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Jim O'Shaughnessy: Well, hello everyone, it's Jim O'Shaughnessy with yet another episode of Infinite Loops.
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Today I am delighted to have back on Infinite Loops, one of my original guests when I was just getting started out, Ed Latimore, who is the proprietor of Stoic Street-Smarts. Ed, welcome.
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Ed Latimore: Hey Jim, it is good to be here.
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Jim O'Shaughnessy: It's great to have you. Wow.
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Lot going on in your life.
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New child, new book, what's going on?
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Ed Latimore: Yes, the past three months.
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Well really more like the past five.
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We'll split the difference say four since he's four months old.
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The last four months there've been a lot of big changes.
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I have a son, really excited. Been a very...
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It's just a fun experience every day.
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Once you accept that you're never going to sleep a full eight hours again, or if I do, I don't know when that starts again.
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But once you accept that that is kind of the cost of doing business, then everything else just falls into place.
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My gauge for whether we had a good night is did I sleep two hours or four hours before I had an interruption?
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And if it's four hours, that's a good night.
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That's a block where it'll come up to be eight hours, typically, because it takes an hour and [inaudible] to do everything between changing and feeding.
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If it's two, I'm probably going to wake up a little grumpy. But that's been fun.
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I'm really happy to be here.
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Strongly recommend every man do this because it is a great focusing tool.
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And not that I had any problems with that, because I did a lot of work on my life prior to getting to this point, but it has just taken things up a level.
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It's very easy to look at something to go, "That's not worth my time.
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No matter what the long shot is, that's not worth my time."
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I never turned down podcasts before. Never.
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Now almost all of them, I'm like, "No, I just can't do it."
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And I hate to be that guy where I'm like, "You don't have the audience, we don't have the relationship, or you're just starting out."
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Where I'm like, "We're just going to pass on this for now."
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And if you're interested, not to sound like a prick, but if you're interested, come back when you're a little more established and it makes more sense.
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But there's that, and it forces me to make a lot of smart decisions.
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And then the new book is really...
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That's a crazy experience.
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And you've been published by a house before, so I don't know how different things are because we're in two different sectors of what is published, but I did not have any inkling of a...
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I mean, I've always wanted to have my next book be one published with a house.
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And we go all the way back to September and I was just talking to people about this being my dream and my next goal.
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And a guy whose show I had actually been on, he said, "Hey, a friend of mine, who's an agent, she's putting on a class on writing proposals." So I said, "Sure."
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In my mind I'm thinking this will be a good way to get closer to somebody who can get me where I need to be.
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But I also need to learn to how do this.
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About halfway through the class, because of how I think, I was like, "Let me start asking people I know and asking around."
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So I talked to everybody about everyone I know who's got a book deal.
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I just asked them what they did and how it worked out.
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And that led to my web got going.
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So I also designed Jimmy Soni's website.
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Jimmy Soni wrote in this book, The Founders, about the founders of PayPal.
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Jim O'Shaughnessy: Yes, Jimmy's a good friend. Yes. Yes. Ed Latimore: Okay.
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So you know Jimmy, great. So I talked to Jimmy.
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Jimmy and I hit it off immediately. Great guy.
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He gave me the ins and outs, "I know you really want to publish with a house, but given your reach and everything, still don't put out the idea of self-publishing."
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And he sends me an article.
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And the article is by Financial Samurai Sam.
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I think it's hilarious that Sam's an agent and his handle was Financial Samurai.
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That tickles me every time I talk about it.
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But when I read the article I go, "This is good stuff."
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And I thought it was so good I would share it on Twitter. I share it on Twitter.
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Sam hits me up five minutes later.
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He's like, "Hey man, I hear you're writing a book.
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If you have any questions, hit me up." So we have a call.
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I tell him what I'm trying to do with my idea.
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He goes, "Cool, let me introduce you to my agent."
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Well at least I thought that's what he said because Sam doesn't have an agent.
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Sam works directly with Penguin Portfolio.
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And as a result, the person he put me on the phone with was Noah Schwartzberg, the chief editor over there.
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We talk and he goes, "All right, send me over some of your threads and some of your best work."
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A few days ago by he goes, "Oh, man, I got some great news.
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Everyone here, Niki Papadopoulos and Adrian Zeigman, we're all really excited to bring you on.
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We think Portfolio can be a great place for you but you need an agent."
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So they introduced me to Howard Yoon of Ross Yoon Agency down in DC and the rest is history, mostly.
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Because when I got with Howard, because I had wrote this proposal for the class, he's like, "I think you have a better book in you based on everything I've read."
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So while the kid is here, in his first month, and I highlight that because everyone will understand how ridiculously taxing this was, the first month, I rewrote the proposal and ended up making a longer.
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It ended up being about 70 pages.
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And it was a very difficult thing.
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In fact, when I think about moments where, in my memory, I am tired, there's when I was in school and fighting at the same time, and this.
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That was hard but it ended up being well worth the effort.
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And having an agent, I can't overstate how awesome that is because his job is to sell me because he don't eat unless I eat.
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So he not only is giving me the best advice, but is helping me rewrite this.
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Going in, checking Tweets, he read through my whole website, took my best stories and put those in the appropriate places for the chapter outlines.
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And we got a pretty good deal.
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I'm very happy with the deal, anyhow.
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So yes, now is the next part where it's like, "Oh shit, now I got to write this."
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But it's going to be fun.
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I'm thrilled and I'm thrilled because I'll be doing it in my new house.
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That was the other thing, because now that we have this person...
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And look, me and Anna have been together 11 years.
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There are no accidents when you're with someone 11 years.
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There are unplanned events, though.
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And he was very much an unplanned event.
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So much so we had actually, literally we found out she was pregnant... Man, is that April? The end of April.
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I want to say April 20th or 30th.
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And we just re-signed our lease on our two bedroom apartment.
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And so we were like, "Well this will work for now."
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Because he is immobile and plus most of that time she'll be pregnant.
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But now, this guy, he's rolling and he's not crawling or anything and by the time the summer comes around, we just need more space.
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And on top of that, no one tells you about this, you lose 50% of your living space to kid's stuff, kid's toys everywhere.
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And that's cool because it's great, but at the same time you got to have more space. So we needed more room.
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She wanted an office because of her work.
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We both work at home, which is really a blessing, I'm learning.
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Because a lot of guys don't get to see their kid nearly as much as I do, which I'm learning, and it is awesome.
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I know his hunger cues and apparently guys become clueless about this, like, "Oh is he sleepy? Is he hungry?"
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They come home and it's like, "Well I just put him to bed."
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And I don't have to deal with any of that and I'm really grateful for it.
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So yes, that's kind of, in a nutshell, the big three things that have been happening that consumed so much of my time and energy and my sleep, too.
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Jim O'Shaughnessy: Well I can tell you, the three days that I remember like they were yesterday was the birth of my three children.
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And then the next days that I remember almost as vividly, is the birth of my grandchildren.
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So I can definitely say it's a great job.
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It's the best job I've ever had, being a dad and a grandfather.
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And so I think you're going to make a great dad.
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Let's go back to the book for a second.
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You said you completely rewrote the premise of the book.
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Can you take us through where you started with it and where it is now and how it changed? Ed Latimore: Okay.
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So you got to remember something.
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When you're dealing with something that is tailored to a group as opposed to a one-on-one approach.
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If you do it long enough, you learn that there's some things that you need to put in place.
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And you need to put them in place because if you got a bunch of horses roaming free on the pasture, that might be cool for the horses, but eventually you got to do something with these guys.
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You got to ride them, you got to corral them up, whatever.
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And so it's a lot better to put those boundaries in place to begin with.
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I say this to say the class was structured to hit the people who are in the middle of the bell curve of people who'd be looking to publish.
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From what I understand, very rarely does someone in my position end up in that class.
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And when I say my position, I have the platform, I have the sales to show I can move books and everything like that.
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I have the name, I've got over 200 articles in my site.
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I'm not dealing with someone who's green behind the ears in the writing and marketing side.
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So a lot of the advice given, our instruction given, was to produce a piece of content that wouldn't be too far off but wouldn't really take advantage of certain specificities.
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One of the things that led me to...
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So for example, the first thing we did in the class was put together the comparative titles and we were instructed to put together books that had a... What was it?
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A sales rank on Amazon of higher than 150,000 and have been published in the last 10 years.
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And that's generally good advice, from everything I've picked up.
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The problem with that advice is that sometimes it's not...
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What I had in mind, always, for this book was kind of a cross between The Art of Learning, which is over 20 years old, and David Goggins' Can't Hurt Me, sort of deal, with sprinkling of Pressfield, I love Stephen Pressfield.
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And all of those books are good books that have been proven sellers.
