Your Ego Is Keeping You Poor | Bill Perkins

I stole one of my richest friends for us this episode. I wanted him to tell us how our ego is keeping us poor and what are the secrets that rich people use to make more money during that time. He also is going to tell us things like how he had a 54 million dollar tax bill one year. No big deal. He's also going to talk about decision making in general. So if you have ever wanted to make cleaner, clearer decisions, if you feel like there are these problems in front of you and you can't find your blind spots and thus can't get the problem out of the way, you're going to like this episode. And if you want to figure out to get really rich people or really impressive people to bet on you and become a person of consequences, you're going to like this episode. So without further ado, I want to introduce my friend, Bill Perkins, multi billion dollar hedge fund manager, best selling author of Die with Zero, also amateur poker player and one of the most asymmetric thinkers that I've ever heard. He encourages me to think bigger and probably made me millions and millions of dollars through just two conversations with him. So I think he can do the same.

For.

I don't think I've told the story to this group here before, but do you remember when we were walking at your house, it would have been the first time on the grass, and we're walking along and I was telling Bill an idea I had about how to help all of you, how to help business buyers and builders buy more businesses. And I had like, what I thought was a really good idea, right? I was like, this is a really big idea. It's going to be big. And I'm telling Bill, and if you guys ever like told an idea to your spouse that you were like, I'm so excited. This idea is gonna be so big. And your spouse just goes, bah, bah, bah, bah, and just like starts kicking anybody. Is that just me? So Bill did the most amazing thing to me that I'll always appreciate him for, which is I told him my idea and he looked at me and he goes, hmm. Do you think that you've been investing in small business for so long that small has infected your thinking? Do you remember this?

Yeah, I remember that.

And now somebody might say, well, why would you be really glad somebody said that to you? Because without Bill saying a hard thing that I needed to hear in a moment in which I was probably playing pretty small, I wasn't taking much risk at all, actually. It was something I could have 1,000% accomplished. There was almost no world in which I wouldn't have done. The first thing I was talking to Bill about, I had somebody who had seen in the future already. He had a bigger bank account than I did. He had built bigger things than I had. And he said to me, is that all you got? Is that all you got? And I will tell you that if you're not in rooms like this often or walking with Bill along his house, you're not going to get somebody like that. And so what I hope you take away from today, we're going to talk a lot about a lot. But I want to talk about risk with Bill. I want to talk about how you make decisions. I want to talk about how you choose what you want to do next. Because very few people will tell you the things that you need to hear, not what you want to hear. Am I right? Can I get a little Yep on that? All right. So, Bill, now that I've painted you in such a lovely light.

Yeah, thanks. Dream crusher.

Dream question. I want to start with. We've talked about speed before, right? And how important speed is to making money. And the faster you move, in many ways, the more money you make. But I'd like to. I've never gone further with you into that question. How do you think about speed and moving fast, and how do you know if you're moving fast enough on the decisions you want to make in life?

Well, first, I want to say, you know, not a dream crusher, I just want to hold you accountable to your best self, right? Like you. You. You definitely had all the ingredients as somebody I would want to bet on. And your. Your dreams, your ideas were much bigger than that. You weren't thinking bigger. And, you know, I told you at the time, I said, the money is easy. It's having an idea that you can execute on. There's tons of money. There's tons of rich guys that don't want to work. They just want to invest in somebody and make a good return. Question is, how do we find these executors? And when we find them, they dump cash into them and they go golfing or flying or doing whatever they want to do. And so I wanted you to think big because it wouldn't be hard for you to raise money, right? Like, after you went around, you were, like, trying to cram me down because these other guys want to come in, and this guy wants to come in. I'm like, no, that guy can't get in. What happened if you thought about that? Idea three years ago. What if you executed on that, you know, a little bit faster? What if you, you know, thought a little bit bigger and moved a little bit faster? Where would you be now? How big would this conference be? How many people would be knocking down your door to figure out how you did it? And so, you know, we're human beings, we're not institutions, we don't live that long and there's periods in our life and I just think that life in itself is urgent and important and your dreams are important. And that advantage of action, speed implies action. You're not just speed running around in a circle, you're moving towards your dreams. And so it's almost taking yourself serious and your dream seriously by executing what else should you be doing according to your values. And so I think it's very important. And it's my willingness to take risk and my ability or my willingness to move quickly towards my goals are the only advantages I have.

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Yeah, it was somebody in the industry who just kind of said, yeah, he's kind of like the last cowboy. The person willing to take risk, to trade in kind of this commodity, really put it on the line and have no fear to the result, but be in love with the process. Right. Like, if this is the correct action to take, this is the action I take. A lot of people are afraid of risk, not because they can't stomach the financial risk, but their egos can't stand looking like an idiot or being wrong, you know?

