goes into making this podcast entertaining and running it as a business than just like I got a great idea, right? And so make sure you're that type of person and that you can take that risk that how do you know if you're that type of person? Yeah, I mean you can develop it like you know are you the type of person that's okay going bust for a bit or having to go back to work? You know, I always like people like yourself that are like you can easily get a 50 60 70 80 100,000 $200,000 a year job. Like you have no risk. There's no real financial risk. You only have ego risk. You know, it seems like the common thread between everything you're saying is just being hyper intentional. Yes. About everything. You got the book. You got the book. The book is about being intentional. Living an intentional life. And there's a lot of other books out there that come at it from a different angle, right? They talk about different things about intentionality, being aware, being conscious, living a conscious life. But that is the whole book in a nutshell. What have you learned from Dan Bulzerian? I've learned that I don't want to be too famous. That's one of the reasons why I don't like somebody's like, "You should TED talk." I was like, "No way. While I do a TED talk, I I wanted to do a TED talk and originally, but like I don't want to be famous. I don't want to be too famous." Right? Like you want to be like Zle famous. You get a nod, a little dopamine hit, you're you're legitimized, but like you can be anonymous. Like you can walk around like one in 300 people recognize you, right? What's the risk with being too famous for the life I want to live? It robs you of your life. I would completely lose because you cannot enjoy life. Like you cannot when you are famous like it's constant people coming up to you wanting a picture, wanting to talk to you, trying to force a conversation to connect with you. They're not bad people, right? But like they get to see somebody's famous and they want to take a picture. Like when else are they going to bump into you and they want to have a conversation about somehow you're connected or how they know you and you're robbed constantly like you're in a bubble. You have security and you can't go anywhere and you can't do things and like I like to travel to Europe and walk around the shops and meet the people and not be known and it's a great great life of discovery. But like if I was famous, it's gone in a heartbeat and then I have too much money cuz I can't spend it on the things I like doing. And then you have to worry about people who are you just we're hurt animals, right? Like we get fame brain so people act different around you and you can't have authentic connections with new people because the fame is always in the way, you know? And so it's a it's really really bad. The only thing fame gets you is uh sex with the opposite. So, if you're a famous woman or a famous man, you can have all the sex you want with all types of people. What else did you learn from Dan? Kind of uh the the idea of what is um what is more powerful as a as a sexual attractant, whether it's fame or money. And we always knew it was fame, not money, right? You always know like the broke drummer in the band is going to get way more laid than the rich guy, right? This guy's not even getting in the club cuz he's not cool, right? He's got to buy his way in if if he can. But we didn't realize like it was a hundred times more powerful or a thousand times more powerful. It is way way way way more powerful than anything. We had Greg Ducet on and not that he's like a love guru or anything, but he said he read a study that what was it? $30,000 in income every increment up $30,000 is the equivalent of one extra inch on your height. And he says that height is like super important. That's what he said. Yeah. I I think I think for the average person uh non-f famousamous uh height matters. Dan's short, right? But he's famous. It doesn't matter. I don't care how tall you are. You'd be 6' three, trust fund, whatever. The famous guy wins. Prince was short. He everybody, guys and girls, I'd be curious to see like like these guys are short. Like the most actors that you see that are like, you know, people are screaming at and girls are throwing their bras at, they're short. Doesn't work well. Tom Cruz is short. You know, I'd be curious to see the correlation between one inch of height and 10,000 followers. And just see like where the optimal is because I'm sure being 6'2 is equivalent to like Yeah. for the average person that's out there, just overall there's got to be some sort of height. A comedian said this and I'm I'm going to steal it, but he's like, "Height is to guys what titties are to women. Height is just titties." You know what I mean? It's male. It's like, you know, like it's like, "Oh, wow. He's got nice tits. Like, it's an attractor, right?" Like, and so like, you know, I I I don't know. Like those those things matter. Um, but you know, the experiment that Dan ran was what does fame do for you, right? like in the in the pursuit of getting famous in order to to to to get women in that hydonic treadmill, fame is extremely powerful and it taught me that I don't want to be famous. Like I I was wanted to go that route and then I was like, "Oh, no, no, no, no, no." So for the people who come up to you and recognize you, what are some of the most impactful stories that you've heard from people who have read your book and changed their Yeah. Like originally it was like, "Oh, because I'm a trader, like people knew me from natural gas and trading, like very small niche." And then it was poker cuz I play poker on TV and the movies etc. And then then recently it's all been like you're Bill Poker and you wrote the book Die with Zero. Um I get a lot of stories about how people have completely needle scratched their life and woken up and now they're pursuing their life. And so it could be time of like now I spend time with my family or I take my whole family on this trip or now we're doing this. You know I'm I'm I haven't been living and now I'm living. But it's some version of they were on autopilot and now they're not. Right. And it's it's an amazing it's it's a great feeling. Like it's overwhelming though. It's a little bit because it's like oh I can't you know what I mean? Like one of those guys that can't take little me. No, I just can't take it. It's like it was this was a side project, right? This was like a side thing like [ __ ] it. It was like a side quest. Yeah, it was definitely a It was a side quest. Like I'm going to write this book. I'm going to save my life. Like the doctor's like you need to write a book. I'm finally going to write a book. I've been talking forever. It's time to back it up. you know, went through the grilling process, wrote the book. I really wanted to get out there, but now I'm like, "Holy, it's out there." You know what I mean? It's coming back. Ever had someone come up to you and say, "Hey, man. I I spent too much money." Never. Never in my life. I mean, I get I get I mean, I get the in the the beggars on Instagram like, "I went broke gambling or whatever or something like that, but never was like, I read my book, your book, and because it's not about spending all your money like an idiot." You know what I mean? It's about having the most fulfilling life. Like the title is catching, right? It's supposed to catch you in an airport. It's like what the does he mean die with zero. This is you know read the book. Holy. It's not it's not what it says it right. Like so the book is about, you know, if I wanted to have like a kind of like I don't know what is the the own network type title, you know what I mean? It would be like uh have the most fulfilling life, you know what I mean? Get the most fulfilling life or fulfillment it's for you or something [ __ ] like that, right? And I'm like, "No, let's stick with the with the axiomatic principle is that you should uh use all your resources up before you die." I'm in a lot of financial independence groups and your book is the only one that's consistently mentioned probably on a daily basis. Yeah, like the fire guys like there there was a Mr. Money Mustache, right? Like he's one of the guys who read the book and like kind of shifted and you know they they always like have this like allergic reaction at first to the book, right? because they're baptized in fire like I was baptized in fire and like I just tell them like what happens to the principal whatever you know they're always like I'm going to