Cows, Communities, Guns, Books & More - 6 Ways To Prepare Yourself For Uncertain Times: Doomer Optimism With Tucker Max.

My name is Ben Greenfield, and on this episode of the Ben Greenfield Life.

Podcast, there are writers that people read because their sentences are beautiful. I'm not one of those. The reason people read my stuff is because I tell the truth. 2020. I'm like, man, this seems weird, but it did not reach the level for me. There's some sort of group of high level people coordinating the moment when I thought something was way off.

Sovereign, individual. And yeah, defense is going to be a natural byproduct of that. Not so you can go to war, but just so you can protect your family.

You can stop the people who are trying to go to war on you.

Faith, family, fitness, health, performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking, and a whole lot more. Welcome to the show. All right, folks, my guest on today's podcast, I. I probably should have inter a long time ago because I've known him for quite some time and he is a prolific, prolific author who can probably pronounce prolific better than I could pronounce it. He has written four New York Times best selling books. Three of them hit number one. They've sold over four and a half million copies around the world. He's actually credited with being the originator of the literary genre fratire, which I think has something to do with fraternity and satire and. And he's only the fourth writer. Along with Malcolm Gladwell, Brene Brown and Michael Lewis have three books on the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list, comma, at one time. So this dude can write. He also co founded Scribe Media, which is a professional publishing company that has published people like David Goggins and Tiffany Haddish and Dan Sullivan. He was nominated Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People list. He lives now in Dripping Springs, Texas, with his wife Veronica and his four children. And his name is Tucker. Max Tucker. Welcome to the show, man.

Thank you, brother.

By the way, does the name Dripping Springs seem kind of funny to you for the town that you live in?

Of course, yeah. I mean, it's very Texas, right?

Yeah.

Like, they got water. They're like, oh, we're going to name the town after the water here. Well, there's not much water. It just kind of drips and like. All right, well, there you go. Dripping Springs.

Yeah. I don't know, for some reason it seems like the name of like, or should be the name of like a, a plumbing company or, you know, kind of like a Roto Rooter dripping.

That'd be a terrible plumbing company name. That'd be like clogged toilet or Something it's like, who wants to call clogged toilets?

Yeah, yeah, that's true. Maybe just a term in plumbing, but anyways, like you. I mean, anybody listening in has probably at least seen the COVID of one of your books. I don't know if they've. They've read them or at least heard of some of your writing or perhaps stumbled across your wr. Or read books that have been heavily influenced by you and your writing. And so this might be kind of a selfish question, but you seem like a really good writer. Like. And I'll link to some of your. Some of your essays. For people listening. You can go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com Tucker Max. But is this. Is this something that just always kind of came to you? The ability to be. To just put. Put pen to paper, so to speak, or finger to keyboard?

Now, being good at writing takes practice. Like, being good at any medium of communication, whether it's video or speaking or writing takes practice. A lot of people confuse the medium with the message, right? And so, like, I know tons of people. It's so funny. I'll meet people like, I want to be a writer. I'm like, what do you have to say? Then they kind of look at me like, I didn't think that that was part of the job. Which, which it doesn't have to be. You can just be some content mill schmuck at HuffPost and have nothing to say, you know, and that's fine. Then you're a writer, I guess. But for me, writing took time. But, like, the, The. The reason my writing does well is not because I'm a great writer. Yeah, I'm a good writer. I'm skilled at it, you know, whatever. But it's. There are writers that people read because their sentences are beautiful. I'm not one of those. Like, the reason people read my stuff is because I tell the truth. Or at least I tell my truth. See it. Right. Like, I have no monopoly on truth.

But.

And. And people will always, always, always stop and listen to people who are speaking truth.

Yeah. It's almost as though you're. You're really not wordsmithing as much as you are writing with kind of like a bold authenticity, I guess, is the best way I could describe it.

And authenticity and clarity. Because a lot of people think they're being real, authentic, and they might be, but 40 pages in, I don't know what the hell they're trying to say. It's just nonsense. Yeah, I'm very, very clear.

Yeah. Clear and to the Point. You know, it's a. I think it was. Was it Mark Twain who wrote a letter to his friend and said, my apologies if I had more time, this letter would have been shorter? Something along those lines. Yeah. And. And so for you, what, what's the actual process look like? I know that, that you work on some book blog post, you actually had a really fantastic one about, about prepping called Doomer Optimism that I actually want to ask you a few questions about later on, but do you wake up in the morning and just begin writing or what's, what's it actually look like for you in terms of your process?

My normal process. Well, that used to be how it went. And then I had kids and so now I wake up in the morning and I deal with my kids. Then kids go to school, maybe 8ish. And so then normally I'll take maybe half an hour, like, you know, get all the nonsense, you know, like kind of off my plate, whatever.

Drip your springs and all that good stuff.

Yeah, right, exactly. Drip the springs. And then if I have something to write that day, then usually I try and do it in the morning. But dude, Ben, God, like, if I'm writing my 8:30 or 9, I start and then I'm done by noon. You know, like, in my experience I, I almost never have more than three hours of good writing, sometimes four if it's like something I'm really into. And, and I got a lot of energy behind, but I really don't have more than about three hours of creative writing type work in a day in me.

Yeah, Yeah. I think it's Cal Newport who in Deep Work mentioned that, that it's somewhere right around the three to four hour time range that a human being just kind of poops out in terms of attention span and focus on a deep project.

Yeah, yeah, I know it you. It's tough to do more without a lot of stimulants or a lot of energy or a lot of, a lot of urgency.

Yeah. Do you have a dedicated workspace that you go to to write or do you just kind of like huff your laptop anywhere, coffee shop, wherever you happen to be and just write?

The older I get, the more I need a dedicated space, you know, and so like I'm at my house in Tennessee now. It's this room which is kind of like the, the office workroom. And then at my ranch in Dripping Springs, I don't have a dedicated space yet because we just moved in and we rehabbed everything and it's kind of hellish.

Why, why do you have a house in Tennessee?

You don't have a vacation house?

Oh.

Oh.

Yeah. I'm still working. I'm still working. I'll get there eventually. I have a tree for. I have a tree for it right now, Tucker, 100 yards out from my office.

No, God's honest truth, man, is because, look, we live in Texas for a lot of reasons. There's a lot of good things about Texas. Texas is the worst place on Earth to be in the summer. Like, it is Africa. Hot in the summer and dry and horrible. Like, I'm not. I'm not, man. I'm not about to spend three months, like, July, August, or June. July, August in Texas. Only if I hate myself.

So it's kind of like. Kind of like the opposite of a winter home. You have a summer home.

Yeah, exactly. You know, we come here for. For, like, Christmas and stuff like that. You know, it's just, like. Because our house is awesome. It's, like, kind of the middle of nowhere, right on the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. And so, like, I mean, really, it's, like, right at the bottom of the hills. Trailhead. The mountain, I guess. Trailhead start and all that. So it's like. It's a really cool sort of place. And so my wife and I decided, like, instead of going lots of different places every year, you know, for vacation even, especially after Covet, we bought this house about six months after Covet kind of started because we're like, all right, well, clearly we're not gonna be traveling the world, you know, doing a lot of that stuff, but where do we want to go? And we're like, we want a house in the mountains. Yeah, we got one.

Yeah. Wow. Cool. Well, in my defense, I actually am building a little cottage over in Idaho right now, and so I'll eventually have.

So your vacation house is, like, two hours from your regular house?

Yeah. Honestly, like, our family goes to Moscow a lot. Idaho. Because we have some family there, and we love it. And we're like, I don't know, why don't we have a place we could actually stay at down here rather than crashing in grandma's living room? So, yeah, so we're building a little house down there, but we might actually move to Idaho. But we'll. We'll see that that's a chat for another day. But, you know, for. For you right now, you know, we're talking about your writing style, and I know that you. You ran Scribe Media for a long time, which, you know, long story short, I'm. Describe your own Business for you. Tucker was a company that wrote books for people and also had this unique method of interviewing people via audio with a great team of editors and then producing a book for them. Was that a pretty good job at your 32nd elevator pitch?

Yeah. A book writing and publishing company? Yeah.

Yeah. But you're not doing that anymore.

Nope. I mean, the company still exists and it's going, it's doing great. It's got a badass CEO executive team. I just don't do anything with them.

What are you doing now?

Podcast with some jerk I know from.

Not right right now, but at this stage in your life, what makes you excited at this stage of your lifestyle?

