#740 - The Tai Lopez Show: My First Mentor Joel Salatin on Making America Work Again

The Tai Lopez Show

Tai Lopez

Business

4.8 • 6.9K Ratings

🗓️ 12 September 2025

⏱️ 67 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Tai Lopez sits down with legendary “lunatic farmer” Joel Salatin—his first mentor—to talk work, purpose, food systems, and practical self-reliance. This conversation focuses on what it actually takes to build competence at home and in business.

What you’ll learn:
• “Make America Work Again” (MAWA): why meaningful work builds families and communities
• Daily disciplines for health and clarity (sleep, reducing distractions, staying connected to real food)
• Practical steps for urban and suburban listeners: cook from scratch, know your farmer, value provenance
• Entrepreneurship on the farm: direct marketing, customer relationships, and honest incentives • Raising capable kids: responsibility, confidence, and learning by doing
• Becoming a lifelong learner instead of chasing quick fixes

Explore Joel’s work:
• Polyface Farms: https://polyfacefarms.com/ (Find Joel's Books in the Store!)
• The Lunatic Farmer (Joel’s blog): https://www.thelunaticfarmer.com/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Make America work again. Oh. The problem is not illegal. The problem is Americans won't work.
0:05.4	So I think we need to start a Mawa and then we'll be in business.
0:08.4	You first have to change how society sees work. Work is generally taught as a negative thing that we're trying to escape from.
0:16.8	But if you escape from all work, you also escape from purpose. That's right. The most fundamental human need, the need to feel needed.
0:23.6	And work makes you feel needed.
0:25.6	I mean, it's what you do.
0:26.6	We're known by what we do.
0:28.6	So when you take the do away, then there's no purpose and there's no need.
0:32.6	And when there's no purpose and no need, then I'm not important.
0:35.6	Touch something living, biological to realize you're not in control.
0:40.8	Too many people think that this world is just at the end of my little fingertips
0:45.4	and I can just manipulate it however I want to.
0:49.7	You're in my garage.
0:53.3	Welcome to a special episode of the Ty Lopez show. I've got my first mentor, Joel Salatin.
0:59.9	I came here when I was 19 years old and we're doing a private mastermind, but I wanted to do
1:05.2	a public podcast for different reasons. But Joel, thanks for taking the time.
1:11.1	Thanks for having me, Ty.
1:12.7	Joel was just giving a talk on, he has a new speech he was practicing on the crowd here.
1:17.3	And I want to get into the couple ones that you didn't finish.
1:19.6	But the first thing, you know, I feel like when I came here when I was 19,
1:25.1	there was like three things that's that I really learned from Joel
1:29.3	that I think is important for anybody, entrepreneur, any human really. Number one, common sense
	...

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