Our guest today is Tai Lopez. Tai is an entrepreneur, investor, keynote speaker, online personality and advisor to over 20 multimillion dollar businesses. Tai has also acquired major brands and companies such as PI One, Radio Shack, and many more. With 400 employees in seven global offices, I believe Tai believes that knowledge allows for more opportunities in creativity and economic freedom to achieve success, happiness, and the good life.
He’s also one of the most prolific and controversial personalities on social media with millions of followers across numerous platforms. In is known as a master marketer who has created some of the most successful ads in the history of YouTube. I’m excited to talk about all that and more with the man himself.
Ty. Welcome to the Run G Podcast. Awesome. Thanks for having me on. Hello from Sweden. Hello From Sweden. Walking around. I was telling you, I used to do podcasts sitting down, and then I was like, You know what? I don’t like sitting down, so I don’t Do you know? I, I found that I do a better podcast if I’m moving.
I read a book on creativity, the science of creativity, and one of the things that’s actually proven to increased creativity is changing location, even if it’s within your home traveling. You know, so many great ideas come when you’re moving. I have this theory, well, it’s not even a theory anymore if you study like evolutionary biology.
Humans aren’t really meant to sit down. I just watched this YouTube random reel. Somebody sent me this 83 year old African bushman, and I swear this guy was more ripped up. It looked like he was on steroids, but obviously, you know, he was like literally in a village and it was probably 7% body fat. And the reason is the guy’s always walking.
There’s a good book called Met by Lieberman outta Harvard on the story of the human body, the average. Male in our evolutionary past, our great grandparents walked nine miles a day. Women walked about seven miles a day, and there was no such things as sitting. There was no chairs. People used to either lay down or stand up or squat, like a deep squat, you know, around the fireplace.
But. I started doing that and really noticed a difference. I sit about 10 minutes a day, so these podcasts now I’m like, I have two choices. Enjoy my life, or sit and do podcasts. I’m like, I’m gonna enjoy my life and figure out how to do podcasts. So you get the background here, you get this is Stockholm. I live in Europe, good bit of the year, right?
Paid around. I respect the hustle. I respect the hustle. Sweden looks beautiful. Looks a lot like Canada, to be honest with you. so yeah, they have some similarities. Northern latitude. Yeah. so listen, Ty, I I’m super excited to have you on today, for a number of reasons. But, most of all is timing.
you’re one of the most well read and informed intellectuals or entrepreneurs. Think of, you’re known for having your finger on the pulses. We say what’s current relevant. So it’d be good to get your take on and your perspective on, you know, the current state of the union. You could say, you know, you know, what’s going on in the world.
But before we do that, I just wanna get, a little bit of your background. And, your upbringing, if that’s cool, because besides all the, you know, the companies and the businesses you’re involved in, you have a massive personal brand, right? People know you from YouTube, you know, on social. We got the cars, the jets, all that stuff.
But maybe, if you don’t mind, can you tell us a bit about, your upbringing, your background? Who is Tai Lopez? Where are you from? Where did you grow up? Sure. I was born in Long Beach, California. Part of la My dad went to prison there when I was a little baby. I don’t. He’s from Harlem. Technically I’m supposed to be a New Yorker, but, Dad from Harlem, Mom from California.
My mom’s German, my dad’s Spanish. So they came from different sides of the railroad tracks. You could say. My mom, my mom wasn’t, didn’t grow up rich, but my, her side of the family was more intellectual professors. My grandpa was a professor at Yale. My grandma and both of them met there, so they were kind of from that German world, not so much about money.
In fact, they kind of looked down on money, but they things like reading. And that’s where I got that. Cuz I was raised by my grandma and grandpa when I was little, since my dad was in prison. And my mom was a single working mom. My stepdad got transferred to North Carolina when I was a teenager. and so I play, started playing basketball in North Carolina and that’s where I got interested in farm stuff.
A lot of time people, I’m starting to post stuff from my farms. People ask where that came from. That happened when I was teenager, you know, after high school. I went and worked for two years with Joel Salatin. And I traveled the world trying to find mentors. Went to all over 20 countries and I lived with the Amish for two and a half years trying to get away from society, find peace and all the things that the modern world doesn’t have community.
Then I went back from there, I went back into the quote unquote normal world, started working for GE Capital, GE Financial. And pivoted that into internet marketing. So that’s where I needed to generate leads and that’s where it got me into the internet. And so then I took over some nightclubs. My first m and a deal you could say there was in Raleigh, North Carolina.
And so then started doing real estate. The guy that I was doing the finance company from a real estate background. So just kind of slowly transitioned from farming. Well, really from the inner city to farming and then back into to business. And so that’s kind of the background story. People. Well, yeah.
And interesting. And I, I’ve heard you talk about this, you know, you, you mentioned it, you, it kind of grew up in two worlds, right? Like your father’s side of the family. as you mentioned, you know, your dad went to prison, he’s a, you know, was an og, and then on your mother’s side, You had scientists and astrophysicists and intellectuals, right?
