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Andrew Warner: Hey there, Freedom Fighters. My name is Andrew Warner. I’m the founder of Mixergy where I interview entrepreneurs about how they built their businesses. Most recently, I’ve been fascinated by bootstrap giants, companies that are basically self funded and become giants. Joining me today is an old friend, Tucker Max.
I interviewed him back when he was publishing books and he had this huge blog and email newsletter that everyone read. He got himself so famous that there was a movie made about his life and then he started taking himself really like. Down the entrepreneurial path, he created a company called Scribe, which published books for um, for wannabe authors.
I remember real authors, supposedly, who would tell me, he’s creating the McDonald’s of publishing. He’s taking publishing down this hole that it shouldn’t, and anyway. And I love that Tucker is not, is not someone who would stop based on that. I know I would doubt myself and I would doubt the direction. He built it up.
I want to know how he built it up. And then I started hearing all these stories about people getting fired, public, uh, writers who had paid for Scribe not getting the books that they paid for. And, uh, and I want to find out what happened when it, when it went down, and then how it recovered. Tucker, good to see you here.
Tucker Max: You too, man. Good to see you, Andrew.
Andrew Warner: Did you, by the way, when, when authors would tell me, look at this Mick, uh, Mick publishing business that Tucker’s creating where he’s taking thought fluencers and helping them sell books so that they can sell their shitty services, did you hear that? did
You feel
like, did, did you feel bothered by that?
Tucker Max: Um, the type of people who said that?
were, uh, Goggin’s first book. There was no more, there was no more nonsense about McDonald’s because all the people who said that were the ones Like, uh, what’s his name? Who wrote, uh, Chaos Monkeys, Antonio, whatever the fuck his name is. He was one of the ones. I bet he’s one of the ones who said it to your face.
And I’m not saying he is or he isn’t, I’m not speaking for you, but I bet he is. And, uh, and, uh, those types are always jealous of me, and, and how well I did in writing. Because, like, I didn’t come from their world, and I smashed all of them in it. Like, in terms of selling books. And then I started a
company to help other people.
And then, ba na na na na, and then I did David Goggins book, and they
just shut up. Because there was nothing left for them to say. Uh, other than the truth, which is, I’m just envious of him. And I’m trying to criticize him as a way to
make myself feel better. So
Andrew Warner: Um, I do think the impressive thing about David Goggins is not just the numbers, but also that you took him from complete obscurity. He was the guy in Jeff Itzler’s book
who didn’t talk about, um, himself, who didn’t want his name in the book, and then suddenly he became
an inspiration to a lot of people.
And I think that was the vision that you had. How do I take somebody who’s not well known, make them well known, and take their ideas and put them down on paper in a way that they couldn’t do on their own? Right?
Tucker Max: pretty much, uh,
Andrew Warner: Yeah. But, but you weren’t at all, like, upset by that? I remember when people said, Andrew’s just a, just an interviewer, just a podcaster.
In the early days, people who saw my previous business said, this is what you’re doing now. And I did feel a little, I don’t know, a little embarrassed. It definitely affected me. It didn’t affect you?
Tucker Max: my man, you don’t become the type of person I am if you spend a lot of time worrying about what other people think, especially people you
don’t know or care about, you know, like it’s hard.
Andrew Warner: get past that? Like, what’s the thing that allows you to stop, to stop
thinking about that? Because some of them were people who you cared about.
Tucker Max: Not really.
Andrew Warner: No, you
just didn’t. How do you get to be the place, Tucker, where you don’t care what other people feel?
Tucker Max: it’s
Andrew Warner: get to the place? Take, like, take me higher
level. How do you get to
that? Mm
Tucker Max: Hold on. Okay. Okay. So it’s not that I don’t care what anyone else feels. Like, I care a lot what my wife thinks. I care a lot what my kids think. I care a lot what my, uh, uh, close family thinks. My close friends.
Like, those are very important people in my life and what they think and feel matters a lot. But, some dude or woman, I don’t know, uh, they, they don’t even have an opinion about, alright, so let me explain how, there’s two ways, two ways to look at
this. First off is just the objective reality when someone
has an opinion about you, they don’t actually
have an opinion about you. What they are
doing is projecting their biases, neuroses, unhealed traumas, All the other shit, they’re
projecting it onto you and using you as a way to speak to themselves or feel good, feel something about themselves or to signal to others who they are.
No one cares, uh, uh, no one who doesn’t know
you, uh, has an opinion about you.
They have an opinion about themselves and you are a way
for them to
reflect that opinion about
themselves to the world. Like, uh, who, who, uh, who was, uh, uh, Anais Nin who said, um,
uh, no, uh, No one sees the world as it is. They see the world as they are.
That is 100% true about all opinions everyone has about other people, right?
That that’s just the objective part. The now you can, uh, Andrew, you could, uh, the, the response to that would be, okay, but what about people close to me, like in my social circle? Okay, I can understand how that might be a little
different, right? Um, uh, from at that, the thing I would say to that is
the reason you are worried about what people, you know, think, right?
Let’s say in your extended social circle. Um, and the reason that what they think impacts you and the reason that that if they doubt you, it causes you to potentially doubt yourself or
stoke those those issues is because you haven’t done the underlying emotional work to deal with your own issues.
So, so for example, in your case, if someone were to doubt you, uh, and, and that Stokes self doubt in you, all that shows is you already had self doubt and you were hiding it, ignoring it, whatever.
