← The Money Mondays
The Money Mondays
Breaking the Generational Curse: Tai Lopez on Money, Mentors & Marketing Mastery
00:52:31
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Foreign.
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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a special edition of the Money Mondays podcast where we cover three core topics. How to make money, how to invest money. How to give it away to charity. On this edition, I have almost 200 episodes. I typically record inside of an RV motorhome that I travel around the country. On this episode, we're going to keep it to under 40 minutes because podcasts are typically listened to while people are commuting to work, which takes 45 minutes or while they're at the gym. The Average workout is 45 minutes, so this episode will be under 40 minutes for your listening pleasure. Now keep in mind, I bring on rappers, football players, real estate, all different types of categories. So the topic that we're going through today might not just be for you, it might be someone in your life from your past, present or future. So as you're listening to these podcasts, don't just consume for yourself. Think about the people that you meet. You might bring up topics of the things that you hear about today. Now, Ty, if you could give a quick two minute bio. So we get straight to the money.
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Two minute bio of me. It was dark and suddenly there was light. And I was born. No, that's. I think that's how Dwight Schrute in the office described his life. My tomb. I was born here in la, born in Long beach, the poor part of la. And I graduated high school not with too much money, but apparently I had written a letter, one of my mom's friends when I was 16 saying one day I'm going to be a millionaire. So I had money on my mind, but I didn't know what to do about it. And I grew up without my dad who was in prison. So what changed my life was finding father figures that knew about making money. I found my first father figure mentor, Joel Salatin, when I was, when I was 19 and I went, instead of going to college, I just went and worked on his farm for about 18 months and lived in the backyard. Paid me 300 bucks a month and I got to work 12 hours a day on a farm. But it taught me hard work. And then I found five mentors after total that were millionaires. And that really changed my life. And 2009 I started building my personal brand. Now I have 12 million followers across different platforms and I've become known for different things, but one of them is for marketing and how to monetize social media. So I always encourage people, ask Chachi Beatty to say, what am I one of the best in the world at? So ChatGPT says I'm number one in the world at doing paid social media ads, which I thought was interesting. It says I'm number two at building funnels and Russell Brunson's number one. So I texted Russell Brunson the other day and I said, you got me beat on this one. And he wrote me back. But then I sent him the one on paid ads. It said you're like number six and I'm number one. But the real one that I think is the coolest one. If I had to tell my grandkids it's not so much about marketing. ChatGPT says I've gotten in modern history, I've gotten the most people to read non fiction books. It ranks me as number one, Oprah Winfrey as number two. So maybe that's a cool badge of honor if. If on my tombstone it says he got a lot of people to read important books because one book can change the world. You know, the pen's mightier than the sword, so that's maybe what I'm most proud about of myself.
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So the video, the most famous one here in my garage, has over 1 billion minutes watched. I think it's like 1.4 or 1.5 billion minutes watched. Talk us through how that became a thing and then how did you scale it to become one of the most watched things in history of social media?
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Yeah, my YouTube just passed. Like I forget 2 billion. Over 2 billion minutes watch. Maybe 3, but a lot. And I think the principle that I learned early, even from Joel Salatin the farmer, was like, you got to take a risk if you want to become well known risky marketing wins. And so, you know, I knew from past experience if I posted a video with me in a Lamborghini, nothing will bring out the envy, hatred and admiration of other men than you posting money. Just get ready for it. Anyway, listening if you haven't made money when you do, people are going to come out of the woodwork to love you and to hate you the same day. So I was like, let me take a risk. I had got a Lamborghini for it wasn't my people thought I got that Lamborghini. There was a whole scandal that I had got bought a Lamborghini just for that video. The truth is I got my first Italian car in 2006. That video came out in 2014. I had had Ferraris and all that for years, but I never put them on camera. So I just said, let me take a risk. I know throwing a land. It's actually funny. I Was at Sushi, you know, the restaurant. We've gone there a lot on Sunset Boulevard. And I'm a student of psychology. And I was sitting there, and the owners of Sushi have always been geniuses. They hire the most beautiful actresses to be their waitresses. Because a lot of up and coming actresses, you know, they go on additions during the day, but they're. They work at night. So he'd hire them, and I'd always bring my friends to Sushi. And every single guy, I would watch him whenever a waitress came. Men's eyes. If you're trying to talk to your buddy, they're just following the woman, ignoring you. But one day I heard this loud car go by, and at the same time, a beautiful woman and five guys I was with, none of them watched the woman. They all watched the Lamborghini. And I go, oh, this is how men are easy to understand. It's like men paying attention to another man. Low on the totem pole. Beautiful woman walks by, they forget about looking at their friends. They look at the woman. But Lamborghini, loud Lamborghini trumps all. So that's why I decided, let's see if this works at scale in an ad. And it. And it worked like one good. I always tell people, one good ad, one good funnel can make you 100 million. That funnel's done, I'm sure at least 100 million if you look at all the upsells and stuff. So $67 program can do 100 mil. So that's kind of the. The background. Watch people's eyes, and you can learn how to do marketing.
