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- [00:01]
Willie Walker
Walker and Dunlop brings you insights for
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Bill Perkins
life, Unique perspectives from impactful leaders. This is the walker webcast with willie walker.
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Willie Walker
Good afternoon and welcome to another Walker webcast. It is my great joy to have Bill Perkins join me today to talk about his career and his book Die with Zero. Bill, let me do a quick bio on you to give a little bit of background to our listeners and then you and I can dive into the conversation. Bill Perkins is an American hedge fund manager, film producer and author and poker player. Known as the natural gas king and cowboy of Wall Street, Perkins is the founder, managing partner and head trader for Skyler Capital. He began his career on the floor of the New York Mercantile Exchange and now has more than two decades of experience in the energy trading industry specializing in options trading in natural gas, crude oil, power and other energy related trades. Bill has produced several movies including Afterlife, Unthinkable and Cat Run and wrote the book Die with Zero which gives strategic advice on pursuing personal goals regardless of income. Perkins is dedicated to a variety of charities including the International Rescue Committee, Race to Erase Ms. And the Dave Thomas Foundation. He received his Bachelor's in Electrical engineering from the University of Iowa where he played on the Iowa Hawkeyes football team. He's the proud father of two daughters and currently resides in Austin with his wife Laura. He owns four giant tortoises and spends a great deal of time and money on longevity. So Bill, as I did my research on you, your career, the various sort of what I would call impact points, what comes out of it is a person who is a wildly self evident and be willing to take risks and the fact that you are a hedge fund energy trader in your day to day life you are consistently taking risks. Yet Daiwith0 talks about balance and the balance between the money you make, the life experiences you want to have and how to manage when to use that money to further your life experiences. So I kind of had this, it was like two sides of a coin if you will. I was like this guy is all about like the the adrenaline rush of making a great trade and making great money. He's got a high beta for risk tolerance and yet the whole book is all about that balance of life experiences. Talk about that. Which one is the true Bill Perkins? Is it the risk taker or is it the balance creator finder?
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Bill Perkins
Well, life is risk in everything. Whether it's a relationship, a job, an investment, even entertainment. And there's always an opportun opportunity costs associated with that which is also a risk is missing out on on something. You know the book is supposed to be agnostic towards your values and, and who you are. So I generally, like, enjoy taking risk. I always look at what opportunity costs am I giving up for out of inaction as opposed to what can go wrong? Generally, my view is what can go wrong is really limited to a learning. To a learning session or a bruised ego, given, you know, where I live, the resources I have in terms of being in the United States of America, ability to get another job, et cetera. But the book is written for everyone. And other people may have different risk tolerances, different values, different things they want. And so it's very formulaic to drop in the mental models to whatever your life is.
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Willie Walker
So before we dive deep into the book, because I really do want to spend a bunch of time on it, because I think that so many people, to be blunt, miss the lessons in the book. They hold onto their money longer than they should. They're not as generous with their money at a time when that money can have a real impact on the lives of the people in their lives. And a bunch of other things that I think are so spot on. And I want to dive into that in a moment. But let's rewind the tape to what makes Bill Perkins. Bill Perkins, growing up in New Jersey, being a standout football player and going to the University of Iowa.
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Bill Perkins
I wouldn't say standout football player, but, you know, I played.
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Willie Walker
Come on, come on, let's. Let's be real here. You went and played D1 football in Iowa. How important was that football experience to you as it relates to the person that Bill is, as it relates to your either confidence in yourself going and playing D1 football. I mean, there are many of us who played college sports or other people who are listening who never got to any level of athletic competition in college. But we hire a lot of former college athletes at Walker and Dunlop because we love what they have done in their undergraduate experience of both playing sports and learning how to operate on teams as well as presumably being good students. How important was playing football at Iowa to who Bill Perkins is today?
- [05:38]
Bill Perkins
Well, let me talk about the concepts that I got from it that I think helped me in my life. Is one, learning how to be a member of a team. That. That was, I think, very important and to the concept of doing your best in a visceral way. Right. You know, being part of a team requires you to be the coaches, everyone you're constantly being inculcated with. Do your best. How are you? How are you performing when nobody is watching? How are you measuring yourself? How are you pushing yourself to get better? And so I think those concepts and things that playing sports instilled in me were very critical to help me succeed. Right. In order to be like, yeah, you're right. I'm not doing my best to actually be self reflective when I'm kind of slacking off and being called out when slacking off on the team. I was on the D1 team, but I played the bench, right. So you know what I mean? I was not like a standout all star all American at D1 level, but I was a contributor. I was doing my best. And at times when I wasn't doing my best, I had a bunch of teammates and a bunch of coaches to let me know. And so I think that was crucial.
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Willie Walker
Did playing at that level, being on a, you know, I mean, whether you're on the bench or whether you're a starter, being in a D1 program at a school like the University of Iowa, you're, you're a special person on that campus, correct? Very special. You go to parties and everyone's like, hey, he plays on the football team. Did that give you a, if you will, a, somewhat of a, of an ego or an arrogance at that level that may have been oversized for where you were from a skill standpoint as you entered the work world?
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Bill Perkins
I think, I think he gave you a definitely ego boost. And there was also a sense of pride. And Hayden Fry would always say, hey, you can be a normal student, just go to class, et cetera. But you're out here, you know, up in the morning, you know, working out, training, and then in the afternoon working out and training and then reviewing film and then having to study your, your, your positions and, and, and, and formations, etc, but you're doing something special. You're, you know, so there was this kind of instilled, you're special here by. But it wasn't just like, oh, you're special. We picked you randomly. You were special because of your contributions and what you did right. And the work you put in. And so, yeah, it was fun and people looked up and, and it definitely helped on the dating scene. But, but, but, you know, that might actually ruined me a little bit in college. You know, I would have got better grades. But, you know, it wasn't just you weren't entitled to that specialness. You had to earn it. You know, that, that was a, that was the message.