And, and it’s, it’s just a reflection of you, right? But if someone, I’ll give you a really good
example, Andrew. If someone said,
I don’t think Andrew’s very smart, like you would laugh at them ,like, you don’t have insecurities about that. ’cause it is also so, it’s so full. Like whatever someone can say about you not smart is just not in the universe of plausibility.
You would just laugh at them because it’s
preposterous. Right?
And so like that, uh, it’s a, I mean, it’s a way to do emotional work is to think what are the things I hear or the things people say that trigger me. And then realize that’s all inside of you,
right? And then, then walking down, and if you want to talk about walking on that path, that’s a long
conversation, right?
But if you deal with one or both, I mean, I’m at the point now where I’ve, I fully dealt with one and understood one that other people’s opinions are their projections. And I pretty much have dealt with, if not all the vast majority of my inner
stuff. So it’s like, it’s so rare.
Andrew Warner: Through psychoanalysis, I think, is what you were
Tucker Max: Well, that I started with psychoanalysis and that I
did that for four years.
It was great. And then, but the problem with
psychoanalysis is you’re talking and thinking about your feelings, uh, but you can’t, um, feel your, you can’t think your way out of a
feeling. So what I really had to do to get deep into work for me was, uh, psychedelic medicines, MDMA and psilocybin, especially a few of the other
medicines to help me
access my feelings and feel my feelings. Um, now that combined thinking and feeling combined
is where it’s at. Like, if you just focus on feeling, it doesn’t work. If you just focus on thinking, it doesn’t work. You do both. And so
you’ve got to focus on both. And I started
focusing a lot on
thinking, uh, but that’ll only take you so far. Um,
so.
Andrew Warner: You did this on your own or with a, with
Tucker Max: Oh, yeah.
Always with guides.
Like I, I had
never, it’s so funny. I wrote,
Andrew Warner: You have someone local here
Tucker Max: I do, I do. I, I, I’m happy to refer you if you. want
some great people are in Austin.
Um, yeah. Oh yeah. I, I, I, I never do it. Um, I won’t say I never do it on my own. Uh, at the beginning with new medicines, I always have very
experienced guides until I feel.
Like, okay, I know how to navigate this medicine. And then certain, not all of them, but certain medicines I will do at this point, cause I’m six, seven years down 30, 40 sessions into medicine. So I mean,
like I know the space
now.
Andrew Warner: All right. Let’s get into a little bit of the business mechanics. I watch you build scribe from the outside. Here’s what I saw. Tell
me what I’m missing. You went out to speak to,
to founder at founder events.
And by speaking about writing, you made it, you showed the value of it. You heightened people’s desire to have a book published. you helped them understand that they have topics and then they would Reach out to you personally and they go, Holy shit, this is Tucker Max, the guy who’s like New York times bestselling author. I get to talk to him. And He’s going to guide me through this process. They would sign up that way. That was a big one.
Am I right?
Okay. And then the next thing that I saw was blogging about the
Tucker Max: we did tons and tons of organic. Uh, uh, yeah. Organic is still 50 percent of the
leads there. Yeah.
Andrew Warner: You
Tucker Max: wrote all those pieces.
Andrew Warner: led
Tucker Max: I wrote all of it.
Andrew Warner: strategy. It was you writing the
pieces. And then at the end it was people, what’s a piece that
worked for you for bringing in a new
Tucker Max: have so many like, uh, you know, in any
space, if you, can become the definitive. You know, the one or two or maybe
three ranked sort of content space for anything in that space we were at the time. I mean, I haven’t looked recently, but when I was there, we were pretty much number one for almost any major, like, you know, should I use a ghostwriter?
Should I write a book? How do I
write a book like all that stuff? Um,
Andrew Warner: And that was you
Tucker Max: Well, we, so we had a great team. Our CMO was one of those like sort of, uh, uh, SEO nerds who like knows like SEO really well and all the strategies and hacks. And I don’t know anything about that. So I would just say, I’m going to tell you what I want to write about,
and then you can title it any way you want.
And you can tell me the
subheadings. Uh, I’m going to write the content and so then I would write it. And then he, he, he made me use clear scope, which is like one of the SEO things, but like a clear scope would give edits, but they were like SEO things. So then I would edit it close enough where the SEO was happy, but we’re still great writing and it still was saying everything I wanted.
And so he and I together probably the company did 70 plus million in top
total sales when I was there?
before I left. And
that was.
Andrew Warner: multiple years.
Tucker Max: that was over 70 years.
Um, and 21, I think we did 21, and 22 the year that I left.
And so, so we were on a, you know, and I
would say at least that last year I know
about 10 million was organic.
Um, uh, And probably over the
whole period,
at least 25 or 30 was organic. Yeah,
Andrew Warner: And then, so if 10 of the 21 was organic, what’s the other
Tucker Max: it was either referral. We were, our goal was to get our internal referral rate, meaning every
client. We were trying to get our
internal referral
rate to 1. 1, right? So every client we brought in with,
Andrew Warner: Every client needs to
Tucker Max: right. So once you got that flywheel going, then it would
be crazy. Like we were at like 0. 65 when I left or something like that.
So we were on our way. Um, and then, uh, uh, then
also mainly me doing BizDev, right? Like, exactly what you said. I will go to, like, I was
in eight masterminds or something, like, by the time I
left Scribe. I was in
so many goddamn
masterminds. Uh, like, I knew everybody in all these different fields, and, and it was, it worked
great.
Andrew Warner: That seemed like such an exhausting thing to do. I mean, really part of your, your appeal is that you’re a celebrity. The other thing though, is you’re personally down in the trenches with people. That’s exhausting to both keep the online presence going to let people know you’re still alive online and then show up.
to masterminds.
