Bill Perkins: LV122 Author of Die with Zero

Bill Perkins is a renowned entrepreneur, hedge fund manager, and world-class poker player, who shares his innovative approach to living a fulfilled life in his book Die with Zero. He's also a 2012 graduate of ChoiceCenter Leadership University's LV122.

Die with Zero challenges traditional financial advice, advocating for living a life full of experiences rather than accumulating wealth for its own sake. The book emphasizes balancing the pursuit of financial security with the intentional use of time, energy, and resources to create meaningful memories and experiences.

In Die with Zero, Bill provides a roadmap for living fully, focusing on maximizing life satisfaction rather than simply leaving a large inheritance. Bill Perkins has inspired thousands to rethink how they spend their time, money, and energy and today he will inspire you too! Join co-hosts Robin Williams and Corrine Clement as they dive into the genius financial mind of Bill Perkins.

Episode Transcript

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EQU by Choice Center Leadership University is where emotional intelligence meetsextraordinary results.
Founded in 1998 in Las Vegas, Choice Center has empowered thousands of people around theworld to unlock their full potential through experiential trainings and coaching.

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Here on EQU, we dive into the inspiring stories and transformative journeys from bothfamous faces and everyday heroes.
Graduates who have harnessed emotional intelligence to transform their lives in ways thatare nothing short of remarkable.
From skyrocketing their careers to deepening relationships, balancing creative pursuitswith focusing on health, finances, and family.

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Our guests share the real world impact of EQ
on living a life you author and love.
Get ready to be inspired, challenged, and equipped with insights that can serve you tocreate radical results in your own life.
If you're ready to dream, declare, and deliver, let EQU show you what's possible.

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Welcome to EQU, the Choice Center Leadership University podcast, where we dive deep intostories of extraordinary success and transformation achieved through the power of
emotional intelligence.
Today we're thrilled to have our guest who's not only a visionary thinker, but a disruptorof conventional wisdom.

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So get ready to be inspired.
And before we share who our guest is, make sure you like, subscribe, and follow so younever miss an episode.
We also appreciate you taking the time to give us a five-star rating.
And with that, Robin, who is it we're so blessed to have on our show today?
We're really excited.
We're going back to the archives today to learn from a graduate of LV122 who attendedChoice Center back in 2012.

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Bill Perkins is a renowned entrepreneur, hedge fund manager, world-class poker player whoshares his innovative approach to living a full life in his book, best-selling book I
might say, Die was Zero.
Die with Zero challenges traditional financial advice advocating for living a life full ofexperiences rather than accumulating wealth for its own sake.

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The book emphasizes balancing the pursuit of financial security with the intentional useof time, energy,
resources to create memories and experiences.
In Die with Zero, Bill provides a roadmap for living fully and maximizing lifesatisfaction rather than simply leaving a large inheritance.

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Bill Perkins has inspired thousands to rethink how they spend their time, their money, andtheir energy.
And today he will inspire you too.
Bill, it is an absolute honor to have you with us today.
Welcome to EQU.
Thanks, thanks for having me.
It's great to be back.
It's great to catch up.
So I'm looking forward to this discussion.
Well, there's so many things that I have been curious to ask you about over the yearsabout the book, Die with Zero, your bestseller, and about your experience at Choice Center

(03:18):
and how that impacted your life journey.
And we'd love to hear it all.
we sure would.
And, you know, to start, I think it'd be great to allow our listeners to learn a littlebit about you and your background.
So can you give us some, a few lines about how and where you grew up, what profession youpursued and, and how you ended up where you are today?

(03:39):
wow.
Let's condense 55 years and some change into a couple of lines here.
Born and raised in Jersey City, New Jersey, attended the University of Iowa, came back tothe city and wanted to get rich.
Went to school for electrical engineering, but I reasoned at the time that
If you have the money, you can be your own engineering company.

(04:01):
can engineer, can be actor, you can do whatever you want.
So I wanted a place where I'd have the most leverage on my time and then, you know, pursuethe things I wanted.
As a young male, you can figure out those pursuits weren't the most noble pursuits at thetime.
They were more hedonistic, but that's kind of what got me into the exchange floor andcommodity trading.
The opportunities led me to Houston, Texas to run a derivatives desk there.

(04:23):
Started my life here and set up roots here.
fairly successful in that field and all the other endeavors that I like to do.
I accumulated enough capital to go do them, do some of them.
And so that's kind of got me to where I am right now.
You know, along the way there has been highs and lows, ups and downs, new learnings, andsome of which I share in the book, Die with Zero.

(04:46):
We can talk about some of them.
excellent.
You know, you talked about being a trader on Wall Street.
And one of the things that hit me initially in the book was you had this perspective asmost of us do, that are kind of hustlers when we're young, that we should start to work
hard, save hard.
Some of your friends were going around the world and you chose to stay and make some extramoney and things like that.

(05:08):
And you had a boss that had you rethink what you were doing.
Could you tell us a little bit about that time on Wall Street?
how he started to have you think about that differently.
And then is that something you soaked in right away?
like what people think when you first start out, you're not really making any money.
the boys are making more money than you are, maybe if you work at some of the big banks,but you work a lot of hours and it's low pay.

(05:32):
But I read a book called, your money or your life, which asks you to basically taught meto rethink about money as something I exchange hours of my life for.
And one of the things it tries to get you to do is get in touch with your values,understand what you're spending, how you're exchanging hours of your life for the things
that you accumulate, whether it's a shirt.
a movie ticket or et cetera, that costs me an hour.

(05:53):
That cost me 30 minutes.
That's cost me 15 minutes.
I, I, one of the results of reading that book is people tend to become very frugal.
The fire movement was launched from that.
So I was extreme.
I became a master saver of everything.
And on my meager salary, I managed to save, I think like a thousand bucks that includeddriving a limo at night to make ends meet.

(06:13):
And I was talking about it with a sense of pride with someone on the exchange floor.
My, my, my boss called me a idiot.
And I was like, what are you fucking idiot?
Like, what are you doing saving that money?
Like you didn't come here to make the thousand dollars.
You came here to make millions, like go enjoy your life, like go spend that money.
You know, I thought about it, um, you know, in terms of the context of like what I wantedin our life.

(06:37):
And I was like, yeah, he's right.
Like, why am I, why am I here, you know, saving all this money, stealing from my poor selfto give to my future richer self.
And so being the person that I am, went full steam to spending all my money.
went the opposite way, overcorrected.
Inherent in that and the discussions of like, kind of like when you're younger people,like, what is it all about?
Like, is, I just going to make this X amount of money and is this all this, all there isto it?

(07:01):
And if this is all there is to it, kind of when is there all to it?
Like if I'm going to get married, like when am I partying years?
And then what, what happens when?
so.
At that time in my life, I was thinking deeply about future success and what it meant andwhat freedoms it would afford me and when was the best time to get rich.
Cause everybody's like, I want to be rich before I'm 30.