All right, so, yeah, I was. I ran scribe for like 2 1/2 years, then hired the CEO is badass, and then left. Probably took longer than I needed to, but left after a total of seven years. I think six and a half years. And I'm really good at starting things and getting things to a certain point. Once things are mature and kind of have their own momentum. Usually I'm not, you know, I'm not the dude. Right. It's not my thing. What's funny is I haven't, like, I'm in this weird in between period. Right. So, like, you know, I wrote all those books, solo copies, started a company helping people do that. That's over. And then it happened to coincide with the birth of my fourth kid, Cardinal. She was born, like three weeks ago. And my wife. I promised my wife I would not, like, do. Oh, thank you. I promised my wife I would not do anything or start anything new for at least three months after she's born. Right? So, like April May or so, like, I. If I want to start something new, if something's there, I can. But, like, honestly, right now, Ben, I'm just taking time and space. I. I guess the thing I'm working. We just moved on to our ranch, and the ranch is, you know, we got there in October. It's pretty nice, but, like, it's. It's not ready. It's not really prepared. And so, like, you know, like, there's all the million things you have to do. I mean, you have property, you know, like, we're not as out in the boondocks as you, but we're. We're pretty far out, you know, like. Like, I had to buy like a. Like a. Literally a whole carpenter's workshop, man, because there's just so much stuff to do. I'm not about to keep a carpenter on staff. And it's like, good Luck if you can get one out there every two weeks. Right? So now I'm like, I know, what a minor.

Wait, hold on. Dude, are you poor? Are you poor? You don't have a carpenter on staff?

I am one of those pores now. Yes.

Geez, you're one of those people.

Turn it back on me. Right? Yes. I have to actually cut some of my own wood. No, like, like building cool stuff. Like obviously we're building guest house and stuff. I'm not doing any of that. Like, those are real professionals. But just like there's a million things around the ranch that like, need to do animals, whatever. Like I built all the chicken runs, that kind of stuff. Right. YouTube's amazing for that. So kind of building all that stuff out, that's a lot of work. And I'm new to it too. So, like, if I was a good carpenter, it'd be like an hour a day at most. I'm not a good carpenter. I'm an amateur. So it's like six hours a day for me if I'm doing a project instead of one hour because I don't know what I'm doing. Right. So that's mainly getting, you know, I said everything else up. Setting solar, you know, rainwater capture, getting the animals on the land. Setting everything sort of up in. In a really good way just takes a lot of time. It's the first time I've really done it, not counting when I was a kid and like, worked on a farm. But yeah, it's a lot of work.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, it reminds me a little bit of this. This book called the Quest for the Simple Life, or the Quest of the Simple Life. Old book, guy named William Dawson wrote it. And there's actually a great summary of the book online that the website Slow S L O W W dot co. They do really great book summaries and, and, and lessons and courses based on books of the Simple Life is just basically about a guy who transitioned from life as a clerk in London out to the country and downsized and downshifted and engaged in more simple living, as the title alludes to, but discovered a great deal of satisfaction in doing actual work with his hands and learning a lot of the things that you're talking about right now. How to raise chickens, how to chop wood, how to get water from point A to point B. And, and there's something about that type.

Of work that's, that's because it's meaningful, because it's pushing paper is always, always bullshit.

Always.

And so like, when you actually raise chickens. That actually means something. Yeah, like, that's actually unquestionably productive. You can tell yourself a story about paper pushing that might be true, about how it's a necessary part of something else that's productive, but it's never in and of itself a productive activity. It is, at best, a facilitation of a productive activity. I know I sound like Karl Marx, which is because I'm the opposite of a communist, but, like, there's a lot of truth to that critique, right? It is true. Like, I built. You probably don't know what these are, but, like, for my first carpentry thing, I built a VTAC shooting barrier, which are, like, fairly simple things to do, carpentry wise. But, like, I was so excited and so impressed with myself and so, like, proud of myself, even though I know objectively it's like a week one, like beginning carpentry, like. Like skill, you know, like, it's like the first thing you work on to just to teach you. Here's like, it's a good thing, like, if you want to learn how to use a jigsaw and a, you know, circular saw and whatever, it's like, it's a good, simple way to practice all that, which is exactly what it was for me. I was so legit proud of, like, I was texting pictures of it to my friends, be like, look what I built. And they're like, okay, cool, cool. You know, like. But I. Seriously proud of myself almost to the point where I was mildly embarrassed at how proud I was of something so simple. And I was like, oh, of course. Because it's like a real thing that actually matters. It's not. Not that I haven't. Most of the stuff I do does matter, but it's just like so much of modern life is quite honestly meaningless nonsense.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think a lot of people. They don't realize that most folks are really wired up to be, from a creator standpoint, either craftspeople or artists. Right? And those are two of the most fulfilling things that one can put their hands to. Building a chicken coop or painting with watercolor or there's. And he actually, the. The Dawson guy who I mentioned on that Quest of a Simple Life book, he gets into how there's. There's a very small number of people who are business geniuses who are. Who are like, for them, their adventure, their crusade, their. Their romance, their epic sense of meaning really is to a certain extent, pushing papers or more specifically, like, making deals, you know, running politics, studying economics. Just Making. Making the city run, so to speak. But that's not actually what makes most people happy when it comes to the work we put our hands to. For most people, it's like creating via. Via crafting or artistry or. Or something that actually results in you being able to, you know, hold something up to the camera and say, hey, look, I made this, you know, not necessarily so that people can see it, but just for the joy of. Of making it and creating it and doing your art.

Exactly. No, I. I've spent most of my adult life creating things and writing and all that stuff. Beautiful. I love it. I'm not going to say I'm not trying to compare better or worse, but it is definitely something fundamentally different to create something physical with your hands. Again, not better or worse. Right. They're just different, and they're both meaningful in very different ways. But it's funny, like, I have hardly written it all since I got to my ranch, and, like, I could tell myself the stories because I'm busy with the ranch stuff. That's BS If I wanted to make time, I would make time. It's just because, honestly, like, I had no idea how fun it was to chop wood, right? Because, like, when I was younger, I had to chop wood as, like, a chore, and I hated it. And now I'm like, well, first off, a much better splitting mall and all that kind of stuff, but, like, I'm doing it for my family and for myself and. And like. And number one. And number two, I see it for what it. It is or it can be, which is a fantastic workout as well. Right? And so, like, it's actually a lot of fun now. If I had to do it eight hours a day, every day, I'd probably. Probably hate it.

Someone give me a book to write.

Yeah, like, no, but, like, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna chop wood for an hour today because I feel like it. And then, like, you know, I chop, like, whatever, a half a quart of wood or something. It's like, oh, wow, that's super fun, and it's productive. Like. Like, I actually have wood now. We can burn in the house.

Yeah, I agree. And it's also the perfect antidote for. For a married man who's. Who's also, you know, bringing new babies into the world. That whole. That whole idea that your testosterone will decrease, almost as though the wandering hormone tends to naturally decrease from an ancestral or evolutionary standpoint in married men, yet at the same time doing meaningful physical work with one's hands and in particular, and specifically this has even been looked at in research. Chopping wood to increase your testosterone is the perfect way to keep yourself put together from, from an endocrine system standpoint as well. Y. Yeah. Chopping wood actually increases.

Chopping wood increases testosterone.

Yes, there have. Chopping wood increases testosterone. I don't know if they also studied, I suppose carrying water would be the other one. But I mean, it's not surprising, right? It's an explosive, powerful activity and, and you know, we know anything like that, you could probably be out in your yard, you know, with the, with unchopped wood doing barbell snatches and see a similar increase in testosterone. But yeah, that's, that's the general idea. Although I, I suspect that if you were to compare something like, well, let's just say barbell snatches versus chopping wood, and this is getting a little, little bit theoretical, you'd probably see a greater increase in testosterone from chopping wood because that's a meaningful preparatory activity that, especially for a dude, makes you feel like you're bringing home the bacon, so to speak.

I would bet on that result too, because think of like, if I had to go to a CrossFit workout and like take a, whatever they're called, the little mace things, and hit a tire with it, which is essentially the exact same movement. I'd be like, okay, whatever, right? But like chopping wood, right? It's a. Such a primal activity and it's so, it's unforgiving, you know, like you don't hit it square on, then like you got problems, right? And it's, it's not super dangerous, but it's dangerous enough. You can't like be on your phone when you're doing it, right? Like, like, you know, you're swinging an eight pound mall, like that's a serious weapon. Like that will mess you up. Like I even I chop wood with, you know, steel toe boots because I've never hit my shoe, but God forbid I don't feel like losing toes, you know? Yeah, it's like, it's living a real life, like a life connected to reality and to nature. I should say.

