Mohr Stories with Jay Mohr

Transcript

This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host. This is The James Altucher Show. Today on The James Altucher Show. One of my favorite people to talk about writing with is Tucker Max. I just read this. I didn't know this before, but there's only 3 people in history that have had 3 books at the same time on the New York Times bestseller list. One of them is Tucker Max, my guest on the podcast today, and the other 2 are Michael Lewis and Malcolm Gladwell. So I didn't know that before this podcast. But, anyway, I always love talking with Tucker about what is the nature of a story, how important story is to success whether it's in writing or business or in relationships. And once we've established that, we get right into how do you tell a good story no matter what your objectives are. So here we go, part 2 of the Tucker Max episodes. So you've been posting every day or every couple days these lessons you've learned and it's and it's very nice. They're not they're not like blog posts. So I really, appreciate this this new style from you. It's just like these very short, concise, but very poignant lessons you've learned. And you have one which basically says, in sort of a battle of ideas and stories about ideas, the person who can tell the right story is gonna Yeah. Be the better idea even. Oh, yes. And I think that's a meta skill, and you've been referring to it in this podcast. It's almost a medic meta skill. No matter what you do, no matter what your skills are, you need to be able to tell the story about those specific skills, and I agree with that completely. I mean, that's the next product we're building at Scribe, is the storytelling course and the storytelling. Like, tell your story. We're gonna build, like, as a memoir, tell your story, but then also storytelling as a skill. There are a lot of good people who know how to teach that. We're gonna teach it, I think, a little bit of a different angle on that. Tie back to young people. In the coming economy, there's 2 skills, programming, right, and storytelling. And storytelling encompasses sales, marketing, all that. If you can do one really well, you're gonna be great. If you can do both, then you could be, like, figuratively a god. And I can only think of a few people who can do both. Marc Andreessen can do both. Yeah. It's interesting because look at great companies like Apple. Think about it. Steve Wozniak had the programming. Steve Jobs had the storytelling. Mhmm. I would argue Google, both Larry Page and Sergey Brin, could do some they they were both pretty good at both. You don't think? No. No. There's a I mean, think about this. Think about the head start Google had in every field, and it basically screwed all of them up. The only reason Google still exists is because it owns search, and search is so dominant. But, like, look at all the companies. There's dozens, 100 of $1,000,000,000 companies that carved off stuff that Google could've. Google does not tell a great story. Google just got there early. Right? Google is very vulnerable. Facebook is very vulnerable. Like, Twitter is extremely vulnerable. I can see, like, Parler is gonna gonna carve off a huge chunk. I think Parler has something like 2,000,000 users right now. Right. Exactly. They're all very, very vulnerable. They have a lot of money, and they have power. Amazon is the least vulnerable, because Amazon tells a great story, and has just told the same story over and over. And it's like, I order something, it shows up in my house every single time, and it's super cheap, and it's high quality. Can't beat that. The other 3, they're in trouble. Yeah. I mean, and all the companies that tell stories are vulnerable. The Netflixes of the and all their competitors. The Netflixes, Disneys, and so on. Mhmm. You know, they're gonna run out of stories to tell. No. You never run out of stories to tell. I don't think so. They're gonna run out of their stories. They're Yes. You know, ultimately, the public decides what stories Netflix can tell. It's hard for them to come up with a unique story. And Well, most of those a lot of those companies are being captured by wokeism, and they're starting to see the impacts, though. So we're we're gonna start to we may, shockingly, we may see the antibodies to wokeism develop in the corporate world. I love the analogy. I love there's antibodies to to this. You saw what happened with Nike, man. Nike lost in the middle of the the explosive online growth moment, Nike lost $700,000,000. I think there may be maybe they will, maybe they won't reconsider. They went full woke. They went full, full woke. Right? And again, I like I wanna be real clear, supporting oppressed black people in America, I'm all for. I'm all in. Supporting woke is a different thing. Right? And they went full woke. They weren't like they didn't they weren't like, hey. We need to to, police reform. We need to, you know, all no. No. No. They didn't do that. They're like, let's f**king kneel down. Give the middle finger to mom and dad. Like, all that sort of s**t, they suffered. Whereas, like, the companies that didn't, Under Armour did amazing. Their stocks through the roof. You're starting to see, like, the