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But if I follow this advice, I don't end up down that road.
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And I paid so I'm going to follow that advice.
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And that thing, because it was the first thing I did, shaped every decision going forward for how I would structure the book. I'm green.
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I don't know what sells and what doesn't sell, okay.
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So the initial premise was a book that was more about boxing and everything I learned in boxing and how to apply that to your life.
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The new premise is the Ed Latimore story, and boxing plays a central role in that because it is the thing that transformed me and made me into who I am.
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But now there is a lot more about my upbringing, there's a lot more about my addictions. So there's a lot more...
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And interestingly enough, there's a lot more about boxing now because I'm not trying to make this book here is a concept about boxing that you can apply to your life.
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It's a lesson you can learn, can apply to your life, that, sometimes, you can show how it's been applied or how it's manifested itself in the ring and in the stories of fighters and the stories of myself.
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So that's the big change.
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And then it became much more of a memoir.
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And memoir, self-help, still in the style of The Art of Learning, but also Can't Hurt Me, in Goggins, and also The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck by Mark Manson.
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And that was not on my radar whatsoever.
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I happened to have a connection to Mark and I had reached out to him and asked him some questions.
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And I said, "[inaudible] ask questions of this guy.
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He was one of the authors I reached out to.
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I should read through his book."
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I read through his book and I said, "This dude, he's done, effectively, what I'm trying to do."
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The only difference is the stories in the background.
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One of the key selling points that was brought up is that there are people who want to listen to me and follow me and be interested in me.
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And look, I'm neither here nor there about this, but it is what it is, because I'm a Black kid from the ghetto.
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That makes a big difference.
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There are people who now can look at me and go, "Okay, this guy's saying that.
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I can relate to and understand that." It's a big deal.
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It's a big deal because I was never a representation guy in my thoughts in general.
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But I've come to learn and appreciate the power of that, not just from a commercial standpoint, but really from human progress standpoint.
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In other words, just because I wasn't that way doesn't mean there aren't a lot of people who look and go, "Okay, everyone who's doing something looks like this. I look like that.
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Maybe I should try to do other things."
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And you take that principle and you apply it to other stuff, and I just think I have a really good opportunity here to have a noticeable impact, I think, on a specific demographic, which are young men.
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Because right now there's a lot of stuff out there, being put out there, for young men. And what do they say?
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They say write to an audience.
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You may end up with a much bigger audience and you probably will.
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But when I think about this, I'm writing the book kind of how I wrote my second book about sobriety.
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It's the stuff that I wish someone would've told me or warned me about, or guidance I would've had.
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Because I didn't have my father around to teach me anything.
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I learned a lot of this stuff the hard way.
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And it makes me really happy, just on a backtracking note, that Henry, that's the kid, he won't have to go through that.
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There'll be guidance from the very start, on things [inaudible] and it's awesome.
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Jim O'Shaughnessy: The reason I was fascinated by and had you as one of my first guests is your story is almost like Joseph Campbell's The Hero's Journey.
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You overcame a lot of shit in your life.
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And as you pointed out, you didn't have any kind of guidelines or guideposts or...
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Well we're going to talk about mentors later because you did find some mentors.
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And I thought your books were great.
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I think your writing is great.
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The stories about your time as a heavyweight boxer, really, really interesting.
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But also your openness about addiction.
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At the top of your Twitter, for example, you've got the quote, "Most of the bad things in life can be avoided if you simply don't smoke crack." I love that.
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And, Ed, another thing you do really, really well is you could get away with a lot of shit that a lot of people couldn't.
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Like for example, you always are doing the coffee so Black, that type jokes.
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Ed Latimore: Yes, I have a good time with those.
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Jim O'Shaughnessy: They're always pretty funny.
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But do you ever get any blow back or do you ever get people- Ed Latimore: No. You know why?
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Because first you got to think about the fight you're going to pick.
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You're picking a fight with a guy making a coffee joke.
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And here's the thing, before I even go there, let's start point zero, one of the gripes I have when people try to make these jokes because I think the jokes are clever, and they're clever because my intention is to never denigrate the Black experience.
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My intention is to draw attention to it and to personify the coffee a bit.
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And I don't want to say it's easy or hard, it's just a different way to approach the joke.
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Someone will tell me a joke like, "Coffee's so Black, it has warrants in child department." That's not funny.
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It's not funny because there is nothing particular to the coffee about that that's interesting.
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There's no play on words.
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But, coffee so Black the cops turn off their body cams when they drink it, that's a different type of joke.
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That brings attention to our...
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Coffee so Black only three fifths of its calories count. Different kind of joke.
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And when you make these kinds of jokes, what I hope, I have a whole page on my website about this, what I hope is that I'm able to educate people who didn't know.
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I have a joke, coffee's so Black you needed an amendment to mix it with cream before 1967. That's really specific.
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And so hopefully someone goes and looks up Virginia versus Loving and learn about the miscegenation rules in this country. That's my hope.
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Or, coffee's so Black, it has to be shipped through the middle passage.
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To get that joke, you got to go learn about the middle passage and what that was, okay.
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Then you go, "Oh, that's great."
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Because some people read it, people who know, they hear these jokes and they get them immediately.
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But that's the goal with the jokes.
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But do I ever get blow back?
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No, because that's the kind of joke I try to tell, where it's not just mean.
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Jim O'Shaughnessy: Right.
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And I believe deeply that you can often change more minds if you're entertaining and funny a little bit.
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Even about things like there's a whole slew of Irish jokes and the history of the Irish and the world. No Irish need apply. And gentle humor...
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And I also love the idea of the specificity of the several you just mentioned.
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If it leads people to say, "I wonder what he means by that?
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Wait a minute, there was a law."
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My oldest sister was married to a Black man and that was in 1969.
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And even then- Ed Latimore: Right after.
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Yes, [inaudible] Jim O'Shaughnessy: ...
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even then, his name is George, and he was like, "There's certain states we can't even go to."
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And when you think about how much, at least this country has changed, in many respects for the better, that's one of them.
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Ed Latimore: Oh, for sure.
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I think about this a lot because Anna is...
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It depends on the day, how I'm feeling.
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Some days she's White, some days she's Portuguese, it depends on which one.
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But to the average onlooker, they have no idea where she's from.
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She just looks like a White person. I think about that.
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No one bats an eye about it.
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It's not a thing anymore.
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And even when I was growing up, that was a thing.
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And not like an illegal thing, but it was a thing that was commented on in culture and you catch flack for.
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My mom didn't like that I had White friends. It was weird to me.
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But then, you go, "Well my mom grew up in the '60s."
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It's a different perspective.
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But now if you hear somebody say something, you're like, "They still make you?
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You're like a Betamax or something.
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You're a relic, you don't belong."
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Because we've changed so much.
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Jim O'Shaughnessy: I agree.
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And I think that's one of the things that I'm really positive about in, particularly, the United States.
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When you look at where we were, like when my sister got married, for example, and where we are now, and other things, too.
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Like in 1971, a woman couldn't get a credit card in her own name without her husband's approval.
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I mean, when you see that, it just kind of blows your mind. At least it does mine. Like what?
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How the hell could that- Ed Latimore: Weird world, right?
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Jim O'Shaughnessy: And so I think a lot of these changes have definitely been for the better.
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Let's talk a bit about addiction, because one of the things that you point out, that I don't think a lot of people think about, is you point out that, hey, you could be addicted to the normal shit.
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Like you could be addicted to alcohol or crack or blow, but you can also be addicted to things that are ostensibly good for you.
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Talk a little bit about that.
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Ed Latimore: Well, here's the thing.
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If I was to define addiction and not go and consult the oracles of Google or whatever, I would say that you're addicted to something when you no longer receive...
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When the cost of engaging in the activity exceeds the value that you receive from it.
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Because one thing I absolutely believe, whether it's a good choice or bad choice, and most of the time it's a bad choice, is that every addiction starts from a place of benign meaning.
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Or put it like this, no one ever smokes crack and plans to become a crackhead.
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We know that's the outcome, but no one ever plans for that.
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No one ever takes a drink planning to become an alcoholic.
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So, when you look at it that way, then you can start understanding.
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Or you change your framework on how you interact with individuals who are dealing with addiction, because then you got to ask yourself a question, and it's the hard question.
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Why is it that some people become addicts and some people don't in the same activity?
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I have a buddy, man, he smoked crack three times and was like, "Man, this shit ain't hot. I just don't like..."
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Which is crazy to anybody who has the preconceived idea about what a crackhead is.
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He was just like, "Ah, this ain't for me."
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But also other people, man, it's like they smoke weed one time and their life becomes about weed.
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And here's what we know, there's a famous experiment called Rat Park.