That part of this really, you know, the whole chopping wood and having a ranch out in Texas component, you know, I would imagine if you could, I suppose, rewind two or three years that maybe you would never seen yourself doing that. But you know, in a few of the essays that you wrote about what you call doomer optimism, you kind of get into that, that progression for you, that, that path for you. So to speak, you know, from. From pre Covid to where you are right now. And I'd love to actually hear a little bit of that from. From you. How you actually got to the point where you were chopping wood in the backyard. And where you're at right now in terms of where you see the world going, That's a big question. But we got time. Go ahead.

Yeah. Okay. Well, so to be clear, there's kind of two themes, right? And they don't have to connect, but they do. So I was chopping wood in the backyard in my Tennessee house, kind of like which we bought after Covid, but right after. So chopping wood is just about connecting with yourself, with nature, the things that make you human. Right. And I've done more and more of that over the last two years, definitely. But what I wrote about the Do More Optimism article, honestly, man, it's just like, if you've been awake and alive the past two years, you've seen. Oh, wow. A lot of what I thought about the world wasn't true. Right. Like, I think most people, at least in the west, their assumption was, yeah, for all its problems, our government is basically full of competent people trying to do the right thing who are gonna, you know, usually make the right decisions. And. And we all want the best, even if, you know, maybe we disagree on the path. Okay, well, I think that's clearly not true. Right. Do some people like that in government exist? Of course, but they're the minority now, and they're not in power. And it's obvious, if you've been paying attention at all, that things are changing very rapidly in this world and in ways that, honestly, like, are unpredictable at this point. I mean, dude, when I wrote the Do More Optimism piece, Russia had not invaded Ukraine. So funny, man. I wrote that piece. So basically, let me explain to your audience. Do More Optimism is, you know, like, most people either gloom and doom or everything's great. Right. I don't think either of those positions are realistic or correct. So Doomer optimism is a combination of the two ideas. It's basically the. The recognition of the shit's gonna hit the fan and is hitting the fan now, and it's gonna hit it worse. But also the belief that if you do your work, if we do our work, and if you do your work, things are gonna end up okay. Right. So, like, I. I think the. I think we're all. You have look around or pay attention to historical cycles. We are going into a major period of chaos. Right. Like, the piece I wrote was. I Think it came out like, Chris, like, right after Christmas, right? And it's so funny I wrote that. I'm like, guys, like, if you think the last two years are the things are going back to normal or. Or just that's it, you know, things are a little bit more chaotic, but not much. I'm like, you're a fool. And then the precursor potentially to World War 3 starts, right? Like, I didn't plan this at all. It's so funny because so many people like, this is nonsense. And what are you talking about? The world's not getting more chaotic, and all those idiots have Ukraine flags in their avatars now, by the way, what I said was that. That, you know, as I, you know. You saw Covid, right? Hit. I watched all the videos everyone else did. If you want to talk about the progression, I'm like, oh, this seems like it might be a bad thing. People are dropping dead in the street in China.

Maybe.

Yeah, maybe we should wear masks and lock down. That was in March.

Yeah. And I was right there with you, by the way.

Totally, totally. Like, you can look at my Twitter feed. I'm like, they shouldn't have south by this year, blah, blah, blah. Like, right? I was one of those.

I had a freaking, like, pallet of N95 face masks. And I. You know, we have a quarter mile long driveway. I would walk down the driveway with the spray bottle. I forget which. Which antiviral solution I had packaged up in the spray bottle, open the mailbox, spray each piece of mail individually, and then bring my mail back up the driveway so that it was safe for the family when I got the mail home. That was when Covid first came out.

Right? Right. Because, like, I mean, listen, if it was like a small pot, like a weaponized smallpox, what you did made sense. Right? Which we didn't know for a few weeks.

Right?

And then April comes along, and I'm like, okay, we still don't really know what Covid is, but this response does not look like anything that makes sense. In the long history of humans dealing with infectious disease and pandemics and plagues, nothing anyone's doing is making sense. And they're lying. A bunch of people are lying. And then may hit. And I'm like, okay, this is just like. And by. By May 2020, I was back in the gym doing Brazilian jiu jitsu, you know, like, because my instructor's Brazilian, he's like, this is stupid. I'm like, I know. So we just kind of secretly went back and started and I'm like, okay, this is all nonsense. And then June comes along and worst George Floyd video. Horrible, gut wrenching, heartbreaking. People take to the streets upset, which I understand, right? Like, I get it. And then all of a sudden it's like, oh, no, no, no, we're going to pause Covid for a while. Racial justice is more important. It's like, okay, so clearly you're all a bunch of lying bullshitters, right? Because, like, yeah, I'm with you. If you're going to say people need to go protest, cool. Don't pretend. That is not going to create Covid issues. Just stop, stop lying. And I'm like, okay. And then it just got worse and worse and worse, man. We still don't know what happened with that election. It seems weird. Who knows, right? And the way the vaccines were played, I mean, come on, man. Like, like as soon as Trump loses, all of a sudden the vaccines are coming out. Like, this is when they were ready like two weeks earlier. And I'm like, this is such. Yeah, but you. Okay, those are all small, low level people.

And that's, that's, that's one year. That's basically like spring of 2020. Up through the 2020, you've got, you've got the emergence of COVID the hype, George Floyd, the, the vaccine. Some, some of the, some of just the, the general illogical activities going on behind it all. But, but question for you. And then of course, I'd love to get into 2021 and your progression here of where you're, where you're at mentally. Did. Were you thinking at that time in 2020 that this could have been some kind of like a coordinated, what do you call it, a psyops type of. Type of thing? Or is this just a whole bunch of people being stupid people?

So it's funny, so many people. Their argument against high level conspiracy theories or conspiracies is that most things can be chalked up to stupidity and incompetence. And they're right. It's true the vast majority of the time. Right. And it's probably true all the time at low levels of government.

Right. The stereotypical, like, there's nobody smart enough to actually pull this off. There's no Mr. What do you call him, Smithers or whatever from the Simpsons. Like sitting up in a boardroom, his hands together.

Yeah, My default is that that position is correct. The problem with, with conspiracy type shit is that so many of the people who push that stuff, like, they'll be right about 20% of what they're talking about. And then the other 80%, they're like, we never went to the moon and the Chinese control the weather. And I'm like, stop it. Like, just stop. Right?

Yeah.

But like, take Alex Jones. Alex Jones was banging the drum about Jeffrey Epstein for 15 years. Turns out he was right. He was exactly right. Yeah, totally right. But then Alex is also saying school shootings are false flags. I'm like, oh, stop it, dude.

It's a dent to credibility.

I get that. Right? In 2020, I'm like, man, this seems weird, but it did not reach the level for me of like, okay, there's, there's some sort of group of high level people coordinating stuff. No, not in 2020. The moment when I thought something was way off was January 6th. Right, right. That was when the, the drunken idiot rioters were let into the Capitol building. There's now released video of this. It depends actually which entrance. Some entrances the cops let people in, others they tried to blockade. The whole thing was cast. I, I watched what happened. I saw the pictures, I saw the video, I saw like live feeds and, and then I saw how the media framed it. Immediately the entire media coalesced on a very, very specific term and frame insurrection. And I was like, oh, wow, hold on. I know media. Like right now, what's going on in Ukraine? I don't really know war. I don't know Eastern European politics that well. I'm not going to pretend like I'm an expert on what's going on, but I know media. And so like as soon as the, the Ukrainian, Russian thing, the whatever, the Russian invasion happened, I knew immediately. The media immediately coalesced. Just like January 6th, they immediately coalesced on a narrative. All of them at once immediately coalesced on a narrative. And whenever that happens in media, you know for a fact, it doesn't mean like some, you know, like some, you know, shady Dr. Evil character has told them all what to do. But you know, there's a level of coordination, by the way, like they don't coordinate. Do you know, like, like, okay, so Ezra Klein and that whole group at Vox, okay, before Obama's second term, they had a slack group, or it might have been a different. It might, whatever. But they had like a, like all of this. The very leftist media were all on from all different outlets, were literally all on a slack channel coordinating how they were going to cover Obama, which, like, I know Barack, like, I like Barack.

That's. You mean like, like the heads of various media organizations, like, like Fox, NBC, cbs, they all this Slack.

Absolutely. Like, this is not even a. It's not like a. That's not a conspiracy. This is an admitted thing. I know how media works, and I know narrative, and I know whenever everyone in the media is trying to convince you of something, you know for a fact, it's. It's a lie. Always. Now the opposite may not be true. Right? So, like, like in Ukraine right now. Oh, Ukrainian heroes. Like, all of the hero stories that came out the first week are all. No, ghost to Kiev. You know, like the. The soldiers got captured, they surrender. Like, all of the stories are right. Yeah, but like, so, like, you know, the Ukrainians are not. And I mean the Ukrainian government, not the people. The Ukrainian government's not the good guys. It doesn't mean Putin's a good guy. He's a fucking tyrant too. Kills his own people. Like, they can both be bad actors. Right. Just because the media is lying doesn't mean the opposite is true. It means there's a reason why everyone wants you to believe the same thing at once. And that is never, ever a good reason for you.