spend 3% of my I'm like what happens to the principal so whatever you have of the principal right like whether it's a million 500,000 whatever take the hours of your life that it took to build up that principle that's a waste you have to spend down the principal the principal has to go too and they're always like h you know what I mean they freak out right uh because they've been they're they have this religious belief about this 3% 4% whatever rule they are that keeps them safe and living that life and I'm like the goal is fulfillment not to have a nest egg the goal is not the money the goal is fulfillment and the only way to use all up all your resources is to spend all the money have great health and be live in a conscious be conscious about your life in terms of being healthy what have you found to be the the best ROI activities a gym membership is it food no um it's walking and hiking by far because it's free. Um, you actually enjoy it with friends. You can do it with a group like let's go hike. People go in California run canyon. Let's go hike all these trails around here. You experience nature. You're actually having an experience like a fulfilling experience while also improving your health. Yeah. And you know like all the doctors like sitting is death. You know people like this gym or that gym. I'm just saying free activity and you know running and walking if walking three miles and running uh three miles is almost the same thing, right? it it's the same amount of energy, right? Except for running is inefficient from going up and down. So it's like 10% more or whatever or how inefficiently you run 10 or 15. So walking, running, it's just a physics equation, right? And so you're creating a memory, having a fulfilling time, and preparing yourself for future enjoyment by by getting yourself in shape and your lung capacity, right? Then you know, calisthenics and all these other things like that. And so, um, I think those are that is a very very very high ROI is hiking. What's your skinincare routine? I don't have I mean, I just wash it and then I put some like very very young. Oh, that's very Well, I I think I've been told this I I think one I have I have good genetics. I think I'm I'm just lucky. Uh, two though I don't smoke. I don't really drink that much. I'm a vegetarian. So, I think these things matter, right? And then so like if you're out there smoking, you're up late at night and you're drinking and it's and then you just hydrate your face and then you should be okay. Do you have like wear sunscreen because you you have no wrinkles? It's like I have I have some wrinkles here, you know, do this whatever but like just hydrate your face. Just like get some vitamin E oil, put it on in the morning and you be you're fine. Like Botox 10,000 like nothing. You get you get the Botox. You get the Botox up here. But I still got it right there. But like if you But you get the oil, man. Just get the oil. Don't smoke. Do you smoke? No. Do you drink a lot? Rarely. Okay. Just do. And then just like, you know, eat might have one drink a month. I mean, that's it. Eat right. Exercise. You know, eating, diet, there's there's you can't really like as you get older, like unless you're Olympic athlete, you can't you can't outdo your your diet, right? It's like 80 85% of it. Like you just can't do it. Like if you're eating a bunch of chemicals, it's going to get you. It's going to pierce through your skin. It's going to your liver. It's going to, you know, it's going to your metabolism. Like when you're young, yeah, you can you can but eventually it catches up. Do you have any questions for us or any comments? Yeah. Like why did you start this podcast? Well, this was really the the brainchild of Jack back in 2020. My theory is that he saw that Joe Rogan sold his podcast exclusivity to Spotify. And he came to me, he's like, "Dude, we got to start a podcast." And this was May of 2020. And I said, "Sure, let's give it a shot." Is that is that what happened, Jack? No, that is not what happened. But it was it was funny because we it was like nearly exactly after he sold his podcast is when we first uploaded our video and like we were a you know Graham was a finance channel and so the top comment was like Graham Stefen sees Joe Rogan sells podcast for 100 million starts a podcast. But but in this case um no it's because I watched a lot of podcasts or I listened to a lot of podcasts throughout the day. I'd go on a walk and and just binge that type of stuff. And I figured that Graham could connect with his audience better if he had a more candid uh conversation like because the the content he was putting out online was all heavily scripted and and planned. But I thought he could cultivate a stronger connection with his audience if it was more just kind of impromptu. And we always had kind of funny random banter and people were also aware of my existence even though I wasn't publicly facing just cuz Graham would randomly bring me up. I'm like, "Oh, maybe we can try this out." What's the number one activities or activity or activities you want to have in your 20s? I want to travel a lot. That's that's the only thing is I I went on my first ever like real vacation maybe a year and some change ago. And it like I felt like I had finally experienced a a sort of happiness and fulfillment that I just didn't even know existed. And this was like my first, I would say, awakening because I I never it words can't describe how like how happy I was for like two weeks straight just traveling with my best friend like going all around. And your pictures of the choir. I get it. And uh and then since then I'm just like, "Wow, I I want to do that more, you know?" And I think that every time I go on a little trip, like it's going to get I'm not going to enjoy it as much as that first time, but like every single time I get out of and and and have a purely personal vacation, it's it's incredible. Well, you know the saying, travel is the only thing you can spend money on that makes you richer. That's awesome. Yeah. What about you? I would say Japan was definitely a really fun experience. I want to do that again. But I don't know. Part part of me because I was thinking through as you were saying that like I some of my best days are when I just lock myself in the office and just crank out a video. And it's one of those times where it's like you get in a flow state and just you lose track of time and you're so in it and then at the end of the day you have like a finished product that I'm really proud of and then it's fun to put it out there and to see how it does and get like the immediate feedback. So some of my like favorite days are just like being able to have the opportunity to do that also. Yeah. But then I also sometimes don't know if that's because I love the creation process and being in the zone or if I'm conditioned to feel good about being productive and working. Yeah, that's a that's a good point because I think like a lot of people get habituated Yeah. uh into you know let's say you're selling plastics and you're like you get good at selling plastics and then all of a sudden you're like I love selling plastics and it's like did I just get inceptioned and habituated to be a rat in a wheel selling plastics and thinking I love selling plastics at the expense of the rest of the I don't know people people enjoy what they're good at and that's kind of just like a natural human thing if you're good at something it usually ends up being fun to you but then what happens is that you believe that that is the thing Yes. I always love having something to do and there was a this is about a year ago. I painted the entire garage and and the garage is like 20 feet tall. It's like a big garage and I spent all weekend. I'm probably talking maybe like 18 hours, maybe 20 hours painting this garage. I loved it. But I also don't know if I like just being busy and and feeling like I'm doing stuff. You can do some great travel charity work. You would love that. Do you like Doctors Without Borders or you know doing some charity work where you're like busy and doing something and fulfilling? I think you might like it. But but my other thing is that I like having the ability to stop at any point and just return to whatever I was doing. So it's like freedom freedom and creativity. Yeah. So if I had the ability to like Yeah. go across the country, but I could snap my fingers and be back in a in a heartbeat, I would do it. Like, so I I like having that freedom of just I wake up in the morning and I just