My Takeaways From A Private Webinar With Bill Perkins ("Die With Zero")
My Takeaways From A Private Webinar With Bill Perkins ("Die With Zero")
4 lessons I learned from his session
Heard of Bill Perkins?
I hadn’t until FATFire mentioned him every time someone asked for book recommendations after a windfall. I bought his book, Die With Zero, which is a hefty title, but bear with me.
This is one of the few books I almost finished! Not your fault, Bill, my attention span sucks.
His views on how to utilize money are fascinating.
Here’s the gist. We should focus more on increasing our net fulfillment, instead of our net worth. You have a limited time where money has its maximum fulfillment.
We all have time buckets, where our money and time have the most effectiveness. Why put off a ski trip in your 30s when you won’t be able to hit the slopes hard in your 50s?
TLDR: Do more activities that bring joy and memories and stop living on autopilot.
Interesting concept right? Why do we live on autopilot, even after a windfall? What makes you really happy and fulfilled? Can you spend your time on that now, instead of later?
A HNW group I’m a part of announced Bill Perkins was speaking so I signed up and marked my calendar.
Here’s what I took from his talk:
“You’re trading age buckets”
You have a finite number of buckets in your life. Age groupings have optimal experiences that are inside them.
You can do a 3-day hike to Machu Picchu when you’re 25-30 but probably not 51-55 years old.
Create your own age buckets and fill them up with your bucket list.
This helps reduce “life autopilot”.
“Maximize your experiences”
You’ve got money now! Go get fit, take sailing lessons, do shit that’s awesome.
This is probably the most challenging concept to wrap my head around. We’ve been trained to maximize saving.
How do you unwind that?
This past July 4th, my wife and I had friends and family stay with us for the weekend in Los Angeles. I have a bunch of surfboards that we took to the beach.
Everyone’s learning to surf, laughing, and just having a great time. It was one of the first times I felt so present.
I want to create more experiences like that.
“KPI your life”
Rob Dyrdek mention this concept too on a podcast.
I’ve been skeptical because of the added work but there is validity here. “You can’t improve something if you’re not measuring it.” We do this for our businesses, so why not our personal life?
Bill mentions it’s important to track the important things you want to improve.
What data points could help you with a better marriage, relationship with friends, and health? Probably best to start with 3 simple metrics first.
I’m doing health first with MyFitnessPal, Health app, and Withins scale.
Another app mentioned to help is Habitify.
“Intentional living, what do you want out of life”
This maybe the most impactful, and hardest to course correct.
“You have so much momentum because you spent so much in one area. If you’re a pianist, you spent so much time becoming incredible. But everything else life-wise is atrophying.”
Ain’t that the truth.
Anyone who’s built and sold a business recognizes this well.
You give everything to the company. Relationships, marriage, and friendships all suffer. Not purposely, but you’re not putting anytime into them.
For me, this mentality has been hard to unwind. I did my Why Outline to help create the north star and I wanted results from that ASAP. How do I create this new life now?
To Bill’s point though, “Don’t be frustrated, it’s your first day in the gym in 15 years.”
Even if you’re still working, be intentional with your time. Bill mentions, “Question why are you doing this or that? Constantly.”
Can you hire someone to take tasks off your plate, part-time assistants, full-time hires, or freelancers?
Bill hires out a lot at home, here are some examples:
Chef for convenience, health , and remove thought from what he’s eating
Nutritionist to work with the chef on optimizing for his own body
Fitness coach/trainer
“Get off autopilot and find balance.” Got it 🚀