ones that that it depends where and how they embrace wokeism. But I'm telling you, man, I'll tell you, this is another reason why who wins in in November makes a big difference. If Trump wins, I think Trump and the conservative core go after and break up Facebook and Google, especially Google. I wonder how I wonder how you would do that. Like, what would you do? Because search is Are you kidding? You can you can wield antitrust law any way you want. Like, that's the antitrust law is essentially voodoo. It's made up. Like, I'm telling you as someone who studied this in law school. The the iconic example is if you sell more than your competitor, it's price gouging. If you sell at your competitor's price, it's collusion. If you sell less, then it's flooding the market. Right? So you can make any it is a power play. It is a pure and simple power play, And I can absolutely unequivocally I think Trump will go after well, really, I would say probably Twitter. Twitter and Facebook even more than Google. Although Google is trying to deplatform too. They're gonna go after them. Absolutely unequivocally. That's one of the re that's one of the big things, man. If the democrats win, these the tech state and the government state then merge. And then that's when you gotta really worry about it's not cancel culture anymore. Now it's like people disappear. Right? And, like like That is my fear. The the end state of that is people disappearing. We're not gonna have people in December of this year, no one's disappeared. But the end state of technology and government merged is Soviet Russia. Right. Well, and it's not That's what it is. It's not like disappearing in the Soviet sense. It's not like disappearing in the Argentinian sense where, you know You literally disappear. Right? Right. It's disappearing in the Alex Jones sense. Yes. Well well and it's also it's like the the the technology allows people to pretend to have good intentions. Hey. We need to isolate you for x y z reasons. Yes. Now there's a virus reason, but there could be there's gonna be other reasons. You know? There's not gonna there's gonna be nonstop reasons, just like the way someone could defend freedom of speech, but at the same time say, but, you know, a US senator shouldn't be doing an op ed in the New York Times. Like, you know, there's gonna be all these people with good intentions, like, well, yeah, we need to use this technology. Think about the arrogance of the idea that a sitting US senator needs to be deplatformed. Right. And this is not even saying Republican or Democrat. Like A sitting US senator. Someone who was elected by millions of people. Be deplatformed. Think about that for a second, and then you understand what The New York Times is. They are a partisan in an ideological war. That is what they are. Everything is like that. Look at Twitch right now, and again, this is not about Trump, no Trump, whatever. But Twitch saying any politician is not allowed on Twitch anymore. And at the same time, last night, my daughter was shooting up prostitutes in Grand Theft Auto on through on Twitch. So hold on. A platform says no politicians? I get it. Okay. Fine. We're making a business decision to eliminate us, that sort of thing. I'm I'm I'm with that's not what the Yeah. If you do it universally across the board, you can't just isolate it, though. I get it. I like, right. But Twitter Twitter's decided that Donald Trump tweeting about protecting the sovereignty of America is inciting violence. Dude, think about that sentence for a second. Do you understand? Like, that when I tell you you have to pick a side, that is what I mean. It's here. It's in front of you. It's right f**king here. But look. You know what's so funny, Tucker? Because this, brings me back to 2013. You know, you were helping me, with my book, choose yourself, and, just that book there. The the the the then CEO of Twitter wrote the foreword because Twitter then was this very choose yourself medium. Like, anybody in the world could have a voice. It's very different then. Yes. And now it's the Right now, if I wanna watch snuff videos, like videos of people being killed, I can go on Twitter and watch a 100 different videos. That's a 1000000 different videos of people being killed. Which, by the way, when we were kids, you never would have been able to watch a video of that. No. But meanwhile, if I just tweet the word hydroxychloroquine or coronavirus, that tweet will probably be like shadow banned or banned or whatever. Yes. Just by the bots. Yep. Oh, yeah. But snuff videos, no problem. I just watched today by accident, and I really do mean by accident. Like, I didn't realize it was gonna happen. Just watch this guy getting shot right in the face and dying right on this video. As kids, were you able to watch a snuff video? I keep telling you, wokeism is a death cult. Yeah. It's it just is. This is not like it's not like I came up with this idea. Like, I'm I'm smart. I'm not like, you can look at it and see. It's a death cult. That is what they are. So tell me about what the different angle on storytelling. So, obviously, we both told lots of stories in our lives. I always think of it kind of classically in terms of the the arc of the