Today’s BEP Talks episode explored the power of beliefs, self-discovery, and finding greater meaning in life with Kirk Knapp, entrepreneur and author of The 7 Beliefs. We dove into his approach to uncovering your “TIPS”—temperament, interests, preferences, and strengths—and how understanding these qualities can help you recognize who you are and what you have to offer the world. Key themes included imagination, authenticity, motivation, meaningful work, and surrounding yourself with people whose strengths complement your own.

If you’ve ever wondered whether the beliefs you’ve carried through life are helping you move forward—or quietly holding you back—this conversation may inspire you to see yourself in an entirely new way.

Ready to discover more about your strengths, beliefs, and what truly motivates you?

Connect with Kirk Knapp, learn more about The 7 Beliefs, and explore his resources at: 7beliefs.com

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May the best always be yet to come.

Well, hey there, and welcome to this brand new edition of BEP Talks.

We're approaching it a little bit differently today, and I'm going to tell you why. I am so excited about today's conversation that I wanted to get right into it as quickly as possible. First of all, Bep Talks, you know, people from all around the world, all walks of life, different ages and stages of life.

industries, professions, what have you, come here and so generously share their beliefs, their experiences, and their passions. Why? Well, to inspire.

to motivate, to educate, and sometimes, maybe just to entertain. And my gut feeling tells me we're gonna get a whole lot of all of that today. So, I am so excited. I brought him on really early today. Please welcome to the Bep Talk stage today's guest, Kirk Knapp.

Hey there, Kirk! How are you?

Terrific! Thank you for this opportunity.

Oh, you are. You are terrific. You summed it all up. I guess we're done. You summed it all up. You're terrific. So, let me just say to the audience why I'm so excited about this. You know, every once in a while.

A truly unique… now, we're all unique, I get that, but someone who's truly unique from a very outstanding perspective.

Just crosses your path.

And that is what I have been blessed with for this Bep Talks. So let me just tell you a little bit about, Kirk Knapp.

He's known as the oldest man. That's just the title he gave himself. And I do want to say.

Kirk is a man in his 80s. Look how fast he looks.

Look how fantastic… and one thing I learned, I'm gonna tell this, most of our viewers are women, he's married to the love of his life, Bonnie, for more than 60 years. Somehow, Kirk, I think that has been…

a very important part… well, obviously a very important part of your life, but that Bonnie has played a very significant role in how you have come to be who you are and where you are today. Am I right?

Yes. Yes, absolutely.

Absolutely, absolutely. So… I don't know where to begin.

Well, let's start at the very beginning. Let's talk about your book called… The seven beliefs.

May I tell you why I wrote the book?

You absolutely MUST tell us why you wrote the book.

Okay.

Over a decade ago, I had a company called TatStore.com, I've started 4 companies.

And every one of them, I started with little or no money, and within the first year, made over a million dollars. And I did that with TatStore.

And I worked as hard as I could To help people be successful, at… a business.

And I was incredibly successful at doing that.

But… I was very unhappy about the fact that some people were not succeeding.

And I wanted everybody to succeed, and I did everything I could to help them succeed.

And eventually, I got to be near 70 years old.

And I was in a financial position where I didn't have to work.

So, I decided, I'm gonna close this down.

Now, at that time, Tat Store was number one.

Google, number one, and Amazon.com.

But, like I said, I couldn't help people. I just didn't understand what I could do to help people become successful.

And…

I didn't like the failures, and it took me over a decade to figure that out, and that's what my book is about.

Oh!

My book is completely original.

And… It is… According to Grok, which is… Elon Musk's AI system.

Grock has read every book on philosophy, psychology, everything you can imagine.

And Grok read my book and said that it is absolutely original and unique.

And he… Grock actually said, I was in awe, and…

I'm so happy about that, because I know my book has really helped people.

get the answers they need, and I explain all that in the book.

You ex… yeah. So… You're humble, you're successful, you're very handsome. What is it about people?

that… We sometimes get in our own way, perhaps.

and prevent ourselves from becoming successful? Have you found that to be true?

That is a great question, and I think it's dead right.

And most people don't know it.

For example, our audience, and incidentally, Beth, thank you so much for this opportunity, because I am being…

I'm given the pleasure of talking to the exact audience that I would love to talk to.

Yeah.

These people are entrepreneurs, and they're looking for answers.

And I can tell you that these people

are self-alienated. And how do I know that?

What I mean by self-alienated is, I'll ask your audience, how many of you set 3 goals in the morning and accomplish them?

And the answer is, you don't.

And why don't you?