Yeah, well, talk about that a little bit more because in this community, like you just kind of mind fucked me slightly back in the other room, which is this idea of like, do we have risk?

Yeah, most of the people, when I step into a room like this, I think everybody in this room has subject, verb, agreement, some level of education, is pretty ambitious and intelligent, which means they can get a job anywhere. So when they go out to start their business from a financial perspective, they have zero risk. Zero. You're not going to be homeless. You will not be starving. You will be clothed, sheltered, and feed yourself. What risk you have is your ego. You don't want to be a garbage man, or you don't want to be a waiter, or you don't want to be a restaurant worker. And so therefore, you can't take that ego hit. And then you will not go live your dream. You'll play it safe to stay in your ego space, in your relative position amongst your friends. You don't want to look like an idiot to yourself because sometimes we're our own worst critic. And so when people talk about risk, you know, I hear, I was at Rice yesterday at the business school, and he says, well, I talked to these MBA graduates about losing it all in risk. And I literally said, what the fuck are you talking about, losing it all? These guys can get a job tomorrow. Six figure job tomorrow. You know, there's no risk, right. And so earlier on in my life, when I was a screen clerk, I was making like $16,000 a year. My friend left the floor to go become a waiter. He was making $75,000 a year cash in New York. This was like 20 years ago, right. So what risk did he have? He just quit and didn't want to go do it. And I went chasing the big dream, you know, to be the big trader and make a bunch of money. And so I say to most people at this level of education and intelligence, there's no financial risk. There's only ego risk.

Can you guys internalize that? Like, do you feel that as deeply as I do? Like, at the end of the day, we talk about risk and I think, oh my God, what if somebody bought a business and it failed and they went bankrupt? And when I think that, I think you died. I'm like, oh my God, that's our fault. Did anything happen? Are we going to make it? Did we lose a limb? Does anybody feel like that too? With businesses, it's like almost like our biggest fear is public humiliation, as they say it is.

It is the. And so when you, you know, people. I also say that people like success, but they love a failure. And the reason why people love a failure is not that they're evil, but it validates their own cowardice. Right? They had dreams too, that they didn't go pursue. There's risks that they didn't take. And so when you fail, they're like, see, I'm glad I didn't do it. Look what happened to so and so. He's a waiter now, or now he's working for so and so. You tried that big idea and it failed and he looks like an idiot. I'm lucky that I'm okay looking like an idiot, and I often do. And so that allows me the freedom to go try some things that have failed. You know, I went down to El Salvador and spent a bunch of years trying to build this giant LNG project. 500 million megawatt project. It failed miserably.

How much money do you think that cost?

I lost $10 million doing that. You know, when I, when it was, when $10 million was like a significant portion of my net worth. I tried to do one in California, went through all the works that failed. You know, but I like to swing big and I like to take the risk. And like, what's worst comes to worst, I'll get a job.

So how do you decide? Like, what is your mental gymnastics that you do when you decide I'm going to execute on this idea versus this idea, how do you, how do you decide what is going to be worth the risk or not?

I mean, you know, I say there's always, there's a zillion ways to make money or get rich. I mean, if you think of a field, there's a millionaire in that field. Whether it's shoe lastings, pizza garbage, renewables, energy buying, business finance, et cetera. So one of the things I look at is that, will I be consistent? And this is aligned with my Values and mission statement, do I want to do this right? And then it's, can I execute? Can I execute? Can I get people aligned that are actually going to execute? Because most of the time I'm firing myself. I am not the guy. Right. I want to be working on my business, not in my business. Mainly because I'm not the smartest guy in the room at that thing. Like, I'm not the best sales guy. I'm not the best spreadsheet guy. I'm not the best at any of this thing. But I am the vision guy and the guy that will move fast, take risks and willingness to learn. And I have that curiosity. And so if, I mean, if I stay curious, curious, and I stay consistent and I have a vision, I'm able to enroll people in that vision, then it doesn't matter what the business is, I can get rich in it.

I love that. By the way, you guys, he flew in here just to talk to you today. How about that?

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So you're about to make a trade based on a friend's text, but which u do you listen to? Is it, we could buy a house in Tulum, get optioning those options. We could lose everything. Or let's do a little research, get your head in the trade and make the investment decision that's right for you. Learn more@finra.org TradeSmart.

And you, I mean, you have a big, huge.

The second thing that I've really learned a lot about you, watching you, is we all want to learn how to build teams. Right. We know that we don't want to just have a job. We want to have a business. And I watch how you handle your team by interacting with them. You have one guy, Omar, who is totally different than you. Can you talk about how you found him, why, how you figured out that was the person you needed for this specific role?