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Willie Walker
And so you get out of college and you go to New York and you're working two jobs of, of kind of trying to make a way on the mercantile exchange floor. And you're, you're driving a limo at night and you read the book, you, money or your life. Why was that book so impactful to you?
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Bill Perkins
You know, I didn't have a mental model of what money was, right? And what that book did was give me the model that money is essentially a representation of my time. I exchange hours of my life and then I get money of which then I'm able to take that money and exchange it for hours or minutes of somebody else's life. And so that concept one, when you do the exercises has you think of everything in terms of hours of your life, right? Instead of dollars. And so you get in touch with your values very quickly. When you're like, oh, I'm going to buy this shirt and it's going to take me two, two hours of my life to buy this shirt or whatever the thing is, right, you're like, do, do I really want to spend two hours of my life with a shirt? The other thing was, is that I realized that I wanted one hour of my life to be. Represent a lot of hours of somebody else's life, right? I didn't want to have to spend my life working very hard to get very little effort in return from other people. And so I really wanted leverage at that time. You know, I really want to leverage my time.
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Willie Walker
Yeah, explain that a little bit more. In other words, you realized that you wanted to make money so that you could take that money and invest in others and then have them leverage your time. Is that essentially what you're saying?
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Bill Perkins
No, no, no, no. So if you, if you, if you go around and if you went through the exercise and found out what your hourly wage was, right? Like you took in all the, all the, all the expenses, the suits or whatever, your transportation to work, right? The commute time, and then took your salary, took out the taxes, your net, and you divided that out, you come up with a true hourly wage. Let's just for the sake say it was, you know, $20 an hour, right? Net. So then when you went to go buy, let's say, I don't know, two movie tickets, let's call them $20, right? It was an hour of your time. The idea is that after you do that enough, you don't think of things in terms of dollars. You think them in terms of minutes and hours, right? So this vacation costs, you know, 100 hours. This, this, this, this, you know, this car costs, you know, two years, right? Whatever it is, whatever the number is, I'M not doing the math in my head, but. And so you. You realize, like, oh, I'm giving up my life for the experiences and purchases around me, right? And what I wanted to do is have an hour of my time convert into many, many experiences and, and many, many other things. So if I. I want an hour of my time to be a car, you know, I wanted an hour of my time to be a trip to France. I wanted an hour of my time to cover all, you know, many more experiences and items than the average person. I didn't want to worry about, you know, how many hours I would have to work in order to have an experience. And so that's what it. That's what it is, is I want it leverage of my time. And so the real question is, is like, well, if I'm making $20 an hour, or $30 an hour or 40 or 50 or whatever the number is, you know, I'm not going to have the life that I had in my head at the time. I needed somehow to leverage my time, right? I needed an hour to represent 10,000 hours of somebody else's time or a thousand hours of somebody else's time. That way I can exchange with the dentist and I can exchange with the pilot, and I can exchange with the people that make my clothes at a rate that I didn't worry about.
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Willie Walker
It's fascinating. So you decide to move from New York to Texas with really no. You know, your hourly rate at that time was pretty low. You didn't have a lot of money in your pockets and you didn't know anyone in Texas. What was it that made you move to Texas? Post Enron. And that's an important sort of.
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Bill Perkins
That was actually pre Enron when I moved to Texas.
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Willie Walker
It was pre Enron when you moved. And then, yeah, the job you got with John Arnold is post Enron. But talk about why you left New York and went to Texas.
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Bill Perkins
Purely the opportunity. At that age in my life, I was extremely ambitious and driven. I had gotten out of my slacker phase. Being broke is a, you know, necessity is the mother of all, all inventions. And, you know, I invented myself as, like, I am a hustler, and I will go anywhere for an opportunity. And so, you know, prior, I was like, I would never go south of the Mason Dixon Line, you know, who would leave New York City to go to Texas. But Young, in my 20s, I would have went to Siberia or Kathmandu for the opportunity. And so I got an opportunity to be a trader at a company that was called El Paso. Energy. It was actually East Tex, but East X was going to be the management arm of El Paso Energy in a buyout and it was a huge opportunity and there's no way I was going to miss it. So I packed up and left.
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Willie Walker
And so you get down there just before Enron, then Enron happens, and you end up going to join John Arnold at Sentaris Advisors, which seems to be sort of that flexion point in your career as it relates to getting on a platform that could really allow you to do exactly what you just talked about. Why'd you end up joining John and what was that? That's not your first experience, but that clearly seems to be in the, in the, in the history and chapters of your success. A seminal moment.
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Bill Perkins
Yeah, I think, you know, prior to that I had become rich, but I think Centaurus made me wealthy, you know, and, you know, it was one of the most successful hedge funds in commodity trading ever. And so it was an interesting period in natural gas. It was a growing new market and we had a lot of fun, we were very successful. And so that was kind of the turning point in terms of the amount of capital I had deployed, you know, going from I have enough to live comfortably, I have enough to, you know, put my kids through college, to I have possibly generational wealth, you know, that, that, that type of, type of wealth. So you go from a high net worth individual to ultra high net worth individual. I don't know the acronyms they use, nowad, that type of thing.
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Willie Walker
So talk for a moment about the culture at that firm in the sense that this is sort of in the ashes of Enron. And Enron had a massive impact on Houston and the overall ecosystem of Houston. There was barely a company in Houston that was not somehow impacted by the bankruptcy of Enron. And here are these firms that are, if you will, coming out of that. Was the culture, hey, this is a great opportunity. Or, or was it due to having had the Enron crash that everyone was making both good bets and prudent bets? Was it, was there anything there in the aftermath of it that changed the culture?
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Bill Perkins
I think, you know, a lot of the large energy companies kind of got out, got out of their wrist departments, got out of their energy trading departments, even though it was kind of like the finarts arm that blew up Enron. So there are a lot of traders kind of without jobs, right, looking for something to do and people were setting up their hedge funds and John was one of them. But a lot of people were kind of reluctant to invest in the firm at that point because people didn't know, well, is it your skill or was it the chair of being an Enron that produced the money for John? And so John started the fund with $8 million of his own money. The investors didn't even show up day one and then we were off the races and then we had a, a significant return over, over 100 and something percent or 200%. And the investors started to come in and then, you know, we continue to make 100 or 200% a year there afterwards. The, the, the market was, it was new and growing. So I like to compare ourselves to insurance agents. So the premiums that we were charged for warehousing risk were quite large. And so if you didn't blow up, you didn't lose all your money and you were able to stay in the game, you produce outsized returns.