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And in Rat Park, they did what they do to rats, which is they fuck with the rats and they put coke in the water, and got the rats hooked on coke. And it was a choice.
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It was like press this lever for some coke, press this other lever for some food, and they chose to coke overwhelmingly.
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And then they turned into to crack heads, destitute, and strung out, their health was terrible.
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Everything you would imagine would happened if somebody is hooked on narcotics.
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And then they did something novel to test this idea.
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Instead of having the rats isolated, which is how they were doing it, they put them in a community.
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They gave them things to do.
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They weren't just rats hanging out in a cage, being a rat by himself.
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It was a bunch of rats with a community and the thriving party to work with.
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And lo and behold, most of the rats did not become addicts. We can extrapolate this.
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Forget the rat study, I guess when the GIs came back from Vietnam, I guess over in Vietnam, man, they were shooting smack the way people shoot cigarettes here, or smoke cigarettes here.
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And when they come back, I think there was only 25% that stayed addicted, which sounds like a lot but that's significant for something like heroin.
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And they looked and saw, and these guys are back around their families, they're back in their social circle.
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They have outlets for stress.
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They have people to talk to.
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So what I found, and this certainly corroborates with my experience with me and alcohol, is when you don't have a community, when you don't have people you trust, or when you haven't developed your emotional coping skills or your skills to connect with people, you are a prime target for addiction because you're using it differently than the other person. Might seem like...
28:08
I think back to when me and my friends all started drinking when we were 18.
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Perhaps we're all doing it to have fun, but underneath that, why do some guys not go crazy?
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Other guys are like, okay, that's cool.
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And other ones are like me.
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I'm the one with no support network at home, no family maybe.
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I think about this a lot in terms of my son.
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We're here with her family here in Florida right now, but I don't interact with my family. I don't know.
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I mean it's not really there.
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I interact with my sister, there's no one else there and there wasn't anyone there.
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So if you want to understand the addict, it is really important to understand why.
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Because all these substances, anything...
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Once you accepted anything become addictive, it may not induce the same physiological changes that say heroin does, but we know people are addicted to other things than heroin.
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When you look at that, then you can go, okay, how did this happen?
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I would imagine that's one of the things that really drove the opioid crisis.
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Not the opioids themselves, though they make it very easy to get addicted.
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But think about what you're taking it for.
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You're hurting and isolated, likely you're dealing with real problems on top of that pain.
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No one's popping opioids for a headache. It shouldn't be.
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It's for some life-changing injury, and there's likely something that goes along with that.
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Jim O'Shaughnessy: The insight into isolation, I researched this stuff a lot and that just keeps popping up as isolation for your average human being, man or woman, is really a bad thing.
30:08
Ed Latimore: So it's so bad that it's a punishment in prison.
30:12
How can we do something to these guys that ain't done, we got them in here for life, we're feeding them like shit, they got to worry about dropping the soap.
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I know, we'll make sure they're alone.
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And that is way worse than anything that...
30:28
There's prison and then there's alone, and that is crazy.
30:31
Jim O'Shaughnessy: And I've seen some studies that people put in isolation begin to hallucinate in as little as four hours. Ed Latimore: Wow.
30:41
Jim O'Shaughnessy: And essentially why that is a cruel and unusual punishment because, we evolved to be in communities to be connected to each other.
30:56
And when you don't have those connections, as you point out rightly, that can lead to a lot of bad things. How did you go about it?
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Because I mentioned mentors earlier.
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You found mentors, you found people to talk to and what was the spark and how'd you decide, "Okay, here's what I need to do to do this."
31:20
Ed Latimore: So a lot of it was thinking through things, right?
31:27
It's like, okay, this sucks, this sucks, this sucks.
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I don't want this to suck anymore.
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Let me do something to make it less suck less.
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And every time I revisit my story, I learn a little bit more about myself because the further you are away from the incident, the better view you have.
31:54
A year out of sobriety, I couldn't tell you what worked.
31:58
I'd be like, "I just white knuckled that shit.
32:01
I just decided I was not going to drink and didn't drink," right?
32:04
Three, four years out, I'm like, "You know what really helped me not drink, having something to do. Having some goals."
32:13
And that was significant.
32:14
I finally had some goals.
32:15
So five or six years out, meeting someone that I really cared about and not wanting to hurt her, to have a high sense of conscientiousness.
32:26
That made a big difference.
32:30
But as I approached 10 years...
32:32
And all of that stuff is still true.
32:35
The one thing that has really started to stand out to me is...
32:40
Well, right after me and her, I was like, "Okay, now I have something to care about.
32:47
I have a goal for my life." I was purposeless.
32:49
But now the thing that really stands out to me, I always say there's a difference between being liked and being respected.
33:00
And if you're not used to either one, you can't tell the difference.
33:05
And for a long time I tried to be liked, and being liked is cool.
33:12
Being liked will get you to some parties.
33:14
When people get old and being liked turns into being a joke.
33:19
But being respected might not get you invited to a lot of parties, but you build real strong bonds. People trust you.
33:29
People want to bring you around.
33:31
People will have good things to say about you.
33:33
Opportunities tend to find you.
33:37
And the outsider who doesn't know any different, it's the same as being liked.
33:42
It's not until it's time to do anything where there's real investment like bringing around the family or bestowing professional opportunities on you that you realize that you're just liked.
33:55
You're effectively a jester, a clown.
33:57
But it's key they really look the same.
34:00
What I think happened that drives more things than anything else, and I talked about this in my TED talk as well, is that for the first time in my adult life, I was building connections with people where alcohol was not a factor because it couldn't be.
34:19
Because my story, my first day of sobriety is December 23rd, 2013.
34:27
But from June 4th until I had one drink where I snuck off base, but June 4th to December 20th, I didn't have any alcohol.
34:40
But I made a boatload of new friends and connections.
34:43
People I'm still cool with to this day.
34:46
And for the first time and since I was easily 18, I was making friends based on me and nothing else.
34:57
And these were real connections.
34:59
You're around people all the time.
35:00
I mean it might not be the most comfortable scenario, but are you're developing those relationships.
35:11
Those relationships, and I didn't think about it at the time, but those relationships and wanting to maintain that.
35:19
Because cause once people see you for a certain way and maybe they started thinking that way, you really don't want to ruin that.
35:25
If you have any level of conscientiousness at least, and I think that's luck.
35:29
I mean, I don't know where it came from, but I have a fairly high level of conscientiousness.
35:34
You don't want to want to jack that up.
35:36
It's the same trait that had me go, "If I mess this relationship up, I want it to be because I'm an asshole.
35:43
Not because I got drunk and said something or because I tried to cheat on her because I was drinking. No.
35:49
Let's have it be because of me.
35:50
Because she's a nice girl and doesn't deserve that."
35:53
And then that comes from recognizing, or first experience with the worst, but then recognizing your role in things.
36:03
What is your responsibility?
36:04
So all that comes together.
36:06
And I would say the relationships you form, that really helps and that helped me.
36:13
On top of everything else, I just look and there's multiple reasons.
36:16
That's why, I mean just can't imagine going back.
36:19
At this point, I'm sure in 15 years it'll be because definitely people started paying me to speak about drinking. I can't drink. But probably not.
36:31
My point is that others, there are lots of reasons and the more removed that'll come in time, the more I think those reasons have to do with people rather than internal drive or willpower.
36:47
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Your comment about being liked versus respected, it rings very true to me.
36:54
People sometimes confuse or confabulate words.
36:58
One that bugs me is there's a huge difference between being nice and being kind.
37:06
And people say, "Oh, you're so nice."
37:08
And I say, "Oh no, I'm not nice at all. I do try to be kind."
37:15
And they're very, very different things.
37:17
So I think having somebody like you articulate these differences can be really helpful because hearing you say that just now, right?
37:29
There's a big difference between being liked and respected, which is going to be better for you.
37:34
I think people listening are going to be like, "Oh yeah. Wow.
37:39
I never thought about it that way.
37:41
And one of the other things that you write a lot about in terms of mindset, self improvement, et cetera, is resilience and I would add agility.
37:51
Your ability to, I think one of the things you wrote was try to think strategically from a God view of the game, right? Ed Latimore: Yeah.
38:03
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Tactically don't feel the need that you have to respond to every fucking thing.
38:09
Personally, I think that's the best advice anyone could actually live by.
38:14
If I could just give one piece of advice.
38:18
You don't need to react to everything. Ed Latimore: Yeah.
38:21
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Which obviously is probably informed by the name of your Substack, the Stoic Street Smarts.
38:29
How did you get into stoicism?
38:32
Ed Latimore: Man, stoicism found me. I didn't find it.
38:38
My mom was a real mother fucker when it comes to emotional manipulation, and I figured out very young that the only way to deal with this, the only way to win is to not play the game kind of deal.