Right. So you had these two worlds you grew up with. So what are your thoughts on, on that? Is that what’s made you, controversial or compelling, I guess you could say, and your thoughts on how, you know your early environment affects who you are first? I’m not very controversial. On a day to day basis when I travel the world, 99% of people I meet are like, wow, it’s in your 67 7.
In fact, it’s. Almost 10 years. I’ve never had somebody in person be negative. Controversial is not necessarily a bad thing. It just means people are talking about you. Yeah, but I’m saying even then controversial, I’m not as controversial as people think, but speaking to the fact of the controversy, some of it is, look, I was living that lifestyle that people saw on Instagram for a decade before I posted it and people thought I just did it for the views.
I got my first like Ferrari Maserati in oh six. First time I ever posted it online was 2015 or 14. So a lot of people were like, Oh, this guy rented a car. And I never tried to really dispel the myth, cuz I thought it was kind of funny that people would think that. And I own night clubs. So when you’re in the nightclub business, You’ll have a fun lifestyle, beautiful women around friends, traveling.
And I just, I, it was very interesting when you start posting what’s true, a lot of people perceive it as false. And it’s funny cuz I know a lot of the other influencers who people consider to. Be showing the accurate life. And I know that they’re the ones with the front. It’s pretty funny. The world usually gets things backwards.
It’s kind of like in 1936, Adolph Hitler was the US Magazine, Time Magazine’s, Man of the Year. Boy, they got that wrong, didn’t they? So you gotta learn a little bit. The masses are often like, a little thing triggers them. And so then the third thing, like you said, is, I mean, controversy is the path to virality.
You can go viral in different ways. You can go viral cuz you’re super funny. You can go viral because you know you’re a politician. But even then, I’ve been watching Biden’s numbers on. You know, he gets nothing. He’s like 20,000 likes on Twitter. Whereas I remember when Trump would do it, is you’re talking 150,000 likes sometimes.
No, I’m not saying that’s a gauge of who’s a better president, but one thing a president or a person has to do is exert influence. You know, so little controversy’s gonna be, I can’t think of one person that was ever important, that wasn’t controversial. And if they’re not controversial now, Just give it a second.
Think people that people esteem Now, Elon Musk, Controversy’s, Rising he wasn’t so big on social media seven years ago. I remember when I first met him, it was eight years ago, I was at a movie. Nobody knew who he was. I was standing behind him in a hot dog line and I was like, Hey, you’re in La Musk. He’s like, Hi.
He was a niche character. He wasn’t controversial so much, maybe in Silicon Valley, but now they’re coming for him, . So beware the crowd. The crowd that loves you will often turn on you. So, the crowd can be fickle, you know? Yep. Facts. now you, you brought it up, you, you mentioned mentors briefly, and, and, I, I thought this was interesting.
You got some advice from your grandfather at a young age, correct? that was pretty interesting. When it came to mentorship, what advice did he give you and what did that spark in you? The world’s too complex for only one person to have all the answers, so he said, If you’re lucky, you’ll find a handful of people along the way that can, or along this path, that can lead, lead you to the truth.
So that’s why I realized the quest for mentors, not mentors a mentor, but mentors was what I had to do. And so that’s, that kind of started me. I started buying a lot of books that were considered, quote unquote wise. And I, I started, I had, I lived in a mobile home when I was a teenager. I had a little bedroom I remember, and I built shelves on the wall so I could put three by five note card boxes, and I would sit there every day and write a.
Three or four smart thoughts, quotes, sayings from, and everybody from, you know, Will Durant to Aristotle to modern day thinkers. So that was the beginning of like trying to be eclectic. And then when I went with Joel Salin, he was kind of the father figure who taught me business, but also a lot about life.
And he introduced me to his mentors and that I’m still on that path, you know? It sounds like it’s in your dna, right? You had the intellectuals there, you know, your grandfather was talking about seeking mentors. And really, we live in a time where, you know, you can be mentored by anyone you want, really.
You absolutely can. You can be mentored by anyone. So, I guess that’s where your love with books comes from and seeking knowledge, right? your, your book list, your book club, it’s legendary. Of course, you’re known for your, your recommendations. As I said, one of the most well read, entrepreneurs I can think of.
Don’t wanna put you on the spot too much, but top three life-changing books in your life. Gotta ask that. If I have Tai Lopez on the show, Top three, I mean one, I think controversial. One Sigmund Freud’s book, it’s called one of his books. It’s called Civilization and it’s Discontents. It’s a very short book.
In fact, you only really need to read the second chapter. It’s insanely, you know, people all often think, Oh, Sigma Ford’s discredited. Well, I’m like, Well, every great past thinker is discredited. Nobody believes. In Newtonian physics or you know, Aristotles understanding of Ether and the universe. But they’re still brilliant and I’m not, I think Sigma Freud is the smartest person I’ve ever read, and I’ve read most of the people, like I said, he had some incorrect thoughts.
