Choosing Sovereignty with Tucker Max

[00:00:00] Ali: Welcome back, folks. Today I have a friend, a special guest, Mr. Tucker Max. Tucker and I met through way of FRD, Front Row Dads, and one of the things that's interesting that I sort of share about Tucker is that I've had very few but potent conversations with him, some of which we'll probably talk about today.

But I appreciate those conversations, Tucker, if I haven't told you before. They've been inspirational and helpful, among other words I could use. And my thing on this show is to allow guests to introduce themselves. So, who is Tucker Max?

[00:00:43] Tucker: Oh man, well, right now, I spend my time, I have a 50 acre homestead in Dripping Springs, Texas. And so, you know, we got sheep, chickens, bees, all that kind of stuff. Planting, all kinds of stuff, so, I work on that, and I have four kids. All under nine, nine or under the oldest is nine.

And so two are in the school that I helped found. There's a Waldorf in Dripping Springs. And then one is being homeschooled cause there weren't enough kids for a class at the Waldorf. And then one, is just like little, she's a year and a half.

And so, yeah, so homeschooling one of my kids and building my homestead, man. That's pretty much it for right now.

[00:01:23] Ali: That's exactly why I wanted to record this is that you're doing some things in the world around homesteading that are inspiring.

I also think that parts of them are courageous and that's my interpretation because I want to do similar things. And so as I learn and explore this with you, let's start with the homesteading. So what sparked this?

[00:01:49] Tucker: Well, I mean, my wife and I had always wanted to be on land. We wanted it to buy land and kind of live on it and whatever. And it was one of those things where, you know, most people for most things, they want like, oh, one day or we're going to, you know, we're thinking about it or, or this is what we want to do.

And we were definitely in that space about land. And then 2020 came along and lockdowns and the massive expansion of, you know, governmental authoritarian power, and all the riots and all of the other nonsense.

And we were like, okay, like, I thought I was awake and understood the world and I did in a lot of ways. But, there was a depth to it that I did not understand and that, that really woke me up in. The moment where I really was like, "oh, shit, we have to get on land" was January 6th of 2021 when I watched a news feed of a bunch of drunken doofuses being led into the Capitol. And then in real time, the American media tried to tell me that that was a dangerous insurrection.

I was like, no, that's just not true at all. And it's funny because I spent 20 years in media. I know they lie about everything. But to watch that and then like all the subsequent stuff, like, I mean, there's what, 30 or 40 people in jail now, like who literally were let into a building. In what amounts to, a little bit of a ruckus, but what amounts to an America, at least a peaceful process.

And, um, I was like, all right, that day, I realized that, that I don't know when the American Republic fell, but it was over. And we were not just, we were long past the American Republic falling, we were now in the empire collapse stage. And I was like, "Oh shit." Like I missed this Most people have, but nonetheless I like to think I'm smarting ahead and I wasn't at that moment. I was like, oh we need to get our shit together.

And so we'd always wanted to get on land and it was like let's go. So I took us a little off on the right place, but we did. And so now I went from being like most people, I lived in a city, you know, I bought all my food at a grocery store. I was absolutely, completely dependent on other people for everything.

And now I own my own water supply. I have two water supplies, both of which are fully owned and contained. I own my own meat supply. Like, I make all my own chicken, I make all my own lamb, and when I say I make, I mean, my sheep are born here, they live here. I kill them here, I gut them here, I hang them here, and I butcher them here. They never leave my land.

Same with chickens. Uh, we do meat chickens as well as eggs. So, I mean, I have 90 something meat birds in my freezer right now that I raised this year here. And so like, meat, uh, I don't do Cows on my land. I decided to not, we had cows for a while, but I decided not to.

But I get my meat from a rancher who is about an hour away who I know personally. Who literally puts nothing in his cows, except grass and water. No anti parasitics, no vaccines. He's way beyond organic, like he's. He's religious about like. And so all of my meat is either an owned supply or it's from someone who sees the world I do and lives right by me.

Most of my vegetables, we get farmer's markets or whatever. And like, power supply, I have multiple supplies. I'm on grid for power because I'm not a fool or Amish, right? So of course the grid's working. I'm going to use it, but I have multiple backup supplies.

And so we live a life that is in most ways normal. But last winter in Texas, in central Texas, we had a massive ice storm. An inch of ice was on everything. And in Austin power was down for three days where I live, power down five days. Literally, we did nothing change. You know, we have generators propane, like we have everything.