You.

It happened kind of in Covid, but it was kind of weird how it happened. And it wasn't that coalesced and that immediate January 6th. It was immediate. It was immediate and uniform. And that's when I just got this feeling, man, in my. It's like, you know, sometimes you see something and before you can intellectually process it, you know what it is like on a deep intuitive level, I just knew. I knew. The only way I can frame it is I knew the American. And I don't necessarily mean this literally, but I. I knew America had fallen. Like the idea of America and the.

Concept, the idea of a republic, the.

Idea of a free republic, elected officials, basically good actors. Something was rotten to the core. Right. I'm not gonna pretend like I know all the details and facts, and if I really knew everything that's going on, I'd either be on the inside or dead, I'm sure. Yeah, but I don't. But you don't have to know. It's sort of like if you're walking into a restaurant, a beautiful looking restaurant, you see a roach on the floor, you know, you know, don't eat there. You don't have to know anything else. You could tell yourself a story. Okay, I'll just clean my food, man. You see a roach on the outside. I work. I grew up in restaurants. You see a roach, there's 10,000. You don't see, it's not, you know, there's not 10, not a hundred, 10,000 for every. Maybe you could say maybe a hundred rats, maybe if you're lucky. No, dude. And the entire. I mean, just like, the whole thing about January 6th is such. It's so brazen and it's so obvious and it's such a transparent lie. And it's not like I'm trying to defend those people, a bunch of Trump idiots. Like. Like, they're. Like, they're just the opposite of the woke. They're just the other side, right? Like, I can't stand either side. Like, the. The MAGA extremists are no different than the woke. They just picked a different side. And those morons were rioters and should not have been there and were acting like idiots. And yeah, they should have been arrested at the time. Right? But no, of course they shouldn't still be in jail. And it's sedition and true, let's overthrow the government. With what? None of them were armed. What the hell are they going to do? They're going to take the gavel and now they run the country. Shut up.

Yeah.

That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Yeah, it's. It's transparently ridiculous, which is, by the way, one of the hallmarks of propaganda. It's so stupid and so dumb that to believe it, you have to deny your own reality.

Yeah.

I mean, what's like, the defining quote in 1984? Believe the party, not your lying eyes or something, Right? So that happened, and then, like, it took me, honestly, like, a few days to emotionally process. Right? Because up to that point, I'm like, okay, things might be broken, but I mean, come on, it's still America, right? At that point I knew. Right? And you probably get people, listen, this guy's lost his mind. Okay, cool. We're gonna see. We're gonna see, right? And so at that point, then I got really serious, like, okay, baby. Like, my wife and I always. We want to be on land. Like, in fact, you and your family, we're, like, a lot of ways a model for us. Like, we kind of want to do what Ben's doing, except not quite so extreme.

Where. Where were you guys living at that point?

In Austin.

Okay. All right.

Yeah. And. And so. So we knew we wanted to stay in Texas. Politically, the only two places, in my opinion, to be in America, there's maybe three places. Idaho, Texas, and Florida. And I think there's really bad arguments for Idaho and Florida. I think Texas really, in my opinion, is the only place to be in America. You can make a legit argument for about five, six other states, but. But I think Texas is. So we knew we were going to stay in the state.

At least it's the most likely to. To secede and probably has the highest number of citizens well equipped to defend themselves.

So here, Ben, you got to stick with me because most people don't under. Once I saw January six, it's like my brain flipped and I understood. Like, we, all of us in America have been. We have grown up in the bosom of probably the safest, most abundant period in the history of the world. We don't have any. If you're a truly American, you don't have any idea what it means to be foo. To be literally afraid for your life on a daily basis, to be truly insecure about life, liberty, property, Right? Like, you don't understand anything, right? And so. So the only reason I have an inkling of that is because I've spent so much time overseas. And so, like, you spend enough time in places like India or Africa or Egypt, you're like, oh, okay, like, wow, the world's very different, right?

Yeah.

And so, like, I'm not pretending, like, I understand what it's like to be an African, but I do understand what it's like to be an American in Africa. And so, like, when I saw that, right? And I saw, okay, if I'm right, if the American empire truly has fallen, if it's rotted from the inside, let's say, right, then what?

That.

And we're going into a period of extreme chaos. This is a year ago, right? If we're going into a period of extreme chaos, then all of these things that people take for granted are no longer going to be true, Right? So, like, I need to start thinking about being really serious. Like, what do we do when everything you rely on doesn't work? Meaning, like, not only do the cops not show up, they don't exist. Like, I'm just saying, in extreme cases. What do you do when there's no gas? What do you do when there's no electricity? What do you do when there's no water? What do you do when there's no food in the grocery store?

Yeah. What do you do if you have to be a sovereign man and responsible for everything that you actually need? What would that actually look like?

No one alive in America has had to really, actually understand what it means to. To be sovereign.

There's a quick, subtle nuance there, of course. Like, and correct me if I'm wrong, Tucker, but when you And I throw on. We're like sovereign. We're not saying that you should be able to deceive yourself that you can survive in a completely independent lone wolf operative scenario. Dependence and community is, it's enormously important. More important actually, I think now more than ever. But at the same time, even if it means interdependence and community, doing that without necessarily having to be reliant upon an external source like the government to care for you or protect you or defend you is what you're getting at 100%.

Most people's concept, Most people confuse freedom and sovereignty. And most people's concept of freedom is very juvenile, right? Like I get to do whatever I want. Okay, fine. If you combine freedom and responsibility very roughly, I'm talking about that's really what sovereignty is, right? Assuming it's chosen responsibility and then on top of that, no humans the in. Okay, so let me keep going on this because I'm going to get. You're exactly right. Community and sovereignty go hand in hand, right? Like I, I, I didn't, I'm not trying to go live off grid. That doesn't work. Like that's nonsense, right? The people who survive chaos are people who are in groups, effective tight knit groups, right, that have skills, that are in good places, good positions, good leadership. Those are the people who survive chaos. Not individ, not lone wolf. Rambos. That's just, that's a nonsense American movie idea from the 80s, right? So anyway, so I, I honestly kind of panicked a little bit last January and then I went and found, you know, some. I got a friend who was in Chechnya during the, the original sort of Chechen revolution. I got a couple friends who came over from Serbia and Croatia. And then I got a lot of friends in the military, specifically Green Berets. And their job basically is to start revolutions or end them, right? They go into chaotic places and train people how to deal with chaos. That's, that's what they do, right? And so I talked to all of them, as many as I could, could. And man, the thing that blew my mind it first, the number one thing they all told me is exactly what you just said, Ben. Community. They're like, dude, you like get rid of the idea. Because most people, you know, they think of like prepping, right? Like oh, I'll build a bunker and I'll go hide for a while. That's not going to work. You're not going to make it. That's not like that is an idea. That, that is a relic of The Cold War, nuclear sort of holocaust. Right. Maybe that was a relevant preparation method for a nuclear holocaust. Although I think even then it wasn't that great. But it was better than nothing, let's say. Right. But for what's coming for, for a world of, of let's say, broken supply chains, network, like complete cutting off of networks like what's happening to Russia right now of, of all kinds of tyranny. You've got to be in a group and a good one doesn't have to be big. But you. Sovereignty and community go hand in hand for humans.

Yeah.

I mean maybe there's other animals like great white sharks. It doesn't go together. Humans it does. And so that's. They all said that. And then the other like number one was community. Number two that they all talked about was like, you need to start thinking on a really primal level about resources, sources, like where do you get your water?

Yeah.

Where do you get your food? Where do you get your energy? Can you keep it when a gang of men with guns comes to take it? Not, not, not the sheriffs to arrest you for property tax. But like, like, like in this is things we've never had to think about in America ever.

Yeah.

Right. And even right now, today, in most places in America, I would argue we don't have to think about this right now today. Right. But if you want, you want to understand what America can be like if all these very fragile global systems that hold us together don't work, think about what New Orleans was like after Katrina. Right. Or what Texas was like last February when it snowed during the winter apocalypse.

Yeah.