(07:23):
No one says I want to be rich by the time I'm 90.
Right?
Like there's, there's reasons inherent in that intuitively that we understand that.
And I started to just dig a little deeper into what that meant.
You just mentioned the fire movement, is the financial independence retire early.
How does that differ from how you approach life and die with zero?

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So the fire movement is great because it gets people to think about their time, the moneythat's coming in, which is essentially exchange of the hours and getting in touch with
their values.
The problem I have with the fire movement is that, it, it, basically a lot of people arelike, well, I'm just gonna not live my life, live in a, you know, four by four box and

(08:09):
save all my money.
And then I'm going to retire at like 40, 50, or whatever the number is.
And I said to this is like, well, could I just pay you money to go to jail for 20 years?
And then you come out and retire and the answer is no.
And so that's an extreme example, but to a certain degree, that's what they're doing.
They're giving up many years of their life of enjoyment, fulfillment, fulfillingactivities that they would normally do that are basically optimal during that time period.

(08:34):
They don't transfer well to the next time period in their life, or they don't transfer atall.
And so I think the fire method for most people is unbalanced.
And when I say unbalanced, mean, it doesn't live to the most fulfilling life possible thatthey could have.
Your overarching purpose in writing Die with Zero was to inspire people to live reallydeliberately and you're all about that.

(08:57):
And one of the things I remember that I thought was so much fun was the latte factor.
I loved learning in the book and becoming aware of what your Starbucks habits cost you.
And that hit me personally.
Like I remember thinking, my gosh, can you share a little bit more about that?
Yeah.
So there's a lot of analysis on your kind of everyday habits.

(09:18):
What do they cost you, including investment returns?
Have you just invested that?
Right.
And it's not saying, Hey, don't drink Starbucks.
It's just be aware of this, you know, be intentional in what you're doing, what your timeand your habits.
And so if you took the $5 a day, invested it in the stock market or a 7 or 8 % return 20,40 years of that, it's a significant sum of money.

(09:39):
And it's like,
Would you rather have that money in 10 years or would you rather have the Starbucks everyday?
Now some people might be, I'd rather have the Starbucks, you know, that's the mostfulfilling thing in my life.
I'd love the Starbucks, right?
But I don't think that they're intentionally making that decision.
I think a lot of the decisions we make come from default mode network.
It's something we've done.
We've always done and we're not doing it intentionally.
And as human beings, it's impossible to live constantly in intentionality.

(10:03):
So what happens is, that when you pop up and you are thinking, you develop the habits andmethods to keep you on your path and you keep popping up because you can't sit there and
think, I better signal right turn 10 and two, whatever you just drive.
It's in default mode network.
The first time you're driving, that's how you are.
You're like, my God, 10 and two hit the gas.
What's this guy doing?

(10:24):
And then it's kind of auto on autopilot.
Autopilot is great for surviving and reducing cognitive load.
It's not great for thriving that you have to get intentional about what it is you want outof life, what it is you want out of this exact period.
And what is the best method to get there?
You can do that latte thing, even with taxes, you know, people live in California versussay Nevada.

(10:47):
was like, well, what if you took that 13%, you know, you're paying or extra 8 % or best ina stock market return.
Would you rather have that or would you rather have, you know, where you're living inCalifornia?
That might be a difficult decision because California is a bit of beautiful place, but atleast.
They're thinking about it, right?
They're being intentional about their happiness.
They say, no, I'm, I'm actually will have a much more fulfilling life living here versusmoving in Nevada or no, net, net, would be much more fulfilling and, and, and great life

(11:13):
moving in Nevada.
And so that's kind of the, the kind of the thought process for everybody.
don't tell people how to live a fulfilling life.
It's not like, Hey, you should go be a monk and that's going to be the most fulfillingthing.
I'm like, whatever it is, we need to be intentional about it and think about thesevariables we have in our life or wealth.
our health and our time, and how do we allocate them across our life in order to have themost fulfilling life.

(11:35):
I love how you inspire people to basically prioritize the best way to spend their life'senergy before they die, right?
Correct.
If you were going to explain the overarching methodology of how people should think aboutdying with zero to our listeners, how would you encapsulate that in the easiest form?
Yeah, wow.
I would say like you have a ride here on earth.

(11:57):
Let's call it 86 years and you're going to have certain resources that you're given inorder to make your life the most, most fulfilling and to spend time on earth, accumulating
more resources to make it more fulfilling and not using them before you die is clearlysuboptimal.
It's just kind of axiomatic.
And so the question is, we're not going to spend it all on the day that we die and we'renot going to, you know, it's not going to be this one.

(12:22):
And we're going to exchange activities that we want to do for now and this battle for whatour present self and our future self, right?
And how, how does that affect?
And one of the biggest forcing functions is your health.
It's not the fact that you die, but it's the fact that you decay.
And so, my wakeboarding, my wakeboarding days are gone.
I wake surf and I love wake surfing, but the wakeboarding days, like if I didn't get inenough wakeboarding days, it's over.

(12:44):
I missed out.
maybe instead of, I don't know, goofing off and playing a poker game, I should have wentwakeboarding.
And I would have had more fulfillment out of that.
And you only know that if you really think about it you're really intentional about eachperiod in your life, what experiences belong when.
so it's really about leaving everything on the playing field of life before you check out.

(13:07):
And then the question is, okay, that's fine.
Yeah, I'm going to spend it all up, but how, how do we spend, what does that curve looklike?
How do we make decisions between current gratification and future gratification?
And.
How does this forcing function called health affect it?
And so it's impossible to write a program to get all these things, but you can have themental models on how to think about things with you, your loved ones, know, yourself, you

(13:30):
know, all these conversations to be like, okay, we're already having a more fulfillinglife because we thought about these things.
Just thinking about these things alone will lead to behaviors that will force you to havea more fulfilling life.
Yeah.
And you break that into something you call time bucketing.
me, what was interesting was we all are conditioned and raised with that fear of spendingtoday because we think we need this giant parachute for later in life.

(13:58):
So talk to us a little bit about how somebody would time bucket.
How do they think about and give themselves permission to spend now versus hoarding forlater.
Yeah.
So I'll give you some examples because I actually am now in a phase where I'm actuallyabout to do a new time bucket.
And so one thing you'll like to say is life is discovery.

(14:19):
Um, you don't know what you want.
You discover what you want.
So it's a continual process.
I don't want this.
I don't want people to listen to you and think this is like a do it once and you're done.
Right.
Because in part of your like, Hey, I want to go visit Japan and you know, this will befulfilling the family, a great trip and grandpa bones.
go to Japan.
be like, wait, I love it here.
I want to live in Japan.
Like, so
Things do change, but what you want to do is broadly look at your life and break them upin distinct time periods.