Which, frankly, even being in one can be
exhausting.
Tucker Max: Yeah, um,
Andrew Warner: Nope.
Tucker Max: I mean, I, I’m a little bit extroverted. Uh, like I, I tend to, you
know, I don’t mind talking to people, whatever. I met a lot
of people I liked. You know, I was in pretty high
end masterminds. Like, a lot of the ones I was
in, I wasn’t
even the most famous person in it So that was always cool. Um, to meet, like, I met a lot of smart people, a lot of accomplished people.
Um, uh, you, know, I didn’t come out of the business world. So going into it, um, it was a great way, to meet a ton of people. uh, and I met a lot of people I liked. and uh, I mean, I know like in certain circles, I’m like considered famous, but like, I don’t know, dude, I
never bought into all of that. Like I spent too much time.
In Hollywood and around famous, uh, really like seriously famous
people and saw both how fucked up they were and how fucked up the universes were around them. And I was like, nah, man, like,
I’m not, I don’t care how famous I get or how
Andrew Warner: What did you see?
What was, what was fucked up?
Tucker Max: Oh dude. About
Hollywood or just about fame overall.
Andrew Warner: Either one. Like, give me, give me an
Tucker Max: Let’s start with fame because Hollywood’s an old looking
Andrew Warner: concepts.
Tucker Max: The messed up thing about fame is that, okay, especially as a dude, Uh, you as a guy, you’re, it doesn’t growing up, you’re just, you’re, you’re fungible. No one really cares about dudes that your mommy might care about you, but people don’t really care about men and to get people to care about you for the most part in America, you’ve got to be good at something.
You’ve got to have a skill. You’ve got to really bring value to the world in some way, shape or form. And so guys are used to kind of working hard, Even guys who are really good, either a business
or with women or whatever, you got to earn
it. Right? And then all of a sudden you
became famous. And now everyone
wants you and everyone wants to talk to
you and everyone wants to be with you.
And at first you think it’s
because of you, right? And and that’s flattering
and like feed your ego and all that. I would do all that.
But then I realized, Oh,
wow, they don’t care at all about me. I am just an object to them for them to get
something they want, whether it’s raised status because they’re my friend or whatever, you know, whatever, like
whatever it? is.
And, uh, a pretty girl
understands this because pretty women are objectified
Intensely their entire lives. It’s a thing that they just get used to and learn how to deal with but dudes We don’t know. I don’t know how it was a whole new
world to me Like it was shocking to me to have these women that
would come
Andrew Warner: Did you become a jerk because of it What did, how did it impact you?
Tucker Max: Oh, dude, it, it,
it,
was the thing I hated the most.
It was part
of why I retired from writing Fratire and stepped out of the fame game because I hated
it so much. I, it, it, because as soon as you live in a world of objectification, then nothing is real,
right? Nothing. Not, not a friendship, not a relationship. Like, uh, my therapist made this point and she was right.
Uh, my original psychoanalyst. No
girls who call who are coming to me to hook up or whatever. We’re not coming to date or hook up with me. They were coming to hook up with Tucker Max, right? A famous character. Even though I’m a real person, it was their image of me that they were coming for. And
I saw
Andrew Warner: Why did that bother you?
Tucker Max: with women specifically, dude,
like women would have whatever image in their head of me they would have and they would show up.
And then they would meet the real me. And then if the real me didn’t match with their image, they got upset with me. They were mad that I wasn’t taller or that I wasn’t meaner to them, or I wasn’t nicer to them, or I didn’t hit on them more, or I wasn’t more aggressive in bed or less aggressive in bed or whatever, like whatever it was, they had in their head.
They had this long, intricate relationship with a character and not with me and do that was. So demoralizing for me and so awful because I had no, no one tells you this. No one explains this to you. That’s not even a thing that a lot of famous people realize because a lot of people who try to become famous are soulless
narcissists, a narcissist, which I thought I was until I got famous and I’m like, Oh, this is
horrible.
I don’t like this at all. I don’t
want any piece of this. And so that’s, that’s the thing no one talks about or even
understands, you know?
Andrew Warner: Okay. Going back to, it must be exhausting to have done all the work that you did to promote Scribe. My, the story I told myself about why you left Scribe was, you were exhausted. You were so deep into this, to figuring out what the business was, to writing for it, to talking to authors, to promoting it, that you were exhausted and then based on the blog post that I read, it feels like. you said, okay, I’m delegating to someone that I want, that I trust, but also I need to abdicate at this point and not check in monthly and see
how things are going and check in when there’s a family
issue, right?
Tucker Max: And then also I
Andrew Warner: did I just make that up?
Tucker Max: uh, you know, you’re exactly right. I mean, bro,
you’re pretty perceptive. So like you’re, you’re reading between the
lines is usually correct. And that is correct. Um, I started by stepping away and then I eventually sold my shares. So when it imploded, I was totally out. Like I was legally
financially completely
Andrew Warner: Oh, I misread that. Okay, and I did see it in your post that you had multiple, like, it was a sale over a little bit of time
and it wasn’t a big exit for
you.
Tucker Max: but when you had left the company in the hands of the guy you called your brother at that point You still owned as much as
Andrew Warner: you owned before, right?
Tucker Max: when I stepped away. So that would have been December of 21. I stepped away
Andrew Warner: Mm hmm
Tucker Max: and then I, we decided to sell
the company in May of 22 March or May, May, and then I sold out in December of 22. So there was a year period where I was
not that active. I mean, I was, I was still meeting with the CEO once every
two weeks or so. And like, I was like, I was around,
I was helping them transition out of a couple of roles that I had, but I was
fully out by December 22.
