Die With Zero
A Review
“Most of us go through life as if we had all the time in the world. It makes sense to delay gratification to some extent, because that pays off in the long run. But the sad truth is that too many people delay gratification for too long, or indefinitely. They put off what they want to do until it’s too late, saving money for experiences they will never enjoy.” - Bill Perkins, Die with Zero
When I was 23, Dave Ramsey’s “Ben and Arthur” chart changed my life.
The chart tells the story of two fictional investors, Ben and Arthur. Ben invests young, Arthur invests later, Ben’s investments crush Arthur’s.
Ramsey’s point: Deferring is the key to a rich life.
Dave isn’t wrong. If historic returns hold, every $1 you invest at age 20, will be worth $88 at age 65.
Ramsey and the whole personal finance industry continually push us to defer.
And yet, reminds Bill Perkins, Ben forgot one hard reality as he deferred away his young, healthy years.
Your life (and health) here on earth is finite, and running down by the day.
The ramifications are many.
Here are four concepts I took away from this much-needed “anti-personal-finance” book:
Memory Dividends
This hike was tough at age 36!
Question: What’s the difference between going to Italy when you’re 20 vs. going to Italy when you’re 70 (besides the arthritic knee that keeps you from climbing the Spanish steps)?
Answer: A lifetime of recalling the memories.
My travel memories, for instance, haven’t just warmed me on cold winter days, they’ve broadened my perspective on almost everything. My time outside the US has given me a lens that I use everyday to evaluate what my life is- and can be.
“Unlike material possessions, which seem exciting at the beginning but then often depreciate quickly, experiences actually gain in value over time.” -p.13
Many Experiences Can't Be Deferred
The Ben and Arthur chart implicitly assumes that a dollar spent when you’re 65 is the same as a dollar spent when you’re 20. Perkins reminds us that this couldn’t be further from the truth.
While it may feel like we have forever to defer the things we aim for in life, the reality is that our windows of opportunity are often tragically small. Perkins illustrates this point with stories from his own life that remind us that many opportunities come but once.
Bill Story #1: The Reckless (but Rational) Roommate
Out of college, Bill’s roommate quit his job and then borrowed money from a real-life New York City loan-shark for a trip to Europe.
"I said to Jason, “Are you crazy? Borrowing money from a loan shark? You’ll get your legs broken!”
When he came back a few months later, though, there was no discernible difference between his income and mine - but the pictures and stories of his experiences showed that he was infinitely richer for having gone. I felt pretty envious- and regretful that I hadn’t gone.
When I finally went to Europe, at age 30, it was too late: I was already a tad too old and too bougie to stay in youth hostels and hang out with a bunch of 24-year-olds. Plus, by the time I was 30, I had many more responsibilities than I’d had in my early twenties, which made it that much harder to take months off for travel.
Like me, Jason knows he timed that European trip exactly right. “I wouldn’t enjoy sleeping in a youth hostel with 20 guys on a shitty bunk bed now.” Despite the high-interest loan, he has the opposite of regret about the expense. “Whatever I paid was a bargain because of the life experience I gained,”
What he gained from that trip, in other words, is priceless. - p.21 [abridged for lenth]
Bill Story #2: The 45th Birthday
For his 45th birthday, Bill spent a painful amount of money flying his friends, family, and favorite musician to an all-out “all-the-people-I-love” bash in the Caribbean. Why did he do it? Or why didn’t he at least defer until the bigger milestone of age 50 after his investments accumulated for five more years?
He writes:
By the time my 50th rolled around, my dad had died, mom’s health had, unfortunately, declined substantially. My brother and two sisters were there, but some of my friends couldn’t make it this time. From my perspective, it had been a very good decision to splurge on that extraordinary gathering five years earlier.
Or… I could have not splurged on that lavish party when I was 45. Instead I could have celebrated my birthday by just looking at my monthly investment savings and IRA statements. But what kind of memory would that be? - p.153 [abridged]
Could you and I wail til we’re 65 to go to Europe? Absolutely. But make no mistake- you are paying for a very different trip than that of Bill’s roommate.