(14:43):
could be three years, it could be five years, et cetera.
And the further you go out, I think you need to make them a little bit wider because it'shard to know what you're going to want when you're 70.
You have a couple ideas.
But in a nighttime period, what do you want out of life?
Is it a time period, like I want to go hang out with my buddies and go to strip clubs andgo to party, or are you going to be married and you're to be hanging out with your kids at
the park, et cetera?
Life events also kind of dictate.

(15:04):
What things are going to be doing?
Is this my first job or am I starting my own company?
Is this the time period?
And so as you do that and the more detailed you can know about that, the more you willknow exactly what you need to earn and when you need to spend.
Now we're human beings.
We have uncertainty.
We don't know what's going to happen.
We don't know what we're going to like.

(15:25):
We're going to discover it, but starting that process allows you to go, wait a minute.
I have this hiking trip here 15 years from now, and I have this train ride trip here.
I might not be able to hike 15 years from now.
Maybe the train ride should go here or here.
So if I do this right, and I'm just using that specific example, I get more of the thingsthat fulfill me in my life.

(15:49):
I get more of the memories, more of the interactions, more fulfillment.
And so by breaking these periods up, you start to build a curve of experiences that youwant to have.
By and large, when you do that, you'll see that your spending is going to be peaking at acertain period.
Like I don't have, I can assure you in my 75 to 85 buck, I don't have hella skiing.

(16:13):
I don't have these drips.
I don't have a, want to 15 countries in a year type of thing.
I have like hang out with my grandchildren and go to dinner, help with the grandchildrenhomework.
Like things that are low.
dollar lift things.
So I think in general, unless something changes, med tech changes, or, you know, mypersonality changes and given my ancestors and looking at everybody around me as it seems

(16:38):
unlikely that the majority of my spending is right now.
Like, this is the highest this year.
It should be the highest year I'm spending and then the next year.
it gives me a little bit of freedom to go.
I don't need that much money at 85.
I don't need that much money at 83.
And now people think, well, what about this scenario or what about this happens for allthose things that I'm concerned or risks I'm concerned about?

(17:02):
I, I buy the insurance from experts at a lower premium than wasting my life.
So, so there, there's certain people like, I'm saving money just in case this happens.
And I'm like, well, you're basically saying you're an insurance agent with a client ofone.
And you're giving up fulfillment and exchange for that to be then insurance agent.

(17:23):
And I'm saying it's much more efficient.
of you paying X to the insurance policy, then you get that money back and you get to havea fulfilling life.
And they actually have the financial wherewithal to stomach it where you don't like you'regoing to get wiped out before we even get to the deductible.
With that, you know I mean?
Like the things you're thinking about, you're going to insure about like, it's just,you're either fabulously wealthy and you want to be an insurance agent or you're laying

(17:49):
off the wrist to somebody else and you get to live your life.
Yeah.
One of the things that you talk about in Die with Zero is the importance of investing inyour health today, because to your point, we're all thinking about, I need to have this
money later on, but you're saying, hey, go ahead and spend it now when you can do some ofthe things that are more expensive versus in retirement.

(18:10):
So tell us a little bit about how you approach that concept of maybe disease preventionand what kinds of things do you invest in for your own health to make sure you've
got the kind of longevity and vitality to enjoy some of those later.
Right.
So if you look at the forcing function of health where, you know, we're all going to decayand decline 80, 90%, like most medicine is that like the miracle is like extending your

(18:37):
life when you're immobile in a hospital bed for an extra two years.
So you still don't get that much fulfillment out of it or it actually could be negative.
So what we're trying to do is increase the area under the curve.
If my knees, if I'm in shape, my lung capacity is better.
My muscle mass is better.
I get to walk around a walking city longer and I get more fulfillment out of it later.

(19:00):
Investing in your health now and compliance with what's known science out there is thebiggest thing you can do.
When we run models on this, nothing is more powerful than that.
Because if you have no health, it doesn't matter how big
I run the multiplier of money on top of that.
If it's money times health equals the things you can do fulfillment becomes infinite moneyto get the same amount of fulfillment.

(19:26):
Whereas the, just the ability to walk an extra mile without being out of breath or beingmiserable or enjoyable, it makes a big difference.
So these are things like your VO2 max muscle mass.
There's a whole industry now of experts out there that are telling you basically everybodyis the same thing.
Lift heavy weights, keep your VO2 max up, which means like doing, you know, cardio andzone two long enough so that you will have less chance of Alzheimer's, better utility,

(19:54):
your flexibility, et cetera.
And so when I'm being a good boy, I'm in high compliance with those things and it's nevertoo late.
It's never like, I'm out of shape or my VO2 is terrible.
You know, every single study is it's never too late.
You get the benefits, the benefits will come.
so.
It's not just a current benefit of I feel good and girls like me or that type of thing.

(20:15):
It's the future you is thanking you in spades because they're having a much morefulfilling life and your totality of your fulfillment over the arc of your life is much,
much higher.
So investments in your health, don't even have to cost money.
you can walk and hike in a park for free and you can talk with a friend at the same time.

(20:37):
And if you have that routine.
Running three miles and walking three miles is almost the same thing.
It's the inefficiency of running that makes it like 10 to 15 % more calories, et cetera.
But like you're building up lung capacity, you're building up leg strength, you'reenjoying scenery, you're enjoying a friend and you're giving dividends to your future
self.

(20:58):
There's body weight stuff you can do at home.
And so these things are perhaps the biggest impact, but it's not a health book, right?
It's, it's just homage to the fact that
This is the biggest variable.
This is the forcing function.
And the more you can keep that curve on perfect as you decline, the more fulfillmentyou're going to have.
And it's going to by far have the biggest impact.

(21:19):
Love that.
Well, your health affects your lifetime fulfillment, that is for sure.
Right.
For sure.
It's the biggest, it's the biggest variable, you know, and then, and, and, and really thenit's your, you know, your choices and your intentionality of actually thinking about it
and not living on autopilot and let life pass you by.
What's fun is listening to you.
know you're living this and that makes it so much fun to learn also.

(21:42):
heard, probably I read it first, but I've heard you talk about it.
Knowing our final countdown clock, and this is something I did.
I lost my daddy five years ago.
My mom is in a dementia home now and I'm constantly on the calculation.
Maybe I have another two years with mom at Christmas or Hanukkah.
Reminding ourselves, Christmas is birthdays.

(22:04):
all the different things we want to do with our family and our friends and thinking aboutthese.
How have you been spending your time and who you spend it with?
This is a conversation I'm in constantly.
And you talk a lot about this in Die with Zero.
Could you put some more light on that for us?
Yeah, I mean, you, never get it perfect, right?