Andrew Warner: Okay. And this was the period where initially you said you thought the business was going to be worth up to 65 million. That’s What you were told. And then
it just kept going down in valuation until it hit about 15 million.
Tucker Max: Uh, no, it wasn’t really that. It wasn’t quite like that. It wasn’t that. If it had been a slow
drift down, then I would have stepped back in and resuscitated it very
quickly. Yeah, it didn’t run, it didn’t go like that.
No. It was, it was, uh,
Andrew Warner: me that story?
Tucker Max: yeah, okay. So, basically, we were on such 21 that I stepped away.
Things kept going pretty well.
Um, in 22, like, uh, I forget
what the year ended with, but maybe 15 million. So it wasn’t, it was a little bit down that was kind of expected with me and, and, uh, with me stepping away and, and they were doing some other things. So it was like not a big, uh, drop down. Um, and then also they had some other, uh, product lines that were, that were actually starting to show promise.
Um, the problem was not really the company itself, the problem was the leadership. The CEO, Javon, the guy that I was super close with, when I left, he
just, he kind of I don’t want to say he lost his mind, but he went, I clearly, both Zach
and I left at the same time, it was my co
founder Zach Oberman, and um, when he, He And I exerted a lot of power over him that we didn’t realize. and we, in a sense, we kept him on, on rails. and when he was on rails, he was an awesome CEO, but without
us keeping him. on rails, which we didn’t really realize how much we were doing That He went off. He went off the rails,
dude, And um, he, he, he’s looking back now. I didn’t know any of this at the time, but he was horribly mismanaging stuff.
He was actually
forging financials by the end. He like
he was showing us stuff that wasn’t true, like making stuff up, and in fact, there’s a pending federal lawsuit against him right now. The guy that he got to buy out Zach and I. Uh, according to the lawsuit, and I’m pretty sure it’s true, like he showed him forged financials as an inducement to investment.
Right, which is like a serious federal crime. That’s not dicking around with. It’s not fudging numbers, man. That’s like, that’s straight line fraud. And, um, and so he
was, he went into that space, which obviously. In no way,
shape or form, anything like that happened when Zach and I
were there. Zach was a hawk with the books and I was a hawk with, uh, you know, sort of customer stuff.
And like we were, he stayed in line with us there and that’s who we
thought he was. Turns out it’s not who it was.
Andrew Warner: How do you, Hmm. How do you create rails to keep someone like that in line?
Tucker Max: Man, it wasn’t, it wasn’t process. Like, if we thought we had to
keep, create process to keep him in line, I never would have hired him. Right? Um,
Andrew Warner: Mm hmm.
Tucker Max: Andrew, looking back, man, the god honest answer is, I think, Javon was the president of a software company at the time when, and he was a client of ours. And that’s how I got to know him.
And I got to kind of experience him helping us. And
the guy really knew his stuff and he’d grown that software company from like a million to 20 million. So he’d already gone the path that we were trying to go. And, um, uh, he was good at it. Like he’d just done it and he knew his stuff. And what I didn’t realize at the time, I just didn’t, I think the, I think Zach and I were in a lot of ways who he wanted to be.
Right. Not as a CEO, but more
as a man. Right. And I knew he kind of wanted to be famous a little bit. And that was a big part of why he was willing to take a pay cut and come work for us was not just the upside, but because he knew I would be able to
help him get a lot of the attention he wanted. And I did.
And it was easy because he’s good at being a CEO. He’s a smart guy. He was a great speaker. Right. And so getting him attention was not hard and he valued that highly. But, uh, I think he just. He’s one of those people. I don’t know if you ever met these people who their level of integrity is not fixed. It is fluid based on what they can get away with. And I exert a lot of Power over people and a lot of influence over people. Even when I’m not trying to like, you know me, I don’t walk into rooms and start
barking orders at people, but I I’m a very influential person. Someone like you who has a very solid core,
you know, it doesn’t change you that much cause
you have a solid core. I don’t think he had a super solid core. Javon did. Um, he had a lot of solid outside, but
not a solid core. and when I, he was around me, he adopted my, Sort of core, right? And I exerted a lot of info way more than I realized. And I think he wanted to be a good guy and a high integrity guy. And he liked that Zach and I were that way.
And he so it’s like, okay, like, let’s
be that way. But as soon as we left, you know, water finds
its level, right? And so like there was no one else around who was being high integrity,
no one checking him at his level. And so he,
he, right. Water found its level and for him that’s very low
integrity, right? And, and, uh,
Andrew Warner: You know, it’s interesting you say that. I like working with people who bring me to a different level because without having clear systems in place to be like them, I find myself speaking like them. I find myself taking on their personality and and being influenced by them. I’m very influenced
by the people I’m around and I can understand why he’d want to work like that and why I’d want to
Tucker Max: Yeah.
dude, but I know you, you also have a core, a rock
solid core. I think your surface is very
influenceable, but your core is not, man.
You, I think you you know who you are at your core and you are who you are. Like we’ve had discussions about things that I’m
Like, I kind of like trying to
change your mind.
You’re like, nah, I’m on this. And I’m like,
okay.
Andrew Warner: I didn’t realize that, um, you know,
no, um, you know, strangely just sidetrack here, the one conversation that sticks with me of, I remember saying to you, I wish that I could sleep with other women and my wife would let
me. And I thought I had a sympathetic
ear with you and that You would empathize or maybe have like this new way to do this and instead you cut it off right away.
