Summer Reading - Book I Recommend: Die with Zero

A few years back, a friend recommended that I read Bill Perkins’ Die with Zero: Getting All You Can from Your Money and Your Life.  She said the book had changed her life. After investing almost a decade and hundreds of thousands of dollars to become a doctor and then another 20 years in being a doctor, a profession high on stress and low on health (ironically), she said the book gave her the perspective and courage to finally hang it up.  Her next chapter: slow travel through all the places she’d long put off.  Like many high earners and savers, she’d achieved financial independence a decade ago, but couldn’t bring herself to pull the plug on her lucrative career out of guilt and fear.  (Sound familiar?!?!!!) 

Catalyst 

I get a lot of book recommendations, which I mentally put in one of these piles: yes, no, later.  Die with Zero fell into the “later” pile.  Then, about a year ago, I started experiencing increasing dental/health issues (e.g., TMJ, trouble chewing, lisp) that forced me to seek out the advice and help of a various dental doctors/specialists.  Their diagnosis: my untreated crossbite/underbite was the culprit.  Treatment: 2-yr process: braces > (lower) jaw surgery > braces.  Begrudgingly, I signed up to go through the lengthy and, at times, intense treatment process.  Faced with my own mortality, I finally decided to read Die with Zero.  

Die with Zero (Nutshell)  

In Die with Zero, Perkins offers three simple, but powerful, insights that many of us have forgotten.  First, he notes that we actually have 3 key assets: health, time and wealth.  When young, we expend our health and time to build wealth.  In our old age (usually), we finally spend our stored-up wealth on the people and things we’d long deferred: family, friends, vacation, vocation, etc.  According to Perkins, our wealth is inversely related to our health and time.  Over time, as our wealth increases, our health and time decrease.  

However, since we were young, culture (parents and school) has taught us to value work and its by-product wealth (money) above all else.  By the time we enter the workforce in our 20s typically, many of us are deeply conditioned to work for what we assume is real wealth (money).  And, like my friend, the more lucrative our profession, oftentimes, the more quickly and intensely we burn up our health…and time.  Further keeping us in the pursuit is the equally intoxicating reward of social acceptance and praise.  Consequently, some of us fall into the mid-life trap of continuing to work long after we’ve accumulated enough wealth for the rest of our lives.  With the average retirement age at 62, we’ve been conditioned to think that retirement is only acceptable in our 60s and beyond.  

This brings Perkins to his second observation/insight:  In fearing that we’ll run out of money before we die, many of us spend the best years of our lives depleting our health and time chasing (more) money that we likely won’t need.  (See Perkins’ graph below.)  Reason being, our wealth, especially if invested in appreciating assets such as stocks, will likely increase over time, while our health and time will naturally decrease over time.  

 Source: Die with Zero, Bill Perkins 

According to Perkins (graph), the sweet spot between health, time and wealth is age 50 when we still have enough health and time to make the most of our growing wealth. However, since it’s considered culturally more acceptable to retire in our 60s vs 40s and 50s, many of us continue to work and, thereby, defer life without realizing the real trade-offs.  By our early 70s, Perkins notes that most of us won’t have enough health to do the things we’d long dreamed of, but deferred. Perkins’ graph illustrates the great cultural irony we face: we spend our healthiest years building up wealth in hopes of spending it at a time when our declining health won’t let us.  How to side-step this modern quandary? 

This brings us to Perkins’ third and final insight: our end goal should not be money, but rather memories for that is true wealth.  Also, he notes that like stocks, memories also pay dividends.  Long after a wonderful experience, we often mentally relive it so as to bask in the joy it brought us and others.   

My Transition: Saving to spending 

As a financial planner, I read a lot of financial stuff.  But, the simplicity and truth behind Perkins’ observations/insights hit me like a ton of bricks.  Also, now, faced up-close with my own mortality, I began to reevaluate my own assumptions and actions regarding my wealth, health and (remaining) time.  Realizing that, to some extent, I’d also fallen into the cultural traps Perkins had highlighted in his book, I decided to take small, but concrete, steps towards building more memories.  During this past Spring break, rather than taking my nieces (ages 11 and 8) to try out another local restaurant, I decided to take them on a multi-day trip to Orcas Island.  Part of the San Juan Islands, Orcas Island has long been one of my favorite vacation spots.  The trip had all the key elements that we love: each other’s company, nature, physical activities (walking/hiking) and great food.  Given the success of this trip, we’re already mentally planning future trips: Olympic National Park, Chicago, Yosemite Park, New York City, Smokey Mountains, Florence (Italy), Zion National Park, Beijing…    

Final thoughts… 

From a young age, most of us have been conditioned to accept pervading cultural assumptions and beliefs as truths.  In Die with Zero, Perkins upends one of the biggest cultural assumptions of all by pointing out that memories are really the end goal of all our striving.  Also, more of us would be healthier and happier if we’d learn to spend money sooner vs later in creating lifelong memories.      

Based on my recent trip with nieces to Orcas Island, I see the validity in Perkins’ assertions.  One of my favorite memories from the trip was when we hiked up Mount Constitution.  On the way up, I took various snapshots of the girls to share with their parents afterwards. In an unguarded moment, they turned away from my camera to take in the views.  As they did so, I instinctively took a quick photo.  In so doing, I caught myself taking in the moment and hearing my heart whisper a little prayer:

May you realize that the view is worth the climb.

In your climb, may you remember to take in the views.

May you always have each other’s back.  No one does it alone.