hero and in vulnerability, and and sort of sort of this concept of vulnerability buys you freedom. So being able to say what you want, you know, and and being able to handle the consequences, that's freedom. And and that goes along that leads leads into the arc of the hero. So what's what's the what's the angle, the twist you have on storytelling? Which by the way, you're very vulnerable. People don't I just wanna say out loud, people don't realize like, because I've seen people try to imitate your style of writing. They don't art, doesn't it? They don't get it. Ever been able to do it ever. No. Because they don't get and this is this is very similar to when when I see people try to imitate Hunter s Thompson. Yeah. They don't get that you're actually criticizing yourself in the books. That's the key, is that you're actually extremely vulnerable in these books. And when they try to imitate, they're just trying to glorify their adventures in college or whatever. They're they're trying to get a narcissistic supply. They're trying to get the attention they see me getting without they are imitating what they see. They don't actually see what it is that gets me attention. No. Because it takes it takes a a new it takes the skill of storytelling to understand the nuances. I that's I disagree. It takes a consciousness level. They are not at that level of consciousness. They are not connected to anything or anyone around them, and that's why they can't see it. Even if dude, I've had people try to imitate me who are excellent writers and excellent storytellers. They you don't have to know how to tell a story to be vulnerable. They're different things, completely different things. Now if you know how to tell a story and you combine it with vulnerability, you you get magic. Right? But you don't have to know how to tell a story to be vulnerable. And, you know, it's funny you say that because on the reverse side of things, I've seen people try to imitate me where they'll talk. They'll glorify their stories of failures. This whole category of what I now call failure porn. Yeah. Failure porn. Exactly. Dude, there's a whole segment of marketers that do this now. It's a knock obnoxious. Right. But they can't tell a story. So there's so you're right. There are there are 2 different skills, and so it makes it very unappealing. You can tell they're faking it because it's like the way they write about bankruptcy is like the way they perceive other people see bankruptcy. The way you wrote about bankruptcy was like, I've never been bankrupt, but I felt it. I felt it when you read it. I was like, oh, god. I understand what this feels like. Not pleasant. I don't wanna say you can't do that unless you've been through it because that's not true, but it is extraordinarily difficult to write about things that you have not actually felt, and most people cannot do it. It takes a world class novelists, screenwriter, storyteller to be able to tell a story with deep vulnerable emotion about something they did not do. Like like, JK Rowling does it really well in Harry Potter, you know, George RR Martin does it, like, like, you know, no no one's ridden a dragon or whatever, like, but, they're still writing about very common human emotions. They're just projecting themselves in there. It's really hard to fake that. Right. Right. Like, a great example is a great example of someone who can't do it, actually, is Charles Bukowski. So you look at his first four novels, you know, Post Office, Backtotem, Ham on Rye, Women, or Hollywood. So for his first five novels, he's basically telling his His life. A memoir and calling it a novel. Yeah. But then when he wrote his final book, Pulp, which was a pure detective novel, it was, like, one of the worst novels ever. Like, he couldn't really tell write fiction. Yeah. Yeah. It's true. It's I I tried to write fiction at the beginning, and it was awful. It was the garbage. Oh, dude. It was the worst garbage dumpster fire of all time, and then I gave up and just told my stories, and the rest is history. Right. And I think I think that also wrote, began this wave of kind of literary nonfiction or narrative nonfiction, which I think has been a positive cultural, you know, thing that's happened. Like, I think those are those are the best stories right now. But, so what what tell me the an angle on storytelling. Well, the way that I think I'm not sure, man, because I haven't we haven't really worked through it. But the way that well, there's 2 things. Like, the way we're gonna teach memoir is very, very different. Like, if you look at the way and I have a whole shelf of all the big memoir books, they're all f**king garbage. They suck because none of them address the entire reason to write memoir. Right? The and I I tell all the people in our workshop, If you wanna join our workshop, it's free. You can watch the whole thing. Go to scribebookschool.com. It teaches all the instructions there. So what what's your scribe slash scribebookschool.com. And then we have nonfiction and memoir. They're different tracks, and you could do either one. But, what we teach for memoir, it basically boils down to this. No one reads your book to learn about you. They read your book to learn about