– English Lyrics

Lyrics & Translation

[English]

Tai: Everybody doesn't win and the sooner you wake up to that, that biology is ruthless,

man.

Then you get a little fear in it.

When you get a little fear in you, you start listening because if you're truly afraid,

you listen.

Let a little fear come in and drive you and motivate you.

Tom: Hey, everybody.

Welcome to Impact Theory.

You are here my friends because you believe that human potential is nearly limitless but

you know [00:00:30] that having potential is not the same as actually doing something

with it.

Our goal with this show and company is to introduce you to the people and ideas that

will help you actually execute on your dreams.

Today's guest has founded, invested in, advised or mentored more than 20 multimillion dollar

companies but that's about as far from where he started as you're going to get.

In the beginning he was just another college dropout living on his mother's couch but this

guy was not a slacker and ultimately he [00:01:00] managed to convince not one or two, but five

ultra successful people to mentor him.

Armed with their knowledge and a deep willingness to learn, he turned the 47 bucks he had in

his bank account into arguably the most famous garage full of exotic cars on the planet.

His secret, an insatiable curiosity.

He says he cares far more about adventure than money and he's got the resume to back

it up.

He's worked sheering sheep in New Zealand, live with the Amish for two-and-a-half years,

[00:01:30] worked in a leper colony in India, worked as a certified financial planner and

as a mentee helped Joel Salatin pioneer grass-fed sustainable agriculture.

He's also a social media pioneer with millions of followers and hundreds of millions of views.

He now lives his life in front of the camera essentially around the clock pumping out entertaining,

educational content and giving away an insane amount of prizes including, at last count,

10 cars.

He is the capital, [00:02:00] the don of the rich and famous entrepreneurial lifestyle

for the millennial generation, but to be blinded by the glitz and glamour of his life would

be to miss the point entirely.

If you look beyond the hype and the conspiracy theories about this guy, his one consistent

message is develop your mind.

Love him or hate him, nothing was handed to him and his earliest mentor even all these

years later is still quick to point out that he's never seen another apprentice with the

drive and determination that today's [00:02:30] guest has.

Please help me in welcoming the man who has read over 5,000 books and has a book club

and podcast that now reaches 1.4 million people in 40 countries.

The new media mogul and serial entrepreneur, Tai Lopez.

What's up, man?

Welcome to the show.

Tai: Thank you.

Tom: Good to have you on.

It was a lot of fun being on your show earlier today so it's now good to flip the tables

as … Dude, I'm super stoked.

I want to get [00:03:00] in to some of the stuff that I found just incredibly intriguing

starting with what you said about the Amish being some of the happiest people that you've

ever met.

In fact, your quote was, "The happiest I've ever been in my life is with the Amish.

It's been downhill since then," which you said tongue-in-cheek but walk us through that.

How did you end up there and what is it about them that makes them so happy?

Tai: How did I end up there?

I think one of my business partners now got a PhD in multi-objective optimization [00:03:30]

basically how to do lots of things at once and he told me a couple of years ago.

He goes, "You know what my conclusion is after 12 years of study at Berkeley?

It's all BS.

You can only optimize for one thing at a time."

As I look back in my life, I think without knowing it, now, I'm a little more clear,

I've optimized for adventure.

There was a point in my life … I had an okay upbringing but my dad was in prison when

I was born.

My mom was married and divorced a few times, and a lot of conflict.

At some point in my life [00:04:00] I picked up this booked called Amish Society by Hostetler,

this professor, and I was fascinated.

I was like, "These people, these Amish people have something that no one else in the United

States and really the world has and I was like I'm going to try an adventure."

I went, got on a bus, went to Lancaster, Pennsylvania and I went to this little town called Bird-in-Hand.

I'll never forget.

I got off the bus, walked to this farm.

This guy Daniel Stolzfus, I had written him a letter, and he said, "You can come visit

me," so I go.

It was instantly [00:04:30] like being in a time machine back in the 1800s.

I walked in the barn and he was shoveling apple [inaudible 00:04:37] which is when you

make apple juice you get … The byproduct is this little fruit stuff.

He's feeding his cows and it was him and his two sons barefoot.

That was my introduction to a new adventure in my life which I pretty much tried to keep

replicating.

I mean people see me doing social media, and cars, and all that but it’s still the same

thing.

I'm a little bit like you.

If you think about [00:05:00] life, you can be nihilistic about life like what's the purpose?

At the end of the day, you can dissect anything and go, "What's the purpose?"

Some people go, "I want to make a billion dollars."

You can say to them, "What's the purpose?

We all die.

We all end up in the same, small grave at the end of the day."

You can say, "I want to become super intelligent.

I want to get married and have kids."

At the end of the day, all flesh is grass and you disappeared just like the grass eventually.

For me, the best guess I had [00:05:30] and maybe some people have spiritual things and

all that and the best guess I've ever come up with is if every day you wake up and you

go, "I don't have it all figured out, let's jump into something crazy and see what happens."

That's how I got started in social media.

I started really dabbling with it in 2012, 2013.

Then in 2014, someone was like, "You should do YouTube.

It's going to be big."

I was like, "Let's try a new adventure."

I just started shooting my first videos in January 25, [00:06:00] 2015.

I put out this video and it ended up cumulatively different versions have 600 million views.

It's gotten a lot of views.

Tom: Here In My Garage?

Tai: Here In My Garage and some other similar garage themed ones.

Everybody should try to be rich and famous at least once and to get it, just to realize

it's not as good as you think but the adventure part is cool.

Also when I say adventure, I also mean gaining insight [00:06:30] into life.

The biggest thing I've learned, if I could be 18 again, I wish somebody had told me basically

nobody knows what they're doing even adults do think everybody is lost and the world is

blind leading the blind.

The ultimate adventure to me is not just like bungee jumping or something like that or going

to the Amish.

It's trying to get insight and see life as a puzzle and your goal in life is to seek

the adventures that piece the puzzle together so that [00:07:00] at the end of your life,

you kind of get it.

I feel like most people don't get what life is.

Think about it.

It's like what is life?

Why are we driven with some basic instincts?

What's the purpose?

I like evolutionary psychology.

