I’m checking out the 67 steps by Tai Lopez and friends. I am keeping a log of the process as I go.
Please be aware that while I will attempt to give truthful and helpful reviews/writings of my personal experiences with 67 Steps, I am signed up for the affiliate program. Being signed up in the affiliate program means that I will receive a commission if someone follows the links on this page and signs up for the course. I’m no longer signed up for the affiliate program – I still recommend the course (I learned a lot), though I don’t know if it’s still for sale for $67 or not.
This is Part 2. Here are Part 1, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5.
Table of Contents
If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.
Sir Isaac Newton
Top 20 Books on the Tai Lopez Book List
Here’s an abbreviated list. I’ve read about half of these. There’s definitely a lot of good ideas and inspirational characters to learn from, too. I have about 15 of these. He’s updated the top 20 list from two years ago. I started reading a bunch but I would especially like to read #2, #5 and #10. He’s changed/added some books to the top 20.
There’s tons of books but here’s Tai’s top 20 (book titles link to Amazon):
- Managing Oneself by Peter Drucker
- Evolutionary Psychology by David Buss
- How Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
- Total Recall by Arnold Schwarzenegger
- The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
- The Lessons of History by Will & Ariel Durant
- Kon-Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl
- Civilization and Its Discontents by Freud
- When I Stop Talking, You’ll Know I’m Dead by Jerry Weintraub
- The Story of the Human Body by Daniel Lieberman
- The One Thing by Gary Keller
- Riveted by Jim Davies
- The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time by Will Durant
- The Complete Story of Civilization by Will Durant
- Made in America by Sam Walton
- The Decision Book by Mikael Krogerus
- Poor Charlie’s Almanac by Peter Kaufman
- Disrupt You! by Jay Samit
- A Few Lessons for Investors and Managers by Warren Buffet
- Michael Jordan by Roland Lazenby
Steps #3 – #5 (3/29 – 3/31)
So on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, I listened to the 3rd through the 5th step of the 67 Steps. I took notes in my journal and also answered the questions from the previous days Step.
The main ideas are interesting and thought provoking. It’s a mixture of dreaming big, learning for successful business-type people, and big picture practical steps.
I also just bought 7 of the books on Tai’s booklist that he seems to mention a lot in the first 6 steps.
Be cocky only outwardly. Inwardly be driven by the humility to turn on a dime.
Books/Subjects Mentioned in Steps 1-6
Here’s some of the books mentioned in the course. It’s a list of Tai’s favorite books.
Some of the people he mentions:
In terms of business:
- Sam Walton
- Bill Gates
- Jeff Bezos
- Richard Branson.
In terms of athletes:
- Michael Jordan.
In terms of famous people:
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
- Stephen Hawking
- Gandhi
- Nelson Mandela
- Mother Teresa.
For me I’ve been too slow to move on from interactions with unenlightened people…As Allan Nation always told me, “Tai, never try and teach a pig to fly. You can’t do it and it bothers the pig“…
How to Read a Book a Day
Here are some online sources to learn to read a book a day.
- How to Speed Read like Teddy Roosevelt
- Of course, the pleasure of some books is the masterful whole, the entirety of language and the author’s carefully selected words and purposefully constructed sentences. The joy of such literature comes in soaking up the text precisely as intended. In such cases, it’s best to slow down and take it in.
- Podcast on how to read a book a day
- According to Tai’s video
- Skim a Book at least 3 times
- Don’t Read a Book Word for Word
- Be a Gold Miner
- Don’t Panic, Don’t Give Up
- Use Books as a Reference Guide
- The Skim, Power Skim and Deep Skim
- Pick the Right Books
- Health, Wealth and Love in Music
- Truth Love and Power, and Social Discourse
- 12 ideas for good health (Wellness for everyone including musicians)
- Truth, Love, and Power in Learning Music
Smart Reading Technique
Reading List for Steps 3-6
Check out Tai Lopez’s review of Peter Druckers esssay on Managing Oneself.
Tai’s review of Peter Drucker’s essay.