themselves, but the way they learn about themselves is through your honest and vulnerable expression of your emotions and your experiences. You know, and and you wrote this in one of your lessons I've learned, and I thought this was very interesting. It made me, a, think of my own writing, but then it made me think of, you've probably read, William s Burroughs, Junkie. Yeah. So, again, he's another guy. I don't really like some of his later stuff, but Junkie is this very direct memoir style book with packages and novel, because that's what they were doing, about his experiences as a heroin addict in in New York City. And it's very just what what was very interesting is he goes back and forth between the first person and the second person. And when he's doing the second person, you almost could imagine that he's writing a guide rather than a memoir. And I think it's that that kind of hint of a memoir being a guide, which is which is basically what you're saying there, that people wanna read about themselves. I think that contributed to his success in that is that he says, you know, you don't wanna trust these kinda pimps because they do this. And so, is he writing about himself experiencing these pimps, or is he giving it you suggestions? When because he's using the word you. And, I think that that is a very interesting way to look at it. When you write second person, it just makes you feel like you're in a conversation, which works really well for it can work really well for memoir. Yeah. It depends. You gotta be a different kind of writer. Like, I wouldn't recommend that for new writers. Well, if you do it a 100% of the time, then it feels a little like Jay McInerny, Bright Lights, Big City. It feel it feels a little fake. It's you're right. It's it's suitable. But if you go back and forth, like, you know, I went up to the Ore House. I brought all my, you know, the $30 I had left. But, you know, you can't mess around with, pimps like this. Blah blah blah. So if you go back and forth, and like you say, it's it's a combination of first person memoir, but then there's this slight hint of it being a guide as well as a memoir. And I think that's what you're alluding to. It makes it easier for the reader to to, acknowledge that I'm reading about myself rather than just reading about this guy being a junkie in the 19 fifties. The what what memoir really boils down to for most people is the therapy they're afraid to do, and so we address that head on. If you're gonna write memoir, you need to understand that this is a therapeutic process, and that that if you try to avoid it, your memoir will be garbage, and no one will read it, no one will care. But if you engage it and do as go as deep as you can and and go as far as you can, you don't have to go all the way, just go as far as you can, then both you are gonna get a lot out of it, and then we actually don't tell people they have to publish their book because to you you will get an immense amount out of writing your book and putting it in a drawer. We generally recommend you probably should publish it for a lot of reasons, but then we have a guide we help people kind of figure out, but, like, it's a all of the stupid memoir guides, none of them really address the fact that why do people wanna write memoir? Why do they wanna tell their story? Because they all approach it like, how do I sell this? Because they're author professional writers trying to tell people how to be professional writers. Most people don't care about being professional writers. Like, if it sells, cool. Like, cash the checks. Right? Most people want to tell their story, which is a totally different thing. And that is, at its core, both a therapeutic process and a heroic process. And so we help people understand that and unpack it, and then walk through it and see their book as a journey where, they are uncovering what their story is, who they really are, and being the hero that they needed, that they didn't have. That's interesting. So I know I haven't thought of it as I guess, the closest I have come to thinking of it that way is when I advise people, don't publish something unless you're specifically afraid of what people are gonna think of you. If if at some point during the process, you became afraid of what people are gonna think of you if you say this publicly. That's true for a memoir. That's very true for a memoir. Yeah. And I I I wonder if it's true for for other things as well. You know, for for fiction. Yeah. It's it's true for nonfiction just in that in that good nonfiction should put new ideas in into the world, or new collections, or new or new curations or should challenge an established idea. Absolutely, teach that as well. Like, I'm not gonna write a book called The Sky is Blue. Why would someone feel like oh, I know that. So it's gotta be something new, some new idea, or some new take. Whether that challenges you or not is a different idea. Like, I'm not gonna be afraid of writing an a a new idea in memoir because I'm I'm not at that stage. Right? So for nonfiction, it's is it is it additive to at least somebody's experience? Memoir, I'm with you about fear. Fear being a good guide for at least for writing it. There's different