The Viable Alternative

I’ve been interested in the story of how Tucker Max became successful for a number of years.

Tucker Max is an author who wrote four New York Times Bestsellers, “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell,” “A**holes Finish First,” “Sloppy Seconds,” and finally “Hilarity Ensues.” He’s credited with starting the genre called “fratire,” and his books are generally about the different adventures he’s been on in his 20s and early 30s partying, hooking up with girls, getting drunk and all in all, having fun.

He’s now retired from all that, and is now a father, husband and a business owner.

Interestingly, when he’s asked about his success with writing books, he simply said that he picked up writing as a way to make his friends laugh. After he and his friends graduated college and law school, they moved to different cities, and since social media wasn’t big yet, they’d keep in touch over email, where he would send stories regularly of the crazy things that happened to him. Over time, his stories became popular as his friends would forward them to other people and they would wind up coming back to him. Eventually one of his friends, after he got fired from a job at his Dad’s restaurant, suggested that he should take this “writing thing” seriously because he didn’t seem good at anything else.

That’s when his writing career started.

From the time he started writing, it took him seven years to blow up. This means that it was seven years of rejection, grinding, and honing your craft while seeing little in return monetarily.

Interestingly, Tucker Max said that if he was solely after fame and fortune, he wouldn’t have made it this far. He, and what many other successful people teach is that fame and fortune should not be our reason why we choose to go after a dream and goal, because at the end, you’d be disappointed at how empty they both feel.

Some also say that a sole desire for fame and fortune can’t sustain you during those lean times when you receive little tangible results for your labour (I kind of disagree with this last part as I think some people crave fame and fortune so much that it gives them the staying power to persevere….but I get their drift).

Instead, Tucker Max and others who are successful say they were driven by their passion such that they were willing to do it without getting paid for it. Eventually, they stuck with it long enough that the success was a by product.

What sticks to me from this entire story is that Tucker Max started writing simply to make his friends laugh. That was what was initially on his heart when he started writing. It teaches me that any time we want to start an edeavour, we should always look to our heart and ask ourselves why we’re doing it. If the reason is truly heartfelt, it would keep us fulfilled whether we’re struggling or successful, and it would give us a reason to keep on going when we’re not seeing results.

This is The Viable Alternative.

Hope this helps,

Ike Love