When we went to Provence two years ago, we did it with our young family. We did it with our vibrant, healthy moms. I hope we have our whole lives to travel, but for that trip, 2022 may have been the only opportunity we get.
A Generous Life
How old are most people when they receive their inheritance? 30? 40? Nope.
The median age for Americans who receive an inheritance is 60 years old. (You know, right around the time you don’t actually need it.)
For many years after her divorce, Virginia Colin struggled financially. Receiving almost no child support from her ex, she raised her four children on her own, "mostly at the edge of poverty," as she puts it. She eventually remarried, was able to hold down a decent part-time job, and attained financial stability. Then, when she was 49, her mother died, at age 76, leaving Virginia with a large inheritance.
The $130,000 windfall was definitely welcome-no question about that. "But it just would have been a lot more valuable a lot earlier," says Virginia, who is now 68. - p.82
In other words, what would it look like to give a smaller inheritance earlier?
Furthermore, Perkins asks: who is the generous person? The person six feet under whose former possessions are distributed by lawyers? Isn’t the generous person the one who is living? Doesn’t generosity require being around to actually give?
Whether its inheritance or giving to charity, Perkins challenges what is possible and what is best in light of the “peak utility of money” for both the giver and the receiver.
Time Buckets Over Bucket Lists
What are the things you hope to do during your brief existence here on Earth? Here are a few things I would love to do:
Buy or build a cabin in the woods near Lake Superior’s north shore
Mentor young men in my neighborhood
Live in Europe
Pour everything I have into loving and discipling my kids.
The bucket list would have me lazily set these out with no timeline - as if I could pick and choose as I saw fit. Time buckets on the other hand dispel the illusion of infinite time and flexibility.
These buckets resolve the donkey problem and more importantly make it clear that many of your goals can only be achieved within a small window of your life.
Here’s those same goals, in decade bucket format:
My 30s: Pouring everything I’ve got into my kids
In thirteen years, all my kids will have left. Heck, in five years, they’ll be too cool to hang out and listen to me. The harsh reality: I’ve got a few short years to make the big memories and to put everything I’ve got into these little hatchlings- who are quietly but quickly growing wings.
My 40s: Mentoring younger men
Having left diapers behind and entered the teenage-parenting years, this may be the best time to coach sports or invest heavily into a youth group.
My 50s and beyond:
Living in Europe
A move that is super difficult right now, would likely be much easier when we no longer have to fork over $40,000/yr for international school, can be flexible visa-wise, and when all that’s needed to live is a little 1-BR overlooking the Mediterranean.
North shore cabin
In my 50s and 60s, I might actually be able to sneak away to build it without my wife dying of exhaustion (and me missing the critical kid years- see “30s” above).
Conclusion
I don’t have time to share all that I took away from this book, much less impress upon you the importance of managing not just your money but your (and your loved ones’) finite health and time.
To be clear, this is not a book advocating for financial stupidity. Bill Perkins actually comes from the finance world. He’s simply reminding us that while mindlessly spending money is harmful, mindlessly saving money can be even worse.
While some of you reading this should be more frugal and save more for retirement, some of you financially responsible, ever-deferring Americans need to wake up from autopilot.
This is your life.
Your energy, your health, your time - these are the limited resources you need to be managing - not your Vanguard accounts.
Beyond these four concepts, Bill addresses everything from fear over end-of-life costs, peak utility of money (at what age does a dollar matter most?) to how he plans on actually “dying with zero”.
For now, maybe it’s enough to pause and ask yourself:
What’s the biggest opportunity in your life right now -
that may not be there in ten years?
We don’t know how long God will give us on this side of eternity. While I certainly disagree with some of the selfish, “YOLO" vibes that can come through Perkins’ writing at times, there is a wisdom in this book that we would be wise to heed as we strive to manage our finite time on this planet. And that’s why I heartily recommend a discerning read of “Die with Zero”.
