67 Steps

The Big Idea: Follow the four seasons in your life. In the spring, you plant new seeds. In the summer, you work the land. In the fall, you harvest the crops. In the winter, you let the soil rest. 

• Don’t be so ego-centric to think you can beat laws of nature and laws of physics.
• We will all get older and die, so get moving today.
• Starting a business is like having a child. The first year keeps you up at night. The second year is like the terrible two’s. Eventually, your business will take care of you in your old age.
• It took 50 years for Warren Buffett to become a billionaire (7 => 57), so start now.
• Becoming a millionaire takes time.
• Most entrepreneurs move around too much, stick with one thing.
• It might take 10,000 hours to obtain mastery.
• It might take 10 dark years to become a successful artist.
• Follow the four seasons in your life.
• Mass media shows us stories of successes (autumn) but never shows us stories of hard work (summer).
• During the summer, work the land (plan and work).
• During the autumn, harvest the crops (collect the rewards).
• During the winter, let the soil rest (read and rest).
• During the spring, plant seeds (experiment and test).
• Long hours and hard work will be required during certain times in your life or business.
• Don’t forget to appreciate each season while you’re there.

Tai Lopez is an entrepreneur, investor, and blogger who runs an awesome online book club. 67 Steps is a lecture series teaching how to be successful in health, wealth, love, and happiness.  

The Big Idea: Know Your Endgame In Life. Win Wars, Not Battles. 

• Depression’s function is to tell you to change.
• Ask yourself: when I die how many people will show up at my funeral?
• When Adolf Hitler died, the world celebrated.
• When Gandhi died, the world mourned.
• Most people are rewarded for flurries of activity. Do stuff. Stay busy.
• Parkinson’s law says that people will take as long as you give them to complete a task.
• Consider paying for the task instead of time.
• The battle mentality is getting paid for your time.
• The war mentality is focusing on winning the war over winning the battles.
• Some friends don’t show up but send you immense apologies afterward (flurry of activity.) Other friends just show up (winning the war.)
• Win wars, not battles.
• Know (and write down) your end goals regarding: Health, Wealth, Love, Happiness.
• Reach your goals and you’ll win the war and pass the funeral test.
• Making less than $80k is probably scarcity.
• Your goal may not be to be a billionaire but there is much to learn from their success.
• People are programmed to be happy around other people.
• Remember Dunbar’s Number is 150 strong relationships.
• Win 4 wars for a successful life: Health, Wealth, Love, Happiness.
• Most successful people start immediately on their goals as children. Steven Spielberg start making movies at 7.
• Time spent defining your life goals will save you time in the long-run.
• Who is the epitome, for you, of someone who passed the funeral test?
• Do you have a clear endgame for your life?
• What does success in Health, Wealth, Love, Happiness look for you?
• Where is there a flurry of activity but no results in your life?

Tai Lopez is an entrepreneur, investor, and blogger who runs an awesome online book club. 67 Steps is a lecture series teaching how to be successful in health, wealth, love, and happiness.  

The Big Idea: Problems are going to confront you.  Be prepared by expecting them, putting them into perspective, developing the fortitude to overcome, and learning how to innovate past them.

• To succeed, you must learn how to bypass the obstacles of life.
• Life will deal tremendous blows to you.  This is the reality.
• Statistically, something bad will happen to you and you will have to overcome it.
• Psychologically, things are not nearly as traumatic if you expect them.
• You must develop the force of will (backbone) to overcome major obstacles.
• How do you learn to put problems into perspective?
• Travel around the world to understand first-world vs third-world problems.
• Read more history (Will Durant) and focus less on the last 24 hours.
• Reading more history puts your life in perspective.
• Read about Louis Zamperini (movie Unbroken).
• Jeff Bezos: you must innovate your way out of problems.
• Einstein: insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
• There are always many ways around problems, so keep on innovating until you overcome.
• Another core strategy is to break down big problems into smaller problems.
• Lastly, learn to start loving the wall, because there will always be another wall.