He like to prescribe cocaine, which, hey, he was right on that one. If you were depressed. He had a cure that worked every time cocaine was new on the scene in Europe. It was a doctor prescribed drug, you know, so, but it, that first, that book Civilization is Discontents a second chapter on what the Purpose of life is, is just astoundingly intelligent in like five pages.
So I’d start there. I think number two, you know, a great business book. There’s an author named Steven Johnson. Anything that Guy writes is just wildly intelligent. It, it, he has an i a book called Where Good Ideas come from. It’s a really powerful book. I have a little free list, Tai lopez.com/books, and it’s on there.
I forget what number Peter Drucker, of course, is in that category for business. And then I think for business, I always say businesses, 50% psychology and 50% numbers and technical skills. So you gotta read the great Dr. David Bus, one of my current mentors. Textbook. It’s a Harvard textbook. It’s literally just called Evolutionary Psychology by Dr.
David Bus. It reads a little bit like a novel in the sense that it’s not as, it’s not very boring, and it’s just insane. It, it really will open your eyes. Whether you’re an entrepreneur or not on how humans work together, and a lot of thought that we have, a lot of things people are confused on can be cleaned up and clarified literally in one book, which, which is pretty, I rarely say that you, you can get the modern day science.
Of evolutionary psychology is just mind blowing. If you wanna need another book, I’ll give you a fourth one, that not many people I warn people around in this book. This book is too much for most people in the sense. It’s too, I, it’s what I call Too True. The book, The Folley of Fools by Trevors. It’s an insane book.
He’s actually a guy that he’s, he’s really old now, so he is a little bit out of the game. But I’ve, I’ve done some private mentoring with him. He’s one, he’s almost the most cited scientist alive. he came up with things like parent, parent child. Conflict theory and reciprocal altruism. He’s, he’s the father of modern biology, evolutionary biology.
So that’s a good book. I think, you know, a lot of people follow me, wanna make money, and that’s good. And. And you need making money though really it depends on what level. If you’re trying to make a lot of money, most people who make a lot of money are relatively big thinkers. Like they understand how the whole world works.
They don’t just go, How can I make an internet marketing funnel that kicks out money? So, but there are, you know, if you wanna make 10 grand a month, these may not be the best books for. You’re better off just doing like some podcasts or side hustle kind of things. You know, I have courses on that, YouTube, different people.
But if you want to get a macro understanding, which I’m a big fan of, of like how does this game really work? Cuz once you know, money comes from, first off what people forget is money comes from people, right? So a lot of people, you hear people say things like, I hear, I see social media influencers saying, Just do you and give no about the what other people think.
Well, if you’re trying to make money, this is nonsense. If you give no then how will you solve problems? Money comes from solving problems, right? So actually the people who, if you wanna make money, you should give a lot of F about those things that people need. Steve Jobs gave a lot of . He was like, People need.
Personal computer shouldn’t just be a big mainframe. Software will change the world, you know? And so, and hardware of course. And so the reason I like to read books maybe that are a little different than most people would recommend in business is cuz as you understand how the world works, you know how to give the world.
Those services and products that the world needs, which in exchange the world will give you money. Yeah. You, you, you know, Well, first of all, thank you very much for breaking those down. I, I appreciate that. people are always curious what you’re reading. Of course, as you know, you already know this. but you, you, you, you touched on so much there.
One of the thing, you know, one of the things is. You know that, that whole, like testosterone driven, do what you want, no regrets type of, you know, sales, coaching and mentorship. It does, it doesn’t, It’s a little played out now. People don’t respond to it like they used to. Now people are looking for more of a holistic approach to life, right?
Because. The last few years have been really hard on people. Mental health is an issue, right? so people don’t want to hear that rah raw stuff anymore. I, that’s what I’ve been hearing. You know, we’re in the real estate space, we’re involved in this stuff all the time. You see, you know, the coaching and the mentorship and whatnot, and people are just over that.
Really a type, personality driven, testosterone, riled, you know, kind of coaching. People don’t like it anymore. People don’t respond to it. But speaking of books, speaking of books, the more, the more you learn, the more you earn. You have one of the most viral marketing videos of all time. The Here in My Garage video.
it really is. And the, the reason why this is so interesting, and I ha I know you get asked about this all the time, but it’s a case study. It’s a case study in successful marketing copywriting. what was it about that video that made it so successful? And you kind of hinted at it earlier, but the keys to going viral.
Yeah, well, there going viral is a combination of skill, repetition, and luck. And I think I, there’s different schools of thought on virality. I do it with this kind of 27 step outline. Sometimes I’ll do it me mentally without even thinking about it. I’ve done it enough, or sometimes I’ll write it out ahead of time.
But you know, you need a combination of. Obviously strong hooks, but there’s other things you need compelling reasons to, for people to stay and watch the whole ad. So that’s an important, Sometimes people forget to frame why you should stay. you need a combination of simplicity, which allows people’s brains not to explode.
But at the same time, you need a combination of novelty. So there’s this simplicity to novelty ratio that can’t get out of. You’ll meet some people. I think what you were talking about is some people are too simplistic so their advertisements stop performing cuz you’re kind of cliche and you’re just like, Yo, work hard, do good.