“Teach me to number my days, that I might gain a heart of wisdom.”
- Ps 90:12
The End of the World
Peter Zeihan’s job is to see the future.
To achieve it, he extrapolates from two under-appreciated realities:
People have stopped having kids (in quantities they used to)
The USA has lost interest in enabling global trade.
I've written on #1. So let's unpack #2, straight from his latest book, The End of the World (is just the Beginning).
The World America Made
After World War II, the United States had the only de-facto navy in the world. So we made a deal with our battered allies:
Uncle Sam: “Ok, guys. We’ll patrol the global oceans to guarantee your maritime trade. In return, side with us (not the Soviets)”
Allies: “Deal.”
The agreement worked. The Americans outlasted the Soviets and more importantly, we created a world in which anyone can trade for anything.
For the USA, it's meant cheaper goods (though not without job displacement). For other countries (think: Asia), it provided a pathway to prosperity that had never before existed.
Now, countries didn’t need to have oil, or even food for that matter. They could focus on what they were good at and trade for the the raw materials they needed to industrialize.
For the ultimate example…
Consider China
Fifty million people died of famine in China. In 1960.
Sixty years later, the world’s second largest economy mints 3000 millionaires per day.
What happened?
To oversimplify, China began to import things they needed (starting with food inputs and oil) and export the things they made (everything at the time of this writing).
And here’s the key: the PRC did it with every incoming and outgoing shipment being guaranteed by Uncle Sam’s boats.
What’s the Rub?
As you read this, there are thousands upon thousands of cargo ships in the Indian Ocean, each carrying millions of dollars in Chinese (and others’) imports and exports.
The ships’ defenses? Usually nothing.
The ships’ top speed? <20 mph
These multi-million dollar sitting ducks will slowly pass their Asian neighbors, make the horn of India at a snails’ pace, all before passing directly through multiple chokepoints in the middle east.
The 18-trillion dollar question: What keeps these ships safe?
Answer: Rhymes with “Blue Dress Gravy Meals”
(US Navy Seals, see Captain Phillips)
Follow-up: What happens if America stops guaranteeing these shipments?
Answer: We don't know.
This brings us to the crux of the book.
There was a time where it made sense for America to spend massive amounts of money and effort to patrol planet earth. The reasons for doing this are now gone.
The soviet threat that started it all? Gone since ‘91. Need for for foreign oil? See fracking.
In 2023, the US is:
A net-energy exporter.
Relatively unreliant on global trade. And most importantly:
Completely uninterested in subsidizing the rise of the CCP.
And our shrinking global Navy is beginning to reflect these realities.
Critiquing Zeihanism
My critique: like most prophets of doom, Zeihan underestimates the abilities of humans to adapt to significant changes. I find it unlikely that a hunger-games scenario ensues anytime soon on the global seas.
Even so, without the free-ride of the US Navy, the economics for trade-dependent countries could change quickly and drastically.
Are Vietnamese textiles still a good value when shipping insurance prices have quintipled? Is it still worth it for China to send iPhones to England when they have to pay off every country along the way to protect (and not take) their stuff?
We’re one missing freighter from finding out.
Summary
The End of the World is a straightforward prediction of what follows in a world with:
Less babies
Less U.S. Armada (and therefore less trade)
Nations that make babies and do things in-house and with close neighbors will go on thriving (see US, France). Countries that have banked their futures on free trade and specialization… may be in for a bumpy ride.
Despite his flaws (consistent “homer bias”, negative Nancy, overdramatic at times), if you want to understand the geopolitical dynamics shaping our future world, you may benefit from a (small) dose of the hiker-man from Iowa, Peter Zeihan.
For the non-reader consider his interview on the Joe Rogan Experience as a jumping off point:
Favorite Things: 2022
New (to me) Books
Breath (James Nestor)
My summary:
Most of us breathe poorly.
Breathing poorly creates a myriad of health issues.
Anyone can improve their breathing and feel better, reverse ailments, and live longer.