Tai Lopez is an entrepreneur, investor, and blogger who runs an awesome online book club. 67 Steps is a lecture series teaching how to be successful in health, wealth, love, and happiness.  

The Big Idea: Experiment. Experiment. Experiment.

• Set the right goals and cut out anything that is not moving you towards your goals.
• Don’t delude yourself.  Embrace the truth when you’re asking yourself if you’re moving towards your goals.
• Jeff Bezos is one of the best in the world at seeking and embracing the truth, especially through experimentation.
• The seven steps towards moving towards your goals
  • 1. Ask question. (set a goal)
  • 2. Research answer. (find some approaches)
  • 3. Make a hypothesis. (try one approach)
  • 4. Test it.
  • 5. Observe.
  • 6. Evaluate observation.
  • 7. Ask smart people to review your progress. (don’t quit; just try a different approach)
• People are more likely to be consistent than to experiment to find the best approach.
• Don’t be stuck by the need to be consistent with your first approach.  Consistency and commitment are very common cognitive biases.
• Experiment. Experiment. Experiment.

Tai Lopez is an entrepreneur, investor, and blogger who runs an awesome online book club. 67 Steps is a lecture series teaching how to be successful in health, wealth, love, and happiness.  I’m a big fan.

The Big Idea: Understand your strengths. Work on your weaknesses. Learn to identify the strengths of other people. Speak in the language of other people’s strengths.

• When you’re a worker, technical skills determine your success.
• When you’re a leader, social skills determine your success.
• Understand your core strength (P, A, S, E).
• Understand your weakness (P, A, S, E).
• P=practical: likes to plan ahead, likes numbers, conservative, diligent, doesn’t like uncertainty, patient, focus on planning with these people
• A=action: likes action, starts but doesn’t always finishes, smart, easily distracted, concentrate on action with these people
• S=social: doesn’t like plans, doesn’t like conflict, easygoing, likes being around people, sometimes flaky, keep it light and fun with these people
• E=emotional: sensitive, intuitive, good at reading people, easily offended, sometimes driven by fear, connect emotionally to these people
• Exercise a weakness to make it a strength.
• Learn to quickly assess people in terms of their strength (and language).
• When working with others, speak in *their* language.
• Casanova was a social chameleon.
• Casanova would know others’ strengths and connect with them on their strengths.
• The ideal leader is able to shift from PASE strength to PASE strength, depending on the situation.
• Note: emphasizing one strength will often bring out that strength in other people.

Tai Lopez is an entrepreneur, investor, and blogger who runs an awesome online book club. 67 Steps is a lecture series teaching how to be successful in health, wealth, love, and happiness.  I’m a big fan.

The Big Idea: If you were independently wealthy, what kind of life would you create? Work backward from there to engineer your ideal life.

• An entrepreneur creates the world in his own image.
• Richard Branson created Virgin Airlines because a hurricane stranded him on an island.
• There are three types of people: people who watch things happen, people who make things happen, and people who wonder what happened.
• Book recommendation: Screw It, Let’s Do It by Richard Branson
• If you were independently wealthy, what would you do?
• What do you love? If you love reading? Create a book club.
• Even if you are not an entrepreneur, think like an entrepreneur and act like an entrepreneur.
• Imagine your ideal world in these four areas: health, wealth, love, and happiness
• You can have anything you want but not *everything*.  So be clear about what you want and work diligently towards it.

Tai Lopez is an entrepreneur, investor, and blogger who runs an awesome online book club. 67 Steps is a lecture series teaching how to be successful in health, wealth, love, and happiness.  I’m a big fan.

The Big Idea: Spend 30% of your monthly income on reading and learning. 

• Do an audit of your finances.
• Find out how much you spend on 1) consuming vs 2)  investing (specifically, learning).
• Spend 30% of your automatic income on learning new skills.
• Spend 30% of your income on bills.
• Spend 30% of your income on fun and leisure.
• Spend very little money on things that rust, rot, or depreciate.
• Buy fashionable clothes, but buy used.
• Nobody has a library anymore, get a library card.
• Hire a bookkeeper for your personal finances.
• Read Poor Charlie’s Almanack

The Big Idea: Break down complex things into simple things, but keep simple things simple.