No, I'm serious, dude. I'm not kidding. Two things. It's so funny. January 6th happens and then the winter apocalypse hit. Right? And I was in, I live in Texas. And so we were, I thought at that point I was kind of ready. And then the winter apocalypse hit and I'm like, oh man, I was more ready than 95 of people and I would have died after two weeks. I was screwed. I was not ready. And I like, I had a freezer full of meat, 600 pounds of meats. And I had like, you know, guns ammo out the ass and all this stuff. And I still like going too deep into detail. I realized I was not even in the realm of being ready. And so it's like, oh man. And you know why? Because I wasn't sovereign. I didn't own and control my water source. I didn't own and control my power source. I had backup food, but I Had non redundant power supplies and I like, I had not much food. There were all kinds of gaps I had, right? Like we didn't have any toilet paper, whatever. Like the 20 things or 50 things, you know, that we just didn't have backups on or supplies on or ways to get them. Right. There were all these things. And so that's really when I started diving in with, with the people I know who have lived through chaos and survived it and thrived it. And like I'm like, all right, we need to go get on land. Good land that can support agriculture and can support animals that has its own water, right. And that where we can have multiple backup power supplies right now I'm not living off grid, man. No one lives off grid. That's nonsense. And the world we live in off grid doesn't you think you're off grid? What are you going to do when your power coupler fries for your, your solar. Oh, you realize you're not off grid. You're on China, right? So I understand I'm not upgraded. No one's off grid. But I'm in Dripping Springs is one of those weird places just kind of like coalesced. And me and like 30 other people like you and I, you don't, you're out there, but people like us are there. And it was already the reason I picked it and a bunch of us picked it is because they already had a large ranching and ex military contingent. Right. So like I'm not going to go too deep into that community. Dripping Springs is a great place to be like it is. There's a reason land out there is going for well over 100 grand an acre. And it's crap like growing stuff or whatever.

Geez. 100 grand an acre.

100 grand an acre an hour outside of Austin.

I'm on nine acres and I paid 90,000 for nine acres and land.

It's in Washington. Yeah.

Oh yeah, yeah. Land in Idaho is getting, getting a little bit more expensive. But you know, I've got 12 acres over there and I guarantee I didn't, I didn't pay anywhere close to 100k an acre on that. But yeah, it's regardless. What you're getting at is this idea that there are multiple factors that need to be taken into consideration, multiple things that need to be covered. And we could talk about the threat of hyperinflation and what's actually going to happen until we're blue in the face. But I really want to focus on some of the more practical aspects of let's assume that you need to be ready for something either way. What are some of the main things that you cover? So you mentioned that your. Your source of power, your source of water, and your source of food are all important, but, you know, boots on the ground or, you know, ax in the hands, so to speak. What are some of the other main things that you have done or some of the main specific things that you've done in those sectors? Food, water, and electricity, that you just think people should freak out.

There's five points. Defense, water, food, power, community. So I'll go through some basic parts of each one. Defense is number one. And the reason I didn't think defense was that important until literally one of the SF guys goes, like, he, like, went through. Like, I'm like, oh, I got this and this. And, you know, like, all my supplies and. And not just, like, prepping, like, dried foods, fine. But, like, I want chickens, not dried food. Like, I want stuff that can produce assets. Right? And he's like, this is all cool. He goes, so what you've just done is all the work I need to do because I'm going to get 10 of my buddies and come take it. And I was like, oh, right. Which is why defense and community are often heavily intertwined, right? Like, because even if I have the most badass guns on Earth, I'm not beaten to him and even three of his buddies, I'm done. I'm out. Right? They got me. And so, like, all right, so for defense, Preco, I had a hunting rifle and a pistol, and I think my wife had a shotgun. Now I have an arsenal. Like, I. I mean, I could. I went a little overboard with guns, but I have some badass assault weapons and tons of training on how to use them. A lot of ammo. Like, I'm not gonna tell you how much it's. It's so much. It's ridiculous, dude. Like, it's insane. It's a. I bought a lot. I bought ammo by the palette anyway, so. Which I wouldn't look crazy there. Like, I'm not. And so. But it's not just the gear, man. Like, I mean, I. I got. I've burned through sheepdog responses courses. That's Tim Kennedy's training.

Yeah, I've got.

I've trained with Clay Martin.

Did. Did you. Did you. Did you and your wife both take the. The sheepdog response?

Yes. So, yes, my wife. And then also, I've got my. She hasn't done it yet, but I've got my wife. Once she recovers from the baby. I'm gonna get her trained in long distance shooting. Like, I'm an okay shot at distance, but she's actually a really good shooter. Like with a carbine. She's a badass. Like, I'll put her right next to me. I know, but like, I want her like sniping like, so she's actually like, we've got her set up with like, it's insane. The person who's going to be training her. It's so cool. And so not just that hand to hand. Like, I mean, there's so knife. There's so many levels of defense. What's your car situation? What's this? What's that? So the guy who really set me up with defense, I actually hired him as a consultant. His name is Clay Martin. Okay. He wrote the book Concrete Jungle and Prairie Fire. He's an ex Green Beret, 20 years in special Forces. Prairie Fire is basically a book about what's going to happen when the shit hits the fan in America. It's an amazing book, man. I read that book and I about vomited in a couple sections.

Is that a new book?

It's pretty new. I think it's only been on about a year and a half.

Okay.

Yeah, dude, Ben, you should read. You should actually play on your, on your podcast. I can connect with him. He's like a good friend of mine now.

Sounds fascinating. Yeah, let's do that later on.

Okay, cool. So. So anyway, so I got really set up. Not just buying guns and sitting them on a shelf. Like, I know how to use a gun, right. I like. And not just like, oh, I can plink some, you know, metal target 10ft away. No, no. Like a lot of stress training. A lot, like, I hesitate to call it combat training, but it's the step below combat. Serious engaged firefight self defense training. Right hand to hand combat with knives, guns, things like that. Like, how do you use a gun when someone attacks you? How do you use a knife when you get a. How do you defend against these things? I mean, you know, I've been doing Brazilian Jitsu for years, so, like, I'm a, you know, brown belt in jiu jitsu. So like I'm, I'm like. That was an area I was already pretty comfortable, but I realized I didn't really actually know what the hell I was talking about talking about. And I really wasn't ready.

Right. Well, what happens when you're rolling and someone actually has a knife tucked into their, into their belt loop or, you know, or a Gun stashing their sock. Like, because I've done that Sheepdog course. And it's a lot different to roll when you're at the same time keeping your. Your. Your one eye open for someone's weapon and your other eye on their hand. Like, it just. It's a whole new variable.

It's so crazy you bring that up, right? Because I went to the Sheepdog course. At that point I was a purple belt, right? And I knew. I know Tim. Like, he rolls at my gym with me. Like, I know him really well. And so I'm like, I walk in, I know all the instructors because I've rolled with them half of my submitted in jiu jitsu. And so, like, I'm like, okay, I'm basically like an instructor for the hand to hand part. And for the first day, I kind of was like, you know, I would roll with the women and kind of help them through their stuff and what. And when I find some dude, I just smash him. And it was super fun. And then the next day they added knives. And those same women that I was like, you know, going 10% with because I'm not trying to hurt them were fucking my world up for like 15 minutes or half an hour. Like, old ladies, like, were stabbing me in the liver. And I'm like, dude, it was actually super shocking because I realized if I had gone before that if I had gone into combat or if I had a fight, it just a street fight with some smoke and he had a knife, I was going to. I was going to die, right? And I would have thought I was going to be fine, right?

Not. Not because you suck, but simply because you're not yet unconsciously competent in that scenario, right?

They have no chance against me unarmed. But old women with knives at that point were killing me. And, dude, it was such a crazy reframe because, like, I literally realized, man, if I had gotten into a knife fight on the street the morning before, I would have been died because I. Because I would have been. It's not that I couldn't handle it. After about half an hour, I got the skills and then I integrated with jiu jitsu and I was like, you know, solid with defending against a knife, but, like, I didn't know, right? Is the. The unknown. Unknowns are the ones you. And so, like, that was one of those where it was like, oh, my God. I sat in my truck afterwards and I'm like, oh, my God. I thought I was a badass and I would have gotten myself killed. And so that's actually when I hired Clay to really run through all my gear and everything and, and like, and he was just like, so good, man. So, all right, defense then. And like, here's the thing. A lot of people like, what are you going to do? You're going to fight the US Military? I'm like, I'm not talking about secession, although, you know, the US might break up in some way, shape or form. No civilians. I don't think it's a realistic scenario that civilians are going to be fighting the military in the street. But what is a very realistic scenario is the summer of 2020 in Austin, where I live, there were, you know, antifa was doing riots, right? They were just doing their riots. And some. Seriously, some dude, and I know this for a fact because I trained with all the SWAT cops, some dude rolled up and was handing out AK47s to rioters. And a Lyft driver pulled around the corner and some random guy who had gotten handed an AK47 like half an hour before he raised his AK at the Lyft driver. Turns out the Lyft driver was an off duty sergeant in the infantry who had his 45 right there and who'd done two tours in Iraq. He saw a dude pull an AK on him. He did what a soldier does. He pulled his gun and put two in his chest. Mm, right. So, like, could that happen? Hell yes, that could happen. Absolutely. In fact, that did happen for an entire son. There were massive, horrific pockets of violence in America, unrestrained violence in America, which we haven't seen since the 70s.