All these things led me down this bizarre place and here I am with you.

Tom: I know that you actually have a definition of the good life around the four pillars.

What are the [00:07:30] four pillars and how does it play into everything?

Tai: I always say, health, wealth, love, happiness in that order.

If you're not healthy, you won't care about anything.

I figured health is the trump card and then the reason I put money second over love, it

doesn't mean like you should try to get rich before love.

If you look at Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

The classic kind of way to be happy.

There's five levels to Maslow.

The bottom one is physiological or [00:08:00] physical needs have to be met, food shelter

water.

The second one is safety.

You have to feel safe.

The third one is love.

If you don't have physical and safety right, you don't care about love.

If you don't believe me, look up the number one reason people get divorced, it's financial

issues.

I just figured money doesn't bring happiness but the absence of money brings happiness.

This has been proven all over [00:08:30] and over.

Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Prize winner.

He said if you make less than 72 grand in America, he's found your happiness suffers

because your stress goes up.

I figure you don't have to be wealthy.

When I say wealth, it doesn't necessarily mean like Forbes list.

It means you have to have your physical needs met and you have to have a margin of safety.

Some money in the bank account.

If every paycheck, you're freaked out, your love life is going to suffer.

Then the top of Maslow's [00:09:00] Hierarchy of Needs become respect and then the last

one, the highest pinnacle is a higher purpose or people call it spiritual.

Health, wealth, and then love.

Then if you get those three, that's how you hit happiness.

Happiness, there's so many books about happiness.

There's a good one called Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt.

The core thing to me happiness is soup.

If you make chicken noodle soup but you forget the chicken, it's not chicken [00:09:30] noodle

soup.

If you forget to put the broth in, it’s just chicken and noodles.

If you forget the noodles … That's what I mean.

Happiness is a compilation of a whole bunch of stuff you do right.

I think I haven't found a better way to think about it.

Tom: How do you go about … Give us some tactics.

How do you tactically optimize for them?

Do you attack them sequentially?

Do you make real-time calls about, "Oh, I'm a little low on happiness [00:10:00] or love,"

or whatever?

How do you play that?

Tai: Like I said, I don't optimize for the last one.

I try to get the first three right.

Steve Jobs said he didn't want to be the richest man in the graveyard.

Do you want to be the richest man in the graveyard?

I want to be the happiest man on the way to the graveyard?

Some of that, you have to postpone pleasure.

A good investor is somebody who postpone present pleasure for future gain.

You work hard in the day.

Some stuff is a pain in the butt.

I built lots of businesses.

[00:10:30] I know what it is to be an entrepreneur.

I'm saying I know that chess move and what I'm telling you is two chess moves pass that

chess move.

Optimizing your life for hustling and grinding is optimizing your life around going P. P

is something you have to do.

It's not the goal.

You don't, "Whoa!

You know what my goal is?

Hit the toilet seven times a day."

No.

You have to do it to survive.

Grinding and working hard and [00:11:00] hustling is not what you optimize for.

It's pain.

Why would you optimize for pain?

It is a necessity.

If you look at actual scientific explanation of what makes you successful, it is not just

hard work.

If that's true, construction workers would be the wealthiest people in the world.

Waiters and bus boys, they work harder than owner.

The most scientific psychometric personality test is called HEXACO.

It’s more accurate than big [00:11:30] five which used to be … It's much more accurate

than Myers-Briggs, INFJ, ENTP all that stuff.

HEXACO test, you're on 26 facets of your personality.

One of them is called conscientiousness.

It's been proven over and over by scientists, conscientiousness is the most correlated with

business success.

Tom: Define conscientiousness.

Tai: Then it divides into four sub-facets.

Organization, perfectionism, diligence and prudence.

The real truth is hard work is [00:12:00] 25% of the formula because diligence is known

in the common language as hard work.

If you just think diligence alone will get you success, you're like a basketball player

that thinks you'll play in the NBA because you can shoot free throws.

You ever seen the best free throw shooters in the world?

They're 70-year-old men who shoot underhanded but they don't play in the NBA because the

NBA is not all about free throws.

NBA is scoring, defense.

Free throw is maybe one component, rebounding, [00:12:30] assists.

There's lot of components.

The other three you have to get good at.

The first one is perfectionism.

People, you have to know how to double-check your work.

It's that simple.

It doesn't mean you're always a perfectionist but it means when it's important, when you're

a pilot of an airplane, double-check before you go.

If you get on a plane, you hear the pilots double-checking.

The co-pilot going, hydraulics and the guys goes hydraulics.

That's why planes don't crash.

[00:13:00] It's called Six Sigma.

It's three defects per million.

Your goal in business and in life on the important things is to make three mistakes per million

transactions.

The only way you do that is by being a perfectionist in terms of double-check.

That's 25%.

The next one is organization.

I can't tell you how much better my life is and anybody watching this will be if you wake

up every single day and you take 10 minutes.

I have yellow notepads sitting all around my house.

I got that from Bill [00:13:30] Gates.

Bill Gates built Microsoft at 17 by locking himself up in a hotel room with six yellow

notepads and he wrote out the whole basic code for dozen things that built Microsoft.

He became the richest man in the world.

18 years straight because he was organized enough to lock himself in a room and think

through his day.

What I try to do and whenever I do this, I have a great day.

Whenever I don't, I notice it.

Be organized a little bit, 10 minutes.

I actually have this little couch thing outside of my shower and I put a notepad [00:14:00]

by it.

I take a shower when I wake up, I walk over to it, I sit there and I just write out.

I mean it can be as little as three main projects you want to get done that day.

Organization is the other 25%.

Then you have diligence which is hard work, hustle, and perseverance but the last one

is the kicker.

This is what I was talking about the rewiring that has to happen.

The last one is something called prudence scientist calls this prudence.

Prudence is the ability to make the right decision and I can’t tell [00:14:30] you

how many entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs, even me at times too, I'm not special, I'm

lumping all of us in this because of our upbringing society, our goal … Let’s say our goal

is like that camera right there.

Let's assume that's north.

I have this compass in my brain and my goal is to go right there.

Let's say it's a mile way, so north.

What happens is society, my upbringing in school, wired my compass exactly backwards.

