Modern Wisdom - #045 - Ed Latimore - A Physicist And A Boxer Walk Into A Bar

Episode Date: December 31, 2018

Ed Latimore is a writer, Physicist and Professional Heavyweight Boxer. Out of Ed's eclectic mix of interests comes a unique perspective as we discuss his background, the world of professional boxing, his journey through sobriety, alcohol in society and how to be successful on Twitter. Extra Stuff: Ed's Website - https://edlatimore.com/ Follow Ed On Twitter - https://twitter.com/edlatimore Check out everything I recommend from books to products and help support the podcast at no extra cost to you by shopping through this link - https://www.amazon.co.uk/shop/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Join the discussion with me and other like minded listeners in the episode comments on the MW YouTube Channel or message me... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ModernWisdomPodcast Email: https://www.chriswillx.com/contact Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi friends. This week I'm sitting down with Ed Latimo, he's an ex-professional boxer who's also a physicist. It's not the most typical combination of characteristics that you're going to find, he's a very interesting guy. Ed and me spoke an awful lot about sobriety, alcohol's indoctrination into modern society and how it negatively affects a lot of people's lives without them really even noticing it. We also move on to his strategies for being incredibly successful on Twitter, which will be very useful to those of you that are looking to grow your social media followings as we move into the new year. Other than that, I just found you an incredibly charming and very likable guy, he's obviously got a big message that you wanted to get across and It's nice to hear someone who's also singing from the same hymn sheet of sobriety as myself

As always please share the episode with a friend if you think that they would enjoy it And I wanted to give a special thank you to everyone that helped share the episode for relationships one of three So we landed in the top 40 world wide on the Apple podcast chart, which is ridiculous. So thank you very much. I really do appreciate it. Here is Mr. Ed Latimore. I'm fantastic, man, how are you? I'm very well, thank you. So, an ex-professional boxer who's also a physicist. It's not a combination that you hear every day. Yeah, you know, these things just kind of happen.

You know, I didn't plan. I was like, look back and go, oh man, six years ago, this was the plan, but no, it really just kind of grew and developed as a result of me taking and putting just one foot in front of the other. I didn't really know exactly where I was going, but I knew where I was leaving if that makes sense. Yeah, I totally understand.

So I mean, you've got a super interesting story, as you say, those two interests don't often mix. So would you be able to give the listeners some background to yourself and tell us your story, how you went from wherever you came from to, where you are now? Oh yeah, no problem. So I'll give you the abridged version

and about abridged, I mean, the version that starts roughly around age 27, 26, 27. I was a pretty good amateur boxer. And as I started inching closer, I was like, OK, I need to make sure I got something else to fall back on. Because I started inching closer, I was like, okay, I need to make sure I got something that I was so far back home because I started to really see, you know, the higher you get and the closer you go to being professional, you get to see kind of what the professional ranks are like business and athletics was plus, you know, plus I was fortunate in the position

I was in and that I was, I was getting a sponsor and paid pretty well, but by some pretty powerful people. So I got to see that and I said, I need a backup. And I kind of put down my back burner for a little bit and try, I got a couple of program and I moved back from where I moved back to where I lived. I lived in Los Angeles and the United States and I moved back to Pittsburgh and I was working for a while and and Going out party and every night just really being a fool and kind of ignoring the fact that I didn't have any real like way to make money other than

Just showing up and pimping out my time to a customer service rep or as a customer service rep So I won't go by say, you know what? I'm gonna join the army and they're gonna pay for school and that's what happened. And along the way, I spent 22 weeks away from everyone because of basic training and AIT, I joined the National Guard version of the military at a National Guard Division. And when I was there, I realized also that I had developed

the problem with alcohol because I wasn't around drinking for that long, and I got through really sitting and thinking alone. It wasn't a lot going on in my mind just what was around me. And so I said, you know, this is crazy. So I think I got out, I went on celebrated. One time, I got totally shit faced,

and I said, this is not how I want to go. And this is not how I want live to be. I mean, life to be. So I got sober then during school. But when I listed, I was three of know as a professional. And then I got out and I just kept going and kept going. I was originally going to become an engineer and I took my first physics class. And and I said I really want to study this, not engineering. And that's how it happened. I was fighting and going to school and in the military all the same time and looking back at it now I have no idea how I got all the energy. I was going to say that's an awful lot to pack into a day. Oh, and then, you know, my days, I remember,