(22:24):
Like we're just not going to get perfect.
I mean, if we, if we, we go into heaven and we look back, it's like, shit, I could havemade this move or that move, but we do get it better.
We can do better, but we can, we can strive for those interactions and just being aware.
It's like, like you said, I have.
How many Hanukkahs or how many, how many good summers do I have?
How, you know, 75 % of the time you spend with a kid, your child will probably be by theage of 13.

(22:49):
Yeah.
Exactly.
We get independent, they get their friends, they're going, et cetera.
For some parents that might be 15 or 16, you know, but it's like, wow, this is, this isit.
This is where I'm going to get all my time of the time you spend with your kids.
75 % of it is, by 13.
And so that that's with all your relations, right?
There's this, this, this is clock running, right?
Because people are older than you, they're to die before you, or they're going to getmarried or they just might be moving away or it's not the time period.

(23:14):
so that's a giant multivariate.
problem to solve for people.
So we do not expect anybody to get it perfect, but it will help you start making certaindecisions about what do I do now versus what I do later?
And how do I spend my time?
And all you can do is your best.
And if you do your best, you never have any regrets.
The rest is just the chaos of the world.

(23:34):
You just do your best.
And so I think part of doing your best is just like being aware and understanding settingtime with my kids, time with my friends, X time with my, you know, my parents and
I would like to do X, Y, Z, figuring out what you want.
Like some people like, yeah, I got X time with them.
I don't want to spend time with them, I'm not telling you the most who you have to, right?

(23:55):
You know, that's enough.
That's more than enough.
But just that awareness that we talked about in the beginning of the conversation,thinking about it, will allow you to then map out or make decisions on how you allocate
your time, which is your most precious resource.
How am I going to allocate it?
I'm constantly doing that.
Do I go here?

(24:16):
Do I whatever?
And then when you were your buddies like, you know, how many summers, how many goodsummers do we have?
It's not just total summers.
It's good summers.
You know, last decade of life, I see a longevity doc and he has a thing called the, Ithink it's called the Centaurian Olympics.
And so they actually do questions.
The last 10 years of your life, you get to pick five or 16.

(24:38):
There's a list of like 20, I think, and you pick what are five that you want to be able todo.
So it's almost like pick up a small child, have sex, walk, you know what mean?
Regularly like do whatever you pick the five that are most important to you.
And then that determines what you must do now.
So if you like want to do these activities, we need to get you here now.

(25:00):
Cause here's the decline curve.
Cool.
And so, and so, you know, just that concept alone is enough.
mean, I mean, if you basically do with all the health gurus are telling you in terms ofexercise and heavy weights, whatever you'll get there.
If you're in a hundred percent compliance, but just being aware of like, shit.
If I want to pick up a small child and be able to walk with them, I have to be here.

(25:22):
If I want to be able to walk a mile, a walk up and down the stairs when I'll huff and puffin at this age, I need to be here.
And when I first saw the chart, I thought I was there and it was like, no, you're not likeyou're not there.
You're, know, you're forgetting we don't have exponential decay or in our heads.
Like we don't understand that.
Right.
We think like the way I am now it's, it's be a little bit worse and that's it.

(25:45):
It's like, no, it, it goes down.
We don't experience what it is to be 90 or 86 or 80.
don't have an idea of like, Holy shit, this thing is really heavy.
You know, when it's not that heavy.
so maintaining that muscle mass, getting your lung capacity up and all these other things,besides all the other benefits, just the benefit of doing what you think you are going to

(26:06):
be doing.
You know, I think a lot of people who are like,
My mom was like, oh, can't walk, you know, walking up the steps is like, it's an ordealwith help getting in and out of a car is an ordeal.
She's 80, 85.
You, if you would ask her at my age, she'd be like, what are you talking about?
What are you talking about?
And so I think it's important that we not only think about these things, but do a littlebit of investigating and be like, okay.

(26:29):
what I want in each, if you're time bucketing, right?
And you know, you're like, Hey, I want to be able to help my kid with homework, help mygrandchildren with homework, going to walk with a park, whatever.
What I realized with some help is that, I'm not in shape enough now for that.
That's not a reality.
Step it up.
That's not going to happen.

(26:50):
I'm just going to, you know, I value just loafing on my couch and reading books orwhatever it is, tweeting on Twitter.
So these are choices I have to make.
This is what I love about the book is that it's so translatable in so many different waysand I changed my coffee habit in your book, know, quite a few things.

(27:12):
And what you're saying today, I remember as my dad was passing in the last couple of yearsand I visited a lot to Farnado, I remember thinking, gosh, I don't want to be in a bed
like this, this long and such a slow decline.
And my dad had a lot of health issues and I started thinking a lot about it.
I love what you're
you're sharing with us and our listeners today.
In the countdown, there's two things I wanna put in here.

(27:35):
I remember not all that long ago, you sharing with me, you were gonna have this reallybig, I think it was a 50th birthday party, if I'm not, and you decided not to have it for
various reasons that I don't remember why.
And then you told me the part about your mom being there and different people and youshifted.
And I think it had to do with the cost to do it, to bring everybody in and all that.

(27:58):
And then I know you had shared with me, you did the party.
And so that's you telling me a story that now I realize I've used, we have our graduatesreading this book in leadership.
A lot of people read this book.
And I looked back and I thought you were living this and learning this and just sharing itwith everybody.
It was an earlier birthday, but yeah, you got it.

(28:19):
It's funny how time is flying.
Right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so that leads me to what my real question was here today.
You recommend to give your inheritance while you're healthy and now with your loved ones.
If you're going to plan to leave money to your kids and other people that you like, do itwhile you're living.
And for most people, this is a foreign construct.

(28:42):
The one question I have that goes with this makes me curious about the tax implicationsand how you can handle that.
Yeah.
So for most people an inheritance is equivalent to a bequest.
Basically they're going to get it when, when, when their parents die.
And it's, it's kind of just an autopilot thing passed on through generations andgenerations.
Like this is something that, you know, if I was a farmer, my kid was a farmer.

(29:05):
I worked on a farm, I died.
There was no, there was no need to give it to him earlier.
The, the farmer says, and he's moving on.
If I'm a Smith, he's a Smith.
Our names are Smith.
That, that type of thing.
But people have different lives.
We have this construct.
of money and gifts, et cetera, that are going to go to them and people are livingdifferent lives.
so if, if you're, your point is, is like, I want to help my kids.
Well, 60 year olds aren't kids.

(29:27):
55 year olds are not kids.
And so the same physics that govern our lives of decay and our ability to convert ourmoney into fulfilling experiences declines as we age.
the same thing is going to happen to your kids.
so even from a preference standpoint or just a straight physics standpoint,

(29:47):
10,000, 20,000, now people would rather have that at 30 than 50,000 at 60.
Because they'll be able to impact and decide their own fulfillment.
What fulfills them?
It's not 50,000 to the 50, it's 20,000 to the guy who's 30.
Maybe there are some people like, yeah, I can wait till I'm 60.
I don't need help.
I don't want anything right now.
And so it's just an intentional way to look at for those who choose to leave aninheritance to their kids or give an inheritance to their kids, when is the optimal time?