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So we, when we cover these three core topics about making money, investing money, give it away to charity. Let's talk about the making money side. What do you think holds people back mentally from going out there and making money? Why do you think they're plateaued at 40 grand, 50 grand, 60 grand a year, where they just are complacent and they don't want to make more?
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Yeah, that's a good question. I call it the tyranny of our ancestors. Every single person here is. Has generational curses and generational blessings. You know, it's like the Bible says in the Old Testament, I will curse the children and the children's children. Right. So you have these generational curses. I grew up, you know, my dad is from Harlem, New York. Very poor on my dad's side. He was born in Spanish Harlem, you know, and so my dad learned how to make money by selling cocaine. He went to prison in Terminal island for Seven years back then, it was like the rise of, you know, mafia organized crime. He got involved in that because there was. There was nobody showing you. You don't rise above what people show you. If you want to learn, you can't learn Chinese on your own, right? You can't really learn Chinese from a book. You learn Chinese by either going to China in immersion with a whole bunch of Chinese people or getting a teacher that sits there and talks to you for hours a day. My dad didn't have money taught to him, except if you sell this white powder, you know, this is what this was on the Scarface days. You can make a lot of money. So he was under the tyranny of his ancestors, not knowing how to make legitimate money. My mom didn't. My mom divorced him when I. When he was in prison so that I wouldn't grow up around him. So I didn't have the tyranny of learning to sell drugs through cocaine. I mean, make money through cocaine. I just had nothing. So by the time I was. It's funny, I know I was. Had no money because I found an old video where my grandma was visiting, and I was in high school, and I went up to my grandma on the side kind of all. But you can hear it on the camera. And I'm like, grandma, is there any way I can have $20? I need something. So, I mean, I don't think I had 20 bucks till I was, you know, 17 or 18. And so the only way to break the generational curses around money is you got to switch families temporarily. You got to find. You got to build a new family of people who aren't related to you. You know, you have to go out and find a father figure or a woman figure. And humans learn through shadowing. So I think, because 99 of people, if we walk, look out the window, Sunset Boulevard, people driving by. What percentage of people are shadowing somebody who's rich? I mean, what percentage of people. What do we guess of a thousand cars went by in the last 10 minutes? What do you think the amount of people there that grew up poor, that have rebuilt, father figure who knows how to make money, that they follow around 20 hours a week? I mean, what's your guess? 1%? 1%, max. Well, 1% of the world has all the money. So if you're born without the ability to see other people making real money, you're cursed. The good news is you can break the curse, just make a new family, at least temporarily. I went and lived with Joel Salatin, New Family, new way of life was hard for me, you know, to be around people like that. So go find someone rich who lives in your town. You want to learn to do a restaurant? Find the richest restaurateur in your little town and say hey, every Saturday I'll. Can I. I'll get you donuts, I'll get you coffee. I just want to see how you walk, how you talk, how you hold yourself confident. How you deal with a weird employee, how you deal with conflict. What do you do when you get a lawsuit? How do you hold your shoulder? Like I learned from Joel Salatin how to talk in conflict. Joel Salatin's like a strong man, but he's not so strong that like my dad, I didn't learn how to deal with aggression. Cuz my dad would. My dad's a OG dude. He has like knife wounds, blind and what not. My dad. So I didn't learn how to deal with conflict from my father because he was violent. Whereas Joel Salatin, I learned the perfect blend. Like stand up for yourself, but don't stab a guy in the face. Right? So every aspect of making money, from negotiations to how to deal with a lawsuit, to how to deal with an employee that steals from you, to how to come up with a creative idea, how to get the idea out, how to raise capital, all that you need to model it off somebody else so that, that you reprogram, reprogram, reprogram. If you didn't grow up with good programming, you got a D program, then re upload new stuff.
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So nowadays making money is easier than ever. We have mobile apps, phones, ways to get a hold of people through social media. You can market for free. There's so many ways to get out customer service, a new business, a new idea, and to what I call setup. Shop your llc, your website, your mobile app, you can build everything for free or cheap. Similar question when we have all those tools because back in our days we didn't have cell phones. Back in our days we didn't have a smartphone. What about now when people have all these tools, what do you think holds them back from just moving forward and starting?
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I mean most fear. Fear is a big one. I just had Roy from cluley here and three months ago he started a company that's valued at 120 million made 100 million in three months. That was impossible in history. If you study history, he's 21. Name one 21 year old that ever had 100 million net worth that wasn't royalty in past history or inherited money. It's never happened. It's only now. So it's such a unique time. So I understand why most people don't. Don't jump on that. Because I have this thing, it's called the grandfather rule. Most people won't, won't buy or do anything that they didn't hear their grandfather or father tell them or see their grandfather buy. For example, super easy to convince people to buy a vacuum cleaner. If I was. If I had a vacuum cleaner. Ties vacuum cleaners. This shit's easy to market. I don't have to convince anybody in here that you should have a vacuum cleaner. I just have to convince you mine's the best one. Why? Because you saw your grandparents vacuum and you saw your dad vacuum.