I mean, there was a period of time, and I'm really grateful because I have a great, great girlfriend and she really helped out a lot, but there was a period of time, I mean, I for at least a year maybe, I just, I mean, I know it happened obviously because I'm here, but it was all a blur because I was, you know, it was wake up, go practice, go to school,

come back, oh yeah, school will practice and more come back, work on homework because physics is not some slouch subject. It was a lot of studying in a homework I had to do. And then some weekends I had to go do military things so I didn't have that time either and then I was exhausted all the way through And then I'm still trying to be like a

Reasonable social person, you know, so life is life was just just busy man That's yeah, that's one way to put it. That's definitely busy So was there was there a specific turning point where you realized obviously you'd mentioned that a period of isolation away from perhaps access to alcohol and then whatever the influences were that were encouraging you to party as well that that had highlighted that you you maybe had a problem with substances. Was there an aha moment or was it a gradual oncoming and a gradual onset of realization? Well in terms of a specific aha moment, I mean there were there were quite a few I mean and if you want to talk like real aha moment I had I had a real aha moment like like two years before I stopped drinking. It was just me being in denial for a long time.

And what really did it, what made me finally quit. It wasn't like, I was like, oh man, I'm in rock bottom. I got a bounce up. It was having a goal. I said, okay, I am now in the United States military. So now I'm subject to their judicial system and the civilian judicial. I'm trying to finish my degree and go back to school so I can make sure I have a better way to live. My professional career is developing and I had just really started a day in my girlfriend who I saw a lot of potential in and fortunate I was right

and she's still around today and we're happier to remember. And all of these things, I looked at how far I could go with them and I knew that the thing that will keep me back was really the only thing that had kept me from making moves in my life before and I was alcohol. So it was very easy for me to, it was very easy for me to see that that had to go. And I was really fortunate too because I had all that going on.

I didn't really feel the effects of not drinking per se because the biggest thing is I found talking to people is developing a new life and a new identity independent of alcohol. a new life and a new identity independent of alcohol. I mean, obviously there is a point to what you're physically dependent on the substance, but it's my experience and my observation that a lot of us, we, we fall into the lifestyle and then we miss that. We don't know how to define ourselves. We don't know how to do what life, what our booze and for a for a while. I mean, I think that was a thing that I thought about quite a bit, but also said, okay, I got other tasks I got to do. So I didn't really have, there wasn't time to waste blowing off steam. You know, I was still in and that whole like, I don't know. I mean, not really in that whole like

new relationship base, but I was really committed to my girl. So I don't know, I mean, not really in that whole like new relationship base, but I was really committed to my girl. So I wasn't trying to go out and, and, you know, chase women and anything like that. And so all of these things kind of kept me away. I had enough things pulling me in another direction that I wasn't that there was just there was no way to fall back in for at least for the first Two years maybe three really I'm coming up when you're five this December and Oh, I rather I guess in under a month to be five years sober and I know that I didn't I was fortunate. I mean, I did what I recommend everyone else do, but I did it

On accident. I feel my time with so many things different than alcohol and it forced me to develop a different life. So I would say my transition off was relatively smooth but I know a lot of guys don't like that because they miss a life, they miss a purpose, they miss a way to fit themselves. And I was trying to build a new me and I was, you know, balls deep into a lot of a lot of new stuff, man. Yeah, I get that completely.

I think an awful lot of people's reasons for drinking are their habitual and idiosyncratic rather than dependent, at least in the beginning. And then as you've, as you've alluded to there, the dependency, rather than dependent, at least in the beginning. And then as you've alluded to there, the dependency, the physiological requirement for your body to have the alcohol and to keep it going, almost comes, that's the second wave effect, which oddly is even tougher to break.

But then when you layer on top, the fact that that is your life, this is the way that you operate. This is the friendship circles that you've got in the community and what you're used to doing and the places you go and the people you see. When that is all hooked around a substance which you're also dependent on, I mean, it's no real surprise that people struggle to get themselves clean from alcohol, I don't think. Oh, for sure. And on top of that, man, we have a, we have a very alcohol. I wish I could just say alcohol friendly, right to society, but we have,

I'm not full blown conspiracy on this. The tinfoil hot song out just yet. But, but we really have a culture that promotes excessive drinking for, for teenagers and young adults. And that's a really formative time because that's where everyone is building friendships and really trying to develop the idea of who they are. And so when we intertwine such heavy drinking and that phase, I mean, they make it part of your life from 18 to 24, easily just by the fall.