The answer… is that…

You were taught at the earliest age, when you were in grade school and in kindergarten.

You were taught knowledge.

Now, Einstein says imagination is more important than knowledge.

And I agree with Einstein. I remember when I was a toddler, I was sitting at a table and a desk, and I was looking out and imagining wondrous things, and my teacher said, Kirk!

Pay attention.

Attend to your studies.

Now, the situation is that all of us

Government took over all the educational institutions, and they taught people knowledge.

And… Cheers.

some proof.

the NAS… a…

Conducted a test, and they looked at kids beginning in school, and then did a longitudinal study over

About 16 years, and this is what they discovered.

They were utterly shocked.

98% of the kids in kindergarten, had genius IQs.

Mmm.

activity.

Genius.

And over the 16 years, that lowered to 2%.

So, what happened?

They're… Creativity was crushed.

Because, like me, They were… here's what they didn't do.

They didn't, Beth, they didn't say, what are Beth's Beth, what's your temperament?

What are your interests? What are your preferences?

Hmm.

What are your strengths?

They didn't do that.

Hmm.

In fact, if you talked about that, They dismissed it, and said, Attend to your studies. Learn.

So you had, I call them tips, temperament, interests, preferences.

strengths. These are your gifts from Mother Nature, and they define your spirit.

But your spirit was crushed systematically through an educational system.

And I got more stories to tell.

In my book, I give you the proof, the evidence, of what was done.

So… I hope you read the book. I hope you'll go to my website, 7Beliefs.com, That's a number 7.

lease.com, and you will learn how

you'll… I'll teach you what your temperament is, what your interests are, what your preferences are, what your strengths are.

And this is what… You have to offer the world.

You are unique. I will teach you to be biased. Bias stands for B, beliefs. I, independence.

A, authenticity. S, significance. You have something to offer the world that nobody else has, and it's your bias.

So, I teach people to be biased.

And I teach you a lot more than that.

Hmm. Is that… is that answered?

I just called you Tom, because you referred… I didn't mention that. You referred to yourself as Tom, T-O-M, the oldest man, as kind of like a pen name of sorts, and I just called you Tom. How funny is that? So, let me go back to bias. What does the I stand for?

Independent.

Independent.

I love that. I love acronyms. I do that all the time. I always find a word so that it becomes easier to remember. So.

Are we finding… and politics aside, obviously education and how it's all run these days, and, you know, we've heard the word indoctrination used in the education

World, if you will, indoctrination to…

Think the way others want you to think.

That's what's killing the imagination, that's what's killing creativity.

I'm guessing is what you're saying.

Yes. What I want to say is that…

What you want to understand is your beliefs have more impact on you than anything else.

There are over 300 million books written on habits.

Habits, they're not that important. Your beliefs are important. And here's what most people don't understand.

There is no meaning in anything.

without your consent.

You are a god. That's with a small G, O-D-D. You are a god in the sense that you are conscious, and because you're conscious.

You can think, imagine, and decide.

You can decide on anything. For example.

What if you were a little girl, a little tiny child, A female.

And you've got a disease.

And that disease made you deaf and dumb.

blind, and you couldn't hear. Wouldn't that be awful?

Well, I'll tell you what.

Helen Keller didn't think it was a big deal. She became rich, famous, and people still today buy her books and read

This is what I'm telling you. If you think something bad has happened to you.

You have to understand, that's a judgment, and you make judgments.

mmm.

You are God. You decide.

You create your beliefs, and you know what your beliefs do? Your beliefs create the world you see, because if you're a Democrat.

you have different beliefs than a Republican.

And that leads to dissent.

division and discord that we're seeing, because people don't understand. They identify with their beliefs. Don't identify with your beliefs. You are a creator. You create beliefs. You can change the meaning of anything.

and everything.

But you have to learn how. You first of all, have to know yourself. You have to know your spirit, what you want.

And then you can develop that, and there's 100,000 other people that have a spirit similar to you, and they'd love to learn from you.

And you can do what you love, and you'll have more meaning, more motivation, and more productivity than ever.

than ever, ever. So, I want to go… you said that you were nearing the age of 70, you had built 4 very successful businesses,

But you felt, I'm guessing you felt a different calling, a different yearning. You had come to develop your own beliefs on why people were successful, why people chose

not to permit themselves to be successful, needing permission from somebody else, whatever. At the age of 70, which I'm making the point, is that

It's never too late.

To make significant adjustments in your life.

and to align yourself to be successful as a human being. You might not go out and create multi-million dollar businesses, but you're successful in and of yourself, because you gave yourself permission

to be successful. Am I reading that correctly?