[00:15:00] I think, let's say I can't see that camera but I want to go north so I pull

out my compass and it points that way.

I just take off walking and I do in an organized fashion.

I do in a perfectionist manner.

I'm perfecting my steps and my posture.

I'm also working on hard work and hustle.

Keep walking towards your goal.

The truth is if you go south when you should go north, you could have gone one mile but

the earth is about 24,000 miles in circumference so you get to walk 24, [00:15:30] 000 miles

and you'll come up on the backside and you will get your goal.

That's most entrepreneurs.

The average person takes 20 years to become a millionaire. 90% of business has failed

within the first five years, 80 to 90 depending on what statistic.

Most people, I did the math once.

The average American has $60,000 saved by the time they're about 60 years old.

My answer, I did the math, you can do this with the financial calculator, everybody in

[00:16:00] America, your parents, everybody you know will be a millionaire if they live

to 160.

At 160 years old, you take 60 grand at age 60 and you give it a decent return on investment,

8%, 10%.

You'll be a millionaire at 160 but the problem is the great philosopher, I think it was Aristotle,

Socrates said the problem is art is long but life is short.

The art of living and getting to your objective [00:16:30] is long but it doesn't have to.

It's long if your compass is backwards.

The whole point of what I was saying about adventure at the beginning is I'm trying to

take myself and point it to the true north.

You have to learn that from books and mentors and life experience and listening and finding

in person mentors and all those things.

They help adjust your compass and most people are going to get what they want just about

40 years longer.

I live in Beverly Hills, trust me.

You [00:17:00] downtown Beverly Hills, there's other people … I like to collect cars.

It's not so much.

I've always liked cars.

It's not a materialistic showoff thing like a lot of people think.

My grandma said I love cars when I was one.

I used to try to turn a car on the garage . You go to downtown Beverly Hills, full of

Ferraris.

The most Ferrari per cap at anyone in the world.

Everyone of the guys is 80 or 90.

Why do you want a Ferrari at 80 or 90?

You want a walker?

We got to walk you in to your [inaudible 00:17:30] [00:17:30] and then you're going to get in

a Ferrari?

You know how dumb you look?

To me at 90, you want to be playing with your grand kids and I've wondered why the heck

is everybody 90 in this town excluding people who inherit their money from their dad.

I realize we're set up for failure because we think we're going north but we're going

south.

That's why 50% of people who get married, divorced.

80% of businesses fail.

That's why 30% of Americans are on some [00:18:00] form of antidepressant medication.

That's why 60, 70% of people are overweight.

I mean in a way we're fucked but- Tom: Are there key principles though that

you can use to turn that compass north actually points north?

Tai: Yes.

First one is like Alcoholics Anonymous.

Admit you're lost.

That one is hard for people.

Even for me, sometimes I want to think I'm smart and I got it all figured out.

Sometimes I'm like wait a second I'm still lost.

The acquiescence, [00:18:30] the admittance of the fact that you're still lost, it gets

you on track a lot faster.

If you're watching this and you feel lost, it's better to just sit down and be like I'm

lost because the day you admit you're lost is the day you allow yourself to be found

by people who can give you a tip.

Tom: What's the equivalent of that because obviously if you are an entrepreneur, nobody

is looking for you so that's the [crosstalk 00:18:56].

Tai: They are though.

Tom: Who is?

Tai: They are.

You go to Barnes & Noble, [00:19:00] people selling their books.

They're looking for you as a customer.

Tom: So read?

Tai: Read.

The thought that people argue with me on this reading thing, and people argue with me about

mentor.

No, just use your own gut feeling.

Is that how you learn English when you were two years old, you use your gut feeling to

start conjugating verbs?

No, you learn from other people.

You learn manners, you learn language.

You learn all things valuable.

You learn to drive from another person.

Doesn't it make sense you learn life?

Books are just [00:19:30] the mentors who maybe are dead now.

You want to know about Steve Jobs, he ain't alive to teach you but you can learn through

accumulating wisdom and that's what …Trust me.

Very few powerful business men I've ever met, don't read a lot.

Warren Buffet who I think is the best business man by far in the world because he has 75

companies that he pretty much runs, 200 billion in revenue, he reads eight hours a day.

He said he slowed down in his old age.

He only reads 500 pages a [00:20:00] day.

Bill Gates goes on reading vacations.

Mark Zuckerberg just started a reading once a week book club on Facebook and already got

a couple million followers.

Now with audio books, there's no excuse.

You've got YouTube videos.

Let this thing run in the background.

It's better if you can find it.

I mean better than books is in person mentoring.

That's why I do a podcast.

Tom was on my podcast.

You're a smart dude.

I learn from you like I learn from you today, I like your angle on how to get in physical

locations.

If you launch a physical [00:20:30] product, you want to get it in stores, don't be thirsty.

Like I said, Casanova said, "Be the flame, not the moth."

Let them come to you, and that's what you did with Quest and now you sell 1.5 million

bars a day.

That's good.

If you can build up one good nugget whether it's from an in-person mentor, whether it's

from a book, you become very wealthy and knowledgeable very quickly.

One nugget a day.

It's like Charlie Munger.

Warren Buffet's business partner said, "Step by step you get a hit but not necessarily

in fast [00:21:00] spurts.

You have to prepare for the fast spurts by learning step by step so when the day comes

and I launch a physical product I'll hopefully be smart enough and humble enough to be like

I got to sit down.

I've never launched a company at 1.5 million bars.

I can download a conversation with you.

You want to become a super computer you just download smart crap from smart people.

You pick and choose.

Some people are like, "Tai, I don’t agree with everything you say."

I'm like, "Good, I don't agree [00:21:30] with everything I say."

A year later, "Wait, I was wrong."

Tom: I actually saw a very intriguing piece of content that you did where somebody was

trolling you on Twitter and move that confused the shit out of me.

You decided to call him on Skype or whatever.

Tai: I said, "Let's debate live right now."

Tom: You did and you kept asking him a question that I thought was so spot in which he kept

refusing to answer but it was, "Hey, you're engaging with me.

I'm creating all this content [00:22:00] about how I've done what I've done and instead of

going, "You have actually done something that's pretty interesting, you're heckling me and

instead of being intrigued by my results."