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Willie Walker
So you then decided to jump out on your own and start a number of companies, including Skylar Capital. Um, where was that? I mean, it sounds like you had a lot of self confidence, but that doesn't always translate into having an entrepreneurial spirit of going and doing your own thing. Plenty of people are very confident in themselves and spend their entire career working, if you will, in large corporations and for other people. What was it that made you decide it's time for me to go sort of create my own platform and run my own show?
- [18:10]
Bill Perkins
I think it was a future regret minimization. You know, if I was going to start a fund and do it on my own, it was going to be then I did have confidence that I can do it. Even though I understood the risk that, you know, starting a fund is kind of path dependent. You know, you can have eight, 10 years and eight good years and two bad years, but if they're two, two bad years are first, your fund's going to fail, right? Or even if it's the first year is bad, it's really hard to raise money, right? And so I am okay with taking risk. I am okay with being broke. I am okay with, you know, whatever station in life that falls. I'm very much into the ride of life and enjoying the ride and doing my best. And I felt it was a path that I needed to take. You know, John had become successful. He called in Rich, he wanted to retire. He moved on to philanthropy and solving other puzzles. I was still in a stage of like, okay, I can't call in Rich. I'd like to start a hedge fund. I think I can do this. I think I have edge, I think I can produce Money for the investors. And so I did was just the natural thing for me to do. That doesn't mean it's the natural thing for everyone to do, but it was natural for me to do.
- [19:26]
Willie Walker
Double click on that comment you made. Regret minimization. There are not many people who sit there and say, I'm going to go start something or be an entrepreneur or whatever because I want to minimize my regrets. That's a, that's a, that's a super important piece to your story and why you wrote the book. So, so, so go down that path for a second.
- [19:43]
Bill Perkins
Yeah. Counterfactual regret minimization is basically a fancy word for what if analysis. And you know, what I'm trying to do is, you know, when you play a chess computer, it's doing regret minimization and it's solving for winning the chess game, right? And so for a human being, you know, the game is maximum fulfillment, right? What is the best path for you? Right? And so in this simple decision, start a hedge fund, don't start a hedge fund, right? How does my future self look back on that, given all the things that, okay, can go wrong or go right with starting a hedge fund and all the things that can go, go right or go wrong and not starting a hedge fund? And for me, the regret minimization is to start the hedge fund, right? Even if it fails, I can get another job. I'm not going to die. It's not as catastrophic. I'll learn things, and if it's successful, then, wow, I've crushed it. I've made a lot of money, et cetera. If I don't start the hedge fund, I'm constantly like, what if I started a hedge fund? I could have done this, et cetera. I'm regretting I missed my chance to start a hedge fund, but these people would have invested in me, et cetera. And so in my mind, the regret minimization, or the most fulfilling path for me, given all that I knew at the time, and I'm not throwing everything in there, was to start the hedge fund, right? You can run counterfactual regret minimization on anything. You could be like, should I ask the girl out for a date or not ask the girl out for a date? Well, if I don't, you know, I'm always, what if maybe have been wife, you know, that thing, etc. If I do, she could say no, she could say yes, it could go bad. But you know, you know, and this is kind of the tools computers use. But humans can also Use in order to kind of make decisions about what's the best path for them.
- [21:37]
Willie Walker
And so when you decided to write Die with Zero, the book talks about balance and balance between money, health, and time. Um, and what was it at that moment, Bill, that said to you, hold it. I. I gotta, I. I gotta put this sort of what I would call an ethos. The ethos that drives Bill Perkins as it relates to that balance down on down, down to paper. I gotta. I gotta take all the things that you've just talked about that have sort of impacted your career, your. The way you have invested the risks you have taken, jumping out on your own and creating your own firm, building the life for your family, for your two daughters and for your wife that you had hoped to do. And then all of a sudden you're sitting there saying, man, I've not only done it, I've done it in spades. Where I've gotten to the point where I'm generating generational wealth, not just wealth for today. What was the main driver of saying, all right, now I got to. On Daiwis0. This is sort of flipping it to some degree. At that point. You're like, okay, there are all these life lessons as it relates to kind of how to create generational wealth that I could write a book about. And you've just talked about a lot of the different markers on it, but now it's a totally different one, which is, how do you create that balance between the money you have, the health you have, and the time you have to be able to spend your life the way you want to live your life? And writing this book, Die with Zero, right?