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So the, the.
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They call that a mind map. It's already established. So old things are easy to sell. That's why college is. That's why people still sending their kids to college and getting in debt. Because people saw their parents and grandparents going to college. Well, it's probably not the right choice for most people anymore, unless you want to be a medical doctor or a lawyer. But most people are going to keep sending their kids to college because they saw their dad and their grandpa send their kids to college. So it takes a rare human to be innovative and unconventional. And that really takes courage, you know, so you will pretty much rise to your level of courage. I meet people. There was a guy that was on the phone with one of my. There's a guy here, one of my private clients. I don't. One of my former students. Pretty cool. I just recorded a video a minute ago. I think he's still out there talking. He. He was a Pizza hut driver in 2016 when he was 20. He's been sitting in the back and he got in my SMMA program and made 20,000 in the first three days. He got three clients that paid him 7,000 to do marketing. I taught him how to do it, right. Then he got in my real estate wholesaling course, and that was in 2016. Now he's worth 20 million. He's 29 years old. He's got section eight real estate that pays him two and a half million dollars a year net, basically passive income. Plus he makes 10 million from his funding business. So he's on track to be worth, you know, 50 to 100 million. In his early 30s, he just had more courage than most people. Part of that was being at the bottom. When you're at Pete, when you're working at Pizza Hut, it doesn't take Quite as much courage, right? Because you're already at the bottom. Jeff Bezos, he did a crazy thing. Like he had courage because he was making the equivalent of about a million a year as an investment banker. And he dropped it all because he.
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Said.
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I live by the regret minimalist regret minimizing framework. Whenever you have a decision, take the one that's the most likely to minimize your old man regrets. When you're old. He said, when I'm old, if I don't try this Internet thing in 1994, I'll go, what if I had quit my million dollar job and made 10 million? Well, he turned out to make a trillion dollar company called Amazon. So I think you increase your courage by playing mind games with yourself and thinking regret minimization. Will I regret not doing this? And I think everybody right now, if you're not building a social media brand 10 years from now, you're gonna be like, I could have built it before. There was too many AI, fake Instagram profiles. I had a chance and I didn't do it. You could be like, oh man. AI was the new gold rush. I missed crypto in 20, 2011, a dude just bought. Guy just sold his crypto wallet. I don't know if you all saw last week, for 9.6 billion, he exited his wallet. He had put 56,000 in 2011. That took courage. How many people in 2011 were signed Bitcoin? So, but that guy goes, you know what, what if bitcoin really goes up and I'll always regret it, so let me put 50 GS in. So it's courage. How is courage created by thinking not about what you could lose, but how much you'll regret not trying.
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So let's do a real life scenario. There's very few products or markets that haven't been monopolized. What you brought up was vacuums. There's no direct to consumer vacuum brand. There's just the famous ones that we know, like Dyson, you know, the brands that we grew up with for decades or some of them, 50, 60, 70, 80 years. But there's no DTC vacuum company. What would you do if we were going to set up as partners right now to get that brand to launch and up to a million dollars in sales.
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Interesting. So this is like, what's that show Grant Cardone was on where you got undercover billionaire? So here's what I would do. I'm handed a car. Ty, you got to make a like 10 to $100 million vacuum cleaner company. First thing I would do is decide do I want to make it by being an affiliate, meaning I don't have to start my own vacuum cleaning company. I just build myself as a vacuum cleaner expert. And then I post links on my website and on my Instagram to go buy my recommendations and I get 30%. That's a valid way to make an instant business as an affiliate. If I change my name to Ty the vacuum Cleaner Lopez, and I was just posting interesting videos on my Instagram and Tik Tok and my Twitter, and I was just talking about, oh, did you know that this infrared vacuum cleaner destroys all the potential Covid, you know, germs floating around all this crazy. And I guarantee you the vacuum cleaner you have doesn't have this infrared. I partnered with infrared vacuum cleaners.com go to. Go there and enter my code name TY for 20 for 10 off. You can become a millionaire without even owning the brand. So that would be my first question is, do I want to have life on super easy mode but make a little less money? Do I want to move to Brazil? Talk about vacuum cleaners. An hour a day, make a hundred thousand a month in my pocket, which in Brazil is about a million a month of buying power.
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Let's say you're actually Ty the vacuum guy.
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Yeah, vacuum guy. I like that. Dan could be my chief marketing officer. Chief branding officer. Now the second, for those of you who are like that, a hundred thousand dollars a month's not enough. I want 100 million empire. Then I got to build the product. Then I got to build a book. But you know what I would do now? I would try to find an AI software angle. And what I'd probably do just off the top of my head, I'd create an AI app or piece of hardware that you download the app and somehow you run it over your house and it gives you the awe. It shows you how much bacteria is floating in your carpet. Because let's just say it comes. Let's have a piece of hardware.