And the brain of your audience knows, Wait a second, I’ve already tried that. That’s overly simplifying the issue, right? It’s not as simple, it’s just working hard. If working hard alone worked, then you know, construction workers would be the wealthiest people. But also if, if, if I do something in a video and I’m too complex, you also don’t get a response.
Why? Because this is this thing called glucose miser. The your brain is a miser. It doesn’t like to expend more glucose than it needs to, and therefore, complex things take more glucose in your. And so your audience, it’s hard to go viral with a super complex concept. So here in my garage is a, is a good balance between some simple concepts like Lamborghini books.
More you learn, the more you earn, but it ha it goes a little bit deeper without going too deep. It talks about mentors, it talks about, you know, it has intrigue. Something it has in there that people forget is prop. you know, you need a good movie, has good props. People forget that. That’s why I was saying me walking, doing this podcast, everything behind me acts as a prop.
So it had good props in there. You had a bookshelf, you had a Lamborghini, you had a house in Hollywood Hills. You know, it had that element of virality. It was the right length. A lot of people do too short. It’s hard to go viral with things that are too short. Yes, I mean, look, Vine died. Vine died. Vine was whatever, six or seven seconds.
It’s too short. And in fact, if you look at TikTok and so on, they’re adding two minutes. You know you need more time. But here in my garage was a five minute commercial, so to speak, so it was the right length. I think a lot of people get the length wrong. And then it landed you on a landing page that was long enough.
It had about a one hour landing page video. and that’s the other thing. It’s not just the commercial people under overestimate the commercial. The commercial creates the intrigue, but the landing page also had a one hour video. If you get a one hour video well written and compelling, it’s insanity. The results you get on that, even more than the here in my garage ad.
So, Not many people ever remember the, the video. The video on the landing page was in many ways the real catalyst. Obviously they worked together, you know, Well, like I said, it was a case study and, and I think you’re right. You know, TikTok has longer videos. Instagram just increased the length of the reels too.
Yep. I think up to 90 seconds. So you’re making a good point. I’ve also heard you talk about, Instagram and TikTok and, and they use, an algorithm that’s kind of a form of hypnosis, right? Yes. It’s, it’s almost like they, they’re hypnotizing. Can you explain that a little bit or your, just your thoughts on what they’re doing there with their algorithms?
Well, TikTok and Insta and YouTube shorts and all this, they’re somewhat brainwashing the world in the classic sense. When you look at Instagram, TikTok, it’s this powerful tool. They use an A, they call it the algorithm. But it’s really a hypnotic when you think about hypnosis, what is hypnosis? It’s continual stimuli that puts you in a dreamlike state or an altered consciousness.
By the way, that’s, Freud was one of the big, It’s funny, Freud has been h discredited the psychologist over the years cuz he believed in hypnosis, but in fact, he was right. TikTok, every single person that’s ever used Instagram or TikTok, I’m pretty. You realize you go into almost a hypnotic state when the algorithm shows you, like, if you start watching basketball, I, my, my, I like basketball, so there’s a lot of basketball stuff that shows and it’s like basketball, Basketball.
Well, and all of a sudden you could find yourself literally passing 30 minutes and you haven’t done anything. You’re laying on the couch. So that’s a, that these, algorithms are crazy. Powerful force in society, they’re gonna shape the views and the morals and real more than the morals. I mean, humans have some morals built in at birth, but what can be changed by your environment is the norms, right?
So how do you express these morals? You know, humans, for example, have a moral, they call it a cognitive bias called the fairness, contee, and fairness, right after a manual con, the philosoph. That’s, but it expresses itself in different ways. Like for example, the Aztech Indians, before they would sacrifice their human sacrifices, they would let ’em live two years with them and feed ’em good food and give them all, everything their heart desired.
They’re like, No, let’s be fair to this human sacrifice, . So that human fairness, instinct based on how we are grow up. . We express it in different ways. Like I said, we don’t do human sacrifice anymore. So now the algorithm is affecting how humans, For example, you brought something up, which was this, you called it testosterone filled worldview.
There’s very strong worldview on social media now, which is super individualistic, like you do you and the world and it, that’s a pretty dangerous one because A, you can’t do it. and, so it’s pointless to tell people, but b, what it’s doing, it’s creating a, the, a worldview that’s narcissistic and narcissism has a lot of negative repercussions for individuals.
People don’t realize that, like, in general, you don’t wanna be surrounded, you don’t wanna be a narcissist yourself or surrounded by the narcissists are exploitative. Right. So this algorithm now on TikTok, Is taking self-expression and brainwashing people into two extreme of a version of it, which is gonna have real, it’s gonna actually make people exact opposite.
People are gonna give more and they’re gonna be more sad. I mean, one of the problems with social media is the people who do the best on it are the people with mental illness like, In mental illness is entertaining to watch. You go back to the beginning of rock and roll, it’s like Aussie Osborne like would bite a bat’s head off and be insane and wear makeup and just be in maniac.
