Loading summary
A
Remember, they can't control you if you read the right books and inform yourself. And make no mistake, we live in a world where you're trying to be controlled both maliciously by people and indirectly. There's groups of people that are trying to control you that don't necessarily wake up in the morning and say they want to ruin your life. But the structure of the system is built to control you. It used to not be that way. Look at the American ideal dream. The original American dream was a group of people who didn't want to be controlled by the religious leaders in Europe and the uk. So they came to the US and they forged their own path. That was supposed to be the American Dream. Slowly but surely, over time, what Americans, or what the original settlers ran away from, is now taking place in the United States in the last 10, 20 years. The solution. And I'll give you three ways that I think you can know what's true, because this really comes down to what is true and what isn't. There's a whole science of this called epistemology. How do you know that you know something? So here's the three practical ways that I found to know what's true. Number one, and this doesn't always work, but look at what's called citations. Now, we live in a world where there's Instagram, memes and TikTok and all this on supposed scientific data. Okay, suppose it's scientific data. Look how many citations there are. That means other smart people pointing back to that piece of scientific quote, unquote, truth. What happened during 2020, 2021 was there was a lot of signs put, put out that didn't have that much citations. There wasn't enough time. There are certain things that have a lot of citations. For example, Francis and Cricket, the kind of modern founders of understanding DNA. I think they have a paper with 20,000 citations, 20,000 other supposed experts. Remember, there's a lot of people that say they're experts that aren't. But 20,000 people who had some level of expertise pointed back to their article. That's a higher probability of being true, of being right. So therefore I'm going to pay more attention, doesn't guarantee it. But I'm going to read that paper. I'm going to read Albert Einstein, the general theory of relativity. It actually is used. That's why GPS is so good now. They use the curvature and the warping of time and space so that when you go on Google Maps, you find the exact location that you're at to 1 meter. It used to not be that way. But there's a paper, one of Einstein's papers, it has, you know, 10, 20,000 citations. A lot of stuff I see on social media that people are holding out to be true. They have like five citations. You can Google it, take a screenshot of the image that you're looking at and put it in ChatGPT and say, Do a deep search and find how many citations there are. Now, just to be clear, even then, it's not a foolproof way to inform yourself. Number two, I call this the Charlie Munger way of finding truth. The wise billionaire Charlie Munger, he said, you should not be allowed to hold a point of view until you can argue the other side better than they can. So if you look at things that have come up recently, you know, Charlie Kirk, this is a big thing in the news. I did a long video on, you know, I think it's a tragedy. Nothing bad ever came out of open debates and that's what he was doing. I don't see people on the extreme left doing open debates anyway. So number two, this is the Charlie Monger slash Charlie Kirk kind of approach. You should not be able to hold a belief until you can argue both sides. So no matter how firm you are in a conviction, try to take a second and learn enough about the other side to in. To inform. Like, for example, I'm not a communist, but I've read Karl Marx and I try to understand, okay, hypothetically, if I was a communist, how would I argue that communism makes the world a better place? And by doing that, I actually become. You can become more firm in your convictions because you can be like, ah. And you got to do it for real, objectively. You can't just half ass it. But if you really go deep down that rope for a route for a week, you know, you become better informed on your own side. You become wiser, more prudent, more balanced in your approach. We need this in the world now where people will take a moment and try to argue. It doesn't mean you're switching sides, by the way, to make money. This helps you a lot. You're trying to. You've got a certain business model you want to roll out. Try to argue the other side. The other side of the argument. Okay? The third thing that I think is super important is have a good book list. Now I have a list I don't make any money off. Or if I do, maybe I make a penny if you buy a book from clicking off my book list. But for more than 10 years I've had one of the top book lists. So Tai Lopez.com books I put a hundred books on health, wealth, love, happiness that I think everyone should read. I think they are sources of truth. I don't necessarily think they're books that are omnipotent, but they will make you think so whether you use my list. And by the way, you can just buy the books without clicking the links. And I make no money. So it's. I was never paid to have somebody's book placed on there. Just to be clear. And