The Rich Roll Podcast - Tucker Max Grows Up: How To Own Your Emotional Truth, Redefine Your Story & Find Happiness

Episode Date: June 29, 2015

This week I'm going out on a limb. When the opportunity arose to sit down with Tucker Max, I admit to a little discomfort and trepidation. On the one, hand, I was genuinely honored he was interested in doing the show. On the other hand, I wasn't convinced he was the right fit for what I do. To be sure, Tucker Max is a high performing super-achiever. He is incredibly bright. He is insanely accomplished. And he has millions of fans the world over. Nominated to TIME magazine's “100 Most Influential List” of 2009, Tucker's first book I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell* was a #1 New York Times Bestseller, spent 5 years on the list and ultimately sold over 2 million copies. He followed it up with two more books, both of which were also New York Times Bestsellers. Perhaps most impressive? Tucker is one of only three writers — along with Malcolm Gladwell and Michael Lewis — to ever have three books on the New York Times Non-Fiction Bestseller List at the same time. Tucker Max is a publishing juggernaut. Irrespective of whatever opinion you may hold about the content of those books, you cannot deny that is a towering achievement. However, it's these very books, the fratire genre he singlehandedly birthed, and Tucker’s very public persona as America’s foremost bro — well known for his healthy ego, brash opinions and candid chronicling of his outlandish partying exploits – that gave me considered pause. Do I really want to talk to a guy who wrote a book called Assholes Finish First?* It’s just not my scene. It's not what I’m about. I don’t support those ideas. I'm not interested in that guy. It’s not me. But what is interesting, and why I ultimately decided to go forward with this interview, is that's not Tucker either. At least not any more. The Tucker Max of today is not the same hard drinking, hard partying, womanizing Tucker Max that made him famous and rich. In the wake of his staggering success, Tucker woke up to realize that all the material benefits he worked so hard to attain just weren't quite all they were cracked up to be. None of it made him happy. So what then? Ego must submit to introspection. Entering a period of honest self-reflection, Tucker took inventory of his life. He underwent psychological analysis. He asked himself the hard questions. What is truly important? In a word, Tucker Max grew up. Emerging from that former guy far more self-actualized, Tucker is telling a new story. Retired from fratire writing and the partying lifestyle, Tucker is now happily married (yes, monogamous) with Bishop, his newborn son. Today he is an angel investor and start up entrepreneur with a successful and exciting new venture designed to democratize publishing called Book In A Box. He co-founded and co-hosts The Mating Grounds, a popular podcast designed to help men have successful relationships with women. And September marks the release of his new book

All life really boils down to for humans are the relationships you have with the people you love and the things you do that matter to other people. That's Tucker Max this week on the Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey everybody, how you guys doing? It's Rich here, Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, everybody. How you guys doing? It's Rich here, Rich Roll, your host. And thank you for tuning in. So on this show, I have the great privilege of sitting down with some pretty amazing people. Some of the best, most pioneering, paradigm-breaking minds and personalities across all categories.

Everything from health and wellness to fitness to medicine, nutrition, spirituality, psychology. And in the case of today's guest, relationships, publishing, and technology. And the big idea behind all of this really is to leverage the insights provoked by these conversations and these thought leaders to really help you just live better, to be better, to help all of us unlock and unleash our collective best, most authentic selves. So thank you for subscribing to the show. I appreciate it. I appreciate you spreading the word on social media. And of course, for always clicking through the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com for all your Amazon purchases. It's a great free way to support the mission. And thank you so much to

everybody who has made a habit of this. So awesome. If you have not yet done so, why don't you go ahead, bookmark the link from the banner out on my site, why don't you, and make it easy. It's a win-win for all of us. Okay. Listen up, you guys. As you know, advertisers support the show and they keep it free for you. So. All right. So where to begin? We're switching gears a little bit today. We're going to venture into some uncharted territory, uncharted waters. I think it's fair to say we're going out on a bit of a limb, I suppose. So look, when the opportunity arose to have Tucker Max on the show, I got to admit, I got a little uncomfortable. I had a little bit of trepidation. On the one hand, I was super honored that he had an interest in doing the show. That's super cool. But at the same time, on the flip side of that,

I also wasn't convinced that he was really the right fit for what I do, what I speak to, and kind of what I stand for and what I'm trying to accomplish through this show. I mean, look, certainly he's super bright. He's incredibly accomplished. He's got millions of fans. I mean, this is a guy who was nominated to Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential List in 2009. His first book, I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell, was a number one New York Times bestseller. It spent five years on the list. It sold over 2 million copies. And his second and third books were also New York Times bestsellers. And he is only the third writer, along with Malcolm Gladwell and Michael Lewis, to ever have three books on the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list at the same time. I mean, that's insane. Just think about

that for a minute. So, what am I saying? Well, certainly he is a publishing juggernaut. And no matter what your opinion is of his books, you have to admit that that is pretty astonishing. But it's these books combined with Tucker's public persona, you know, he's kind of known as America's foremost, quote unquote, bro. You know, a guy kind of known for his big ego, his braggadocio, his brash chronicling of his partying exploits. Well, all of that really gave me pause. I mean, do I really want to talk to a guy who wrote a book called assholes finish first? I mean, that's just not my scene, man. I mean, it doesn't really fit with what I'm about. I mean, frankly, I'm just not,

I'm not interested in that guy. I don't support those ideas. It's just, it's not me, but I'll tell you this, what is interesting and why I ultimately decided to go forward with this interview is that that's not Tucker either. At least not anymore. I'm not sure it ever really was. The Tucker Max of today really just isn't the same hard drinking, hard partying, womanizing Tucker Max that made him famous and made him, you know, really rich. made him famous and made him, you know, really rich. And in the wake of his pretty staggering success, this is a guy who woke up to realize that all of the gifts of that success, all of those externalities really just weren't making him happy. So what do you do when that happens? What do you do when you've achieved your dream and you're in that destination point and it's

not meeting your expectations? You're not feeling fulfilled. Well, ego has to submit to introspection, to self-reflection. And that's what Tucker did. He really started to do the internal work. He underwent analysis. In short, he grew up. And the Tucker that has emerged from that former guy is a much more

self-actualized person. He got married, he has a baby, and he retired not from writing, but from the fratire genre that he basically created and that whole lifestyle that surrounds all of that. So, here's the deal. If this podcast is about anything, it's about transformation, our internal innate potential for transformation, how we navigate and overcome the obstacles that are placed in front of that transformative process. It's about owning your truth. It's about your story. It's about evolving, maturing, and letting go of the things that no longer serve you, moving past old habits and patterns. It's about growth. And I really wanted to explore that arc with Tucker. I wanted to know why he decided to change, what prompted it and how he did it, how he looks back on that former guy,

what he's interested in now, and really, you know, what can be mined from his experience that can be a benefit for all of us. And I got to say, in all honesty, I really ended up enjoying the conversation tremendously. We had a really good time. I think it came off really, really well. And look, Tucker's still Tucker. Don't get me wrong. I mean, this guy is sharp. He's ribald. He's very self-assured. He's highly opinionated. He's completely unapologetic. But he's also surprisingly reflective and introspective about his life and his background. So I'm excited to share it with you today. explicit language. I just wanted to point that out and as well as a couple off-color stories, but hey, look, what are you going to do? It's Tucker Max, right? I mean, it just comes with the package. So it is what it is. All right, you guys, are you ready? All right, here goes nothing. What are you doing in LA?

So I'm out here. We've got a meeting tonight. In fact, I'm leaving here whenever I leave, and we're going to pick up an investor for not investor, an angel. I think our final, not angel, advisor. Sorry, dude. I've been talking all day long, and now all my words are flowing together. Yeah, you shouldn't be raising money for- No, no. We're not raising at all. No, no, no, no, no, dude. I've been talking all day long and now all my words are flowing together. Yeah, you shouldn't be raising money for...

No, no. We're not raising at all. No, no, no, no, no, no. But we may raise eventually if we turn it into a SaaS platform. If we can do this as software as a service and make it super cheap. The reason to do it as software as a service is we can do this really cheap for people. And so if we do that, we're probably going to have to raise money. So we're bringing on some advisors now.

Not necessarily to raise, but just people to help us build the company, help us connect us to a lot of people, whatever. So one of the main guys, one of the big, big angels in America is actually in LA. And he wants to come on as an advisor first because he wants to put money in. So we're meeting with him and his team today and then we're going to talk about advisor terms, stuff like that. And then we're probably going to write out sort of like set up

terms for a raise, but then it'll be up to us whether we ever trigger it. But stuff like does he get to lead the round? What allocation of the round? Stuff like that. So that was the reason we came out to LA. And then, you know how it is.

LA is the type of city, you can always take 10, 20 meetings. And so we stacked everything together. And then it's like- Just blow it out before you go back home. Yeah, that's cool. I mean, it's actually hard to do more than one or two meetings a day in LA, as opposed to New York. You can get so much done.

But here, it's like- You can do it in LA. I lived in LA for two years. You got to like, well, New York, you can get so much done here. It's like, you can do it in LA. I lived in LA for two years. You got to like, uh, well see, look what I did. Like you came, I had lunch right next door. Right. And then, uh, so I, the first meeting, we had two meetings, uh, in Beverly Hills, two breakfast and then coffee. And then came here five minutes away. And then, uh, the angels in Venice beach. Soice beach so like we'll and it's like not till six it's like way far away right right right so we've got like the hour and a half traffic built in you if you do it it's almost like logistics like a ups puzzle right like if you

put the meetings in the right sequence at the right times you can totally take three four five in a day in la but if you just do it randomly you're totally screwed but if you're going from like burbank to venice to Beverly Hills, like forget it. You're just- No way. Yeah. It's not going to do it. Well, good. I'm glad we can make this work. And I want to get into book in a box and all that kind of stuff. But one of the ways I thought would be cool to kick it off is we're in Century City, we're sitting in a hotel room, and it's impossible for me to be in Century

City and not reflect back on my career as a lawyer and my law school experience because I worked right next door in the Diehard building in the Nakatomi Plaza. The Nakatomi Plaza. As an associate in a law firm for many years. So although I rarely come to Century City these days, I used to come here every single day. Is it like bad flashbacks and stuff? A little bit, you know, like, yeah, like a certain, every once in a while I'll hear a voice that sounds remarkably similar to like a partner that I used to work for. And I'll just, I'll have this like fight or flight like reaction. Totally. Like I have post-traumatic stress disorder from that experience. A hundred percent. It's crazy that this many years after it, I still live with that.

But did you go and work in a law firm after law school? I was straight up fired. Oh, were you? Fenwick and West. It's a big Silicon Valley firm. I wasn't there long enough to get PTSD. I got fired after three weeks. Three weeks?

Three weeks, dude. Yeah, because I'd never seen anything about your career as a lawyer. enough to get PTSD. I got fired after three weeks, three weeks, three weeks, dude. Yeah. Cause I'd never seen anything about your career as a lawyer. I mean, I know you went to law school, but what did you do to, to, so the, the stories in my first book, basically what happened was, uh, there were two things. So, uh, I was actually, here's what's funny. I didn't get fired. You're a lawyer. So you'll understand the difference. I didn't get fired from a job. I got fired as a summer associate. That's really hard. Your only job is to have a good time and go to ball games and go to happy hour. But there's a limit on the type of good times you can have. Like just not showing up? No, no. I showed up. I actually did great work. The partners

are working with me. Thought I was like, oh, this dude's really smart. He's great. There were two big problems. One was one of the senior female partners, not associates, partners in the firm propositioned me, right? Because I was like the fun, drunk, party summer, right? And there was this one partner, female partner, who was a total cougar. And she was all over And I, to this day, I don't know why I turned her down. And I have no idea why, because I've slept with women who are far uglier than her and far older. And I don't know what I was thinking, especially cause I was like 25 at the time. Right. So it was basically just a big walking like penis. And, um, I turned her down and then here's what, here's the best part. I turned her down and then i told everyone in the firm about it oh yeah that was not a smart political move dude i did the literal worst thing

i could have slept with her and then i was bulletproof or i could have turned her down and shut up right but instead i did the worst option three option c option three get fired so then they just how did that go just that went down on like a Monday or Tuesday night. The next weekend we went to this winery for like the firm retreat. And they brought the summers, obviously. And I got hammered at this thing. And there was like a charity auction for like the firm. And it was things like, you know, the managing partner makes you dinner or whatever.

And I went up on stage and I took the mic from the auctioneer because I was like trying to bid on this one thing and someone was out bidding me. So I took the mic from the auctioneer. I started cursing at them and like making them stop bidding. It was like, it was one of those things where it was started off really funny and then it got like unfunny. It got really ugly quickly. Well, you didn't give them much choice. No, I didn't. But you were still in law school then, right? So after you graduated, though. No, no, they fired me. And then here's what's crazy. I wrote an email.

I got fired the next Wednesday. That Monday, I wrote an email about it to my friends, sent it to them. I get fired. Of course, my friends are dicks. So they forward the email to all their friends at all the different law firms they're summering at, right? And so it blows up. I mean, this is 2000. This is email, even though MySpace doesn't exist, email's fully in existence.

And the email goes everywhere. And you know how small law firms are in the legal community. So I can't even interview when I get back to Duke. I'm totally, I'm the dude who got fired after three weeks for getting drunk. Job prospects are over for you before you even graduated. Exactly. So then when you graduated, what were you thinking you were going to do? I went to work for my dad.

He owns restaurants in South Florida. Right. And then my dad fired me. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I've heard that story. Well, one of the things that you wrote that really spoke to me was that article. I think it was originally in Huffington Post about why you shouldn't go to law school. Because I've often thought like, you know, I'd really like to put together like a keynote and just travel to all the law schools and just break down exactly what the practice of law actually entails.

Catch them before they go. And explain to them that, you know, just to disabuse them of this myth or, and I think the thing is, and one of the things you pointed out in that article is you sort of dispel all these ideas about what the practice of law, you know, what you kind of conjure it up to be in your mind versus what it really is. And all the reasons why you can kind of, you know, trick yourself into thinking it's a good idea when maybe it's not. And then you sort of say, I knew all this stuff and I still went and I made this mistake and I'm trying to help you from making the mistake that I did. And I knew all those things too and I made it. And I think there's something, I don't know if it's inherent to the law student or in general or just young people, but you think that your experience is going to be different. You know all that stuff

and you're like, but that's not going to be me. Oh, I said that. I'm like, well, I'm better than all those people. And you go on these, you get these cushy jobs at these law firms as a summer associate where they pay you really well and they don't overwork you and they entertain you and wine and dine you and you do all this fun stuff. And then you're like, eh, it's not so bad. Right. You know, I'll do this. It's not the worst.

I'm just going to pay off my law school loans and I'll go do what I'm going to do. That's how they suck you in like drug dealers. And then you get sucked in, and then you're there, and you've got a pile of debt, and you're miserable. And to compensate for being miserable, you start spending your money, right? You start leasing a car maybe you can't afford. You get an apartment that's a little bit above your pay grade. And then you're stuck, man. Because that just escalates. You have the golden handcuffs. Yeah. And I've seen it so many times with so many people. And then they just resign their life to

it. And they say, well, maybe next time. And they try and rationalize it. A lot of rationalizations. And then when you leave, I remember when I finally was like, I just can't. I mean, I was so burned out that I can remember sitting at my desk and all I had to do was like type a confirming letter. Like the deposition will be at this place at this time. And I was like, I can't do it. I could not make my fingers type. And I was like, done. And when I decided to leave, the reaction of the other associates is pretty interesting because they're not necessarily so supportive.