I enjoyed Breath on two levels. First, as an occasional dabbler into health and self-improvement literature, the book left me wondering why it hadn’t occurred to me to improve the most fundamental activity involved in staying alive.
And secondly, as a wannabe writer, I was floored by Nestor's ability to create a scientific book on breathing (yes, BREATHING) that is utterly riveting.
With eccentric characters playing out the story across time and space (yes, he really illegally journeyed miles into the catacombs under Paris to observe ancient skulls), Breath feels more like The Da Vinci Code than breathing manual.
Here's a teaser passage from his conversation with a group of semi-insane "free divers" (people who dive to ~300 feet below the surface of the ocean- with no gear).
Another diver told me that some methods of breathing will nourish our brains, while others will kill neurons; some will make us healthy, while others will hasten our death.
They told crazy stories, about how they'd breathed in ways that expanded the size of their lungs by 30 percent or more. They told me about an Indian doctor who lost several pounds by simply changing the way he inhaled, and about another man who was injected with the bacterial endotoxin E. coli, then breathed in a rhythmic pattern to stimulate his immune system and destroy the toxins within minutes. They told me about women who put their cancers into remission and monks who could melt circles in the snow around their bare bodies over a period of several hours. It all sounded nuts.
They discovered that our capacity to breathe has changed through the long processes of human evolution, and that the way we breathe has gotten markedly worse since the dawn of the Industrial Age. They discovered that 90 percent of us-very likely me, you, and almost everyone you know is breathing incorrectly and that this failure is either causing or aggravating a laundry list of chronic diseases.
On a more inspiring note, some of these researchers were also showing that many modern maladies-asthma, anxiety, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, psoriasis, and more-could either be reduced or reversed simply by changing the way we inhale and exhale.
The Count of Monte Cristo
Many classics are good to read in the same way that spinach is good to eat - helpful, but not particularly enjoyable. This is not true of Dumas' classic.
Beginning in Southern France with a hook to end all hooks, the story eventually moves from the legendary Chateu D'If to Rome and Paris at a pace that will satisfy the most attention-deficient modern readers. Dumas' classic tale of revenge and redemption is still a winner for plot-lovers in 2022. Once read, the film will look like a silly, B-list child's play by comparison.
Re-reads
Ruthless Elimination of Hurry (John Mark Comer) and Get Your Life Back (John Eldredge)
Good books give us the truth we need at the right time. Fifteen years since Steve Jobs' placed supercomputing compulsion machines into our pocket, these books are the kind we need right now if our inner life is to survive the exhausting, lonely age of constant connection.
While Comer masterfully puts words to the challenges of the soul in the age of the internet, Eldredge's writing is the balm and direction we need to survive the digital age with spiritual life intact.
4-Hour Workweek
This all-time favorite found me again at just the right time. As my peers graduate to large suburban houses and new cars (along with the associated mortgages, car payments, and oftentimes high stress jobs to support them), Tim's 2007 classic was a timely reminder why we're taking the road less traveled. So far, our family has tried to prioritize freedom over convenience and experiences over stuff. So far, that has made all the difference.
Apps
Obsidian (w/ Readwise)
For all the content you read, the videos you watch, the podcasts you listen to - what percentage do you actually retain? What if the key points of every piece of consumed media along with every noteworthy thought you had were stored in an easily searchable database for instant recall for the rest of your life?
This is the promise of the "Second Brain" - a personal journal / content library on steroids made possible by modern technology. I've chosen Obsidian as the "hub" of my second brain and have been very pleased.
For more on the topic of the second brain, Tiago Forte is your man.
Duolingo
For all the flack it got in the reviews I read, Duolingo was an incredible resource for me. With just 15 minutes / day, I had enough francaise to outfrench 95% of tourists and even hang a bit conversationally. With a big travel year ahead, I will be leaning on the premium version to keep my French sharp and get up to speed quickly in Spanish, Portugese, Japanese, and Italian!