That to me was very interesting.

That switched in people's minds.

It's either on or off.

Either they look at somebody else and they go, "This guy is doing something right.

Holy hell," or they try to find a reason to shut you down, not listen to you, discredit

you, whatever the case maybe.

I [00:22:30] thought that was pretty interesting.

Talk to us a little bit about that.

How often do you see that in people and do you ever see that mentality in people who

are successful?

Tai: Like Drake says, "If you don’t have haters, you ain't popping."

[inaudible 00:22:44] pop, you're going to get hate.

It's interesting.

This fascinates me.

The more successful beyond my wildest dreams of my success, the more they ask me questions.

The last time I saw Elon Musk, I've had some [00:23:00] very interesting conversations

with guy.

He's one of the smartest guys I've ever met.

Elon Musk, we've talked … I'm not a close friend of his by any means but we've talked.

He goes to the same things.

He loves Hollywood.

He's always at red carpet things, I go too.

We're in the bathroom and he comes in.

I said, "Hey, Elon.

We talked about books last time."

He goes, "Oh, yeah.

I remember you.

You're the social media."

He goes, "I got a question for you, man.

Do you think I should use Snapchat to grow Tesla?"

[00:23:30] I was like, "Okay."

He goes, "I know you know about Snapchat.

Tell me."

I start talking to him.

20 minutes later, it was Game of Thrones premier six and I go, "What do you think?"

After I gave him my long diatribe, he goes, "I think you're wrong, but thank you."

Then he walked off.

I was like this guy is so smart.

I realized you talked about checkmate.

I was an idiot because I should have flipped [00:24:00] the conversation to get him to

teach me for 20 minutes.

He walked in the room knowing what he knew, I knew what I knew but I gave him all my jewels

and he walked away with them like a smart guy.

I see making people fun of the Kardashians.

I'm like, "You're going to make fun of the Kardashians?

Look, Kylie Jenner the youngest Kardashian in the last 18 months has done $400 million

in revenue on lipstick kits and various makeup things with Kylie cosmetics, put that in perspective.

[00:24:30] L'Oreal, Maybelline, massive brands.

It took them 50 years as an organization with thousands of employees to do what Kylie Jenner

did by herself at 20 at 18.

You're going to laugh at the Kardashians?

Do you have to agree with every Kardashians?

No.

Like Abraham Lincoln said, "I learn from everybody even if sometimes it's what not to do."

You can just go into the Kardashians, reverse engineer their success, go, "I like this,

I like this, I [00:25:00] like this.

I don't like that."

Then leave out what you don't like.

I've never met a person who's a deity.

You dissect anybody and we all are just … It's just like Mark Twain said, "All humans are

like the moon.

You got your light side and you have the dark side."

if anybody watching wants their whole life projected up on a screen for the whole world

to watch from birth to day and you think that it'll be … You won't be embarrassed of a

few things, who would [00:25:30] be?

I'm sure the Kardashians.

I'm sure there's things that I look back in my life and I'm like, "You were an idiot,

Tai, but welcome to the idiot place called Planet Earth."

There's just two kids of idiots.

People who know it and people who don't.

If you're lost, just sit down.

If you're an entrepreneur, sit down and then reach out from where you're sitting.

Grab a book here, grab this.

Listen to Tom.

There's so many sources.

Now, we're the most spoiled generation of the world because when you and I got started

… I started Google AdWords in 2001.

[00:26:00] I got lucky.

I just stumbled and I was one of the first people to ever use online advertising.

I was in, I think, the second month Google AdWords launched and there was no YouTube

videos, there was no Perry Marshall books, there was nothing.

You just wasted money to learn.

Now, we're the most spoiled generation.

Everything this computer on this phone, iPhone 7 is more powerful than the first rocket than

put man on the moon, that caused billions of dollars.

Now, we get that for under 1,000 bucks [00:26:30] and people are still like, "I'm lost."

Yes, you're lost.

Sit down and then open up Safari and go, "How to do Google ads?"

You're going to come up … Let's see what I come up with.

AdWords they have their own tutorial.

WordStream, Jumpify.

You got some paid stuff then you have some free stuff on HubSpot.

If you sit in a chair, Charlie Munger calls it assiduity.

Put your ass in a chair.

Sit [00:27:00] there and focus without being … You know the average American right now?

The average person in the world, our attention span has dropped five seconds.

The sad news is the average gold fish has six seconds.

We're now competing with gold fish and the gold fish are winning.

If you're going to have assiduity to sit down read … There is no solution for you.

You will always be poor because you will always be beat by somebody who's willing to sit in

the chair.

Tom: Is there a way for people to build that discipline?

Tai: Yes.

Pain [00:27:30] and that's why I'm not a big believer in delusion.

You asked me one of the rewiring things we have to do on this world.

I'll tell you one.

You ever heard this myth?

Everything happens for a reason so just accept it.

There's truth to that.

If I jump off a building and break my legs, yes, everything happened for a reason, the

reason was gravity.

That's why you break your legs and physics.

Leg is brittle, concrete not brittle.

People interpret everything happens for a reason be like, " [00:28:00] I was meant to

learn from that thing and then BS."

Read Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, one of the most important books written in the

last century.

He says, "Organisms that only learn through trial and error lose to organisms that can

learn through other people's trial and error."

We got a little live audience.

Anybody here ever had to be hit by a car to learn to look both ways?

I didn't.

I learned from just somebody telling [00:28:30] me, big car, two tons, velocity, smash, dead

and I know always look both ways.

If your myth is that the only way you're going to learn is just through massive mistakes

and trials and errors, you haven't read Richard Dawkins' book.

If you believe in evolution or even you don't, you live in creationism or whatever, why do

we have big plans because we do have the biggest brains on Planet Earth.

Not always use them but we got the biggest potential.

[00:29:00] It's to be able to what Richard Dawkins call project.

You can literally sit in this chair and predict outcomes without having to do them.

I can predict if I don't listen to Tom's advice on how to do a physical snack bar and get

it into stores or physical product by playing hard to get for a year like he did, then I

can predict most likely it's going not go well for me.