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Isn't that like the Roomba that goes around your.
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Yeah, like a Roomba.
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And it technically maps your house, supposedly.
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Yeah, but imagine if everyone. I could show you with a simple app that your house is teeming with nasty viruses. Then I hit you with my special vacuum cleaner that uses what the app found to change modes in the vacuum cleaner. It's like, oh, when we hit your kitchen, we go on, hit this. When we hit your toilet, where the dudes are missing and peeing on the floor, we hit this thing with hyper bleach mode. You know, boom, boom, boom. And then when we go in the baby's room, we don't want to hit it with so much chemicals. And I'd make like a high tech tool. I partner with some genius and I'd come up with an AI software that people are paying seven bucks a month for. That gives me recurring revenue. It allows me to exit to a private equity guy. I'd have a, if I could, if I was really ambitious. I'm trying to get a piece of hardware. If you own hardware software, that's your best chance of making 100 mil. Look at Apple, their hardware, the iPhone's hardware, and then software. They own the app store where they're making 25, 30% off every deal and transaction. So they're both, and they're a multi trillion dollar company.
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So let's talk about the investing side. So you started making money a long time ago, 2005-620082-00910, et cetera. As you're accumulating wealth, were you always just putting it back into paid media, back into personal brand, or were you finally saying, you know what, I'm going to invest into real estate, I'm going to invest into crypto, I'm going to invest in private equity, I'm going to angel invest into this startup. Talk us through. Since you have so many options, how did you first start investing?
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Yeah, my second mentor, Alan Asian, said, ty biggest mistake of entrepreneurs is reinvesting all their profits back into the same business. He said, inevitably whatever you do stops working. So never put 100%. So I, I followed that since I was 19. If I make money from a business, I might reinvest. I call it 60, 30, 10, 60%. I might reinvest back into the business. It's logical. But I'm trying to put 30% and 10% in two other asset classes. So if I had my vacuum cleaner business right now and it was making me $1 million a year profit, I probably put 600,000 back into R and D, hiring, new marketing, and then I would take 30%. I think a good rule of thumb, if you love crypto, I think dollar cost average into your favorite cryptos without any emotion. Dollar cost average means you just go to coinbase or crypto.com and you just said, subtract a thousand bucks a week from my bank of America account into Bitcoin or Eth or Ripple or whatever you're interested in. So I might take, I probably do 10% in a dollar cost averaging into a technology, a crypto that I believe in and then I. 30% in real estate. I bought, I bought my first real estate in 2005, Raleigh, North Carolina. So I think that'd be a good diversification. I also think for those of you really ambitious, you could re, you could buy businesses. Nothing, nothing can make you more money. The only the two things that make you the most money with the least capital is an AI tech company or buying existing assets, big companies, medium sized companies, packing them together under one leadership, cutting the costs and selling them to somebody else.
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So someone at this live event walks up to you and they have their business plan and they're going to pitch you. You've been pitched hundreds and hundreds of times every single year. What are the few things that stand out to you to make a decision where you want to pass this along to your investment advisor, accountant, or someone to actually move forward?
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See, when I look at, when somebody comes to me with a deal, I'm, I'm very rarely care about what the deal is. I'm more of, there's different philosophies. Mine is I invest in the person. If you gave me a choice, a random dude off the street walks up with the best, best business idea ever or Mark Zuckerberg calls me and says, ty, you want to put 100,000 and own 1% of my new startup? And I go, what is it? And he goes, haven't decided yet. I be like 100 grand of Mark Zuckerberg. If the rando dude off the street is like, look, I've mapped it all out, is my 7,000 page business plan. It's exact. I'm like, I like what Napoleon Bonaparte says, you know, he said, well, Mike Tyson said it simpler. Every man has a plan until I punch him in the face, right? So when somebody tells me their business plan, what Napoleon said was he didn't like plans as much as people think. He said, attack. And then we make the plan. So I'd rather if somebody comes up with me with just an idea, I'm just like, tell me more about you, you, you. What's the hardest thing you've ever done? What's something crazy? I, if I can find somebody who has some kind of track record, even if they're young, of doing something extraordinary, I'm more likely. So it's never, you can pitch your idea. But I'm not judging the idea so much. I'm judging because in general, I'm reading an interesting book called Pivot. It's like how to pivot from anything. In general, everybody that got what there's not one person, essentially, you can think of who got wealthy, whose wealth creator was their original idea. Almost everybody pivoted a little bit. Almost everybody pivoted a little bit. I mean, Elon Musk didn't start PayPal. Peter Thiel did. He had X, which was similar. Then he pivoted over here. If you look at, you know, if you look at Zuckerberg, the original Facebook was like a dating app. He literally said, I couldn't get girls, so I want to make an app, the Facebook. And it was, you know, remember hot or not? They used it to rank women. But then he's like, okay, if we do hot or not, then we're alienating women. So let's make it more open. So I'm looking for a person smart enough to know how to pivot all around and chase the money. Money is like a. It's like a treasure hunt. You know, give me the good treasure hunt person with no idea, and I'm in. Mark Zuckerberg, if you're listening, I'll put 100 grand into any idea that you have. It could be a, you know, horse manure sandwich restaurant. Well, I. I could see that working. If Mark Zuckerberg's behind it, he'll probably eventually pivot into hamburgers, but, yeah.