things about publishing. You and I are different. Like, we're professionals. Right? If someone's not a professional, there there's a lot of other considerations that they have to to go through before they publish, and they should go through. Not even just legal, just take all that stuff out. Like, a lot of people don't know how to just write about their experience. They know how to criticize others. They don't know how to talk about themselves. And so, like, that's something that we try to teach, but, like, unless they're getting editing from us, you we the what we teach is, here was my experience, that's your memoir. Like, if if the frame is, I'm telling you about what happened to me and what I felt and what I did, that's a memoir. But the I felt part is very interesting. Oh, felt is the key. I felt is the absolute key. But if the frame is, here's my family's dirty, awful secret, even if you're talking about the same things, that's vengefulness, that's predictiveness, that's you, speaking from a wound instead of a scar, and it doesn't help you or anyone else. Right. And by the way, there's a distinguish distinction between good writing and book sales. Because you write you know, there's a lot of books out there that are revenge revenge books, and they they do fine in sales. There's also a lot that do poorly in sales. So So we're we're not really talking sales at all. No. No. No. It's just that's outrageous. Revenge books that do well like celebrity revenge, like a tell all. No no regular person's tell all is gonna sell. They don't care. It doesn't it doesn't matter. No. I tell people not to worry about writing at all, like, the quality of the writing, especially early, because, that's that's not why you're writing the book. You're writing the book to tell your story, and to and a lot of times, we tell people to rewrite your story, not to change it because you can't change what happened, of course. But, you get to decide what your story means. Right? You get the facts are always gonna be the same, but you get to decide, my mother abandoned me. That when I was 15, that it meant x to me, when I was 20, it meant y to me. Now that I'm 40, it means z to me. You get to decide what it means, and that memoir is the best way to do that. Yeah. So what challenges have you when you've been dealing with authors? Is there pushback, like, yeah, you kinda have to get them to dig dig a little deep? No. We we don't push people that way because, people can only go so far. And so we'll tell people, like, you you may end up writing multiple s**t, I'm not even in what, 4 memoirs? I got I'm working on my next one right now. Really? Like, they're all about yeah. Dude, all about psychedelic therapy and all that, and all the stuff I I realized in that and how it changed. Oh, yeah. Dude, I'm doing all that. Like it like my story of that. You know, like, I wrote that piece on Medium about it. That was just my first two things. I'm 2 years in now. Well, also, these lessons you've learned, it's a companion piece because I the what you've learned from this therapy is is it's coming out of you and these lessons you've learned. Here here, I want your opinion on this. Here's what I think I'm gonna start doing, is I'm gonna keep tweeting them exactly the way they are. Short, pithy, to the point. But then I think I'm gonna get on, like, my little rig here and and record sort of, like, you know, what did I used to do? Mhmm. What do I, what did that cause? What lesson did I learn, which then would be the tweet, and then what do I do now? You know, and it wouldn't be long. Probably, anywhere from 2 to 10 minutes max about each one of these, Kinda giving a little bit of a backstory and a little bit of examples, and do that as like YouTube videos and podcasts. What do you what do you think about that idea? I I I I love it because that's where you introduce the story into the lesson. There you go. Exactly. You when you give the lesson, look, you're a good writer, so you give the lesson, so it forces me to think of my story and how this applies. Right? Because because you're not giving anything other than a mirror in in the in the in the lesson. Right. But when you throw in your story, that's when I really wanna see how it applies, and then I'll really even more deeply relate. Go even deeper. Yeah. So in in whatever format, it doesn't matter the format. Whether you write it, video, podcast, do all 3. I think I will. I think I'll I think I'm gonna add that on. I'm not gonna change what I'm doing, just gonna add that. No. Yeah. Don't change what you're doing because there's a lot of value in just the short you know, again, I look back to my post, you know, from 10 years ago. They're long. Yeah. Maybe I should have done some of them as more short pages. Why I started doing short, man? It's to learn copywriting. Like, I'm a being a great book writer and being a great copywriter are totally different things. 