- [22:59]
Bill Perkins
So I have to go back to get to that. So ever since I read your money or your life, you know, one of the concepts, I got it out. That is, it's not about the money, it's about what the money affords you, right? And you don't really need that much money if you don't really want that many things. Like if I just wanted to raise begonias and a farm, you know, I don't need that much money. And so. And if I'm giving up hours of my life in exchange for money, right, or things I'm never going to buy, that's a waste of my life. So the goal, you know, that I decided on was not the money, but what's the life, right? What life do I want, right? So back when I was younger, you know, I was like, oh, I want my life to look like a rap video and this and that, right, whatever was advertised to me, right? And so I was pursuing sums of money for a lifestyle I really didn't even like, you know, I really didn't even want, you know. And so over time, you know, you get in touch with yourself and you try and figure out what you want. But the goal is a fulfilling life. It's not a pile of money, right? And so what I'm regret minimizing is to have the most fulfilling life I possibly could have according to my values. And then it should be agnostic. If somebody else had different values, they should have the most fulfilling life possible. And so I wanted to make a computer program to tell me how much money I should be spending, you know, how much I'd be working, et cetera, when to retire, and all these questions, right? And there's no computer with enough power to tell me that. And it's also garbage in, garbage out, right? Because there's just so many variables. But what you can have is the mental models on how to approach every situation. And how do these things relate? You know, what's the purpose of being super healthy? You know, it's in order to have more experiences, both in longevity and also the ability to do certain things, right? Most of us have played football or something, have some cartilage issues, little things that are like, you know, they're, they're decreasing our ability in the future to enjoy certain things, right? Like we won't want to walk up that mountain or hike the Himalayas or, you know, I mean, maybe not even sit in a plane for more than six hours, right? a certain point in our lives. And so know, money that is being saved for a trip to, let's say, Hong Kong from here is probably wasted for a football player after a certain age because they're like, I'm not sitting in a plane for 10 hours, right? And so, and I don't want to waste my time working for money that I'm not going to use. Like, if I go to Chuck E. Cheese and I get the tickets, you know, I want to use all the tickets in Chuck E. Cheese. They don't, they don't transfer well to the grave, right? That's my, my, that's what I always say, right? Like these, these units, you, you, you, you lay it all on the field, right? Like you've heard that all the time if you played sports, right? You leave it all on the field. You put all your effort on the field. Well, the field of life is right now, right? You, you lay it all on the field. And so I needed a way. I needed mental models in order to not waste my life, right? And I was like, okay, what are my resources here? I got my wealth, my health, and my time, right? Time to the grave. And those things are going to change throughout my life. And how do they interplay and how do they drive fulfillment? Well, obviously, no health, your fulfillment, zero. So that's a huge, hugely important variable. But I'm not writing a health book. And your wealth, right, your wealth affects the experiences that you're able to afford, the number of people you're allowed to bring onto those experiences, et cetera. But I'm not writing a get rich book either, right? And your time, right? Like, how you spend your time. Do I go play cards with my friends or do I spend time with my mother, right? My mother's not going to be here forever, but my friends will be here longer. Like, how do I order my life, right? Because life is like Tetris. You got to get the order right in order to get the high score. You know, I always tell people, you know, your partying, clubbing, strip club days are before you get married, not after. You know. You know, certain things go at a certain time. Like reading books to your kids are not when they're 15. It's when they're two and three. And so if you don't order your time, right, it's not necessarily that you. You have a terrible life. You just don't have the most fulfilling life. You don't get the experiences that you want to have. And so I wanted to, you know, while I was in a doctor's office talking about, they do a psychological exam saying, hey, are you. Do you fear running out of money? And I said, well, I hope I run out of money. And they were like, wait, what? And so I gave him the spiel, and they were like, nobody's ever answered the question that way. You need to write a book. And I was like, yeah, I probably need to write a book about this because I need to get all these thoughts out so I can save my own life. So I wrote the book to save my own life. That. That. That's why the book is there. And then I reasoned that if I could save my own life, I could save other people's lives. Now, a question I know this is a long, long answer you should ask is, what do you mean, save your life? You should be like, what the hell are you talking about, Bill Perkins, save your life. When somebody is struggling, swimming, and they're about to drown, and you pull them out, you Give them mouth to mouth, they spit out the water. It's all dramatic, right? And you're like, oh my God, you saved my life. Guess what's going to happen? That person is still going to die. A hundred percent they're going to die. They're just not going to die that day, Right? So what did you do? What does it mean when you save someone's life? You. You basically give them more time and what are they gonna do with that time? They're gonna have more I love yous, more trips, more experiences, more choices, right? More adventures, right? So that's what it means to save somebody life, is to give them more experiences. And so if I write a book that's like, hey, you're not on a course, the maximum fulfillment, your experiences are all, you know, you're not going to get the high score because you're ordering things wrong or you're hoarding your money. It's just sitting over there and you're going to die with a pile of money that never use. I'm doing the same thing. I'm giving you more experiences, more fulfillment. And so I wanted to save my life. I wanted to have the book out in the world and save other people's lives. And that's why I wrote the book.
- [29:18]
Willie Walker
Fascinating. It's so good. But I want to, I want to get into the practical things in the book, which are fantastic as it relates to giving money away earlier and truly dying with zero. But before that, you talk, Bill, about just the, the shift in your understanding of what was meaningful to you from the sort of images of whether it was the rap videos we talked about growing up or whatever it was like being in New York to actually identifying the things that really did mean something to you. There had to have been a. Or several life experiences that sort of shifted. I went to the chiropractor yesterday as I was leaving Denver, and he pushed into my back and my whole spine went and I felt my spine kind of get back in line. There was a moment there where someone pushed on your back and got your spine in line. Give us one example of something that shifted your thinking about what life was supposed to be, which is that pile of cash that you put away in the bank account and die with a lot of money, or you, you know, you weren't out there doing various experiences, but was there a seminal moment where all of a sudden a lot of these issues kind of came to light where you said, now I understand what this thing's all about?