Yes. So I think it's around 2008, 2009, when all the banks were laying off everybody. Right. The world was ending. Nomar was in New York and trying to convince somebody from New York at that time to move to Texas is kind of Crazy. And, you know, I really had to enroll them on the vision of what he can get out of life and the things he can do here that is different from a bank. And so. And what I enroll the most on the risk and the ability to execute in his area of expertise. Right. If you're in a bank, you're way up in a bank. You're, like, high up in IBM or a bank, et cetera. You can't do a $50,000 experiment. Your budget is so tight, you can't go, hmm, I think this might work. It's gonna take $50,000 to find out the answer. May work, may not. I'm like, okay, let's fafo fuck around to find out. You know, that does not exist in these organizations. Right. And so the freedom to be himself, to execute on his area of expertise, for me to step back and let him be us, to debate and figure things out, that was very appealing. You know, it's a little scary. Like, that doesn't exist. Right. Like, even in our companies, we're like, if we're not failing, we're not trying. Yeah, we're not trying hard enough. We're playing it safe.

You know, the other thing that is really interesting is, like, so when I came to Bill and I was trying to figure out, how do I build this next thing, and I was getting his advice. One of the other things you did that I think really highly of is you go ask Omar about that. Like, that's not a me question, that's a him question. And so I kind of picture you as, like, visionary, which. Do a lot of people think of themselves a visionary in the room? Like, you're the person who has the idea how many people think of themselves as, like, implementer or operator in here. That's interesting. 50. 50 split. To me, you're the vision, and Omar is like, guardrails, bumper rails.

Yeah, I think, you know, a lot of times I'm like, this is thematically where I want to go. I understand. Like, hey, if we calculate the math on this and it's this and this, this is going to work. But am I going to go in, run the whole spreadsheet, get all. No, that's not me. I don't like it. I don't want to do it. Could I do it if I had to? Yes. But this is where he's an expert, and he's going to be very detailed in thinking about it. And so, you know, like I said, I love to fire myself. Right. Like, I am not the best at that. So I let the people who are best at that do that, and I get the hell out of their way. You know, I want to be working on my business, not in my business. If you want to have a pizza parlor, you can work on your business. You can make the pizza, you can do the oven, you can do the hiring and firing, etc. You want to be Pizza Hut, you cannot be that person. You have to be working on your business. You have to let people handle that store, do all those things, and you're looking like, okay, next location over there. And even then after you think I think this is a good idea, then you get your land guy and do all the analytics about the demographics and how many people go out there and what the income is, et cetera, and then that's how you build an empire. Either one is okay, right? And so when I talked to you, I was like, what's this mom and pop shit you're talking about? Let's go. You know what I mean? Let's go.

You're right. The other thing that's interesting is he kind of cyas, like, he protects you. And I think a lot of times, like, when I have a lot of young leaders, I push them a lot so that they will push their team because their team doesn't protect them. And if their team doesn't protect them, then they don't protect me, right? It's almost like shitholes uphill sometimes when you're a leader, and if you don't make your juniors handle their stuff, you're gonna be in charge of it. Omar really protects you. Is there a way you think about screening somebody like that? Or you incentivize them so that your people are like, your bulldogs?

I think, you know, they understand that they have, like, a mini business within there, right? Like, they want to get paid first. That's fine. I want to take all the risk. And, you know, my CFO calls me meal ticket, so, you know, like, they get it like, I am the meal ticket, right? Like, I created this organization that that's where their. That's where their great insurance comes from. That's where their salaries come from, et cetera. And so as this machine keeps running, which I'm an integral part of, you know, they're fine. And so he has a very, very, very nice job, right? A lot of freedom, both where he's located, et cetera, what he does, experiments, things he wants to investigate. I would protect that. I was like, what. What things do I need to make sure that this keeps going, right? Like, so protect your meal ticket.

Yeah, I love that. Well, and also, be okay talking about yourself like that, because I think sometimes owners were like, there's this whole servant leadership idea, which is true. But I think you also have to say, I said to my content team, I'm like, what is your number one creative asset right now? At contrarian thinking, what do you think they said?

You.

Great answer. They were like, is it YouTube? I was like, God damn it, it's me. And that feels weird to say, right? Because it feels egotistical. You're like, I don't mean that. I'm the most important part. The second we get other talent in here, like, serve them, serve them, serve them. But until then, you have to be okay as the owner kind of saying, hey, I need you to take care of me, because if I die, this dies. And right now, you're killing me. And so I like the way you run your teams that way. And it's almost like it's so aligned.

Yeah. I mean, they have their important function, and they know what's going on, but the organization, like, we are a living, breathing organism, and they have their part, and it's like, we can't have the head get cut off.

Right.