And guess what? That sells very. That is very intriguing. So one of the problems with the algorithm also is it’s basically making. Watch insane people, or the technical word would be emotionally unstable. People get the most views for the most part. There’s a few exceptions, but not many. And some of these dark triad traits like narcissism, mave, psychopathy, you know, also do really well on social media.
So basically, not only is the algorithm feeding you whatever the Chinese and TikTok wanna feed you or whatever Zuckerberg wants to feed you. But also it naturally gravitates towards insane people influencing you the most. I always say like social media, don’t get high off your own. I only post on social media.
I don’t really watch it at all.
Super interesting perspective, Ty. appreciate you breaking that down. I was gonna ask you about your, you know, your first taste, taste. Entrepreneurship don’t need to do that, I don’t think, because, you know, people can go look up, that story and, and how you tell it a little bit. But I do wanna fast forward, you know, many years later, you own a number of the biggest brands, large companies.
Now keeping that in mind, okay, thinking about that, what’s the single most important lesson and entrepreneur needs to learn? Set an atomic use case goal. That’s when my business partner, he’s a PhD, he came up with this concept of atomic use case, which is like one single thing you want in your life. So for me, my atomic use case is a lifestyle that I like, that I enjoy an amazing lifestyle and and sharing that with the world.
So for me, it’s kind of, that’s my religion. So to me, I try to, Do things that are against my religion no matter what, even if I lose money, there’s people that are more focused on social media than me. Last couple years, I’ve hardly done any social media. I’ve been building this big holding company, buying brands.
So I have to have a unified guiding light to your life, and it can’t be a lot of things. So my unified guiding light is the good life, which means, and you know, what does good life means? A life is a cool lifestyle. And then, You can break that down into health, wealth, love, and happiness. That good life perspective.
Even when I’m doing a podcast like you, I’m, I just stay with my religion, so it’s like I wanna live, It’s sunny out. I’m in the one of the nicest countries in the world. I don’t wanna sit for an hour. It hurts my health. So I always stick to that guiding light, even though maybe you have podcasts that will be better than mine because you know, they were in an awesome studio and things like that.
Like that just, and I’ll tell you, So number one is what’s your guiding light? One goal in life. You can’t get two. You can get two, but like Confucius said, the man who chases two rabbits catches none. So I have that one thing I chase, which is this, this amazing lifestyle on a day to day basis. And number two, I would say to an entrepreneur, when you find that guiding light, Treat it like a religion and be very careful breaking even your religion for one day.
Eat backfires on you. Eat backfires horribly. Meaning you know you’re an alcoholic so you don’t drink for a year, but then like one day you’re your birthday and you’re like, Yo, let me just break my rule. And like drink for one day. Like, eh, be very careful. That ends super badly for humans. So that’s my second thing, You know, find your unify guideline.
But, But number three, going back to, I was talking about there’s different types of, if you’re an entrepreneur who’s at the highest level, meaning you’re trying to do more in a hundred million a year or whatever the number is, 50 million or 500. you have to get good at the 12 divisions of business. And I know that sounds like, opposite of what I just said, that you have to be good at one thing.
Well, your life, you have to be good at one thing business. You have to, you can break things into parts. So I think the myth out there is that you can do really big things just being good at one or two things as an entrepreneur. So a lot of the zeitgeist of modern social media is like, Hey, you know what?
You’re good at. And then hire other people smarter than you. To run every other area of your business. I mean, it’s kind of advice. It’s one of those oxymoronic like, yeah, it’s like from a certain angle it’s genius advice, but from reality it’s complete. There’s like, Show me somebody who does that. you know, like that’s not how it is.
Serge b is one of the, if not the smartest person at all, Google. He hasn’t hired a thousand people smarter than him. Now you might say, Well, what about his accountant? Maybe his accountant, accountant might have more competency in running account for public traded book, company. But I’ll tell you this.
Be careful what you delegate because most of what you delegate turns to. It’s a good point. You, you, I mean, you broke down so much there. I mean, it’s, this is gonna be one of those ones we, we, we listened to with a notepad and a pen for, for real, like, Absolutely. Now, I know you’re asked about this a lot and, and you did just post about it recently on your socials, and I’m not asking to be a, some sort of oracle on this, but just broad.
Broad stroke thoughts on what we’ve seen, you know, with the market crash, the crypto sell off, what’s going on? How did we get here? Just, you know, general thoughts on that. Too many shoe shine boys giving advice. I think it was JP Morgan or whatever said back in the 1920s before he knew there was gonna be a depression, recess.
Because the shoe shine boy was giving him advice. Now, that’s no disparagement of humble beginnings. If you are a shoe shine, boy, you can rise up. I mean, I’m, I like the American dream in the sense that you can start from everywhere. But when you’re shoe shine, boy, you gotta act like a shoe shine. Boy, like I like the thought.
You go to the gym, you’re the weakest person in the gym, but one day you’ll be the strongest person. Jim, I respect. Vision. But what I don’t respect is the weakest person in the gym coming up to the people walking up to the bench press and going, Oh, you know, I’ve never done this, but I’m gonna be, I’m the badass.