• Ask yourself: is what you’re trying to do harder than putting man on the moon?
• We put a man on the moon by breaking up the problem into smaller steps.
• There are two types of men in the world: those who conquer fear and those who suffer from it. —Alexander the Great
• Conquer fear by breaking it down.
• You make the same amount of money as the average of your 5 closest friends. — Jim Rohn
• Follow and learn about the billionaires, inventors, great men in history and you’ll start to think like them.
• If you’re going to learn something, only learn from the best (billionaires, inventors, professional coaches).
• Keep simple things simple.
• Complex things should be broken down to simpler steps, so don’t oversimplify.
• Simple is not the same as easy.
• Everyone says they’re busy, even the people who aren’t accomplishing anything.
• Being busy is not the same as getting things done.
• Achievers are great at automating/ignoring/delegating simple things to focus on the hard things.
• Audit the time consuming parts of your life.
• Example of audit:  commuting is a huge waste of time so always live close to where you work
• Books: Born to Run
• Examples: Arnold Schwarzenegger, 4 minute mile, Tarahumara tribe, Sam Walton, Elon Musk, Richard Branson

The Big Idea: The most successful men work 14 hour days, not 4 hour work weeks.

• Learn to love the grind. — John Calipari
• In fifty years, you will wish you had the energy to work hard.
• Life is grind.  Hate the grind and you will hate life.
• If you love the grind, it’s not really work.  And you’re not a workaholic.
• Great men (Gandhi, Schwarzenegger, Bill Gates) don’t outsource their greatest accomplishments.
• Charlie Munger invested in a company because the partners committed to working 16 hour days if they ever got behind on bills.
• If long hours scare you, you’re probably doing the wrong work.
• Don’t be seduced by smooth-talkers who promise wealth without hard work.
• Trying to work a 4 hour day is like being happy about only having to spend 10 hours a month with the woman you’re about to marry.  If that’s the case, you’re marrying the wrong woman.

Tai Lopez is an entrepreneur, investor, and blogger who runs an awesome online book club. 67 Steps is a lecture series teaching how to be successful in health, wealth, love, and happiness.  I’m a big fan.

The Big Idea: The most successful people are generally renaissance people, who know a lot about a lot.

• Our brains are simulation machines.
• Jet pilots do not start learning by doing, they start in a simulator.
• Learn by reading, not by trial and error.
• Today, it is not very rewarding to be a renaissance person.
• People in the past used to look up to renaissance people.
• Top business people are generally renaissance people.
• George Lucas used to read everything he could about a wide variety of subjects.
• George Lucas and Steven Spielberg
• Be eclectic in your interests.
• Don’t read every book, only read the best books in each category.
• Rousseau read over 200 books before writing his first book.
• Learn how to play an instrument.
• Learn a foreign language.
• Know your history.
• Know some art/literature/architecture.
• Being able to discuss many subjects lets you connect with more people.
• Being a renaissance, well-rounded man is not the same as being a jack of all trades.
• The world is too competitive to be good at only one thing.
• The middle of a forest is bare compared to the edge of the forest.
• The most innovation comes at the convergence of different disciplines.

Tai Lopez is an entrepreneur, investor, and blogger who runs an awesome online book club. 67 Steps is a lecture series teaching how to be successful in health, wealth, love, and happiness.  I’m a big fan.

The Big Idea: To run a successful business, you must be comfortable with math and statistics.

• Math is the only 100% certain truth. — Descartes
• I was dyslexic, but I realized that if I was going to be rich I had to understand numbers. — Richard Branson
• To make good decisions, you must understand math and statistics.
• By far the most common background for billionaires is investing.
• To make good decisions, measure and quantify.
• Trying to quantity the unquantifiable (happiness, leisure) can still help.
• Keep an old algebra textbook around.
• Play chess or backgammon to stay sharp.
• Almost all billionaires play games like poker, bridge, chess, backgammon.
• Quantify possible outcomes to make decisions easier.
• Logical Fallacy of the Slippery Slope: I don’t want to lift weights because I don’t want to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger

Tai Lopez is an entrepreneur, investor, and blogger who runs an awesome online book club. 67 Steps is a lecture series teaching how to be successful in health, wealth, love, and happiness.  I’m a big fan.