100% different. And it was a forcing function for me to to to really start to be precise with my words. That's why I put it on Twitter first, and I get it short, and then I put it on the other ones. That's That's why I again, this is, like, 10 years ago. That's why I would do Facebook first, and then, you know, later on have a book or whatever. But, now you're you're you're you're you're Twitter, you're right, you're limiting it to 280 characters. There's a lot of different models of what makes a good copy written, you know, message, but it sort of feels like you're doing the, the what's the p what's called the PAS model, problem agitate solution. So, you know, I used to, you know, think like this, caused much suffering, and here's a solution. Mhmm. Yeah. That's a lot a lot of times I do that. That is that is pretty standard. Yeah. The thing I'm really trying to do is get the idea across. It it can in a the the most compressed, condensed way possible. Yeah. Let me I I took some of my favorites and and, I've been copy pasting them. Because a lot of times I'll I'll I'll read them and I'll say, yeah. That's exactly what happened to me, even though you were might not have been talking about anything remotely similar to that. So, like, here, if I wanna control here's one you wrote. If I wanna control a situation, my best strategy is to ask more questions rather than try to tell people what to do or give answers. There is far more control in questions than there ever is in directives. And that's a real powerful, you know, you were referring to frame control earlier. It's a very powerful frame as well. Mhmm. That's exactly. So I'm talking about frame control there. Yeah. So so, like, you know, this is very important in parenting, for instance. If you tell a kid, look, you're not going you're not going out tonight. Of course, they're going out tonight whether you like it or not. Right. But if if if your thing is to say, like, well, what do you think about, I I don't know, what do you think about all these killings happening right outside the door? I don't know, if you just ask questions to get them to things. Like like, I used to try to argue with my oldest daughter about college, and I would say to her, like, you can't go to college because this, this, this, this. She would literally just turn around and walk away from me. Yeah. Like, no response. Nothing. And I would say, you can't just walk away. She would just keep walking. There's there's no point in trying to control her. But if I start saying, like, why do you think Google is suddenly not, asking for degrees anymore? Or why do you think, you know, you wanna be an actress? Do you have what why do you think some people get act great acting jobs between the ages of 18 and and 22? Do you think they went to college? What what happened there? And you're right. Asking the questions get plants the seeds and gets them thinking. Yep. Ericssonian, therapy. It's the way he did it. He would just tell stories and ask questions. That's it. Never told anyone what to do ever. So let's see. There's, I I love this one as well. Like, everybody in I'm sure this has happened to you. You ever if you you ever end a relationship and then suddenly the other person is just constantly thinking you're toxic? No one could ever admit or acknowledge that they might have had something to contribute to this. Of course. You have this great, lesson. You you say, the only toxic relationship I can have is with myself. Every other relationship in my life is simply a reflection of the relationship I have with myself. Once I really got this, I had to make many changes. So I love the general that I had to make many changes. There's no story there. There's just kinda the the this is like the umbrella on top of a story. Mhmm. It is. And do you notice the way I frame them too? Every single one, I never say you. It's never second person. It's never telling anyone else what to do. It's always me. Always. Yeah. That's interesting. Let's see. And here's another one similar. So a relationship that cannot tolerate This is this is actually an extremely important one. I might even have commented on this when you first put it out there. A relationship that cannot tolerate a thoughtful conversation about needs, disappointments, and desires is not a healthy relationship. We could have just done the entire podcast and just Usually. Said that one line. Usually. Hey. Good to see you. Good talking you. That's such an important concept. Mhmm. Oh, yeah. Tell me the tell me a story there. Tell give me give me an example. I mean, god, I could just talk about a 1,000,000 things in my marriage alone. Like, both Veronica and I both, when we met and still even years later, are not very good at expressing things in our needs. So, like, for example, okay, I can't stand it when she uses my razor to shave her legs. Right? And she stopped doing it, but for a while, this is like a big fight in our house. And so I would, like, criticize her and yell at her and, like, get so upset about this. Right? And I was expressing I had a need, and the need was I needed my razor to be reserved for my face. Right? And, and and I was I was expressing this criticism of her. Why would you do this? You don't care about me. You're so selfish. And then, eventually, I'm like, I I realized, okay, she's not getting this. So I had to start talking about it, like, when you use my razor, I feel like you don't care about me. That because I've asked you about this multiple times, and and then you do it anyway, and