Listen to me. I’m like, No, you’re, you. Don’t know what you’re talking about. And so the crypto Twitter is the, it’s the largest set of pseudo intellectuals ever placed together in any forum. I mean, it should be a Guinness Book of World Records. How could we compile the most people that know how to. Monos, PolySci, abic phraseology.
They know how to be like, just, you know, kind of like quippy enough. They know how to throw out clips to imply a modicum of intelligence like they’re used to. When I was growing up, the people that we looked up to as entrepreneurs or big brained people, they were sharp. You may not agree with. But if you sat in a room with them, you’d be like, This person is sharp as hell.
You may invest in your money in them. When you sit down with a lot of people that was in the crypto world, it’s like, mm, this is not a smart person. This is a weird person. And there’s two types of weird, There’s like good weird, you know? And there’s good weird, there’s advantageous weird, and there’s just like, I’m gonna bite your face off.
Serial Killer Hannibal Lectern weird and crypto has a lot more of the Hannibal Lectern. Weird. You’re gonna have a crash when a lot of people who have functional load, like too many browsers open on your laptop. The fans running in the background. Something’s not working. And so what happened with crypto specifically is you have a lot of people with these dark diad, negative exploitative traits, a lot of virtue signaling, which should be your first any, any time.
A lot of people are making money and telling you they’re doing it not to make money run like these people are liars. It’s better. You know, money is made by Barbarians at the gate. It’s always been that way. Nobody wants to give up their resources and reallocate ’em to new owners. So wealth is created.
Make no mistake. The Forbes list from Elon Musk to, you know, Bill Gates and Down is full of barbarians at the gate. Some more ethical than others, but none are saints. None, none. Just, it’s not even close. And they’re not supposed to be. They’re like sharks, you know? You biologist said we killed too many great whites.
You need great whites for the ecosystem to work well. That’s what billionaires are. And so crypto, you’re better off to have people who are just like, Yeah, I’m a great white shark. Watch out. That is usually a sign that people are more self aware and less exploitative. As weird as that sounds, the the shark who tells you there’s a shark is less likely to exploit you.
I do a lot of business, for example, in New York. Private equity, you know, dealing with, these are people who are billionaires or control many billions in New York. Nobody tells you, Yo, bro, you know why I’m here. I’m here for the legacy and I’m here to help humanity. Crypto has less equality. Between wealthy and poor, like 10 wallets, control all of crypto.
It’s worse than the fiat that they make fun of. Now, I am an advocate and proponent of the conceptual of crypto, but the current group that’s in there will be swept out and people will come in who are actually intelligent, I think, and more, I’m not gonna say virtuous, but you, you will know who they are.
They’re like, We’re in here because we’re gonna make money off this, and we’re capitalists versus. I remember when the light coin guy was like, I knew crypto was in trouble, I think 2017. He goes, You know, I’m gonna sell all my light coin cuz I have too much of it and I, I want the whole my community to have more of it.
Well, okay, yeah. So you made a billion dollar transaction for the good of your followers who each got $10? Like, come on. And it, and it worked. Not one person called, I mean, it was like crickets, cricket. and then people were mad at me cuz I had a crypto course. That intro, my, believe it or not, my crypto video had way more views than here in my garage.
I introduced literally a hundred million people, saw a video and thousands bought a course and a lot of people got into crypto at 197 E and 4,000 Bitcoin. When I told people to go in, The Bitcoin, the light coin guy was a hero, and people were going, Oh, this guy, you know, is selling a course and making money.
I’m like, What The is wrong with this group of people? It’s just low iq. Yeah, it’s interesting, like, well we’re, we’re big on crypto. We’ve been in the crypto space for a long time. As far as we know, we’re the only brokerage in Canada that actually transacts in crypto. So we sell homes for Bitcoin. Our website has BTC pricing, et cetera.
So we’ve been in the space for a while. We got a fairly ambitious NFT project ourself. We’re, you know, so we have like an actual specific utility play there, but, I, I like how you say that. Like, don’t treat anything like a cult. And, and really, you know, crypto can become a cult. Like you’ve got these, we just had, Dr.
Sedna Mo on the, on the podcast, the author of the Bitcoin standard now, the Fiat standard, et cetera. And these Bitcoin Maximalist, they’re in their own bubble. That’s it. It’s Bitcoin and nothing else. Literally nothing else. Like, you can’t get them to admit there’s utility anywhere. Avoid extreme ideologies.
No, I agree. I agree. So it’s. You know, it’s super interesting.
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If you had to guess what’s next? Bitcoin maximalists have literally the talk about pseudo intellectual. Okay, So let’s say, Let’s say, well, there’s only 21 million of them, okay? As if a fixed amount, it’s actually not true that a fixed amount is the best. Now, on one extreme, you have a fixed amount. Of anything, a currency or so.
And then the other side you maybe have a federal reserve that prints too much money or the v r Republic or Zimbabwe or something. But the actual truth is in between. It’s actually smart to have a currency that can move a little bit. And actually you see in the stable coins, some of the mistakes, of this concept of not, of peg not being able to break at all.