Podcast
Huberman Labs
Picture a muscly, decorated, middle-aged Stanford professor with an encyclopedic knowledge of current health science and incredible ability to communicate it to non-scientists. What if, instead of pushing out esoteric academic papers, this jacked academic put his energies toward distilling the most relevant, cutting-edge health science and making it practical for normies like you and me?
In that case, you’d have Andrew Huberman. Every video he publishes essentially becomes the most helpful resource ever made on that subject.
Whether it's losing weight, unlocking motivation, mastering sleep or using cold exposure to your advantage, the end result of watching him is an "everyman's PhD" in your own mind and body.
Purchase
DIY 4-zone mini split system
If you have an old house like our 1920s gem (complete with microscopic ductwork), I would highly recommend a mini-split system. With our old AC condenser dead on return from France, we eschewed replacing it with a standard condenser and instead, put in a 4-headed mini split. Now, we have hyper-efficient climate control in rooms that previously got nary a trickle of conditioned air from the vent. Newer systems can also heat down to -10 degrees outdoor temperature or colder. We use ours year round!
If you are handy, I highly recommend a Mr. Cool DIY system as it costs ~1/4 the price of what a traditional installation would cost.
Habits
Sauna and Ice Bath
Whether your motivation has to do with heat-shock proteins and longevity (like reducing all-cause mortality by 40%), or just embracing winter while your stress melts away, I highly recommend finding a way to access a sauna. This year, I scored a free freezer and added a cold plunge to my "northern spa" backyard setup.
Guided Lectio Divina
Slow, guided scripture meditations in the age of fast information. The ancient practice, fresh to your Spotify account every day.
Wim Hof Breathing
If you haven't yet discovered him, Wim Hof is, at his core, a crazy Dutch man obsessed with cold water and intense breathing. For years, he was viewed as a bit of a kook- until he started achieving crazy results that continue to baffle scientists to this day (he is the man who directed his immune system to kill the injected E. Coli in the "Breath" passage above). I've done the cold for years, but recently started his breathing regimen, to good effect.
Applying for Credit Cards
With mini splits and new roof bills flying at us, we've been hitting the credit card applications hard. For just a few hundred bucks, we've booked round-trip tickets for the whole family to Montreal, a ten-year anniversary getaway to Italy, and even banked up enough Air France points for a family trip back across the pond in 2024.
Going without alcohol for long stretches
Between all the emerging literature on "Alcohol and the Brain" and a few "bad reaction" type experiences with alcohol this year, I've really put the substance (and its place in my life) under the microscope. Still figuring out what I'm going to do moving forward, but the days of "drinking without thinking" are over.
Moment
La France
Have you ever recognized one of the great seasons of your life while you were in it?
For me, that was our two months in France. Pastries and swims in the old city aside, the experience of visiting my wife’s home for two years, having our moms come with for the ride, and even being "adopted" by an extremely kind French family in Arles was nothing short of magique.
If I get hit by a bus tomorrow, at least we had France. This trip was all the things we wanted it to be and more.
Thought
"What has been will not always be"
I'm convinced that navigating your thirties is a worldview-altering experience. Maybe it was two babies completely rearranging my life in an instant. Or perhaps watching those babies grow to school age and all of a sudden running off and playing with their friends. Or maybe it's just watching the slow march of time slowly chip away at everything from dishwashers to my upper back.
The steady invincibility I felt in my twenties has been replaced by a sense of frailty and temporality in my thirties. These last few years have instilled the realization that things don't last, at least not on this side of the grave. If you're my age, you might even be in the tail end in some areas of your life.
As I walked through the MIA yesterday, this painting grabbed me by the lapels:
“Springtime of Life” - Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, 1871
I was overwhelmed by the feeling that I can only describe as fleetingness. As I meditated on this young girl, soon to become an old woman... and now long-buried somewhere in Europe, here was the thought I journaled:
"Oh to be young again" is a sentiment I'm starting to understand, even starting to feel. For the faithless, it must be a sad thought. But for those who hope for more than this “earthly tent", this feeling is another pointer to what should… and will be.
Hope this list finds you well. Cheers to 2023.