38:57
Because there was a way she wanted me to respond, but they were like trap questions.
39:03
I'll give you a perfect example.
39:05
This is a story that I tell people this stuff, this is hilarious.
39:08
And it's not what she did when I was particularly young either, I was 23.
39:12
I came over and she said, "I got arrested for stealing from John Eagle." And I said...
39:20
And John Eagle's the supermarket around here.
39:24
And I said, "Well, why'd you do that?"
39:29
And she looks at my sister and go, "See, I told you he believe I did that."
39:33
And I'm like, why would I not believe you did that, kind of deal.
39:40
Or when we were younger, she'd ask us to do something and if it took too long, she would go, "Nevermind, I'll just do it myself.
39:50
I don't need you guys help anyway." And I'm like, okay.
39:53
So I learned very early that I could let myself be drawn into this type of ridiculousness or I could be non-reactive.
40:07
And that non-reactiveness, developed that home, crossed over into the rest of my life because of my life out outside of my home, certainly until I was 14 and then there's some big changes outside of my home, but was just as chaotic and ridiculous and unpredictable.
40:28
And so having something to, I figured it...
40:32
I can't be swayed and locked out.
40:34
I don't feel good being emotional in general because I know that's when people do really stupid stuff just from life.
40:43
So I figured out how to play that game.
40:45
And then it was only in my twenties that I was like, "Oh, there's a name for this."
40:50
And then I read more into it and I go, okay, yeah, this makes sense, this makes sense, this makes sense.
40:57
And the stoics don't outright oppose this, but this is the only place where I am likely not a pure stoic, and I think it's a really important place.
41:08
I'm a really big fan of understanding how to relate to people.
41:15
You control your emotions and when you do that, that enables you to present yourself maximally.
41:21
And that's the best way, really the best use of it aside from your own sanity.
41:28
But when you talk to people, all people who are even a little bit of sensitive, are a little bit aware, recognize that the way you approach a conversation is going to affect how the person feels about the conversation with you.
41:43
And if you can make a person feel comfortable, you can go a lot further than if you get them on their back foot and you get them feeling anxious or nervous.
41:51
That's only possible if you control your emotions, especially if you're dealing with something volatile or something can make people angry that, but you got to talk about it.
42:01
There's a way to talk about it and there's a way to not talk about it.
42:05
And that emotional discipline, that's what I think is the real value of stoicism and that it allows you to have a lot more fun as a person.
42:17
Which sounds counter to the central concept of stoicism, I suppose, but I'm not a pure stoic.
42:26
I've never claimed to be. I'm not like...
42:29
What the hell is his name?
42:31
The Vulcan on The Star Trek?
42:34
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Spock.
42:36
Ed Latimore: Spock, yeah.
42:38
I'm not like Spock, but I'm definitely not a Klingon.
42:42
Them mother fucker's crazy.
42:44
Jim O'Shaughnessy: There's a great line that is, "Whoever angers you, controls you." Ed Latimore: Yeah.
42:51
And I figured that out oh so early.
42:54
Jim O'Shaughnessy: And how did you do that?
42:57
How did you figure that out?
43:01
Ed Latimore: As I write this book, I'm learning a lot about adverse childhood events. ACEs, they call them. Traumatic experiences.
43:12
And what children of traumatic experiences figure out is they figure out how to protect themselves from the threats.
43:22
It's just the natural thing all humans do.
43:25
They're not big so they can't fight, but they're not idiots so they can learn and figure things out.
43:33
And I've figured the best way to protect myself was...
43:36
Because I could take an ass kicking. Whatever, right?
43:40
And eventually I got so big to don't stopped because I started trying to ass kick back.
43:45
You're not going to hit me out of nowhere.
43:51
But where the damage came is feeling like I'm just being stone walled and degraded at home.
44:01
It is one of those things that my mom hated that I talked about this part of my childhood because to her it was all hunky dory.
44:08
And the fact that we didn't end up in prison, that was a success.
44:11
That was her metric of success.
44:12
I didn't end up in jail and Jasmine didn't end up with any kids out of wedlock.
44:17
And I'm just like, "I know you tried your best, but there's some things that your best is not good enough."
44:23
And not only that, I don't believe you tried your best for many, many reasons.
44:30
But my method of protecting myself in this environment was I wasn't going to let her see what could the affect me emotionally because I felt like it would be used as a weapon against me.
44:44
I got a buddy on Twitter, Bobby Dino, he's got this...
44:48
He goes, "Never let him see your buttons."
44:52
Don't let them see what it can make you mad.
44:54
And it's a shame that I figured that out with my mom, but it is what it is.
45:01
And look, I never had a problem talking about my mom or anything like that to the point when she was alive, she died last December because she wasn't around to know that she was going to have a grandkid, which is crazy to me because it was the big thing.
45:17
She was like, "I want grandkids."
45:18
And well, you got to take care of your health.
45:21
Died at 59, all completely avoidable, stupid shit. Completely avoidable.
45:26
But I would write in my newsletter and one day she wrote me and she was like, "I'm going to unsubscribe for your newsletter because I don't like how you're painting your childhood. Was it so bad?"
45:41
So I'm like, objectively, and we have the...
45:44
I always said to her, "Well look.
45:47
Let's talk about facts and if I have lied, I will rescind them."
45:54
And then she never liked that conversation because there was nothing to rescind.
45:58
Well, because look, at the end of the day, it certainly...
46:03
Here's the thing about growing up in the hood.
46:07
It messes with you because you get to see all levels of the shit.
46:14
And there's some people who are just about to break out and there are others who are child protective services are going to be here in any second.
46:24
But most of us are somewhere in between those two extremes.
46:28
But it's still a really bad place to be and you got to be a certain type of person to end up in that situation.
46:36
So one of the things I had to deal with for a long time was feeling like, "Well what was it really that bad?"
46:44
Compared to the people on the other end, no it wasn't.
46:48
Compared to people on the upper end, even in the projects, it was pretty fucked up. It was bad.
46:53
I'm 38 so my sister's 35 now, and it's only been recently after my mom passed and she's able to come to terms with a lot of stuff.
47:04
But she used to say, "It wasn't even that bad.
47:06
I don't know what you're talking about." I'm like, "Okay."
47:08
And now she's like, "Oh okay.
47:10
Some things were rough man." And she was this way.
47:13
And I'm like, yeah, the difference is my path took me to a completely different part of life.
47:21
Completely different socioeconomic background.
47:22
I just got to see different things.
47:25
And my sister didn't, so she didn't know how messed up things were because she never really spent time around people who weren't like that.
47:32
But from the ninth grade on in a different classroom or a different school I went to, I had friends... Almost all of my...
47:41
No, all of my friends had had both parents living at home with one exception.
47:45
His dad died when he was 12.
47:48
And so just that environment, it's different.
47:51
They all lived in middle class neighborhoods.
47:54
You see a different way of living and interacting.
47:56
The parents were very involved.
47:59
They hadn't been arrested or anything like that.
48:01
They didn't live in this environment.
48:03
So I got to see all that and got to compare back early.
48:08
My sister never, not until later, not until much later now where she's spending time around me and seeing how things turned out for me in my life and also dealing with my mom in her last days and the afterwards, is she able to honestly go, "Okay, you might not have been so crazy."
48:24
And I know I was just aware of things.
48:26
That's a big difference Jim O'Shaughnessy: There's a saying that it goes, "If you sit in shit long enough, it stops stinking." Ed Latimore: Man.
48:39
I never heard that one, but it's true. Oh goodness.
48:43
I'm going to add that to the repertoire.
48:44
Jim O'Shaughnessy: I thought of you when I was getting ready for this and I thought of that line.
48:50
And obviously you had a catalyst, right?
48:55
You were like, "No way, this is the way my life is...
49:01
I'm not going to play my life on passive mode here."
49:05
And so you did boxing, you got a degree in physics, you started a super successful Substack.
49:11
Your books have sold really, really well.
49:15
You mentioned your sister.
49:17
Now that your mom's gone and she's coming to terms with, "Oh yeah.
49:23
Ed, you were probably more right?"
49:26
Did she watch what was going on with you and say, "Hey, maybe I should be doing something similar," or not? Ed Latimore: Well sure.
49:37
Well I really think that. And then now she has.
49:40
I mean I'm really proud of my sister because when she was 23 she went and did something dumb.
49:47
She pled down from a felony to a misdemeanor. It was simple.
49:50
She pled from aggravated to simple, or simple to aggravated.
49:55
That's significant, because one, it got her kicked out the Air Force, but it also prevented her from doing a lot of stuff, and making progress in her life.
50:04
She just now, at 35, got the okay from the nursing board that it would be okay for her to nursing school.
50:11
Because you can attend any nursing school.