Because if you can break free, that's very threatening. It's a mirror that shines on their inability. Yeah. And so that's frightening for them because if somebody can do it, that means they can too. And there's a lot of fear that comes up with that. And then they have to face the fact that they don't. They can and they don't because you did it. And if they don't, they have to face the fact that they're being cowards or they're whatever, whatever their problem is. And I mean, it's not even, it's almost not even fair to say cowardice because if, if I think a lot of people probably enter into that world in a way

that's probably similar to the way that I did in the sense that my whole life was premised upon, you know, academic achievement and like, you know, that sort of myth of the American dream that you're chasing and sort of social acceptability and security and all these sorts of things, right? So you're not really, I never was thought to really think critically or out of the box about my life. And this just seemed like a good thing to do. And not because I had any kind of inherent passion for it, but just because it's respectable, Right. And so when you're faced with the prospect of leaving, that's like, that was the scariest thing I ever did in my life to this day, like that day. Cause when I walked out, I didn't have another job. I didn't, it wasn't like I

knew what I was going to be doing. I had no idea. All I knew was that. Right, right, right. But I think to say to somebody else, like the fact that they don't do it as cowardly, I think it's just, that's, that's how they were raised. You know what I mean? It's frightening. It's frightening for sure. It is. Anyway, but I think that would be like actually fun to go around and actually talk to kids like, oh, this is what the real deal is. Dude, I get emails all the time from people who are like, one side or the other, I read it, I knew you were right. I still went, oh God, why didn't I listen? Uh, and then I'll, all of a sudden I write back, I say, quit. It's not too late. Then some do some don't. And then

others who are like, Oh my God, thank you so much because of your piece or partly because of it. I didn't go to law school. I'm so happy now. And I see people who did and I, that would have been me. Yeah. Like, I, like, I, I don't know how much you pay attention to law schools now, but you notice the last two years, I think applications have gone down like 70% or some crazy number. That's pretty interesting. They've bottomed out. They're below even what they were in the early 80s, right before LA law came on and it created the big spike. They're back below that now. Law schools are going out of business. It's amazing. Well, we're entering what James Altucher would call the choose yourself era. It's an independent

contractor world and young people are not interested in that traditional career track. You know, the millennial mindset, the millennial psyche is, you know, I want to chase my passion. And that gets branded and sort of unfairly characterized as selfish or self-seeking. Not in the least. I think there's something really golden and beautiful about that. I agree. To the extent that somebody can find a way to support themselves, even if it's project to project, by doing something that they enjoy. Like, that's something to celebrate.

You know what I mean? And in my case, like, it was even worse than that because I was a paralegal in New York City for Skadden Arps for two years before I went to law school. Oh, wow. That's the belly of the beast. And I still went. And this was like 1989, 1991. That's the real belly of the beast, Skadden. Big Times, M&A era and all that kind of stuff.

And it was insane when I was there. And I was the world's worst paralegal because all I wanted to do was party and I was making no money. And so I hung out with these guys that we called ourselves like the kings of the low budget social scene. So we always knew where the free beer was

and that we get free food. And because we literally like had to make an awesome night out of like 10 bucks and that's all we could afford, you know? And the day-to-day grind of being in that environment and watching those lawyers like suffer, you know, it was horrible. And I was terrible at it and I didn't care.

And I still went to law school. That's how deeply ingrained that programming was. You know what I mean? You know what's funny? I know a lot of paralegals say that. You're not alone. It's not like, oh, what a crazy person. A ton of people in law school are paralegals.

It's almost like, I think it's the idea that, fuck it, if I'm going to take the abuse, I might as well get paid like unconsciously, you know? Like I don't know why, but yeah, you would think that would be like an antidote, but it acts almost like as an inoculation. And so you almost forget that there's a way to be human. Like you don't have to suffer through that. Yeah, and I think, you know I think that system breeds really good followers, people that are really smart and diligent and know how to work hard. But the greatest lawyers are not those people. The greatest lawyers are the free thinkers. Those aren't the name partners.

Yeah. The people that are the rainmakers don't really play by those rules. Joe Flom wasn't playing by the rules. Yeah, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. So anyway, so many kind of inflection points that we can talk about, but I think the thing that I want to talk about with you the most, I think, and kind of what this podcast really focuses on is personal growth and transformation. And obviously, you have sort of this reputation out in the world for being the sort of creator or proponent of the fratire genre and you've sold a bazillion books. I think it's, what is it, like over 3 million now. It's crazy, right?

And then you reach this point where you're like, I'm not doing that anymore. And for lack of a better phrase, you're growing up. Are you married yet or you're engaged? So you're married now and you've got a nine-month-old son. Yep, nine-month-old son, Bishop.

So you're an adult. Totally full adult now. And with that, there's a very interesting arc. And in kind of looking into your story a little bit more deeply and poking around the internet, look, there's no shortage of articles that kind of adhere to the typical narrative that you would expect. But the one piece that I thought was the most informative and kind of revealing was Michael Ellsworth's piece in Forbes. And that guy's an amazing writer. And I read a lot of the stuff that he does, you know, he's very insightful.

And that was the only thing that I felt like really did you the service of, you know, breaking down what it was that kind of, you know, got you to that place of deciding that this was going to be part of your past and that you were kind of embarking into, you know, a new, you know, a new version of yourself, I guess. And so, so I want to kind of break down that, that process. Cause I think, you know, really what it, what it, in a nutshell for me, what it entailed was, you know, really looking at yourself and being honest with yourself about what led to some of those behaviors that created the books that were fast car and you got tons of girls and you got money in the bank that you're going to be happy. That's what you want. You are a success story.

You could not have been more successful as a writer. You had more than enough money and tons of girls around and all the trappings of, you know, what Madison Avenue would tell you is, is the recipe for being a fulfilled human being. And you know, where did that land you? Yeah, no, it's, it's funny. Like you nailed it because you probably went through your own version of the same thing. Like I, it, for me, it was more like, um, it was unusual. I, a lot of the times the narrative is like you hit rock bottom, right? I didn't ever hit rock. There was no rock bottom for me. It was, you, you're exactly right. My sort of, uh, rock bottom was not one moment. I think it was a series of, of sort of events. And it was like, here I was, I had, uh, sold millions of books. I had millions of dollars. I had, I didn't have enough time to sleep with all the women who wanted to sleep with me.

Uh, I could do anything I wanted, whatever. And I remember when I started thinking, okay, if I just had X, I'd be happy. And X was minus a thousand what I had, right? And then, so here I am with a thousand X, what I need, what I thought I needed to be successful and happy. And I liked it. It was better than being poor. Make no mistake about it. It was better than where I came from, but I wasn't happy. It wasn't satisfying. And so I kind of went through this stage where I was like, okay, I just need to get healthy. I'm not eating right, whatever. So then totally got off grains and sugar and whatever, eat ancestral and all that stuff. Felt great. Started doing MMA and jujitsu and amazing shape. And that was great. Started, you know, doing MMA and jujitsu and like amazing shape. And like, that was great.

But it's like, okay, um, you know, there were other things I fixed a lot of other sort of external things. And I fixed everything that could be fixed to the point where I had this totally perfect, not empty, but just unfulfilling life. Right. And so it was like, okay, listen, at some point, dude, you got to turn around and look at yourself. Because if it's nothing external, it has to be internal. And then that was, it wasn't one time, man.

I wish I could be like, oh, it was this moment and this happened and the magic pill saved me. It was just more like, man, I've got to look at myself and I've got to look at what I'm doing. And I got to maybe think about the fact that maybe all the ideas or a huge set of them are wrong in my head. Yeah, I mean to camp out here for a second. I mean in my case, I had to get sober. Like my partying wasn't nearly as ribald as yours, but like my alcoholism definitely escalated beyond what you experienced. my alcoholism definitely, you know, escalated beyond what you experienced. And I was sort of, you know, faced with a moment of reckoning on that, that compelled me to either, you know, that was going to kill me or save me. But I think, you know, in most people's situations,

you know, it's very convenient if you have that rock bottom moment and the skies part and, you know, the angels descend and you're struck, you know, either sober or with some sort of epiphany about your life. I don't think that that is the normal experience. And I see it in sobriety all the time. Like people have varying degrees of bottoms, you know, sometimes it's horrible, right? But other times it's just like, you know what? I was, I was just done. Like nothing crazy happened. Like I just knew, you know, I just woke up one day and it wasn't that different than any other day. And I decided I was done. And so what I always say is if the elevator is going down or the car is driving in the wrong direction, you always have control over that trajectory.

But it's just harder when you're not in a terrific amount of pain. When you don't have to make the decision. Yeah, like pain is the ultimate motivator, right? How do you make that decision when you're not in that amount of pain? It sounds like you were in a little bit of pain. I mean you were in enough pain to be reflective. You know what it was, dude? I was lonely, like in a genuine, like honest way. Uh, I don't mean like I didn't have P I had great friends and I had a lot of girls, but I was, it's hard for me. I think I'm still coming to terms with the true depth of what and where I was.

But I think it was just basically I was really lonely. Like I realized like most of what I had. It's not that it was bad. It was just, you know, it's like fast food tastes really good, but doesn't get you where you want to go. And I kind of had, I think, that was sort of my life. I was proud of a lot of things I'd done, but it was like, where was I? What was I doing? I always say now to people, the things that matter in life,

all life really boils down to for humans, are the relationships you have with the people you love and the things you do that matter to other people. And so at that point, I'd written books that millions of people had loved and laughed at and helped, uh, you know, entertainment. I mean, it wasn't like, you know, some, uh, earth moving thing, but it was, it was entertaining and that was about it, you know? And, and I, to, to me it was like, man, I can do a lot of amazing shit and all I've done is make people laugh. There's've done is made people laugh. There's nothing wrong with making people laugh. Louis CK makes the world a much better place,

but it's like, you know, my stuff was like, okay, fine. But, uh, and then on the other hand, like I didn't have, I had good friends, but it's like, I feel like so much around me, I got stuck in that celebrity trap where so much of it, uh, wasn't real, you know? And it was like, so much of it was predicated on what I meant to people in their life, not what our relationship was, you know? It's like, Oh, like I'm helping Tucker with his movie or whatever. And it's like, not bad people, but just like, these aren't real relationships, you know? I mean, you know, I've lived in Los Angeles for a long time and, you know, I can tell you for a fact that, you know, I've had direct experiences with a lot of people who are enormously successful and

wealthy and some of the most miserable, miserable people I've ever met and people that don't treat other people very well, you know, and they're unhappy and, and, you know, it's always the next thing that's going to make them happy. It's getting the next movie set up or, you know, I'm going to trade in the Tesla for a Ferrari or whatever it is. And that'll make it better. Chase that to your grave. You know, whether it's the next heroin fix or the next mansion, it does not matter. And I've got a buddy right now. He's a really handsome, successful guy. And he's recently, he's going through a divorce and he's, and he's going

nuts with girls, like crazy, crazy, you know, just going bananas. Right. And he just finally like hit his, hit the wall with it. And he's like, it does not work. It does not, it does not work. It's not working. It's not working. It's an inside job. It's an inside job. Like this is not making me happy. Nothing in that vagina is going to solve your problems. It feels good. Sex is great. Women are amazing. But having sex with lots of them doesn't, it doesn't, in the most starkly honest, raw way, you can't bury your pain in a pussy, you know?

Like, you can't get rid of your loneliness by filling your, you know, by filling your life with women, lots of different women. It just doesn't, it's not, I don't mean it like in a bad way. I w in a weird way, I wouldn't take back what I went through. I love, I had a lot of good times. Right. But it's like, um, I'm one of those people that's got to learn the hard way, you know, and my hard way was hard, but it was also fun. But yeah, like I don't, it's, I have a wife now I sleep with one woman and it's like, it's actually, it's weirdly way more satisfactory and fulfilling in almost every single way, right? Listen, let's not, there's always going to be appeal to, that's a pretty woman. I really like to hook up with her. But like,

other than that sort of like normal animalistic sort of novelty type situation, almost everything is better about having real connections with amazing people and, um, having real relationships. I don't know any other way to put it, you know,

certainly, you know, for a fact. I feel like, you know, I listened to a couple of interviews with you and there always seems to be this sort of implicit desire in the interviewer for you to distance yourself from the things that you've done in your past through your 20s. They always want me to repent. And have you kind of say, I'm ashamed of this. They always want me to repent, always. They're wanting you to do that, and you're always very clear that you own it and that you don't regret it.

And I think it's easy to criticize you for that, but I think that growth requires you to own your past and to get to a place where you can just accept it and hold it out to the world without repercussion and just say, this is who I am. And in order to grow, I think you have to do that. Because if you are ashamed of it, that means you have unresolved issues within yourself about it. And I think that that is an impediment to kind of getting to the next level. All right, dude, I could not agree more. I always have this saying, like,

I wasn't deformed. I don't need to reform. I just went through sort of a phase and it was, I was an incomplete person, but the way you become complete is you figure that out. You know, just like I played with GI Joes when I was 10. I didn't do that when I was 20. It doesn't mean what I did when I was 10 was wrong. It was a phase. It's how you get to, you know, how you get to good human relations and object relations is you start with dolls, right? Same thing. And people, a lot of people don't get that. There's, I think, because there's a lot of, there's a narrative in our culture that it's not okay to do certain things and it's not okay to then like not, to not repent. Like you have to like, I mean, this might be way off base or a very different discussion, but like, I think this

falls into line with like the medicalization of addiction and disease. Like addiction is just not a disease. Addiction is terrible in so many ways, but it's not, there's just, it's not, you don't catch alcoholism. It doesn't happen that way. Like you, lots of problems, uh, lots of issues with that. But like, um, I just don't, I don't feel like, um, I just don't feel like I – you know what the idea – I think the idea stems from if addiction is a disease, then you can forgive the addict because it wasn't their fault, right? And I'm not trying to say addiction is a conscious decision every time because I know, there's other dynamics at play that make it much more complex. But it's okay to say something like, you know what? I drank a lot because I was sad and lonely and I didn't know what else to do or I liked drinking or whatever. And then it became a problem. And then I, I decided, you know, I needed to solve it and I solved it, you know, and it doesn't have to be a disease. You can just exactly what you

said. You can just own your problem and admit that it was a problem and, uh, and own, you know, even the good parts of it. Like you were an alcoholic. I bet you still have like, that was fun. That one time we went out drinking or whatever, you know, it doesn't all have to be terrible. You don't have to like, Oh, we got to fit this norm. And then we have to disown everything about our past. Yeah. I mean, I think you're, you're talking about two different things in terms of like, you know, looking back on my drinking career, like, you know, in the early days, yeah, I had a lot of fun and actually it, it, it helped socialize me and brought me out of my, you know, I was a very insular, like, who had difficulty interacting with people and making friends.