And so it was like nothing changed in our life. Right. And so, I've created a life where not only am I not dependent on other people for a lot of things? I, of course, I don't make my own Mac books. Like, I mean, obviously I'm still in the world.

But for the very important inputs, water, food, et cetera, I'm not dependent on others. And more importantly than not just dependent on them, I think most of what passes as food and water and other things are poison. And I'm not involved in that system anymore. And like, I don't have to check all my labels at Whole Foods anymore or worry about whether they're being honest about where they're sourcing stuff because I either do it myself or I know who makes it and I know them and they're my friend. And I can just go to their farm anytime and see what they're doing.

Right. And so, you know.

[00:07:01] Ali: Like, you went back to how things were before we became so complex and...

[00:07:06] Tucker: In certain ways. In certain ways. Like, you know, when people talk about living off grid, that's such a fallacy. Even the Amish are not off grid. Seriously, no one is off grid anymore. And I mean... almost literally no one. Because people are like, how are the Amish not off grid? They don't use electricity.

I'm like, "okay, where do they get their tools?" They use iron tools, right? They use steel. So where do they get those? They're not mining the ore. They're not smelting it. Like they are on the petrochemical grid. Everyone basically on Earth now is, right. So there's no such thing as off grid or on grid.

You're on grid. The only question is how reliant are you on other people for all your inputs? And how insulated from grid shocks are you? Like I'm not fully insulated from all grid shocks if someone nuked Houston, I'm gonna be effected.

But like, just as an example, if all of a sudden the U. S. government decided to cancel all currency and roll out central bank digital currency and try and, you know, all this nonsense. Like the two main, what three main ways they're going to get people to do that is food, water, power, right?

I can't withstand forever. No one can, but I'm not reliant on any governmental entity for those systems. Right. And so, like, I can live in a different way. My goal is, is to be as sovereign as possible. There's no such, it's not an on off switch, right? You're not either sovereign or not sovereign. There are degrees of sovereignty. And not everyone wants to be sovereign.

I do. Not free. Free is a different thing. I want to be sovereign, meaning I decide. I get to have full choice over my life. Or as much as possible. I'm a human, I still live in this world. I don't get to decide which laws of physics I obey. Right. But, um... sovereign among men. I want to be a sovereign man, meaning like I get to decide what I do and what I don't freely.

[00:09:18] Ali: Totally. That is a very comprehensive answer to the why. You even kind of noted on some of the things that I was follow up curious about around some of the challenges, but I think it's really again, I'll just use the word inspiring, because I make up a story that what you're doing is not easy.

[00:09:38] Tucker: Yeah, it's not. No, sovereignty is not easy, man. Sovereignty is almost always the harder path. Because if someone else is willing to do the hard work for you, yeah, that's easier, dude. There's a price for that, right? And I like to say that any responsibility you have that you abdicate will be taken up by a tyrant and used against you.

I think, I think Jordan told me that. Uh, Peterson, like he's a good friend of mine and like, we were talking about something and he said that I was like, that's exactly what I was saying, but way, way better. And it's true, you know.

Now here's the reality, man. Most people are okay with accepting at least some level of tyranny in their lives if it's more convenient and easier. And you know what? Fine. That's their decision. And I used to, even though I didn't think I was, I used to be that way. And you can probably point out areas in my life where I'm still doing it now that I don't really realize I'm making a cost benefit analysis or et cetera, et cetera, but like, that's whatever, man.

Like, if other people want to be slaves or be half slaves or quasi slaves or wear golden handcuffs or whatever, that's their decision, not mine. I it's fine. I'm not going to do that though. I've decided it's not going to happen.

[00:11:02] Ali: I've sensed that. Like I said, in the few conversations I've had with you, I sense that you're very with your decisions. You don't necessarily preach or tell people what to do, but here's the thing that I've also observed with you, which I think is one of your gifts, at least that's how I filter it.

Is that sometimes you share or speak with such conviction that it's like, I told you this before, I'm like, "holy shit, has Tucker changed my mind on this?" Like, I used to think this, but like what he said makes a lot of sense. And the way he said it, I'm like, I don't feel like he's making this up. Like, I'm observing your body language and I'm like, he's so grounded in what he just said.

So where this goes to. Um, the question I don't think I've asked before is. What's your process for learning? Because I sense that you have your own way of being in the world and then being curious and then learning something and then back to this component of sharing it.