(30:16):
And so I advocate and everybody may have a different answers is that when they've reachedmental maturity, but before, but before they're in decline, so generally your, your, your,
your myelin and everything on your brain is completely wrapped at 28, 29.
So we're at mental maturity.
Um, generally everybody's in plateau and decay by 33.

(30:37):
And so I say sometime between 28 and 33 is the optimal time to be,
turning over control to their kids.
All of us in the United States, have a state exemption of $15.5 million.
So if you're below that threshold, there's no tax implications.
That's it.

(30:58):
You've used up your lifetime exemption.
And everybody on top of that has the ability, I think it's going up this year to $18,000per year.
You can give to anybody as a gift tax free if you want.
Above that number, there's other strategies.
I think a lot of people, you know, by and large that are reading book are not leaving morethan $15.5 million to anybody.
But for those who are, they should be talking to experts.

(31:21):
advise people that, especially people to push back and say, well, I'm working or I'mworking for my kids.
I'm working to save money for the kids.
And I'm like, oh, that's great.
Is the assets are in a trust already?
And they're like, no.
And I'm like, well, so all their money's at risk.
Without.
You get whatever, it's not really their money.
It's like, can put it into a trust and then turn over control to them later.

(31:45):
But by doing that, you get two things.
There's one, you've protected the asset and the money and it's theirs.
It's not your money, it's their money.
You're just a steward or you hired somebody else to be a steward of their capital.
And two, it lets you know what you actually have.
So you know what to spend down to the day you die.
So you don't have this excuse in your head.

(32:06):
I think people use the lack of planning and the lack of thinking about it as an excuse.
Oh, it's for the kids.
And I'm like, that's not really thinking about the kids.
When you're going to die at some random date, we don't know which kids are going to belive because sometimes unfortunately kids do a pre-deceased their parents.
So it's a random date to a random person and a random amount.

(32:26):
You know, it's the three Rs.
And I said, that's just not intentional and that's not planning.
If you really love your kids and you really care about their wellbeing, you're going tothink about
When is the best time for them to receive the money?
What is the amount and who is it?
And you're going to execute on that.
So that's my advice when it comes to inheritance.
And I remember you bought your son a hat.

(32:46):
the main reason I wrote the book is to save my own life.
that, was the first, was, was a put your life jacket on first type of thing.
so, you know, spent a lot of time writing a book, look at it.
And then you're like, wait a minute, I have this will and this inheritance and like I'mdoing the same thing.
Let me give everybody what they have at the time period.

(33:08):
And so my stepson, Corbin is like, he's like, he's an old enough.
Here it is.
Here's the money I was going to give you.
Here's the money.
Like why am I?
What am I doing here?
I wrote the book, wrote the book for me.
Thank God, because then I would have still been on autopilot with these decisions.
So when I examined what my choices were in terms of inheritance, they were likenonsensical bequest in there.
And I'm not talking, I'm not talking about the emergency scenario.

(33:29):
Like I get hit by a bus tomorrow.
Like clearly, you know, there's assets that are going to get divided up.
I'm talking about like, yeah, I wanted this person to have this money or that money.
It was like, why do I have this money for somebody who's seven years older than me?
They're never gonna see it.
But my intention is for them to have this.
And so that was redone.

(33:51):
And people did what they wanted to do with the money.
beautiful, beautiful concept.
And this book is fascinating because it really does have you turn everything that you'vethought about the way that you should save and, you know, like put off things and work
hard and rethink it.
know, do it now while you can.
Time bucket and plan for the future.

(34:11):
And I just love this, you know, when you come to the end of your life, the closer you canbe to having zero dollars left and you've maximized your experiences, the time that you
spent with people doing the things that you really wanted to do.
That's a big win.
So genius.
Loved it.
Yeah, you're trying to get to optimal.
You're never going to get perfect.
You're just not.
There'll be various reasons for different people.

(34:32):
A lot of the reasons why it's in the book to get there, but the closer you go that way,the more fulfilling life you're to have.
And so it's like the people who go to church, they aren't perfect.
They're not like no sinners amongst us.
You just go there and they're striving for perfection to be a better person.
better Christian, Muslim, Jew, whatever.
And so you don't ignore these concepts or principles.
You just try and apply them to your life to have a more fulfilling life or be a betterChristian, et cetera.

(34:56):
In this case, it's you versus having the most fulfilling life that you can have here inthis universe.
Absolutely.
And that thought of living a life that's the most fulfilling, I was zero is really builtaround the belief that your life is the sum of your experiences.
And at Choice Center, we often say that the quality of your life is the quality of yourrelationships.
So how do you see those two philosophies intersectioning or do they for you?

(35:23):
Yeah, they definitely do.
So when I say experience, I really mean it in the broadest sense of the word.
So it's really, the life is some of your choices because your experiences are formed byyour choices.
You are accountable.
Nobody's coming to save you.
and this right on Arthur is up to you.
And I find by and large, I'm sure there's somebody out there that's like, no, I got to bein a monastery where it's silent and we don't talk.
But like by and large, the most, fulfilling things, experiences I've had had alwaysinvolved another person.

(35:52):
or persons and the quality of those relationships have determined how happy and fulfilledI am.
Anybody who has kids, like your kids are happy and they're great.
You're happy.
Your kids are miserable.
Like you share in that misery.
And I think it's true in the whole relationship.
And you also get the joy of overcoming the obstacles with them, et cetera.
And so I supersize a lot of my fulfillment, like a trip by bringing friends that otherwisecouldn't come or organizing things that they're not even expensive.

(36:17):
It's like, we're going to play the game werewolves tonight.
You know, we're going to play laser tag.
We're going to do whatever.
these are not expensive, but inexpensive things that are very fulfilling.
And I say that you retire your memories, not money.
so when you share, you share these experiences with other people and that's a newexperience.
But the other thing, something I've learned since writing the book, you know, we talkedabout like how I have, have like the photos of pop up now everybody's hacking on the

(36:42):
memory.
Yeah.
And evident is, is, you know, Google on this day, but when you do with other people.
The photo pops up and you recall what happened, but when you're done with other people andyou're talking about it, they give you the other perspectives that are going on that you
didn't miss.
And it becomes a much more immersive recall and fulfilling experience of the memory.

(37:03):
So when you do things with your friends, it's almost like a distributed memory system inwhat I call 4D.
It's like this perspective and that perspective.
And sometimes you'll be like, yeah, I remember this.
Don't you remember?
That's when the guy fell and he spit the fish out and whatever.
I'm like, shit, I almost forgot about that.
And then, yeah, then also was so mad at you because, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then we did, you know, and so you have this distributed memory system amongst friendsthat help you relive those moments in ways that you may have forgot or even a perspective

(37:32):
that you didn't even remember at the time.
Like you weren't even part of it, but it was like, gives context to something.
And I think that's, I think that's magical.
It helps with people's enjoyment of their life and their self-concept.
And, and we, we, we do this with each other.
And so I think those relationships help you, help you to have a
fulfilling life both in the current experience and the future recall of those experiences.