You have to try to avoid it at that point. And most people just don't know for it. They want to socialize, they want to have a good time, but they don't realize how to control it really can get. I couldn't, could not agree more. I've got a couple of stories. I'll be interested to control it really can get. I couldn't, I couldn't not agree more. I've got a couple of stories. I'll be interested to hear your thoughts on them. So the first story is that I did my master's dissertation at Newcastle University in the UK. And my dissertation title was the effectiveness of anti-alcohol advertising on students at Newcastle University.

And the crux of the synopsis of what I discovered was that there's pretty much nothing which effectively reduces drinking for students. That these terrible stories after a night out are worn like badges of honor. The- Oh my goodness, I have a whole section of my upcoming book where I talk about that,

where you are, you are treated as a goddamn hero. Absolutely. For being a fool. Well, if you know, let's say, let's say that me and you were catching up next week and I've gone on a night out and you go, so Chris, how was you night out and I'm like, Ed, man, honestly, it was unbelievable. Jonathan ended up in hospital, he's lost an eye. And he's like, oh man, that's so sick. He's like, in no other scenario,

would this be somehow worn as a badge of honor? But it's a right of passage for young people to go through this excessive drinking phase. And then you can look to films like The Hangover, where this drinking to excess, the memory loss, the amnesia, all that sort of stuff. It's totally glorified. And the problem is that because, because it's so well established within our society, it's impossible for people to imagine that things could be another way. So this leads me

onto the second part of the story, which I'd love to hear your thoughts on. So recently I was doing a casting for a TV show in the UK. As a part of that, they asked me for a lot of background information from what was your relationship like with your parents to where did you go to school? What did you like doing when you were growing up? What sort of girls do you like? And blah, blah, blah, and I told them about everything. You know, it was transparent as I was prepared to be and mentioned, I like blah, and I told him about everything. You know, it was as transparent as I was prepared to be. And mentioned, oh, I like to do stints of sobriety.

I've been sober for about three months now. I did six months at the start of this year. I did six months at the start of next year. And I'm currently under doing 18 months. I like it as a tool for productivity, et cetera, et cetera. And she goes away, rings me back in a couple of weeks and says, the producers would really like to see you in London, but they've asked me to ask you a question before we bring you down. I'm really sorry, I don't want you to get offended by this, but they've

asked me to ask you and they've asked me to be very specific about the way that they're bringing it up as well. I'm like, okay, I mean, is this as one of my ex-girlfriends got in touch or, you know, like, what have they got on me here? So she says, look, I need to ask you this outright. So they've brought up the sobriety thing and they've asked me to ask you about whether or not you've ever had a problem with substances or a dependence on alcohol. And I started laughing down the phone and she was like, what are you laughing? I was like, well, firstly, I can tell you, I've, I've never had to dependents on alcohol. I'm not a massive drinker. Although I binge hard when I party as a lot of us do. Um, but what's funny is that

TV executives at one of the UK's biggest, uh, television stations cannot imagine a world in which someone would elect to not drink without having a dependence on the substance. to not drink without having a dependence on the substance? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ring true. And and really sometimes I think about that. Like how bad, you know, was I mean, I think my behavior was was just was terrible. I do think that. But in terms of like, I mean, I was never like, Oh man, I got a drink today. It just really turned into a habit that was difficult to break. And then I started to build a lifestyle around said habit. So if all intents and purposes, I mean, sure, maybe I didn't have to think about it, but I was put myself in a position

to not have to think about it. So I could just go drink whatever I want and drink as much as I want. I bring that up because I wondered sometimes, did I have a problem or was it just easier to say that to move into the next phase, right? Did I have a problem or was it just easier to say that to move into the next phase, right? To go, okay, let's treat this like it's a real big deal and attack it as such and it'll get people to kinda

look and go, because I find this out, when I say, there are two things you can say, right? My people have a very different reaction to it. It says the exact same thing. You can say, I'm not drinking tonight or I'm sober. And people question the first one. They tend to give you a bit of a nod of agreement on the second one. In fact, that usually get congratulations. What's weird. Yeah. But we really have this culture, man. Like people don't have an alternative because I really, there's no vested interest in showing people an alternative. I mean, I crunched numbers

for a chapter that I'm not going to include in my book because I don't want people We live in a climate where you can't say a lot of things and you'll see where I'm what I'm going with this And I didn't want that to be the focus of the book that particular passage because I know somebody will rip it The shreds and go I have to go for the jugular on it, but I but I crunched numbers on on alcohol abuse and its correlation with sexual assault and alcohol abuse and the income The university has received selling it at football games wherever right and it's not you know on the on the ladder It's it's not that great. I was really surprised about it actually most because they go out of their way The law enforcement kind of gets involved but on campus. It is very easy To

To get To get ever and I know over there in the UK, you know drinking aids different and this is not an issue But in the United States Many college towns and college campuses, there's a liquor store are placed by liquor in every corner. And you got to want to, I've seen so many places shut down throughout the years right here in Pittsburgh alone for serving under AIDS and eventually getting caught. Because there's just too much money involved.