And we got to protect them. Like, if there's an area where there's, like, a question or they're negotiating a deal, like, I'm out here. Strategic thinking. Right. Like, I. I may miss all these things. They have to do all that for me, and I trust them to do that for me so that my neurons can work on the other things and keep this thing growing.

Yeah. Do you think you're hard for work to work for?

I don't know. I think there's this. At first, people think there's this idea that I'm not approachable, but I'm, like, very approachable. Like, I come in looking like the pizza delivery boy. I come in jeans and ball cap. You know, I'll talk about anything. And once they realize, like, wow, I have all this freedom, I have all this structure, I can push back. Like, I. Like, they think I want to debate because, you know, I'm right. I'm like, no, I'm debating to come to a consensus to get to these. The answer. I'm just as curious as you are, probably more curious. And so I think it's easy. I'm pretty, like, you know, a lot of times they're like, oh, I want to raise or I want to do this. And I'm like, I really don't know. Let's See what market is like, I'm not like you should get paid this. I'm like, what is the market? And then I pay at the top of the market, you know, golden handcuff them.

I love that one thing that you, you know, you have two ideas that I've really learned a lot from. One is peak utility of money and I would almost say also peak utility of time. Can you talk about assistance peak utility of time first?

Yeah. So like I saw you talking about the assistant comments. So you know, when I invest in you, right, I mean, it's not like you're going to go out and like box somebody or dig ditches. You're going to use your brain and your neurons. And so I'm investing in your time to execute. And it's extremely valuable. I trust and invaluable. But if you're out there getting groceries and filling up your gas tank and worrying about this, I'm like, wait a minute, you're not a $10, 15 hour person. Like, why are you doing that when your neurons could be the next greatest idea for your business. Make it run efficiently, make it 10x whatever. You should be offloading everything that is below your hourly rate to somebody else. So I can get more coti, right? Just you having an assistant, I might get 30% more coti. I might get two cotis. You get three assistants, right? And so that's a great deal for me and that's a great deal for you. Like shed all the stuff that you should not be doing so that you can focus on your goals and your dreams and your values. It's just inefficient allocation of resources. Like if you're sweeping floors, I'm like, what are you doing? If you're going to the grocery store, unless you like checking out what new nuts they have. Sometimes I do. I'm like, what are you doing? What are you doing? You're denying somebody a job and you're doing ineffective allocation of a very valuable resource. You know, you didn't go to college and do all this learning and go through the school of hard knocks to be pumping gas. And so, you know, I don't want to invest in that. I want to invest in Cody. I want to invest in Cody the dreamer, the person thinking about business and this turnover and the baby boomers and scaling it up and then integrating their systems and all the other things you can do. Buying these small businesses and this idea that you're having, not Cody, like, I need to do I have enough peanut butter and milk, you know, that's just crazy.

Yeah, I love it. The other thing that you talked about too, which I think resonates, there's a lot of couples in here today too, is getting your partner on board too. So I remember Chris came the second time and, you know, we were walking around and we talked about like, what tasks are you both doing, you know, in your marriage too, which is not theoretically normal for you to talk about with a potential investor or even just a friend, a fellow business owner. And I thought that that was really useful. How do you think about like getting your family, your partner on board? Because I know family is really important to you too.

Yeah, I mean, we have to meet and figure like, what, what's my role here? What's your role in the net? How does our time get divided?

Right?

Because if you, if you, if you go on this, like, adventure and your life partner, your highest value, right? Like, you know, where all your fulfillment, most if not all your fulfillment is going to come from this relationship, your interpersonal relationships. And you're not on board and like you're, you're having all this friction and that's a problem. That's a real problem, you know, and it's, it's wealth destroying and dream destroying and fulfillment destroying just from like letting these little cracks keep like on a windshield, you know what I mean? It's like this teeny little crack and the next thing you know, you can't see, right? And so I think like frequently getting aligned and discussing and having those difficult conversations about, hey, you're spending too much time on this or how are we going to allocate these resources? Are you on board getting buy in? And once you have buy in, it's like, hey, let's go. It's going to be tough, but let's go.

Yeah, that's really good. So I've kind of seen your brain in action when you're looking at like business plans or opportunities maybe to talk about peak utility of money or just deciding which venue to use when you have, you know, all of this optionality in front of, in front of you, how do you determine which way to go? So if you're like I want to do, remember we were talking about on the lake, we were talking about, well, could we do a business model where we own all the small businesses as opposed to should we have a percentage of all the listings of small businesses? And so as you guys play this game out, you're going to have so many different ways your business can go and determining the best way to make money is actually quite hard often. How do you make that decision?