It was like, Nope. Anyone I’ve seen who done that is completely messed up. And I forget how you said it because really I was just focused on the fact that Tucker Max is saying this doesn’t
work. I’m not getting the sympathetic ear. And boy, is this guy rigid
Tucker Max: Bro, I wish it worked. Like, that’s, uh, I, I, I have not seen the example of when it works. And everyone who says I’m the example, if you just wait a couple years, it blows
up.
Andrew Warner: I don’t, I don’t know. I do feel like there are people who are quietly doing it I, I, would have people come into my office
for scotch night. They would talk about this stuff. And then they would say, Andrew, you better not bring it up in the interview. And I said, Yeah,
absolutely. This is like personal stuff.
I’m not, but they’re together But,
Tucker Max: still doing that, the other stuff, doing the poly, whatever, some version of poly,
Andrew Warner: I’ve lost track of it. The other thing that I’ve discovered, Tucker, is that a lot of guys have less of a sex drive than they say that they do. And when really push comes to shove, They don’t even want to leave the couch on a Thursday night to go out, let
alone to go and find someone. So yes, they do
do stuff, but they’re not super active because they don’t have that
drive.
Tucker Max: Yeah,
Andrew Warner: They just like,
the
Tucker Max: I’m 49.
Andrew Warner: and the self invention of their own experience.
Tucker Max: And I’m like, thankfully my wife has a very high sex drive too, so it’s not a problem, but. I don’t know, man. Like, I stay very healthy, though. Like, I eat really well. I think a lot of the lower sex drive stuff is, uh, lifestyle choices, not
age. But that’s just me.
Andrew Warner: All right, the thing
imploded. I remember getting messages from people saying, Hey, look, look what happened to Scribe. Can you go do an interview on this? And by then,
I was just not interested in Like, I don’t like the gawking thing and I also was a little disconnected from stuff. I think I might have moved to Texas at the time and I was enjoying being outdoors and doing my own stuff I wonder though, you? were quiet. What was it like to see this and to have people talk about you while this
was, while you couldn’t talk publicly I imagine?
Tucker Max: Yeah, um, I was quiet because there were quite a few legal issues at the time. Like, in the, I wrote a big piece about this, about the history on my website, on TuckerMax. com. It’s like, you can go look on it, um, and it explains everything. But, um, I didn’t put all of the legal details in there because so much of it is just like, you know how it happens.
There’s a company, there’s all this nonsense going on. But one of the big issues that I did write about was that Javon had taken out bank loans in My and Zach’s name that we were, uh, personally, personal guarantors on and we did not know
this. And, um, and so there were a lot of negotiations going on with the bank at that time that like, I didn’t want to talk publicly about Scribe because it’s one thing to lose You know millions of dollars that you’re owed
from an investment or whatever It’s another
thing to do that and then owe the
bank money, right?
And and I was not about to
tolerate that shit like that was, not going to work and um, don’t want to go into details on that. But but basically,
um, There were a
lot of conversations that were legal
conversations and legal issues going on at the time that it was sort of like, you know, it’s like in the middle of a
car wreck of the recovery of the scene.
You don’t tell the story of the car wreck, like get everyone stable, get the
people who need to go to the hospital, the hospital clear off the debris. When everything’s settled down, then you can talk about the car wreck. Like the, the car wreck was going on. And number one, and number two, bro, I didn’t own any piece of the company.
I was not there for six months before it blew. And so like, I didn’t have,
First person
info. Uh, I don’t like to,
Andrew Warner: Mm hmm.
Tucker Max: know, talk about a bunch of stuff that I don’t have direct info about, you know, that’s just not my style. And a lot of stuff I was in the dark on like stuff was going down and the people like, you know, what’s happening?
I’m like, I don’t know. I don’t, I don’t
know. I have no idea.
Andrew Warner: How do you get out of a
personal guarantee? You know, one of the things that. my dad warned me about like son, you’ll be a man. Here’s what you need to know. One of them, I’ll never forget. He said, don’t sign personal guarantees. and if you sign a contract, make sure
that your title at the company is
on so that you’re signing as the person in the
company, not for the company, not for yourself.
And boy do I take that seriously. but once you get personal guarantee,
how do you get it removed?
Tucker Max: so just speaking generally, um, when, when there is fraud in the inducement of the guarantee,
then, um, it’s not a personal
guarantee. Is it,
Andrew Warner: Hmm. And so You if, if one, cause we’re not talking about you specifically for some reason, but if one has a personal guarantee that was
given based on fraud that
person can undo that or can get out of it.
Got it.
Tucker Max: yeah, generally speaking. Yes.
Andrew Warner: Okay. Did you get out of yours?
Tucker Max: I haven’t paid a cent to the bank
Andrew Warner: Okay. Wow. and they’re still on you?
Tucker Max: plan to I don’t plan to, I don’t
Andrew Warner: still on you? Is it going to hurt your
credit?
Tucker Max: right to brought my credits. I think 800, uh, I have no pending lawsuits against me. I have no legal action against me right now. None coming that I know about. Um, truly. Uh, I, I, I worked, Zach and I worked out a deal
with the bank that ensured we were not going to be held liable for, um, for personal guarantees that we were li The bank did not lie to us.
But Javon did, uh, to make it
clear that I, to my knowledge, the bank
did not commit fraud, but Javon for sure did. And, um, and so we worked out a deal with the bank where they got their money or they’re going to get enough of their money or whatever. Um, and we’re not, we’re not, we’re not,
on the hook for it.