So I have to go all the way back, like, how do you learn?

[00:12:07] Tucker: What's my process for learning or for deciding? Because what you just talked about leading up to that was not about learning, which is, both are great questions. They're just very different things.

[00:12:17] Ali: Answer the one that speaks to you.

[00:12:20] Tucker: Um, well, the one that's more in line with what you're talking about is not learning, right?

Like a lot of people focus, you know, like smart internet people focus on learning. How do I learn more? They think it's about information. And there are definitely times where that's true. Like when I got out here and got on land, like I knew I didn't know a lot about various aspects of homesteading. But I think I severely underestimated how little I knew.

Like I didn't know what an impact driver was as opposed to a screwdriver. Right. Um, or, uh, or a drill. Sorry. And like, I had no concept of any of this stuff, some of the most basic things I'm like, "Oh, I didn't know that."

Right. So there was definitely an information gap for me. But filling an information gap, nowadays is trivially easy. Like, honestly, it's breathtaking to me to think about if I had moved on and tried to homestead, let's say, what is it 2023? Let's say 20 years ago, how fucked I would have been. Where the hell in 2003 would I have learned all this?

Like, I would have had to hire somebody who, you know, someone who's been doing this for a while, but, you know, lives in the country, whatever, to teach me all of these things. The things that are, you are right, that would be basic skills for a 12 year old 70 years ago, I don't know anything about. But today, bro, YouTube.

YouTube, YouTube, YouTube. And it was like, simple, and like, So funny, like a lot of my friends who come out here from like, city are like, "Wow, how'd you learn all this? You must be so smart." I'm like, you have YouTube too. Like, there's nothing, how'd you do that? I'm like, I watched a video and literally just did exactly what he did.

And so it's funny, we were processing meat birds and someone came out and they're like, How did you learn all this? I'm like, there's thousands of videos online that literally show people doing this exact thing.

Which actually brings me to kind of back to the point. If there's a scarcity now, it's not on information. It used to be. Like almost all of our institutions and all of the common wisdom that humans operate on is based on the idea of a scarcity of information. That is gone. At least right now.

What there is a scarcity of... I think, are things like courage, decision making, wisdom, effective judgment. Things like that, right?

Like I can go on YouTube and find a video to tell me literally how to do anything on this homestead. And I mean that like almost totally literally. But like, what should I be doing? What do I need to focus on? In what order? What's the most important thing? Like that's judgment and wisdom, right?

And there's a scarcity of that. And then the level above that is what I would call self awareness, right? Like, what do I even want? Like, why am I on a goddamn homestead, like, making things with my hands? Why? What's my ultimate goal? Like, where am I trying to get to? What's my goal?

And so understanding, which you can call self awareness or values or whatever, which actually brings back to your original question, why did we get on land? And I gave you a very sort of a good answer, but it was sort of like, what's the trigger that, that woke me up that made us actually go get land.

We wanted to be on land before and why? I'll tell you why, because, I think this gets to what, the core of what you were asking. I think. We had a belief before we came out here that being on land would enable us to connect better with ourselves by connecting with nature. And it was in certain ways, the pretty naive belief.

I can just say like the way I thought about it then was naive. Now I can tell you having two years out here, I was right. But I was right for reasons I didn't really understand. I was a lot more right than I realized for reasons I didn't really understand.

But being on land has been... let's say I'm totally wrong about the way I see the world and everything. Yeah, there's, you know, some stuff going on, but let's say everything's basically safe. I don't need to have my own water supply. Let's just say for safety reasons, I'm way off base.

Okay, cool. Like, let's say I knew that to be a fact. I would still want to be here. And I would still be very happy with being here. I would just have spent too much money on things like, you know, a big rainwater catch catchment system and like, and two generators, and I got way too many fucking bullets. Like I would have wasted a quarter million dollars on various security things or half a million, whatever on what I did, I just, I don't need it.

But I'm still super, super happy I'm here. Because what land does, especially if you're working land, land animals. It forces you... um, force you, it enables you in some ways it does force you, but it enables you to really reflect on yourself and get honest with yourself. Yes.

Like if you live in a city and you want to lie to yourself, it's really easy. In fact, all the skids are greased for living in someone else's reality and buying into their world and not actually having to think about who am I and what do I want and what would that cost me. And I don't just mean money. And what are my values and all that.