I mean, you don't want to leave that alone. To the other fact, right? It was rough analysis, and I'm a physics guy. So my math isn't bad. It just wasn't as rigorous as I'd have to make it to hold up in an affixed publication. But I figured out that if you eliminated the road at alcohol, if you eliminate alcohol from the equation, right?

That you would you would effectively eliminate and I say effectively eliminate reduced to below 90% or below 10% the amount of sexual assaults on one minute and the ages of, 24 to college age group. And no one wants to discuss that because the minute you say that, you get the counter argument, you should just tell guys not to do this, it's that the other and I'm like,

look, I don't think any guy is walking around thinking. Or rather, I will say, if we were to break it down statistically, like one in 500,000, maybe one in one million guys are walking around Well, you know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna get her a drunk and rape her like I don't I don't think guys are thinking that what I think Happens is that alcohol is supposed to cloud your judgment We've got tons of studies that alcohol Ruins your ability to read an interpret cues that you would normally pick up when you're sober

and it ruins and likewise it ruins your ability to to put out the proper cues that you would when you were sober and you get two people together in the sexual parameter, lives and they're 18 and 24 and you mix in a bunch of alcohol and that's just the, I mean, that's a powder cake and we see these things happen year after year after year. As soon as I point whenever I hear when I saw it on campus, my first thought is how much were they drinking? I wonder how much alcohol I had in the system, yeah.

And then it always comes out that it was at some kind of party or some, wow. And it's crazy that you can't talk about that. And that would make a difference. Like if these people were really concerned about the safety of their children, the safety of their daughters, they would be all over that issue.

But we were so trained to not talk about, or rather we're so trained to place a victim, a place of blame on a thing that we can, we can, um, a son like a gender and these words, you can, you can personify a person a lot easy, then, then you can personify alcohol. And I think what people are looking for in these situations is they're looking for the archetypal roles, the villain, the maiden, you know, the redeemed, et cetera, et cetera., etc. They want to be able to personify. I recently went to go and see Jordan Peterson live

and he spoke about this personification of objects within culture and why does Thomas the Tank Engine have a face? Like, he's a Tank Engine. He doesn't need a face. He doesn't need a face. He doesn't need a name. But he kind of does because we need to know what sort of a person Thomas is,

despite him obviously not being a fucking person like he's a tank engine but the same with this we need in news stories there needs to be this personification and you're totally right with what you say that I think the main problem is that we can't it's the wood hiding amongst the trees with regards to this alcohol problem. Right, you know, it's funny that the title of the chapter was the drunk elephant in the living room. No. And I decided that I don't wanna put it in

because I don't wanna be able to miss the other things that I'm trying to talk about and offer to people and you know, a way to look at your behavior and you know, get through and get through the emotional distress, I think, the sobriety because that was very surprising. Yeah, that's, it's harrowing that that's the case, but we've all been there. We've all been in a situation where we've had too much to drink and our judgment has been skewed, and we've made a mistake. Now, very few of those situations

will result in a sexual assault, but you know, it could have occurred. You've maybe lost your temper at a cabab guy or you've walked out of McDonald's without paying or you've stepped out into the road when you weren't looking, but there wasn't any cars coming on. Maybe there was some cars, you know, I mean, like all of these situations are lapses in judgment. And the reason that they occur and that you continue to drink to excess is because for every drink that you have, it makes not having a subsequent drink more difficult.