(37:54):
Connection beautiful.
I love it.
You know 12 years ago I guess we were saying you came to choice center and we'd love foryou to share How you got to choice center?
That's a fun story.
I think, think it is a fun city.
Well, I think I get the choice center way.
Most people do, is reluctantly.

(38:17):
You know, you just, you just don't want to go right.
Like you, you, got your things, you're, you're, on this path.
You're, miserable or things are going on and you don't need it.
You don't see the value and how it's going to have an impact on your life.
And you're like,
You may have preconceived notions about what it's going to be or whatever.

(38:39):
you know, Antonio S.
Fandiari was trying to get me going like, who's this guy?
What is he going to get out of this thing?
Whatever.
And then he was like, well, can I, can you at just talk to Robin?
And Robin talked to me and, you know, we had a, we had a intimate talk about things, theway I was seeing the world and what was going on in my life.
Robin, we can conversation boys down to is like, if you could have this impact, thisprobability of an impact on your kids' lives, would you spend these weekends in Vegas?

(39:10):
And in that moment, I was like, fuck.
Motherfucker.
Why'd she say that?
Nah, I go to the fucking thing, you know?
So here I am at the fucking thing.
And it was like the most impactful thing of my life at the time.
You know, it just radically changed a lot of things.
about how I operate, how I behaved, how I saw the world and my level of accountability tomyself and others, which affected everything.

(39:34):
And so that is my experience.
That's what I tell people.
whenever I'm, whenever I was enrolling other people, I just like, Hey, here's the deal.
Here's why I was here.
I am.
Here's how the impact is.
I don't know.
Maybe it won't work for you.
Maybe it will, but this is my thing.
And you know, I think people generally like.
You know, Bill Perkins fucking said this, now I gotta go to this fucking thing, you know?

(39:56):
And then it come out like it, oh, that was great.
You know what mean?
That type of thing.
So I think, you know, there's this chain of reluctant entry and joyful and exuberant.
Thank God I did that afterward, fact.
We're here today 12 years later and I'm listening to you and I have a whole memory bank asyou're talking then and going through everything and you truly have brought so many

(40:17):
people, probably hundreds, to the table that we're in touch with all the time.
It's an amazing chain reaction of giving and friendship.
Robin was telling me a story the other day.
You asked him something about like if, if your life was being filmed on a, on a videocamera and your kids were to watch it or something, what was that story?

(40:38):
I don't know, I think he was telling me about some of his choices and what he was doing.
And what came to me is how many people really are conscious in the moment.
And if there was an invisible video camera videoing you all day and at the end of the day,your kids watched that, what would they be seeing?
And now I know why you brought it up.

(40:59):
You were amazing with the question.
You had a quick shift in thinking.
And I don't remember exactly why, but I had told
sure heard her read the story and she brought it up this morning.
Yeah.
But I think the pivotal thing, the one that really stuck with me that my memory banks ismy idea of this is my lot in life.
I'm quasi-misrule, but I'm just going to do this jail sentence and then it's going to bethat.

(41:22):
And that it didn't have to be that way for you and your loved ones and the impact on yourkids.
And what if I said, you know, these two weekends of desert gave you this percent of achance to have this radical impact on your kids.
And I was just like, I really don't want to go to this thing, but now I kind of have togo.
That's what it was.
So that was the start.
You know, that was the start for me.

(41:44):
When I describe that to other people, think a lot of human beings have the similarexperiences in certain areas of their life, but like anything that has that kind of impact
or yield, other people would want that as well.
or does it show up in diawas0?
Did it have any influence?
Yeah, like it definitely, it definitely does.

(42:05):
Like you can see it, right?
The intentionality is in there.
The being off autopilot, the accountability for your life that you get one life and youwant to get the max out of it.
These are things that are echoed all throughout choice.
You can see it.
The autopilot, which I mentioned several times in the book, funny, like how do we gethere?
Like, why, why are we, are we not thriving?

(42:25):
Why are we surviving?
It's, it's kind of like this autopilot thing and
Like I said, I wrote the book for myself.
Autopilot is not something you go do a class and then you're done with it.
It's always there.
It's designed in you to help you survive.
You can't deeply think about how to open up a door every time you approach a door.
It's just like, this looks like every other door.
Let's just do the same.
And so when you become a master at your job, a lot of it's just putting certain habits androutines into autopilot.

(42:52):
If you shoot a basketball and you're great at shooting three points, certain things areon.
autopilot.
So it's not that it doesn't serve you well in certain places.
It just doesn't serve you well for fulfillment and thriving.
So there's a place for it.
And so talk a lot about autopilot and intentional living.
And a lot of that is choice or choice adjacent.
So it's in there.
The power of clear intention is one of the biggest distinctions that we teach and all ofus live by for sure.

(43:17):
You bring that alive in a lot of different ways.
What was your favorite takeaway from any discovery breakthrough leadership?
Where was the high?
I'm going to make sure this is the clear favorite, but
I think it was like the impact that people can have on your life and the learnings you canlearn from them, from people that I would have particularly dismissed.

(43:43):
That was like my favorite, favorite, favorite.
Like it was like, wow.
I, you always know, I don't know a thing.
was like, wow, I've learned so much from this person and they have no idea how muchthey've taught me and how much of an impact this is without me telling them.
Um, but the, the very close, close favorite is the radical level of accountability.
It's, it's almost religious.

(44:03):
Sometimes I even have our time.
like, yeah, you're, you know what I mean?
It's like very, very, very radical, high level of accountability.
And so two things are kind of like neck and neck.
think, I think, um, the, favorite and what's had the biggest impact is the radical levelof accountability.
I love it.
Using your concept of time bucketing, do you think there's an optimal time when you wouldrecommend that somebody invest in a choice experience, by the way?

(44:34):
You know, it's never too late.
You- I wish it was in my early 20s, but- I think- I think-
I think you want to have some degree of success.
That's when you're really going on autopilot because you are on autopilot by definition.
If you're good at something, you've autopilot a lot of shit and that bleeds on into yourlife.

(44:57):
There's all these you're doing, et cetera.
And some of these things are not working and we're not really taking stock of what thingsare not working and we're not accepting accountability or what not's working and the yada
yada yada.
so I think that's what it has probably the maximum impact, but like
I think choice earlier would have avoided a lot of that.
So I'm kind of torn between the optimal time.