Well, for me, it's like the most fun and fulfilling outcome. Right. So. But you know, there's a lot of, you know, a lot of people think at one level, like there's these de risk businesses that people are going to be selling that are profitable, that you can pick up finance below market, et cetera. Great. Maybe I can pick up a couple. Great. Now I'm at scale. What about all the derivative value in that business? The data I can optimize now I got, let's just go really big. I got a million employees across all these businesses. How much cheaper is my insurance, my paper, how much data do I have? I don't need a Fed survey. I am the Fed survey. Maybe I want to market something. Maybe I can partner with other businesses that sell services and take a piece of that going throughout, through all those employees. I'm too big to fail now, you know, so there's all these other things that you start thinking, I'm not bright enough to think about all these things, right? What, what value that provides and how much capital is. But that's going to be an individual decision, right? There may be a concept. Nothing's like, I'm good with 20 car washes. I don't need 100,000 car washes. Or I don't want to be that big. Maybe I'll pitch it out to somebody else later and let them take it from that point on. And so, you know, since I'm not doing the work you are, I'm like, let's go big. I'll give you the money. It's a lot of fun. I think for me, that's great, you know, but when you're there running it, maybe you're like, you know, bill, I'm gonna take it to this point and then we can pitch it out to somebody else. And that's for you to decide about your life journey and what you want out of life. Right? Because at the end of the day, the money, the business, etc. It's fun, but there for me, it's just to drive my fulfillment. Like, I don't buy hammers and saws because I like hammers and saws. I'm buying hammers and saws to build house. The same way I don't acquire money because I like money. The money is there for me to live the life that I want. The other things now work is fun and winning is fun and doing his businesses are fun. But ultimately it's for me to build the complete entire life that I want and be fulfilled.

I want you guys to start thinking about your questions because I'm going to come to you next. But for my, my final question here, I mean, you made a lot of money, you have all the toys, you know, you maybe not all in your mind. I can see you go up and to the left and think, no, there's a couple I want still. But you have like a ton of material wealth, obviously, but you keep playing the game at like a high level with a lot of risk. Why?

Well, I'm not necessarily attached to the toys, et cetera. And there's certain things that I want. Like I will not risk things that I have for something that I don't have unless I really want that thing, right? And there's certain things that, you know, I still want, but as long as it doesn't interfere with the rest of my life, I will keep doing it, right? And so the blessing and curse of technology is that I can work from my phone, right? Everything's on my phone. Spreadsheets, DocuSign, you know, video calls, it's like dictate, you know, I'm old enough to remember like crazy cartoons, right? Two way radio, watch. It's even better than what they, what they said in that regards. And so remote work, I'm, I'm able to, you know, be working on a boat on vacation and then my off, you know, jump off into the water and I enjoy, like you said, I'm really working for my employees, right? I'm building this, right? Like I have, if you include, I have one startup, I think they have like 100 employees. Another one that's not like 40. My family, officer, etc. This is like a mini army, a couple platoons, as Chris would say, of people that, you know, I'm working for, that I'm help building for and keeping this ecosystem growing. And then with that other capital, I help you realize your dreams, right? Like I'm a part of the building block to do that and that's fulfilling for me. But if it becomes an interference with my life like you said, like I'm getting older, right? Like I don't want to, I'm not here to die like Scrooge McDuck on a pile of money. I'm going to use it all up before I die. And not only before I die, but before I'm unable to convert it into the experiences I want to have. If I want to go HELLA Skiing, it's not 86. I don't want to go hella Skiing. But you get the idea. Your ability to convert your capital into meaningful experiences or useful experiences declines as you age. Your lung capacity goes down, your muscle mass goes down, your fragility goes up, even your attitude. You're like, I don't like that anymore. I used to love glow sticks, partying in the club. Now I'm like, come on, you know what I mean? I'm a lounge and listen to this jazz, right? And so there's a time for everything. And so I'm acutely aware of that. And I want to make sure that I deploy. Deploy these resources at the right time throughout my life.

Yeah, I think also we talk about a lot. You can't be what you can't see. And so one of the things that I really respect about you overall is you also have a shit ton of fun. Like, how many times do I get a text message from you and Luke at SkyFi and it's like a Thursday night and I have to work all day Friday and you guys are playing fucking laser tag.

Yeah, laser tag at his house.

Werewolves, laser tags, game of laser tag orchestrated on this, like. So I think it's just a beautiful thing to see because you bring everybody along. I have been to multi hundred people parties at your house. You're out of town, which is weird. Have you guys ever let somebody else just throw giant parties at your house when you're not there?