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B
So there's. There's four core things that I look for when someone pitches me. One is the person. Two, does anybody care? And people vote with their wallets. That's why I like investing in companies that already have at least two or three million dollars in sales. Because people voted with their wallets, they prove they care. Three is, can this sell out in the wild when no one else is around? Can this product sell on a shelf or on a website? When that CEO, that founder, that sales rep isn't there, can it still sell? And fourth is, can they back it up? The things that they told me, oh, I'm already in all the Whole Foods. Are you really? And then I go get my accountant, my advisor, my lawyer, my CEO to rip it apart. I called up the four horsemen to go actually find out. Can they back up what they said? And so when people are approaching me, those are the four core things. Who is the person? Does anybody care? Can it sell by itself? And what they said, can they validate it? So, Ty, Why should people invest into themselves? Why should. Should they be buying books? Why should they be buying courses? Why should they be joining masterminds? Talk about investing into themselves.
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A
Yeah, I think I tell people, whatever money you make, at minimum, if you play Small ball. You should invest 10% of it back into mentors. So if you make 10 million this year, it sounds crazy. You should spend a million on mentors, conferences, traveling there, bringing sharp people onto your advisory board. It's just a good ratio. Take 10% of your profits as nothing. I've done more. I've done 20% in a year. You know, I, I had one time, I had a cpa. I used to live across the street. He called me, he's like, ty. He's like, I can't handle this anymore. He's like, you're spending like 250,000amonth on coaches, mentors, conferences. He's like, this is crazy. And I go, but this, I made the most money of my life this year. I'm like, so I think there's some kind of karmic thing where you stay humble and use ratios, don't you? The big mistake people make is that my water, by the way. Ah, there's mine. I think there's something karmic about being humble. I, I, I meet, it's funny, I meet some of my former students and I kind of rip them anew, a new one. I'm like, let me get this straight. You were broke, you bought my course for a thousand bucks and it made you a millionaire. And I was like, did you come back to me and buy my more advanced course? No, no, no. I'm like, well, that's why you plateaued for the last five years, dude. For me, Joel Salatin is still on my paid mentorship. I pay him. He's on my payroll still. That's from 20. Not my payroll as an employee, but as a consultant. He's on my advice. He's been my mentor since 19. You find a good mentor, never get rid of them. You find a good friend. You don't, they don't grow on trees, man. You find a good friend in high school, keep that mofo till you in the old folks home together. What else are you going to have? So I think the principles of reinvesting in yourself be beyond just the need to do it is use a percentile. It'll keep you logical. If you're making a billion people go, oh, my God, you would do 10%, 100 million. Well, it wouldn't be a hundred million per se into a mentor, but it would be for if you make a billion dollars, first off, to make a billion, you're going to probably be dropping 50 million a year on lawyers. I count that as, as mentors, right? You can spend, you make A bill. You're spending 50 million a year on deals you're doing tax accountants, attorneys on closing deals, putting you offshore asset protection trusts, all that fighting off weird people. So I, I think this 10% ratio holds. Whether you make 100 grand this year or a billion, then I think you have to stay humble enough to not think you outgrew self development. There's no outgrowing self development. There's none. The great people of all of history, when you look at, you know, Socrates considered maybe the wisest person or smartest person. He said, as when he was old, it's like the only thing I know is that I really know nothing. So it's not like he got older and smarter and said, well, I figured out the whole world, I don't need to keep learning. You know, Albert Einstein just said, my real advantage is, I'm just, I'm still curious and I'm like 80 years old. I didn't get to the point where I'm like, I came up with E equals MC squared back in 1912 or whatever. He was still trying to figure out stuff in the 1940s, in the 50s. So I think it's that there's something good karma about you keeping your brain humble. So pay somebody. It's kind of like a personal. I'll tell you this. You know, my dad was a pro bodybuilder. He was on the COVID of Joe Weider's Mr. Universe. Before Mr. Olympia was Mr. Universe. My dad was on the COVID and my dad never worked out alone. And I've gotten to know Arnold Schwarzenegger. Arnold Schwarzenegger always had a dude in the gym pushing himself. LeBron James spends a million in a per summer on bringing in the best people to stretch him out, to check his nutrition, his diet, to put them on anti aging stuff. He's dropping a mill a year. Is that a good investment? Of course, he's. The dude's still hall of Fame level play and he's, you know, 40 or almost 40. So if you look at the greats, if you look at Ronaldo, if you. Michael Jordan said, my secret was my coaches. He had a, he had a, he had Dean Smith and then he had Tim Grover. Yeah, Dean Smith, Grover. The average Chris Paul's a friend of mine. Hall of, he's on his way to the head hall of Fame. I remember being at his house and I'm like counting how many specialists he has, like 11. They have like a stretching dude, they have like a vitamin guy. They have two or three different weight. These Guys do crazy weight shit. This weird stuff you've never seen. They've got people stretching, doing like, you know, deep tissue massage. So the pattern is the higher you go up the chain, the more they're bringing in expertise into their life, and the poorer my friends are, the more they're doing it alone. Wealth requires allies, my friend. Wealth requires allies.