Alcohol is an inhibition reduction echo chamber as far as I'm concerned, like a Bayesian update and gone wrong, if that makes sense Not now that dude. That's uh, that's brilliant. No, I put it into the physics physicists vernacular there for you No, no, I totally agree and until we can have That conversation and I don't I don't I'm not completely giving up on humanity conversation and I don't I'm not completely giving up on humanity, but I do understand and I'm not I'm not blind to the fact that there is very clearly in

a very real agenda and and it's hurting people. It's not helping. It's hurting. Now you know I'm not I tell people tell him. I'm not anti alcohol. What I am is I am, I'm anti, it's a ritual reckless in this man. Like it's just stupid man. We drink to excess and and celebrate it. I think about all the times that I, you know, I'm just lucky to be here. I just wrote in my email sent out to my email list today to another universe, the coin lander on another side. I'm doing multiple jail sentences and my name is running. I'm lucky. That's all I am. It's lucky. Not everyone else is going to be so

lucky. As long as we rely on what I mean, who who started to teach people how to drink responsibly because we've created this culture where you know, you got a snake and get drinks and then if it didn't you want to be crazy and bad, what did him. Then the people who don't drink are treated like outcasts and most humans are not equipped mentally or emotionally to deal with that. So they came and then they want to fit in. It's just a spiral of ridiculousness that isn't going anywhere. What's one more reason that the university system needs to die, but it's a secondary one. I think it's

interesting to talk about the fact that there are these unseen consequences so to speak. One of the problems I had, so my background, I'm a club promoter, I run club nights, you know, I've had probably near to a million people come through the events that I've run in the last 12 years or so with my business partners. So you could argue that I'm at the tip of the spear when it comes to delivering this rhetoric to students, but never once in any of the marketing promotions that we put out have we said to drink to excess. We're very, very careful and licensing are also very careful of keeping a watch on what it is that we communicate to these students. So, where is this rhetoric of excessive drinking coming from? Oh, it's just, it's just, here's what I'm not sure about.

I don't wanna speak for the rest of the world, but I do understand that a lot of the, for lack of a better phrase, the generosity norms are common in the UK and the United States right now. So as far as this excess goes, I think it's a derivative of our consumerism, our consumer's mindset.

We're very much about more and not just more, but more on display. You know, a lot of these kids don't sit in their dorm rooms and kill a six pack alone, right? They go out and they do it. What a bunch of other people is part of an acceptance ritual. And a lot of that comes from us being, I would argue not trained very well at connecting with other people as well. So it's really a perfect storm. I think one, we have this incredible display culture and we have tribalism. We want to fit in. We don't want to fill alone. Alcohol started as a way to do that. And then it just it just evolved. You know, one people keep trying to do it out. I would do one another to where not every fret has some kind of

binge ritual. And the net spills out into the mainstream. We got money involved. So I would do one another to where now every fret has some kind of binge Rich one the Nats spills out into the mainstream. We got money involved. So now there is there is You know, you can't come right out and say Go drink a lot and then drink some more you can't come right out and say that But but that just has made the market is even more clever, you know, yeah It got you to, you know, we look at the way I don't know how cigarettes are handled over there But you can't have cigarette commercials here in the United States anymore say for a long time For a long time, right? There was a big deal about Joe camel and and Joe camel the cigarette got a mage will pill the children

A mage will pill the young adults is a camel with a leather jacket on and these sunglasses Walking around smoking, you know, so so well you're not telling people go smoke We are we are associating images of coolness not as a whole media behind because there's money behind it I mean they realize that if we get you to drink this and your movie will pay you and then the writers make it great Because that's what they do to writers and directors. And so people go, oh man, that was a great time. Let me emulate that. Yeah, I think you totally right.

It's a lot more subversive when you see it delivered through the culture in that kind of a manner. And that to me, that almost below the line, delivery through popular culture rather than the sort of top down above the line rhetoric from the advertisers directors where it appears to come from. But I can also see as someone who's interested in creative pursuits, I can also see that if you cast the hangover, but you get rid of the drinking, or if you have a bad boy, biker, hero in some film, but he's having a vegan smoothie before he goes to shoot someone, it loses its edge a little bit. There's a role that alcohol needs to play in popular culture, and unfortunately, again,

we're kind of stuck in this echo chamber where there's nothing else that can fit it. You know, it changes the character. If you take him from saying, well, this particular character who has lost his family and is on a path of revenge is drinking heavily every night and then waking up in the morning to go and trying good people down.

If you swap, if you swap that for that same guy's micro-dosing LSD or like, you know, morning to go and try and gun people down. If you swap that for that same guy's micro dosing LSD or like, you know, smoking weed or taking fucking CBD tinctures or something, like the dynamic changes too much and it destroys the story. So there's culpable deniability on the side. And also I think genuine deniability on the side of the people that are writing these rhetoric's in, but it's a vicious circle because unless you can step in at some point, that's never going to stop. Yeah.