It allowed me to come out of my shell, but it also turned on me. I would disagree with you on the disease model. I think as somebody who is an alcoholic, I'm very involved in the recovery community. I'm around these people all the time. It truly is an allergy of the body and an obsession of the mind. And, you know, I've been around a long time and, you know, it's still something I have to work on all the time with all the interpersonal work that I've done. And it seems like, you know, every couple of years, somebody will come along with like sort of a new version of how to treat

this disease. And I'm not to say that any one way is better than any other. And whether it's a disease or it isn't doesn't really interest me. Like I have a way of resolving it for myself, like on a daily basis that works and works for my friends. And, you know, I've seen it do amazing things for people and it's not perfect. And that's not to say that there aren't other ways that are valid or worth considering. But, you know, I think that's a whole other podcast we could do, you know what I mean? But I think that, you know, I think for me, you know, if I, if all I did was start eating really well and, and, and, you know, training my body and maybe go see a shrink, I don't know that that would resolve my alcohol problem, you know?

I don't know either. Yeah. So, but anyway, we're, uh, what do you, um, let me, let me ask you. So, uh, cause we're... Well, what do you... Let me ask you. So, because obviously, like, I'm not a fucking addiction expert, right? I just, whatever, see things, read things, interact with people. There's a lot of sort of thought in this area that addiction is actually a problem with human connection and not really... It's not a disease model meaning, like, you know what I mean. We don't have to go deep into that. But there's a lot of research on a lot of people who are like, look, addiction is primarily,

uh, and there's a lot of evidence that I think points to this. It might be right. Am I not right? I'm not going to like argue this position, but what do you think about that idea that, that addiction is primarily, uh, a problem of disconnection from other people and that whether it's gambling or sex or alcohol or heroin, whatever, is a way of sort of resolving that pain or sort of filling that lack of connection. Does that make sense? Yeah, of course. There's wisdom in that for sure. I don't know that I would say that it's predominantly a function of that, but I think that part of the solution is creating greater and deeper interpersonal emotional connection with other people. And, you know, part of the thing that kind of goes on here when, you know, sort of experts, you know, suddenly come to the forefront and are offering different ideas about, you know, what this is and how to treat it is that, you know, Alcoholics Anonymous is anonymous at the level of press, radio, and film.

So by very definition, built into the essence of what this is, they're really not allowed to respond. And that's part of the fabric of why it's been able to exist and grow for so many years, because of its sort of depoliticization of it. So there's never a counterpoint to that. So I think that the dialogue becomes a little bit one-sided, but I think for me, a big part of the solution is being connected to other people that share the affliction that I have and working through those issues or things that come up together is a fundamental aspect of getting better. I mean, most of the data shows like AA, for the most part, everything you do in AA is totally worthless except for the group, the people. Like except a higher being, whatever.

Like if you look at like, from my understanding, again, I'm not like the expert, but like so much of it is like, you could take this out and it wouldn't statistically affect outcomes. But the one thing that, that I think over and over has major statistical effects on outcome, like big ones. In fact, the biggest one is the group itself, like the connection to other people, the accountability, the inner, exactly what you just said, the social connective sort of aspect. I think that applies way more than just addiction. Yeah. I mean the, the social connective sort of aspect. I think that applies way more than just addiction. Yeah. I mean, the social fundamental sort of aspect of group gatherings is certainly critical to it, but it's really only one part of it. It's not just the group gathering, it's also the relationships that the group creates and all that. But also woven within that and like,

I got to be careful because I'm not really supposed to talk about it specifically, but everybody knows there's 12 steps, right? And these 12 steps are really kind of, it's really, you know, when these guys wrote this book a long time ago, it's pretty prophetic because it's a pretty in-depth spiritual program that requires you to really, you know, do what you did in psychoanalysis, which is take inventory, own your past, make peace with it, make amends to other people, constantly be vigilant about your character defects and trying to correct them. And that's the work. You know what I mean? And then the group part of it is sharing collective experiences about going through those steps and what that means and stuff that comes up and how life crops up.

going through those steps and what that means and stuff that comes up and how life crops up. And, you know, the truth is, and to get back to the disease model is, you know, the drug or the drink is the solution to the problem. The problem isn't the alcohol or the drug, it rests within the person, right? And so you can, and so a lot of these people who are coming out and saying, well, there's a different way of doing this and, doing this and let's try moderation or all these sorts of things, they might be successful in putting distance between a drug or a drink and an individual, but they're not really addressing the underlying drive that's compelling that person to use, right? Which as you know from the work that you've done is really kind of a deep down thing that requires a lot of fucking work. Absolutely. No doubt. I don't.

Yes, absolutely. It's funny. You said a second ago, like in a way, I almost think, I don't want to say, nothing boils down to, everything boils down to this. There's almost nothing where it's like you can reduce everything down to that. I wish there was. That would be awesome. But like I feel like so much of what we talk about, uh, not just you and me, like everyone like, Oh, this problem, that problem, teen pregnancy,

addiction, so much of it feels like the more sort of you understand yourself and the more you, I think you dig into your own problems, almost anyone you realize, Oh wow. Like I don't have the sort of connections to myself and to other people and the depth of relationships that I really sort of, that I'm almost made for. I mean, humans on a biological level are evolved to be, we don't exist independently. A human raised without other humans is like a, I mean, quite literally an animal in the truest sense. They don't speak. They don't, they don't have higher order cognitive thought. They can't exist without sort of social connections. We're almost like this weird sort of networked animal,

like a fax machine. A fax machine by itself is worthless, and two of them don't have a whole lot of worth. But once you start to get a bunch, then it's like really useful, right? Humans almost are the same thing. And I feel like so much in our, especially Western society,

disconnects us from other individuals and from a group sort of unit. And so we get these neuroses that are a function of, right, the underlying cause. Yeah. That's only accelerating. And ironically, the internet is fueling that rather than reclining it. I think it's going the other way in a lot of ways.

I don't know. I mean, I think that it's easier than ever to feel like you're connected by staring at your laptop, you know, 20 hours a not really connected and then you never go outside and actually meet up with your friends and do anything together. A hundred percent agree. But to me, I feel like it seems like, um, what starts the problem can eventually solve it. You just have to go through that dip. Right. And so it seems to me like, uh, uh, technology definitely for a while makes it worse because Twitter is like, oh, yeah, I'm connecting these people. You're not connected at all.

It's total bullshit, right? Facebook, it's total bullshit. I'm totally on board with that 100%. But the way through that trough is to keep going because I feel like socially we develop almost antibodies to this stuff. If you notice that my Facebook feed has changed fundamentally over the last four or five years, right? I feel like it, uh, definitely four or five, six years ago when Facebook really peaked, uh, I feel like there was just, at least with my group of people who were, I feel like there were so many people and it was so much like,

look at how great my life is and blah, blah, blah. And like now it's, it's become a lot less about bragging and a lot less about stupid meme sharing. And it's, people are starting to figure out ways to actually connect on Facebook or they're just not using it because it's, uh, it's like eating fast food, right? It's like you're getting, it's unfulfilling and you get sick. Right? And so I feel like technology might, I don't know if it took us apart. I think it just, it exacerbated commercial, what commercial industrial culture already done. But I think if we keep going, it eventually pushes it back together because all of it is still a way to connect. Facebook is like an improvement over no connection. Twitter is an

improvement over no connection. It's crappy, but it's better than nothing. And the next iteration is better. And the next iteration is better where eventually I think technology like electricity and transportation moves into the background and brings forward what we all ultimately want is to connect to each other and feel safe and respected and appreciated, that kind of stuff, you know? I mean, that's a pretty optimistic view of it. It is. You know what I mean? Because I think that so many of these networks are really blown out right now. Like, I don't know if you've noticed, but like if you were to throw a tweet out maybe three, four, five years ago, maybe, the amount amount of engagement that you get was a big deal, right? But now it's just a drop in the stream because everybody's following so many people and

nothing gets noticed anymore. And it's certainly true for Facebook and all these other things. Well, I mean, that's why Snapchat's huge. And I think the cycles are speeding up because I think that sort of social interaction, the disconnected social network interaction I think will be a phase. And I think social will eventually be built into things and we'll learn to use it in a way that actually connects us. And I don't know exactly what that looks like because I would start the goddamn company if I knew. But I feel like everything we do, we take all this technology that's not designed. Twitter was not designed to be a social platform at all in any way, shape, or form. And people formed it to that use because that's all what we desperately want is to connect with each other.

And whether we'll admit it or whatever, that's what we want. And sometimes it's toxic. Sometimes it's not in a healthy way. Sometimes it is, but I feel like we're going to keep, people are starting to really figure that out and starting to, there's a lot of really lame attempts at things that connect us that don't actually connect us because people are just imitating. But every now and then something comes along. It's like, wow, this is actually a change and it does bring, excuse me And it does bring us closer. Like Periscope is an improvement on Twitter. It's still crappy.

It's still ridiculous. Whatever's next is going to be better. And it'll just keep going and going until I feel like, I mean, we're evolved to live in groups of 150. Dunbar's number, right? And everyone knows everyone. groups of 150, Dunbar's number, right? And everyone knows everyone and we can manage the relationships between everyone or some group beyond just one or two or three people or drinking buddies or whatever. And I don't know, it is absolutely an optimistic view, but I feel like it's not an accident that tech started as tech and now the tech is moving into the background, and now the design and the art and the connectivity is really starting to emerge and starting to actually bring people together.

Interesting. I don't know. I mean, in your sort of ventures in the tech startup world and angel investing and all of that, what are you seeing that's interesting in terms of like trends in that arena? Yeah. I mean, I actually haven't done a lot of investing last six months or a year because everything feels like iterative and derivatives to me. Yeah. Every now and then I'll see something that's really cool. The only cool stuff I see happening now is all the really old sort of boring commodity businesses are starting to get, people are starting to really look at those seriously. Healthcare is starting to, it's corrosive and toxic as the healthcare insurance industry is in America. And it's

awful. Whether you love socialized medicine or hate it, you can't look at our system and think it works. It's terrible. And people with a lot of brains and a lot of power and a lot of ability are starting to look at that system. Transportation, not just Uber, but like logistical transportation, ships, trucks, things like that. You know, like concrete, contracting, building stuff. These really boring, old, you know, 20th century businesses could be so much better in so many ways. And that's the really interesting, the really, really, really interesting work and the really smart money right now is flowing into that. Um, but that's the, and it's, it's not sexy. Like no one's like, Oh, this is like a really cool sort of a software database that helps us,

uh, uh, you helps us route shipping. Do you know shipping container stuff used to be done like paper and pencil up until like two years ago? Like craziness. Yeah, I mean that's why companies like Oracle, you know, sort of behind the scenes solving like massive problems in business become quietly so successful. Exactly. There's nothing sexy about it. No.

Databases are – they can't be sexy. I mean like I'm an investor in Palantir, and the stuff they're doing is so off the charts amazing, it's hard to even believe, right? The other thing I think that's really kind of interesting is every field, you're going to start seeing startups that are blank plus AI, right? So whether it's social media plus AI or journalism plus AI or whatever, hotel booking plus AI, like artificial intelligence hit the tipping point last year, last year, this year, some point sometime last year where machine learning and deep learning and real like natural language processing and all that stuff came together. And it's like one of those things where it's like slow, slow, slow all at once. Right now, I would say 80%, I think, of the finance news that you read, if you read any, and probably 50% of the sports stuff, not the commentary, but the actual

just basic reporting written by algorithms. Interesting. And you have no idea. None. Yeah. I was listening to Sam Harris talk about AI on Joe Rogan's podcast a couple weeks ago. And he had just come back from a conference where all the biggest minds in that space had convened. He just said it's exhilarating but also completely terrifying because of sort of how advanced these minds are and kind of where it's heading. No, what's crazy is they're not that advanced. No, you have an iPhone, right? Yeah. How many times has your iPhone auto-corrected to the wrong word? Oh, most of the time. Every day. Yeah. Okay. So like, uh,

can it learn that it, can it just simply learn that when I type these letters, that what I mean is cause I can, I I'm constantly overriding the auto-rect? It should, and it doesn't, right? And it's not because Apple's bad at their job. It's because it's actually way harder than you think. So here's what I've sort of learned about, because I thought about investing in a lot of those companies and I realized I just don't have the expertise, but I learned a lot about them.

And basically, AI and machine learning and those sorts of companies are going to be extremely good at things that humans are bad at, which is deep processing that is a fast, quick, deep processing that is just one sort of linear thing. But thinking laterally, humans are very good at associations, all those sorts of things, and computers are bad at it and not even close to being good yet. So listen, is Skynet going to become self-aware and send the robots after us?

Man, I don't know. Some smart people think yes. Some smart people think no. But that's decades away. Maybe our kids are going to have to deal with that. But you say decades. That's a long time from now. In the world we live in, that's a long time. That's pretty frightening

as a father of a nine month old, right? Well, I'll, I'll prepare my son. Um, I'll have him watch the Terminator. We don't have to worry about Skynet for decades. Yeah. I don't know. Um, I'm not really worried about that. I feel like what's going to happen is you're going to see a lot of sort of repetitious. You're going to see a lot of people think it's like low-level unskilled labor that's in trouble. It's not. If you're a hotel clerk, machines, like if you're a bellboy, machines aren't replacing you. Because the infrastructure to build for that is really hard.

They've built hotels like that in Japan. They're actually really expensive, right? What's actually going to be replaced are middle of the road professionals, doctors, lawyers, people who are supposed to be really smart at high level pattern recognition are fucked, done. Like, uh, Watson right now today, like ibm was going to start selling watson services as diagnostic tool and their bar was watson is the supercomputer yeah the one that beat uh what's his face at jeopardy and won a bunch of jeopardies uh and then beat what's his face at chess um that that supercomputer when that supercomputer or derivation of it could beat 10 of the best or 10 board certified, like whatever, oncologists at cancer diagnosis could beat them, then they would start selling the services. It did that like three weeks ago, I think, or a month ago.

Wow. Right. And these are like, oh, I'm a doctor. No one can do what I can do. Bullshit. Nurses aren't going to be replaced because administering medicine, nurses, well, the nurse model of medicine is totally different than the doctor model. Doctors, diagnosis, whatever, nurses, prevention, and care, right? So connecting with humans,

software and robots aren't going to be doing that for a long time. Nurses are totally safe, might become more valuable. Doctors actually are in trouble. Paralegals doing fine. Lawyers might not be. Yeah, but I mean, you still have to go to court and make an argument. Absolutely. So trial lawyers are fine. But if you're doing a doc review, you're done, right? That's paralegal work. Mostly, well, okay, yes. So document review, a lot of- Processing of giant commercial litigation and the massive amounts of paperwork and reviewing that. Which is all just monkeys arguing over status anyway.

There's already a lot of software for that kind of stuff. But it's crazy how good that stuff is getting. And the speed at which it's getting that way is that stuff, those people are in trouble. They're going to have to find, uh, which is fine because if you're going to screw a class of workers, I'd much rather screw, screw a middle to a middle upper class professionals because they're, they ostensibly can find other work. If you're just a laborer, you're going to have a much harder time in our society is not well equipped to sort of teach you sort of how to, how to use intellectual capital, et cetera, et cetera.