The Big Idea: Prepare for what is difficult when it is easy.

• If you take the approach that everything is your fault, you can begin to anticipate and plan for many scenarios (disease, recession, breakup, accidents).
• If you get mugged and beat up at 30, it’s your fault because you could have been training since you were 10.  — Shaolin monk
• Constantly scan the horizon for dangers and then prepare for them.
• Unexpected events are rarely completely unexpected.  You can prepare for most “unexpected” events.
• Prepare for the worst and you’ll sleep more soundly (not be anxious).
• Prepare for what’s difficult when it’s easy.  — Lao Tzu
• Forget the law of attraction.  Prepare for the future and then work hard to make it happen.
• Always ask yourself: what are you missing?  What are you not thinking of?
• Things you can do now to prepare: save money, get rid of belly fat.
• Even Warren Buffett has $20B in cash, just in case.
• Accept responsibility for mistakes, learn, and then move on.  Don’t fixate.
• Go to an old folks home and talk to people about their lives,
• Learn, read and prepare for what might happen.
• Be a learning machine.  I learned that bullets only travel 3 feet underwater and it saved my life.  — Louis Zamparini
• Don’t fixate.  Fix it.
• Sources: Unbreakable, Helen Keller, The Snowball

Tai Lopez is an entrepreneur, investor, and blogger who runs an awesome online book club. 67 Steps is a lecture series teaching how to be successful in health, wealth, love, and happiness.  I’m a big fan.

The Big Idea: If you have to go on vacation from what you do, don’t ever come back.

• The Amish work almost every day but don’t feel the need for a vacation.
• The Amish have 1/5 the depression of non-Amish.
• The Amish integrate work and life.
• Never permit a dichotomy to ruin your life.  A dichotomy in which you hate what you do so you can have pleasure in your spare time.  — Picasso
• If you have to go on vacation from what do, don’t ever come back. —Joel Salatin
• Wiser to do what you like, not what you love.
• Don’t marry someone you love/lust, marry someone you genuinely like.  That love/lust will fade. — Joel Salatin
• You can only build upon strength, not weakness.
• Richard Branson takes naps throughout the day, to separate spurts of intense work.
• Extreme success has a luck component, but it usually involves luck in meeting a key person, not a lucky event.
• Warren Buffett still tap dances to work in his 80’s.
• You can have a job but avoid at all costs becoming a salary slave.
• Fact: making more money will make you happier.  But (after financial independence) only by a little bit and sometimes not worth the cost.  Therefore don’t chase the money.
• Enough money can give you independence.  Too much money will separate you from other people.
• The opportunistic mentality (chasing the opportunity) is almost as dangerous as the vacation mentality (living for the weekend/vacation).
• If Jordan pursued what he loved, he would have pursued baseball.
• In love, pursue oxytocin, not dopamine. — Helen Fisher
• Sources: Guns Germs Steel, Michael Jordan The Life, Top Dog.

Tai Lopez is an entrepreneur, investor, and blogger who runs an awesome online book club. 67 Steps is a lecture series teaching how to be successful in health, wealth, love, and happiness.  I’m a big fan.

The Big Idea: Stay focused on the one thing you do best.

• Be able to share your life mission in one sentence. (Understandable by a 96 old grandma.)
• Jordan the baseball player was mediocre.  Jordan the basketball player was legendary.
• Stay focused on the one thing you do best.  Everything else is just a hobby.
• Jack Welch told GE to exit any business in which they can’t be #1 or #2.
• Build upon your strengths, not your weaknesses.
• Where do the following four questions intersect? (Eulerian Destiny)
• 1. What did you grow up around?  This shapes your world map.
• 2. What do strangers tell you you’re good at? Discount feedback from friends and loved ones.
• 3. What have you been doing for the last 10 years? This will likely point to your core strengths.
• 4. What can you talk about effortlessly for hours?
• If you have to go on vacation from what do, don’t ever come back. —Joel Salatin
• In every area of life (health, wealth, love, happiness) find out what works for you.  Everyone is different.
• Don’t live other people’s dreams. — Steve Jobs
• The difference between an experiment and a mistake is the time spent in each.
• Sources: Managing Oneself, Paradox of Choice, Michael Jordan The Life, Civilization and Its Discontents