you may see books on there that are antithetical, anti your current worldview. Read them anyway. It's very hard to control people who read. And by the way, audiobooks are as good as real books. You know, books you read don't delineate between the two. So if you have a tough time reading, go ahead and do audiobooks. And you should split it up. I do Monday health books on my physical health. I do Tuesday not get hit here. Tuesday I do books on wealth and business making money. Thursday I do books on. I'm sorry. Wednesday I do books on psychology, love, friendships, the human dynamic. And then Thursday I try to do happiness books, books on the science of happiness. So you can find all those on tele.com books. By the way, if you're a top entrepreneur, you're out here making money, then what I just said is ten times more true. You need to be reading, you know, zero to one by Peter Thiel. You need to be reading the Almanac of Naval Ravicant, Charlie Munger's books. You should rereading the Shareholder Letters from Warren Buffett. You know, this is, this is the game, ladies and gentlemen. This is the game. So if you're an entrepreneur, by the way, and you realize having sharp people around you, the. The ancient proverb is make war with a multitude of counselors. If you realize that you need that. I tell people if you want to go beyond 10 million a year in sales, you need smart, informed people around you. I have a private client program. I'll throw in a shameless plug for it here. I want to give you a lot of free value, but I'll throw this in at the end. Joel Salton said, never, never justify yourself for selling. Always be selling as long as you have something of value. So I have my private client program. If you're already doing 10 million or you're close to doing 10 million in sales a year and you want me on your advisory board or you want me as a, as a mentor, Sharing what I've learned as you know, one of the top online social media guys, Some people call me the OG of monetizing kind of social media in the business space. I don't know if that's true, but I'm one of the originals. I've seen what works, what doesn't. Built my first funnel in 2001. I'm going to put a phone number, you can imessage or WhatsApp me. Just text me the word private, which is for my private client program and just give a couple sentences on what you're doing, what your revenue is. You know, I can help you with paid ads, super important now. And then of course I can help you with social media virality, building your personal brand, making your products go viral. These are the two things that separate businesses now. It's not just business skill, it's number one, do you have wise mentors, advisors making war with a multitude of counselors? Number two, do you have, you know, do you really have paid ads dialed in? That's predictable lead flow, predictable sales, predictable profits from. And then of course, do you have personal brand and social media which is essentially free revenue, free sales because if you go viral you ain't having to pay for it or at least not paying like paid ads. So going through a little tunnel here in Europe, if that's you, just text me the word private. I keep two phones with me so I have an imessage. You can imessage or WhatsApp me. I see them in my right hand man. One of us will reach out and we can schedule time to talk for 10 minutes. And by the way, also, if you just want to do a 15 minute call with me, I do, I do one or two of those a day. I open up slots. I like talking to people. People say ah. Why do you sell 15 minute calls? Keeps me sharp. I talk to sharp entrepreneurs. I keep my finger on the pulse of what's making money all the time. Every day I have at least one to two calls. I don't do a lot of it because it take up, you know, I don't like selling my time for money but I don't mind doing it, you know, one or two. So you text private. We can start with a 15 minute call. I charge a little bit of money, not, it's not very expensive. And then I have my full on private client program. But let's just talk on imessage or WhatsApp. I'll put my number right here. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm headed to the gym. And there's all kinds of things. By the way, in my private client program, we talk about, you know, daily routine. Should you have a prenup? What country should you live in? Should you have, you know, build your personal brand, how to hire and fire, how to scale. I've done a lot of in my day, and so I can skip and help you skip the learning curve. By the way, I didn't add that, but that's really the fourth thing on informing yourself. Get a whole bunch of smart people knowing your personal situation and adding value. I tell you, I don't even know if I lived in a world where I could make $100 billion completely solo or I could make $50 million net worth with a group of smart people, like a cabinet. I like that approach. I know it's not for everybody. Some people became entrepreneurs just because they want to be completely, you know, the solo genius. I. I enjoy it. You know, PayPal, the PayPal mafia was what Elon Musk built. 