Sometimes it’s better for the peg to be able to break just a little bit. Not a lot, just like the way they. Skyscrapers now so that there is no earthquake protection as they move a little bit. So the concept that 21 million of something makes it the best is just I. It’s amazing that. Well, the other part of it is I do like Bitcoin though.
But I like Bitcoin cause it’s a brand name. That’s it. It’s the main thing about Bitcoin. If E had the same brand name, it would have relatively the same amount of power. The fact that it’s proof of work and proof of stake, like technically proof stake worse than proof of work, which is pointed. You know what’s interesting though, is that.
Syphoning is one of the smartest people I’ve ever interviewed. You know, highly educated dude. You know, he is been around a while, but you know that one of the questions I had is what happens when all bitcoin’s been mined? Like there is no proof of work. Like what happens then? Right? Which, is in answer is interesting.
You have to go listen to the episode. If anybody’s listening, go listen to the episode. It’s good. so again, not asking you to be, you know, not to be a fortune teller here, but, or, an oracle, but if you had to guess what’s next? Are we in for a long recession? So crypto, I would differentiate from Fiat world.
I would say. My guess is you’re gonna get stagflation. I mean, I think you’re already there with the regular markets. They’re overpriced. A lot of garbage tech companies are overvalued. You know what goes up will come down always. most recessions happen about 10. I think you may have a lighter one than you think crypto, I think for every month of trauma.
It takes at least two to three months to recover. So if this goes for five months, let’s say of these, you know, Tara Luna, CR crashes, Celsius freezes, things like this, then you probably would have a 15 month ish. And that’s, that’s more a prediction off human psychology. Not so much off technical. You know, lot of this technical stuff is people trying to read flags and stuff.
Not none of those mothers are rich for long and nobody on the Forbes list from technical analysis. Now, even if the technical analysis will work, somebody else will figure it out and parody will come and take your profit from you. But I think crypto, you know, if we go five. With now, if you go 12 months with absolute trauma, you’re in for probably 24 months till people really trust the system.
Again. You know it people, people with money ro, it’s happening right now, Crypto and, and somewhat with Fiat world. People put their life savings in it. They put their rent there, and now they’re trying to pay. and they can’t get their money outta Celsius, or they can’t liquidate above their cost basis. So guess what?
Those people aren’t gonna forget it. You know, it’s, It’s a little bit, Think about 2008, 2008, traumatized home ownership to the point where whole generation doesn’t care about home ownership. There was enough trauma that a whole generation just was like, I don’t care anymore. So I think that, by the way, here, I’m back in Sweden.
This is the craziest interview, man. You wanted me here? No, no, no background. This is funny, man. there we go. Okay, so here we go. I gotta ask you about this. so we’re, we’re, rapidly growing, real estate brokerage in Canada now expanding to the state. So we’re doing it, We’re a virtual company, so we’ve done everything, virtual and we have a lot of sales agents, brokers, real estate professionals that work in our company.
Do you have any advice for them going forward for the rest of 2022 and beyond? Like, what should they be advising their clients or what should they be looking for? Any thoughts on that? So, If I’m in the real estate game right now, the way my brain’s going is defensive. I think a. Markets are gonna move, they’re gonna change.
Your audience is gonna reflect that having people are gonna trade down. What people can afford drops precipitously. If the interest rate doubles right, Real estate is one. For example, Toronto. Anything that shot up crazy, you’re gonna have a lot more pain than say, Raleigh, North Carolina. It never skyrockets and it never drops.
Farm land. If farm land goes down, the world’s pretty close to ending. You gotta know your niche and gear up for it. If you’ve been selling stuff on high multiples, like if you’re doing commercial stuff, especially retail now is gonna get smashed. I’m actually leasing space now commercially. If I, if I’m talking to a commercial realtor, I’m going, Oof, you gotta talk your landlords in a sense, because some of these landlords don’t realize retail isn’t.
And leasing space like they used to after that covid thing caused so much trauma. So what, what real estate? Who do you, what’s your market that you’re mostly working with? Cause I think the answer is like super nuanced. Yeah, it’s re residential and commercial and of course we’re in all the major cities in Canada.
but to open on the East coast, mostly residential. Mostly realtors. Yep. Mostly investors. In those both, but mostly realtors. Yep. I think. Canada, be a Toronto gonna be interesting market. I think people trade down the key thing to watch, forget inflation is the wrong thing to watch. Because first off, if you actually look highly logically at inflation, there’s many things that a, have not inflated.
So it’s still the cheapest time to buy certain things. America, for example, housing much cheaper as a percentage of your income than places like Europe, right? Europeans are used to spending much more of their monthly income on housing. So I, I think what will change the game? Jobs, people start getting laid off.
The whole game changes. That’s what really drives a recession. And, And what does that profit? So you have to look at all of a sudden companies, you’re a realtor. Your people that you’re selling houses to, they work at companies if those c, if the profit starts massively and you’re seeing some of that, but the supply chain up margin so and so forth.