Tai Lopez is an entrepreneur, investor, and blogger who runs an awesome online book club. 67 Steps is a lecture series teaching how to be successful in health, wealth, love, and happiness.  I’m a big fan.

The Big Idea: Don’t Fight Your Evolutionary Hardwiring; Understand It.

• The biological impulses you have come from 10,000 generations of evolution.  However, the world has completely changed  over the last 10 generations.
• Our biology leads us to overeat since we now live in an abundance of food.
• Our biology wants to to sleep from dusk to dawn.
• Most chronic health problems come from a mismatch between our biology and our environment.
• We are evolutionarily hardwired to consume resources, so you’ll have to overcome your evolution to save money.
• Dunbar’s number claims the average tribe size was 150 and that this is the optimal social group size.
• Lack of background noise might contribute to insomnia.  Try going to bed with some background and going to sleep right after dark.
• New friends are good. Old friends are better.
• Statistically, the best marriages are couples that have known each other the longest before marrying.
• Wealthy people are often the happiest when flying in old friends to visit.
• Happy people tend to cluster together.
• Reach out to old friends/coworkers/teachers.
• Eat out less.  Cook more.
• If you don’t like to read, consider audio books and seminars.
• Automate your savings plans since we’re not hardwired to save money.
• Don’t try to fight biology.  Understand and work around biology.
• Pay close attention to the media you consume because it will rewire your brain — for better or worse.
• Control your environment it will control you.
• Contributing to something bigger than you creates happiness.
• Amish people are heavily reliant on their community, which likely contributes to their happiness.
• Sources: The Selfish Gene, The Story of the Human Body, Salt Sugar Fat, The Paradox of Choice, Happiness Hypothesis, Top Dog, The Power of Others

Tai Lopez is an entrepreneur, investor, and blogger who runs an awesome online book club. 67 Steps is a lecture series teaching how to be successful in health, wealth, love, and happiness.  I’m a big fan.

The Big Idea: Do Things That Develop Toughness

• a nation is born stoic and dies epicurean — Will Durant
• stoics say sacrifice today for tomorrow (invest wisely)
• epicureans say live for today (eat drink and be merry, yolo)
• there is truth to both, but stoicism is what I recommend
• Arnold wanted big calves, moved to South Africa to train with Reg Parks, worked out at 5am and did 1000 lb calf raises, calves grew 2 inches in one year
• humans have gotten softer over time
• adversity makes men and prosperity makes monsters — Victor Hugo
• there are three types of people: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and people who wonder what happened — farmer’s proverb
• stoics say “toughen up”
• the “hard” is what makes it great — Tom Hanks
• test yourself, push yourself, toughen up,
• spartans trained their children for toughness by feeding enough but not too much
• let me embrace the sour adversity, for wise man say is the wisest course — Shakespeare
• yolo is for suckers
• do hard shit, you’ll be happier and richer
• Sioux children took freezing cold baths to toughen them up
• tremendous respect will come to you in business and life if you are tough
• use it or lose it
• bones grow weak if they are not used but they grow stronger if you stress them
• who do want working/fighting next to you?  someone who’s been tested and survived or someone who’s soft?
• toughness will give you a competitive edge in a world with 7 billion people
• go without your phone for a day
• jeff bezos never uses the elevator
• every once in a while, you can work 24 hours straight
• next time you don’t want to do something, do it anyways to build your discipline muscles
• go camping
• go a month without driving
• lifting weights slows down aging at the cellular level
• go without salt and sugar

Tai Lopez is an entrepreneur, investor, and blogger who runs an awesome online book club. 67 Steps is a lecture series teaching how to be successful in health, wealth, love, and happiness.  I’m a big fan.