50:13
But she works at a hospital, where she was going to get a tuition waiver.
50:19
They were like, "Well, because you don't have to apply, well, we're not going to, but we're also not going to put you in this program, if you can't get the license.
50:27
So you have to find out."
50:29
And they looked at everything she'd done over the past, shit, 13, 35, 12 years.
50:36
And they were like, "All right, you're good.
50:37
You learned your lesson."
50:38
I mean, I think that's crazy how long it took, but things are looking up, they're better.
50:49
Oh, so when you don't know something or you don't have any experience, I sometimes forget how challenging it can be to do something completely different.
51:04
Especially when you, I don't know if she identified, but I'll get rid of the manhood of a doubt.
51:10
The doubt would say she did, which was change her entire social circle where she's spending time, and her approach to life.
51:22
I just think that there was a lot of, because all her friends are friends from childhood, from the neighborhood, which means they're all people who came up with the same ideas, from the same background, and continue to perpetuate with what's marginal improvement of them.
51:40
So she doesn't get to see anything new in anything different.
51:44
But now, she's certainly, over the past two or three years, since we moved back from Portugal, definitely, she spent a lot more time over at the house, and around me.
51:54
And I think that that's really helped her be motivated to make changes and do things.
52:01
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Another thing you talk a lot about is that progress often requires pain.
52:10
And do you think progress is possible without pain?
52:15
Ed Latimore: I think pain is a feeling.
52:21
And that feeling is telling you, that something is wrong. This is key here.
52:30
And when you decide to make progress, you have to remember what you're doing, and really remember what the goal of all organisms is, to find the most energy efficient configuration.
52:40
Or we can just sum that up as homeostasis, to find the best place, to get the most for the least.
52:49
When you decide to skedaddle, to start making moves towards something that requires more energy than you're currently using to survive, this is a problem.
53:05
It's a problem to your system.
53:08
It's like, "Yo, well, how we going to ...
53:08
First off, this is comfortable.
53:12
I don't know why we're moving.
53:15
Secondly, how much energy, how long is this going to take?
53:18
I don't know if we can do this.
53:20
Maybe we won't do it, maybe we want to just chill out."
53:24
But all of those things together, when you start making progress, when you start growing, because of those two scenarios that kind of work together, you leaving behind something that is comfortable, and also, going after something that will cause discomfort, if for any other reason, than it is new and unfamiliar, then you're going to experience pain.
53:47
And we'll use discomfort as a synonym, as well, if pain sounds, it is too intense.
53:54
But the idea is the same, that whenever you start to make progress, you are going to experience discomfort, displeasure.
54:02
There's going to be, "You're just going to hear over and over again, why are you doing this" from, and maybe not that, but it's like, "We were good."
54:10
It's like, yeah, when you go run or work out, your body's like, " Bro, then there's nothing to come hunt us. What are we doing? Just chill out. You don't need to run."
54:18
And you're like, "Nah, man, I really got to do it."
54:21
Your body's like, "Okay, but I'm telling you, I'm going to keep hurting until you stop."
54:27
Then you finish, and your body's like, "I told you."
54:30
And you're like, "Wait a second.
54:32
But you ran as far as you said you would.
54:35
You tricked me, not going to fall for this."
54:37
Then, over time, you just keep doing it, every single day.
54:40
And before you know it, you've made a little progress.
54:43
But that pain, whether it be physical, in the sense of training, or emotional, in the sense of working on your development.
54:52
And really, that's the hard stuff, your relationships, putting yourself out there, or mental learning, a brand new skill.
55:00
It's like, "Well, we're alive, so what are we doing this for? Why?"
55:05
It's very natural for an organism to decide to expand more energy than it needs.
55:10
Nowhere else in nature do we see this.
55:13
Which is why no other creatures have created cities and cars and shit, right?
55:17
Because we were fine walking places, and we were even fine riding horses.
55:23
And somebody came along and said, "I got a better idea.
55:25
Why don't we make this engine thing?"
55:27
And then, flight and all that.
55:30
So all progress is, is the result of pushing past what is comfortable, or a design that's not good enough.
55:37
That's Jim O'Shaughnessy: That's also a pretty good metaphor for society. It's like Tony de Mello.
55:44
The philosopher, wrote that, "Everybody wants progress, but everybody hates change." Ed Latimore: Yeah.
55:53
Jim O'Shaughnessy: So it seems that, and your reference to homeostasis, it seems like society as a whole really acts like a person, in that regard.
56:07
As you point out, "Hey, we were fine walking," and then, the horse and buggy.
56:13
And then, " Well, that's a train, I like that, that's better. Oh, wait." Ed Latimore: Yup.
56:18
Jim O'Shaughnessy: "Well, wait. A car? Oh, a plane? Yeah."
56:22
But on the individual level, what did you do if you were trying something new?
56:30
When you just were, "You know what? Fuck this.
56:33
I just don't want to do this."
56:35
How did you psych yourself up? Or did you not?
56:38
Ed Latimore: Well, everything I do, I'm very good, I think, better than the average person.
56:46
I think, giving your line of work, you'll agree with this general statement.
56:52
Humans are very bad at the future. Jim O'Shaughnessy: Yeah.
56:55
Ed Latimore: It is this thing that doesn't, it's weird how we treat it.
57:03
We treat like it's never going to arrive.
57:07
When it does, if we accept it, we think it'll be exactly how it is now, which is effectively the same thing as treating it like it's never going to arrive.
57:20
So that's why everything from saving money is hard for people, because it's like, "Why would I do that?"
57:28
I said, "Well, I have money now.
57:32
Won't I always have money?" kind of deal.
57:38
For me, I just thought about my future.
57:40
When you think about your future, here's the other part, let's say a person is good ...
57:40
Well, this is why they're not good.
57:51
Whatever a person imagines the future, they imagine it in the best case scenario, and they start making decisions based on that.
57:59
Well, that is a terrible practice.
58:02
Because well, most times, it doesn't happen that way.
58:07
And secondly, because you are preparing for an event to give you more than what it actually will, you're going to make your calculations.
58:17
And you'll end up in a spot of scarcity, or a point of scarcity, and lack.
58:22
What I'm good at doing, way better, probably to the point of a fault, almost ...
58:22
I'm not a pessimist, by any means, but I'm very good at looking at how things are going to go, "This is going to be a problem, and if I don't do something about it, it is going to," and then, plotting that out, [inaudible], "What do I got to do now," and everything like that.
58:44
Look, when I joined the Army, I had a very specific plan, and I probably relied too much on things going well, which, it almost backfired on me.
58:52
But the plan was, and I said, in five years, "Am I going to have more options or fewer options?"
58:58
How many people do you know ask themselves about five years in the future? It's uncommon.
59:05
I said, "All right, I'm going to join, go back to school." That was the plan.
59:09
So I said, "But worst case, I'll be able to get a job, so I can stop working at T-Mobile." That was the plan.
59:18
But it was a five-year plan.
59:21
I could imagine how bad it would get, if I didn't succeed in my plan.
59:24
I always kept that in mind, negative forecasting.
59:27
I was, "All right, let's avoid that."
59:32
Negative forecasting, that's what I did really well.
59:36
Then I said, "All right, what do I have to do to avoid this scenario?
59:39
And if I can't avoid it, how can I prepare for it?
59:41
What's the best way to get myself ready for what is coming?"
59:47
Jim O'Shaughnessy: The negative forecasting, my grandfather taught me a thing called premeditating, and it was almost exactly as you've described what you do.
1:00:01
Essentially, it's, you think about, "I want X," whatever X happens to be.
1:00:09
What you do is, you write out all of the reasons why you think you want X.
1:00:15
Because this is leading into, we share a mutual love of writing, because of its powerful effect on our lives.
1:00:23
But with premeditating, essentially, first off, you write it out, to determine A, "Do I really want X?"
1:00:30
Then you continue with the exercise, "Okay, so here are all the things that might happen if I get X, and here are all the things that might happen if I don't get X."
1:00:40
Some of the times when you're writing it out, what you discover is, "Oh, holy shit, it's better if I don't get X." Ed Latimore: Yeah. Oh, man.
1:00:49
A little funny story about that.
1:00:52
I remember, when we were going to find out everything about Henry being born.
1:00:57
I was like, "Man, I really hope we have twins. I'm so happy, so happy."
1:01:05
The universe did not grant me my wish.
1:01:10
This is already hard enough, or busy enough.
1:01:16
I would never describe this as hard.
1:01:18
I'd describe it as very busy and talent intensive.
1:01:21
But when I put one down, he goes, he's down.
1:01:24
Then I got to worry about one when I wake up, and it's just one.
1:01:27
But there were two of them, like, "Oh, all right, I would have got what I wanted."