Um, uh, but like those people are actually okay. Service industry jobs are okay. Cause it's really hard to replicate a smile, human interaction, et cetera. It's really easy to replicate high level pattern recognition. Interesting. That was a good jag and the other, and, and, and, and, uh, totally unrelated direction. Yeah, no, I like it. But, um, yeah yeah to kind of bring it back to you know your kind of personal evolution like you know you were saying that you didn't have there wasn't like a bottom that you experienced but there was a you know a moment where

you were you made this decision to go into therapy right yeah and so is that something you're still doing I actually yes I'm done with psychoanalysis next week or the week after. How do you decide that you're done? Well, so it's not supposed to be an endless process. It's supposed to be you go in and you identify things that you want to fix or rectify or

situations you want to solve or whatever. And just figuring out what your problems are and what you want to fix takes a while. And then you work on them. And then when you feel, when you and the analyst feel like that, basically the goal is you want to develop the tools. You want to be able to recognize what your issues are, uh, recognize when they come up and then have the tools to solve them yourself. So when you feel like you don't need to go to your analyst because you can solve the problems because of what you've learned in analysis, then generally speaking, that means you're ready to quit. Right, you're ready to do it. Right. And this was motivated initially by a girl you were dating, right, who basically decided to do this and you were able to recognize a change in her?

No, not a girl I was dating, a friend of mine. But yeah, absolutely. I mean, it was one of those things where, like I said, I knew I fixed all my problems, in quotes, and I still wasn't happy. I was still lonely. I still didn't have the life I wanted. And so I knew that whatever issues I had were inside of me. And so I tried a lot of things.

Most stuff didn't work, either because it doesn't work or because I just didn't do it right. What kind of stuff did you try? You know, like all the easy stuff. Yoga. Meditation works. I wasn't doing it right for a long time, so I quit. Meditation is fantastic, though. I wasn't mature enough or ready enough for it when I first started, so I tried that and quit.

enough or ready enough for it when I first started. So I tried that and quit. You know, different types of therapeutic modalities, different types of, you know, therapies, just there's a million things. Cognitive behavioral therapy is like a much easier type of therapy. And that's like good for behavioral changes. That wasn't my problem. My problem was emotions, not behavior. Behavior that maybe that came from emotions and sort of thought patterns, emotions, not behavior. Uh, behavior that maybe that came from emotions and sort of thought patterns, but it wasn't surface stuff. It was deep. And so for me, I, uh, psychoanalysis is really, it's just one type of talk therapy. There's a bunch and most of them work for different sorts of people. I needed one that was very, um, it was like a, I needed a thinking person's, uh, therapy. I'm not, I am, I listened to my gut, but I'm not a super intuitive person. If you know what I mean? Like, I'm not one of those people who

just kind of feels his way to something. I have to understand it, um, before all sort of, um, I'm not hyper rational, like I'm not Elon Musk or something, but I'm, I'm in that more in that category than I am in this sort of feel your way to it category. And so for those sorts of people, analysis is really good because you're talking specifically and directly about issues. Uh, you're feeling them, but then you're also talking about them in the abstract and you're kind of identifying things. That was a problem for me is sometimes identifying my emotions. What was I feeling? Even the, why, what I knew almost knew all my problems the day I walked in. It wasn't for me, oh, I had no idea that my mom wasn't very good or whatever.

I knew all that shit. It was more connecting what I understood to the emotions I was feeling and then seeing the results. That mental exercise was very difficult for me. It took me a long, long time. Four years, four days a week is a long time. Four days a week. Four days a week. Yeah. It's serious. It's not like you got to go every day.

Freudian, right? Freudian? Not really. There's no psychoanalysis that's Freudian anymore. Freud sort of started it, but no one really subscribes to what anyone would call Freudian psychoanalysis. It's sort of like no one calls themselves an Aristotelian philosopher anymore, even though like Aristotle is one of the fathers of philosophy. Freud was the first one to really, at least in Western practice, identify the unconscious and identify sort of how it works and sort of set those wheels in motion. But analysis has evolved so far beyond Freud that he's only relevant with a lot of core fundamental stuff and then some things that the

fringes he's still right about. But he was more wrong than he was right about the details. But are you talking in general terms about the id, the ego, the super ego? I don't think we've ever used those terms in analysis. Never. And does it involve kind of identifying what those triggers are that are leading to those behavior patterns that are making you unhappy? No, that's sort of. Sort of. It's more like, it's more, so you don't really go directly. It's very frustrating to me analysis because you don't go directly at things. You come in and you talk about what's on your mind, right? You can't be like, Oh, like, uh, uh, you know, let's talk about why I'm sad. Because as soon as you start talking

about that stuff in the abstract, you move above the emotion and just into intellectual stuff. And then it's super easy to rationalize and to talk around it. And then you're disconnected from your sort of unconscious. Really the goal of analysis is to connect the conscious to the unconscious. Uh, you not directly cause it's impossible. The unconscious is very much a black box. That's why it's called the unconscious, but it's more about teaching you, you to, to not just see, but to feel, um, sort of things that you weren't letting yourself see or feel before. So for example, like, uh, I used to have, uh, I used to, I still do, uh, sort of an anger problem. I used to be way worse than I am now. And the only reason I'm good now is better, not good. I'm still a long way to go. I'm better is because, um, I'm good at understanding like, oh, I'm getting pissed off or

I'm angry or whatever. It used to be like my, not emotions possess me, but it's like, you know, you meet someone, you feel like they don't know what's going on in their own life. Analysis is about helping you understand what's going on in your own life. Not because you solve it and it's done, but because you have the tools now to sort of deal with it. Right. Um, I think really I took the leap when last year I started pairing meditation with analysis because they're actually the 180 degree opposite way to deal with the same problem. Uh, and meditation for me was very, very, once I was, I think mature enough, I'd done enough analysis and I'd accepted enough things about myself and kind of like, very, once I was, I think, mature enough, I'd done enough analysis and I'd accepted enough things about myself and kind of like learned enough about my own brain. Like meditation works

when you sit there and you're silent and you focus on your breath and then you let the things come up that you otherwise don't let come up. And you can't, man, it took me so long to stop being judgmental about it and stop trying to push it away. That's why meditation didn't work for me. I'd sit there like, oh, my mind's empty. And it's like, dude, you haven't reached enlightenment in 20 minutes. You're pushing things out. So I had to learn how to let them come up and then deal with the anxiety or the fear or the sadness or the shame or whatever comes up. And then you like recognize it, you accept that it's there. You let it flow over you. You can investigate it. Don't judge it. Don't try and push it away. Let it have its say in a way. And then it doesn't go away. It just kind of like, it stops having a control or a power over you

because you've now recognized it. You know, does that make sense? Yeah, of course. I mean, to me, it does for sure. I mean, I'm an active meditation person. I mean, it really is empowering to understand that the vagaries of your thinking mind are distinct from your higher consciousness and that there is a dividing line between the two. higher consciousness and that there is a dividing line between the two. And that's the first step in starting to recognize that you can actually have power or control over those emotions and that you don't have to be a victim or just fall prey to them as they arise, right? So,

in the sense that these are two very different disciplines, analysis and meditation, you know, one is very active. You're sort of exploring the rational, you know, thinking mind as a way to tap into the unconscious mind, whereas meditation is the rational, you know, thinking mind as a way to tap into the unconscious mind. Whereas meditation is the allowing, you know, it's sort of, you're shutting off the rational mind and letting the other thing come up or trying to get to that place where you can transcend it to get more clarity. Yeah. I've never gotten close to that. Like, I'm just happy when like, I can like, when I can let my unconscious go where it wants to go and not try and direct it and not try and like push it. Dude, it's crazy.

It seems like how hard can it be to sit there and not say anything, right? It's the hardest thing. Fucking hard, man. It's the hardest thing. It's really hard. If you're doing it right. But, man. But the thing is when you get to that place and you're like, oh, they're just emotions.

Right. They're not going to kill me. I actually have a choice. Like I don't have to engage that. Like, wow, I never realized that before. It's there. It's a part of me, but I don't have to write. I don't have to react to it or engage. Yeah. I think maybe, I think I've, I try to get 20 minutes in a day, 30 is sort of my goal. Maybe once or twice I've gotten to 45. Man, it's embarrassing almost. I mean, are you doing a specific method or not? Not really. Um, I've

read a bunch of, of sort of the books and, um, you know, like a Tibetan, uh, Zen, uh, you know, whatever, a lot of Sam Harris's stuff you mentioned. Um, I, I don't, I feel like, uh, honestly, the, the book that helped me the most, and I'm not sure this would be where people should start. It worked really well for me though, was, umstein's book, The Trauma of Everyday Life. So Mark Epstein is a psychoanalyst and a Buddhist practicing. He's been a Buddhist for even longer than he's been an analyst. And he's one of the guys who has done to me an amazing job of sort of reconciling the two disciplines and explaining that they really are very similar. They're just totally opposite ways to sort of approach the same problem. And Trauma of Everyday Life is actually a psychoanalytic analysis of the life of Buddha,

the actual Buddha, right? And it was pretty mind-blowing. And he kind of taught, I don't want to say real Buddhism, but just the original sort of form of Buddhism through the story. And it's very simple. Like, that's the thing with meditation. It doesn't need to be complex. It can be really simple, actually.

Well, that's, you know, you're a smart guy. You want to analyze everything. You want to understand it completely. And that's why meditation is so frustrating and eluding because you're never going to do it that way. completely and that's why meditation is so frustrating and eluding because you're never going to do it that way and there's a million different ways in and different modalities and strategies and practices and all that sort of stuff and you can get so caught up in chasing that that you actually never sit down and fucking do it that was a big part of the problem for me so my my solution to that because i've been struggling for like 15 years 16 years like

trying to get to a place where I could do it consistently was to just let go of all of that. And I, I just, um, started using, uh, Headspace, the Headspace app. Yeah. I haven't used it, but I know that one in Calm people recommend a lot. Yeah. It's, it's good. And, and Andy Pudicombe, who's the guy who voices all the guided meditations and he founded the company, they're down in Venice and, you know, he was a Buddhist monk for like 10 years. Like he, he's put in his 10,000 hours. The guy knows what he's talking about, but it's very, you know, it's very palatable in the sense that, you know, he's not trying to use vernacular that you can't understand or, or, or trying to make it tricky. It's just very

user-friendly. And the most important thing is, is just allow me to do it. It just makes it easy. And so it makes it easier to actually do it. Cause that's more important than whatever, you know, type you're trying to pursue. I think, dude, it's crazy to me to think that like the hardest part of my day is not building a company. It's not writing things that millions of people want to read. It's not, it's sitting quietly for 30 minutes with my thoughts is the fucking hardest part of my day. It's super hard. How nuts is that? It's super hard. It's so, man, it's like... It makes it even more frustrating.

It does. It's like... Because there couldn't be anything easier. You know, but... I don't know. It's crazy to me how hard it is. It's almost like... You read like... I've like, of course, like I totally am,

I read so many books. Everything from like the Buddha in Blue Jeans to the Unquiet Mind, Thich Nhat Hanh stuff, like all those guys. Pema Chodron. None of that translated into you actually doing it. No, of course not.

Because that's why I'm reading it. It's sort of, you know, in recovery, they say like self-knowledge will avail you nothing. You know, it's sort of like intellectualizing everything and understand like, oh, I get, I get what that means. Like, I got it. I'm good. It's like, no, that's very different from actually practicing it and doing it. Right.

It's like, yeah, you read all the books you want about basketball, go out there and hit a three pointer. It's not the same thing. It's totally true with meditation. It's like, yeah, you read all the books you want about basketball, go out there and hit a three pointer. Right. It's not the same thing. Exactly. It's totally true with meditation. It drove me so nuts. It's still, it's still like one of those weird sort of paradoxes that like, um, at least a heart for the human mind to sort of record, like reconcile, like how can the hardest thing

in my life be sitting there and focusing on my brain? Right. And you just fight yourself, you know, and it's like, all you have to do is just let go of that like argument, you know? Oh dude, I'm the worst at it. I'm the worst. I'm the worst. It's embarrassing. All right. Well, congratulations on almost graduating from analysis. Yeah. Yeah. But you know, when I, when I kind of, you know, look at your books and your writings and you know, I think that, that you know, whether, whether, you know, people are a fan of yours or not, um, you know, the writing is exceptional and the

storytelling is exceptional. I'm not sure that the storytelling gets enough credit because that's what distinguishes you from every other dude out there who's trying to write in your genre. Like you're, you're, you have a very, you know, developed capacity for how to, you know, weave a yarn and do it, do it in a compelling way. Um, and I think that's a, that's probably the biggest reason why your books have been so successful. Um, and the second aspect of that is, you know, the emotional truth that carries through it. And part of that emotional truth for me is, you know, I see like a little bit of, uh, you know, there's a little bit of a, there's a little bit of tragedy in there, you know what I mean? So I see a little bit of tragedy in there. You know what I mean?

So I see a guy who's searching for answers in all the wrong ways and is celebrating that, but you know where is this. You can't help but say, where is this leading? You know what one of my friends said about this? It's actually the girl who got me into analysis. She wrote something, and it's like eight years ago. And it was so like stunning. It's like one of those things where someone says something

and it just cuts through everything and hits right at the heart. And it was something like, I'm paraphrasing, but basically it was like Tucker writes this stuff that's so, it's hubris and boisterous and arrogant, but then he flips into this heartbreaking, sad little boy. And you see it just quick enough to know it's there before he goes back to, um, uh, to the Tucker Max, you understand, but it's, you don't want to wallow there for right.

Exactly. You can't because then it's not funny. Right. Uh, but, but she's like, that's why, uh,'s why the people that love him, love him is because they see that and they contrast that. And I remember I read that like when I was like 28, right? Or 29. And it both like, it cut me so deep at that time in my life because it revealed the truth that was so profound. Like I couldn't even argue with it. Right. I remember getting angry actually as well, because that's how you deal with your

emotions when you're me in 29, you just get angry instead of sad or whatever. Um, and so, uh, like, and, but I, I didn't like, I remember I like, uh, I didn't even argue. I just got really angry and I don't know, I broke something or slept with a girl who knows what I did, but like, uh, um, it stuck with me, like the way you can't get a truth out of your head that you know is true, but you don't want to face. And it was like, that was one of the things I feel like that, um, that whenever like I get off center, I always think about that because it's true. It's exactly what you just said. There's like a, a genuine, I never, I didn't write this on, I didn't do this on purpose. It's not like, oh yeah, here's what I'll do. I'll put in this cool little, uh, heartbreaking

thing here. And of course not. Like, uh, all I did was when I was writing, I was like, what's the truth? What's the, what happened? What did I feel? What happened? What did I feel? And whenever I wasn't sure what to write, I'm like, just tell the fucking truth. Because like, that's always the right answer. If you're trying to write something, people want to read always tell the truth, like what you felt, not like, you know, the forensic police report truth, what happened and then what did you feel? And if you do that, well, the emotional, the emotional truth trumps the facts every time. If you have to hedge the actual facts in the timeline in order to get to a greater emotional truth, that's your job as a writer. No one cares about irrelevant facts.