Like it's so easy to just to live in Austin and vote Democrats and believe what everyone else believes and whatever, right? But land forces you to test your beliefs. Being out here does. Being in nature in a lot of ways.

And like, I mean, I can have all the ideas in my head and the world about sheep. And about coyotes and about dogs, but their interaction is independent of my beliefs, right? Like, I may think coyotes shouldn't kill sheep. Coyotes don't care. They get a vote too, right?

And so, like it, it forces you to really look at yourself. Especially if you're in a, a mind space, like where I think you are, and I, I have definitely been the last 10 years. And when I met you, you already were of true, honest self reflection and self awareness.

That's been the greatest gift of this land is that it has not just tested me. Cause you can find tests. I mean, I can go to a CrossFit gym and test myself until I die. It's not just about testing yourself. It's about forcing you to face yourself and your truths. And then your interaction with the world. Right?

Because like I said, out here, I can't live in this world where I'm the only thing that exists. You know, everything else out here gets a vote too.

Does that all make sense?

[00:19:41] Ali: Beyond making sense, I mean, it's very real what you're sharing. And thank you, I appreciate the note. Because self reflection, awareness, is arguably the most important word in my life in the last several years.

Just owning it, like you said, facing it. And that feels like the gravity that pulls me, that makes me really fascinated and intrigued by what you're doing. And it's such a, I'll go back to it's such a real answer because if there's anything, I also love to speak up about its nature.

My version of what you're doing is getting into the mountains as much as I can. And I come back and I'm like this different version of like, wait a second. There's all these people and they want things, and they've got all these crazy ideas that don't land with me like they used to.

Whereas there's something very, very pure and like almost brutal, acute to face in nature. It just kind of guides you back to yourself, and that's how I would describe that, so it's beautiful.

What it makes me curious about, Tucker, is that, what do you see in your children now? Because they're with you, they're with themselves in this experience.

[00:20:52] Tucker: So, I think my wife and I already did a pretty good job raising our kids, but it's been way better since we got out here. Because what land has enabled, now the kids have all their own space that they want, right?

And also like they live in reality. Like, they don't live on screens. So, for example, we just processed a bunch of meat birds. And one of the other FRDs actually came out and helped us with his daughter. Chris Bartik. I don't know if you know him. But he came with his daughter, and they're great, man. They're like, kind of in this world, too.

And like, when I say process meat birds, we take birds that are alive. And we kill them and then do a bunch of stuff to them. So they are now a whole bird that goes into the freezer that we then eat. Right. And so like, my kids had kind of like done it a little bit with me, but they'd never really gone through the whole process.

We have like 40 to process. It's like a lot of work, dude. This is hard physical labor. And these are pretty big six, seven, eight pound birds, right? I mean, they're not huge, but these are living things that don't really, you know, don't really, I don't know, like, oh, yeah, let me just go die, right?

I mean, chickens kill themselves all the time. They're idiots, but they wanted to live. And so, I kind of did the first few. I showed Chris and his daughter and my kids, and my wife, like, okay, here's exactly how we do it. And then we kind of set up an assembly line. And what ended up happening is my nine year old, Bishop and then Chris's nine year old, he's got a nine year old girl, and they were really into killing the birds, right?

So we'd assemble them into these small cages so we don't have to chase them everywhere. And so they would go in, they'd open the cage, they'd get one of the birds. They'd put it in like a kill cone, like it's this cone, upside down cone, you put it in, you pull its head out. And then this is actually really, honestly, the safest, most humane way to kill the birds is you just cut their throat and they bleed out, doesn't hurt really much at all.

And it's a pretty calm death, right? And it's actually way better for the meat. When they take them to processors, what they'll do is stun them first with like a little stun gun, you know. And so the birds kind of like unconscious. The problem is it doesn't drain a lot of the blood out. And there's other issues that are kind of weird.

We do it just straight to wall style. Like we cut their throats. And so like at first the kids were obviously like a little, you know, uh, even my kids who've been around a lot of death, cause that's what homesteading, that's what meat is. Is at its core is death. But like they kind of got into it, not in a morose way. Because you know the first couple ones we said a prayer over we understood like, okay, this is you know, we can't contextualize fully everything. But bro by the end my nine year old his nine year old were like totally into this right.

And like they wanted to do a good job. They wanted to make sure the birds weren't suffering. Like, they're not just sticking the knife in. Oh no, it's bleeding everywhere. We don't know what's going on. Like, they were doing it right. And they, like, were really into it. And so, like, death is a part of life for them now.