say, "I want to do this or I want to do this." And that's and that's some of the hard thing with even traveling on the podcast. Sometimes I'm like, "Yes, I really want to travel." And other days I'm like, I just don't feel like it. So, it's hard to lock myself in 6 months from now because I don't know how I'm going to feel. Where do you think you got this fear from? What do you think is driving your fear? I think I just naturally always kind of been like this. I mean because I'm thinking like I'm trying to go through my childhood. Uh and we certainly didn't have money and I know money was definitely it was scarce but I didn't even realize that until probably I was like 15 years old and my my wanting to save money has been around since I was like five. Like I do remember my grandpa having like rare coins and me thinking that's so cool that there's like a 1920s penny so I'm going to save these or like saving Christmases and birthday money. So I've always been like that. So it's a great skill to have. I don't know. Part of me thinks that like maybe I was a bit wired for the propensity of like saving money or delayed gratification and that's just how my mind works. But I I can't think of like there's a trigger point of like oh this happened and I and I like shifted my like because I've tried to think through this. So when have you and you don't have to list them all but if you have something when you say delayed gratification I'm just like okay what are you delaying? What's the gratification? I would know what the prize is. Like immediately what what I really want right now, the only thing I want is a really nice house with a big yard and a view of the Las Vegas strip with a koi pond somewhere in front. Very specific. He's got it down. I check Zillow every day because I'm thinking like, listen, if the perfect house comes up, like I'll jump on it like but it's got to be perfect. But then I'm thinking, okay, that house is probably going to be about four to seven million bucks, let's just say, for like that sort of house with like greenery and it's really inspiring. I'm thinking, do I need that now? No. It's like it's better for me to like still play it smart to, you know, optimize what I'm doing with work to invest the money and like that house isn't going to go anywhere over the next 10 years. Like you're wearing it out. What's going to be the most fulfilling record? Yeah. So, I'm thinking like that's a delayed gratification thing where it's like it would be irresponsible for me to jump on that now when I feel like I could still enjoy that just as much when I'm like 45. Uh travel is another one where it's like I I would love to fly first class if if money were just like nothing and I could snap my fingers. It's everything is free. Like yeah, I would love to do that but at the same time like business or or premium economy, that's what it is. the premium economy is like 80% of the experience for like 10% of the cost. And so I I I look at that and I'm thinking that's a better deal. Yeah. So I do the premium economy. Just curious, Grant, when when you have those days where you lock in and I I know you enjoy these and I don't doubt that for a second, but do you have like memory dividends from those days? Certain days. Yeah. The So here's a good example of this. when the Japanese yen was absolutely collapsing. It was like 11:00 p.m. at night, East Coast. And I was telling Jack, "Dude, I got to get out a video on this. I got to get it out." And Jack's like, "It really doesn't make any difference either way. If like if you post the video, great. If you don't post the video, like it's not going to make a material change in your life." And I was like, you know what, that's true. But man, I had a great time filming that video. And and even the memory card, I I filmed the whole video and the memory card corrupted and I had to refilm this thing and edit at like 1:00 in the morning. Wow. I look back at that. I was a and it was a fantastic video. I remember that time because I was sending notes in our Tokyo travel group and we're like, we should go back to Japan now. It's on sale. We can have the same experience for like 20% off, you know. But yeah, but certain certain times like that, I'm so glad I did that because I remember that I had a great time. time I was set. I I spent like an hour setting up in an Airbnb, like a little studio set with just whatever I could find in the kitchen. Um, that was a great time. I even did this last night and my memory card corrupted again. You got I don't know. It's terrible. You might have to invest in a new system. The first time was a fluke. The second time I just was I wrong setting on the camera. Did you guys go to Team Labs boardless in Tokyo? Love Team Labs. Amazing, isn't it? Yeah. Did you use Team Labs? No. That's the interactive. But which one did you do? Did you go to Borderless? Um, no. I I just went to the one They have Planets and Borderless. Planets? You got to go to Borderless. Okay. Borderless is the real deal. Okay, I'll do that. I mean, Planets is great. I mean, Borderless is next next. I I will 100% do that. Yeah, cuz it was closed for a while. They were re redoing it. Yeah, I'm going to go uh later this year. Yeah, Team Loves Borderos is just absurd. It's absurd. Where's your favorite place to travel? Uh, wow. It depends on what type of vacation you have. Like Japan is my favorite. I did the countryside. I did Kyoto, Fukuaka, Tokyo, visited with the geishas in Kyoto. It was amazing. But that's a different type of trip. The reason why I love Japan so much is it's like um a modern culture, first world culture that is completely different than any place else, right? I think you would have had that experience before they became a monoculture uh in the world. Like when you go to Europe, you go in some place, you're going to hear hip-hop, right? Like it it's very they're losing the the the distinct, you know, the French being the French. I mean, there's French things, right? French culture. Uh Germans being Germans. I think in the 40s and 50s, it was very distinct and very unique and not Americanized so much. But Japan is wildly different. Mhm. Wildly different, right? And modern. So it's kind of odd, right? the way they think uh the whole whole existence of it and it's really amazing to discover um but the Met is amazing like Italy uh the Maui coast that whole area is an amazing playground amazing to go discovery uh go to Pompei learn all kinds of different terrain Greece that whole area then into the other side Croatia is amazing I mean that whole European area then also I love uh Denmark and Amsterdam in the summer only in the summer you It's Europe. Europe's great. There's a lot of a lot of travel around there. Is there anywhere you wouldn't go? I think I wouldn't go places where uh the death rate or or was extremely high. Like I would even go to places where it's like this is going to be a struggle. Like I'm not going to like it at first, like resist it, but just to do it, you know what I mean? And feel it, you know? The last time I went on safari, there were so many bugs in my room. It was crazy. And I I'm not a bug guy. And then by the third day, I was like, "Okay, I can be used to these bugs." Like I it was in and it was like in a nice place, but our our our roof, the thatch roof got infested with termites and then the bugs could get in and it was just like the net and the bugs and cups and shower bugs everywhere. But uh it but Safari is amazing. I highly recommend Safari before you die, do Safari. And your least favorite place to travel. like if you if you if you were to name or call out a destination and say this was not worth it or I didn't like it and I would not go back again. I think anything that's designed for tourists like I I didn't like going on a cruise. I mean I see the value play in it etc. But it was it wasn't me. I could do that when I'm 80, you know what I mean? Or 75, right? Like it's like basically taking like a little bit of America, sticking it on a boat and doing this thing on a boat with a bunch of people. Sure. Consuming. Doesn't have to be on a boat. Consuming, you know what I mean? And then you're like, you're on their schedule. So you have to get on and off the boat on their schedule. And you first you're like, "This is great. Like look at all this food." And then like 10 pounds later when you get off the boat, you're like, "What the did I just do to myself?" You know what I mean? Yeah. And it it's very canned, you know what I mean? Sure. Now, I could see myself like later in life