1:01:35
But I always like to say, and in reference to that, or similar to that, I say, "Never be so sure what you want, that you won't take something better."
1:01:44
A lot of people, they get fixated, because they don't work out, like you said, they don't work out what the gains and the losses are.
1:01:55
They don't work out what it might cost to get that.
1:01:58
I deal with this all the time talking to guys, kids at the boxing gym, they come in, they're like, "Oh, I'm going to be a star.
1:02:05
I'm going to make all this money and I'm going to do great." I'm like, "Slow down.
1:02:11
Most of you are not going to make money.
1:02:12
Most of you will not be good enough to even win a national title, let alone any significant money.
1:02:21
And even if you weren't, there's not that much money in the sport, anyway."
1:02:24
I go, "Look," and I break down the numbers, and I say, "Really?
1:02:28
If you want to do this for money, just go get a job."
1:02:32
They're like, "That's not what I wanted to hear."
1:02:34
I'm like, "I'm keeping it real with you."
1:02:37
Because look, best case scenario, I'm wrong.
1:02:41
And you're pleasantly surprised.
1:02:44
The worst case scenario, if we follow your advice, or best case for you, is most likely that it won't happen.
1:02:54
You're going to be, "Why," and that's a thing that happened to me too.
1:02:58
A lot of people at the time, my coach included, I mean, he understood, but he didn't like that I was in school and boxing at the same time, man.
1:03:09
Yeah, it probably did take away from how good I could be at is fighting.
1:03:12
I know it took away from how good I could do in school.
1:03:15
But I said, "I know that that boxing is a high opportunity cost event.
1:03:22
And once it's over, I've got nothing else.
1:03:25
So let me make sure I have something else."
1:03:27
Because, that negative forecasting?
1:03:30
I call it the fighter's graveyard, where you get a bunch of guys, that they put all their effort into their career, and they want as far as they could go, for whatever reason, which usually isn't very far.
1:03:42
Now they coach guys, they got to work at a gym, and then they got some type of night work, night shift job.
1:03:50
Because most guys that fight, they're not putting off medical school to box.
1:03:57
It's not really that kind of thing.
1:04:01
I said, "I didn't want that to be me." So it's not me.
1:04:04
Because most guys, when they stop fighting, it's a rough world.
1:04:10
When I was going through my publishing contract, I made a post on Facebook, where I was like, "Man, this is like ..."
1:04:15
I compared it to a boxing contract.
1:04:18
I was like, "They're paying me a lot more money, for a lot less risk.
1:04:23
All I got to do I do is write this book?"
1:04:28
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Let's talk about writing for a bit, because I know that you and I have really similar thoughts about it, and the power of it.
1:04:42
Writing turns thoughts into things. Ed Latimore: Yeah.
1:04:46
Jim O'Shaughnessy: It's an active presentation of what you want, or think you want, but it's actually you putting it into the world.
1:04:58
Even if you're just writing it for yourself, it's still putting it out there where you can see it, and it's getting it out of your head, and that whole predating thing.
1:05:10
One of the things that you also say, which I also totally agree with is, you got to be authentic, you've got to be distinctive.
1:05:17
It did remind me of the Groucho Marx quip, that was, he said, "The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing.
1:05:27
If you can fake those, you've got it made."
1:05:36
We all seem to really have built-in bullshit detectors.
1:05:42
And it becomes pretty obvious to us when other people are fronting. Ed Latimore: Yeah.
1:05:51
Jim O'Shaughnessy: When you're listening to somebody, reading somebody, whatever, how do you immediately grab onto, "Oh, okay, this person is the real deal?"
1:06:04
Ed Latimore: For starters, I never try and make that assessment in an area where I am inexperienced. It won't work. I couldn't do it.
1:06:19
Okay, but when I'm reading about someone, or engaging or interacting with someone, because I'm in the gym so much, what want to look for are things that are very hard to fake.
1:06:38
And here's what's hard to fake. The lingo.
1:06:41
A lot of times, the lingo that's used is, that'll tell you everything.
1:06:47
If a person that says ...
1:06:47
I was talking about this the other day, where I could tell if somebody's from the street?
1:06:55
It doesn't matter how old they are, because the kids today are using different words than I used.
1:07:02
They're using different words than my uncles used, whatever.
1:07:08
But it's the way those words are used.
1:07:12
You know what the best example of what is is, I gave it is?
1:07:15
When you listen to somebody speak the Queen's English, they're going to say some shit where you're like, "I don't know what that means."
1:07:22
But overall, you can tell, English is still their first language, because of how they use the words, where that word should go.
1:07:32
Because of that, the context, you can figure it out, because of the way it's used.
1:07:35
Because you both speak English as your first language.
1:07:39
If you speak suburb is your first language, and you come to me talking about something on the street, you, it's going to very hard.
1:07:49
You're going to slip up, either in usage, lexicon.
1:07:56
Your terms are being a little dated, where I'm like, "How old are you?"
1:08:00
You start hearing these things and you go, "Okay, that's off."
1:08:04
In terms of experience, there's some things that people don't glamorize and talk about. It's not really ... It would be weird.
1:08:14
You hear them and go, "Oh, that's an odd thing to talk about," unless somebody's messed up.
1:08:20
A good example of this is, but somebody starts talking about, let's say they're trying to blend in, and they start talking about their baby mom or something like that. Okay, so far so good.
1:08:34
And they mention something, "She was cheating on me," or whatever.
1:08:41
My red flag would go off.
1:08:46
And it wouldn't go off like, "You're a fake," but it would just be weird.
1:08:49
"Who the hell says it like, 'Baby mom,' and 'cheated?'
1:08:51
She was running around with some [inaudible], something like that." There's a way to say it.
1:08:56
It's just that you wouldn't say it that way.
1:08:59
I'd be, "Where are you from?" That kind of deal.
1:09:04
Interestingly enough, man boxing is supposed to be this battalion, our last bastion of real honest ...
1:09:10
Because there's the independent system, and then there's still a heavy word of mouth system.
1:09:19
Every now and then, you'll get somebody to come around talking about, they fought, they got a record and it's just not loaded.
1:09:32
I'm like, "Okay, let's get in the ring, and see you do something."
1:09:37
And you can tell immediately.
1:09:38
That's one of the cool things about fighting.
1:09:41
There's no laws in boxing, man.
1:09:47
Everyone is, between the connection aspect ...
1:09:47
I went to a gym to meet my buddy, to just go work out with him, when I was in Vegas.
1:09:57
They answered the door, like I was serving a warrant, and I was not within my rights to enter the property, because it wasn't signed properly.
1:10:07
I had to mention who my coach was, because he was like, "You don't look familiar," because I haven't fought in seven years.
1:10:12
"You don't look familiar. I don't know your name. You fight?"
1:10:16
I go, "Yeah, man, my coach," whatever.
1:10:18
He was like, he looks, "Okay, cool."
1:10:21
I'm like, "Wow, man," but that's how it is.
1:10:26
So you get used to that, and you start figuring out who is full of it.
1:10:33
There's a great scene in The Wire where, I don't know if you're familiar with the show.
1:10:37
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Oh, I love The Wire. Yeah, great show.
1:10:39
Ed Latimore: Okay, great.
1:10:40
So there's a great scene, when Stringer is trying to go legit, and he is trying to get the money to build up the properties, and get them done.
1:10:49
Or even, he's trying to get them done, period.
1:10:51
He's already put the money in.
1:10:55
But Clay Davis keeps taking him for more money, more money.
1:10:58
Then one day, Avon is there, and he's explaining everything to Avon.
1:11:01
Avon is like, "Look, man, I don't know anything you're talking about, but pretty much, it's like I know bullshit when I hear it, right?"
1:11:09
He has no knowledge of how real estate, or commercial real estate works.
1:11:16
But he knows nonsense when he hears it.
1:11:19
After awhile, you started hearing it, it's like, "Okay, so why is that relevant?"
1:11:24
I always say, "You know you're being deceived when stuff that is relevant isn't mentioned, and stuff that's not relevant is emphasized." You want a good metric?
1:11:33
That's probably the single best one.
1:11:37
Also, James Altucher has this great test, where he says, "There's the good reason, and the real reason."
1:11:46
When you get used to that, filtering things through that ...
1:11:46
Whenever someone talks to me about their problems, I go, "Okay.
1:11:54
That sounds like a really good reason, because otherwise, why can't you do this?"
1:11:58
When I'm done, when I'm talking to Anna, she's telling me about clients that she's like, why they giving her issues.
1:12:05
I'm like, "Okay, do you even want to do this? Let, let's start there.
1:12:11
If you don't want to do it, that's the real reason.
1:12:14
It's got nothing else to do with anything else."