I can predict that if [00:29:30] I download what you did, it's going to go better for

me statistically and that skill makes you a powerful person, very powerful.

Tom: Explain though how does pain allow somebody to more disciplined?

Tai: Going back to that myth of when you see your life and anytime there should be pain,

you go, "No, no, no, no.

It was just how it was meant to be.

No.

Look yourself in the mirror sometimes and go, "You know why I'm not happy, it’s because

[00:30:00] I didn't listen 10 years ago and I got in the wrong career.

You know I'm not happy because I married the wrong damn person.

It wasn't meant to happen."

Yes, everything happens for a reason.

You made a bad choice but it didn't have to be that way.

The second you build up pain and this by the way is not my opinion, if you talk to guys

like Dr. David Buss, top 10 most sided psychologist in history.

He's one of my main mentors.

He told me … I said, "Do adults change?

[00:30:30] We do all this self help videos and podcast."

I said, "Am I wasting my time?"

He goes, "Yeah, kind of."

I said, "Why?"

He said, "After 25, it's very hard to teach old dogs some tricks."

By the way, that's why I've changed.

Most of my stuff targets people 18 to 25.

That's why I do Snapchat and all that because there's hope for 18 to 25 years old.

Now, if you're 25, before you get depressed, he told me, "I have good news for you, Tai."

I said, "What?"

He said, "Adults learn through massive trauma, [00:31:00] so you will learn."

You have to let in some trauma into your life.

That's rough but no pain, no gain.

If you are 100 pounds overweight and you want to be able to play basketball, here's my news

for you.

Everything happens for a reason.

You got fat because you ate too much and you didn't exercise so welcome to the gym.

In the first years can be held but that pain hopefully will reprogram your brain and every

time you want to eat that nasty [00:31:30] thing go, "Wait, I don't want to go through

that pay again.

I think one of the myths of society is we won't let pain in, we just excuse it all away.

"No, that was meant to happen.

You wasted 20 years of your life marrying the wrong person and the wrong career.

No, Tom.

It was meant to happen."

Where's the people who go, "You fucked up, dude.

You wasted 20 years and you will never get it back.

You better go in your room and cry."

The truth is, you only learned as an adult, unfortunately most people can only change

with massive trauma.

It was funny.

I heard [00:32:00] this from Dr. Buss a couple years ago and I was lucky enough to sit next

to Kobe Bryant for the last three games of his career.

Not the very last one but the three ones.

I sat at the end of the Lakers bench right to him.

One of his players, I won't say who was having a bad game.

Free throws, they're lined up the whole stadium is quiet.

Kobe Bryant yells out him.

He goes, "Dude, you suck."

He wasn't joking.

It was shocking to me.

No one could hear unless you were right … Kobe [00:32:30] turned to Metta World Peace, Ron

Artest.

He was sitting next to him and he goes, "This positive reinforcement thing is way overrated.

People need to hear the truth.

Ryan Kelly he turned around and looked at Kobe and I was so impressed.

He said, "I know."

He literally sat down and said, "Yeah, I lost this game."

I kid you not, the rest of the game he had excelled.

He scored 10, 12 points off the bench after that.

I was like, "See this Kobe guy gets it.

he's [00:33:00] a winner."

You can't always just bring pleasure and pat everybody.

He didn't say, "Yo, Kelly.

You're not playing well but it's all happening for a reason, buddy.

Relax, no pressure."

He just said, "Dude, you suck."

It was like that and I'm going, "This is the real Kobe."

Tom: can I tell you a fantasy of mine?

I say this knowing full well that my employees are listening right now.

I've asked them all to give me aggressive feedback in real- [00:33:30] time to my face

in front of the entire team and the reason that I want that, one, I just want to know

the truth because this is the only way I'm going to get better so I'm never afraid to

look stupid and I'm certainly not afraid when I'm lost.

Two, I want to set the standard.

I want people to see that you should be able to emotionally deal with somebody telling

you that you sick when you suck.

My fantasy is to have that kind of environment here at Impact Theory where if you're sucking

… You don't need to go out of your way to be

mean but the pain needs to be felt because I really [00:34:00] believe what you were

saying that certainly as adults and it's probably true for kids as well, you will learn when

it hurts.

It breaks most people and this is why people don't use the strategy.

Most people have to free throw a line.

Kobe says, "You suck."

That ends their basketball career, dude.

If they were a 14 -year-old kid and Kobe and came in and said, "You suck," 999 out of 1,000

kids break, the other kid goes on to be the next Kobe Bryant.

I want to be in that world [00:34:30] because it's made me sharper.

Now, I came up in the business world not … In the business world, it came up hard.

I had mentors that were ruthlessly mean to me.

In that process, I thought there are times, I fucking hate them so much, I can't see straight,

but I know they're making me better.

I went back every day, every day, every day.

I developed this notion that entrepreneurs that do the best are the ones that can self

soothe the fastest because I needed to hear it.

[00:35:00] I needed to know that I sucked.

Then I needed to go very quickly get my head back on, take that information and improve.

Tai: One of the things, I was talking about Dr. David Buss.

There's this test called the Dark Triad test which again anything important like this nobody

ever learned it at school because schools are too stupid to take real powerful science

and apply the light.

The Dark Triad is a world view barometer for everybody watching.

You can take it.

There's a different free Dark Triad [00:35:30] test online.

It tests for three main traits, negative qualities.

Narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychotic.

I personally tested thousands and thousands of people.

It's most accurate test and what happens, narcissism.

One of the symptoms of a narcissist is not just like, "Oh, I like to look in the mirror.

That's what we think of a narcissist.

One of the classic symptoms is very thin skin.

They're always offended.

If you have a friend that anything you say constructively they fall apart, it's almost

[00:36:00] always narcissism.

Even if they are introverted, there's multiple forms, there's introverted narcissism, extroverted,

exploitative, all these different sub facets of narcissism.

We live in a society that's very narcissistic.

You're told, everybody is a winner.

No, not everybody is a winner.

That's like saying everybody is blonde.

There's a definition of what blonde is.

Blonde is like this yellowish hair.

You lose meaning when you start going everybody is blonde.

Everybody doesn’t win.