it makes me feel like, why are we even in a relationship? Like, if the person I'm with can't even respect a simple boundary I'm trying to draw. And then she was fine crying, and, like because it wasn't about criticizing her. I expressed it as my need, not her a problem with her. Well, let me ask you let me ask you this. What if you don't really know what your needs are? Because let's say you're You gotta you gotta think and figure those out then. Yeah. Because, you you mean, a lot of relationships, and this is talking about frame control, a lot of relationships as you know, there's something called frame fatigue, where one person has too much of the frame all the time. Mhmm. And, so the other person just is disintegrates in frame. And That's called codependency. Mhmm. Where you so just define that because I I always say that. It's essentially when you are, relying on the other person to feel emotions for you. Right? And so and and it's in a relationship like that, if someone is has controls the frame the whole time and the other person doesn't, the person controlling the frame the the the whole time is getting something from them. Right? They they need whatever it is, a submissiveness from a partner, they need the illusion of control, they need they need something. There's a reason. Because if someone is powerful enough to control their frame all the time and is a higher level of consciousness, they're gonna be with someone who, who can hold the frame back on them, who can have their own frame. Right? And because when you're in a relationship, they have their frames, you have your frames, and then there are co frames. You know, like, our relationship is defined. It's a negotiated thing, relationships are. Right? And so, it's not all one thing. And so, like, in any relationship, it is negotiated and both the needs are being met. It's so, like, that woman is getting I'm assuming it's a man controlling the frame, but it doesn't have to be. It's not by any stretch. But the the man's getting something he wants, and so is the woman. It's not he's not the bad guy there. She they're both equally bad or good. There's really not a moralistic judgment. They're both trying to meet their own needs, really not through effective ways, in terms of if they wanna, like, have a happy, elevated consciousness and a good life, but it works. It makes him less anxious about control. It makes her feel a sense of security. Let's say, I'm just guessing. Right? Okay. Then it it's sort of like why it's like, why is a drug addict a drug addict? Because or why is a heroin addict a heroin addict? This is a great example. Because the heroin works. The heroin is a way for them to manage the pain of unfelt emotions. Right? It may destroy the rest of their life, but it works. It absolutely does what it's supposed to do. Right? And so so, like, this that's the it's that idea. So, this this next one, I think, is really great. There's a lot there's a lot in here, which is, so I'm quoting you now. The most important decision in my life is who I spend my time with. The most important actions I take are what I do to make sure I create value for them. And And you're talking about, you say, my work, both personal and professional. And then everything else is noise. And I think that second first the first line is absolutely, you know, it's a it's a It's the Yeah. It's it's it's it's it's also, like, you're the average of the 5 people you spend your time with and and so but this idea that the most important actions I take are what I do to make sure I create value for them, that's incredibly important to for people to to understand because there's so many instances where you're trying to reflect your own importance in a relationship as opposed to, thinking about the self worth and needs of the other person. And that could be in a, conversation at a networking c**ktail party, or it could be in work, or it could be in relationships, like Or with your kids. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. People don't want you to establish dominance over them. They wanna know you think they're important. And you have to provide value for them to realize that, for them to give you you wanna give them status in those situations. And I I think I think that's a that's a really valuable a valuable lesson. So, look, Tucker, it's always great to to update and, how's business? You you you are a publishing company. We're doing good, man. We March was a disaster, like it was for almost everybody. We had a full slate of of sales calls, and then 2 days later, we had 0. 