The Big Idea: Reading Voraciously for Success

• billionaires read voraciously
• Warren Buffett reads 8 hours a day
• a rich man’s house always has a library — Jim Rohn
• Alexander the Great used to travel with a library
• survival machines that can simulate the future are one jump ahead of survival machines who can only learn by overt trial (takes time and energy) and error (can be fatal) — Richard Dawkins (The Selfish Gene)
• our brain is built to simulate instead of learning by trial and error
• people who only learn by trial and error will often quit because failure takes its toll
• books are the easiest way to learn from other people’s mistakes and lessons
• read Made in America by Sam Walton
• the best mentors (living and dead) are easily accessible by reading their books
• great leaders and successful people have a cabinet of advisors
• make war with a multitude of (wise) counselors
• don’t waste time reading random or new books until you’re done with the top 100 books
• 25% of the books you read should be about health
• just be consistent about reading, then later learn to speed read
• don’t worry about getting every point from every book the first time, you can return later
• read a how-to book to get drowsy for power naps
• read a biography right before bed to absorb the author’s courage
• classic fiction is also good right before bed
• most how-to books have one or two main points, which are in the intro chapter
• reread the greatest books until they are instinctive to you
• read one book a week at minimum

Tai Lopez is an entrepreneur, investor, and blogger who runs an awesome online book club. 67 Steps is a lecture series teaching how to be successful in health, wealth, love, and happiness.  I’m a big fan.

The Big Idea: The good life integrates four pillars of health, wealth, love, and happiness.

• The Amish are so happy because they do not compartmentalize work from life.
• Do whatever it takes to avoid hating Mondays.
• The 2 Mile Rule: work and shop within 2 miles of your home; traffic (work/life compartmentalizing) is an enormous source of stress.
• According to The Story of the Human Body by Liebermann, people used to sleep in one big room so today’s quiet, dark bedrooms (live/sleep compartmentalizing) are not what we are evolutionarily used to.
• My life is my work and my work is my life.
• If you only look forward to weekends and vacations, you’re doing something wrong.
• Warren Buffett says he tap dances to work every day.
• Eudaimonia is the good life.
• The four pillars of the good life are: health, wealth, love (friends, family, romance), happiness (fulfillment).
• Measure your life based on these 4 pillars and how well they are integrated.
• Choose activities that integrate 2+ pillars.  Eg. office gym, physical work, read before a nap.
• People in the material world aren’t happy.  Happiness is being part of something bigger than yourself. — Mother Theresa
• The longest lasting married couples are childhood friends.
• Work with your friends to integrate wealth and happiness.
• Avoid the trap of doing something you don’t love to make money to do something you love.

Tai Lopez is an entrepreneur, investor, and blogger who runs an awesome online book club. 67 Steps is a lecture series teaching how to be successful in health, wealth, love, and happiness.  I’m a big fan.

The Big Idea: Take risks in life

• The modern education system trains students to rely on others for their education
• Read a book a day and become self-educated for happiness
• Learned helplessness exists in education, health, income, love
• Great nations are born stoic and die epicurean
• In the American economy today, the consequences of failure are not catastrophic
• You have to take risks to be happy
• Playing it too safe is penny wise and dollar foolish
• Jeff bezos says to innovate out of your problem (use creativity)
• Learned helplessness is almost synonymous with depression
• The antithesis of helplessness is creativity
• Read Schwarzenegger’s book, Total Recall, to learn about reps and sets
• Sloth and unreliability will guarantee being unsuccessful

Tai Lopez is an entrepreneur, investor, and blogger who runs an awesome online book club. 67 Steps is a lecture series teaching how to be successful in health, wealth, love, and happiness.  I’m a big fan.

The Big Idea: The media lies to you about success.  Success takes years of focused work towards a wisely-chosen goal.

