When Money Can't Buy Happiness | Bill Perkins EP 555

0:00Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation Show.

0:11There is no market investment whatsoever known to man historically that will have a bigger impact on your fulfillment in your later years and an investment in your health. Now, you've had Peter Atiyah on here. He's my doctor or whatever. And I was talking to him and he said something to me. He goes, what are your goals in the last 10 years of your life? What would you like to have happen? So we got the time buckets, the last decade of my life. I said, I would like to be able to pick up my grandchildren, a small child, and I would like to be able to walk around with them and just, you know, enjoy life.

0:45Like, that's what I would like. And he was like, it's not too late for you. We got to get your VO2 max up, whatever. And I was like, late? Like, I feel like I'm in pretty good shape. Yeah, wow. He's like, listen, if you want to be able to pick up a small child and these activities you're describing. In 20 years. In the last decade of your life, you need to be in your top 1 % now. Wow. And so if you watch all these shows about muscle mass per year, loss per year, etc., I was delusional. That was my fulfillment for the last 10 years of my life. No amount of money was going to give me that. No investment was going to give me that.

1:22It was an investment in my health. And so this is not a health book. But I have to emphasize that point, that it's about all the variables. it's about all the resources available to you and it's your health. And so one of the things, particularly in America for retirement planning, the biggest retirement planning you can do is the investments now into your health. That's number one. You know, you hear these anecdotes was like, well, this guy had a bunch of money and it ruined him. And often it does. If you have a tool that you don't know how to handle properly, you can hurt yourself with it, right?

1:54What is the season of your life where you hurt yourself the most by having an excess of money? Late 20s, early 30s. Still figuring it out, right? But I think that's where I knew it was a tool for fulfillment, but I wasn't yet fully in touch with myself about what I really wanted. I was at a charity event and they auctioned off a Lamborghini and I bought half of it with a friend that had a Lamborghini. And I'm not even a car guy, but I drove it. I just felt like driving around this Lamborghini and I was just like I'm not even a freaking car guy like why do I have this car low to the ground pop holes you got to avoid you know I went through this period where it's just like I don't know what I really want like I'm not in touch I've been so marketed to I haven't unplugged you know from the world I'd like what really fulfills me what do I really want out of life and it took a lot of digging and an emotional intelligence class to like finally go okay these are the things that fulfill me this is how I'm going to use these tools to guide my life you you know, my health, my wealth, and my time.

2:51Like, how should I be spending my time? I wasn't prepared for that tool. What I say is like, hey, I'm agnostic to what fulfills you, right? I won't judge you for anything that fulfills you. What I say is, here are the mental models to get the maximum fulfillment, given that your body plateaus and declines, given that you have finite time on the earth, right? And given that your ability to convert that money into experiences and into whatever fulfills you diminishes. what were the experiences some of the experiences you did that maybe were more extreme that you thought would bring you maximum fulfillment but then after a season of life you realize actually this isn't the most fulfilling thing i think it's two things fame and girls fame and the party and the girls right like fun and fulfillment are two different things you got to have fun in your life but it's not fulfillment and having to always have fun when there's no fulfillment going on in your life can lead to this disaster cycle right because you're just trying to fill something it becomes a prison really can't really enjoy your life and the things that i actually enjoy doing like if i'm walking around prague or italy or a town i like going into towns walking the shop meeting new people and culture that thing becomes a barrier you can't go people are interrupting you pictures and autographs and it wasn't me it was the famous people are around and i was just like oh i can't go there oh i can't go out and do this with you I can't do that.

4:15I can't do this. And so the world shrunk for them and became less enjoyable and became harder for them to have new, meaningful, interpersonal relationships and meet new people and immerse themselves in new cultures. Because there was this whole thing, I'm the guy, right? I'm the famous guy. And I was like, this is horrible. So I put the brakes on it. I realized, like, partnership and relationships, that's what drives my fulfillment. being able to throw parties and events where interesting people talk and meet etc have fun and drive connection that's what fulfills me right exploring new cultures and learning new things and having my world beliefs smashed by going to a totally different culture like when i went to japan i'm just like oh wow what a different way of living what a different culture right like that to me is exciting and fulfilling of your three kind of categories wealth health and time why do think so many people in the world are obsessed with money and they spend all their time focused on making money and the least amount of time on their health and maximizing experiences?

5:22I think we're cursed with the Great Depression. My grandmother's fears and my mother's fears got transferred to me. I rejected them. I'd rather die dead broke in the streets than live a safe life and a safe job. But a lot of people don't reject them. They're concerns. Like you save all your money. We have a social security machine. You don't want to be broke. You don't want whatever because they went through a very horrible experience. Buy as many hammers and saws and tools as you can and have though you're going to have a great life. That's been sold to people every day from the fears of all the elder generations.

5:53And the answer is it's not true. It's just a tool. You need to know how to use the tool. And when you start thinking of it, oh it's a tool to drive from my fulfillment, then you start to think about the concept of enough because all you're thinking about now is, what do I want out of life? And if you have enough money for what you want out of life, you don't need to go to work anymore. You're set. You're done. You live your adventure. Maybe you can have a little bit more for a rainy day, etc. But you're pretty much going to have the greatest adventure that you chose when you were back in heaven and you had the bucket of experiences, right?

6:24But what people have been sold is not on what they want and what experience you have, but just as much money and the lifestyle of a rap video or a so-and-so or Madonna and Material Girl. And that's not you. What is your philosophy around when you have an excess of money, of real generational wealth sitting in the bank or in assets? Let's say you've got over$100 million in assets or sitting in the bank or accounts. What is your philosophy on what that person should be doing if they're in their 40s with that$100 million? Do you keep it all in investments and let it accumulate until it's$300 million in 30 years or whatever?

7:00Or how should we be effectively using that when you can't spend it all for more things? to use your time. Let me go with the softball. 300 million 30 years from when you're 40 is useless. So you should definitely not be doing that. What you should be thinking about is, what is my spend down plan? How are you going to get to zero? What does that look like? Really? You're at like kind of maximum utility of your money. 300 million at 77, the amount of activities and things you'll be willing to do, your aptitude, and this is going to be different for each person's health. So I'm going to say you're 40 biologically.

7:33The idea of earning more money for a party later in life is absurd. The data is very clear that you spend less money the older you get. Unless you're some super edge case and you can prove it to yourself, you don't have to prove it to me. The idea of saving money for some blowout party in your 70s or 80s is absurd. So what we're really thinking about is, okay, my investments are producing this much income. This is the principle I have. these are the activities from now to the grave that I enjoy. And this is kind of the frequency I'm going to be doing them. And I'm probably not going to be doing this at this age, Buck.

8:09And I'm probably going to do this. I want to go to my daughter's wedding. I got to pay for my granddaddy's whatever, blah, blah, blah. Like, so you have kind of an idea of where this money is allocated on the way to the grave. So that's what I would think is like your life plan to the grave down to zero. That's what you should be thinking about.

8:34Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of The Daily Motivation, and I hope you have an amazing rest of your day. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to click the link in the description. That will take you to the full episode of our main podcast on The School of Greatness. And if you are loving The Daily Motivation, please follow us over on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want more exclusive content and ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcast right now. And if you want to get even more inspiration from our world-class guests and learn how to improve your life and take it to the next level, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter.

9:23Again, have an amazing day, and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.