But that a little bit balances out because somebody’s winning. Who’s winning in shipping delays. People who are in like MES and COPE egg and these guys are getting rich off the fact that they can charge $18,000 for a container. So what you gotta watch is simple. It’s just jobs. If jobs in Canada gets smashed, being a realtor is gonna be a whole new game because you’re probably, the best thing you do is gonna be people fire sailing their homes.
The exp or or the expensive extra home they bought. So there’ll still be a place for realtors, and as my mentor, Joel Sal needs to say, try, the cream always rises to the top. Meaning if you’re a good realtor, you’re on your toes, you’re high car, you know you have the personality traits. Called conscientiousness, which is diligence, prudence organization, perfectionism.
If you’re high in those four things, you’re gonna do well. It’s just when times get tougher, like now, only the more skilled people making, so it’s becomes a squeezing, it becomes a, you know, they call that a winnowing of the chas. If you wanna use an old fashioned term where you know you have, like when you’re creating, when.
thrashing or harvesting wheat. Yep. You have the actual wheat, which is the good stuff. It’s heavy. And then you have the chaff, which is the, the parts of the plant that are inedible. And as it shakes it out, that’s how like a modern combine or an old fashioned thrashing machine, it shakes ’em and all the lightweight stuff falls through.
And the only thing that’s left is the thing with substance. So when you get an. Whether it be stag I inflation recession, job market, the only job security is to be really good at what you do. Be committed to continual improvement. Go to bed a little wiser than you were the day before. That’s your only insurance.
Everything else is a bad bet. that’s your best. We call it the Darwinian thinning of the herd. Couldn’t agree more. Last two questions. Ty. You could have dinner with any three people in history. Pastor present, who would they be and why? Second Freud, number one. He like made the concept of the subconscious and modern understanding of humans.
I mean, you gotta meet him. I would say that’s number one. Number two, somebody like I wanna meet like a gang. Just some what, What got this guy motivated? The greatest conquer of all time. I’d say gangs or napole, maybe Napoleon. Napoleon is the statistical greatest winner of battles in history. Yeah, he lost Waterloo, but he won 53 outta 60 major battles.
I mean, Alexander degree was six outta six. That’s not on the same level, and, And Napoleon was an absolute mathematical and brainy genius. He was a high IQ person. He gets a bad rap, but there’s no books. More books have been written on Napoleon than any other living human. He is a monumental democracy.
Comes outta Napoleon as we have in the, you know, so Napoleon will be two, three. Somebody like Gandhi, somebody who, you know, sacrificed their life for the good of others, lived with PO in poverty like a Nelson Mandela. Mother there, a Gandhi, you know all those, Those type people. I’d have one of those. So I have one.
You know, one or two? One psychologist, one conqueror. Now what was the second question? okay. Board of directors fantasy. Board of directors. We could pick three people to be on your board of directors, Pastor present. Is an underrated entrepreneur. He, he’s not been as likable. The man does not make a lot of mistakes.
I think I would have Jeff Bezos, I have Rockefeller. He was a force of nature. People don’t understand, but more importantly he was, he imposed his will upon the world, which can be bad in the SE if you don’t agree. He wasn’t a virtuous. Man, But that’s a trait that I rarely see. Not just confidence, which I see a lot talked about on social media, but I’m a believer that your confidence should be your confidence.
So he, he backed it up. You could say a lot of people have confidence, but they don’t have the commitment to excellence. So you could. Throwing a fourth wild card on my board, I would have somebody, Queen Elizabeth in the 15 hundreds. She was the Virgin Queen and she’s one of the greatest leaders of all times.
Queen Elizabeth was an amazing decision maker. I like people that don’t make mistakes, I guess is what I’m saying. If you look at my board, it’s like people who, because I think mistakes are overrated and we like to. People like to virtue signal by going, Oh, you know, I make a lot of mistakes that, you know, you only learn through mistakes.
But really life is too short. And if you make a lot of mistakes, you, you eat up, waste a decade of the prime of your life and you only get one time in your life. So I’m not such a big fan of bragging. Or optimizing for a lot of mistakes. Like I see that a lot on social media. It’s like, here’s, I’ve been bankrupt seven times and I made it the eighth thumb.
I’m like, Bro, show me how to never be bankrupt. And, the first time, like, maybe I’m okay with gradual success. You don’t have to be a billionaire on your first business, but I, I don’t admire. that it’s like Richard Dawkins as my first podcast was Richard Dawkins in 20, I Dunno how I got on my podcast at of the year, Voted Smartest in the World.
And he said, he told me in book, Selfish, he says, Try. He says, Organisms that only learn through trial and error lose to organisms that learn through. Because trial is costly and error is deadly. So basically if your way of learning is losing a lot, be careful you may lose once that you never recover from.
So my board is, I try to throw it up with people. Queen Elizabeth didn’t make many mistakes. She was a good decision maker. She knew when to listen. She knew when to go fast, when to go slow, so there you go. Wow, what an answer. Take the rest of the day off, Ty. Love you, bro. Thank you very much.