• The media lies to you about success
• The media doesn’t emphasize Bill Gates worked 7 days a week for ten years.  Arnold Schwarzenegger worked out 4 hours a day during his teens.
• Overnight success takes years
• Learn to love the grind, because life is a grind, don’t wait
• Love your life, perfect your life —Tecumseh
• Sculpture Approach: identify a rock (goal) and chip away (work) until it becomes a sculpture (success)
• Understand your strengths and choose goals that build upon your strengths
• Jeff bezos embraces the truth
• The narrative bias oversimplifies things
• Magazines are the worst at oversimplifying things
• Media bias will lead to the lottery bias (overnight success)
• It took Warren Buffett 49 years to go from first stock purchase (1941) to billionaire (1990)
• Spend a day trying to go to bed a little wiser than when you woke up —Charlie Munger
• At the end of the day, if you live long enough, most people get what they deserve.  —Charlie Munger
• Pick the rock of your health, wealth, love, and happiness and chip away
• The trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit. —Moliere

Tai Lopez is an entrepreneur, investor, and blogger who runs an awesome online book club. 67 Steps is a lecture series teaching how to be successful in health, wealth, love, and happiness.  I’m a big fan.

The Big Idea: Study how successful people think.  

• Don’t pick your friends based on their success, but be selective about which friend’s advice you listen to.
• Pay attention to how your more successful friends think and how your less successful friends think.
• Like parrots, successful people repeat quotes all the time (not their own opinions.)
• Successful people ask for other people’s opinions all the time.
• I’ve never had an original idea in my life.  I just go to smart people and copy their ideas. —Joel Salatin

Tai Lopez is an entrepreneur, investor, and blogger who runs an awesome online book club. 67 Steps is a lecture series teaching how to be successful in health, wealth, love, and happiness.  I’m a big fan.

The Big Idea: Use mentors to shorten your learning curve.

• Good artists copy and great artists steal. —Picasso
• If I’m great it’s because I’m standing on the shoulders of giants. —Einstein
• To get what you want you must be a learning machine.
• Poor people should take rich people to dinner.
• 70% of communication is nonverbal.
• Find a mentor for every goal you want, who are 10-20 years ahead of where you want to be.
• Ellen Degeneres had Oprah as her mentor.
• Draft behind your mentors like race cars or geese in formation.
• Law of 33%: 1/3 of time with people below your level (good for your self-esteem and good for their development), 1/3 with people at your level (good for friendship and loyalty), 1/3 with people above your level (good for your development).
• Don’t seek professional mentors, seek professional doers and learn from osmosis (even if difficult).
• I don’t mind carrying a man but I don’t want him dragging his feet. –Joel Salatin
• You want it to be tough.  You want it to be hard.  The hard is what makes it worth it. — Tom Hanks
• Jeff Bezos was mentored by Sam Walton through Walton’s autobiography.
• To learn from a mentor, you’ll absorb by osmosis not by direct teaching.
• Make a list of mentors to meet who are 10-20 years ahead of you.
• Be persistent in trying to contact mentors.
• Half of success is just showing up, but that means showing up over and over.
• Email + handwritten letter >> email alone.
• Be patient when cultivating mentors because people need time to trust you.
• Mentors can weave in and out of your life, keep in touch.
• LPT: become a blogger in order to interview possible mentors, then always give them a small gift.
• Reciprocal bias/reward bias: buy mentors small gifts and they will remember you.
• LPT: give an assistant automated instructions to send potential mentors small gifts (eg coffee table book of their city).
• Also add value to your mentor’s life.
• Great books can be mentors but in-person mentors are preferred.
• Try for the top guys in your field first.
• Add value 3 times before asking for value 1 time.
• Read great books to make you worthy of mentorship.

Tai Lopez is an entrepreneur, investor, and blogger who runs an awesome online book club. 67 Steps is a lecture series teaching how to be successful in health, wealth, love, and happiness.  I’m a big fan.

The Big Idea: the most successful men are usually the most humble. They read and study constantly because they know there is much they do not know.