If you were to ask, like in the, in the 1770s or whatever, any of the American patriots, you know, these, these farmers prior to the American Revolution, whether they were preparing for war, preparing for a secession, or preparing for a massive cataclysmic event, you probably wouldn't get a ton of yeses. They were all just basically caring for their farms, their land, preparing themselves to be able to defend themselves against anything from a bear to a raid, anything like that. But they weren't necessarily preparing for war. So it sounds to me like really the mentality should be just prepare yourself to be able to be a responsible, free, sovereign individual. And yeah, defense is going to be a natural byproduct of that. Not so you can go to war, but just you can, you can protect your family from. From anything.

You can stop the people who are trying to go to war on you. I hope to God I never have to pull my gun in anger and shoot someone. Seriously, like, I'm not Dude, pre Covid, I had a hunting rifle because I like to hunt and I had a pistol and it was like in a case in my closet. Right. I'm not like one of those dudes who was like buying up all this gear. I was not a tactical wannabe pre covered. I was. I just wasn't, man. I liked hunting and that was it. And I only hunted like once a year and I hunted deer. Like, come on. Right?

Yeah.

Post covet. Like, you see me with a fanny pack. It's got a gun in it. I did. It's actually on a podcast I did in person. I showed the dude. He just moved to Texas. It was hilarious. But like, yeah, dude, like, I mean, I. Downtown Austin is not safe. Yeah, like, not anymore, man. There's all kinds of. It used to be like, man, no problem.

Well, if you, if you see me walking through Walmart, my. My fanny pack has fingernail clippers in it. But if, if you have my wife walking next to me, hers, hers has the Glock Gen 4 rapid recoil. So just don't mess with her. I. I'll be able to clip your nails though. Okay. So. So defense. Defense is one. You got your knife skills, you got gun skills. I'd imagine home defense, security system. Just, just anything that would go into defense. That's. That's the first thing to be thinking about.

Best home defense. A dog. Big dog. We have two big ones, two big dog points. Lots of other things you can do. Very little beats big dog books. Defense locked in. That's. That's the prong I'm probably the most confident with in my life right now. Then after, that's water, right? Because if you're thinking again, this is survival, right? Thinking from a. Survival in all degrees of survival and survival first, sovereignty second. Can't go very long without water. Part of the big thing we were looking for when we were picking property was we want wells. Either we want it on. On rivers or creeks in Texas is good, but it's iffy because the way water works in Texas is super weird. And so like being on full year round creeks and rivers doesn't actually always guarantee access to water. There's. It's. Without getting into water rights and all that nonsense. But having a well, a good well means you're good, right? So like we have a well where the water table's at like 400ft and the wells dug to 700. So like we're good to go. And that thing just pumps water all day, all night, no problem. We are actually also installing a rainwater capture. A 30,000gallon rainwater capture thing. Now we're in Texas, right? Like where you are and you just have a bucket, you're good with water, right? So where you are with water is a whole. It's Vin, Tennessee right now. Seriously, it's right. It rains 20 inches a month here. Something. Nonsense. But we don't worry about water here. Here. Yeah, you don't worry about Texas. Water is the most important thing. So where you are is highly dependent on how important water's the most important to everyone, but how much focus you have to have on.

Yeah. And one, one subtle nuance regarding water by the way, is don't assume that if it's a well or a spring that you're drinking clean water. I mean I have a really great well with a good flow rate, but I also have high levels of bacterial based iron and manganese and could look like, you know, I've been eating heavy metal laden sushi for a year if I don't address that.

What do you use? Berkey filter.

Oh, for, for my well water. Oh no. I have a hydrogen peroxide based scrubbing filter for the iron that then passes through a manganese filter for the manganese, then that goes through double block carbon filtration. And then finally before it enters into the pipes in the house, it goes through like a structured water vortessing system to kind of restore it back to its natural vibratory frequency before it goes through all those other filters. So it's a pretty elaborate setup, but it's for a. Well, you know, I'm not filtering out my neighbor's birth control supplies or you know, municipal water issues. It's literally like that nice romantic clean well in the backyard. But even those, you know, you gotta, you gotta test the water and make sure you have the right filtration system set up.

Yeah, okay, well, you're way ahead of me. I have Berkey filters which those kept the British army healthy for 130.

The only reason I'm ahead of you is my, my dad is a water filter filtration ninja. That's his, his company is water filtration System. So I just, I just know I, I can connect you with him if you want.

But, but yes, filtration, extremely important. Cleanliness with water, obviously. So the next food. Right. So we live in Texas. Not easy to grow stuff, but definitely possible as long as you're smart with water and, and how you do stuff. But what we, what we decided to, my wife and I, we prioritized as soon as we got on the land, we put cows on because, like, we bought, you know, we. Deep freezes, of course, like multiple huge ones. Bought a full cow and a full bison. Slaughtered them, put them in the freezer, Bought two cows for the land. Right. Which, it doesn't sound like much, but that's like two years of meat, basically, as they grow and mature. Right. So. So we're pretty good on meat. Then we're adding sheep and also chickens.

You got to talk to Jordan Rubin. Yeah, Jordan Rubin. I, I had a fascinating discussion with him because he runs all these regenerative farms. He said that if he'd go back and do it over again, he wouldn't start with cows, he'd start with yaks and water buffalo. He said the, the milk, the. Their ability to be able to care for themselves, the meat, everything is, Is superior with those. Which is, which is interesting if I ever get. Get lives.

Really?

Probably, yeah. Yaks, water buffalo, and then duck instead of chickens. Those are his recommendations.

Yeah. My wife has been talking about duck. She. She loves duck. Yeah. So. So we, we, we did get Red Angus, which totally. And we got only steers.

Yeah.

So, like, once they're weaned, so, so, like, in terms of caring for themselves, we don't need it. Like, we're good to go. Red Angus are. They're almost as hearty as longhorns with that stuff. But hold on. Who's milking a water buffalo, man? Or is he milking the yak?

I don't know. I, I really haven't had the opportunity yet to wrap my mean animal, wrap my hand around a yak nipple. But when I do, I'll let you know.

Okay. All right. That. That's actually super interesting. I want to look into that. Thank you for that. All right, so dealt with protein, then next we're adding smaller protein, you know, a sheep duck or sheep, chickens, ducks. And then also then we're going to start adding this. This spring. We're gonna put in our garden beds, grow and start growing stuff. Yeah. So, like that. Which on land is a lot of you? Like. Well, you're on, you know, a huge ranch. You. 2 acres. There's actually books about. There's great ones. I can't remember what it's called. There's an amazing one about how on. I feel like it was a quarter acre. It may have been a half acre in LA. This couple figured out how to grow like 7,000 pounds of produce on a half acre in the city of Los Angeles.

It is ridiculous. The argument against not enough space that someone might bring to the table. Well, I, I have a closet in my. I mean we have a greenhouse. We have like eight raised garden beds. And you know, we have, we have food just, you know, coming out the wazoo up here, just that's growing outside. But also, and this is just more of kind of like me as a curious podcaster wanting to see what's out there thing. I've, I've got a closet next to the garage that's got enough vegetables growing in a vertical growing system. This one's called a, called a lettuce growing. Literally just bursting with vegetables that could feed my family for the entire month from a produce standpoint. And that takes up about, oh gosh, 2ft wide, 8ft high worth of space. It's nothing.

Exactly. Yeah. Most people are very, very doomer about this. Instead of optimist. It's actually real. Once you decide, it does take some effort and a little bit of a learning curve, but not much. And once you decide to do it. Our goal this year is 50% of our protein either comes from our land or, or animals I harvested like, and so like right now we're well over 50 because basically everything we eat at home is, is the be like. And the bison I harvested, I've got a bunch of, you know, of whitetail that I've shot. We got their stuff, a little bit of, of hog, whatever. So like we're not eating grocery store meat anymore, like, unless we're out at a restaurant or something.

Right.

Which also is soup. It's like, you can tell the difference, man. It's so healthy. All right, so that's food, right? And then, then the next one's energy, right? Energy is rough, man. Because like, man, it's. Dude, I don't know. Do you have a solar array?