- [30:28]
Bill Perkins
I would say, not really. I'd say it's multiple experiences. It wasn't like I was riding on my horse to Damascus and I fell off it, and, oh, you know, I got religion. It was. It was more different adventure, different experiences. Like, I noticed, like, if I went through a breakup or I had, you know, problems with friends, the quality of my life was highly, highly correlated with the quality of my relationships. Doesn't matter, the wealth. And as a matter of fact, you know, at a time when I was on, like, a high, I was at kind of one of the more miserable points in my life. And I compared it to when I was, like, hustling, having to drive a limo at night, couldn't afford popcorn at a theater. I was like, man, I had a blast back then. Like, I was having a great time, you know? And then also, like, small things. Like, I remember a friend of mine, he was really into cars, and I thought I was into cars, too, because cars get the girls and all this other things. And that kind of, like, subroutine ran in my head that I like cars. And he was like, hey, I'm going to. You want to chop a McLaren with me? Or whatever. And I bought it. Oh, no. It was like a Lamborghini. And I was driving around in the car, and I felt like an asshole. I hated the car, you know, And I hate. I didn't. It wasn't until I'm like, I don't even like cars. Like, why am I buying cars? You know what I mean? Like. Like, I'm not a car guy. Like. And so I just realized, like, I. You know, you know, all the other things and concepts out there, I realized, like, most of the things I. Like, I've been. They're just marketed to me. They're just cultural, you know? The reason why I don't like fried crickets is because I didn't grow up in China. If I grew up in China, I'd like fried crickets, you know, like, you know, a lot, the music I listen to, it's because this is what I grew up listening to, you know, it's imprinted on me. And. And it's not that that's bad. Like, some of those things work, but a lot of things don't work. And I was like, I need to spend some time actually thinking about what experiences I want to have before I die. And I think also getting in touch with remembering that I'm going to die, that this ride is going to end, that you probably need to know what you want out of this ride. You probably need to think about it now you can't know everything because life is discovery. You discover what you like, you don't know what you like, right? But I probably need to take it seriously and do my best and think about like, what do I really want to have over the total arc of my life. And given that my life has seasons, like there's my 20s, you know, the young parent you, your 30s, your 40s, your 50s. When do I want each season of my life? Right? Because those seasons pass and you don't get them back, right? You don't get your college years back, you don't get your 20s back, you don't get your first job, you back, you don't get your single you back. Or sometimes you do, you know what I mean? You don't get your marriage, you. And so I'm like, each period, you know, going back to, I need to do my best, I need to really think about this. I don't need to be autopilot. I need to like, you know, kind of separate what was programming and what I really want and what I really like so I don't waste this ride.
- [33:31]
Willie Walker
Many people are deathly afraid of, oh, I, I grew up with this, or there were these expectations on me, or I've got to be a member of this country club or I've got to be able to show that. I mean, to your point about having a fancy car, there are plenty of people who get caught in the trappings of image and wealth and status. And you're someone who seems to say that's all bs. I remember distinctly. I'll just give you one quick anecdote, Bill, that I.
- [33:57]
Bill Perkins
That's 100% bullshit. But yeah, go ahead.
- [33:59]
Willie Walker
I'll just give you one quick anecdote, which was that back in 2019, my now ex wife and I were trying to decide whether we were going leave Washington D.C. and move to Denver, Colorado, which is where she was from. Walker Nellop had grown from one office to being 45 offices. And I was on the road all the time. So I was like, you know where I am, whether I'm at corporate or whether I'm on the road, we can maybe move back to her hometown. And so I'm sitting there with my son who just graduated from college this past weekend, but at that time was a freshman in high school. And he's like, dad, what are you thinking about as it relates to the move to Denver? And I say, well, first of all, corporate headquarters is in D.C. second of all, you know, your grandparents live there and I love being Close to our parents. I got a lot of friends there. And then, you know, there are certain things like we're, you know, members of the Metropolitan Club and the Chevy Chase Club. And my son at the time was in ninth grade, cuts across me at the dinner, and he goes, hang on a second. You're potentially not Moving from Washington, D.C. to Denver, Colorado, because of some club memberships. And it was so funny because here was my son sort of being like, let's get, like, priorities in place. Hanging out close to your parents and all that stuff. Sounds perfectly good, dad. And I understand why you're struggling with that, but, like, giving up on some country club membership is one of the reasons you wouldn't move. And it was. So I think back on that, and I'm just like, how wise was my son to sit there, like, get your. Get your priorities in straight. We ended up moving to Denver, Colorado. It was a great move for all of us. But I just. To your point about how did you get to the point where you didn't have those trappings, if you will?
- [35:27]
Bill Perkins
I think. I think part of it. Wow. I say this often. I grew up in, you know, I was born in 69. I grew up in Jersey City. And, you know, it was. It was a lot thicker back then, the racial tension. You know, when I was a kid, you know, people cheered when you saw a black person on tv. And so there were a lot of stereotypes and a lot. And the floor when I worked on it was extremely racist. Extremely, extremely racist and sexist. They wouldn't hire women, and I wasn't a woman, likely, but they would be like, yeah, we don't hire women. They cry. Right. And it was openly said. And there was a lot of, like, views about different people. And I'm not saying this to, like, you know, riot or whatever, but the one benefit of that was that people had opinions of me growing up that had nothing to do with me, right? And so what I got from that, the superpower I got from that was not caring what other people think, right? Because you already think what you think, right? Like, I'm like, I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't care. Right? Like, it's like, yeah, this is what they think of us. This is what they think of me. This is the, you know, guys, you know, teasing me on the floor, always doing. And so when you don't give a shit what other people think, it's a superpower. It allows you to attempt things and do things because you're not Afraid of the judgment of others. And most people that I encounter, in my experience, they don't try something because. Not because they can't take the financial risk, it's because they can't take the ego risk from the judgment of others or the ego risk of the judgment of their own ego. Tell them, oh, you're an idiot. You know what I mean? That type of thing, those two things really frees people from attempting great things, you know, or risky things. And so, you know, that's kind of where I got it. That's where I'm kind of like, I don't give a shit about looking like a clown. You know what I mean? You already think I'm idiot, unintelligent, whatever it is. Like, what do I have to lose here? So that superpower, I think, is something that I got growing up on the east coast in post civil rights, like in that period. And, you know, it's so fascinating.
- [37:44]
Willie Walker
It's so great. I have to. I want to tell a quick anecdote from an engagement I had in the last month. I spend a bunch of time with senators and congressmen and women and. And mayors and people of that nature. And there's one of my friends who's a political leader who had. Will remain nameless because of the anecdote, but had had a tough time kind of getting going in the role that he's in. And I asked him recently, I said, when was it when things kind of shifted for you? Because it looks like what you're doing and the path you're on is so much clearer today. And he looked at me, he goes, I stopped worrying about what people thought about me. He said, as a politician, I always was worried about where the polls were and where people were saying, you're doing right or you're doing wrong. He said, the moment that I gave up on having people hate me, having people say that they didn't agree with what I was doing, and I got to focusing on what I thought was right, freed me up to actually start pursuing that vision. And it's made me a much better leader. And I was just seeing, like, if you, if you read the polls too much, it's going to hold you back from doing what you need to actually go do. And clearly you figured that out at an early age.