And so, you know, we already know what happened in this country. We probably ran one of the best natural experiments in history, destructive, but one of the best. We know what happens when you ban alcohol. We witnessed that. We had the 18th of my men, the 21st of my men. It was that bad that it got put in 20 men men. And it's the only reason why we know people

like Al Capone are, the only reason. So when I got a ban it, and it's too much money involved, and it's going to continue to subvert culture as a result. So the best thing you can do is, you know, I'm a big believer in the top down, you know, from the generation and working with your kids and showing them a good way to live. I have a unique perspective because, you know, I grew up around a mom that did drink a lot and that he, well, he didn't drink that much. But I actually have no idea how much you drank. You know, I wasn't around a mom that did drink a lot and that he what he didn't drink that much.

But I actually have no idea how much you drank. You know, I wasn't around them that much. But alcohol was very much a part of my life growing up, but not so much in my girlfriend's life. And it's so interesting to see little things. Like show have a glass of one. And when I say show up a glass of one, I mean, show have a few sips from a glass

and then it'll sit there until I clean it. And I'm like, and I look at it and go, how can you not finish that? That's weird. And it's because, you know, she grew up in a house where they promoted different values and there wasn't this kind of consumerist, excessiveness, and certainly there wasn't much alcohol.

I mean, what is going to come down to if we're going to do anything about this situation. And most of the first people got to see this situation, which I don't think they ever, they're ever going to do 100% in mass. But if they did see it, then the only solution, the one that will not result in a large severe negative externality in reaction like the days of prohibition is that it's got to start at home with the families. Man, it's got to start with how you raise your children

on what you showed them and how you develop their abilities and disciplining competence, all those good things. But we're horrible. That's not going to happen it's probably I haven't been to a college party in man shit man for tonight was maybe 26 I don't know 26 or 12 so I don't know how bad or how crazy the campus is getting all I see are the extreme news stories when they hit and you know that's like the airplane crash or flight effect or availability heuristic I think is the official name so

I don't know how bad it really is but if I had to take an educated guess based on what I can see and the ears I have kind of that level oh you know it's certainly a little better than when I was in my 20s Easily worse and now Now with social media, I mean everybody wants to be a star. It wants to tag a brand Everyone's to show off and you know, you know, we were I don't know how old are you? I'm 30 Okay, so you're you're about I'm 33 so you're you're roughly at the same era You know when we were assholes we assholes, and then you could forget about it unless you were a really, really big one like you went to jail or something.

Yeah. And then later on, you know, you probably were a little more in this than I was. You know, I sent my fair share of drunk texts, but that was later in my drinking like, you know, 24 or 25 Now though man you're a full man. It is it's out there and and not only but it's not treated the way it should be treated You know, yeah people don't but there's no one looks to themself next one go. Oh my god I've got to stop they go holy shit like you said that was awesome. I mean Think that everyone needs to remember is that you are only ever one email away from TMZ or World Star Hip Hop. Yep, that's it. One email, one email and a couple of million people see what you got up to last night.

So you totally right, the external accountability and the stakes have been raised an awful lot more because of the level of connectivity that the world's got that, you know, what you or me would have had to have done 12 years ago to have made the news like it would reach people. It would have had to have been a Armageddon level drinking ex-escapade. But now, you know, you can reach an equal number of people that probably the mainstream news reaches with a viral video. Like we've all got a friend that randomly, they cat did something funny and got a Ted stuck

in a piece of bread or do you not mean like the fact that you can reach that volume of people is obviously it's a platform, but on the flip side of that it's also a real concern. So on the topic of the platform of social media, we're going to move on to your thoughts on Twitter, which I'm super excited to get into. But I've got one thing that I wanted to book in the conversation with alcohol about, actually two things. Firstly, if someone was considering taking a stint of sobriety to see

how they get on, have you got any first step tips that you would give them to aid them moving through that initial period, that transition phase? Man, you two things. One, you're going to have to spend time with different people. I've gone back and forth about this in my mind over the past five years. And ultimately, if you're serious

and you want to try a different lifestyle, you're not going to get support from the people who are still in set lifestyle. It's just, it's not going to happen. People aren't on that way. Your existence and your action will force a type of reflection that people are ready to make. I think the biggest mistake I made when getting sober was asking my friends what they thought. Of course they're drinking with me.