Yeah, I've got a. I've got a solar array. I live in a north facing slope that only gets adequate sunlight from, you know, like average 10am till 3pm or so. So it's not harnessing a lot of energy. But, but you know, it's there and it's basically. I've tested it multiple times and when I, when I shut down everything else, most of my house and the freezers in the refrigerator can all switch to that polar or that solar pretty efficiently. And I'm, you know, I'm, I'm one of those biohackers who's nervous about dirty electricity. So I always tell everybody, make sure that you've got a, you can basically get a Switch on the generator that when it converts from DC to AC power, it tends to generate a lot of dirty electricity. So people who are concerned about the EMF thing, you can actually, you can hack that with little solar switch. But yeah, I have solar right now. And then, and then municipal still coming in as well.

Yeah. So part of the reason we picked the land is because it's serviced by an electrical co op of a hydroelectric dam. So like, nice. Everything's all right. Everything's. Everything can be with. But it's much harder to mess with that. Right. So like, so that's our service provider and then we're installing solar. But dude, finding a good provider and getting up batteries, that stuff is way harder than most people think.

I don't know.

I was just putting solar and you're great. No, no, no, no, no, no. Solar is not the answer. Like it is part of an answer. It is not the answer. And then we also have backup generators that have each have buried. We have two backup generators because we got a lot of buildings and whatever and each have thousand gallon propane tanks.

Yeah, yeah, that, that's one thing that I'm on the, with the, with the propane tank generator. And this is, this is something I'm in the process of going through right now just because I have so much wood on my land. I mean it's basically a forest that I live in. So I'm looking into a gasification unit which, which basically can convert timber or charcoal into wood gas. And then that serves as the generator. But it's basically like a generator that's. That's fueled by wood rather than gasoline.

Well, that's cool. I live in Texas. We don't have much wood. We're not fancy like you.

But you're. But you're rich enough to have a vacation home in Tennessee. So you're good.

But notice though that like environment matters a lot. Like where you pick. Right?

Yeah.

And so, so, but like I am absolute. After living through the Texas winter apocalypse, I am absolutely convinced that energy issues and obviously the price of gas now of course energy issues are going to dominate. Like there's a lot of weird stuff going on with that too without going deep into like. Because who knows what's going on, but I don't know weird stuff's going on there. And then the last one's community. And this is actually probably the most important. But it's, it's either the place you need to start, like it's the thing that imbues through everything. Right. So we picked Dripping, we could live basically anywhere we want. We picked Dripping Springs, which I think is probably the best bet, other than if I had bought like a thousand acres and tried to build my own town or something, which just wasn't practical in a short time frame. And I know a lot of people, actually I know several building intentional communities, and I think me and a group are going to end up building our own town. That's five, ten years out. Right. In the short term, I need to get into a place that both has all the things I talked about, but then also around other people like me. Right. Around other people who have 10, 20, 50, 100, 200 plus acres who think in turn in the same general sense that I do about sovereignty. And Dripping Springs right now has like, I almost hate. I sound like the Dripping Springs Chamber of Commerce, except they're super anti development. Like everything in. In the. The area is septic because the. The. They won't approve of. They won't build a sewer. So like, it limits development, which is actually pretty nice. And they won't issue building permits anymore. So like you got to kind of buy something either on unincorporated land or something exists. But Dripping is. Was full of ex military and ranchers. And so it was like, oh, these are the perfect people. Where if you need to put your boots in the dirt. Right. And whether it's either fight or grow food or support each other, these are the people. Yeah, right. And so I've gotten into that community. I don't want to go too much into detail about that, like on a podcast, people I don't know. But like, it's an amazing community of people and like, it's. It's a really good situation. Now you don't have to necessarily find the perfect town. Like, if you can be in a place where you've got almost any country place where, where. Where you can find good people who are like you, whatever that means. Right. Who have shared values. You're going to be in a pretty good situation. But the point is people who are used to relying on themselves and their neighbors, not city people. And I used to be one, so I'm not trying to shit on them. But like, if you live in New York, it's a whole separate mindset to reality than if you live in, you know, rural Texas.

Yeah. Yeah. Oddly enough, paradoxically, it seems as though it's a little bit more of an independent lone wolf mentality in a big bustling city than it is in an isolated community where everybody knows each other's names and is able to you know, take care of each other's banjos and chainsaws, but. But, you know, be able to come to each other's aid and know each other. I think that's important. I mean, you know, I think it's more from a business and a career standpoint. But I think it was Naval Ravikant who I read, you know, he wrote something like, choosing the city that you live in can determine the trajectory of your life. Right. And so there is something to be said for that from a preparatory standpoint as well. I mean, that. That is one of the reasons also, I'm. I'm looking into Idaho right now just for that very, very reason, you know, smaller, more close knit community in a. In a slightly friendlier state. And so, yeah, I agree. The community is a huge piece. And, you know, I, you know, once I realized that I didn't have to be spraying down my mail when Covid first started, I literally began to throw weekly dinner parties. We would have neighbors over, friends from the local community. People would bring food potluck style. We'd all be hanging out in the living room, you know, without the masks on, just basically creating friendships and community. Because at the very back of my mind, even though part of it was, I miss people after not seeing people for whatever, you know, was like six, eight weeks, you know, while we were kind of locked in, part of it too was me at the back of my head thinking, you know what I. I need selfishly enough, a network of people who will take care of me when goes south and who I can help when.

And it's not the motherfuckers on Twitter or Facebook. One of the big things that my buddy, I think it was my Croatian buddy who told me, he said, dude, when the power. Because, you know, like, he was in the. The Bosnian wars and all that, he's like, when the power goes out, your only reality is like, maybe two miles around you, at most 20 if you have a bicycle. Like, that's your entire reality and everything beyond that doesn't exist. And, like, at first I didn't understand what he meant, but because he told me this before I got the ranch, once I got onto the ranch, I realized, oh, damn, he's right. Like, if the power went out at my ranch, cops aren't coming. And nothing against the, like, the Hayes county sheriffs, because they're great. But like. Like, how am I going to call them? You know, like, how do I. Like, if the power goes out and. And like, there's some emergency, tree falls, whatever, right? Or like there's a big county wide thing, Right. The people who are coming to help me are my neighbors.

Yeah.

And vice versa.

Yeah.

That's my reality.

I agree. I mean, I mean, just little thought exercise for people. Because this happened to me three days ago. And so it's fresh on my mind. I was working. Well, here's a little mental picture visualization exercise for you. I'm working in my office with my little red light panels stripped down, buck ass naked, doing my whole stupid biohacker thing with my laser lights up my nose and the red lights on, sipping my crazy mushroom tea and working on my computer. And the power goes out. Or at least the breaker flip. So I'm standing there naked, half a cup of coffee, the lights turn off, the computer shuts down. I'm staring at a blank computer screen, naked and just completely defenseless. And I'm standing there and I realize I just need to go out in the garage and reset the breaker. But I thought, okay, so let's just say it was like this for the whole day, and then the week, and then the month. What you gonna do, right? And you just, you start thinking about that. I mean, even try it. If you're at home, just shut off the power for a day and see if you can get by for a day. And you realize about a hundred different things from your refrigerator and your freezer to where the food's going to go, to the fact that you can't make a phone call, to all of the things that you just didn't even freaking think about. And it gets pretty serious. And that's, that's one day. Or even try it between breakfast and lunch.

Yeah.

You know?

No, totally. Seriously, dude, when the winter apocalypse hit in Texas, we were way better off than most people. Like, my company at that point was like 70 or 80 people. And a bunch of them, you know, like, they're the millennials who live in town in some, you know, like douche cube apartment. And they're like, you know, on. On slack. Like the ones who have power were on slack. Like, hey, I only have Cheetos in my apartment. Like, what do I do?

Yeah.

And then like the line HEB seven hours long. Or there's no food at heb, right? Because the roads were all frozen so like no one could get food to anyone. And, and so one girl actually went to heb, stood in line for six hours. HB is a grocery store. Stood in line for six hours, got like a tiny bag of food, like not nonsense, walked, was walking back to her Apartment and literally some dude tried to rob her. Like, trying to rob her for food. Like, this is 13th century England, right? Or like the Great Depression. And so I, we had 600 pounds of meat in our deep freeze. I took 200 pounds because I knew, like, this wasn't a long term thing. We're gonna be fine. I took £200, drove it because I had a truck or had a Range Rover. And like, we had. I'm not kidding, 35 people walk in, some of them up to five miles away for like three pounds of meat or whatever. Five pounds of meat, whatever it was. And like, like there are people still to this day. Like, it's one of the reasons we always win. These.

These.