- [38:53]
Bill Perkins
Yeah, I, you know, it was kind of luck, right? It's usually unlucky to be in that situation, but it was like luck to. To get that out. The I. The job of worrying about what other people think is a more than full Time, job.
- [39:11]
Willie Walker
Yeah.
- [39:11]
Bill Perkins
And it's in your head constantly, you know, constantly. And so it paralyzes people.
- [39:18]
Willie Walker
Let me jump into what your survival number is. The book talks about what your survival number. What, what number do people need to calculate in their survival number?
- [39:25]
Bill Perkins
So this is, you know, this is a number. It's like food, shelter, you know, food, shelter, health. Right. Like, just to maintain yourself. Right. That, that, like the basic necessities. Right. Like, and that's dependent on where you live. Like surviving in Des Moines, Iowa or Denison, Iowa is totally different than, you know, Jersey City, New Jersey or Manhattan or Brooklyn. Right. And, and that is, you know, not my choices, not my entertainment, not my movie, not whatever. But like, you know, I, I read books from the library for free. I feed myself and I have shelter and health. Right. And the reason why is like, after your survival number, everything is your choices. It's like, what do you want out of life?
- [40:11]
Willie Walker
So once you've gotten to your survival number in the book, you talk about, first of all, trying to get people out of the thought of, you know, you've got to have this great nest egg because you're going to live longer than you're actually going to live. You're going to need more money at the end of life than you're actually going to need. And also, you've got that trip to exactly your point previously of you've got that trip to China planned for when you're 82 years old, but by the time you're 82 years old, the knees in the back aren't working to the point where you want to hop in that plane and travel for all that distance, go to China, and you're not going to spend that money. So once someone gets to that survival number and saying, okay, now I need to use this money more effectively, One of the, one of the points you make in the book that I find to be so interesting is about giving money away earlier when it actually has an impact on the lives of the people you're giving it to, rather than waiting until it really doesn't impact their lives. So a perfect example is in my situation, my parents have been unbelievable as it relates to being extremely proactive on giving away their wealth when it can be used by the people at impacts and not waiting until, you know, they might. My parents, thankfully, are both still with us. My dad is 87, my mom is 84. But, you know, if, if I were to inherit some money from my parents, and fortunately, I don't need to wait for that, but if I were to inherit it when I was 65 or 70 years old. It's not going to impact my life. My kids are already through college. I've already made the investments in a second home or an experience or life. And maybe I go on some vacation because I've inherited some money when I'm 65 years old, but it's really not going impact my life. Whereas getting that money when I'm paying for my kids school tuition, getting that money when it might make the difference between having the home I want to live in and the dream home that I can actually now afford, that really has a huge impact. How did you get to that? Because that message in the book of estate planning and giving money away earlier I found to be just so incredibly compelling because so few people do it.
- [42:11]
Bill Perkins
Yeah, I'll go two parts. One, you know, the data is overwhelming that those who save save too much, right? People's net worth are rising when they're at 72. And I'm just like this, that's interesting. When's the party? You know, I mean like when is the party? You know, like are we, what are we saving for here? You know what I mean? Like, so I always ask my friends that, when's the party? That's okay, you can save whatever. Great investment, 20 year investment. When's the party? Like what are you saving for? Savings is delayed gratification. When is the gratification and who is it for? Right? And so the same physics that govern my body, governs everybody else's body, governs our children's body, right? Our ability to, the utility of money to a human declines with age because of their physical decline. Your ability to convert that money into experiences, it starts to decline till it goes to zero, till you're on your deathbed, right? Like I can't ski anymore, I can't wake surf anymore. I can't, you know, my back, whatever, right? Like our lung capacity shrinks, you know, our mental acuity sinks. Our, our, our bone density goes, goes down. And so even just our, our attitude, you know, you just don't want to do certain things. You know, like I could still go to the club and glow sticks and rave, but I don't want to go to the club as much and glow sticks and rave, right? And so that applies to my children too, right? Like they will reach a peak mental acuity at 28 and physical maturity at 33 and then they plateau and decline. And so if I'm going to give them just on that alone, dollar at 30 is much different than a dollar at 55. 60, 65. Right. Just in their billing. So you can give them $2 at 65. And it doesn't buy the same amount of experiences because certain experiences are off the table and certain experiences are unenjoyable. Aside from also the life ordering impact. Like, this is when they need it, this is when it's going to have the most impact, et cetera. And so the question is like, okay, I love my kids and there's a certain amount of money I want to give them. When is the best time to give it to them? Right? That's intentional living. Right. That's not autopilot, like, oh, whatever happens to be left over when I die. Right. So, okay, you know, I reason it's between 28 and 33, you know, no later than 33, period, end of sentence for any reason whatsoever. Either you're not giving it to them or you're giving it to them at, you know, by 33.
- [44:51]
Willie Walker
And you don't think that there's a risk as somebody who has hustled as hard as you have to create the life that you've created. One of the big sort of conflicts in the thinking that you just said that I got from all of my friends in ypo. When I was in YPO and would go to my YPO forum, we'd all sit around and say, what's the perfect. To your. To the model that you talked about of I want a computer model and tell me how to live this life balance, right? The question that always would come up in my YPO forum discussions was how much money do I have, my kids and when do they get it? And everyone who would ask that question would sit there and say, well, if I give them too much too early, they're going to get lazy. That they're not going to like, pursue the, the dreams that I'm expecting them to pursue. They're going to. They're not going to have that grit that got me what I got. And so as a result of it, I've got to hold back rather than giving. How do you, how do you reconcile that?