0. And then then we launched Scribe Book School, in March, and it blew up. And we had we taught 10,000 people how to write of, their book for free, either nonfiction or memoir. And now that's kind of blown up. It launched a whole lower lower tier coaching program, that's been doing amazing. And then, we're we're on track. We we had our best month of all ever in our history in June. That's great. Our 2nd best month was April, and our 3rd best month was May. So Wow. That's awesome. We've had a pretty good 3 months. Yeah. And, you know, originally, you were doing a lot of, like, I'll call it, like, business self help, you know, marketing, business, sales, management, leadership. And, do you think that became those books kind of became there's too many of them now? No. No. Quite the opposite. I think we've only we've only just started. Alright. Good. Yeah. I mean and by the way, this is no just, like, some of those books I really enjoy, like, Joey Klein, 1 of my favorite people in the world. I I think we've only just started. I think we have literally just started. I think the day is going to come where it's basically an entry point into being a high level professional that you have a book. If you don't, it'll it used to be what a college degree was. It used to be like, if you don't have a college degree, it's like, who how can you be taken seriously. Right? And now no one cares anymore because everyone got them. It's not a marker of status anymore, and maybe unless you went to Harvard or something. But even then, it's like, oh, look, another a*****e is telling me he went to Harvard. Right? I think a book for most knowledge workers is going to be the gateway into high level. Because if you can't like, what it takes to write a book and the way it allows you to be judged, I think are 10 times better than a college degree. Like, because you can fake your way in to college degree, you can bulls**t, like, it's easy to bulls**t a college degree. It's not easy to bulls**t a book. Even if you pay a bunch of money and get a great ghostwriter. Okay. I'm gonna let's say I'm a potential client. Like, let's say you're a CEO coach. You're a $100 a year. I read your book and I know it. If you got a great ghostwriter, you don't actually know your things, I'm gonna figure it out real quick if I read your book. It won't take long. You know, and also, I I think I heard you say this in a talk a while ago that let's say, a conference or or corporations trying to decide who to pick as a speaker or a consultant or whatever. Everybody's equally qualified, but one person has a book. That's the person who's been hired. With the person with the book. Always. That's easy. Yeah. So there there was that, and then there was another thing you told me. This is related to the memoir stuff, or you didn't tell me this was in a presentation you gave. But write your memoir, you know, now in a world of self publishing, you know, anybody can write any book and the you know, sales are always unpredictable no matter whether you have, you know, Simon and Schuster as your publisher or you self publish. Sales are random. But think about this is the first time we can write a book now for our great great great grandchildren to get to know who we are. That is the argument I make in our the entry point, of Scribe Book School is, should you write a book? And the story I tell is that my my dad's grandmother, my great grandmother, immigrated from from Hungary in, like, 1915, and changed her name to Max at Ellis Island along with my grandfather. They moved to LA and, raised my grandfather and father as Catholics. I did a 23 and me 6 years ago. Turns out we're Jews. I'm Askenazi Jew, 25%. My dad's 50, my grandfather's a 100%. She and my grandfather never polled anyone, including their children. That that's hilarious. I would pay any amount of money to have her story. Yeah. That's a good that's a good point. And you'll and you'll never have it. Nope. Nope. Not unless the afterlife is a thing, then maybe I will. Well, on that note, first, I don't even know. So if everybody should check out scribe media, your publishing company, there's so many different services you do. It's not just there's not just one. I can't I won't describe them all. Check it out. If you wanna write and publish a book, we're the place. Yeah. We gotta have a super facet of that. Like, you you basically handle any facet of that other than I don't think you do marketing, but that's how we do. Actually, marketing is half of our business now. We just don't advertise it externally. We only work with clients because we have so many. Oh, maybe I maybe I have to talk to you then. And, but everybody should check it out. People should also check out your your your tweets and your Facebook page. Every place you put these, lessons you've learned, they're great and they're life changing and they're they're very thought provoking. So, I I really enjoy them, and I and I hope you I can't wait for the book of the stories, and I can't wait for the eventual book about the lessons because it's gonna be it's gonna be great. And, once again, so great to have you on the the podcast. You were I think you were, like, my first guest, and now you're my latest guest. I I know. I do I still own the record for the most, appearances? I've been, like, 5 or 6 times. Maybe 6 times. Yeah. Even on more than that. Because we've we've divided some into we've divided, like, several of them into 2. Probably we'll divide do 2 hour episodes. So, yeah, I probably have, like, 10 or 15 now. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you're you you you've been up there. And, of course, there's people who are always like it's you know, this is a whole other story, so we'll get into it next time. The whole more about the cancel culture. But once again, thanks for coming on the podcast. Thank you, James. Yeah. It was fun. It was. Very fun.