What I'd like to do is tell you a story. It's not my story, it's a true story.

In my book, I tell all kinds of wonderful, true stories.

And they make you understand.

The question you're asking, Beth, is very important.

This is a true story. This happened… Over 2,000 years ago.

Buddha was in the Himalayas.

And he… there was a man who was about 100 miles south of him, and this man was sick and tired of hearing all the Buddha stuff.

And he… it just didn't make any sense to me. He was so disgusted, he made a point.

to travel north.

And he came upon Buddha. And Buddha, as usual, was sitting with his back against the tree trunk, Meditating.

And he called Buddha out.

And he told him he was a fraud.

And he told him, All kinds of negative things

The more he said, the more angry he got.

And he started flame coming out of his mouth, and he was yelling louder and louder.

What did Buddha do?

Buddha slowly got up.

There wasn't really any expression on its face.

But he walked towards the man.

And as he got closer, he put out his arms.

Water's arms.

And he walked up to the man, and he hugged him.

He hugged that man.

And the man.

Said, what are you doing?

I love you.

How can you love me?

You are human.

like me.

I love you.

That's what I'm trying to do with my book. And I tell stories, but they're all original stories based on my experiences.

Yeah.

And I promise you, you will love them, and you will learn from them.

I can't wait to get the book. Now, you're telling me we can be different, we can have very wide diversity in our thoughts.

In our beliefs, but we can still get along.

Absolutely.

And we should get along and honor other people's beliefs, and I'm guessing you might say, be open to learning something from another person.

Well, not only that, it's more than that. It's a situation that all of us are different. Everybody's unique. You are unique.

Of course.

Do you have tips for Mother Nature that nobody else has?

And there's maybe 100,000 people or more who can learn from you.

Because of your tips, and you've developed your tips, and you love what you're doing.

And I talk about meaning, motivation, and money.

How do you create meaning? People are…

currently concerned about creating money, but the trouble is, AI is going to make it unnecessary to make money within years. According to Elon Musk, they'll all receive a high income

More than enough to meet all of our needs.

And robots, humanoid robots, will be doing all the work that humans are doing now.

So the question is, what do you do if you don't have to make money?

And that's what my book answers. It tells you that. And it tells you that if you focus

On meaning, and not money.

But focus on meaning.

Then you will become more motivated than you otherwise would be, because you love what you're doing.

And if you do that, Then you'll make more money.

Than you ever thought possible.

Somewhere with it.

Because you'll be more significant to others. You'll have a bias, you'll be independent, authentic, and significant. Does that make sense, Beth?

You know, yeah, it does. It does, in a little bit of a scary, yet magnificent way. It kind of does. I want to ask you, you mentioned about Elon Musk, you name-dropper, you, and…

his AI

I want to kind of compare AI with imagination. Let me ask you, is AI going to diminish our…

Unique imaginations that we have, what's left of them.

Is it gonna take that away?

No. It's kind of funny. I personally believe that the best AI out there is

for us people. We can access it.

And the answer is, Drought can be incredibly stupid.

See, God doesn't really think or understand anything.

I just can read 400 books and look at everything in them and compare them.

And this… and could find out what is, like, for example, an expression. And it finds the best way to express something.

By doing that. So, it's just a pattern recognition device. Like, have you ever seen one of those pictures where they tell you there's something in it, and it looks like a mess, and you stare at it and stare at it, and finally you see it? Oh, yeah, it's there!

Well, that's what Grok does. Grok is a pattern recognition system.

But it has no empathy, no emotions, it doesn't feel anything. And emotions are more important

the knowledge. In fact, there's… studies have proven that 70% of your efficacy, your results, come from your emotions.

Not your intelligence. There are so many people that rate very high on IQ tests.

Yes.

But… Nothing but Bounder.

bouncers at a… heaven.

Because they… they lack the emotional intelligence. So emotional intelligence is more important than… than IQ. And all… all…

Humanoid robots right now, They don't have emotional intelligence.

And there's a distinction between meaning

And, for example, I asked my wife, and I would encourage your audience and you

To ask your people that are closest to you

what am I… how am I different? What am I good at?

my wife, told me, when I asked her, She said, understanding.

Mmm.

And I thought, well… And then she said, understanding in every sense of the word.

So I thought about that.

And then I took an empathy test, and this was an empathy test that was given to

the 500 top

CEOs of the Fortune 500 companies. Oh my god, I was rated in the number 1, number 2%, so 490 of them.

didn't have the empathy that I had.