- [45:42]
Bill Perkins
I'm going to, I'm going to answer this one pretty harshly. Two points. One, the dreams I expected of them. Literally, you're trying to control somebody. You don't love somebody. You're trying to control them. They get to live their own life. That's. I say that very harshly. Like, you know what I mean? Like, you want to control somebody with money or whatever, that's your choice. You can do that. But that's not me, right? Two, if you haven't given the tools and trained your kids by the age of 33 to handle those tools, give up, it's over. You know what I mean? They're on their life. They're adults now. They're not kids. You know what I mean? Do you expect somehow at 45, that's going to be the right time, like, give up, you know what I mean? Like, check the job that you've done prior. The question is, you're going to give a gift. It's a gift right to your kids. And you're like, the amount. You can figure out the amount, whatever amount you want to give. But the timing is unmistakable to me. These are adults now. They're not really. They're your kids, they're your young adults. We call them kids because they own them. But nobody looks at them like, hey, kid, you know what I mean? These are grown men and women, right? There's no retraining. You're not even going to spend enough time with them to train. 80% of the time you spent with them is, like age 14, you know, so are you, like, gonna move in with them and live upstairs? And you guys are gonna have eight hours a day on training how to use money and whatever you want to do. And the tool at that point, like, what fairy is going to come from outer space to teach them the lessons so that you want to give them the money? And I'm like, listen, at that age, they get to make their own mistakes, live their own adventure, choose their own ride. And if you want to, if you don't want to give them the money that, based on the choices that they want to make for their life, don't give it to them. But there's no, you know, 65, when life is pretty much 2 6. I'm 57. I'm looking at my death clock. 75.6% of my life is gone. So do you want to wait so
- [47:55]
Willie Walker
that, that, that gets to longevity? Because you spend a lot of time and a lot of money on longevity. What's your personal goal now as it relates to what age you live to?
- [48:06]
Bill Perkins
I mean, obviously, if I could live to 150, right? Like, you know, do you have, you
- [48:12]
Willie Walker
have an explicit goal? I've got, I've got an Instagram account that's lived to 120, and I'm very focused on trying to live to 120 years old.
- [48:18]
Bill Perkins
I mean, if I say 120, but, you know, my realistic number right now, current technology, things I'm going to do adjusting for wealth. You know, the actual tables will say 86, 87 and that's what that number is up there. But if you go and adjust it for wealth, my current diet, things that are going on, my VO2 max, it's probably like 95, 96, right. I am just as hopeful as the next guy on small molecules and all the things that are coming out now that would get me to 120. But that's, that's. Hope is not a plan. You know what I mean? Hope is not a plan, right? And so the mental models and, and the, they're not static, right? Like if I'm 75 and I'm, you know, looking good and, and running and the health and the numbers, you, you adjust, right? Like you're constantly, this is a daily, monthly, weekly, you know, adjust, right? Like so the day you live is, is it, you know, changes the odds if you make it to 86. You know, it changes the odds on whether you're going to make it to 96. You live at 96, change the odds, you can make the 106 and so on. So the model is continuously updating and like I said, I'm hopeful and I'm doing the things to, to get there with you, but that's not a plan. And so I don't, I don't say, hey, I'm not going to go skiing with my friends right now. I'm going to save that to 120 or 119, 10. Right. Like I have to, I have to, you know, model my life, model the what time period, what I'm going to do in each time period of life based on current science and technology.
- [50:02]
Willie Walker
And your daughters are relatively young as it relates to having a conversation on your net worth, how much they should expect to get. But how do you frame that discussion? Bill? I have a very good friend of mine who's a father in law is wildly wealthy, wildly, wildly wealthy. And he and all of his brothers and sisters in law have absolutely no insight, no insight whatsoever into what they're getting, when they're getting it, how much they get nothing. And they're all in their early 40s and late 30s and they have no visibility into what's coming their way. And I, and I sit there and I just go, are you kidding me? Like literally there's like no transparency whatsoever. You're going to get this at this point or whatever else. And it's just baffling to me. But there are actually tons of people who are like, oh no, I can't show my kids how much they're going to get or when they're going to get it. What's your plan as it relates to that type of transparency?
- [51:03]
Bill Perkins
They know, right around 21, they get a very small amount of a trust that I sent, and I want to train them on the tool. So I figure, like, it's really hard. Like, I. I'm an average parent, right? So, like, I'm not, I'm not the girl, so, like, the people. It's like I didn't train them well to be like, oh, 21, like, you're on top of it, right? Like. But what I have now is nine years to train them on the tool, to give them the exposure. Here's your own money. They'll probably light it on fire. Here's, you know, here's investment. Here's getting in touch with the things you want. Here's thinking paths the next year. Here's thinking about what you're in your 30s, like, what, what, what will happen. So that when the true inheritance comes at 30, that they have the skills to use the tools according to what they want to do. Right? And so, you know, my goal was to, like, raise strong, independent, kind, loving women so that it can navigate the world on their terms, not my terms. And then I'm going to hand them this tool. I want to make sure that from age 21 on the 30, that they know how to use the tool so they don't cut their own heads off with the tool. Right? Like, they don't. They don't destroy themselves with the tool. Right?
- [52:15]
Willie Walker
Yeah.
- [52:15]
Bill Perkins
And so I think at 21, they need to know, like, hey, this is coming. You're going to have a substantial estate, you know, and we need to practice. We need to be talking about things. You need to understand the concept future present value and net present value. You need to understand the impact it has on you and your interpersonal relationships. You need to understand, you know, what you really want, not what's marketed to you right out of life, right? You need to understand how quickly it can go. You need to stand all these things, right? And so I figure I have nine years to train them for the handoff, for the mandatory handoff date.
- [52:54]
Willie Walker
That's. It's fantastic. The one thing that there are a lot of people who are listening to this who are yours and my age. There are also a lot of people who are listening to this who are in their 20s and 30s who are trying to figure out sort of how do you plan towards these things and we were really fortunate to a invest in UTMA accounts for our kids decades ago and just put a small amount of money into the utmas and the utmas kept that growing and growing and growing cause they just sat there. And one thing that your book talks about and I can't underscore enough to people who are listening to this is just, you know, the, the compounding effect of wealth is, is, is undeniable. Just put it away, leave it, don't touch it and it will grow.