Andrew Warner: You’re saying Yvonne committed fraud. You wrote this down on your site. Are you concerned that he’s going to sue you? That you’re
going to be caught up in lawsuits with him
forever?
Tucker Max: My man, uh, all he could sue for, well, in America, truth is an absolute
defense to libel. He committed fraud. Like there’s,
Andrew Warner: you’re saying,
Tucker Max: pending federal lawsuits against him for this.
And the evidence is very, very clear. I don’t think he wants to go to discovery in a lawsuit.
If he sues me, it’ll be, um, He’s not that type.
He knows he did wrong. He does, right? So, like, why would he sue me? He’s not, There’s a type who, like Lance Armstrong, who went and sued a bunch of people who were telling the truth about him. That’s a whole different type of person. Javon’s not actually that type of person.
He’s a different type
of narcissist.
Andrew Warner: All right. I’m curious a little bit about your experience in Texas, and then we’ll close up with what you’re doing now, uh, with what this new company is that you’ve launched, where you’re helping people build mem uh, write their memoirs at tellyourstory. academy. But I remember moving in here. People said basically where I moved is similar to where you are.
I don’t want to get too deep into where we are. Um, but, I thought, oh interesting, He’s got a little bit of land, like me, he’s doing a little bit of outdoor work, like me, he’s got some chickens, like me, and then I looked, it’s not a little bit of land, it’s dozens of acres, it’s not just a few chickens like I do for fun, I went and checked them out this morning and got some eggs and it’s like an outdoor experience, you got like this army of chickens that you’re moving around your property to also cultivate the ground, or I forget what
it’s called, to like break it up, what are you doing?
Tucker Max: Uh, so we’re, we have
50 acres. We’re out in dripping Springs. Like I’ve been public about this. I don’t care. I’ll tell you too. Um, yeah, bro. If you want to come out and see, you’re welcome to like, I know we’re friends. I’m, I’m happy to have you anytime. You got my number. Just text me. But yeah, we have a, right now we have about 150.
25 meat chickens in chicken
tractors, right? And we’re homesteading basically using like regenerative agriculture and permaculture principles, which are like, if you don’t know what this is in the next five, 10 years, you will learn for sure. Like I’m bro. I’m everything I’m on. I’m always becomes huge. Not necessarily because of me.
But I just get on big things early, right? And this is another, this probably will end up being the biggest thing of all the things I’ve gotten on early, like the internet and all those things. But, um, yeah, we have a flock of sheep. I have 48 sheep. We have two livestock guard dogs that watch them all the time because if we don’t, the coyotes will decimate the flock.
We have a whole separate set of laying hens. We’ve got like 40, 35, 40
laying hens, bees, all kinds of, uh, hives. Um, yeah, dude, like we’re running like a homestead gardens. We got 1, 2, 3 orchards, and I’m putting in literally tomorrow a, uh, 30 tree pecan
orchard. Um, yeah, like we’re, it’s gonna be, it’s serious
Andrew Warner: I would like to have more. I want all of,
this more, but I can’t
do it all. And every time I price out what would it cost to have people come on and do it, it doesn’t make sense.
Is it profitable to do this?
Tucker Max: now.
Andrew Warner: not doing it by yourself, you and your
kids.
Tucker Max: ho Hold on. I, I don’t run a homestead as a
business. That’s where people
fuck this
Andrew Warner: I just don’t want to lose money on it. I’m not looking for it to be profitable. I don’t want to lose money.
Tucker Max: no, no, no. Andrew, you are
Andrew Warner: Tell me how you’re thinking
Tucker Max: totally, totally wrong. Okay, let me
explain. So you can run a homestead as a business, and you can sell stuff, chickens and eggs, and you have to do that a little bit more scale than we have.
Not more space, but more scale. Um, and that’s fine. I’m not doing that at all. I don’t sell any of my stuff except, you know, maybe a friend will buy a lamb every now and then, or, you know, I give stuff to my friends, but I don’t sell any of it. I’m not buying. I’m not. I look at this as an investment in my health.
And my future and my sovereignty and my family’s health and future and sovereignty. That’s what it’s an investment in, right? So, so think about it this way. What pro bro, if you go into Whole Foods and I know you probably shop at Whole Foods. I used to shop a lot at Whole Foods. I hardly shop there anymore because there’s, uh, almost nothing you can buy there.
That’s actually healthy, right? And when a healthy, I mean,
like, okay, if it says organic, I believe that it’s
organic. But you can, you can game organic. Uh, you can have still all kinds of additives
in the meat. I mean, if it’s organic,
uh, chicken and the chickens are
raised, you know, in cages or, or these huge
industrial, uh, facilities and they’re stepping in their own crap and they never see sunlight or.
That’s not healthy. There’s nothing healthy about that, right? I’m at the point now where I eat all the meat. We eat accepting restaurants is grown on our land or comes from our neighbors, right? Like we don’t have cows. We buy our meat. Once a year, we get a great steer from a neighbor, right? And I know, I know what
goes in their cows because I know that
the only thing that goes in their cows is water And
grass.
And that’s it. Same as my sheep. No vaccines, no
dewormers, no, uh,
glyphosate, nothing. you cannot
say that. You eat all kinds of chemicals. All the
time. even?
Andrew Warner: ivermectin even?
Tucker Max: No.
Andrew Warner: No ivermectin Even
To keep them healthy?
Tucker Max: don’t, uh,
ivermectin is very healthy, but I don’t put,
I run what’s called a non intervention herd. So if the sheep get sick, they go to the freezer. Like that’s it. Like if they, uh, and what that does is that creates what are called bulletproof sheep, right? Like, uh, my sheep don’t get parasite problems because the ones that do die and the ones
that don’t reproduce.