Yeah, it's important and it's impactful, but it's not some traumatic thing. And they understand when it's appropriate, how it fits in, how to do it the right way, all those sorts of things. So these sorts of things that can be really sort of weird and traumatic for kids now are just like a part of their life.

And, and they, they really love it. They like it. You know, we go hunting all the time and like, I'll shoot a deer and then we say a prayer over it. We think it's for sacrifice and whatever. And so like when my kids eat chicken or deer, you know, like they're like, "Oh, this was when I was hunting."

Like food is not a thing that comes from the store to them. Right. And death is not an abstraction that we don't talk about. Food comes from their land that they raised and death is a part of life. Because it is, so it's actually a part of their life. They're now so mature and so connected to themselves, because they're connected to the land. Because they understand this is all one big system and we are a part of it and here's how we connect to it.

And like my emotions are part of me and that's part of the system. If I'm angry trying to kill chickens, things things aren't going to go well. If I'm centered and focused, things go well for me and the bird. You know, I don't cut myself, et cetera, et cetera. So my kids just have a... they have such a self possession that honestly, I don't really even think about until like, we'll go, let's say into town and then we'll like maybe go to a park or something.

And then I'll see them around kids who like are on their screens all the time, eating sugary crap and totally disconnected from reality. And I'm like. Oh my god, those mongrels, like, ugh, like, I don't even think of my kids as being that great or different until I see them around an average kid.

In a city, and I'm like, "Oh, wow, dude." It's, you know, we feel, yeah, I know. And it's not like a kid can't be healthy in the city. Of course it can't like, they have friends who live in Austin who parents do a pretty good job and they're like, whatever. But like, I'm talking about the average kid. It's shocking to me, dude.

How, I mean, obviously we did this. I know we're outliers but I don't think about it that way until I'm looking at some kid who's the same age as mine, who seems developmentally three years behind, who has serious behavioral issues, who, you know, I'm just like, oh, man. And then I see their parent, who's really, honestly, head in the phone, not really that different.

I'm like, oh, well, this is the opposite of sovereignty. This is what happens, you know, if you make different choices.

[00:26:32] Ali: Well, I love so much of that. And I would share that even here where we live in Denver and the suburbs currently, my children go to a nice public school that should probably be a private school with how well it's funded.

And there's this shock that I feel and even sometimes absorb when I take them or bring them home from school and their environment. And while it's hard to not judge, I'm in agreeance that there's a part of me just like, wow, this is, It's a very different experience what we do in our home, and then what my good friend just recently described as "consensus reality," the way everyone else wants to be.

And again, I'm not trying to judge, because that's not the intention here. It's just like, whoa, it's so clear to me what's going on, and these kids have no idea, the parents aren't even present. And so back to your point, what's missing from the equation? Amongst several things, land, connectedness.

Yeah,

Then this segues into the last big thing that I was curious about because we've talked about this and this is where I have a lot of energy and it's a place where when you speak to this, I feel that there's parts of you that know this is perhaps a way for you to inspire or even a calling. And I'm going to use a word and I'm actually going to give you the freedom to go wherever you want with this. It's the word avatar because you've taught me things about that word and...

[00:28:08] Tucker: You can tell the story if you want. I have no problem or I will. Like that it's a. It's a funny story. Because like you guys looked at me like I was fucking nuts that I remember and I don't blame you, bro. I don't blame you. Someone had said that to me when I was at a lower level of consciousness or you know different. Different evolution time might have been like the fuck are you talking about you weirdo?

Totally like that's why I wasn't even upset. I'm like, yeah, dude, I get it Like it's fucking weird. Yeah

[00:28:37] Ali: I love well, this is the context i'll give. And then again, I would actually, I want you to share what.

[00:28:43] Tucker: Okay. Yeah.

[00:28:45] Ali: Is that I think there's a lot of people in the world that perform. And at the basic level, I think they're performing for external validation, right?

So we're talking about land and finding yourself and really aware. And so that's not an avatar to me, especially when I heard you say it a few years ago. An avatar seems like someone who answers a call to be a beacon in maybe...

[00:29:16] Tucker: No, no, no, hold on. They answer a call for themselves. They don't answer a call for any reason outside of themselves. Ever.

So the way I would define an avatar is someone who Answers a call is a good way to put it. Someone who, let's say, lives the true vision of their life. Right? They don't necessarily have to be enlightened in the Buddhist sense. But someone who does the hard work of their life... and comes to some realizations or lives or embodies a certain life or idea.