- [53:36]
Bill Perkins
It's a small amount that transfers to them when they're 21 is there and
- [53:39]
Willie Walker
it's 21 and it's forced. So all my kids, my, my second kid just turned 21 and he just got his UTMA account. The Other one is 529 accounts as it relates to saving for college. We were fortunate enough to put money away in 2010 when Walker Nellop went public to fund 529 accounts. And you know, now I've got three kids, one who just graduated from college but the last, you know, when I've got three kids in college it's, it's, I don't even think about it because it's already pre funded because we funded the 529 account. Those are those types of things that will make a huge impact as it relates to how much money you can then end up giving your kids later on because you've saved for it and you've had it compounding itself over time by just putting a certain amount of money aside to be able to pay for that. And so those are two things at 59 years old that I look back and say hey, that was really smart to do that back then when you were kind of thinking about funding college educations or to your point when they turned 21, having a forced, if you will, sum of money that comes to them for them to start engaging and managing it and either spending it or saving it. Which I watched my now 22 year old son not touch the money he got at 21. And I sit there and go, that's kind of cool that he was going to go on vacation last summer with his girlfriend and he's sitting there fishing around for some, you know, economy class ticket on a long haul flight. And I said to him, you know Jack, you can go use that money to you know, go fly business class. And he looks at me like I'm from outer space. He's like, why would I ever use my money to upgrade? We can, we can hang out in economy on the way to Chile. We're just going to fly down there, Dad. I got some really good seats. I'm like, that is to your point. That's wonderful for me to see is him being able to have that money and he's not just out buying the, you know, buying the fancy car, if you will.
- [55:17]
Bill Perkins
Yeah, yeah. I worry with my daughters that they'll, like, try and use me as, like, use my money, you know, keep that, like, going on. I do want them to, you know, experiment with, like, hey, was that experience worth it or did I, like, was that upgrade worth it? You know, was this trip worth it? You know, I, I had to learn the hard way. Maybe they've learned from my mistakes. And I also did the 529 plan. I, I reasoned, I did the prepay one. There's like, the universal one for schools. And I reasoned that, you know, I take enough risk that I can't have investment risk, but I can prepay and buy four years of college at the most expensive school in this plan. That'll cover every single school and every single school that gets added, and I don't have to worry about it. So if I go dead broke, my kids still go to college. And so I separated that out as well. So I just wanted to point that out that that's a good plan. Those 529 plans. What.
- [56:07]
Willie Walker
What's been the most rewarding either feedback, commentary, or life change that you've seen since writing the book in the sense that you've clearly gotten people who've said, whoa, it opened my eyes. I've done this, I've done that. What's. What's something you've gotten back as feedback Bill, that sort of said, man, that makes me feel really good that I stopped and spent the time and gave my gift of my insight on this to others. What's been. What have you gotten back on?
- [56:35]
Bill Perkins
I got, I got a lot of that. So both DMS or Twitters or people stop me, you know, the book about. In all copies, by probably latest year, 2 million people will have, have, have, have read the book in some form, you know, listen to it or read it. And then I've done like, I think 54 podcasts on it, so. Or more. But I think one was one of my favorites is that we told our grandparents that their sole job to quit work. Their sole job is to hang out with their grandkids. And we had to convince them, and they convinced the grandparents. It's like you're coming down and you're just going to hang out with Your grandkids. And so this was a, you know, a younger couple that had means, and they're like, what are we doing? You know, why are my grandparents. Why are grandparents working? Like, they re. They thought about what they wanted in the arc of their life and their family unit and was like, this is what we're going to do. You know, But I've had tons of. I retired, I quit my job, I moved these things. I've taken a group that I never would have done. I brought my whole family, and we had this experience. I've had the founder of Picasso become like my Peter to my church. You know, he. He go. I was going, this is. This is just the wildest story. It's not. I was going to visit a friend in Boulder, and he's at their house and it's like, what do you hear? He goes, well, I'm going to a Goldman Sachs conference. And I go, great. What are you doing? Yeah, I'm going to go talk about Die with Zero. And he brings a bunch of books and he talks about Diary Zero, Goldman Sachs conference, because it had such an impact on his life. And he shares it. And then two weeks later, somebody from Goldman Sachs is like, yeah, I found out about your book. It was a great book. So it's kind of this radioactive thing thing that's kind of, you know, impacting people's lives in different ways. And that. That makes me happy because, you know, I didn't write the book to get rich or get famous. I don't want to be the guy, right? Like, I wrote the book to save my life, and I wanted the message to get out so that people can have more fulfilling life. But I don't want to be like the Susie Orman of Die with Zero, right? Or. Or. Or the Dave Ramsey, because that would just ruin my life. Like, you don't want to get too famous, right? Like, you just don't. Like, you don't. You don't. Being famous would rob me of the things I like doing, and it would actually be less fulfillment, right? And so. And nobody writes books to get rich, right? Like, so. So nobody, unless you're like Obama or somebody who's really famous that, you know, they give you a big advance. So, you know, that is great because it's like, oh, the book is on mission. Like, it's accomplishing its goals.
- [59:26]
Willie Walker
Very much so. Bill, you. You literally save lives every day by having written the book that talks to people. And you're the anecdote you used as it relates to what is saving a life about allowing people to continue to experience this world that we're in is just fantastic. I'm super appreciative of you spending an hour, which is worth a ton of money, to talk with me on this podcast, and I'm just super thankful of it. Thank you for the book. Thank for your thoughts, and I hope the two of us can get together at some point and either go do a workout together or just talk about dying with zero.
- [60:00]
Bill Perkins
Yeah, I appreciate it. Thanks for having me. And we should go wake surfing instead.
- [60:04]
Willie Walker
I'd love it. It'd be great. I'm actually looking out at the Potomac river right now, and there's actually somebody on a. On a. On a foil in the Potomac, and they're zipping around in front of me, and I'm. I'm sitting there going. I just hope they don't fall on the river. So it's great. Bill, thank you so much.
- [60:20]
Bill Perkins
Thanks.
- [60:21]
Willie Walker
Have a great day.