(45:17):
I think there's a, obviously an optimal persona.
I think that everybody can get value out of it, but I think there's an optimal persona ofsomebody who's at like a modicum of success.
Things are going on, but something's not working and you can't figure it out in differentareas of life, whether it's your leisure, your health, your, your business, your romantic
relationships, your, your platonic relationships.

(45:39):
There, there's something that's not a nine or 10 somewhere.
And they're just like, I don't know why I can't, you know what mean?
Yeah.
And, and I think that that, generally happens at all stages of life.
But I think the maximum impact is like some mode of success.
Everything's a hot mess and everything's a one.
I don't think choices.
You know what I mean?

(46:00):
There's like a prerequisite class in life, a couple of things going on, you know, ifyou're, if you're, if you're an addict or these types of things, that's not it.
But I think if everything's a one.
it's probably not the first thing to go to.
Maybe it's something you graduate to go to.
We agree.
We only have a few minutes left with you, so we'd to do something called an EQ quickfire.

(46:22):
So are you ready for a couple of quick questions?
You're a graduate of choice, so what's your contract, Bill?
Oh my gosh, are you going to pull up my contract on me?
I am a loving, forgiving, compassionate man.
I think I bet you I got one of those wrong.
I bet you guys know.

(46:42):
I know forgiving is definitely in there, right?
So I know that I'm loving and compassionate.
Okay, and what is the most memorable experience you ever invested in?
Wow.
The most, it's a tie.
It's a tie.
It's a tie between the birthday experience with my mom.
My mom wasn't at the level of dementia where she could remember it.

(47:04):
It's in long-term memory.
So she will remember that, but the short-term is gone.
And then it would also be the, my engagement trip with, and when I got engaged to Lara.
So that was just absurd.
It was just an absurd.
it was actually, I had some die with zero thinking.
That's when the book was first coming out, but like the pandemic came out.

(47:24):
And the early numbers and the rhetoric or whatever it is, was like, I got a real goodchance of dying in the next four years because.
Well, am a 50 and, the thing's spreading.
And if I get it, I'm going to have like, you know, you know, whatever it is, one in 20chance of dying.
And I'm like, I'm not spending enough money.

(47:46):
I literally was thinking like, I am probabilistically not spending enough money.
So we found out Croatia was taking visitors and we.
You know, we spent some money, we traveled around and I got engaged and I brought myfriends and we kept going and it was like, this might be the last summer of my life.
So I lived it as if it was a reasonable chance of being the last good summer of my life.
And it was, it was amazing.

(48:06):
Well, and I want to say something about that because you had it filmed.
remember seeing all your closest friends and all of you walking down the street.
And I had been at Croatia a few years later and thought, this is right where you were.
And it was fantastic to be able as your friend who wasn't on that trip.
It was so wonderful that you put that out for all of us to experience the experience withyou.

(48:29):
Yeah.
You know, I need help.
I'm not one of those guys like, yeah, your name is Tom Smith and you have five kids.
can barely remember some of the things I did.
So filming these things helps spark the other neurons to go.
And so I like to document.
These are the things I'm going to be watching when I'm 82.
When I'm just like, all right, the potatoes look nice.
Let's, the garden looks fine.
Let me go inside and see some things that I used to do when I could, you know what I mean?

(48:53):
When I could jump around and run around.
It was great.
As a matter of fact, I upped my video activity after seeing that wedding video.
I loved it.
I mean, some people have a iPhone.
a Google guy, but phone auto does on this day, look back seven years.
Every day and then pops up.
so I think that's a, makes my day.

(49:15):
Like I see lots of things like seven years ago, 12 years ago, 15 years ago, et cetera, andphotos.
so I lean into that with all my Instagram stories or download it saved and go into theGoogle cloud.
And then I can redo that whatever.
And so.
That is not just me flexing.
It's also me investing in my future self and future fulfillment.

(49:37):
It's beautiful.
More questions I want to ask.
Who is the most inspiration for you today?
You're around tons of people.
You have a great family.
Who is it?
A podcast, an author, a personal friend.
What's most top of the list inspiring?
Wow, wow, this is such, such a most inspiring at this time.

(50:03):
I'm really, I'm really having a hard time.
I have a couple of names running in in in my head.
I would say my friend, Mike Titley, which would be a shocker, maybe to some people, buthe's just a solid human being, sticks to his values, doesn't get caught up, takes care of
his family.
If you need help, he'll fly across the country to help you move.

(50:23):
It's, it's, it's pretty impressive.
And he has patients and stuff like that always helping, you know, and it's not like he'sdoing something super grandiose or out there, but he's just a solid human being always
looking out like very outward focus.
And so I'm like, why don't I have that patience?
Whatever, like, no problem doing work to help a friend.

(50:46):
That's awesome.
That's beautiful.
And you know, mentioned a lot of books that influenced you in Die with Zero.
What would you say should be on people's reading list right now?
Yeah, yeah, I would say the number one, somebody asked me a book about trading.
Somebody asked me a book about anything, favorite book.
The number one book I recommend is The Four Agreements by Far, down.

(51:08):
So you wanna be a good trader?
Read The Four Agreements.
you wanna be a good trader?
Read The Four Agreements.
So The Four Agreements, number one book.
The second book I recommend is Your Money or Your Life.
And that book is tough to get through because it lot of exercises, it's pretty didactic,it's pretty repetitive.
After the fact, you realize why it's that way.

(51:29):
Cause it's got to knock it into your thick skull.
You know what I mean?
So it has to be repetitive.
It's kind of annoying and the exercises are kind of like painful to do, but it has tobecause that pain, like lifting weights is what builds the strength.
And so your money, your life completely radically changed my life, my way of thinking.
Can I throw my book in there?

(51:49):
Diary of gotta read Diary of I think you should read it the earlier the better and I thinkyou should come back to it every 10 years.
I come back to it all the time.
You too.
But it's on our leadership required reading list.
learn things about intentionality and you learn things about accountability.
It's basically applied intentionally accountability for fulfillment.

(52:10):
It's like, what, variable are we solving for maximum net fulfillment?
Okay.
What, tools do we use?
Well, you know, getting off autopilot, being intentional, cetera.
What are the variables we have wealth, health and time.
Okay.
So that's kind of the book, you know, but it's, it's more detailed.
It's not a cookbook.
It's not like, this, do that, but it's more here are the mental models.

(52:30):
in between a physics book or economics book and kind of like stories and anecdotes.
It's kind of in between there.
Yeah, and people can find it on amazon.com, anywhere else?
I'm able to find the Noble whatever it's in.
think it's everywhere seven or eight different languages.
It's in Chinese.
It's in Korean.
It's in Serbian.
It's in it's in Japanese and

(52:52):
Remember, didn't it become required reading in like four different colleges right away inthe income?
No, no, it's part part of a syllabus at University of UNC.
And there's syllabus out there because they have applied economics classes.
And so this very much relates to full life cycle hypothesis.