And then, through living their truest self, they become an example for others. That's it. So like the famous avatars in history are people like Jesus or Buddha or Krishna, or, you know, go down the list.

But you don't being avatar doesn't mean you're famous, right? Like, I think my godfather was one. And he's not famous at all. If I told you his name, you wouldn't know. I mean, he was very, very well known in his little town that he lived in and very influential and impactful, but like, it's not about fame.

Some of them just happened to become well known for various reasons. I mean, the only reason Jesus is super well known is probably because of Paul. Right? And the efforts of Paul and the people after after Paul. And which is not a knock on Jesus. Just Jesus didn't care if he was famous. Paul did.

So, so that's just kind of how it works. Right? Same with Buddha. Buddha didn't care, but his disciples did.

And so, there's actually, it's craziest thing, bro. If you study Jewish history, the Jews have a name for avatars. They call them charismatics. And there've been hundreds in Jewish history that like are very, very similar to Jesus in a sense.

Not necessarily preaching the same message, but, are like very good. Very persuasive. Not all of them are what I would consider avatars, but they're close enough. Cause like the charismatic can range from what I think are basically con men to people to Jesus being one, like he's considered one of the great ones.

Anyway, so the point is, in this group, there's like four of us were talking and forget what the question was, it was something like, what are you focused on? And I had just, like, two days before, had a meeting with someone who... it was very unnerving, man. Like, you ever meet with someone who I don't want to use the word psychic, because that brings up a lot of different associates, but someone who just knows shit about you that they shouldn't know, that doesn't make sense?

Not like. Like, I can talk to you and read stuff really well, but I don't meet people and I'm like, "Oh, your dad's middle name is Sam." And like, I don't like that... it's not right. But if you ever met someone like that and you're just like, the fuck is going on?

I had two days before that FRD, I had met a woman who basically was like, confronted me about...

She didn't know me. She didn't know nothing. And she's like, "Wow. I've. In my whole life, I've only met two of you." And I'm like, you met two people named Tucker max. No, no, I've never met anyone. She's like two avatars. The fuck are you talking about?

Without going even further into, like, crazy lunatic weirdness... basically, this woman called me out on this. She's like, "look, you know why you're here." You're here to live the most truest self, most authentic self you can. And you have the skills to talk about this and be an example to a lot of people. And she's like, "you've already done this. Right?"

And no, she wasn't like a fan who read my book. She didn't know who I was at all in any way, shape or form. And I was like, yeah, I mean, I kind of have. And she goes, yeah, no, you haven't, you haven't really done it the way you're supposed to yet. Like that was just practice. And I was like, who are you? You fucking witch what's going on.

[00:33:12] Ali: But there's a part of that that you knew is true for you, right?

[00:33:14] Tucker: Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah. Like, it's not like she came up to me like "you should be in the NBA" or some nonsense. " There's so much more to you than people realize," like you can say that to anybody. Or no, no, she was like, very specific with some weird stuff.

And like, I don't know what fully was going on. I'm not going to pretend like, Oh, here's... but I do know that I had that in my head a lot at that point and I was thinking about that. And so like I just brought that up because even then and right now, in certain ways I still haven't stepped up man, like, I think the next major step for me is finishing my next book, right? My memoir. My next memoir.

And uh... man, I still haven't done it. Like, that's a concept so hard, dude. This one's rough. I don't mean to sound like arrogant, it's just true. I know everything there is to know about writing memoirs. Like, you're talking about information?

Not only could I, but I probably should write the definitive book on how to write a memoir. Like, there are great memoir writers in the world, and there are people who know as much, as I do, probably. No one knows more. No one knows more than I do on how to write a memoir, how to tell your story.

That is maybe the thing, if we're talking about specific skills, that I'm the best at in the world. If I'm not the best, there's like five or six of us and we're all right there together, right? You know, it's like an all star team. Like who's the best person? Oh, whatever. We're all on the all star team. It doesn't matter anymore.

But dude, this one's kicking my ass because it's not about information. It's not about skills, right? You can't information your way into courage. You can't information your way into self awareness. You can't information your way into feeling painful emotions.

None of that's about information, man. None of it. Information might help if you're stuck at certain levels or whatever. But like I said, like there's no, there, there doesn't exist any more information about writing memoirs that I could definitely that I need. And even if I like, uh, it just, there's nothing left.