1:12:16
From there, you know, can figure out a solution, because if you deceive yourself, yeah, you're done. And that's the best way.
1:12:24
So, to sum all that up, things that are emphasized, that don't need to be, and things that are ignored, that need to be emphasized.
1:12:33
From there, you can figure out if someone is giving you a good reason, and a real reason.
1:12:38
Generally, the difference between the two is, the real reason is the reason, that it sounds less scientific.
1:12:45
Because people like to lean on facts.
1:12:48
It's a lot easier to say, "Oh, they're late, and they keep giving me to runaround, and it's going to cost this much," than it is to say, "I just don't want to work with that dude."
1:12:58
Like, "I just don't want to do your podcast." And that's harsh.
1:13:02
But sometimes, that's the only way to do it.
1:13:06
Otherwise, because if you keep giving the a good reason, what you do is, you keep introducing areas for a person to rebut you. Jim O'Shaughnessy: Yeah.
1:13:13
Ed Latimore: Like, "Oh, okay, yo, that's a bad day," where you keep going, "I'm tied up?" "What about this time? Oh, okay.
1:13:20
Oh, you don't have a Zoom?
1:13:21
We can just do a phone call.
1:13:22
Oh, you don't have a phone.
1:13:23
Look man, we'll do this by letter."
1:13:25
Jim O'Shaughnessy: That is fabulous.
1:13:33
I have a similar maxim, which is, "Whenever you see a wall of words, they're trying to hide something.
1:13:41
They're trying to obscure something from you, right?" Ed Latimore: Yeah.
1:13:44
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Like, with the whole collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, right?
1:13:49
You saw this huge wall of words when there was a very, very simple explanation for why that bank collapsed. Right? Ed Latimore: Yeah.
1:13:59
Jim O'Shaughnessy: And so I love that.
1:14:01
I'm going to steal that one from you because the good reason and the true reason. I love that.
1:14:11
Another thing that I read a lot about you is people say really, really nice things about you, which is great.
1:14:19
An outstanding leader, great example, internet Dad.
1:14:25
How do you feel about being cast as the father figure?
1:14:30
Ed Latimore: Look, man, here's how I think about this. Power of [inaudible].
1:14:36
Someone's going to take my place and if you don't...
1:14:46
And look, it's either going to be me or it's going to be someone with worse intentions.
1:14:53
Because I know my intentions and I think they're clear.
1:14:59
But I know my intentions are X, Y, Z.
1:15:02
You can look up my life and see I'm not going to be promoting a degenerative lifestyle or anything like that.
1:15:09
I'm going to be promoting what I know and what I do best and how I live and what people want to emulate.
1:15:20
But this is a big problem in the male role model space right now, there's a lot of guys, first of all, there's a lot of the male role models or the role models that men have for lots of reasons, let's forget the media side of it, they're terrible.
1:15:38
And guys are more or less being treated, certainly by the education institution, like defective girls.
1:15:48
And you can look at this and you can see this in the numbers of guys that are being diagnosed with ADHD versus girls.
1:15:57
We were expecting there to be a rise and that rise would be linear, but it's a lot higher in guys than girls.
1:16:04
Guys don't have the support networks necessary because they don't feel comfortable with that.
1:16:09
And we see this in the rate of suicide.
1:16:12
And there's another stat I have, because I made a presentation about pretty much how guys are being treated a certain way.
1:16:23
But it all comes down to guys need a leader.
1:16:29
Humans in general follow someone and they're going to follow the person they want to copy and emulate.
1:16:35
And then whether that be through proximity or through what you have you.
1:16:40
Yeah, you'll be followed. So for me that's fine.
1:16:45
That's fine because I think you could do a lot worse than trying to do what I've done. You can do a lot worse.
1:16:57
And then on top of that, because of that conscientiousness, man, I'm aware of that and I can't shake that.
1:17:05
So that keeps my behavior in general, I think it helps me behave better.
1:17:12
But the point is that rather than act like I don't have influence, I go, "I have influence.
1:17:19
Let me use it for something good."
1:17:23
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Yeah, that's a good way to think about it. So what's next?
1:17:31
You've got the book, you've got a son, you're doing all this stuff.
1:17:35
Do you have some more books planned?
1:17:37
A bigger- Ed Latimore: So I'm going to get through this one.
1:17:42
There's something about a contract and a due date and all that, that just makes it feel more intimidating.
1:17:50
So I'm going to get through this one and while I'm working on that one, because my goal is to sell a million copies, I think that's possible.
1:18:03
So I put together, I've just been working diligently on different aspects of said marketing plan to make that happen.
1:18:11
And I'm starting now because the book, realistically, at the earliest won't be out for another two years.
1:18:16
So that gives me two years to build up a big old marketing channel and distribution network.
1:18:23
By distribution I mean of ideas, not the product. They handle all that.
1:18:27
So that's the next thing.
1:18:29
And that means some video content, things like that, or maybe even a podcast, things of that nature.
1:18:37
Because you want to be able to...
1:18:40
You have to get the book seen and heard by people.
1:18:44
I think they got these guys with these big old lists that they get signed.
1:18:49
Because I studied where I can and learned what worked.
1:18:54
And freaking James Clear had 450,000 people on his list when he signed the deal.
1:18:59
And I think Mark Manson had 250. And I'm like, "Ugh.
1:19:02
Well, I'm not quite there yet."
1:19:05
But I know that I can get there quickly because, look, when I cut my teeth in the internet marketing game, which is an interesting skill set to bring along with actually being able to write and not just rehash your nonsense.
1:19:22
So that's going to be the fun challenge over the next two years is to continue to build this out and develop it.
1:19:29
And then other areas of my life, we'll see how much energy this takes, but I think I'm going to fight again, maybe take one or two fights.
1:19:42
If, for any other reason, but not heavyweight fights because fuck that, I'll never fight a heavyweight fight again.
1:19:48
Those guys are behemoths.
1:19:50
I shouldn't have been fighting heavyweight fights in the first place.
1:19:53
But that's how it ended up when I just happened to be a professional during the transition era.
1:19:59
So try cruiserweight fighter too and just have some fun and see where that goes.
1:20:05
And I understand the media marketing machine.
1:20:07
You want to have a good cool story.
1:20:09
The guy who's 40, well, I won't be 40, but I'll be very close to it, who's winning fights and wrote this book. Oh, there we go.
1:20:19
That's how you get in front of some people. That's how I'm thinking.
1:20:21
And on top of that, I've always wanted to try.
1:20:22
I just know more, a lot more. Boxing's weird. It's not just physical.
1:20:27
Physical is the last part.
1:20:28
You've got to have stuff up here too. So there's that.
1:20:34
And I'm really working on my chess game.
1:20:39
That's always important to me.
1:20:41
One of my goals before I die is to get a title and I should be able to get a title.
1:20:48
I don't know why I wouldn't be able to, but I have to do it right and go about it.
1:20:53
But I'm always working, playing on chess. com and working my game.
1:20:56
And this year, here's the last goal.
1:21:00
These are the goals, these are my goals. This is how I'm... I'm an artist man.
1:21:04
I'm not a crazy business dude.
1:21:08
And I want to sit and take the Spanish B2 level exam.
1:21:13
I've been preparing for that because that'll be cool to be like, "Hey."
1:21:18
Because I can use my Spanish and get around. No one would ever...
1:21:22
You can drop me any place that they speak Spanish and I'm going to be okay, which is B1 level. But B2 is a stretch.
1:21:30
That's like, "Am I going to be able to read books and watch TV without assistance?" And that's hard man.
1:21:38
It's hard because your brain has to know things very well and we don't think about that.
1:21:45
I don't know if you know any other languages, but in English, like this sentence right now I'm just saying it and you are just understanding it and there's no translation.
1:21:56
Well, you have to get to a point where you're not translating in the other language too. And sometimes you do it.
1:22:00
Even if you don't know Spanish [Spanish phrase] you know what that means.
1:22:06
But we add layers of complexity to that and ideas and it's like, "Oh, goodness."
1:22:14
But the cool thing now compared to when we were in high school is the amount of comprehensible input.
1:22:21
My Netflix alone I could use because there's always a show from Spain and YouTube and stuff. So it's a fun game.
1:22:29
I think everyone should learn a language, but just it's challenging and it's one of those skills that you can't BS it.
1:22:39
I hate the idea of copywriting and email marketing. Those are skills. I'm like, "Oh."
1:22:44
They're all kind of the same thing and not very hard.
1:22:49
But go learn another language. Go fight. Those push you.
1:22:53
Oh, my three step process for male self-improvement. And female too. Anyone can do it.
1:23:00
Learn the language to the B1 level.
1:23:05
Train and take fights for two years and live on commission for a year.
1:23:10
Yeah, you'll come out of that a very effective different human.