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B
So what about investing into their personal brand? A lot of people are building it up on social media. They're going out there, they're trying to do podcasts, they're trying to get on the news, they're trying to post on Instagram and Facebook and TikTok and LinkedIn, et cetera. What about actually spending money to build their personal brands?
- [33:40]
A
Yeah, I, I've been, I, I put out a video in like 2017. I said, maybe it was 2019. I said, I spent 50 million on my personal brand. And it's big now, but it took money. And then I saw Alex Hormozi did a video like last year, and he's like, I spent 50 million on my personal brand. And I was like, yeah, I know that number. So can you build a brand, personal brand, without spending 50 million? Yes. Does money increase the odds it happens and shorten the time frame? Yes. Whatever you do, I would simple rule. Anything important in life is where you should direct your money. If you have kids, make sure you spend it on your kids. If you, if you think a personal brand is important to what you do, don't do a free save free for the stuff that's not so valuable. What is something that's not so valuable that I would do for free? What do I do that I don't spend money on that I think is important? My farm, maybe? No, that's expensive. What am I talking about? Farm's expensive. Yeah, maybe there's nothing. You know, the Greeks used to say, money makes the man. And it's kind of a weird, controversial thing to say because there's a part of me that doesn't want to think that a man's worth comes from money. But, man, I'm let you in on a dark secret, I think. Wasn't it Chris Rock or Kevin Hart or something said, only pets, women and children are loved unconditionally? Man, what's the number one? You know, Dr. David Buss did a scientific study. If a man loses all his money, what's the most probable thing that will happen to him next? Divorce. Doesn't mean women are gold diggers. It just means women are built to be like, you can't provide anymore. That got defined. So men especially use money very strategically. I'll, I'll end, I'll, I'll leave you with this on that subject. I did a tweet that went pretty viral yesterday. I said, poor parents teach their children to think about the cost, right? Rich parents teach their children to think about what's the return on investment. I remember growing up, my stepdad, who was my mom, was below the poverty line. I'm sure she made probably 8,000 a year when I was, till I was 8 years old. And then my mom said, tom, getting married to this guy John, we're moving up in the world. And I remember what she said. She said, he works at the post office and he makes $28,000 a year. It's like, boom, we made money. But he was a guy that also grew up poor. So we'd go to the movies, he would drive to a grocery store. We'd have to leave half an hour early, an hour early to go buy candy because he's like, I, he's like, movie theaters. You buy Red Vines at the movie theaters, like six bucks. And we'd go to like the grocery store and it's like, it's three bucks. And I'm like, but now, in hindsight, for one hour of my time, I ain't driving somewhere to save $3. But he was in that poverty mindset, right? So when people come to building their social, their personal brand, a lot of people go, I'm not going to put money. I'm going to see what I can do with my personal brand for free. Because you were taught by your parents that putting money into things is bad, but in general, you want to be, how do I stuff, if it works, stuff more and more money into it, man. More I've spent, I remember on YouTube, just YouTube, I'd spend $500,000 a month just boosting podcast clips that didn't even have a way for people to pay. You'll make that money back. Eyeballs. Attention is money, man. Tension's the new gold.
- [37:56]
B
So on the charity side of things, why do you think it's important for brands to have some type of philanthropy attached? Whether it's forward facing for the customers or internally for their staff, clients, vendors, etc.