(53:14):
I didn't know full life cycle hypothesis until I was writing book.
They're like, this is full life cycle hypothesis.
Cause I hired a economist to work with me on like this curve of spending throughout ourlife and going down to zero.
And so.
This is applied economics, like the economics of your life.
so to put it in as part of the syllabus, like what does this mean for your life, cetera?

(53:38):
Because learning economics is really to make your life better, right?
To run your life.
What's your EQ superpower?
I would say that I don't know how to relate this, but there's a game called werewolves andit's about figuring out how the bad guys is and people are lying and talking and
baselining, cetera.
And most of the time I'm a pretty distracted guy, but in that game or when there's aheightened situation, I think my EQ is trying to understand what people want, what people,

(54:09):
what people's position is, perspective is, and how they're acting, operating and how.
You know, it can be misinterpreting and being able to suss out what's going on.
But in the EQ part of it is, the ability to be stoic about information.
So if you're just like, they'll use suck.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
I'll be like, they're upset with me.

(54:31):
There was reasons maybe they have real reason, you know what mean?
Like not to get riled up about that or, or, or et cetera.
And just in terms of my life, it's like the external circumstances of
Today was a bad day.
lost a bunch of money or today made a bunch of, made a bunch of money.
I'm very insulated from the rollercoaster of emotions associated with information,negative information, where some people are very, what would the word hysterical or.

(54:59):
Yeah.
Very reactive or very, very, I forget the word.
I've lost the word, but there's a scale on it in psychology or whatever they talk about itthat, that, that, it just doesn't faze me.
It's like facts are friendly information is friendly and it is just what it is.
All I can do is my best.
So I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna fret it.
Yeah.
So I think that's my biggest, biggest superpower.

(55:21):
If I nailed it down, it's just like the, being stoic and having an equinonymous type ofdisposition, in light of bad facts.
Well, that leads to our last EQ quickfire question, which is what EQ tool or quality doyou think the most successful and fulfilled people that you surround yourself with have

(55:44):
developed?
What do you think for somebody that's struggling to achieve their goals?
What do you see in like people that are the most satisfied, successful?
What's an EQ tool that they could use or elevate about themselves?
Yeah, I was just gonna go back to stoicism.
When you're stoic about something and something's burning down, like let's say my housewas burning down.
Maybe I should use that example, but lighted fires.
Let's just say something bad was going on in my life.

(56:06):
I can just be like, okay, the house is burning down.
What are the steps I need to take?
How can I make this better?
What are the opportunities associated with this, this bad thing happening?
If you're not stoic about it, you're like, my God, and this and whatever, and you're,you're hysterical and the histrionics are off the table and you're blocked.
from using the rest of your brain.
So being able to yes, feel sad that this thing happens, but next not being a prisoner tothe past.

(56:34):
So like if somebody stole your car, not letting that story of your stolen car dictate yournext steps in your whole life.
Not letting the bad thing that happened when you were five, six, 10, that doesn't defineyou.
So just be like, Hey, I still got to live.
still got to chop wood.
doesn't matter that the house burned down.
What are the things I can do?
And when you're in that state, you're just a beast.

(56:55):
You're just in beast mode.
Poker players are that way.
They're not worried about the last hand and sweating last hand and the bad decision.
They're like, I'm a beast mode.
got, I got the job to do, you know, I have a game to play people at work.
The traders, they're not like, I lost money today.
And they're crime.
They're like, this is part of the job.
And so when you start summing up that attitude, you realize everybody's heard it before.
It's not what happens to you in life.

(57:18):
It's how you react.
Cause the guarantee.
When I tell the guarantee of life is bad shit is going to happen to you.
That's the bargain of life.
That's the deal is like you get to live, but the catch is lots of bad shit is going tohappen.
Somebody's going lie to you.
Somebody's going to break your heart.
Somebody you love is going to die.
Shit's going to go wrong.

(57:39):
You're going to fuck up.
You're going to make all kinds of mistakes, et cetera.
That's just a guarantee.
So everybody gets that.
And I think the most successful people, the ones just like, okay, that's just part of thedeal.
I still just got to do my best.
can't be a prisoner to that.
Brilliant.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And we wrap up each episode, by the way, inspired by the wisdom of our guests.

(58:02):
And we like to offer our graduate listeners an EQ stretch challenge to complete before thenext episode.
And we'd love to offer you the chance to design that for us.
So if you could create an EQ stretch challenge to offer listeners to...
That's right.
That's right.
by EQ Stretch Talent.

(58:23):
To inspire them to die with zero or to live more deliberately, what is a EQ stretch thatyou would offer them?
Okay, I'm gonna, it's two parts.
I'm not just making this up, I hope it's a good one.
Don't hate me.
Find the person that is most difficult or hurt you the most in life, as long as they'renot like a criminal or beat you or whatever, something like that, and reach out to them

(58:51):
and try and understand the position and not completely mend it, but mend it.
It's some common understanding.
You might be like, yeah, this is great.
I understand whatever, understand your point of view and understand why you react thatway.
Still don't want to talk to you, but like reach out.
And the second thing is a person that doesn't know.

(59:13):
that really impacted your life or you really learned from whatever that you have notproperly acknowledged, find them and acknowledge them.
I love them both.
Beautiful.
So you got both the spectrum.
Yep.
Genius.
I think what you got to call up and be like, Hey, I'd like to talk about why I feel thisway.
What do I have wrong or what did I get wrong?

(59:34):
I think, I think that, you know, the last one is interesting.
It's, it's, it's also, sometimes it's intimidating.
It calls like, listen, you know, I don't know if you know this, but this had the massiveimpact on me and I learned so much and never said it, but I think that one's easier
though.
Yeah.
Those are both ends of the spectrum.
love them.
you're so much fun.
I miss you.
Sitting here with you today.

(59:55):
I miss
You're fine.
It's been a good talk.
Absolutely.
And listeners and grads, as you complete Bill's EQ Stretch Challenge, we want to hear fromyou.
So share your experience in the comments and on social media and use the hashtagEQUChallenge and we'll be sure to make sure Bill sees what you took on in your life.

(01:00:15):
Thank you so much, Bill.
Is there anything that you were hoping to share today that we missed by the way?
No, no, I think it's been great.
I want to say, I want to take part of the stretches.
want to say that choice and you guys have been, it's immeasurable how much of an impactit's had on my life.
And the life I have is in large part, or maybe not even possible without being attendedchoice and meeting the people there and being part of it.

(01:00:40):
This is something that I say personally to people when they ask me about it or what'sgoing to happen.
So I wanted to say to you, so.
That completed my half of the challenge.
He's already ahead.
Overachiever as always.
Thank you so much, Bill.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I love that you walk your talk, you live your beliefs and you've been an incredibleinfluence in my life.

(01:01:07):
Just you always are.
I'll send you a letter.
How's that?
Thank you for coming alive.
You are the best.