really enjoying like the peace of a cruise and the food's over there. It's always there. There's always food out and snacks out and everything being your spot and America is just cramped on this thing and you're just enjoying the view. But at this age, I hated it. I hated it. Now, maybe maybe it was the type of cruise I was on, but I wouldn't do it. So, anything like that. What do you think of what the fire community has become? I mean, I think fire is a great skill set, especially like there's no fire in Japan. Like this, this is them. They save. They give to their community. They don't, you know what I mean? Like they have a simple life. They understand the concept of enough, etc. And I think when your money or your life, when that came out, which launched the fire community, that's kind of like their bible, right? Um, you know, I think they went into the extreme. It's become this like how can I refreeze popcorn to get the popcorn out right and it's a lot of people it's become savings porn right which you know your money or life was about getting in touch with your values and having a fulfilling life that's what the book is about right and it suggests ways at which you can do that like like even taking less salary by not commuting as much and looking at your hourly wage right And I think the fire community has kind of lost that, right? They they've gone on to this like a version of not completely, but a version of is like I'm going to do 15 years and sing sing and then when I get out I'm going to live the life, you know, and I won't have to work anymore, etc. And I'm like, listen, while you're in jail, life is passing you by. You know, you're not meant to be in any kind of jail. Whether it's your own jail of your mind that you're creating by not enjoying life now or actually going into singing for some like prize or some Mr. Beast prize. I got $50 million or somebody would do 15 years in jail, you know, that type of thing. And so that's my criticism of the FIRE movement. On the flip side though, here in America, there is an epidemic of um careless and wasteful spending and people living above their means and not thinking uh consciously about earning and saving. And so that's the good part about the FIRE movement. But I think it teaches people to be like not live their life. So what if a person says, "Hey, I went 30 grand into debt so I could go and travel the world, but now my credit cards are all maxed out. I'm making 20 bucks an hour. It's going to take me a decade to pay this thing off, but I had an epic time. It might be worth it. I don't know. It's really about like I I would go into debt if I if that was the experience that I could have. And it depends. Like the fire people are doing it in reverse, right? They're like, I'm going to grind out for 20 years and then I'm going to have this great trip and this guy's like, I went into debt and I'm have to grind this way. Right? Isn't this the same thing? Right? like it's it's it's a version of autopilot, right? Like they didn't think it through. It's like maybe there was a better way to do this or maybe that was a proper way to do it, you know? They're just doing it in reverse, right? They're just grinding it out, grinding it out, grinding it out, and then when I'm 45, I'm going to have this great wonderful life, right? Like this guy's like, "No, it I'll go into debt and I'll grind it out later." Right? Struggling flipping burgers or whatever, right? But I think there's a there's a there's a there's an in between conscious way to think about this is like where experiences belong where what are my resources what are my future resources going to be like and how do I allocate my resources through this period right that's the real way to do it right not like give up 10 years of your life so that you die with 10 years of your life to go to taxes and whoever randomly is going to get it you know so I I I think you Well, fire is great and America needs more fire than it needs the latter, but we need to be a little bit more conscious, intentional about these things. And I think fire is great that it helps people get in touch with their values, right? When you start shedding the marketing and and the right, I think they get more in touch with their values of what ma matters to them. They lose their ego, which is a great thing, etc. But they kind of get into this robotic thing, right? This kind of like addiction. See, look, look how much money I have. 3%. Look, I did this. But on the flip side, as much as I mock that, right, these guys are finding out all the hacks, right? Like I I I often uh say that, you know, I can be on a super yacht in the a coast or whatever and somebody somewhere is on a boat on a ferry having the same experience, soaking it all in and enjoying it, right? They're getting the same fulfillment and they're with their buddies and they're having a great time, right? So I think at all income levels you can have that adventurous and fulfilling life, right? And you can talk right in and glaze it over if you want as you make more money, right? And so I think what the FIRE guys do is they figure out like you bought a house for this. Well, I found this deal and you got a mortgage for that and I found this deal and like you're buying shirts from here. I get shirts online for this, right? And so like reverse image. So what they're doing is is they're they're they're reducing amount of life you have to give up for this level of fulfillment. And that's a subcategory of like the wealth, right? And so that's me to a te like try to figure out what is the best value for every single thing I could spend on. I could use you. I could use you like you know this million dollars is going to go a lot further in fulfillment, right? Like they they they're in the I'm at the top level, right? Like I'm like your wealth, health, and time. And these guys are at us optimizing one of the columns, right? They're optimizing the wealth bucket so that for every dollar you spend, you get that much more fulfillment. Yeah. So, what I would tell these guys like, let's not do without, but let's just find the the most efficient way to do it. Like, let's still get all these things, right? Let's still go to the club, but let's find the cheaper, more fun club with the better specials, right? You know what I mean? The bottles here the bottles here are 6,000. The bottles here are 2,000. I did a video on this like seven years ago. I went through all of my expenses and talked about ways to optimize them. And one of mine was like I had a buddy who got a Thanksgiving bonus of like 200 bucks. This is when I was like 21 years old. Spent it all at the bar, the entire thing that night. I was like, it's ridiculous because you could have the same experience had he just gotten a bottle from the grocery store for 20 bucks. The whole thing, split it with his friends. Oh, this is something I learned from Dan. Yeah. And just do that and then you go to the bar and like that's what I would I would never spend money in the bar. I would always just get a bottle from the grocery store. Sometimes you get the bar in the parking lot. Sometime parking lot, but then go into the bar and then I just order waters the entire night. Well, this is one of the things you said. So, what I learned from Dan and Dan would be like, "Look, why would you spend all this money in a club? We can spend like that much money, control the environment, have a party at our place, rent a place, have a party, you control the environment, you control the guest list, you're the man, so you have all the girls there, etc., right? You're the one throwing the party, etc. As opposed to like one dude out of many, right? And like those were the things you would do is like why would you spend thousands and thousands of dollars, keep going to club with take that, throw one party, and you are the man. The other thing that reminded me of uh going out to restaurants throughout my early 20s, I would never want to spend money at restaurants, but I still wanted the experience of going out with friends to restaurants. So, what I would do is I would eat at home beforehand, but then go to the restaurant and order the least expensive thing on the entire menu, which is usually like a $10 a $10 salad. And then what I would do is I'd bring cash because what would happen is that everyone would be like, "Oh my god, how do we split the bill? Uh, we have to throw on a credit." And I want to throw in a credit card when they're all their bills are like 100 bucks. Mine should be 10. So I'll bring like 20 