Our friend had a saying, and I agree with it. You buy stuff to give it away. And there are people who go to the movies alone and they're either movie critics or psychos. No, I'm just kidding. Some people do go to the movie theater alone, but we want to enjoy the ride. Our friends, I think like, you know, it's always like, did you see that? You know, we're just social media, everybody talking about what we saw, what we did, etc. And so, you know, I have a wake surfing boat. And the reason why I love wake surfing so much is 70% of it is there's a bunch of people in a boat. Everybody's rooting for you to get up. They're all rooting for you to do the new trick. You're having a great time, you're sharing these memories and you're creating memory dividends that you're be able to enjoy for the rest of your life. And so, you know, the things I have or, you know, for me and my friends and new people to enjoy, you know, in this ride. And so the ride for me to the grave because we're all you know, the destination for everybody is the same. It's a grave. So I'm trying to enjoy the ride and I want to enjoy the ride with the use of the world, right? That's what makes life worth living for me. So that's what the toys are for. It's not for me to just sit there with 50 laser tag guns shooting in the air, you know, that would not be as fun. No, not at all. Even going to the movies alone, I mean, sometimes you want to be alone, but like sitting there, you're just like, you want to turn to somebody, right? Like, even watching at home, you're like, oh, man, they got to see this movie, right? So it's true.

And the other thing, I hope you guys noticed too, that I love to bring like my friends here and show you guys firsthand. Because I wish I was in rooms like this when I was younger. Like, I didn't have access to fancy rooms at all, you know, it was, you know, my dad was an entrepreneur and we had other entrepreneur friends, but we were kind of like barely making it, you know, like this didn't really exist, this sort of abundance. But isn't it weird how the news tells you that people with wealth are bad? People who are rich don't give. And then you meet some of these fuckers. You're like this guy, he invited me over to laser tags six times.

Werewolves, laser tags.

Whatever, man.

Let's have some fun. Let's enjoy the ride.

So I want to open it up now for questions and as we're thinking about it, you know, money investing, risk, raising capital, anywhere you want to go. I want to open it up and let's try to get a few questions from people we haven't before.

Okay, great.

Yep.

Absolutely. Here we go. Let's go, Hawks. Yeah. It's been four years since Daiwa Zero. You've had countless conversations with smart people like Cody about your book. How has your philosophy changed and evolved since the initial publication? I think I've solidified it and you know, gotten more into. So the book is more at the 10,000 foot level, the theory and the mental models. And now I've got more into like the application layer on like how I can implement that. How can optimize. How can I think about fulfillment, you know, and then my wife and I, you know, we use a lot of the exercises to like resolve what we should be doing and how. What. What is the best course of action for to take. But nothing, nothing's really changed in terms of it. The philosophy or what Is correct. I think it's more correct than ever. Another question right over here. Hi, my name's Donald. I'm from Austin. My question was like, I hear a lot about people saying how like they do this. They, they, they want to add more to their life. But what could you talk to about, like what you don't do either in like how you think mindset wise or habits wise, like what do you subtract or not do in how you live your life? Okay. I think one of my biggest flaws coming out of Jersey City was impulse control. And so one of the things, and not necessarily with trading, because I'm very stoic about losing money, whatever, but just in terms of interpersonal relationships kind of having an equanimity and a stoic belief like, hey, this person is annoying or they're frustrating me, I need to dial it. I can't control or change them. I can change how I can react. Right. So when somebody does anything to you or around you, there are about a thousand ways you can react. Right. And I had to look at myself and be like, why am I reacting this way? And so that is one of the things I've been learning not to do is have this kind of like histrionic response to things that annoy me in interpersonal relationships. So that's one of the things I'm trying not to do.

That's really good. Donald's a stud too, works at Google. And Billy is about to do his first transaction, a multimillion dollar deal. Congratulations. Yeah. So two smart gents.

Next question.

Hi, I'm Andrea, based in Austin as well. So I have kind of a two part question for you here. How do you feel find a good operator to invest in for a specific venture? And the second part to that, how do you manage or insist on the highest standards when there's even potentially a disconnect in expectations that were set once you're executing? Would love to hear your thoughts on that.

I mean, I always say it's always an HR problem. It just always is like we'll have a great idea or something we want to do. And it's like, okay, but who's going to do it? Who's really going to be the operator, et cetera. So it's a hunt. Sometimes you're stealing them and convincing them that they can take the risk, right? They just need a little nudge. Sometimes they're walking in your yard and you're talking to you and asking you for advice and you're like, hey, I know some people that would like to start this business, how about doing it yourself? When you recognize it, you go for it and you present them with the opportunity. And so it's really just trying to get aligned with their visions and their dreams. Is this something that they really wanted, that they just didn't have the opportunity? They didn't know how to search for it. They're not really looking for it. And sometimes it's just outright theft, like pulling convincing somebody to leave New York, don't work for another bank and come work for you like I got you. And it's going to be more fun and you're going to have more freedom and you're going to get to be more of you.