23 smart guys, they all became billionaires. They all started out, you know, not billionaires. And they. I think every one of them ended up billionaires. And when you look at that group of people, it's really interesting because they. There was a camaraderie there. And I think entrepreneurs. That's why my private client, we also do four meetups a year because I just did one on my farm, Austin. Was there part of the downside of informing yourself too much with just books and, you know, podcasts and YouTubes. The downside of getting all your sources of truth that way are that you essentially get lonely and you also miss out on what. There's a great book, it's on my list on tyler biz.com books by Stephen Johnson. Where good ideas come from. There's actually a mathematical formula for how great ideas spawn. They're born depending on how many other humans you connect to. That's really where the rise of cities came from. You know, 10,000 generations ago or more. Your ancestors live very rural. One of the things that changed is cities began to be formed. And those cities had downsides. Increases in diseases, increases in crime. You know, cities have lower trust than small villages. But one of the upsides is this mathematical formula, the virality and spreading of great ideas when people are in proximity. So when you isolate yourself, you're missing out on this mathematical formula. So the word networking is actually the right word. It's like a web effect some people call the six degrees of separation. You, as an entrepreneur, you have the best chance of maximizing your net worth if you're weaved into a web of other smart MOFOs. Your own PayPal mafia. So one of the most viral videos I have, if I help you personal brand, I'll talk about how you build your viral 100 hall of Fame. I've got my 100 most viral, you know, TikTok clips and Instagram shorts and essentially one of mine that goes most viral is talking about the PayPal mafia. And, and how Elon wasn't just this brilliant guy who read books alone. He did read. His sister said he used to read two books a day. So what I talked about in this whole video on how to, how they can't control you, how you can be knowledgeable and wise and wealthy, healthy wealthy wise for sure comes from reading books. But in addition he amplified it by connecting with other humans. That's an amplification of the network effect. And make no mistake, it's in great part why he became the richest man in modern times. That network effect is very powerful. So books bring a network effect. I like books for people who are dead. You know, if you want to learn from Charlie Munger, he's dead. If you want to learn for, from, you know, Voltaire, they're dead. But there's also, you need a living network of why sharp. PayPal mafia. So you have your own PayPal mafia. My private client is not just working directly with me, but I've got my 300 group connecting you to 300 smart people. I mean I've got people in the 300 group. I remember the first time a billionaire rolled in, you know, and people actually I did an event for 300 group in London the other day. There's a guy sitting in the front row next to young entrepreneurs making a million bucks a year. They didn't realize they were sitting next to the largest landowner in Europe. Billions. But that network effect, he actually got a benefit from these young entrepreneurs because he wants to use social media to grow some of his companies and they got a benefit of the network effect of a dude in his 60s, you know, who's, who's built billion valuation entities or controlled a billion dollar plus multiple billions in real estate. So I see that in effect. So text me what's happening, the word private with a couple sentences on what you're doing, what revenue's at, what's working for you, what's not. My team can set up a call or 15 minute call or tell you more how the program works. I, I, I sometimes answer myself too. So click here or next year I'll also put a lick. If you prefer to fill out a form, you can text or fill out a form. All right. Until the next walking vlog, be informed that won't be able to control you and they're trying.
Date: September 25, 2025
Host: Tai Lopez
In this thought-provoking solo episode, Tai Lopez explores the topic of personal autonomy in an age where information – and misinformation – are everywhere. The episode dives deep into how societal systems and structures are built to control individuals, whether consciously or unconsciously. Tai offers three main strategies for counteracting these forces: (1) verifying information through credible citations, (2) truly understanding opposing viewpoints, and (3) reading broadly from an intentional book list. Throughout, he emphasizes the value of deep learning, open-minded debate, strategic network-building, and the compounding power of continual self-education.
18:14: Tai warns of the isolating risks of consuming only books, podcasts, and YouTube (“you essentially get lonely and you also miss out”).
References “Where Good Ideas Come From” by Steven Johnson, and the mathematical formula underlying creativity when connected with more people.
Using historical and modern business examples:
Key Takeaway: True autonomy and wealth in the modern world come from a blend of self-education and purposeful relationship-building.
This episode is an energetic masterclass in how to keep yourself objective, savvy, and – most importantly – free from manipulation in today’s noisy world.