bucks cash and I throw my 20. I'm like, "All right, I'm set. I don't have to worry about splitting this check." But the same both the restaurant and his friends, but yeah, I get it. There was there was one time even uh this is going to sound awful. There was one time um I went to the restaurant. I asked them if I could bring in a Subway and I brought in a Subway because there's a Subway like a few little They let you bring in a subway. They let me bring in a Subway. Jesus. Now, listen. I was in a group of like 12 people, so I just asked for a plate. They brought me a plate. It was super nice. I mean, I left a tip, but I brought in a Subway, and my meal was $6, whereas everyone else is like 40 bucks. It's the same experience. Yeah. I don't know if it's the same experience cuz you're not eating the same food. The community chicken and bacon ranch is delicious. And the thing is, he also plays the waiting game and he's like a scavenger where if they don't finish the food, he'll also get a little taste at the end. I I have a thing for food waste. I hate wasting food. And so sometimes I'll see someone order like a big steak or something like this. They eat half and then they send it back to be thrown away. And I'm like that's $50 worth of food that they're throwing away in the trash that I would be happy to eat for granted. It's it's always about increasing value. So like as long as he's better off, he's just better better better. Steak right here. Yeah. You took a you took a bite out of this carrot. Okay. Like, you know, if I can avoid your teeth mark that is me getting paid for doing nothing. So, let's just say in that situation, we're we're all out to eat at at a dinner. We're all paying for our own meals. And you have half a steak that you're going to throw away. And your half of steak is worth $40. Me having your half a steak that would be thrown away is the equivalent to me making $40. That's how I see it. I I I mean you're not wrong, but you know there is some entrepreneur out there who built this restaurant whose hopes and dreams that he doesn't want them to be inefficient. He wants them to eat the whole thing, but they didn't that you're crushing cuz you're taking up the chair that could be another patron who's a paying patron and you're robbing him of his services indirectly. So I mean you're what you're saying is correct. You are getting paid. This is full optimizing your gaming man, but you're over the entrepreneur, but the food's going to be thrown away. So, it's their work is wasted. Isn't there work? Let's put it down at the bottom of this video. Please don't waste food. Order appropriately. You know, don't waste food. Order appropriately. We can put that at the bottom and then you can go in and you can order your own food and support the business. Yeah. But to Jack's point though, there are some people that I would consistently go out with and they would always have like half of their food thrown away. So I got in a habit of there's no sense in me ordering. You sound like my mom. My mom was like from members of depression. Yeah. But I wouldn't I personally wouldn't order because I knew there's four people that I'm meeting with two equivalent two full meals because they throw it away. This is going to be on the cutting room floor, isn't it? This is not going to make the episode licking his chops beside them. They're like, "Oh, you know what? Actually, you can." It started to be a running joke, but like but they would come over and throw away the food like and I say, "Oh, wait. Actually, could we get all this to go to go and I would eat for like stand outside and panhandle for scraps? Why? Why even why pretend? Just stand outside and panhandle for scraps. People definitely be like just stand out and be like, "Hey, whatever you don't eat, could you pack it up and go?" And they will do that. I wish I honestly I wish there were a service that would just go around restaurants and be like, "Whatever you're about to throw away, just put in this side of the restaurant." They have that. They do have that for the homeless. Like they do give that out. There there are those services. They're generally for the homeless, not you. But you know, you could start a new trend. I heard that they're not allowed to give that food to homeless because they get sick from it. Now it's not the halfeaten ones. No, but the the ones that are not sold. So will take the stuff that the homeless people reject. Well, they won't allow they won't allow legally. The homeless people can't even ingest. Yeah. But if you stand outside the restaurant and be like, "Hey, whatever you don't eat, could you put in a go?" I'm sure everybody will listen. If it were not for people like Jack and my wife just getting really embarrassed by that and for like social norms like stand like I would be doing a lot of this stuff. I I feel you like the hive mind is like no this isn't right and you're like no this is right. I I I most I hold back out of fear of embarrassing the people and I appreciate that sometimes like like even last night like which is fine but like we were checking into our hotel and and like the you know the guy was like oh do you live here in Texas and Graham's like no why and he's like you said no I said no why you know I'm not going to lie and then he said oh because there's a locals discount and Graham's like oh well in that case we live here in Texas and then the guy the guy said in a very joking way. The the guy was like, "Oh, haha." And Graham's like, "No, seriously. Like, you know, do you guys have a discount or anything?" He's like, "Yeah, it's a little bit of a discount." And Graham's like, "Well, what?" Like, the guy's kind of trying to like swat him away like a fly. Like, you know, he was laughing. He was laughing. Like, granted, I'm making it sound worse than it is. He was kind of laughing and playing along a little bit, but still like if I get one rejection for like Graham like probably asked finally on his like third or fourth time of like what would we have to do, you know, to try to get a little with this with this restaurant thing, he's going to save more money than he ever made cuz he's going to [ __ ] be getting free food. He's like, why view that as 40 bucks? I'm like, he keeps doing things like this. And they they they ended up giving us, you know, some sort of a discount at least. Yeah, they did. It is. It is nice. But he was Yeah. Oh, yeah. successful. But he was laughing a It wasn't that. Jack said, "No, we didn't." And I'm like, "Do we get a discount if we do?" And the guy said, "Yeah." And I'm like, "Well, in that case, yeah, I guess we live in Texas." And he laughed at it. And then I jokingly said something like, you know, "Are you able to apply something if we're like visiting friends in Texas?" He's like, "You know what? Yeah, I could do that." Like something like that. To me, it's just like I I don't know. Maybe it's a an ego thing, too. But I'm like I just don't like defying social media. I think it's negotiate. Like hotels and mattresses, you can always negotiate on always. So, he's found something, right? Like that ones and your ego's like, I don't want to look like an idiot. He should lose that part. But like the the food one. Yeah. Pick and choose battles, man. I mean, we're we're we're going further and further along the spectrum, you know? See, almost anywhere I go, if if I'm alone, I ask for the employee discount, but I want to say like discount tire. Oh my gosh, I saved like 300 bucks recently just because I was joking with the guy and I'm like, you know, I need this guy in my life. But I want to You are a sub routine that needs to be running and everybody needs that sub routine to certain degree. But yeah, but but I'm never a Karen about it, but it's always like like a really joking friendly sort of like, "Hey man, can we can we hook this up?" Or like but usually they're all like, "All right, yeah, okay." And then they type in like a few things and then they're never they're never like, "Of course, man. I'd love to give you the same thing I've given everyone else but for a little bit cheaper. Like they're never like enthusiastic to do it, but enterprise Jack that you benefited from that. So this got me to a question like a question for both of you that I think is is like it seems like you spend a lot of time and a lot of mental energy on the saving side. How much mental energy do you spend on the revenue side? As much cuz I went the opposite way when I read your money or your life. It was like all these frugal exercises saving money. I