1:23:16
It'll be way more than just this man [inaudible] just know how to fight or know how to sell.
1:23:20
You’ll know how to connect, you’ll know how to study, you’ll know how to learn.
1:23:22
You'll have to develop a grit and perseverance.
1:23:25
You'll be a hell of a lot more social and able to connect with people because that's the only way you're...
1:23:29
You not getting to B1 level without talking to people and overcoming your apprehensions about speaking in another language.
1:23:38
So yeah, those are some of the goals, man. Nothing crazy.
1:23:42
But in terms of the book, one at a time.
1:23:46
In fact we were talking before they sign you, you have a final meeting.
1:23:50
They're like, "All right, we like the proposal. We like you.
1:23:53
Let's just have a talk and make sure we didn't make a mistake."
1:23:57
Like I come on and I say something crazy or something.
1:24:00
But during the interview, Adrian Zackheim, the guy who is the top dog at Portfolio, my agent brings up the idea of another book and he's like, "Let's just worry about this one.
1:24:18
Let's just get through this one and see how this one goes." Jim O'Shaughnessy: Yeah.
1:24:24
Well, Ed, this has been a great catch up.
1:24:27
I'm really delighted to see...
1:24:29
The other thing that I wanted to mention is I notice when you list off what your goals and what you're working on, you choose very interesting and very specific things like chess for example, that requires one part of the mind to activate that part of the mind.
1:24:50
And then fighting, you need the mind and the body, but the fighting part activates another part of your mind.
1:24:58
And then obviously languages, completely, third part.
1:25:03
So it's like you're doing this whole brain and body development, which is really cool, I think.
1:25:10
Ed Latimore: Yeah, I think it just makes you more interesting in my opinion.
1:25:16
One of the things I learned in my phase of trying to be liked rather than be respected is that people really like interesting people, they also respect interesting people. So it's a good overlap.
1:25:31
And on top of that, I get cool skills out of it.
1:25:33
I enjoy playing chess and then I get a cool little thing to put up on my wall like, "Oh, you've reached the 2200 level."
1:25:42
Because that for me is cool.
1:25:43
I really am a big fan of...
1:25:46
I think external validation of recognition of your skills is important because not for everything obviously, but you need an independent party to recognize that you can do what you say you do.
1:26:02
Otherwise, anyone can just go around and say they can do anything.
1:26:05
And when guys give me pushback, I go, "Imagine if everyone could say, 'I got my brown belt in BJJ.'"
1:26:16
No, that's a process and there's a test and everything.
1:26:21
Because people think about this in the credentials, they have a negative association of what people tend to do is when they form negative associations, they write off all the positives.
1:26:32
And one of the big positives is that it keeps the purity of the ability or the purity of the skillset and the organization or anybody that's affiliated, and back to that example, that's what Brazilian jujitsu has strived to do is make sure that it doesn't turn into a [inaudible] dojo.
1:26:57
So if someone comes to you and says, "I've been training for three years and I got my brown belt," you automatically just...
1:27:04
Nothing else they say will mean anything to you.
1:27:08
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Interesting. Interesting.
1:27:12
Well, one of the things, I don't think I was doing this when I had you on the first time, but one of the new things that caught on is that at the end of every podcast I say, "We're going to make you the emperor of the world."
1:27:26
We're going to wave a wand and we're going to make you the boss of the world for one day, you can't kill anyone, you can't hurt anyone, you can't lock anyone up, but what you can do, we're going to hand you a magic microphone and you can speak two things into it that the entire population of the world, whenever their morning, their next morning is, they're going to wake up and those are going to be the first two things in their mind.
1:27:53
And they're going to say, "You know what?
1:27:54
I'm going to start doing both of those things today."
1:27:56
What are you going to incept in the world?
1:27:58
Ed Latimore: Man, the first thing, I've never heard incept used as a direct verb. That's cool.
1:28:05
But one, the very first thing I'll do is I'll tell people that you have to entertain someone's debate and you have to do it with facts, but be polite.
1:28:20
So you don't insult but if your idea doesn't stand up to logical scrutiny, you have to discard it and take the better approach.
1:28:28
I think if people could do that, and maybe that's too extreme because there's also things you just don't like, but you have to admit that.
1:28:39
You don't have to argue, "This is why."
1:28:41
You just go, "I don't like that. I won't do that." That's the first thing.
1:28:46
I think that would go a long way.
1:28:48
And then if we could also add to that, and we could also make sure that people have to treat each other with respect, always.
1:29:01
No matter what, you have to be polite. I think you can say...
1:29:06
I don't think any situation has ever gotten worse because someone has good manners. Jim O'Shaughnessy: Amen.
1:29:15
I wrote a thread on Twitter recently saying, "I never thought I would see the day where having good manners would be an asymmetric advantage." Ed Latimore: All right. Man. Talk about, dude.
1:29:27
And that's one of those things I learned growing up.
1:29:30
You can avoid a lot of problems if you just say, "My bad," and treat people with respect.
1:29:38
But now we're in this weird world and it is the larger result of social media.
1:29:43
We're in this world where people feel compelled they can say whatever they want because there's no... I don't even say...
1:29:50
Because I'm not going to knock somebody out because they said something crazy to me.
1:29:55
But the interaction changes. Jim O'Shaughnessy: Sure. Yeah.
1:29:59
Ed Latimore: Very much so.
1:30:01
It's a crazy world we live in.
1:30:03
I can't remember what it's called in biology, but it's where you get rid of the middle curve and only the extremes are represented.
1:30:12
And on the one end you have people who only are brave who are all just disrespectful.
1:30:24
Because look, it wouldn't be a problem if people are polite.
1:30:28
No one would be saying, "Oh, man, social media has made you too comfortable giving people compliments that you can't see." That's not the quote.
1:30:35
So you get the one end, you get people who are just unbelievably rude because there are no repercussions.
1:30:45
And then on the other end, you have people who never, they immediately...
1:30:58
There's no conflict resolution at all.
1:31:01
And I think those people are more dangerous.
1:31:03
Those are the people who start riots and shoot schools up.
1:31:08
And because think about it, school shootings have gone on the rise.
1:31:13
When we used to have be in the middle, somebody could fight it out.
1:31:18
I'm not saying that's the best thing, but it's a lot better than taking a life.
1:31:23
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Totally.
1:31:24
Ed Latimore: So that's where we are.
1:31:26
And likewise, you get these people on the other end, there was no cyber bullying, that's a very new thing.
1:31:35
It's so new that even millennials are like, "Man, just turn the screen off."
1:31:38
It's not really how it works.
1:31:41
And look, my mind has changed on it dramatically.
1:31:43
It's one of those things I've got to think about now that I've got to be raising a child in this world is all the threats that exist solely on the internet and because of the internet.
1:31:56
Not that are exacerbated or agitated by, but cyber bullying is not like an extension of physical bullying because an extension of physical bullying will be if they showed up at your house and were like, "Come outside," which happened to me a few times when I was growing up. This is something new.
1:32:17
And then the best thing is, as weird as it's going to sound, but people who understand what I'm saying, who understand the data, is I have a son and not a daughter because that stuff disproportionately affects girls.
1:32:31
And also, I was watching this doc and he was talking about the problem of human trafficking in this country and these chat rooms and game rooms are prime to take advantage of kids.
1:32:45
And so pretty much, obviously my thought process is going to change as I learn more and get older and we'll see.
1:32:54
But I feel like you pretty much got to raise your kids as if the internet doesn't exist and take it away from them at every chance until they're 18.
1:33:03
And look, that sounds crazy, but I was a tutor in high school or a high school tutor from 20... When did we leave '18?
1:33:12
So from 2016 to 2018, and I'll tell you the best behaved, most adjusted students now in their twenties, their parents had all incredibly strict rules about the internet and social media.
1:33:29
One girl was telling me that she remembers when she was 14, she got caught with a Facebook and they took everything away from her for six months and never... Again, can't have one. Can't do it.
1:33:41
And another kid, she was 18 and because she was 18, and her mom just had her interact with me to set the meetings up for tutoring, but she wasn't allowed to have her Facebook or Instagram until she was 18 still.
1:33:53
So they were even willing to allow her to communicate with an adult via text, an adult male, but they'll be like, "You cannot have these tools."
1:34:03
So it's a dangerous world out there, man. Jim O'Shaughnessy: Yeah.
1:34:07
Ed Latimore: [inaudible] world.
1:34:08
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Well listen, this has been great and best of luck with the book.
1:34:13
Best of luck with, I don't think you need the luck, but with sleep at least for being a new- Ed Latimore: Yeah.
1:34:21
Jim O'Shaughnessy: And this has been great. Thank you.
1:34:23
Ed Latimore: Hey, thanks, man. It's been great too.