And if you do
that over generations, you get sheep that are resistant to parasites. So then you don’t need to put ivermectin in them. Even, even ivermectin, which is as safe as a pharmaceutical gets. I don’t
want any of that shit in my, in my sheep. Yeah,
Andrew Warner: So then tell me about the time invested in this because, is it you
did you hire someone like a farmhand to come on your property? No, it’s you and your family, that’s it
That’s the part that I can’t get
because just getting weeds out is a pain in The butt from gardening from a garden We just had a baby recently.
I stopped taking care of that I really admire how you go super deep in on stuff, You’re saying it’s just you and your
family going deep on this. This is what you’re
doing Yeah,
Tucker Max: Because it’s, it’s a totally different way to look at things, right? Um, I have enough money, like I don’t really have to do a whole lot of work. Like I do, I do my memoir thing and it’s great and it makes decent money. But like to me, I see my job in the world as working on my, doing my emotional, spiritual
development and being a husband and a father.
Husband to my wife, father to my children. Right? And I don’t know of a better way to do that
than for us to do it on this land and to
work the land in a way that is both nourishing to
the land, but also nourishing to us, right?
So if you look at weeding, for example,
as a chore to do, I get it, dude. It sucks.
It’s not a fun chore. You’re always gonna find things that are more important, right? I don’t look at it that way, though. I look at I’ve taught this to my kids. This is our land and their homestead as well as mine. And so we talk about like, Hey guys, you, if you want to leave, you can, you never have to. If you want to meet your wife or husband and raise your kids here, we’ll build you a house here.
Or if we’d sell this and buy a bigger place at the bigger place, it doesn’t matter. It’s not this specific place. It’s on our land. You always have a place, right? And so when we’re weeding, what we’re doing is making our land better
and we’re making our lives better, right? And then also now on top of that, bro, once you dive into this space, you start to really learn it.
Not the bullshit that’s in Home Depot and not home and gardens nonsense. But when you really start to understand land and understand animals and understand growing things, The whole point of permaculture is to make, to work with systems the way they’re supposed to work. So you set up a system so that there are no weeds cause everything growing there is something you want and know how to use and that it all nourishes itself and there’s no space for quote unquote weeds to get in.
Right. And so it’s hard. It’s a lot of work. You gotta, you have to completely reorientate yourself to nature. Like when we got here, this place was beautiful, but it was dead. The soil was dead. There was like half percent organic matter in it, because everything the guy did was herbicides, pesticides, fertilizer.
We cut all of that, stopped everything. Hay everywhere, wood chips everywhere, let everything kind of start growing.
And now we’re in the process of making something that is. incredibly abundant for us in terms of resources, but also like a system that regenerates itself. It’s why it’s
called regenerative agriculture, right?
Andrew Warner: I do admire how You go deep on stuff that you do like You weren’t just hanging, hanging your, you weren’t just giving your name to Scribe, you were doing it deeply. the same
thing.
Tucker Max: Bro,
Andrew Warner: do you get to that
Tucker Max: me, what other way is there to live? I like, I don’t even know.
I might be the
wrong person to ask this question. I’ll tell you why. Cause I don’t know another way to be right. If the
only currency I have to spend is time. so if I’m not going to
spend my time doing things that I love, That benefit me And the people I love.
What the hell am I doing? you know, like I don’t, there’s no reason for me to be doing it. And so if we’re going to live on this land and create a land that regenerates us and nurtures us, bro, I need to know what to do, man. I’ve got to go read the books and I’ve got to learn from the masters and I’ve got to figure things out.
Trial. It’s why I didn’t hire
anybody. I may hire like, you
know, if I need a plumber, I hire a plumber.
Right. but like I try and do as much as I can myself. So I know I understand the land. I understand the trees. Like I’m putting in this, but Conrad, bro, I just
dug 30 holes yesterday with a backhoe man. And like, but I do that because I want to understand.
What’s the right way to dig a hole for a tree? Cause there is a right way. And then what soil you’re putting in. How are you putting
in? How are you digging the hole? How are you prepping the hole? What are you putting in with the
tree? This stuff matters because if
I plant these trees, right, my children and my grandchildren and my great grandchildren will sit under them
and harvest for a
hundred years. So why would I not do it? Right?
Why would I not learn? You know,
Andrew Warner: I
love that. This is like the most inspiring thing that I’ve ever heard from you.
That’s like touching the thing that I want to do. If,
Tucker Max: I’m doing it, bro. You are
welcome to
Andrew Warner: mean,
Tucker Max: bring your family and see
Andrew Warner: I’ll come over. Yeah, I feel like it’s a little bit overwhelming to see how far you are with it. But to just even have a bit of it, my, my most fun is going and clearing brush.
Like You ever see like George W. Bush Jr. He would come
to Texas from the White House and clear brush and do stuff. And it felt like such a silly way to spend time. But man, It makes my passion for running seem silly. Yes, I’m moving forward a little bit, it’s definitely fun and exercise, but you look back and you haven’t made anything versus like even clearing brush, or weeding, or creating a path. You look back and you say, now there’s this thing here, now there’s this thing that I just created. All right. Um, I wish you? would like, all I want to do is be in this world and just hear this. All right. Finally, tell me about this memoir writing. So the one thing that you’re taking time away from, you’re not making investments anymore.
The one thing you’re taking time away
from the land and this passion is Tell Your Story
Tucker Max: We’ll see.