- [38:09]
A
Well, hope you, hopefully you give to charity out of a good heart, you know, like not for the recognition, but corporations and billionaires give money to charity for tax deductions. That's a big part of it, right? So I would encourage everybody, don't give money for show, don't give money just because there's a tax deduction. I think, like, once again, I think what goes around comes around. If you don't give to charity, it's often out of a scarcity mindset and it holds you back. Now, some people will disagree with this. Elon Musk says he won't give to charity at all because he thinks most money that goes to charity is wasted. That's kind of his thing. And he says everything I'm doing in life will, you know, his SpaceX company. I kind of see what he's saying, but I think that there's people in genuine need that you should try. I mean, if somebody just loses their home and there's a hurricane and there's a fire and this, and you go, well, I'm doing something else for the better of mankind over the next hundred years. They're like, yeah, but how do I eat right now? So I still think you should give to charity. I respect Elon Musk, but I don't agree with that at all. I think rich people, I think if you're given stuff, you're obl. You, you should have some kind of moral obligation to help other people. I just think it's kind of the trade. I remember once I kind of made a, a deal with God and I said, if you help me make money one day, I'll help other people. And like, I think there's a certain karmic what goes around, comes around kind of thing. So I've been lucky. A lot of, a lot of wealth is luck, but I think you can increase your luck by doing things like that. So I think, I think giving to charity makes you luckier. You know what's interesting on this here's a crazy game. You go back in history track when wealthy people gave the biggest publicly documented charitable donations. The big one was Bill Gates. I. I remember Bill Gates now. My mom, by the way, thinks Bill Gates is the Antichrist. You can't. If my mom was here, I wouldn't be able to have this talk. She would be in the back being like, ah, don't say any. Never mention that name. It's evil. But my mom, yeah, she likes the theory that Bill Gates is trying to destroy all humans. Who here agrees with that? My mom. I told you my mom would have an audience here. But anyway, he gave. I remember watching, I don't remember it was five or ten years ago when he did, or maybe a little longer. He gave all a massive amount of his wealth to the charity, Bill Gates Charity. And I Remember thinking, all right, I'm going to see if this charity thing actually works. Lots of religions have charity. Christianity has it. It's one of the pillars. Any Muslims in here. It's like one of the big pillars of Islam that you give to charity, Judaism, all kinds of religions, right? So I go, let me put this to the test. And I remember, it took his net worth way down. He remember, he owns 65% of Microsoft. So let's say back then he was worth 100 billion, and he gave most of it his way. I remember his net worth dropping down. He's off the top of the Forbes list, goes way down. Then, lo and behold, this fucking guy came back after giving away 80%. He came back to, like, number one a couple times. Number one or number two? So I've seen it. There's something weird. Stingy people seem to lose somehow, and women don't like it a lot. Women? Really? Who. If you're a woman here and one of your top criteria on your hinge profile is like, give me a stingy dude, Raise your hand. Who considers stingy an ick as a woman? Like, if you go on a date with a guy and you. The waiter's working really hard, and then at the end, you just see, he's like, I ain't leaving a tip. Let's go. Like, women, you know, so men, even if you don't care anything about spiritual stuff, you don't care anything about karma, you better be generous on that first date. I know a dude. You know what he does to get a second date? He's like, ty, I always get a second date, man. I said, what's your secret? And this is a dude, he's kind of rich. He probably has $5 million net worth, but, like, in cash. So he said, I go on a date with the girl. I excuse myself. Oh, before. He said, when we're going to the restaurant, I go to an atm, okay? And I don't show her anything. I'm like, okay, wait back there. And I get. I go, I want to have some cash, you know? And so he gets the. And he takes the receipt. And he says, one of my accounts shows, like, 1.8 million in cash. So I put it in my pocket. We go to the dinner. He says, about halfway through the dinner, I excuse myself and I go, oh, can you watch my stuff? And I just take everything in my pocket. I'm gonna go to the bathroom. And he puts his wallet with the receipt face up. The. The ATM receipt. He said, he goes to that bathroom he waits. He said he always tries to sit next to a woman. So because most women aren't overtly going to grab the receipt, but he puts it so it's impossible for her to not be like he said, they always come back for a second date when they see 1.8 million in there.
- [43:45]
B
So. So there's only one question. That's my repeat question across every single episode. And out of 200 times asking, I've never gotten the same answer once. Okay, Tai Lopez, you're going to accumulate billions of dollars. You're not going to be a multi hundred millionaire. You were going to be a billionaire without question, but you are going to have multiple children. At the end of the day, when you finally pass away, what percentage of those billions of dollars do you leave to those children?
- [44:13]
A
I like that you're a fan and say, I'm going to have many billions. One of my warmest moments is when my son said, papa, when you're a billionaire, when you're multi billionaire, I was like, great. It's great when your kids are your fans. So what, so what was the final part when, when I what percentage will I give my children? Man, I don't think you should give anything. But what I would, I think inheritance has ruined kids. What I would do is what Donald Trump's dad did, which was if they were showing effort and they had a business, I'd be a favorable investor. But if they were lazy and they didn't get out of there, I'm like, I ain't giving you. I like what Shaq says. He says sometimes he's flying on his jet, his kids act all he turns him. He said, I'm rich, you're poor. I actually say that to my son. He's six. He starts to see that I have stuff and I go, just to be clear, one time he, I have a assistant that travels, travels with me, a maid. And he started giving her orders at 6. And I was like, you're poor. I have. And I said, he knows about money. He has like $200 he's earned from my mom, his grandma. And I said, she's like 10,000amonth. You can pay her and then you can give her orders. So you better shut that down in your kids real young because you'll take all the fire out of them. Take all the fire out of them if a kid knows he stands to inherit anything. Now, I think you should provide if your kid has an emergency or something like that, but I don't think you should give a penny. But you should be a favorable investor. I think that's a happy median. So your son, your daughter builds a business, it starts making 500,000, they build it on their own. I'm okay with making intros. Hey, here's some investors. Don't, don't play favors of my kid. But if they got a good idea and I know they'll a little bit play favorites, I think it's okay to nudge your kids towards success. But if don't tell them they got money coming, I think that would just ruin everybody. If I Knew I had 3 million coming or 1 million or 10 million, you think I, you think I'd go through all I've been through as an entre. Who here has been through hell as entrepreneur? You think you would have gone through that hell if you knew you could just chill and at 25 you'd get a trust with that would pay you 20 grand a month for the rest of your life? That I think it's a big. I have. Who have you ever met that inherited big chunk of money that did well in life?