And…

It turns out that those 10 that were in the same category as me, we had no way of testing who was the best.

But the point is that you have to understand empathy is not knowledge, it's understanding.

And… You want to develop your… if you develop your tips.

then you can be in a better position to understand others. In fact, you can go to my… go to my website at 7beliefs.com.

And you can take a free empathy test, and you'll learn your score.

Yeah, on empathy, and I'm looking… For people with high empathy, Because I have a mission.

And I… I want to pursue it. And your audience, Beth, is exactly who I want to communicate with.

Yeah.

I want to help them, and I think I can.

And my mission… the word FIA is an Italian word, and it means creative, self-reliant person.

And meta, of course, means… transformative. So, for example, the caterpillar becomes a butterfly.

And I want to help people become metaphiums, that is, people who… are massively creative, And self-reliance.

And then they can teach others to be that. So I have a metaphan movement, and if you go on my site, you'll learn about metaphorism, and if I'm successful, I will recruit you, and I'll have a person to be… to work with. And my goal…

is to create a million Menotheans by next year.

And these, you can think of them as teachers. Well, I actually call them advocates, because they advocate the ideas that are in my book. And I think there's, you know, I can't really…

explain everything as well as I can in the book. And incidentally, you can go to the site, 7leafs.com.

And you can click and get a free chapter, a free introduction to the book.

And you can decide if it's for you or isn't.

You did it in such a generous and intelligent way.

And good imagination, by the way, from a marketing perspective. You know, I am, known to be,

A true empath.

I've been criticized Because of it.

that, Beth, you always lead with emotion. And I'm like, but that's who I am. I don't…

Choose to, it's just always there.

It's… it's just, you know, close.

through my heart, close to relationship with people. Oh, you're too sensitive. I said, I'm not sensitive about me. You can say anything you want about me. I am sensitive to and react to what other people

are sensing and feeling and going through. And I've been criticized for that. You're just telling me that could be a superpower!

It is a superpower, and you need to teach others to have that superpower.

Oh.

And if we do that, Something wonderful will happen. Yeah. We'll become… we'll become like Buddha. We'll say.

I love you.

You're totally different than me.

But you know what? I have a team, and you can do what I can't do. And together, we can do more. So let's create a team of people, blah blah blah. And incidentally, my wife, who is a potter.

She told me… That the best part of… my book comes in three sections. Meaning, motivation, and money.

And you… She said, after reading through the whole book, How many times, Bonnie? About… A number of times.

She said that… the best part for her as a potter. She's…

She's in a number of galleries, but she said the best part was reading

After having studied meaning, motivation, and money, she really got

Answers to help her make more money.

By working with others.

And identifying how they can work together, how they can create a tribe. And that tribe becomes

bigger than one. It becomes… what you're looking for, I think, that…

Yeah, yeah, and I think that we, we…

We see that out in the world through celebrity, if you will. You mentioned Tony Robbins, in a previous conversation you and I had, and he certainly would be an example of that.

How he has the,

the words, the wisdom, the imagination to create what he created. So, there can be many Tony Robbins in the world, and in fact, there are.

And, we all have… do we all have the opportunity?

to be…

bigger, better, and I don't mean necessarily more money, but to be happier, to have a greater impact in the world, to leave the world a better place, and to have some sort of a positive legacy.

That we leave behind. Don't we all have that opportunity?

Absolutely, you are absolutely right.

So why do some people, like, not…

They're just not interested in it, they don't think they're deserving of it, they…

Well, unfortunately… As you say there's.

They're just not motivated?

That's right. They're not motivated because they don't know their own spirit.

they were taught some beliefs. Here, if you've seen a horse draw on a carriage.

Yes.

Now, you notice there's always blinders on the horse.

Yeah.

And what do the… what do the blinders do? They only allow the horse to see the road ahead. Right. Why? Because that's what the driver wants. The driver doesn't want

that horse to see other things and be distracted by him. He just wants

The horse to go straight ahead.

Right, right. Now…

politicians, religions, the commercials.

They do that. They want to instill in you a belief that will allow you to only see the road ahead that they want you to go down. What I want to do is save lives. People are spending their lives on distractions. Why?

Why are they spending on distractions? Because they're bored. Why are they bored? Because they don't know their tips, they don't know their spirit, and they don't know how to work with others, which they can do.

So, that's what the book's about. I can kind of give you an idea, but you gotta read the book.

You gotta read the book. There's so much here, but I'm thinking that everybody's going to…

find him or herself in the book. They're going to know what applies to them, and therefore, what's going to empower them, or give them the right to make the decision.