went that way. But what it really wanted me to do is like, oh, there's another way to solve for this problem. Having so much money that you don't give a such that it's not worth my time to even ask for the discount. Like the two minutes speaking for the discount. Wow, I've lost so much money. Yes and no. I see my time as having different values throughout different times of the day. Like right now, my time is really, really, really valuable. But at 1000 p.m. at night, my time is worthless for the most part. So if my time is worthless, I may as well utilize that time effectively. Same thing with on an airplane, my time is worth zero. So I try to do an activity where at least it's not worth zero. So if I'm out at AutoZone getting my tires replaced, it's going to be I I'm there regardless. So like spending that extra 2 minutes, it's going to be the same thing. So I may as well optimize it. I can see some of the the variable value in a person's time. I don't do that as much but I to that extent but I do realize like my free time is way way way more valuable than my my work time because that's the reward and you don't want to up the reward. So it's like time with my daughters if something comes up I'm just like you're everything's out right unless I absolutely have to higher obligation I made a commitment but if it's like oh these things that are going to go away and I'm going to get to spend less time with if they like oh yes I will spend time with you everything stops. So I there is some variable in the value of time but not that much. It might be different with kids. Would you say that's the case? Oh yeah. It's always I mean it's just it's really your priority stack, right? Like you'll have this priority stack, you know, whatever is going on, your kids, your family, your friends, your your your hobbies, your interests, your work, whatever. And you you arrange this priority stack and they have the way to interrupt your sub routines, right? Like this one the highest one can interrupt this one. This one can interrupt this one. this and it shouldn't go this way, you know, that much, you know, very very very hard to go this way, very easy to ramp her up going that way, right? And so that that's kind of the way I look at it, the mental model I have in my head. Um, but even with even with uh, you know, you can get to a wealth level or earnings level where none of it matters. Like you won't waste the time. Like, you know, people write these things like if Bill Gates dropped a hundred bucks, it wouldn't be worth the time that he spent to pick up the hundred bucks type of thing. I mean, that's kind of like this big extreme example. But you can get to where it's like it's not worth negotiating. It's not worth even talking about. It's not worth wasting the nuance even thinking about it. That's kind of what I wanted, right? That was I don't I haven't gotten there, but that's the the goal, right? Like I don't worry about it. I don't ask the price. Not worried about the price. It's not going to affect my life. I have a problem. You know, in the beginning when we were talking about like this guy has a need to spend money and the only way he can immediately search out is $10,000 bottle at the club, right? Like I have a need to convert it into experiences and I can't really focus on the savings part. Mhm. Right. That's where I wanted to be. And so I wonder you say you spend a lot on the revenue side, but do you spend what would you say is more revenue or or savings? I would say the what would you say? Probably 5050. Yeah, savings. Savings. I save more time on savings. Yeah, I would say a substantial amount more on savings. Like like I mean I'll dayto day I'll come to Graham for like a certain deal or this or that and he's like yeah yeah whatever you think whatever you think. And which is fine because I I like to have control over stuff like that, but at the same point like Graham will spend I mean how much time have you spent you know on bring a trailer cars and bids looking at the price of a certain vehicle and you're like oh it's just not an you know it's it's just not that great of a deal like like oh it's just not that great of a deal like on Zillow like all of these things scouring to just try to save a little bit more money on something you could potentially do. Yeah. which my guilty pleasure cars and bids or bring a trailer and I look at certain cars that I've wanted and I'm like if it sells at that price I can't say no to it. I love a deal. So it like everything at a certain price I'm like I'm a buyer of that. But the difference is if you if you spent all of that time that you've spent on bring a trailer you can probably buy the cars you're looking at you know on on increasing like and I'm going to pay you like kind of a backhanded compliment. I would think that like at your level of intelligence and hustle etc that you are incorrectly allocating your mental energy on savings because the revenue side that you can yield would blow away the savings right so he's saying he's spending over 50% time thinking about savings and it was like if you just focus your mental energy on like how can I generate revenue like like significant capital like more money than you actually need to live. I think you would be successful and I think it would dwarf all your savings. What about the enjoyment of the hunt and feeling proud of a car? That is a thing for Graham. Like there's the the cars that I bought. I'm like that was a great price. Like that was a good and and I wouldn't 4 GT. I could see a little like sparkle in his eye. Yeah. Another Let me put it to you this way. I think you have probably superior mental acuity than me. How would it feel to buy a hundred of those cars and not give care? How about you even need a hundred though? I know, but I'm just saying like or or or 100 or other things. How would it know to feel like your kid is going to college and never have and not have to worry about things? How how would that feel? You think you get fulfillment from that? I don't. But the part So my counter to that would be to me it seems like a like a disrespect of money. No, you're disrespecting your mental neurons and the allocation of it. You we're just talking about fulfillment. Yeah. and you're saying, "I love getting a deal on a car and doing that." I was like, "Do you like traveling? Are there other things you like in life?" I mean, I'm not saying that it's not fulfillment. Sure. I mean, it's nice, but you don't have to do that all the time, right? Like, there's other things in life. And I'm just saying that if you allocated your mental neurons to the revenue side, giving how bright you are, right, and the hustle you have and your work ethic, okay, that it would dwarf the fulfillment of getting the deals that you're getting. I'm just pointing that out. I might not be true, right? So I'm just saying like from the outside know I could be dead wrong because you don't know what you're talking about. A lot of times I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm just saying that I think you're misallocating your resources. Like if I got to play the game of your life with your resources and your abilities, right? Like focus on saving deals all the time or spend time dreaming up ways and reviewing deals and making money. I'd be like this one. This is the more fulfilling life. 50/50 or 8020. I like 8020 this way. So I think I think just from an allocation your mental cap you have finite mental capacity right finite hours right I would just say that I think you're overallocated the wrong way okay I could be dead wrong right but I'm just saying and you're like well I get fulfillment out I'm like well there's a lot of fulfillment in 10 million bucks right and you're the type of guy that can make $10 million in a year and so is he yeah like I said I don't know if it's the enjoyment of saving or I don't know if I'm programmed to think that I enjoy that because That's all I know. I would for a lot of money. It's the programming. I I mean, I've known him a long time and I' I've said the same thing over and over again that it's the programming, but he really does enjoy a deal. And I'm not just saying this to offend him. I'm just saying like, well, he's well. He is very, very well. The only thing that I I feel like as a friend that I could recommend to him and and I want to hear your perspective on this is that he should get uncomfortable a little bit more often because at this point in Graham's life, he has a very very strong tie to just being comfortable. And it boils