As soon as you wake up [00:36:30] to that, that biology is ruthless, man.

Then you get a little fear in there.

When you get a little fear in you, you start listening because if you're truly afraid,

you listen.

Let a little fear come in and drive you and motivate you.

Now, when I was about, I don't know early 20s, I was in Mississippi with these five

mentors.

A guy, Allan Nation, Gary Townsend, Dr. Gordon, all these guys, I really looked up to.

They're like 60 years old.

They were the people, [00:37:00] the only millionaires I ever met.

I didn't grow up … I was born at Long Beach, Compton kind of area and never was around

anybody who would make 100 grand a year.

I meet these guys.

They're like, "Come, we're going on a hunting trip in Mississippi.

I go down there and we're in these lodges, cabins and then we're having hotdogs over

the fire.

They start drinking a little bit.

They were normally nice southerners and they got me.

They're like, "What do you want to do, man?"

I was like, "I want to be an entrepreneur."

They're like, "Oh, really?"

They go, " [00:37:30] What does IRR mean?"

I was like, "I have no idea It means IRR … " I didn't know that it meant Internal Rate of

Return.

One of them just goes, "You're never going to amount to anything.

There's zero chance you will ever be a successful entrepreneur.

They all laughed and I was like, "I don't cry."

The last time I got close to crying was that I was just like devastated.

You know what, I remember laying in bed that night going, "No one will ever make fun of

me again for not knowing about finance."

I became a CFP, certified [00:38:00] financial planner.

To this day, I can hold my own around the most powerful business men in the world.

They might know more than me but I don't come up as a fool.

That was a turning point paying moment that Mississippi moment for me.

I've sought this out.

The one problem is the more successful you are, the less people can say that to you that

you'll respect them.

I'm always trying to fill my … That old cliché, never be the smartest person in the

room and all that.

I have a [00:38:30] better way to say it.

Be around people who make you uncomfortable at the ego level.

When you feel uncomfortable in settings that is when the learning … It's not just who's

smarter because sometimes smarter people don't help you.

There's many forms of IQ.

There's emotional, you know.

Get around someone where you're like, "I don't fit in," and because we're all narcissist

because of society and Instagram and all this, and I'm guilty of that too, we don't like

to be uncomfortable because a narcissist [00:39:00] story to themselves is you're the best.

Your worldview is messed up.

That's the wiring issue.

Let me put it this way.

I need people to think they're smart.

What it really tells me is they've never been around actual smart people.

If you're really smart watching this, let's say you have a 155 IQ, that's what Bill Gates

has and Albert Einstein were up there.

My step grandfather had 155 IQ. [00:39:30] He speaks 14 language fluently.

He can write Chinese.

He is a chess master.

He can play three other chess masters without looking at the board.

They look at the board and beat all them.

If you're smart, you can do that.

If you're not, I got good news for you.

Warren Buffet says you only need about a 125 IQ to be very successful, but it's better

to stay in your lane and just go, "I'm not that smart," but you can hire 155 IQs.

That's an example of what I'm [00:40:00] talking about of this rewiring.

These practical things will change your life.

Tom: Since you have a concept called, never be the bitch of your own mind.

What do you mean by that?

Tai: Your mind is driven by deep evolutionary drives.

For example, narcissism is a protection mechanism.

Your mind wants to tell [00:40:30] you you're amazing.

It makes you its bitch.

You have to overwrite that and go, "You know what, I'm not that amazing, so let me go learn

from amazing people."

Tom: Do you have methods for people to do that?

I think that's so important.

I tell people don't trust everything that your mind says.

Certainly, don't buy into all of your emotions.

Just because you have an emotion doesn't mean you have to act in accordance with that but

how do you help people get over that.

How do they overcome that?

Tai: I think humans for the most part learn by osmosis. [00:41:00] It's hard to lecture

people into success but what you could do is you could inspire people to understand

this.

For example, if you school system could find all the 14 year olds and find out what they

admire in people, it's the reason I show Lamborghinis and Ferraris is because I got a lot of young

followers and you know what 19-year-old guys like?

Lamborghinis and Ferraris.

I show that part of my life because then they listen to the other stuff.

First, you got [00:41:30] to lead by inspiration.

This has been proven over.

You cannot pounce stuff into people's brain.

People actually do the opposite.

When parents tell their kids, "You got to read," nobody reads, but if I show a Lamborghini

and Ferrari which is the reward that people want and then people go how did you get it,

I said, "See, all these books I read," then people … I have more school kids reading

books I think than anyone in history.

I don't say that cocky.

I'm telling you, it astounds me because all I had to do was put up a video with Lamborghinis.

Tom: Right.

Tai: [00:42:00] Being the bitch of your brain the way you learn not to be the easiest way

is to be around people who aren't the bitch of their own brain.

Joel Salatin, my first mentor, I was lucky enough.

Right out of high school, instead of going to college, I was with him at 19 and he is

not a bitch of his brain.

He's a man of … He wakes up and his life is more like a duty.

He knows his duty and whether it’s hard or easy, he plows through it.

Everyday for example when you have breakfast six [00:42:30] in the morning on a far, he

writes out and organize things on what he wants to do for the day.

When you're a bitch of your brain you go, "I'm just going to freewheel the stage."

It's very hard to be organized.

Dogs aren't organized.

Do you ever see your dog organizing day?

You can either act on the animal side which is just a wing life or you can operate from

a sense of logic and duty.

I learn somewhat.

I'm not even as good as Joel to not be the bitch of my mind by just being around for

[00:43:00] a while.

That's the best way.

Find somebody that you look at them and you go this is a person of discipline, motivation,

self-motivation.

They don't need external motivation.

They're motivated from within and spend all the time you can around them.

Someone wants to learn from you, I tell people, "Go walk up to Tom or a company like and say

I'll work for you for free for years if it need be because I need to be around.

It's cumulative hours.

Arnold Schwarzenegger [00:43:30] in his book, one of the great autobiographies in my opinion,

Total Recall, he has his principle, it’s called reps and sets.

He said, "If you want muscles, it's reps and sets, hours in the gym."

Some people, there's a lot of books now and here’s how you can work out 15 minutes a

day.