Here’s Tai’s review of Michael Jordan’s book.
Tai’s review of History of the Human Body.
Here’s a quote from his summary of the book:
- You are surrounded in your day-to-day life by a higher proportion of strangers than would ever have been true of our pre-agrarian hominid ancestors.
- You run into a higher total number of people each day than our pre-agrarian hominid ancestors ever would have.
- You have the option of spending 90 percent of your waking hours sitting at a desk—and you often exercise this option.
- Your extended family includes people dispersed across hundreds or thousands of miles (think New York and Florida).
- You have been exposed to more images of violence than ever would have been possible for pre-agrarian hominids.
- You were likely educated in an age-stratified system—spending each of several years in a group comprised of about 25 others who matched you in age—being taught in a classroom environment by a few specially designated “teachers.” You likely spent a lot of time sitting behind desks in the process.
- You are exposed regularly to politics at a global scale—often discussing or being involved in issues that potentially pertain to thousands, millions, or even billions of other humans.
- You were raised in some variant of a nuclear family—with less assistance from aunts, uncles, older cousins, and grandparents, than would have been typical of our nomadic ancestors.
- You spend a great deal of time interacting with “screens” and “devices”—having the evolutionarily unprecedented possibility of almost never having to be bored at all.
- You can eat an entire diet of processed foods—and you live in a world in which processed foods are cheaper and more accessible than natural foods.
Here’s Tai’s review of Poor Charlie’s Almanack
Here’s Tai’s review of The Selfish Gene
Cause and Effect in Life
Tai mentions ideas that boil down to a belief that if you do the right things, you will bear the fruits of your labors. He talks about intelligent experimenting in life.
Check out this list of steps to grow in life.
- Ask a Question – what are you trying to fix in your life?
- Do Background Research – what have other smart people done to fix it (your cabinet)…
- Construct a Hypothesis – what experiment are you going to try?
- Test Your Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment – put the test into action.
- Analyze Your Data and Draw a Conclusion – Read the obvious signs…
- Communicate Your Results To Other Smart People – bounce your conclusion off a ‘multitude of counselors.”
- Adjust Based On What You Learned & Start Over – tweak your hypothesis and start back on step 3.
Note: check out Peter Drucker’s essay. The audiobook is $1. These 7 steps are talked about in this book, Managing Oneself.
Should I try the 67 Steps?
Yes. It’s a great, inspiring course for anyone who enjoys reading, would like to start reading more (or again), or would like to start getting into reading as a way of learning all sorts of things you wouldn’t know otherwise.
I really credit this course with getting me back into reading again. I used to read all the time as a kid. I stopped for about 10-15 years. This course was a jump start that got me back into reading (and writing to a lesser extent) again!
67 Steps for Musicians?
I would recommend checking out the 67 Steps if you are a musician as well. It doesn’t directly deal with music, but a lot of the ideas apply to life in general, and you can (if you want) apply them to music.
A lot of the ideas Tai discusses I hadn’t heard commonly considered, acknowledged or discussed in musical circles. So, it was a lot of cool new perspectives that I hadn’t thought about before, or that I had thought about at one point and forgotten about.
So, yes, I think these are some great ideas – they are more left-brained, but I think in the end they could help a person lead a more fulfilled life.
What Books Does Tai Lopez Generally Recommend?
In general, he seems to go for books that reflect on bigger life questions (but in a more practical way), develop character and help in self-improvement. He likes to read a ton of books to glean ideas from the authors, though there seem to be just a few books that he read very thoroughly. Tai also does seem to have a very good memory. So while take others a long to remember/learn something from reading, he can learn in an hour or two.
In general, I would say he recommends:
- Reading biographies of very successful people (he loves Michael Jordan)
- Learning from history (he likes the Durants)
- High-quality business books (like Peter Drucker’s Managing Oneself)
- General self-improvement books, usually focused on productivity
- Books dealing with large topics that affect most people (i.e. Freud, Evolutionary Biology, Nutrition)