I know it all. Right. And knowing it all is not getting the book written. Because telling your story is ultimately a therapeutic process that involves a lot of self awareness and reflection and emotional work and feeling and courage and love and all these higher difficult emotions. And so it's... if I could information my way there, I'd be done.

[00:35:46] Ali: Wow. I mean, that's powerful because... well, thank you. Thank you for first sharing that beautiful definition of an avatar. Cause I was about to butcher it. So you got right back on track. And then thank you for right here and now being open and just expressing the challenge.

Because like we didn't even talk about that. And it's such a cool part of your history. It's not why I wanted to talk to you today about supporting people writing books, but yes, you've done that, you know that game better than anyone else. And that's cool for you to have the awareness to be like, well, now I gotta do this.

And there's no way to just like fake it, make it. Like you gotta, you gotta own it. You gotta face it. Mm. That's real.

[00:36:33] Tucker: I mean, that, I don't know what else, like, that's it...

It's one of those things, man, where it's actually, it's pretty simple. It's pretty simple to figure out. It's just not easy to do... you know.

Courage is not complicated. It almost never is complicated, like very rarely. They exist. There are situations where it's like.

Like it's a moral dilemma, like a true moral dilemma where you really don't know which path to take. That definitely exists. I don't want to pretend like it doesn't, it does. But, it's pretty rare. And almost every time, whenever someone tells me, "Ah, I got a huge moral dilemma," I just start asking questions.

It's not a fucking moral dilemma. They know exactly what the right thing to do is. But there's a lot of con... what they'll say next is, "It's complicated." It's not fucking complicated. We make it because complicated is almost always, not always, but like 95 to 99 percent of the time, it's complicated is a defense against a difficult hard decision that you know is right that you don't want to make always. Virtually always.

[00:37:56] Ali: What's coming to me, it's such a simple and arguably cliched term, but we say it a lot in this house when we really own our decisions. And it's "Hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life." And that's the underlying theme here, which is so real. It's so easy to bypass that, but you just gave example .

And I step back and pause on that a lot. "Can I break this? Can I prove this false?" But most of the time it's true. It's like, Oh, the real decision is the harder decision, which leads to the truth, the awareness, the freedom, man.

Well, that's a lot. Thank you. I have a few quick funfire questions if you're up for it.

[00:38:37] Tucker: Do it.

[00:38:39] Ali: The first, what is your favorite book?

[00:38:45] Tucker: Oh, man. Yeah. All right. If I have to pick one, With no, like, no limitation, fiction, non fiction, no, no, no, like without, cause like, my, the better way that I prefer to answer this question is, you know, what's my favorite book, and give me a really niche category, cause there's so many. But if I could only pick one, I would probably have to pick Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole.

In my opinion, it is the best novel, ever written, at least in English. People who speak other languages heavily disagree with me in certain ways. And that's fine. They might be right, but in English, I think that's the greatest novel ever written. That's probably the book I've re read the most in my life. I'm not counting my own, but that's different.

[00:39:34] Ali: Very cool, dude. That has not been shared, so awesome.

Question number two, what animal would you be if not human?

Don't say sheep.

[00:39:47] Tucker: Fuck no. Sheep are idiots. And they're food. No. Man...

That's a tough question, man.

Um...

[00:40:00] Ali: What's your decision process right now? Are you, are you envisioning?

[00:40:02] Tucker: I'm thinking, I think about what life do I want as any, right? Like, like what experiences do I want? And then the other thing is I like being really highly conscious, right? And I mean, that more of like as in intellectual way, rather than a spiritual way. Although, the two things are not directly connected, but they're often interrelated.

And, so I'm trying to think what's a highly conscious... like, high cognitive ability animal that has a life I would like. Man, I want to say dolphins, but I know a lot about dolphins and they have pretty, like, brutal social structures, man. It's not an easy thing to be a dolphin, dude.

Maybe orcas, although they're pretty fucking mean, man. Like, orcas are, like, kind of like little sociopaths, dude. And I'm not like, uh, you know, trying to, I'm not even killing stuff for fun necessarily. But they're very smart, very, well, I told you a dog. Awesome. Bear. Yeah, um...

I was thinking about dogs, but dogs are too servile, man. That's not my style. Um, if I have to pick, I'll pick dolphin. Okay. But that's one I would actually have to really think about.