No, you can't.

You never going to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

I don’t care what biohacking crap you do.

Just return to common sense.

You want to be Arnold?

You got to do what Arnold did [00:44:00] in the same way.

If you want to learn from mentors, if you think five minutes with a mentor will be enough

you don't understand how deeply rooted your wire circuitry is.

You got to rewire it and it takes … Instead of reps and sets, it takes hours and days

or days and years.

I think that if you're young watching this, don't try to become a millionaire too young

because what you do when you're young is work on the circuitry part.

Then the money will come.

Allan Nation told me [00:44:30] that.

He said, "Tai, don't try to become a millionaire in your 20s."

I didn't listen to him and I wish I had.

Luckily I listened to him but I should have listened more.

If you could take those formative years and just go on the adventure.

That's why I went to India in a leper colony and went live with Amish because I was like

Amish, all the good stuff you have, reprogram my brain.

I'm sure on the narcissism score now, I score around 40 to 50 which isn't horrific but isn't

the best.

[00:45:00] I guarantee you, if I haven't gone Amish, I'd been an 80 narcissist.

My life would have sucked but now at 40 is acceptable.

42 is last test.

It took me two-and-a-half years with them.

I think even as an older person, man, my dream in life even today is to find some badass

and trick them into spending eight hours a day with me for three days a week.

Like I said [00:45:30] 45 minutes with Arnold Schwarzenegger, I was so motivated.

45 minutes with Arnold Schwarzenegger lasted me like seven days.

I'm not big in self-help like I watch people to motivate me.

[inaudible 00:45:42] I'm still a big believer on going to conferences.

Bircher Hathaway Conference.

It's the first week of May of every year.

These dues are going to die soon.

Charlie Munger, Warren Buffet.

You can buy a B share for under 500 bucks.

Buy a B share.

You get a free ticket.

It's insane.

You sit there with two [00:46:00] men on stage in a stadium of 18,000 of the top investors

in the world.

It costs under 500 bucks.

You sit.

It's only one day at flying to Omaha and fly back out almost the same day and you walk

out just motivated.

You're with the guy that … Their business.

We meet businesses like, "I'm doing 100 million a year."

They did 200 billion in revenue last year and they're two jolly guys that just have

fun with life.

I'm like, "Wow."

First year I went, I sat next to a guy.

[00:46:30] The whole time, I didn't pay attention to him and then on the way out, I talked to

him.

I found out he's basically one of the richest guys in Europe and we became friends.

He flew me to Germany.

He has 17 CEOs who work for his different companies.

He said, "Come meet."

Then he walked me from the hotel to do the speech and back and I talked to this guy,

his name is Norman Rentrop.

He, in two hours walking to and from the thing.

He explained how he built a media empire [00:47:00] starting at age 12.

Now, he's in his 60s.

He let me download 40 years of experience.

I think he's a billionaire, I'm not sure.

He's maybe not quite a billionaire but 40 years and that was … I think it's not coincidental

that the next year I grew on social media because he did old school media like magazines

and newsletters and he told me, "Here's how you do it."

It just absorbed and within six months, I was doing all the big stuff that people see

on social media, but that hinged on [00:47:30] me getting … Some people you got … You

know a good thing for activity all you good hard workers, get out of the house.

You will not grind it in front of your laptop, 14 hours a day to success.

Go to conferences, go to seminars.

There are great ways in the modern world to just meet people.

You never know who you're sitting next to.

I probably gone to 20 events in 20 days.

Now, that's a little much.

I go in bursts okay.

I'm a little bit burned out.

Can you hear my voice?

It was insane that the data … I'm looking at cryptocurrency [00:48:00] stuff like Bitcoin.

If you put $100 in Bitcoin in 2010, you would have $75 million today in your account, 100.

Is that working hard is that making good decisions?

For all of you who are really big on the hustle your ass off, hustling the networking site,

it will help you … Then you learn what to do from them and the sad thing is if you start

your business and your first business doesn't succeed, the way your brain works, you have

dopamine receptors. [00:48:30] Now, scientists have found that dopamine receptors add or

subtract.

Dopamine is the hormone or the chemical in your brain that is the reward chemical.

There's multiple one, norepinephrine, oxytocin and all these, but the way dopamine works

is like when you go shopping and you buy cool shoes and you feel good, that’s the dopamine

release and dopamine drives us.

What happens is when you fail, your body, there are like little hairs, they're not actually

hairs but will pretend they are in your brain, they fall off.

[00:49:00] You get less of them.

The penalty for having less dopamine receptors is you become less ambitious.

When you succeed you actually grow more.

It's a new science showing this.

The point being, you should … I'm not a believer in having people fail in their first

business.

Forget that.

Build a small business that you're sure you can pull off even Dean Smith maybe the greatest

basketball coach college coach, him and John Wooden.

He said he was never a believer in [00:49:30] setting goal.

You ever heard the thing, shoot for the stars because even if you only hit halfway you'd

go to the moon.

He called BS on that.

He said, "Make a realistic goal, hit it and then make another one.

I need entrepreneurs who are like, "Tai, I'm grinding way."

I'm like, "What are you doing?"

"I'm building a billion dollar business."

A guy wrote me an email, "Dude, I'm building a billion dollar business."

I wrote him back.

It was an email and I said, "Really?

Have you ever made $100 million business?

No.

Have you ever made a $10 million business?

No."

This is our email chain.

Actually, it's a screenshot.

It's like, "No. [00:50:00] Have you ever made 100,000?

No."

I said, "Let me get this straight.

You're like the dude, there's a lot of stairs in front of you.

There's 20 stairs to the top and you're going to do the jump from 1 to 20.

You know what happens to people who jump too many steps?

You can skip maybe two or three step but one of my school teachers is Randy Thompson growing

up.

He tried to jump up some stairs and he was holding books and he tripped on the third

step and hit his nose on the concrete [00:50:30] and he says, "The most painful surgery known

to mankind to basically unplug your nose from … " He cracked all the bone up into his

face and that's what most entrepreneurs do.

They go, "No, Tai.

I'm going from zero to one billion."

No, man.

As Warren Buffet said, "Today is the world series game seven.