- [46:47]
B
Zero.
- [46:49]
A
Yeah, but how many kids are in rehab? How many kids are on drugs? How many kids are complete ups? So I think like Rockefeller, I just read Rockefeller wrote 38 letters to his son. It's interesting because John D. Rockefeller's father, son junior carried on the legacy and the Vanderbilts and some of those big families. But if you read the stories in those families, there's so much dysfunction that you can't even f. And there's people kill each other. There's kids that don't talk to each other again. There's whole family feuds. So just. You just. I would just say to your kids, nobody gets anything. But if you build something, I'm Shark Tank, come pitch me. But if I put money in, I own a percent of the company. If I lend you money, you don't pay me back. I take the company. You just deal with them like that. I don't see anything wrong with that. And I think it would be weird to be wealthy and not help your kids at all. You know, I think that'd be weird. So I'm looking at the Buddha was right. The middle way don't give them anything. But giving them 0 is help is weird too.
- [48:04]
B
So where can people find you on social media? We know that part. But where can. Are there things that are going on? Is there books out there? Is there courses out there? There are things that people can look into more.
- [48:12]
A
Yeah, I've got my new AI SMMA program out so I launched SMMA movement in 2016. I got the new version, how to use AI to make money. And I just had a guy 10 minutes ago who went in my first SMMA, made his first 20 grand in three days and now made 20 million. So if you go to aisma.com or you can just go to my website, tai lopez.com for those of you who want to keep developing yourself, go to Ty Lopez.com books. It's a free list. Nobody paid me to have their book on there. It's my unbiased opinion on the hundred best books you should read in order. So if you don't have time to read a hundred, read the first 10 on the list. So that, that's totally. I think actually disclosure. I think I still have some Amazon links. No joke. If you buy a book from my link, I make about a penny. So I'm making big bucks.
- [49:11]
B
So we all grew up thinking it's rude to talk about money. I think that's ridiculous. We have to have discussions about money with our friends, family and followers. You have to be able to talk about loans, accounting, taxes. Should I borrow this money? Happens if my friend borrows 500 bucks. How do I get it back? What happens if I need to lease a car or buy a car? These are real life things that go on in your daily life. So you have to have discussions with your friends, family and followers about money. And we try to change the entire narrative that it's rude to talk about money or that money is the root of all evil. Neither of those things are true. It is useful for your daily life. It's useful for the people around you. Is there any final thoughts? Ty?
- [49:45]
A
I think I read an article said Jesus Christ, the subject he talked about the most, had something about money in it. So don't be afraid to talk about money. If Jesus talked about it and he was considered a spiritual teacher, you ain't Jesus. You don't have a better standard than him. So talk about money because if you don't talk about it, you end up cursing your kids. I would. I don't think you should elevate money to godlike status. I think you should be real. I just had a. I just had one of my students die. I don't know how he died, but one of my most successful students died. I don't know what happened, but he had at least 500 million in crypto. And so it reminded me my brother just sent me the obituary, like, yo, look who died, man. This is a guy. I have a million Dollar partner program. He was in my million dollar partner program. I took him from rags to riches. I don't. He. He probably was a billionaire. And so I would say the middle way. If you idolize money too much, you'll see some mofo. Once you die, everybody's the same. Or if you're near death. On the flip side, if you minimize money so much, you just curse your children to always be grinding and barely getting ahead. So put money on the proper pedestal, which is relatively high in importance to teach yourself. I would put it on a 1 to 100. Most important thing in life is to leave some kind of legacy through your children on this earth, right? That's like number one. So that's a hundred out of a hundred. I'd say, you know, 90 out of a hundred would be. How do you find true friends, family, romance, like, true social bonds, people who would die for you? That's the second most important thing to life. How do you find people who would die for you, who would never betray you? If somebody offered them a billion dollars, they'd be like, nah, man, this is my friend. I die for my friend. And it could be a family member. That's second. Then third is probably making money. You know that these are the order of life. So don't put it on a. Don't make it an idol, but it's pretty high up there.
- [52:00]
B
All right, guys, so if you're listening, please, like, comment, subscribe. It's your efforts that help us stay in the top 50 on all the podcasts in the world. And if you can, share it with your friends, share with people around you, and have these blunt discussions with people, whether it's your children, your staff, your parents. You have to be able to have discussions. It's part of our lives, and we need to break this curse that's in our mind that we can't talk about it bluntly. Appreciate it. We'll see you guys next Monday on the money Mondays.com.