I started writing my memoir, my, my next memoir. And, um, I got to like some stumbling blocks and it got difficult. And one of the tricks for. If you’re not making progress on your book, is create an accountability group, right? And so, instead of creating a random group, I’m like, well, people are still
always coming to me for help with books. and the thing I know best, like I know a lot about books, but the niche within books that I am
one of the best, if not the very, un, un, like un, Uncontested best is memoir.
Um, and so,
uh, I partnered up with the woman who helped me build the book coaching program at scribe when I was there and we decided
to just focus on memoir and just coach her and that’s it. And it’s awesome because it’s like we peeled off the part of scribe that was the most
energizing for me and the thing I like to do the most. and now we only do that. Um, and you know how it always works, Andrew. I’m doing less work and making more, making more money. If you actually look at
take home pay. Actually making more money. It’s like one of those things I sat down this year, like with my wife and I’m like, I could have done this 10 years ago and avoided all that suffering. And she’s like, no, you needed that to get to who you are and whatever. I’m like, I know you’re right, but like,
I could have done this 10 years ago.
Oh man. Um, but yeah, dude, we just, we coach memoir and we’re awesome at it. And it’s really fun. We have an amazing group. We do zoom calls. I
look forward to the group coaching zoom calls. Like
what was the last time you looked,
Andrew Warner: are people writing their
memoirs?
Tucker Max: right, right now
Andrew Warner: Why are they in the group? what are they trying to
do?
Tucker Max: they’re all okay. So the big distinction that we’ve done is that we’ve broken memoir out into two different goals, right?
Uh, I think everyone who writes, writes memoir has one of two goals. They either want to tell their story, which means that tell the truth
about their story. Or they want to leave a legacy, which means. They want people to look at them a certain way, right? And you cannot, you can make one of them your primary goal.
You’re gonna get a little bit of both either way, right? But you can’t
have two primary goals. You can either,
Andrew Warner: Either correct the record or
Tucker Max: gonna tell the truth, or you’re gonna decide,
you’re gonna try and frame how people see you. Because it, like, it doesn’t mean you’re lying necessarily. But, you know, like all celeb memoirs are like, oh, you know, I can’t say this, I can’t talk about this, uh, you know, like they
want people to see them a certain way.
Even ones that are very truthful, at certain points
they make decisions to hide the truth,
to not be the truth, to look a certain way, to avoid something. Okay, fine, it’s not a judgment thing. and so the smart, the
thing we’ve done is say, we don’t, we only
want to work the people who want to tell their story.
That’s why we call it Tell Your Story Memoir Academy. If you want to tell the truth about, to yourself, about your life, we’re
the people you work with. If you want to do legacy, that’s great. Go work with Scribe or any number of other, uh,
memoir people and they’re really good at that. Don’t work with us.
Like, we are the truth people. And so we get people, this group is, bro, all across the spectrum. Age, race, socioeconomic status. Um, but everyone shares one core value truth and that’s my like number one core value is the thing I care the most about. Um, and so it’s so awesome and everyone’s, you know, like they’re going their own path.
It’s not about you have to sell you tell all your truth all the time. You have to push everything. No, no, some people write four or five memoirs and each one’s progressively deeper and deeper and more and more truth. That’s okay. It’s just as much truth as
you can tell and you can. Connect with at that moment.
You can only do the best you can, you know, um, and it’s so inspiring. It’s awesome, man It’s like I get excited every day to help these people because they’re on the same path I am which
is I want to tell my true story.
Andrew Warner: I get that. It is one
of the things that I love. Like the other night we were at a fire with someone just last night.
And you suddenly get people going into a
truth and a recognition of who they are that they
didn’t have before and it feels so deep and so like almost painfully deep like you’re in their underwear.
But it feels like you know them better and then the host of the, of the, the event just cut it off and moved to something a little bit more surfacy and I was so disappointed. I didn’t want to be the guy who’s like, wait a minute, I got tools for going deeper, let’s go deeper. But. There’s something about seeing someone go to that truth of like vulnerability and personal and almost like wincing that makes you see yourself.
All right, Tucker, dude, thank you. I’m going to take you up on it. I’m going to come and see, see the property. I might actually bring my kids. I want my kids to see what this is like too. Um,
and I’ll follow up with you by text.
Tucker Max: Cool, man. Well, bro, we can listen. I get that It’s overwhelming. Let me tell you something though. And this is for audience, too
I didn’t just show up here and have all this stuff, right? I showed up and lit I got to this point by one step at a time. It like, you already have chickens, bro. You’re down the path.
And it’s totally okay to just go
one step at a time to get there. Like, the the you can let go of
Andrew Warner: thing, sorry about that. I also have goats.
Tucker Max: right.
Andrew Warner: So, I’ve got goats, for
example, right? Goat milk is fantastic. It’s delicious. People love goat milk. I’d love to milk
the goats. But now I have a job every day that I would have to do. It means if I go to Europe for two weeks or a month, I gotta hire someone to come and milk my goats?
That’s the part that I
can’t get
past. You’re saying yeah.
Tucker Max: Well, uh, you
Andrew Warner: that’s a level of commitment.
Tucker Max: But you also don’t have to get past that. Don’t
milk goats if you don’t want
to. That’s okay.
Andrew Warner: I feel like everything ends up with, and you go to Europe and you have to bring somebody in who can manage all this and that’s going to be a lot of work. Every level seems to take me to that. Alright, I’ll follow up with you offline.
Tucker Max: Cool, man. Thanks, brother.
Andrew Warner: Thanks, brother.
Bye.