And that's the only thing ultimately at the end of the day that's either going to connect with somebody or not. And I think, look, the internet has really ignited a new generation of people who have finally attuned radar for bullshit. It's like, they don't have time for ads. They're not going to sit through anything and they can see from a mile away when someone's pitching them a bunch of nonsense. And so authenticity really is become more important than it ever has been. And that has to infuse, like if you're out there in the world, if you're a public figure and you're putting out content, if you're not being authentic to who you are, you know, whether that's everybody's cup of tea or not, um, people know, yeah, people know immediately. Right. And so, I mean, I faced that same thing when I wrote my

first book, you know, I was writing here, I am like a, you know, this vegan, you know, ultra distance athlete, you know, and I'm writing this memoir about my life at the same time. I knew that this guy, Scott Jurek, who's like the world's most successful vegan ultra endurance athlete in the world was writing his book at the same time. And I'm like, who's going to read my book? You know, there's no reason to read my book whatsoever. I've never even won a race. I was like, what's the point? Yeah. But you know, that doesn't matter. Right. So I, so, so I, but I realized, I said, you know, look, most sports memoirs are terrible. They're written to extend a brand.

And that's not to say that Scott's, you know, Scott's wrote a great book. So, it's not about him. But I realized that the only way that anybody was going to care at all about anything I had to say was directly proportional to the extent to which I was willing to be emotionally raw, vulnerable, and honest, you know? And so I had to write it like I was writing a diary that no one was going to read. And that's a very frightening prospect. And that's something that I think a lot of people aren't willing to do or that most writers don't understand. And it was very frightening when I turned my manuscript and I remember turning my wife and saying, I hope I didn't just make the biggest mistake I've ever made. Like, it's terrifying to be so open in that regard. And, you know, the stories that you tell, you know, they're incredibly humorous, but they're, you

know, it paints a very, you know, specific picture of a guy that, you know, is going to, you know, very well going to, you know, be on the receiving end of a lot of vitriol. But the funny thing is, if you actually read the stories, I'm the loser in like half of them. You know, like people like, I can always tell if someone's read the stuff by the reaction, because if they're like, well, if the basic tenor of the questions is, you're not so great, why do you think you're so great? I know they haven't read it.

You know, if the basic tenor is like, I thought it was funny, like the storytelling, whatever, then it's like, I know they read it because if you read it, I mean, how many stories I shit myself in them, you know, like I'm not the hero. Like I tell the truth of what happened. And the real truth of any life is sometimes you're amazing. Sometimes you're awful. Most of the time you're somewhere in between and it's a tragic comedy like that's what life is and that's what the stories are but like the way the brand is projected and part of this is absolutely my fault the way the brand is projected is like oh look how awesome i am just from the absolute surface area but then you read it and it's like oh wow right but you

have like a shit-eating grin on the cover of your book. Exactly. It's like you're inviting that. Yes. You know what I mean? Oh, absolutely. Of course. Well, when I first started in media, my assumption was that facts mattered. People did research. People understood what they were talking about before they talked about it, which is ridiculous and naive.

Well, all you have to do is read the first article that gets written about you on the internet and realize how many factual errors are in it. And then you question whether anything you ever read is true. You know what that's called? It's called the Murray Gell-Mann effect because the physicist, so the physicist is a really famous physicist, Murray Gell-Mann. Um, he, uh, he was talking about how he, uh, reads the paper when he ever gets to the science section. He's like like he said almost exactly what you said every single thing in the science section is wrong even the things that are right are right for the wrong reasons and he said and i realized one day i was turning the paper and i like laughed at the science stuff and then i turned to the business section and i just started reading and assumed

it was all true and he said wait a minute if everything in the science section is wrong why am i giving any credence to this section i don't know whether it's true or not, but it must have the same editorial standards. And he said, he stopped reading the paper after that. Um, it is, I'm sure, you know, as well as I do, if you're an expert in any field, you know, media gets everything wrong about it. Guess what? They're the same way about every other field. It's so disappointing when you start to realize that most adults are just terrible at their job. Dude, when I realized the adults weren't, no one was in charge, you know what it was, man? I feel like, you know, I feel like this might've happened to my friend and I just remembering it happening to me. But basically, uh, the day I really understood

this, I think I was in college and it was like, I looked up the word bucket and the definition was like, it's a pale. And then I looked up like pale and the definition was it's a bucket. And I was like, what the, this, like, seriously, it was like, no one's in charge. I think that like happened in class or something, my buddy, but it was like such a vivid thing where it was like no one's in charge I think that like happened in class or something my buddy but it was like such a vivid thing where it was like how is this is not an ordered universe we live in it's just the people put the illusion of it on you know

for comfort and security otherwise it's terrifying well it's better to man I've always played the been of the mind that it's like it's better to recognize something for what it is and then adapt to it than pretend it's something it's not and then suffer the sort of consequences of that, you know?

Right. But not everyone's like that. Most people aren't like that. I don't know. All right. So you do all this psychoanalysis. Right. You've been able to make peace with your past. And we didn't even get into,

I mean, you had, you know, maybe not the roughest upbringing, but, you know, certainly had your challenges. Very typical, I think. I think it's pretty clear, like when I was reading about some of the, you know, the circumstances under which you were raised, it's just not surprising that you behaved the way that you did in your twenties. You have narcissistic parents who, they weren't bad people. They were just bad parents. You know, they didn't, they just didn't care that much about, uh, their child. And I wasn't abused. I wasn't abandoned. I had plenty of food. It was nothing like that. Right. It wasn't the narrative of abuse that like is easy to see. It's a narrative

of abuse that like, um, I think a lot of people suffer through and don't really realize it. And then they have shitty relationships when they're adult and they don't realize why, which is exactly my life. Right. Um, in fact, the lunch I was telling you about, but we were talking about this. Um, and like, uh, right. No one hit me. No one sexually abused me. It was nothing like that. And if you met my dad, he's perfectly charming. You'd love to have dinner with him. Right. But you're a smart dude. You would see it. Not everyone does.

It's like, oh, yeah, I wouldn't want to be this dude's son. He's a performer. He's not a human. He doesn't connect with people, right? And that's fine if you don't have kids. But if you have a kid, then it's like, well, what's your kid going to do? And there's ways to deal with that. But your parents divorced when you were really young, right?

A year and a half or something. Like your dad kind of wasn't around until a bunch later. I mean, right. He, but even when he was around, he wasn't around. You know, he was, uh, my parents are boomers and they are like, they could be the dictionary definition of boomers. And the boomers are like the dumbest generation of narcissists in history or the planets ever seen. And my parents fit squarely in the center of that. They are so boomer. It's ridiculous. They met, they met at one of George Young's Coke parties in Manhattan beach. That's how boomer they are. Seriously, dude, my mom was a flight attendant

for Pan Am and my dad was like a stockbroker. Oh my God. I know right out of that movie blow. Seriously. They met at like one of his uh things in manhattan beach and so like um they're not evil at all they're not they're just sad broken people who shouldn't have had kids um yeah and so it was i had a shitty childhood only in that it was like um lonely uh i mean i had friends like i wasn't like some social outcast, but I didn't, I didn't have a family unit. I didn't have that sort of stuff. And yeah, I didn't really, I knew all this, none of this was news to me. Right. So it's not like no repressed memory. I mean, I got it. You don't really, I think it's very easy to just pick out. So what? It doesn't

matter. Yeah, I get it. Whatever. You don't need to cry about it. It's easy to disassociate from that. And that was a lot. I think a lot what analysis did is connect me to those emotions and really start to understand how those, those created sort of patterns of reaction, you know, to things like why you, I have an anger problem. Why do you get angry? Because anger is much easier. Not everyone is this, but for a lot of people, it's much easier to be angry than it is to be sad. Anger is essentially a defense against sadness. Can be. I mean, when you break it down and you peel back all the layers, it always goes down to fear.

You know, fear is behind pretty much all of it. Yeah. A lot of people say that. If you get angry, you know, what's behind the anger? For my case, I think most often, sometimes fear, absolutely. Like you're afraid of whatever. But I feel like for me, it was sadness. You know, it was like, it was easy to be sort of like angry instead of being sad.

My wife is like very intuitive and very emotionally intelligent. And she even calls me on this now. She's like, something will happen. I'll get angry, and she'll kind of look at me, and she's like, you can feel sad. It's okay. And then I get even more angry because I know she's right. She doesn't do it every time. But sadness doesn't give you the rush that anger does. No, of course not, or the feeling of power or control.

It's funny. She, um, she's really, uh, I, I, after getting married, I totally understood the saying, I forget who it was. Some English guy said like, you know, um, were it not for women, civilization, men would be naked apes grunting in caves. Like women are so civilizing. Like I used to get so angry driving, right. Which is like, not, not road rage, but just scream at someone, you fucking idiot, you cut me off, whatever. And so she looked at me one day and she's like, okay, from now on, you're not going to do that anymore.

You have a son in the back, right? You don't want him to learn how to deal with emotions like this. And I'm like, yeah, of course, you're right. And so she's like, here's what you're going to do. When you're angry, when you feel like screaming, I want you to yell out. I'm very angry. So like, and so of course I'm like, you can't do that without laughing. Right. That's the point. You're precisely correct. So like someone will cut me off and like, she'll see me grip the wheel and she's like, I'm very angry. And then like, you can hear me. I laugh in the middle of it because

it's so ridiculous. Yeah. It's like out of a Will Ferrell movie. It is. And so like, uh, like, um, yeah, like that's, that's sort of like, um, I'm learning those sorts of, that's more of a cognitive behavioral thing, but like small things like that are sort of what, um, what I'm starting to understand and, and kind of how I'm starting to connect that with myself, you know, like, but why did I used to do that? I think a lot of times as a kid, especially is like it's when your life is so sad, it's sadness is overwhelming. You can't almost you have to push that away. That's what post-traumatic stress is. That's why I'm not trying to compare myself to a soldier in combat because it's ridiculous. But that's why that's what post-traumatic stress is. That's why I'm not trying to compare myself to a soldier in combat because it's ridiculous, but that's why – that's what post-traumatic stress is.

Overwhelming emotional reactions are pushed down by the brain because they will freeze it up on a very real level. And so it basically stores that up until you can process it safely, and then it brings it back up. And that's not like hokey new age nonsense talk. That's, I mean, the clearest day, that's the science. That's how it works. And so it works. This combat, the mechanism that happens in combat is no different than a child feeling lonely and sad and scared because his parents aren't around. Same mechanism.

Your brain doesn't distinguish between the differences, even though objectively they're different, extremely different. The brain creates a reaction in the same, just like, I mean, any numbers situation, a guy being made fun of by like a girl, a hot girl rejecting him feels a huge amount of trauma and stress, even if you know, objectively, it's not a big deal. Right. Well, he's associating that with being unworthy, being unlovable. All these things are primal that go back to probably how he interacted with his mom, all that kind of stuff, right? So the more kind of self-realization that you have around these issues, I mean, you can look back on the decisions that you've made throughout that period of your life and it's like, of course, of course, of course I did that. I almost couldn't have made a different choice, you know, but now you have the ability and the control and

the aptitude and this toolbox to sort of, uh, uninstall those buttons or maybe not learn different habits, but like install new buttons. Right. Right. That's the goal, man, is I try to get better at like, um, how I, how do I, I try to see my emotions a little bit before they over overtake me. That's what I meant about the road signs, you know, when you can kind of see it coming, you know, because once it picks up steam, like, forget about it. It's a done deal. Right. So being able to identify it early on, the earlier you can see it, then you have that ability to pause and make a difference. Right. And you're not disassociating from it. You're recognizing it's there. You don't stop

the emotion or control the emotion. That's impossible. You just recognize it. You give it space and you don't react to it. You can decide not to react to it if you see it, understand it, but you can't control it. Like pushing anger down, it's like you can't hold a lid on a boiling pot. No, you just, hey, this is how I'm feeling right now. And like embrace it and accept it and try to like work through it rather than avoid it or repress it. Those are different things, right? And that becomes like kind of ephemeral and how you do that, but that's where the work is, right? Yep. So I want to get into like how important it is to have, um, you know, a healthy mate who can be that sounding board. I mean, in my experience, obviously it sounds like you have

that, you know, that's been instrumental in my life. Yeah. Bird was telling me your wife is like amazing. She's incredible. She's just, she has laser ability to see right through me and know exactly what's going on and know the best way of addressing it. You know, not in a, I think when people hear that, they think, oh, it's like a nag thing. It's not that at all. It's just, it's that capacity to like really like objectively understand what's happening and kind of navigate the situation. and kind of navigate the situation. I don't think there's anything better in life having someone who fully understands and has the measure of you,

but still accepts you. That's what a great relationship is. I know you and I love you. Exactly. I know you and I love you. That's like... And here's what's going on. Here's what you're doing,

and you did it the other day, and what's going on? How's what you're doing, you know, and you've did it the other day, you know, and like, what's going on? How can we, you know, how can we find a different way? It's fine. I, I like, uh, I do a podcast now and I have a book coming out. That's like sort of sex and dating advice for young guys. And I say guys all the time have questions. Most of their questions that they think about are sex and dating or not really. They're like emotional problems that the guy has that he doesn't realize he's projecting onto girls, which I used to do all the time too. So like, I don't stand in judgment, but so much of this, I'm like, listen guys, if you want to sleep with a lot of girls, cool, no problem. If you want to act like this, you can. I'm just telling you though, you're eventually going to figure out what I figured out that, you know, these sorts of

relationships are optimal, not just because it's not like an, like an optimization efficiency thing. It's because this is the best, uh, like this is the most rewarding, most satisfying for a reason. People end up pairing off for reasons. It's not like marriage might be a social construct, but pair bonding is not, you know? And, uh, and I kind of like try and walk guys through that. Not like you need to go pair bond at 24 if you're not ready. No, but just understand like, this is where you're going to go if you do it right. And this is where you're going to end up and it's okay. And to be clear, that's very different from, you know, the billion dollar industry of, you know, trying to, you know, teach guys how to, you know, pick up girls and

the worst, like this, you know, it's's like you cannot hack your way into a relationship. And the typical relationship paradigm is two people get together, there's some level of mutual attraction there, and then each person projects onto the other person their idealized version of them that comes with all that baggage and all of that. And each person tries to sustain that or live up to it for a certain amount of time until- Or they lie to themselves. Yeah, yeah.

Oh, he's actually a good guy. Until inevitably, the truth comes out, the veneer cracks- And they're angry. The real version of who they are is demonstrated. And then those people are either going to be able to work through that or they're not. And usually they can't or they don't, right? And so the key and kind of what I've seen, you know, in listening to your podcast a little bit, and, you know, I'm somewhat familiar with the new book. I read the proposal, Bird sent me the proposal, and, you know, I'm excited for that to come out, is you're cutting through all of that and saying, look, it's not about that, man.

You got to do the inside work. Like, you're not going to, it's not about 10 tips or tricks or tools. Like, it's exactly what you had to experience to get to this place. And, you know, and there is kind of a hilarious, like inherent irony in that you transitioned from being, you know, the frat tire guy into the guy who's going to now, uh, sort of, um, teach guys how to be good men, how to be good men, you know what I mean. But that's the beautiful arc of your life. And I think that that's almost poetic and literary in its own way. If you wrote this script out, people would be like, ah, it's too hack. It's too cliche.

Yeah, it's like, oh, yeah, the guy who does that is going to now do this. That would never happen. But you know what's funny is that it really – You must get some heat for that. I mean, you get heat for everything, man. The only way you don't get heat is to stay out of the kitchen, but you got to eat, right? So I'm going in the kitchen. This is the way it works.