down to things as simple as like the temperature in a room. But I feel like what it comes down to is never trying something new and challenging yourself. It's like you've been rewarded financially. That's where the growth is, right? For Yes. And and that's why I think like maybe Just maybe you try to like spend some money and just see if you like it. Maybe you try like when you got uncomfortable and you skipped a posting and you decreased the upload frequency on your main channel. Your life has improved drastically and it took you years to get there. But realistically, you could have done it 2 years before. You really really could have. I I begged I begged to differ a year before. Like you you it didn't need to be exactly at that time. And I think that just and not going allin with trying something new and getting uncomfortable, but doing little like um experiences and uh and and trying out small things every once in a while to get to get Yeah. or even focusing on the revenue side. Like you don't have to go 8020 like I said. You could just spend 10% more. I mean there's just like a lot there's a lot like you're just like I really enjoy to get a deal and like I'm pretty sure your audience be like yeah there is a lot of fulfillment in $10 million. Like what are you talking about? Like if I told you for a fact, okay, let's just take all the risk out of it, that if Graham only focus 20% of your mental energy on savings and 80 80% on like uh making money, revenue ideas, uh deals, whatever, and you are guaranteed to have $10 million extra, would you take that deal? Yeah. Okay. So then you already agree that if the reward is 10 million, so somewhere between 0 and $10 million, it makes sense. You should calculate what that is and then see if it's achievable and then run it out. Yeah. You follow me? Like that's just consciously thinking about like we just poo pooed it right away. No, I get I enjoy getting a deal. I'm like, well, let's think about this for a second, right? Somewhere between 0 and $10 million, you should be spending more of your time focusing on real estate. And then we should think about what's realistic. And I I think that, you know, not not immediately, like nobody's going to learn how to play piano overnight, but I think there's like a lot of yield in your time. Like everything you create, it comes from out of your mind. This whole podcast, all your success, right? You don't go dig ditches or you're not a construction worker or whatever. It all comes from here, right? And then you executing on that, right? So more of that is more revenue. And you've gotten comfortable where you're at and you're like, I all my fulfillment comes from making deals. And I'm like, well, there's a lot of fulfillment in having the capital and being able to spend that. And also obligations, future obligations have to be met. You said you want a big family. Well, it's a lot of obligations. So, you should think about that. And then maybe you might go, well, 10% more on revenue side, mental focus, or 20% or 30% or 80% or maybe even 90 more than Bill said, right? Cuz that's that's that's kind of the conversation I had with myself, right? Like, am I going to save myself into the life I want? And the answer was no. Not the life I wanted. Maybe some people can, but I couldn't. I wasn't going to save it. I'm like, I'm going to have to take big risk and make a lot of money. It's weird. I not to dig too much into like my own personal matters, but like I I I think I've already done that where where I'm like I'm spending an amount that I'm comfortable with assuming a 50% market drop, like you know, family obligations come up, you have a kid with a disability that needs some care. Like all of these things happen at the same time. I'm talking like, oh, and then our income goes to zero. And so I'm like I'm like in that case can I still live the exact same? And if the answer to that is yes then I'm comfortable and then I'm good. Right. Well then you need no more. There's no then then the answer would be honestly that no copy paste repeat. Like I'm not here to change your life. I'm not here to save your life. Right. I'm just here to tell you that there are ways that you can look at things and see like hey yes $10 million I have use for it. What you're saying is I don't have use for $10 million. I'm happy. I don't have any wants. Well, the thing is 10 could be five and then at five at a 4% withdrawal rate it's grand. Hey, there he goes. You know, after tax now you're with, you know, 170 and then, you know. Yeah. I'm just saying like however you convert it to fulfillment is your way. Like whether you spend it on or 4% a year on getting deals at restaurants, that's up to you, right? I'm just saying like where is the best allocation of your resources, right? And right now we're talking about your health and roughly your mental health, right? Where are you where are you sending these neurons? What problems should your neurons be working on? It seems like your neurons are heavily focused on saving. And I'm like, you know, those are some really good neurons, right, Jack? These are good neurons. Well, they're all right. They're all right. He's got some good neurons, right? Like you guys got good neurons together with your friend together. these neurons. I'm like, should I focus those neurons on the revenue side? Me, evil Bill Perkins. Yeah. Right. I'm like, give me those neurons. Let's focus on the revenue side. No more standing outside trying to get leftovers. Yeah. Yeah. Listen, I I could commit to a few months of trying that out. Like two months as an experiment. And what is that going to look like in in application? I would say instead of being so focused on the saving little aspects here and there of just being more focused on the the revenue generating side. Yeah. Well, he needs an action plan like what is that we're going to meet on Tuesday and go through ideas, stocks, investments, business building. Like what are we going to like what what how tell me what are the things you're going to do? I mean we don't have to lay that now but you should commit to that. It would it would probably just be less focused on like the little tiny details which maybe that frees up an extra 10% where yeah but the brain has to then take those neurons and apply them to like what is your action plan but we don't we don't have to go into that right now but like offline you guys should be like okay every x day at whatever o'clock we're going to have a meeting and we're going to go over these things and get action items on like whatever and we're going to execute on one of these plans. Well, I'd say one of the biggest ones is uh office space. Jack and I right now don't have an office. It's out of a bedroom, which I love. It's convenient, but it also doesn't lend itself to working together. How does that yield more money? Because we're focused on the revenue side. Yeah. Whereas back in the day, like someone would come up with an idea and the amount of time between idea and execution was a lot longer because we had a text and, you know, I'd only see Graham once a week or this or that. But I think that if we had an office where we're all meeting in person, you're 100% right. The the speed by which things will get done is is a lot faster. So the way I'm understanding it is that if you put out more content, it equals more revenue and your audience grows, more content, but also just like in terms of just like communication and coming up with, you know, guest ideas, content. Yes. You know, yeah. So you have you have you have more content, better guest ideas, better quality show, better execution, more money. So here's what holds me back from a finance perspective. We have it so well in the house. It's easy. There's no commute. the cost of each episode to produce is like a few grand as it is. And I'm like, if we tack an office on top of that, the cost per episode now, the cost per episode more than doubles because we don't film every episode in our office. We film maybe half of them in the office and then the other h sorry, half of them in in the home studio and then the other half on the road like we are right now. And so if we only film two episodes a month in an office space that we now rent, the cost per episode skyrockets and now our our threshold is so high. And I'm like, do we need that? Well, it depends on the production value and what goes into it. And the only answer is is it net more revenue and does it grow the platform? I would say the the quality is going to be the same. I don't think quality