Yeah, you definitely.

It's an enrollment. Life is an enrollment game. Right. And so they're either enrolling you in their vision or you're enrolling them in yours. And so how do we get. You see these people? You'll find them. They're out there. You search. You can find many different ways to find them and search them, but after that, you have to enroll them in your vision. And so you have to be good at enrolling.

How often do people say no to you?

I said a lot, she says.

Laura never.

They said a lot. As long as it's followed by a yes eventually. You know a lot. You know, if you're aligned, if you're being a good guy, you're basically enrolling them in their own vision. You're showing them how your vision is their vision, how it's similar. So how are they going to say no to themselves? Rince takes your laundry and hand delivers it to your door, expertly cleaned and folded so you could take the time once spent folding and sorting and waiting to finally pursue a whole new version of you. Like tea time you m. Or this tea time you. Or even this tea time you said you hear about Dave.

Or even tea time. Tea time Tea time you.

Mmm. So update on Dave.

It's up to you. We'll take the laundry.

Rinse. It's time to be great. When the holidays start to feel a bit repetitive, reach for a Sprite Winter Spiced Cranberry and put your twist on tradition. A bold cranberry and winter spice flavor Fusion Sprite Winter Spice Cranberry is a refreshing way to shake things up. This sip in season and only for a limited time. Sprite, obey your thirst. Next question. Straight in the back. Good morning. Thanks for your time today. Ben Larrabee from Colorado. And my question to you is around. I find myself wanting to be in the Trenches with people and not wanting to. I want to kill my ego, right? So how do you balance offloading these tasks that are below your pay rate and killing your ego at the same time, if that makes sense? I mean, the offloading the tasks is just part of. It's just simple math and reminding yourself that you have other things to do and you're denying yourself your dreams and just constantly reminding yourself, like, it's interesting, it's great to let them go and fail and letting. It's great to pop in and tinker, et cetera. And you feel useful and you're learning, but realize that there's the other you. Let's call it you prime. That's not doing the big thing that it's meant to do. And you're actually destroying value every time you do that. And also accepting that people are going to fail, you got to let them fail. They got to learn. How are they going to learn if you're always tying their shoes for them? If you're telling somebody what to do instead of what you want, then you don't have an employee. Like, you have a child, right? Like, it's like, worth a clap. Like, you got to step back and then let them fail. It's going to be okay, and they'll learn and they'll grow. Like, you can't keep tying people's shoes for them. And so I remind myself of that it's going to be okay. They're going to grow, and that I am destined for other things, right? My time needs to be spent on X, Y, and Z or this thing, or my dream is going to die. Because nobody's coming to save you, right? Nobody's going to come and be like, this is your dream. A genie's going to come. You have to execute on that dream. And if you're down there like, hey, you should fold the napkins this way. I'm just using a restaurant example. That dream's going to die.

It's really good.

We have a question over here on your left. Hi, Sage from Hawaii. So recently we've been a little bit more open about where we've. Travis and I have been trying to go after a $200 million manufacturing business. And a lot of people have come to us and said, well, why are you going that big? Why are you doing that? And at first I was kind of like, well, why not? But I got to the point where I started asking myself that question more seriously. I think my answer is, I won't know what I'm capable of unless I Strive for the impossible. And I want to know, since you encourage Cody especially to go for bigger things, what was that moment in your life where you decided to go much bigger versus staying within the box that you either started your own mindset in or that other people told you to stay in? I, you know, one of my advantages, I say willing to take risks, but I'm also, like, fantastically delusional that I can do it, you know, and, you know, they had on the screen, they said, legendary trade or whatever, and they said, well, what does legend mean to you? And I said, listen, there's a little bit of survivorship bias in that quote. It's not that I'm the salmon that made it upstream, it's I'm the salmon that tried, right? That's the legend. And there's lots of legends out there that have tried things and failed, et cetera. I just happened to be one that got there. I remember when my mom, I told my mom I was developing the solar project out in Nevada to provide power to California. It was like, it was like a four, I think it was like $300 million, $400 million project that I was developing. I wasn't going to be the one to put the $400 million, but I was going to develop to the point and then pitch it out. I sold it to Capital Dynamics for like $180 million, right, and spent like 20, 30, 40 million, $30 million of mine and my friend's money developing it. But when I told my mom, she laughed. She laughed. She was like, not laughing at me. She's like, like, that was fantastical. Like, how could you possibly be doing something like this? And it's because of where she came from. Like, my mom worked, like, for a school system of government. And I was just like, she's trapped in this, this bubble. But I saw a path to execution. And so if there was a path to execution, well, I'm a risk taker and I know a lot of crazy other nutty risk takers. You know, they won't even look at it unless they can lose all their money. They won't, because they're like, you know, my friends are like, if, if it can't hurt, it can't help. That's the way they're thinking about it, right? And so, like, you know, they believe in the returns or commensurate with the risk. And so, you know, we did all the work. We, you know, interest rates were going our way. Power, solar panel prices were going our way. We rode the curve. We Sold it out. We made the money. I don't know what your execution plan is, et cetera, but if it can be done, you can do it. And I think we have one last question right here.