Like the funny thing is, man, I didn't orchestrate it like this. It's just like so many guys come to me for advice about sex and dating and like – it's not even that I'm that much of an expert. I just figured out I think what most guys who really put in the work figure out by the time they hit 40. And then I paired up with Dr. Jeff Miller, who's like the F psych expert and really understands like a lot of the sort of deep science, but between like behind what I intuited. And then after that, man, it was just explaining fundamentals to guys. The vast majority of what we teach is stuff like, if you want women to like you, you have to be attractive to women. Like seriously,

like you're like looking at me like that can't be it. It is. And like, what does attraction mean? It means being clean. It means being in shape. It means being intelligent. It means being kind. And like, what does kindness look like? No, it doesn't mean weakness. It doesn't mean being a doormat. It means these things, right? What is women like strong guys? What does strong mean? It means it doesn't mean abuse. It doesn't mean posturing.

It means, you know, capability. It means, you know, sort of like effectiveness. I mean, whatever, like really foundational, fundamental stuff. But the sad reality is our society does totally fails at teaching people anything I think about relationships. And it really fails at teaching men, I think how to be, um, attractive to women in a way that is both, um, rewarding for men and also gives women what they want. And how to functionally interact with women in a healthy way. No instruction. Right. And so, you know, looking at this arc, you know, it's sort of like, you know, earlier Tucker, you know, on some level, you know, narcissistic and maybe broken, perhaps in certain respects. In certain ways, it's true. And, you know, entertaining in that regard,

but certainly, you know, kind of understanding what was really going on with you and then bridging this gap to becoming empathetic, right? And understanding that, oh, you know, this person actually comes with a heart and a history and a life and friends and family. To be empathetic, you've got to first understand yourself. And that's terrifying because then you're taking responsibility for somebody else's emotional wellbeing. And that's very scary. You can't be selfish anymore. You know what I mean? And, and, and if you're not empathetic, you don't have to deal with that. Right. And then you can, and you don't have to deal with your own emotions. Abandon. Right. And that will take you where it's going to take you. But I think that the,

the idea of engaging somebody on that kind of a deep level is, is, is frightening. You know, I don't know. No, I hadn't thought of it that way. What you just said is the empathy part. Part of being empathetic is not just recognizing another person's emotions, but your own. So it's really, if you don't want to connect with your own emotions, one of the best ways to not do it is to not connect with other people's either. This is totally basic. I just hadn't thought about it like that. If you want to get familiar with your own personal character defects, like get into a relationship because they will come to the surface really quick.

I know. It was funny. And you don't have to do that if you avoid relationships. So that's a comfortable place of being. Exactly. Yeah. Which is, you sound like my fucking analyst now. She's like, uh, and she's right. It just like sort of frustrates me when, not when she's right. It just frustrates me when like I have to face things I pushed off for a long time. Like part of the reason that I probably had a lot of relationships with a lot of different women is because then you don't have to have a deep one with anyone, you know? And part of it is because having sex with a lot of women is awesome. But then on some level, it it just is unarguably. But then on the other level, it's also like, I don't have to deal with my problems if I have a new girl every week, you know,

because we never get to my problems. It's, it's funny. Like when I met my wife, um, like the first week or two gambling or, or anything, you know, substances, shopping, television, food. It's running away from pain or issues or whatever you don't want to face. Yeah. Yeah, it's so easy. I mean, so much of what people do now, so much of social, a great critique of social media and that sort of stuff that I think is absolutely true is this sort of enforced busyness. Oh, I'm so busy. No, you don't.

You had yoga and then you had like a spin class and then you were on Twitter for an hour, right? It's just like you feel like you're busy because it's a great way to run away from things you don't want to face. Even just basic low-level emotions. Like we were saying a minute ago, it's hard to sit in a room with yourself for 30 minutes. There's great studies about this. People would rather take electric shocks than sit in a room alone by themselves for five minutes. Like tons of empirical data about this. Not even meditating, dude, just sitting in the room alone with nothing. Would rather take electric shocks. It's terrifying because then you're with yourself. What are you going to do then?

You got to face it. You know what I mean? And the road gets narrower. So you've done the analysis. You've become very aware of how you function in relationships. And then it forces you to then look at other aspects of your life. How am I using social media? How am I using food?

How am I using my body? What's my relationship to television? Workaholism, all these sorts of things, because they can all be very similarly used and abused to exit or escape from whatever it is you probably should be working through. I put off analysis, I think for six months when I was finishing my last frat tire book is sort of subconscious, but I honestly think it was one of those things where I knew if I didn't finish that book before I started analysis, I might never finish it. Oh yeah. Once you go into analysis, then you'd be like, why am I writing this book? That's the, that's the question. And if you don't want to face it, it's like,

you know, and I really did put it off for like, part of it was, I was, I didn't want to start, you know, like anything hard, you don't ever want to start. Um, uh, but I think another part was like, um, I didn't like, I was afraid and it probably wouldn't, I, I might've used an excuse to not fail. It might've been like a double sort of excuse thing, but yeah, I was, I was like, you know, it was sort of like the same, uh, um, Augustine quote, like give me Lord, give me chastity and continents, but not yet. You know, it was like one of those things for me, Lord, give me chastity and continence, but not yet. You know? Right. It was like one of those things for me, I think. Yeah.

Cause like, as soon as you're, as soon as you're starting reflecting, then you have to ask yourself, why am I doing this? Right. Like what's the, you know, and. I'm not quite ready to ask myself that question. I don't want to, I don't want to, well, I can ask it. I just don't want to answer it yet. You know?

And then when you're in analysis, that's part of the cool thing about analysis is that it's a relationship with someone else where you're accountable. And it's like ostensibly someone who's very intelligent, who knows you very well. And so in a lot of ways, they act as a mirror. But it's nonjudgmental. It's not like a great analyst is someone who bounces you back to yourself but in a way that you can handle and see, right? And yeah, that should be the point if it works right. Speaking of your relationship with work, you have some new stuff coming up, right? Like you've got book in a box. I want to talk about that a little bit, which is pretty cool. You know, as somebody

who's, you know, put out two books, you know, I've had my experiences in traditional publishing and, you know, the solutions that you're offering and the options for people out there, I think, is, you know, a much needed service in this world. You know, in many ways, you know, old school publishing is broken and it's rife for 2.0 and new ways and means of approaching it. And I think what you're doing is pretty interesting. Yeah. So basically I have a company called Book in a Box and the whole thing started, not almost by accident, it was by accident. People, you know what's obnoxious is 10 years people have been asking me, how do I do a book? And then I tell them, well, you have to write it. And they roll their eyes and like no one wants to write a book because writing a book is really hard, right? And so, of course, my view was always like –

They want it but they don't want to put the work in. Right. That was my view. But I kind of went a little further. I think even though I hate the snooty literary elitist, I still had that attitude that was like, well, if you really want it, you'll sit down and do it and you'll put in the work and blah, blah, blah, right? It is a litmus test because I subscribed had that attitude that was like, well, if you really want it, you'll sit down and do it and you'll put in the work and blah, blah, blah. Right.

It is a litmus test. If you want to be a writer, if you want to be a writer, that's true. Absolutely. If you want to be someone who crafts, who takes ideas and uses words to express them and crafts them. Absolutely true. There's no way around that. Right. But what I realized was you don't have to be a writer

to have a book. They're different things. You know, being a writer is fantastic, but it is a craft. It's sort of like, um, you don't have to win marathon. You don't have to be a marathoner to go running, right? You can go run for fun, for exercise, whatever. Totally fine. You don't have to be a marathoner. It's sort of a similar metaphor. You don't have to be a writer to have a book. A lot of people have a lot of great ideas and amazing knowledge and wisdom they should share with the world, and they don't have the time or ability or desire to ever write it down. And I realized this crystal clear, this one woman, this brilliant entrepreneur I met at

this entrepreneur dinner thing in New York, and she's like, I've had people ask me to write a book for 10 years about what I do. I don't have time. Um, can you help me, uh, sort of turn my knowledge into a book? And I was like, well, you have to write it. And she's like, you know, I gave a standard answer and she's like, kind of rolls her eyes. And then I started lecturing her about hard work, right? Like, you know, like I'm teaching this woman who's done 10 times more than me in life, uh, about what it takes to do things. And so she stops me and she's like, Tucker, um, are you an entrepreneur? And I'm like, yeah, I like to think I am. She's like, well, I am definitely. And, uh, what I do in my job is I solve people's problems. Do you do that? Or do

you just lecture people? And I was like, Oh, it was a total gut punch. Cause she was a hundred percent. Right. So it was like, I went home and I was like, okay, how do I solve a problem? And then I, it's one of these things I could have done eight years ago if I wasn't an arrogant shit. Basically, I realized to get her ideas out of her head and into a book, all I had to do was essentially translate it. And so it was like, I figured out a way, my co-founder Zach, uh, to sort of create, uh, to talk to her, create an outline, right. Figure out what the book was going to be about, who the

audience is, all the things you have to think about first, if you're really doing a good book. And then from, from that outline, we got someone to interview her, like a professional journalist to interview her, get everything out of her head about her subject, right. She's a book about retail pop-up retail. And then we got the recorded, it was about eight hours on the phone, transcribed that, took the transcription. If you've ever read a transcription like of this podcast, it's really hard to read any sort of, you can listen to things. It's great. You can't read them, right? Because they're different mediums. So then we just had an editor essentially translate it from audio transcripts into book prose.

Same ideas, same words, everything. And she's like, this is amazing. These are my thoughts exactly. This is perfectly, this is right. Did cover everything, published it. It's done amazing. So it's sort of, I mean, on some level, there's a ghostwriting aspect to it, although I wouldn't characterize it as ghostwriting. I mean, it's really a comprehensive thing of being able to put every aspect of the book together for

somebody and put it out there and designing the cover and like everything. Ghost writing is someone else, you tell them, write a book on sales, it's their ideas on sales, and then you're paying them to put your name on it. Our clients pay us 15 grand, so we're not cheap, but you're never going to find a good ghostwriter for 15 grand. Ghostwriters start at like 50. They're way more expensive. Right. 50 or more.

Or like a huge percentage of a, you know, for big books, a huge percentage of the advance. Exactly. So what we're doing is taking your ideas or the author's ideas and just translating them. That's it. Like we don't add content. We're not doing the thinking for them. This book is, she has a very unique perspective about pop-up retail, which I don't know. I don't add contents. We're not doing the thinking for them. Like this book is, she has a very unique perspective about pop-up retail, which I don't know. I don't care. I don't know

anything about pop-up retail. Right. But people who care, care a lot. And so like the editor's job was not to write about pop-up retail. It was the interviewer got everything out of her head and the editor's job is to make it flow well on the page. But it's her words, her ideas, her everything. And she retains all the intellectual property rights. Oh, yeah. She owns the royalties. You're not like a publisher where suddenly you're participating in. She owns everything.

She owns the royalties. She owns the rights. She owns everything. Like her book is a great example. She's only sold 500 copies, but she's done a couple million dollars in business. She signed a huge deal with like the biggest mall with the second biggest mall company in the country because she's in retail. And she's keynoting three conferences this year. And her book is, for the people that care about pop-up retail, her book has become the Bible.

It is like the thing. Because most fields, professional fields especially, have all this inborn sort of tacit knowledge. And it never gets written down because if you have a field where the practitioners make money, you're making money. You're not writing books about it. And a lot of times, fields change quickly and I don't want to give my secrets away or whatever, right? So if you're trying to get into sort of pop-up retail, you have no idea where to start, nothing, right? Her book has become the Bible already in like six months since it's been out because she's the first person who ever put all these ideas down, right?

And I feel like, honestly, not to get all like whatever, preachy or pitchy or something, but like I feel like there's so much knowledge and wisdom in the world. You feel like there's so much content. Most of it's bullshit. And the stuff that should be written down is not because most of the people that are really fucking smart and really talented and doing amazing things are too busy doing it to write it. Yeah. And they're not writers. Exactly.

There's a small crossover between people who write and people who have great things to say. There's a tiny crossover. And that crossover are great books. But most writers don't have anything to fucking say. And a ton of people who have a lot to say aren't writers and will never take the time to write. Right, right, right.

So what's their solution? So your client or your customer is a very specific person. Like for me personally, like there's no way that I could imagine having somebody else write my books because that's what I do. No, you shouldn't. Yeah. That would just make me insane. Like I just couldn't imagine that. No, no. And I'm sure you couldn't either. But, but for somebody who's a CEO of a business and they're looking at their book, not as, you know, some great piece of, you know, literature or high art, but as kind of a lead generator or- Or a way to pass on their knowledge.

A way to pass on their knowledge and also to kind of substantiate your level of- Authority. Expertise. Credibility. Exactly. Exactly. You know, honestly, the way I like to think about this is, so in antiquity, there was the Library of Alexandria, which the Egyptians for a thousand years collected every piece of knowledge, not just from their kingdom, but from Greece and Rome and everywhere, right? And the Library of Alexandria was this legendary building where supposedly every piece of human knowledge was in there, like how to grow, you know, sort of grapes in Corsica and all this stuff, right?

And then Julius Caesar burned it down to make a point to Cleopatra, and we lost 1,000 years of human knowledge. Gone, right? I feel like Google does an amazing job at cataloging information, not at knowledge. And I feel like we don't have the tools. We could rebuild the library of Alexandria, but we need the tools because people aren't, people aren't going to sit down and do this. But if you make it easy on them for the, to them to organize their information into knowledge and to record it in a way that other people can use, that's a serious sort of service. That's,

that's what makes me excited about this. Like selling $15,000 packages is like, man, who fucking cares? Right? Like that's just transactions for money. Like I'm not trying to sort of service. That's what makes me excited about this. Selling $15,000 packages is like, man, who fucking cares, right? That's just transactions for money. I'm not trying to promote someone's speaking career. If that happens, that's great. What I care about is creating a process where the knowledge and wisdom of humanity can be recorded and shared. That's super powerful. I would guess that 90% of the books we do won't really matter, but we're going to do hopefully 10%. Maybe even if it's only a 1% of the books we do end up making a difference, almost none of these books would exist without us, right? Or without this process. Like we have a book coming out, describes our exact process. We're going to sell

it for basically nothing, 299 or give it away free. Yeah, they're books that would have never happened otherwise. Right. Because I feel like, TJ, I'll show the world how to do this. I don't care. People who are going to hire us are hiring us because they have money and no time. The knowledge is fine. I want people to do this because I feel like there's a huge group of people who should be sharing their knowledge and aren't. Think about it. How amazing would it be if we had Joan of Arc's memoirs? No, seriously. I mean, wouldn't that be awesome? One of the great books ever written is Anne Frank's Diary. It exists by accident, right? Just because this poor girl was locked in a closet, had nothing else to do, an attic, had nothing else to do, wrote down everything she was thinking and feeling when the Nazis were occupying the Netherlands.

And it's like this amazing book that has changed millions of lives. And it basically exists by accident. How much of that shit have we lost in history? A lot, right? The technology now exists for us to lose none of it. And most of it might be worthless, but the stuff that isn't is amazing. And books change history. Books change how people think and how they interact with each other. How many books... What books have had an impact on you, dude? That's probably why you write, right? It's because books change. Same with me, man. Of course. So there's a difference between knowledge and information. Totally.

In today's age, information is disposable. It's instantaneous. It's unreliable. Totally different than knowledge. Knowledge is a different thing. And there's still something really special, even though we are in this disposable age about a book. A book is a way of affirming permanence in some regard and the tangible idea of the tangible. Yes, as a social object. Yes.