They're not going to admit they're wrong. I mean, very rarely they're going to be like, you know what? We are fucked up. We need to know that. No, that's not happening. No, right? So if you want to get sober, man, if you want to try it out, you're going to have to just accept that your friend group, for a moment, ain't your friends, go do some else,

make a new group, have some fun, explore yourself, and at least, went to the other thing, you gotta immerse yourself in the task, that demands energy, because it's very easy to say, I worked very hard today, I'm gonna go on, have a drink. I actually did have that thought quite a bit, but when you're exhausted from working on stuff, you know, you got promises and commitments, but really when you're

exhausted, even if you tell yourself, but when you tell yourself it's temporary, it's very easy to just go, okay, it's over, right? I mean, I didn't give myself a temporary out. It was just, all right, I'm done. But if someone wanted to try and see how it adapt, that how they went with it, they need to be busy. They really need to be busy otherwise. It's gonna be very easy to say, oh, I did really well today. I'm gonna celebrate with a drink. Yeah, or I had a bad day and I'm gonna use it as an anesthetic

or as a pill or as the equivalent of something to dampen that mood down, I suppose, which again, I like the idea of having having a newfound purpose and something to put that energy into. It's a reason to get yourself up in the morning and it's also a reason to put yourself to bed at night without having had a drink. If you know that you've got to get up and you've got to perform the next day, in whatever had a drink. If you know that you got to get up and you got to perform the next day, in whatever, whatever value it is that you've chosen is worthwhile. If you know that you need to do that, then you don't want to drink the night before because you want to be fresh because you're excited about performing to you the best of your ability the next day.

Yeah, absolutely. So the final thing I wanted to touch on was I had a discussion with Michael Kaju, who is the CEO of Brute Strength. Now, Michael took his first drink of alcohol when he was 9 years old, had a very heavy substance abuse to class A drugs and alcohol by the age of 14 was in and out of rehab and then went on to become the fittest man in the world, two years in a row at the CrossFit Games, as part of the affiliate cup. Now he owns the probably the biggest CrossFit programming company on the planet, which is brute strength.

And I talked to him about his thoughts on sobriety and it was very interesting to hear that what he said, or one of the things that he touched on, was that he feels like beating an addiction or beating a dependency isn't simply no longer taking the substance. It's the ability to reintroduce that substance on your terms. Now, I've spoken to Dominic McGregor, who's the COO of social chain, which is UK's largest and probably the world's largest social media agency also had some pretty big substance problems that came on much later in life much more recently and now he's in his about two years clean I think from all of

those and he wasn't he didn't fully agree he felt that you can have control of the substance by still not letting it in but I'd be interested to hear what your thoughts are on that. The reintroduction of the substance on your terms is time. Nah, man. You know, here's what I'll say. No one, no one decides to get sober because they had a great experience most of the time and they had a few bad ones, right? That's just a regular night of drinking, learning, your limits. No, man, my thoughts are this once, you

know, I always say, here's what I always say, I say, you know, as far as my privilege of alcohol is concerned, I lost that privilege in this life. That, you know, and I want to keep it that way. I, you have to leave it behind. You have, you make that decision because you know, the bad things happen, you know, and you got to remember, it's not even so much a situation of excess. I always say, look, if you start doing dumb shit under the influence, you know, the alcohol is working.

There's no, there's no minimum effect of doses or anything. We like to tell ourselves that, but we gotta remember, it's still at the end of the day. In just some of this, suppose to alter what we think and alter our judgment. I don't think, if you realize that you cannot do that, to the point where you have to commit yourself to a program or you have to commit yourself to a program or you have to make a vow of never touching it. There is no reintroduction to that. Like, you know, I just, I 100% fly out disagree because if you get to the point where you

feel like you need to quit, then you don't have control. There's no control over it. What I will say to that though, is if you scale back, if you think, like I was saying earlier, I'm not sure if I had a pure addiction or not, what I knew is that it was severely affecting me and no more, I don't want those effects. Now, if I made it and I was the man,

and I decided to go have a drink, what does that do? Does it is a good or bad? But at some point, it depends on the level of commitment. How committed are you to it? Also, I suppose as well how much of a problem is it? Because, you know, for me, alcohol or sobriety, the removal and the abstinence of alcohol, for me, is more a tool for productivity. I've never, I've never had a dependency. Very fortunately, I'm around a lot of friends

that have been touched by that kind of a problem. but for me, that's never been the case. So when I'm looking at my sobriety in particular, I can see it a lot more through the eyes of someone that's elective rather than necessative, if that makes sense. It's not an necessity for me to do it. It's me choosing to do it. In the same way as someone saying,

okay, I'm gonna make sure I get eight hours sleep and I, okay, I'm going to make sure that I eat five bits of fruit and vegetables a day or whatever it might be. So I think that maybe on that side, there's a number of different sort of unique approaches, but I think... What's interesting is that a lot of people will be suffering a net negative from alcohol consumption, but may not be doing it that regularly. You could go through your entire life netting a negative from alcohol, but never actually having anything go that wrong. Right.