The way to win a baseball game, it's safer to just hit base hits."

If you hit a of base hits, the next thing you know, you hit a home run.

Once you've done that a few times, you'll have so many dopamine receptors that you would

fail.

[00:51:00] I highly recommend if you're watching.

By the narcissism is associated with over ambition.

There is such a thing about as being too ambitious.

There is such a thing as being too ambitious.

What I always tell people, "You can have massive vision so one day your vision is …" Like

one of my vision thing, I love to own a pro basketball team but it's not in my annual

goal so you have goals that are short term.

I like to set one day goals.

[00:51:30] Most of my goals are just one day but I'll have a vision that's longer.

Don't separate, don't confuse vision and goals.

It's a big mistake and especially now that the sciences about dopamine receptors you

have this huge vision.

You jump up seven stairs, you trip fall, hit your nose and most people never come back.

Win when you can even if it's small wins.

Better for the brain.

Tom: That makes a lot of sense.

Before I ask my final question, where can these guys find you online?

Tai: [00:52:00] You can go to tailopez.com.

You can do Instagram.

My Snapchat if you want to see behind the scenes.

I got Tai Lopez at almost everything, all verified except I got a Facebook account,

Tai Lopez Official.

Tom: Perfect.

All right, final question.

What is the impact that you want to have on the world?

Tai: Oh, man.

What's the impact?

I'll give you two answers.

One, it's probably narcissistic of me to think that I can really have an impact on the [00:52:30]

world.

Part of my answer is what the philosopher said, "Let every man sweep his own front porch

and the world will be clean."

I guess if I can figure out the puzzle of life for myself and maybe a few people see

something then they sweep their own porch.

We have a clean world or cool life.

That's the non-narcissistic side.

You want to hear the pre-Amish pure narcissist?

Tom: Yeah.

Tai: No, not pure narcissist.

I try to suppress that part.

[00:53:00] I call it the tombstone goal.

I think you should think about your tombstone and just reverse engineer it.

You go, what do I want my tombstone to say if I live the age of 100?

In order to get that, what did my life have to look by 90?

At age 90 to get that, what did it have to look like at age 80.

You work yourself backwards today.

My obituary goal, my tombstone, I like my tombstone to say, "Here lies a mad scientist."

The world needs more mad scientist.

Tom: [00:53:30] Meaning people that are trying new things?

Tai: Yeah.

Like I said, check out Muhammad Gandhi, check out Martin Luther King, Malcolm X.

Those were mad scientists.

Go through the adventure of life with that little mad scientist twinge in your eye and

that's all I got.

That's all I got.

Tom: Pretty good.

Tai, thanks for coming on the show.

That was fantastic.

Guys, these to me is the ultimate tale of somebody who was unhappy [00:54:00] with his

circumstances but didn't want to sit around and do nothing about it.

He knew exactly what he needed to do and that was to find out the answers.

He reaches out to his grandfather and says, "Grandpa, tell me what is the one that I needed

to do?

The one book I need to read, the one person I need to talk to that's going to give me

the shortcut that I need to get ahead?"

His grandfather thankfully wrote him back and said, "There is no shortcut.

You're going to need to find a lot of people to give you a lot of advice if you want to

get where you're going to go."

Tai put himself on a mission to get out and get mentors and long before [00:54:30] he

had any reason to be able to convince these guys to do it, he did by like he said earlier,

being willing to work for free, by willing to do more than anybody else and in the research,

the thing that I found most fascinating is years and years and years after working with

his first mentor, he is still singing his praises and he said to Tai, "Set the bar for

every apprentice that he's every had after and he still never seen anybody that had the

kind of drive and determination that Tai did.

I think that's what marks his cause.

He may think [00:55:00] of himself as a mad scientist but what I see is somebody running

systematic experiments to find out what works, always being willing to learn, always being

willing to fail, learn from that, try something new, get the result and ultimately you do

that on a long enough timeline with the willingness to always learn, grow and get better and you

get the man that has literally pioneered social media.

It's really, really incredible.

There's so much to learn from him but you have to be [00:55:30] willing to be humble

and to look at what you can learn from it.

That's it, guys.

Thank you so much.

If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe and until next time, my friends, by legendary.

Take care.

Bye.

Thank you so much, man.

I appreciate you coming on.

Hey, everybody.

Thank you so much for watching and being a part of this community.

If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe.

You're going to get weekly videos on building a growth mindset, cultivating grit and unlocking

your full potential.

Key Vocabulary

Vocabulary	Meanings
potential pəˈtɛnʃəl B2	noun - the capacity to develop into something in the future
entrepreneur ˌɒn.trə.prəˈnɜːr C1	noun - a person who creates and runs a business, taking on financial risks
mentor ˈmɛn.tɔːr B2	noun - an experienced and trusted adviser verb - to advise or train someone
motivation ˌmoʊ.tɪˈveɪ.ʃən B2	noun - the reason or desire that drives a person to act
discipline ˈdɪs.ɪ.plɪn B2	noun - training that develops self‑control and order
curiosity ˌkjʊəˈriː.ə.ti B2	noun - a strong desire to learn or know more
adventure ədˈven.tʃɚ B1	noun - an exciting or risky experience
fear fɪər A2	noun - an unpleasant emotion caused by danger or threat
biology baɪˈɑː.lə.dʒi B1	noun - the scientific study of living organisms
ruthless ˈruːθ.ləs C1	adjective - having no compassion or pity; merciless
insatiable ɪnˈseɪ.ʃi.ə.bəl C2	adjective - impossible to satisfy
sustainable səˈsteɪ.nə.bəl C1	adjective - able to be maintained over the long term without harming the environment
hierarchy ˈhaɪ.rɑːr.ki C1	noun - a system in which members are ranked according to status or authority
narcissism ˈnɑːr.sɪˌsɪ.zəm C2	noun - excessive interest in or admiration of oneself
diligence ˈdɪl.ɪ.dʒəns C1	noun - careful and persistent work or effort
conscientiousness ˌkɒn.ʃiˈen.ʃəs.nəs C2	noun - the personality trait of being thorough, careful, and vigilant
grit ɡrɪt B2	noun - perseverance and passion for long‑term goals