But I'm not even talking about digital versus physical, which is a different discussion. And I actually agree with you. I like physical books. I have 3000 of my play. I love them. So I like digital. I like both actually. To me, they're not contradictory.

But like I'm talking more about like, yes, turning our process is really good at turning information into knowledge. If you just want to record information, then just talk about it. You don't need us. You can just dictate and then get it transcribed. Use SpeechPad. Don't use this, right? If you just want to vomit onto a page, you don't need book in a box or the process.

The process is about, the way we go through is like the first question we ask is what's your goal? Second question is who's your audience? And the third is how are you or your audience reach their goals? Because that's what makes a great book is you delivering value in your book that the audience connects with and needs, right? Otherwise it's just like, Oh, I'm going to tell you how awesome I am. No one gives a shit. And there's too many of those crappy books. Right. But on some level, you recognize the difference between a book about, you know, pop-ups and the, gives a shit. And there's too many of those crappy books. Right. But on some level, you recognize the difference between a book about pop-ups

and that business and you trying to mine your emotional truth in the book. Totally different books. That's a different animal. Totally different books. I don't think I could write my book in this process, my book. But we actually do have someone who's coming through who's very similar. It's a woman who has lots of funny stories, and she's actually using our process. And I think it's working actually really well for her because she is funny, she's a decent storyteller, and the process forces her to... The way we do it is we make people really focus on what they're saying that matters to their audience.

That's knowledge. What do I know that you would find valuable? That's what we put in books. We try to make them about that. I sent a friend of mine to you guys. Who? Khalil Rafati. Oh, dude.

We're having lunch with Khalil tomorrow. Oh, you are? Yeah. His book is, we just finished his manuscript. We're actually delivering it to him in person tomorrow. Oh, dude, we're having lunch with Khalil tomorrow. Oh, you are? Yeah. His book is, we just finished his manuscript. We're actually delivering it to him in person tomorrow. Oh, very cool. You sent it. I thought Neil Strauss sent it.

No, well, I mean, I gave him the idea. Maybe he's friends with Neil. I don't know. Yeah, he is friends. So maybe Neil is the one who pushed him over the top. But like, I had a lot of conversation with Khalil about it. Yeah, he's like a- He's been on my podcast.

He's a good friend of mine. He's had an amazing life. Well, his story is insane. It's crazy. I know. Heroin addict. like a, he's had an amazing life. Well, his story is insane. It's crazy. Heroin addict. Like now he runs organic juice, that stuff. And he's like an amazing, and it's so funny. Are you going to Sun Life? Yeah. Yeah. We're going tomorrow to his place. He's a, an amazing, I think his book is actually going to be really good. He's, he's got a story I think will resonate with a lot of people. It's, it's very,

you should listen to my podcast interview with him. He's amazing. Yeah I think will resonate with a lot of people. You should listen to my podcast interview. With him? He's amazing. I mean, the way he can tell his story and his, I mean, talk about an arc. I mean, it's unbelievable. It is. It genuinely is like, it was like, when I looked at the outline, I'm like, this can't be real. But Khalil, and this is not disparaging at all because I love him to death, but he's like a very ADHD guy.

He could never write. He's a moving target. He just can't sit still. So there's no way. Initially, I'm saying, here's how I think you should open your book, and here's what I think you should make sure that you're focusing on thematically. And I'm just like, he's never going to write this book. No. It's never going to happen.

It never would happen without us. And that's a shame because he really does have such an incredible story that could empower and inspire a lot of people. It is. Seriously. He's the perfect example of someone who's perfect for our process. You know, like the other example I give is Malcolm X is like basically him and Alex Haley use this process. Not literally, of course not. But like the idea that you can use the spoken word and a well-structured interview to lay the foundation for the book is something that has been done over and over through history.

It's just no one has made it systematic and made that knowledge sort of almost algorithmic and checklist so that anyone can follow it. That's really the only thing we've done. We didn't invent using talking as a basis for books. God knows we didn't, or the Republic wouldn't exist. How many books have you guys done? We're at client 60 right now, I think. That's cool. Profitable from the get-go. And it basically, in terms of scaling this like you're just dependent upon this network of independent contractor editors and people like that, right?

So, you know, as you grow, you have to grow that network, obviously. Yeah. So what we do is we've actually found some amazing freelance. There's so many high, really like highly talented sort of artistic, creative people because the way the world is changing, it's not that necessarily there's no jobs for them. It's just that people who are used to a certain type of job, like journalists, right? Like, some of them don't adapt well, right? But what we've done is we don't just say, hey, here's an ex-journalist. Go have fun.

Like, we have a very systematic process where, like, we have a different person outline them. Our outliners, so our main outliner is this guy, Mark Chait. We just hired full time. He was a senior editor at Penguin and executive editor, Harper Collins. We have another guy who's a senior editor, a different publishing house or used to be who those two do our main outlines. And they're, I mean, they're so amazing at taking, sitting down with people and getting out of them what really matters, right? Like what they really should be talking about, what the book should be really about. So it's not just like, hey, what do you want to write about? Part of our job is helping those people figure out what the most interesting thing about

themselves is, you know, to reach their goal, right? And so we do the outline. So Chait will, or the other guy. The outline is so key. Oh, dude, we spend three hours on the phone with them and then probably another 10 to 12 hours off, our outliner does, getting it right. If your outline isn't tight, you're done. It's a disaster. You'll never write a good book.

It's a disaster. We've had one client where we screwed up the outline and it was my fault, actually, and it's been so much work getting everything fixed. And then once we have the outline, then we have, like, man, former Washington post reporters and so many really talented people. We do everything in between. Like, and so all we do is we connect like the journalist or the editors, what we call the position with them. And then they schedule like four or five calls and then they just go down the outline and they're like, okay, this seems so tell me about this story and then blah, blah, blah. And then they keep, it's their job to ask questions, uh, until they feel like everything is out of this person's head about this subject. Right. Um, and so like, you know, we, we give them some outline or some general structure, but

you don't need to teach, uh, people who spent 10 years covering the department of defense, how to like probe and ask questions. They know what they're doing. Right. So we just hired that like really great people and we test them, you know, and stuff. And then once we know they're good, then – and that's all they have to do is ask questions. And then we do all the transcribing. And then we send it back to that same person with the transcription sections, the relevant ones plugged into the outline. So it's, whatever, 60,000 words. And all they have to do is go through and just make the sentences into something that flows on the page. So the editors, it's a

really easy job for them. Like they, when you first tell them, it's like, oh, this seems hard. And then they do it and they're like, man, I did 4,000 words today. Like you can't write 4,000 original words in a day and make them good. But editing the fast sort of edit of other people's words is no problem. And so it actually ends up going like, no problem. We have turned out, listen, our process is not foolproof in that garbage in, garbage out. If you have a really stupid idea, then we're going to produce a well-structured, beautiful book that is full of stupid ideas. If it's a great idea though, it's a great book. If the quote unquote author isn't good at conveying their ideas or isn't a good storyteller or isn't clear on what they're trying to express, then there's not much that you can do with them.

Well, I'll tell you what. Yes and no. If they don't have any ideas or they don't have any stories or they don't have anything to say, you're right. There's nothing we can do. Why are they writing a book then? They shouldn't be. We turn down – listen, we're not trying to like not make money, but we turn down about 10% of the people who come to us. Well, the CEO of every business probably wants a book.

It doesn't mean they have anything to say. Yes, yes and no. So our job is, if they have nothing to say, if they're literally like, I just want a book, then we don't do ghostwriting. We refer them to ghostwriters, and people come to us like that all the time the time. I don't really have anything to say. I just need a book to get tenure or whatever. It's like, okay, here's a list of seven ghostwriters that we know that are really great. Go deal with them. Let's just pause there for a minute though, because just that statement alone makes my skin crawl because there's this idea that books don't really have that much value. They're just these lead generators and I just need the credibility. And that makes me crazy because I know how much I've

poured into my books and I'm sure you feel the same way. Well, that's why you sell books though, dude. And people listen to you. It's almost, it's such a, it's such a disrespect for what it is on some level. Those people don't matter, man. I don't, I just don't think about it. I don't worry about it. We push those people to ghostwriters and it's okay, great. Have fun. What we found actually, a lot of people come to us and they're worried that, well, I don't know what they say. I don't know if I have enough for a book and we're like, okay, let's do the first outline call. Uh, if nothing comes out of it, no big deal. You don't owe us any money. We don't, no problem. And so like the first call is basically risk-free and it's fine for us too, because we don't mind

that spending that, that part, uh, money because we don't want to do a shitty book either. Right. Uh, and so what we find though, if you're, if you're 40, 50, 60, and you've been a professional for 20, 30, 40 years, you know, shit, you may not know what's interesting to other people. And you might not know about what you might not know what you should say in your book because you don't know what audiences will react to. That's our job to understand, okay, what you know here is very valuable. If your book is we almost anyone who's a professional who knows how to do something, we can pull a really good book. We just have to make it narrow and specific. So, you know, like it, we have one guy who come, who came

through, um, a plumbing contractor and like, what are you gonna write a book about? Right. Actually. So our outliner, like talk to him for like an hour about plumbing and realized, uh, the biggest problem he has to solve is on sort of, um, un- unfucking other plumbing contractors' ways they screwed or messed with other people's sort of stuff, right? So what we realized was he had an amazing book in him about how to figure out if your plumbing contractor is legit. And it's essentially a systematic process where it's like, here's the questions to ask. If he says these things, he's legit. If he says these things, he's not. And it's really simple. He doesn't teach you

about plumbing. He comes at it from the perspective of like the homeowner installing a plumbing system. Right. And it's like, who cares about that? Well, I'll tell you what, when you're installing a plumbing system and you search on Google, you have a very, very high, uh, care. You're not, you're not browsing for this book, but when you need it, you need it, right? And he's like this big-time plumbing contractor in a big area of the country. And so it's helped to get him a bunch of business. And he's like the guy now for plumbing. He's like one of the nationwide experts.

And it's sort of the same as Melissa's story. It's almost the same story. And he had a ton of really valuable knowledge, but it's only valuable at a specific time to a specific set of people. But it is extremely valuable to those people. We actually charge the maximum for the e-book, $9.99 that you can on Amazon for that type of book. Because if you're going to buy it, you don't care what it costs. As long as it's a legit book. If your toilet's it costs. Right. As long as it's a legit book, if your toilets overflowing, exactly. And I think we're actually going to end up doing a video or we're not going to do it. We're going to push them to some people who do this, a video series with him where he's going to walk people through. Here's how you like,

okay, plumbing contractor does this. He's right. Whatever. So like even a sort of the higher end thing, that'll be like $99 or whatever. We're like, if you really want to know what you're talking about, even more than the book, then it goes even more into in depth because that, that knowledge is you're spending, I don't know, five grand on a plumbing sort of solution for your house or whatever it is. You need to know that stuff, you know? And so that's the sort of thing it's called tacit knowledge. It's not literature. It's not life-changing and sort of like, wow, this revelation. It's not an owner's manual either. It's not life-changing and sort of like, wow, how did this revelation? It's not an owner's manual either. It's somewhere in between. So it runs very deep and very narrow.

Right. It's like a 50,000 word book. So it's not that long. It's easy to read. You can skip around. He's like, some is commercial. Some is, I don't know, bidets. There's like different systems. I don't, what do I know about plumbing? Right. But it's like, I can totally see if I build a house, I'm going to read that book. You know, I'm going to read the section that matters to me. And that, that's going to be extremely valuable to me, that information. Yeah. And, and kind of expanding on the idea of what a book is. Right.

And I just read the piece you wrote that you put up. I think you just, just put it up. Conferences. Yeah. Conferences. And the idea of trying to, you know, capture, capture that information and repurpose it in new and different ways. And the idea that, you know, somebody would hold a conference and have all these amazing speakers, it seems almost painfully obvious

that you would want to put all of that in writing and offer it to people. Yes. I mean, like, it's like you think about it and so much about what we do in life is, I'm telling you, man, your son and my son are going to have a conversation in 30 years, but can you believe our fucking dads used to drive their own cars? That's insane. No one's going to believe that we used to allow people to routinely kill each other through operating motor vehicles. Of course, we didn't have the technology to make them automated, but that's going to be

one of those things people think is insane. I'm telling you, in five or 10 years, people are going to think it's insane that we had all this information and no one systematically turned it into recorded, shareable knowledge. Dude, think about the price of acquisition of just the plumbing example. What is it going to cost for me to learn all this stuff? I got to hire somebody at thousands of dollars or hundreds of dollars an hour. That's the cheapest example. Like what is it going to cost for me to learn all this stuff? I got to hire somebody at thousands of dollars or hundreds of dollars an hour. That's the cheapest solution. And like I got to hire a plumbing consultant to deal with my plumbing contractor. And it's like all this sort of stuff. It's not anything that's high and mighty and fancy, but it is really important to people. A lot of people, a lot of times. But how, I mean, couldn't you just go

Google it and try to find the answer? I guess the trick there is that you don't know that the information is reliable. You don't know it's reliable. And also most of the stuff you actually can't Google, you'd be shocked, dude. You think everything's on the internet. We've just started. I think we've literally just started. Google is really good at cataloging information, but like this sort of weird, tacit information doesn't get put up because it's either too niche or it's too expensive. The opportunity cost for that plumber, he makes, I don't know, 200 bucks an hour, right? Or whatever as a plumbing contractor, that's a lot of money. He's not going to sit down and write a book. He's not going to write

a blog post about this. That's nonsense. But for, he's going to pay us because he knows he can indirectly ROI that book, right? Because the knowledge actually is really valuable, right? And it's not like he's, he's not writing a book about, oh, the six things your, your SAS business can learn from plumbers. You know, it's not like that stuff. It's like, here's how to do something that, uh, 5 million people have to do every year and 5,000 people know how to do. Yeah, interesting. I mean, we talked about this earlier. Sometimes the most important stuff is the stuff operating in the background that makes things better.

Cisco is not a sexy company, but it's worth $300 billion or whatever because it makes the world a way better place. We're not going to be a $300 billion company or a $30 billion company, probably not even a $3 billion company, but we can be a very valuable company because the process we're creating, I think is going to unlock huge value chains for a lot of people. I think in a way, and not just the process we're creating, I think if we're successful at this and all signs point to like a serious yes, then people are going to start realizing what if we could do this for music or movie scripts or whatever? You know, what if we remove the friction between turning an idea or a piece of knowledge into something that's consumable and authoritative and correct? You know?

Yeah, I mean, I can see how you can scale it and expand it into you know knowledge-based areas even like you know keynote presentations and things like that where people just don't have the time speeches do it speeches things like that it gets tricky when you start to venture in the into the world of art though like when you're talking about screenplays and you're talking about you know sort of you think so more except you do realize that like and i don't say this in a bad way like music you have oh music free-flowing music is extremely formulaic. I mean, like four beat. Ask any musician.

They'll tell you there's a ton of room for improvisation within the rule structure. Free-form music is not music. It's a kid banging on a pot. That's not. I mean, all music has very precise structure. Just like you think, oh, you could never do this as fiction. Well, and screenplay has structure and narrative fiction has structure that everything has structure, you know, but, but, you know, the interplay between, you know, structure and expression.