is maybe a market quality will be improved a little bit. I think the main thing is just that we're kind of talking every day. You know what I mean? So idea generation. Idea generation. Yeah. So, so what he would say on his argument using his neurons, he would say that why don't we just have a mandatory Zoom every day that we discuss this and it's a 20-minute Zoom and that will solve the idea generation without having an office. We could I it just I don't think we would like like I think like we can come up. You don't think you would? I don't think we would do the Zoom. No, we'd be like, I don't really have anything to talk about today. But if we're like in the office and we're just kind of working on something. Oh, this is interesting. And then I run it by hand. So, you're saying that there's a f like what if you had a mandatory meeting place that you went to? So, it wasn't an office, but like every x time we have to go to Starbucks or wherever the place that people hang out and that that could work out. The thing is when you pay for something, you're going to value and use it more. And it's one of like like an expensive gym membership where it's like oh man if I don't use it now I'm wasting money. That's how I that that's a motivator for but that's what you need to get him to go to ideate to create the the more money then I guess that's the only way you can do it. If you can't force yourself to meet at a meeting place or whatever but like this whole exercise and I'm not saying that you come to the exercise is that this is how you should be spending your neurons more so than the food example. Yeah. That that's just my two cents, right? Like I think that's what's going to drive you to the level of comfort that you aspire to to live and the level of pickle ball travel that you want to live more so than saving. Panhandling for half eating sushi. Panhandling. I I've panhandled before as an exercise. How was that? It was it was eyeopening. It was awakening and it was it was uh it helped me realize that no matter what you can make money. Were people nice to you? No, it was a little dangerous. It was a dangerous job. A lot of people were nice and there was some danger associated with it. What happened? Oh, there were some like gangbangers that were going to me up, you know, get out of the street or do whatever. You know what I mean? Like just because cuz you're low because they can, right? Humans are humans and there were people who were very nice and very sweet. How much did you make? Enough to be on pace to make like 60 to $70,000 a year taxfree. Whoa. Right. But I stopped I stopped the experiment. It was part of an emotional intelligence class. right? Like facing your fears about things and I went out and did it and it was very liberating and it was just like yeah you're just you're just going to be all right. And that was meant to teach people that no matter what you It was my exercise. No, it wasn't like a everybody does this exercise. It was like my exercise like some people had to go to something way high whatever like but like it was it was a great exercise. It was like this is a hard job. Yeah. Uh but it's a lucrative job. Was there an effective way like a sign that was I didn't even have a sign like I was that's why I was like oh I know I can really crush it if I had a sign. So what's like the optimal way to panhandle? I don't know. I was only out there for like one day a couple hours. He's like he's like I think I think I think a sign would be better. I I think looking destitute uh is fine, but not completely like um disheveled or smelly or like scary. Uh and being at a very busy intersection and it's going that has a light. Yeah. Uh and that allows people to give you money. So I think the it's a it's always going to boil down to a numbers game. Uh that reminded me uh I remember in 2009 I believe it was I would get off a freeway exit in Studio City on a regular basis driving from Glendale to Beverly Hills and there was a guy who was constantly on the side of the freeway but he he wore a suit like like a decent looking suit. Uh he wore glasses, cleancut sort of guy, but he said he lost his job. Like on the side he says like he lost his job looking for work. anything helps. And the fact that he wore a suit and seemed cleancut, I'm like, "This is the guy who gets my money." So, like, usually what I do is I'd pack Neutrorain bars actually on my drive knowing that when he's there, I give him a neutrorain bar or I give him a water or something like that. But yeah, did that just popped into my mind like that? I mean, I I don't know. I mean, the answer is I don't know. I don't think like 90 minutes or two hours out there or who whatever time I was out there pops in his Ferrari and goes straight to that one lady pretended to be disabled and then she you see her just like wheeling off a few blocks. I mean if you're going to be disingenuous yeah she was making like 100 grand a year. You can I mean you can do well I mean but I think that would be an effective allocation of your mental resources but I could see him like Yeah. Yeah. I can see him like gamifying it and getting some fulfillment out of it, justifying it. I like I like optimization. He's like, "Yeah, I go on a hike in the morning and then I panhandle for a half an hour and then I My time is worth zero anyway." Yeah, he's got this zero time calculator going. Anyway, I I don't have that many. You know, I can I can ask a zillion questions, but I don't want to I don't want to take up all all our time. How about this? If you guys enjoy this episode, if you want a round two at some point, let us know in the comments section. We'll do my I'll do my best. I think you guys had enough. I feel like I can't take this. I can't take this sushi ramen. But if you if you do, we can do it. We can do a round two. Yeah. And also for anyone who made it to this point in the episode, cuz I'm really curious about the retention graphs. If you've made it to this point, if you wouldn't mind giving us a comment, let us know you made it to the end. That would be awesome. Also, what you liked and what you disliked. That would also be very nice. Yeah. If you want. Well, we got to you got to edit up and put bookmarks. People got to skip around. There's a lot of work. Yeah. So, and we're also going to link to all of your info in the description along with your book. I highly recommend it, by the way. And if you want to be a part of the group, the index, that link is also down below. The index, huh? What goes on in the index? So, oh dear. He's like, why did you ask? Why you third index slot in the video? We could cut it if you want to. Yeah. The the index is an amazing group. I attended the It was Disneyland and there was like a tour and then the very fancy dinner like Graham said, he dropped 40,000. The idea of the group is to get a bunch of young wealthy people together to have experiences like and uh a lot of the money that is paid by the the members of the group gets cycled into these really lavish experience. We do we do really unique experiences that I would never do on my own but I could justify it in a group like this cuz you get the discount. because I get the discount, but then I could also I reinvest. Like a lot of the money that goes in is just I spend it back on those experiences. But we've cultivated a really cool group of like 13 people so far. And our vetting process is like we go through like multiple rounds of phone calls just to make sure everyone's the right culture fit, right? But yeah, like the group that we have so far is incredible. And when I submitted the first application, we got like 3,000 people applying. Uh and out of those 3,000 so far, we've picked like 13. That's great. So you guys are like investing experiences. So at the end of your life when you retire, you retire on those memories. Yeah. And I like how involved everyone is. Like we've met some really cool people and one guy like how do you go through 3,000 applicants? 3,000 applications. Some of them easy. We I don't I don't want to give the the secrets away for how we how we search through, but but we have a method for going through them that I love. It's not just me, but but I have a partner offline. I'm going to find out what this is. Yeah. Listen, you're you're invited. Um indexy. Just tell me when you go someplace fun. Just tell me where you're going. Be like, "All right, deal. Disneyland." He's a huge fan of you. So, if you want to say if you want to say hi to Andy. Hi, Andy. Thank you guys for watching. Till next time. Next time.