All the best companies to work for. Like, we won best company to work for in Austin. Like all of Austin, the number one best company. And like six people wrote, dude, they state they fed me during winter. And like, you can laugh about it now because, you know, it all passed after a week and whatever. But, like, what happens when it doesn't? Yeah, what happens when it's three weeks? You know, I mean, like, I'm not talking about the world's gonna end or anarchy. No, no, no. But what happens when the chaos is so extreme grocery stores don't resupply for a month? I mean, how many people can make it a month?

You, as a father of four kids would probably get this. And this is something that I think it'd probably fall under the community umbrella. But I think that family and education are two really important factors here. Meaning what are you teaching kids and how are you teaching them in terms of whether they're going to be creative, free thinking, independent and resilient young human beings who can thrive in unpredictable scenarios, or whether you've basically set them up so that they learn everything from someone else and are more of a sheeple, a lemming, and someone who just knows how to put the square peg in the square hole and the round peg in the round hole. And I think that the concept, I mean, this is like a biblical concept, right? Children are like arrows in a quiver. And literally, like having an educated and resilient family, all of whom who can stick up for and care for each other. I think that's to me, like top of the totem pole as far as the community goes. Because I think that we need to not just be preparing ourselves, but preparing our children and allowing our children to shadow us and follow us and see what we're doing as we're preparing. And I think, think that's that's incredibly important as well.

100. I mean, like, my. So I take my. One of the re. I know you do this, too. I take my kids hunting with me almost every time I go. Right. Like, my kids know where our food comes from, and they're all part of it. Okay. Like with the cows. The cows came, and they're all cute. They want to name them. Like, okay, you. You totally can, but, you know. You know what's gonna happen, right? And they're like, yeah, yeah, of course. And so they named him Beef and Steak.

Yeah.

So, okay, cool. Those names will work. Right? But, like, even chopping firewood, all this sort of stuff, they all understand that we live on a ranch, and a ranch has responsibilities and that we all get to be a part of it. We don't have to. Right?

We get to.

And that part of, like, part of being sovereign. We talk about sovereign sovereignty and part of the responsibility of. If you want to be sovereign, it comes with responsibility, and it comes with things that we all have to do. And so, like, I love. I do all the cooking in my family, and my daughter loves it. And so she, like, I call her my little sous chef. Right? Sous chef Vaughn. So she, like, almost every night cooks with me. Right. Like, and of course, she's, like, five, and she's terrible. She, like, makes more mess than she helps, but eventually she's going to be good at it, you know? And, like, all that investment will. Will pay it off. My son doesn't want to cook at all, but he wants to go hunt. You know, she does too, actually, but he's super or, like, outdoor stuff or whatever. Right. Okay, cool.

Yeah.

No, they're absolutely all a part of it. They understand everything we have is coming from somewhere. Right. Like, the. The days of magical America, bless its heart, I think are. Are ending.

Yeah.

And not just. I think they're over, and it's just a matter of time before most people realize it. And it doesn't mean we're all going to die. Doesn't mean it's chaos or anarchy or end of the world. No, it just means we're transitioning to a new phase right now. This is the optimism part. A lot of people read my piece, like, it's all gloom and doom. What's the optimism part? This seems like it sucks, and it kind of ties back into what we talked about with chopping wood is when you live on land, right? And I mean any land, and you are the one doing most of the. Or a lot of the meaningful work to produce A lot of what you consume, your entire reality changes. You are no longer a passive consumer, you are now a creator. Right, right. And I think the narrative around blue collar labor and around farming and all this sort of stuff in our country has been very, it's been the, the intellectuals and the artists have framed the narrative about other people. And I think a lot of those people, which God knows I was, are now becoming the farmers and the workers. I mean, I mean, we're you and people like you and I are at the tip of the spear with this. Like we're years ahead of most people. But I think this is going to come and come fast and a lot of people are going to realize, oh wow, I had a lot wrong about my old life life. God knows I did. Like, I, you know, I lived in the tallest in Austin. I was, could not have been more of a city type dweller. And like, there are benefits to that. There's things that are cool, but ultimately that's doesn't work. And I don't just mean like climate unsustainability. Maybe that's true. I'm just talking about on a personal emotional level, that is extractive living.

Yeah. And, and look, I, I, I, I, I think that folks should know if you're listening in, you will have imposter syndrome. You will feel stupid. You will be, gosh, like I was eight years ago, a guy who never grew up hunting out in the forest, trying to field dress a deer while holding a bloody latex glove in one hand and clutching my smartphone to watch how to field dress a deer on YouTube. And I felt stupid. But you know, at the same time I was embracing that discomfort because I knew that I wanted to know how to prepare for myself. So, so if you're listening in and you're like, gosh, where do I start? And you decide you're going to go, and I'll link to them, like, go read Tucker's Doomer optimism articles and you're going to maybe, you know, pick up the Prairie Fire book and start to educate yourself on some of this stuff and you know, Google your community and a local CSA or Cowshare or all these things that you're going to be starting down the rabbit hole of understand beforehand. Yeah, you're going to feel dumb. There's going to be imposter syndrome. And furthermore, don't regret having not delved into this before. Be grateful that you're listening to this podcast right now, and now you've got some momentum to start diving in. Right. What's the Saying, Tucker, the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago or today. And so if you're listening in, I mean, like, yeah, it's going to be uncomfortable. But the other thing that I want to mention, and I know we're getting a little bit long on the two, so we'll probably end here pretty soon, is that I also, like Tucker, don't think that the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Look, I am not only a Christian, but I'm what's called a post millennial Christian. What that means is that I think that the world is getting better and better and better and that eventually we'll have this amazing fully restored new heaven and new Earth. But there are going to be some speed bumps along the way. However, those speed bumps are sometimes what it takes to shift us into the better scenario. Yeah, maybe we're going to develop a fully decentralized cryptocurrency that operates far, far better and more efficiently and with less problematic scenarios than fiat currency. Maybe we are going to have a whole bunch of people in America and beyond who adopt an educational system that involves parents being with their children more and actually preparing their children in a far more creative and free thinking manner. Maybe we're going to all learn how to hunt and care for the land and develop a more intimate connection with nature and with our community and with our families, with our neighbors a little bit more. Right. The way I look at it is all this stuff winds up working out to make us even better. But I really want to tell you, if you're listening in right now, just freaking start. But start the way that Tucker has outlined, with an optimistic frame set and not, not a frame set that you're preparing yourself for the next zombie apocalypse, which maybe if it happens, that's too bad, but you're going to be ready. And that's the way I see things, Tucker.

I mean, that. That's pretty optimistic. Yeah, yeah, I'm on board.

Yeah, well, we'll. We'll see what happens. But you know, I obviously could talk to you for a very long time, Tucker, because you have prolifically written about a lot of these matters and I know you are kind of in the process of getting a whole bunch of really great resources together on your blog. So. So, folks, go to tuckermax.com you guys can check out Tucker's essays on doomer optimism. And after he really coined that term, some of the things that he wound up doing, getting into some nitty gritty specifics of the food, the energy, the water, the community, some of the other things that we talked about today, so be sure to check those out. I'll link to all that stuff if you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com TuckerMax and you can also leave your own comments or questions or tips for whatever your favorite prepping magazine over there as well. Tucker, anything else that you want to leave people with as far as a word of advice?

Honestly, one of the shifts I've made in this whole process, I don't give advice, I don't tell people what they should do. I think that's a huge part of sovereignty, is realizing that everyone's on their own journey.

Other than telling me that I have to have a vacation home.

What I do is I've shifted my perspective. And so I, I tell people what I'm doing and I tell people what I've learned and what I've seen. And I respect their ability to make up their own mind, which is to me, the key of sovereignty is not just being sovereign for yourself, but respecting the sovereignty of others.

That makes sense. I like it. And it would create a lot less dogmatism and scapegoating if people did approach things with that mentality. So, Tucker, I'm grateful to you for, for giving your time sharing with all this stuff with us, writing what you do right and being who you are. Man, you really are doing a lot of good for the world.

Thank you, Ben. I appreciate it.

All right, Cool, man. Well, I'll catch you on the flip side. And folks, until next time, I'm Ben Greenfield along with Tucker Max from BenGreenfieldFitness.com Tucker Max, signing out. Have an amazing week. More than ever these days, people like you and me need a fresh, entertaining, well informed, and often outside the box approach to discovering the health and happiness and hope that we all crave. So I hope I've been able to do that for you on this episode of today. And if you liked it or if you love what I'm up to, then please leave me a review on your preferred podcast listening channel, wherever that might be, and just find the Ben Greenfield Life episode. Say something nice. Thanks so much. Means a lot.