I think we might have time for two more. Two more you want?

Okay, two more.

Hi, Bill. Wendy Papazan, Austin, Texas. Big fan of your book. My husband and I do a goal setting retreat every year, so I love that you do that. And we actually just utilize some of your life experience buckets, like put all of our. We've always had a, like a big list, but then we put it in our time buckets. So that was really cool. And I just have a fun question for you, which is tell me about the most memorable experience. Experience that you've ever invested in.

Oh, wow. Wow. Because I, you know, Larry and I, like, I can't even remember these past two weeks. Like, we have so many different things. So I think, I think it was the one I wrote about with my mom and my family in St. Barts for my birthday party. But recently it was our engagement trip during COVID You know, when the initial math came out, I was like, oh, man, this is a 1 in 2020 chance I'm going to die in the next three years, right? Just from the initial math. So I was like, I got too much money. I need to start spending it right away, right? I need to light some money on fire, right? So we rented a yacht and we were like, we got to get out of here. And so Croatia was taking people where everything else was shut down. So we went to Croatia, rent a yacht. I would have never went to Croatia. I discovered all that with my friends, had a great time, begged our way into Croatia, Greece, got into Greece. And before going into Greece, I got engaged, right? We had an amazing party, the biggest fireworks show they wrote about in news. Because I was like, I gotta light some money on fire. I'm dead in three years. You know, went to Italy, et cetera. So it was this magical trip where I got engaged, hung out with my friends, my family, came on, party on and off. It was just like, all right, it's the end of the world as we know it type of thing trip. And we really, really had, you know, we talk about that all the time. And so it was a lot of dividends, but some of it's just, you know, laser tagging a werewolves game. You know, I was playing werewolves on a birthday party and I played the greatest game of werewolves that had ever been played. And I talk shit about that all the time. So it's hard to say, but I would say that trip with my wife and our engagement trip.

That's a great question, Wendy. Thanks, Alex. We had one more question somewhere right here. Okay. Hey, Bill, Ellie from Brooklyn, you talked about ingredients. What are the ingredients that you saw in Cody and in other people who's. Who you want to help enroll into their own vision? Oh, Lord.

Well, I mean, she's intelligent, smart, driven, and has integrity. Right. And it's like, what else, what else? What else do you want? Right? Like, she was just kind of like thinking she has this idea, and I was just like, let's just. Could I have the super sized version of that? Can I, you know, can I, Can I, can I put risk dollars in you? Like the other day, you're betting on, you know, she's like, I bet on her business. And I'm like, I'm betting on you. If you say, hey, I'm gonna go in the garbage business and compete with waste management or I'm gonna do a better pizza version or whatever, I would have been like, okay, here we go. Here you go. Right? Like, I'm betting on you. Like I said, like, for every field there is a millionaire. Like, I'm like, wow, I didn't even know you could make money at that. I didn't even know that existed. Right. Like when I meet people. And so when you, when you, when you're finding people like that, you either you either want to hire them or invest in them. Yeah, Right.

And you collect people, like I've noticed.

Yeah, people collect. I want to learn. I'm curious. Like, I had a, I went to a SpaceX launch and I was hanging out there and I was like, oh, you know, my wife was like, we gotta go. I was like, I don't ever want to leave. I'm learning so much from these guys. And I had a man crush on Lars. This is the guy who like, designed the rockets to land backwards. He's the engineer that does it. It's like one guy. And I was talking to him about the belly flop maneuver and I was like, I never want to leave. Never, never, never want to leave. And so, but there's other people that are like yourself in marketing and, and they're charismatic and intelligent and understand business and cash flow and whatever. And I can talk to you all the time. And then there's, there's molecular biologists when you invest in them. And so one of the, the fun thing about investing is how much you learn, how much you learn, you know, and, and there's just brilliant, wonderful people out there chasing their dreams. And it's just like, the greatest. Like, I don't watch tv. I'm like, I can. You know, I'd rather the human drama every day, right? There's great stories, there's fights, blah, blah, blah. There's divorces, there's everything, right? Like, you don't need to watch tv. You just interact with these people. You can learn, and it's just amazing how much you learn just interacting with these people, particularly in investing.

Can we give Bill Perkins a round of applause? Thank you so much for being here, Bill. Thank you, guys.

Thank you, guys.

Sa.