You're absolutely right. No, listen, you're absolutely right in that. Like, I don't believe, I'm not saying like computers are going to be writing good novels anytime soon. I mean, though, if you give people the structure, if people aren't thinking about process and they're just thinking about art, it makes the art better. And it expands the type of art you can create. The iPhone is a perfect example. So 20 years ago, you're old enough to remember, 20 years ago, if you wanted to be a professional photographer, what did you need? Enough equipment to fill this room, right? Years of training on that equipment.

You had to develop pictures, lenses, lighting, like all these crazy things you had to learn that had nothing to do with actual capturing an image, right? I mean, they do because it's the equipment you have to use, right? What do you need now to be a professional photographer? An iPhone and Instagram. Like, now, you still have to take great pictures. Absolutely. A purist would take issue with that. Well, I mean... And there's a difference between, you know, like a Canon, you know, 5D and an iPhone. I'll tell you, every professional photographer I know says that that sentence will be untrue

before you know it. Yeah, we're heading in that direction. Right, and the difference now- Accelerating in that direction. The difference now is so subtle that like there's only a few cases where you need a serious Canon 5D and lenses and lighting and all that stuff.

I mean, listen, you're never gonna hire someone with an iPhone to shoot your wedding, probably. No, I mean, it's for whom and when. It's like, what is your purpose and what is your goal? The point isn't that one's better than the other. The point is that an iPhone unlocks entirely new value chains of photography that did not exist. The best photographers in the world right now are arguably Russian kids with iPhones hanging from antennas in Moscow, right? I mean, like that's nuts and totally impossible before, totally impossible. Now it's possible, right? And so like if it's possible with photography, what if someone does with

content what the iPhone did to photography? It doesn't make old school cameras bad. It gives us so much more value to play with, you know? Well, it democratizes everything. And it does that. In a certain respect, that's kind of your market advantage. You're democratizing something that is, you know, traditionally been reserved to the, you know, oak paneled walls of, you know, of New York City. It is the ultimate populist movement. Because it's not saying giving,

the internet gave everyone a voice. People have voices. Most people don't have shit to say. Fine. But the people who have something to say, but don't have the time or ability to turn it into a cogent, sort of structured piece of content,

then we remove the friction. That's it. And so what they're, what they have to say can now be turned into a knowledge that's shared with the world instead of just knowledge is shared with people they know, you know? And just think of it on a personal level. How cool would it be if you had your great grandfather who immigrated from

Slovakia, whatever, I'm making it up. Right. But like, if you had his memoir about where he came from and what it was like, you never met the guy, but it's like, that's direct descendant. That's who you are in a lot of ways.

How cool would that be? You know, like- It's almost like a cool gift you could give to somebody. My great grandmother was- It's my gift. You're going to go and you're going to talk to this guy and we're going to put a book together. My great grandmother and grandfather on my dad's side were Ashkenazi Jews, refugees from some horrible – not the Nazis.

It was earlier, but like some World War I thing. Like not a sexy like genocide. It was like one of the normal awful ones, right? And like came to America, changed their name, anglicized. You know how we figured out that we were Jewish, part Jewish? I took 23andMe tests. They never told anyone. It's not even part of our family history to realize that we are essentially exiled Askenazi Jews.

My dad's sort of paternal line, my dad didn't know he was 40% Jew. And that's just one tiny little thing. Right, just lost forever. Doesn't have to be. So what's the vision? That's it. That's the vision is that we turn the knowledge and wisdom of the smartest, most capable people into books.

We share the knowledge and wisdom of the smartest people in the world with the world. That's it. Like, that's what we're trying to do. And is this like your full-time, is this pretty much a full-time thing for you now? Yeah. No, it's. How many employees do you guys have? We just hired employee number five, number six and seven start next week.

And then how many, like, stringers do you have? Freelancers, we've got maybe 40 or 50 that we work with on a routine basis. Yeah. And we don't, no offices, totally remote company. Dude, like, I have a whole sort of, we started this company, I swore no industrial era corporate age principles. We're going to, this is a total knowledge economy. Everything of value in this company is in the heads and the hearts of the people who run it. So we're going to build it totally differently from the ground up and the assumption that this is – Yeah, there's no intellectual property technology application to it, really.

It's a human resources thing. No, there's no IP in terms you think of like software. But our process is – I hesitate to call it proprietary. It is. I mean we're going to put it in a book and give it away and teach anyone how to do it. But it's a lot of things that individually a lot of other people have done. We put it together in a way no one else has. Because we're getting results no one else has gotten. And we're doing things that no one else has done. And I think this is only the beginning, though. I think if we can turn this into software as a service, then we have to charge $15,000 now.

It's an expensive thing, right? But if it's software as a service, we can charge $50. And then we can have a whole marketplace where it's like, oh, you want to pay $500 for an amazing cover? No problem. We've got everyone there. The service can meet the budget. Exactly. Then you can do it yourself, or if your budget's $3,000, you can get amazing work for three grand, et cetera, et cetera. Right. And then all of a

sudden it, this isn't just reserved for people who have money in no time. Now it's anyone who has anything to say, any knowledge and wisdom they want to pass on anyone who wants to record stuff for posterity, for their family, anyone. And of course, 99%, 99.99% of that will be, I don't want to call it worthless, but extremely niche use cases. But a whole genre of books, a whole series of books are going to come into existence that are world-changing that would not otherwise have existed. Like Joan of Arc's memoir, not literally, but something like that is going to happen. It doesn't trade off with, I don't think we're disruptive to traditional publishing. That's the funny thing.

You're never going to use our service, nor should you. Anyone who's a writer- And what you're doing is not a threat to what they're doing. It's not. It's actually complementary. Right. iPhones didn't get rid of Canon 5Ds. It turned a whole new class of people into a type of photographer and unlocked a whole new value chain. I think we are actually not, weirdly not disruptive at all

to traditional publishing, even though you would think- Yeah, because these are books they would never touch anyway, so it doesn't matter. They wouldn't exist anyway. There might be a tiny sort of element of some people who might have gone to traditional publishing who use this anyway, celebrity memoirs, things like that. Yeah, I mean, there's a Venn diagram. And at some point, you know, you have a person who wants to, you know, who's making that decision to self-publish as opposed to go the traditional route for reasons I'm sure you can understand and reasons I've contemplated. And there's a big difference between self-publishing and professionally self-publishing, right? And to the extent that you can help somebody navigate that Byzantine world,

that's a value because otherwise, I tried to study it. I learned as much as I could about the differences between traditional and- You got to just pay somebody. Yeah. And it's a lot. I'll tell you what, if you want to self-publish, obviously, we actually don't advertise this just because it's not like a core part of our business. We have maybe 10% of our business are people like you who establish writers. They want to self-publish, but they want professional self-publishing and they don't want to learn it themselves. It's like six grand to take a finished manuscript all the way through the end of the process. That's no problem.

Right. That's like what? But that doesn't change the world. That's just additive. That's like James, right? Yeah. Like with Right. That's like what? That doesn't change the world. That's just additive. That's like James, right? Yeah. Like what James? That's what I did for James.

Exactly what I did with James. And then I did the publishing. Ryan did the marketing. The book did amazing. That's interesting, but that doesn't change the world. That's just additive. It's a small efficiency change to what exists. I think the book in a box process is a totally different thing.

That's what's exciting to me. I mean, the other thing is great. We'll do it. Like if you want to self publish, dude, we'll, we'll give you a friend rate. We'll do amazing. No one will be able to tell the difference between those books and the ones we do with you. Uh, it's no problem. And, and it'll be far cheaper than if you ever decided to do it yourself. And there's reasons to do that, not do that. And if you want to explore that, I'll be happy to get on the phone and walk you through it. Although I'm sure you're smart enough and Bird has probably told you everything, but like that's, that's just like, okay, fine. That's just a service that that's fine. It's like hiring someone to fix your plumber or plumbing. Right. Right. No problem. We're, we're creating a whole new sort of thing.

You know, that's exciting. Yeah. I'm, I'm, we'll see. That's what we're trying to do, man. You know, people, a lot of people try to do this. Not everything works. We'll see. Yeah. Yeah. We'll see. That's what we're trying to do, man. You know, a lot of people try to do this. Not everything works. We'll see. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, it's a laudable goal. And it's already profitable and it's already succeeding and growing. So, you know, and you're obviously passionate about it, too.

Because I've seen what we can do already. Right. You know, and I know it's just the beginning. I see some of the stuff coming through. Like, dude, Khalil's a perfect example, dude. That book doesn't exist. And his book might be amazing and change the beginning. I see some of the stuff coming through. Like, dude, Khalil's a perfect example. That book doesn't exist. And his book might be amazing and change the world. It might change five people's lives. If you don't adjust as that, that's pretty cool. But we're going to do one of these that's going to really truly be like what the autobiography of Malcolm X was to

a certain type of person, a certain generation. We're going to do that book for the next generation. And we can't take credit for it. The way it's going to happen is it's going to be some unknown person that nobody's ever heard of. And there's going to be something about that story that's just going to connect in a way that you can't fathom or predict. Totally. The way that something like Fifty Shades of Grey becomes a thing, you don't know how

that happens. It just happens, right? And inevitably- It hits something that no one else was doing. volume, you know, that day will come. Right. Yeah. I, I, well, that's why we don't try to predict. You're going to wish that you actually own some of the upside. Yeah. I know. I mean, what was that? You obviously probably, I'm sure you thought about that and you made a very conscious decision to not, you know, be a participant. Well, because here's, here's the thing. I feel like if we start trying to capture the upside, then it screws up our incentives.

And it makes us... If you try and feed on both sides, it doesn't work. We are either a service business or we are a partner business, right? You can't be both. Well, traditional publishing is, isn't it? Right, and that's why they do a terrible job. Because, no, their incentives are to just sign as many books as they can afford, throw shit against the wall, see what works.

But they have an incentive for it to be good because they're participating in the upside. No, not once they buy it because once they buy it. Are you less incentivized for it to be good if you're not participating in it? No, no. You're just getting paid. It doesn't matter to you whether it to be good if you're not participating in it? No, no. You're just getting paid. It doesn't matter to you whether it's any good or not. Absolutely not because our business card is the quality of every book we put out. The way we get clients is because they see the quality of the publishing.

But fundamentally, you're a volume business. Yeah, because you're only going to make money in the number of books that come in. I don't think we are. No, seriously. Actually, fundamentally, I think we're a customer service business. You would be able, yeah, because you're only going to make money in the number of books that come in. I don't think we are. No, seriously. Actually, fundamentally, I think we're a customer service business. The way we've structured our business is fundamentally as a customer service business. And like, we want the author to come out the other side, utterly delighted with interacting with us. Super proud of the book and excited about that. But like, also like, man, it was so enjoyable to deal with them. Because if we do that, then we're going to get, uh, every, then we become Zappos, you know? And like, if you can be a company where people love working with you, then, um, you, it's all upside.

Like that's a, that's a moat that other people can't cross, especially because you're right, we don't have proprietary patentable software yet, at least, right? So we need to build a moat and customer service builds brands in a way nothing else does. Whereas publishers, believe it or not, are not incentivized to make your book good. Here's why. It's already a sunk cost. They've already spent the money in advance. Every dollar they spend after this is actually a much riskier dollar because they don't know what's going to work, which is why what you always see is they overspend on the advance, buyer's remorse, they spend nothing. If the book does well, then they try and throw money after it to make it work, which doesn't work either. Their whole system is screwed up. The structure

doesn't work, man. In a world where there's zero transaction cost information, it's actually the person creating the content who is the most valuable. That's 21st century information-based economy. 20th century resource-based industrial economy is totally different because there's only a certain number of books that can be produced. So the scarcity is getting your book produced. It creates an entirely different business structure. That's why I said we're trying to build a business structure that is for the 21st century, not 20th century. Right. So the key for you is systems for customer service and hiring the right people. And you're going to live and die. If we produce amazing books, regardless of the ideas in them, then we are going to have an amazing business. That's our, that's our goal.

Garbage in, garbage out. Amazing book, amazing book, amazing idea, amazing book. Like that's it. Well, good luck to you, man. Thank you, brother. I think we did it. Yeah. That was a, that was maybe the longest podcast I've ever been on. How long did we go for? Oh, dude, we're over two hours. Yeah, that was quite a while. That's pretty good. I've gone three before. No, that was fantastic, though. That was great.

Thanks for doing it, man. I appreciate it. No, of course. Thank you for being patient. Yeah. So what's that? I've got to tell Zach where to pick me up. If you're digging on Tucker, the best way to connect with you, what is that these days?

TuckerMax.me, Pinabox.com. So the best way to connect is, if you're interested in Bookinabox, just go to Bookinabox.com, and then we have a little form. If you want to email me or something, it's just TuckerMax at Gmail. It's fine. We could have a whole podcast about how you deal with email. It's not so bad anymore. I could have a whole podcast about how you deal with email.

It's not so bad anymore. But my secret is I just ignore it unless it desperately needs a response. I don't have a – You have some like hack secret? No, dude. I'm not – I wish I had some like fancy productivity technique. It's not. I just – I'm not – I wish I could be one of those productivity guys because i feel like i get a lot more done it's just not the way my brain works like i try systems and processes

and for me it always boils down to like what you have writing shit down and keep it in front of me and focusing on what matters it's hard to it's hard to take the there's lots of ideas around there but actually implementing those is tricky. It rarely works with me. I still end up just writing everything in a moleskin and just taking notes on my iPhone and doing the best I can with email and not beating myself up if I can't answer every one of them. Yep. That's all you can do. That's right.

All right. So bookinthebox.com, at tuckermax on Twitter, tuckermax.me. Tuckermax.me is sort of like the new site that has newer stuff. Dude, you're easy to find. Google. Google works for me.ermax.me. Tuckermax.me is sort of like the new site that has newer stuff. Dude, you're easy to find. Google. Google works for me. Alright. Thanks for doing that. Thank you, man. Alright. Peace. Lance. All right, so that happened.

I hope you guys enjoyed it. Let me know what you thought of the episode in the comment section on the episode page at richroll.com. Keep sending your questions in for future Q&A podcasts to info at richroll.com. We're gonna be recording one of these in the next couple of days. So fire them off, you guys. Let's hear from you. For all your plant power needs, visit richroll.com. We got nutrition products, books, education products, 100% organic cotton garments.

We got running tech teas. We got a meditation program, basically all kinds of stuff to help you take your health and your life to the next level, including our new cookbook, The Plant Power Way, and my memoir, Finding Ultra. You guys know about all this stuff. And if you're into online courses, I got two of those at mindbodygreen.com. The Ultimate Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition, three and a half hours of streaming video, and The Art of Living with Purpose, which is all about goal setting and kind of doing the internal work. A lot of the stuff that we talked about on the show today to help kind of, you know, create the

right trajectory for yourself and, and set guideposts and, and really tools and resources to help, you know, drive you forward with the best momentum on the best path possible for you. Thanks for supporting the show. Thanks for telling a friend. Thank you for sharing on social media. I love you guys for doing that. And of course, thank you for using the Amazon banner at richroll.com for all your Amazon purchases. I'll see you guys in a few. Have a great week, everybody. I appreciate you sticking with me all the way to the end and look forward to another great episode next week. I'm out. Peace. Blants. you