[00:41:11] Ali: Cool. Alright, I dig it. Yeah, dolphin's a great answer. And what about elephants? Are they conscious enough for you or no?

[00:41:21] Tucker: Elephants are very smart, man. Very, very smart.

But, again, I'm thinking about, my assumption is you mean right now? Yeah, right now. Elephants are not in a good spot now, man. Ah, okay. In terms of where they can live, their environment, they're quite subject to human intervention. Whereas dolphins are not, no animal is, uh, immune to it right now.

But, dolphins have a lot more potential sovereignty than elephants.

[00:41:50] Ali: That's fair. I dig it. Last question, Tugger. What's one of your favorite childhood memories?

[00:41:57] Tucker: The first thing that comes to mind is it's a very simple thing. Um, it reminds me so much of my third kid, Deacon. Um, my parents weren't really very good parents. And for the most part, the people that really loved me and weren't like parents in my life were my godparents, Jane and Bill. Like the guy I said, Bill, I think Bill is an example of an average common man avatar.

But like, one of the happiest memories... is happy is the wrong word, more content. One of the most content, like almost all my memories with Jane and Bill are like this, but there's one very specific. It's so weird.

I used to love as a little kid, like about the age Deacon is now like four. I would sit in front of the TV like Bill would be behind me and he's a kind of lazy boy.

And I had like this little chair thing that was on the floor, and it was super comfortable. And they had these Wooden parquet bowls, you know, like parquet, the Bossa Garden parquet floor. And, um, Jane would feed me Doritos and give me Cranberry juice. This is back, like, before Doritos were super unhealthy.

I think they still fried them in tallow then. And so I would literally just eat bowls and bowls of Doritos and drink cranberry juice. And it wasn't as sweet then. Like, people don't realize, young people now, don't realize how fundamentally different food was 40 years ago, 45 years ago. Even like quote, junk food was not that junkie and not that bad, before seed oils infected everything. And sugar.

And so it was like the sourness of it. And I can just remember like, I was so content and so happy, with them then. And it just reminds me of my four year old son, Deacon. Like he, he had just sit with me and mommy on the sofa and eat pretzels and drinky, like still sparkling water.

And like, he loves his little pretzels and like, he just happy as a pig and shit, man, like all day, just like I was at that age, with that. So that's probably my happiest kid memory.

[00:44:00] Ali: I love that, dude. I love that not just because I felt it as you're sharing it and I was trying to like envision this, uh, Tucker enjoying his Doritos, but dude, I fucking love Doritos as well.

And so it's amazing the nostalgia, whereas even today, like, occasionally, I buy Doritos and I know how bad they are. I even tell my kids, I'm like, yo, there's a reason we don't have these a lot. But there's something about eating them and I still lick my damn fingers because that's what I did as a kid, dude.

[00:44:30] Tucker: Oh yeah, oh yeah. I remember.

[00:44:35] Ali: Great answer. Tucker, thank you, brother. This was a pleasure. It always is. I appreciate you for creating some space for this. I appreciate for how you show up. Anything left unsaid before we wrap.

[00:44:47] Tucker: I don't think so. Thank you my man.

[00:44:50] Ali: All right. I will say this then. I have aspiration at some point to visit the Max ranch, if possible.

[00:44:58] Tucker: Dude. I mean the doors are open. We have a guest house. Like come come bring your family. You have two kids or one kid Yeah, right exactly. And what are their ages again? Five. Right? Let's say six and three or six and four is probably about when last time we talked, dude, like my kids are 9, 7, 4, and a year and a half.

It's a perfect fit. Anytime you wanna come, we can slaughter a sheep if you want or not. We, you can just eat the stuff that's already dead and butcher. Now, dude, we do, I do like, I, I was already a good cook. I grew up in a restaurant family. But over the last two years, I've become a really fucking good cook.

You know, I sold my company and like, my wife is working on scaling her business. So like I do all, I already did most of the cooking cause I was just a better cook than she was, but like now, not only do we have badass ingredients, but I've gotten like, you know, like I didn't grow up making tzatziki sauce, right.

But I'm like, we have lamb now. So it's like, yeah. And so I've gotten like. badass at like things like taziki or caesar dressing. Or i make all these vietnamese sauces that go amazing with lamb. And so like bro i'm a pretty fucking good cook dude like we do like a lot of badass stuff so anytime you want to come.

[00:46:11] Ali: Believe it and i appreciate that invitation.