Right. To make changes.

Absolutely. See, the thing is, they don't have their spirit.

They had the blinders on. They were taught a belief.

And if they're a Democrat, they think of socialism, progressivism, communism, whatever you want to call it. And they see the world through that lens. That's all they see.

Or, if you're…

a Republican, it's different. But the point is, the beliefs… people are trying to manage people, trying to manage you. Yeah, yeah. They don't teach you… they teach you to be a conformist. They want you to just conform, and because that… you made great robots that way.

But now that the industrial age is gonna pass, and

we'll have robots doing all the jobs. Now what are you gonna do? If you know your spirit, know yourself.

you're going to be motivated. You're going to have… find it meaningful to do… to… to pursue your interests, your tips, and incidentally, I teach you your tips in my book, and then you… you will be able to

find meaning, and the more meaning you find, the more motivated you'll be. Sure. I mean, nobody likes doing things that aren't motivating, but if it's meaningful to you.

Right.

you'll be very motivated. Therefore, you'll be more productive. Therefore, Yule…

create more money. By money, I just mean significance. You'll contribute more to others, and it'll be massive, more massive than you can imagine. Everybody can make a million dollars.

Yeah. We're funded in different… Colors, sizes, shapes, and forms. Wealth.

Yeah, not just… not just my… You know, Tom, Tom, I'm calling you Tom again. I knew that this…

Bep Talks was going to be… well, they're all unique, of course, because as we agree, we are all unique.

But… You have created such curiosity in me.

Because I am a curious… yes, good, and I believe, I hope that it has created curiosity in our listeners and in our viewers.

So that you know.

The next thing you have to do is you have to go to, 7… the number 7Beliefs.com, and I think you are going to…

I think you're gonna meet someone fascinating. And I don't mean Kirk, Or Tom.

I mean yourself.

You're going to meet yourself, perhaps.

I love the way you put that.

In a whole new way!

Yeah.

Right? You're gonna meet yourself, your authentic self, your true self, that you have the right. So, you see me, beliefs, experiences, passions, I so come from that.

And, as an empath, encourage others, please, go, be the best that you can be. Be the happiest you can be. Find… find what motivates you. Understand, as, Kirk is going to teach you, what your temperament is.

Share what your interests are, your preferences. You know, a lot of people don't ask, well, what are your preferences? You know, you go to a restaurant, they ask you what you want, you know, prefer better white wine, but we're talking about much more significant preferences.

And, and, and strengths. Your inner strengths. The strengths that, at any age, as Kirk has told us.

You can tap into a greater level of…

Go meet yourself, go learn, really, who you are still meant to be, who you still can become. And then…

Use your imagination.

And find ways to share your new self with other people.

That's creating a team, and a team brings out more strengths of you and others, and as a team.

You will achieve so much more.

One sec.

And it was really a pleasure to watch my wife.

learn to befriend others who are doing things completely different than anything she could do, but together, they can do more for each other. So, think about it this way.

I guess I would just say a team is better to have than be… it's great for you to have a tribe.

Well, listen, I also love math, and we know that the total is always greater than the sum of the parts.

So…

Get on your team, choose your team, become part of somebody else's team, and as I said, discover at any age, at any stage of your life.

What's really meant For you in this world.

Kirk, you are truly…

I'm going right now and getting the book. I urge everybody, please go to 7Beliefs.com, find out

book, I imagine it's on Amazon?

17.

beliefs.

Yeah, and it tells you, you can take an empathy test, you can get the results of that test, there's other tests that will really help you identify your tips.

And, you can get… yeah, every… everything is self-explanatory, and if you have a problem, you just email me, and I'll help you with it.

Well, you are right. You told me that you are a great storyteller, and indeed you are. You are the real deal, Mr. Kirk Knapp, and I thank you so, so much for joining me here today on Beptalks and sharing… sharing, well.

As an 80-year-old sharing a… your life's…

discoveries, your challenges, your successes, and your humility. And I thank you so much for being with me today. Thank you very much.

Well, it's been an enormous privilege.

God bless. God bless. And as I say to all of our viewers, all of our listeners, you know, you have a story to tell. We all have a story to tell, and they are all worth sharing, they are all worth hearing. So please go to Beptalks.com, find out how you can become a guest on this stage at Beptalks.com.

And as we always say, until we talk again, may the best always be yet to come.

Until then, I will say bye for now, and once again, thank you, Kirk.

Q.

Thank you. My absolute pleasure. Wishing everyone a wonderful day. Bye for now.

Bye!