Die with Zero Conclusion

Perkins offers one final charge, and a summary of his book: “Chase memorable life experiences, give money to your kids when they can best use it, donate money to charity while you’re still alive. That’s the way to live life.”

Perkins admits, “I’ve given you an impossible task: to die with zero.” While he would like for everyone to perfectly optimize for this, he knows there are too many unknown variables for each individual, and he is okay if nobody does this perfectly. In his view, even if you don’t die with exactly zero, “that goal will have done its real job, of pushing you in the right direction: by aiming to die with zero, you will forever change your autopilot focus from earnings and saving and maximizing your wealth to living the best life you possibly can.”

Important caveat: if you are not on autopilot to earn/save/maximize, Perkins’ ideas might not be a perfect fit for you. But two things to note — firstly, we don’t always know ourselves as well as we think. You might not feel that you’re on this autopilot when in reality you are. Finding the truth about ourselves is more easily discovered by asking those closest to us than asking ourselves. Secondly, even if we don’t fit Perkins’ ideal audience, there are still a few good ideas to take away from this text. Here are mine:

1. Reflect. While we can’t spend all our time in contemplation, questioning everything we think we know (sorry Enlightenment), from time to time we ought to identify and scrutinize the premises/assumptions that underpin how we live. Even if we come away with more confidence to continue to live how we are currently, we are responsible for our premises and can also find deep fulfillment in this act of reflection.

2. Plan. I disagree with Perkins that “the business of life is the acquisition of memories”, but I do applaud his effort to align his money with his understanding of life and meaning (which is discovered in #1 above). The values at Brockmann Financial (Love your neighbor, Examine your life, and Get better) are very closely aligned with my own personally, and so the question I have to answer is, “How can I use my money personally and as a business to best love those around me?” Whatever form this question takes for your understanding of the meaning of life and your individual purpose, striving to align our money (and time, and skills) is a worthy endeavor.

3. Act. Once I’ve made my best efforts to reflect on what I believe (and what I ought to believe), once I’ve made a plan to align my money with these values, I need to actually follow through and behave accordingly (even when it’s hard, scary, or uncomfortable).

Two examples. First (Perkins would be proud), the 2028 LA summer Olympics. I grew up just outside of LA, and nearly all my family is still there. I watch the Olympics more than other sports, so the opportunity to attend for the first time near my hometown was not an opportunity I wanted to pass up. I signed up to purchase tickets and was assigned my time slot a few weeks out. I was told I could purchase a maximum of 12 tickets, from 12 tickets to the same event to 1 ticket for 12 events. Although it made more headlines in LA, the prices for these games are much higher than previous Olympics. That said, I did not have access to the actual prices until my time slot to buy became available. Kelli and I have more in our savings account than usual, so there was not a question of going into debt (as Perkins would sometimes encourage), but our high savings amount is because we’re saving for a down payment for a house. So I was faced with a question, How much can/should I take from our down payment savings (due summer 2027) to pay for a sporting event that won’t happen until a year later (summer 2028)? While I don’t believe the business of life is the acquisition of memories, it might be a business of life. The value personally of attending the Olympics is greatly increased by being able to do it as an extended family event (giving us all the memory dividends for years to come). So while the tickets individually were higher than normal, I wanted to purchase all 12 I had available and offer as many as I could to my family. In the end, I did not get tickets to the most expensive events that were thousands of dollars per ticket, but I also did not get the least expensive tickets. I found the sport I most wanted to watch, bought 12 tickets to the same event, and am looking forward to a very memorable family summer in 2028.

Second, as many of you know, there have been a few changes at Brockmann Financial in the last couple years. After some hard reflection (#1 above), we realized that with our current structure, we were not able to offer the level of service to our current clients that we feel they deserve. Beyond this, we would not be able to expand and help more people fund a happy and successful retirement. We made a strong business plan (#2) are now are implementing these changes (#3) so that we can help as many people as possible at a high level of service, with our next goal of having 1,000 clients successfully transitioned into retirement. It won’t be easy, and there will be setbacks along the way, but if we actually value loving those around us and getting better for all our clients, this is the work that must be done.

Thank you to everyone for reading along with me as we explored Perkins’ book “Die with Zero”. Next week we will announce our next book!

Let us know

• What is one thing you might do differently in light of Perkins’ book?

Until next time, happy reading!