• I’ve never met a player listen so closely and then go and do something like Michael Jordan. —Dean Smith
• Michael Jordan was cocky but immensely coachable.
• Sam Walton spent incredible amounts of time in his competitors stores => humility.
• The humble man reads more books because he understands there is more to learn.
• Sam Walton got arrested for crawling on the floors of Brazilian stores trying to learn new things.
• Sam Walton tried to learn something from everyone.
• Good artists copy. Great artists steal.—Picasso
• My greatest skill was being teachable. —Michael Jordan
• Everyone wants the good life, but not everyone is humble enough to get the good life.
• Jeff Bezos was obsessed with Sam Walton.
• Jeff Bezos carries a notebook everywhere he went.
• When you meet with people, how many pages of notes do you take.
• Warren Buffett started at 7 reading every book on finance in every library in Omaha.
• Every great man in history had a mentor.
• Read books, have mentors, study competitors, spend money on learning.
• Your time on earth is finite, time is the most precious resource so guard it carefully.
• Read the same great books over and over and over.
• Bezos practically memorized Sam Walton’s book Made in America.
• Bezos walked around with a notebook and learned constantly.
• Fear and childhood trauma can prevent authentic humility.

Tai Lopez is an entrepreneur, investor, and blogger who runs an awesome online book club. 67 Steps is a lecture series teaching how to be successful in health, wealth, love, and happiness.  I’m a big fan.

The Big Idea: Change is the basic law of nature in life, so be an adaptability machine.   Read, learn, and expect occasional setbacks towards success. 

• Change is the basic law of nature.
• The species that survives is the one that is best able to adapt to change. — Darwin
• Similarly, the most successful individuals and companies are the most adaptable (not the strongest or smartest.)
• People tend to stay in dysfunctional relationships or jobs way too long.  We must respond more quickly.
• If your IQ is above 130, you could sell the rest. –Warren Buffett
• The 500 year old mind (cognitive bias) sees things in black and white, and therefore resistant to change.
• I’ve never met a man who was less afraid to fail.  –a friend of Sam Walton
• According to the Everything Store, Jeff Bezos was also unfazed by failure.  He persevered and moved on.
• Thomas Edison viewed failures as a normal path to success.
• Colonel Sanders started dozens of businesses (of mixed success) before Kentucky Fried Chicken, failed many times but adapted and persevered.
• Change is the only constant.
• Certain diets work with some people’s genetics but not others, so try lots of diets for yourself.
• So many of the most successful businesses were built on a pivot.
• Always be experimenting to test your hypotheses.  Your first idea and your first plan will inevitably be wrong.
• ESS = Evolutionarily Stable Strategy.
• When things change, find a new equilibrium.  Find a new Evolutionary Stable Strategy.  Be adaptable.
• Don’t fall prey to the certainty bias.  When things change, what was true before may now be false.  This includes relationships and partnerships.
• If you want results different from the masses, you can’t think like the masses (popular advice in magazines, mass blogs).

Tai Lopez is an entrepreneur, investor, and blogger who runs an awesome online book club. 67 Steps is a lecture series teaching how to be successful in health, wealth, love, and happiness.  I’m a big fan.

The Big Idea: To get what you want, you have to deserve what you want.  Awareness is key to success.  If you’re not successful, be self-aware enough to understand why.

• The good life = health, wealth, love, and happiness.
• To get what you want, you have to deserve what you want.  the world is not a crazy enough place to reward a bunch of undeserving people. —Charlie Munger
• Avoid the lottery approach to life.
• People who deserve a lot get a lot.
• There are three types of people: people who make things happen, people who watch things happen, and people who wonder what happened.
• Who would you have bet back in high school? What traits would they have? Would you have bet on yourself? — Warren Buffett
• Awareness is probably the most important driver of success.
• There is a time to stop and smell the roses but it’s not all time. —Joel Salatin
• Jennifer Lopez does not have a great voice but she’s an amazing entertainer and that’s why she’s successful.
• Ask yourself, who would you not bet on?  And don’t be that person.
• Ideas don’t make you rich.  Successful people often borrow from others and improve.

Tai Lopez is an entrepreneur, investor, and blogger who runs an awesome online book club. 67 Steps is a lecture series teaching how to be successful in health, wealth, love, and happiness.  I’m a big fan.