You're just damaging your health, you waste a bit of time, you don't really develop any passions that are outside of drinking, your weekends get wasted, and before you know it, you kind of don't really develop any passions that are outside of drinking, your weekends get wasted, and before you know it, you're 60. And you're like, you know, and for some people here, you know, and that's another thing. That's why I find it really interesting that that particular guy said that because that's really interesting to me. Yeah, you know, my personality was such that or rather is such that I just, I mean, I just wanted more for my life. And now at this point in, I think I just, I couldn't imagine what I would get from it.

I mean, I think I'm the coolest person. Most people are going to meet and I know that alcohol makes me less cool. Like, like, I'm not as sharp. I'm not as interesting. Yeah. I'm not as sharp. I'm not as interesting. Yeah. I'm not as controlled And so it comes down to the image that I've kind of learned to develop of myself Independent of the substance so so I wouldn't even have and I'm sure my argument is Is filtered through that but I wouldn't even have a desire at this point to the drinking it You know, well, what would I get out of it?

Man, I couldn't agree more. So I announced a little Facebook state. So I kept my sobriety stents quite quiet for the first two, but did a little bit of a song and dance about it. Because I know that it kind of does inspire other people, at least make them think about drinking. That was interesting to hear people's responses. And someone asked me for the reasons why I wasn't drinking anymore. And the number one reason, the very, very top reason that I had was I have nothing left to learn from alcohol. Right, there is nothing left that the substance has to teach me.

And it's like, if you read a book so much that you knew it verbatim, reading the book kind of defeats the object. It's like, I've seen, I know the pages, I know the fonts, I understand where this bit's creased, I understand what it feels like when I get to the end and when I start at the beginning, like, you know, it's, move on to a new book with regards to that. Yeah, you know, it's just a new phase. I mean, you're right. I mean, in an Amigur too, maybe that's what I needed

to put the book down was that period because now it's just, I look at that period of my life like, man, I wasted so much time. I learned some lessons, but mostly wasted time, you know, right now, down. Let's get on, let's get on with it and get on, you with it and be productive. Do some cool stuff.

Yeah, I think what's to finish on that, what's super interesting is that you've talked about the fact that being sober makes you more interesting person, which is so counter to what most people would perceive. Oh, yeah. Because I know. On your blog at the moment, haven't you got something about how to be fun whilst being sober? Yeah, oh yeah on your on your blog at the moment. I've you got something about like how to be fun whilst being sober. Yeah. Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, it's to the point like, I'm, I just, I have just such a good, strong extroverted personality.

There's no other way around that I'm just, I'm just already outgoing and already interested in life. So I'm not, I don't, I don't need it, you know, I don't need it anymore. And so I try to build a life independent of it. And I have a great time with it. Well, you know, it's nice to see that someone who, you know, is a completion and is getting things done. I think one of the main things that we need to do, if we are going to kind of open up people's eyes to the topic of sobriety for, you know, elective sobriety almost we could call it as opposed to kind of necessative sobriety.

One of the things that we're going to have to do is have people who are in, you know, your aspirational role models. You don't want to see some guy who's hooked up to a machine with jaundice and fucking liver failure and go, well, look at this guy. He went sober and it saved his life. And you're like, right, yeah, but first off, I don't want to be in the situation that that guy was in. Sorry, is in. And secondly, I'm not in the situation that he was in.

So it was just, there's too much of a gap for people to leap their cognitively. So hopefully this will have opened some people's eyes. I wanna move on to Twitter and your relationship with Twitter. Would you be able to explain to the listeners what your thoughts are on Twitter, please? Oh, man, I think Twitter is like magic. I don't know. I have this this thing

I've been thinking about lately Which is that the world we live in today is so far banned that You couldn't even if you were a writer in like say 1900 you couldn't even imagine What did like you're your science friction wouldn't create this because you couldn't see this at all even in your imagination it's just so crazy and Twitter is one of those things man you know i say a thing i put a thought out and people share the thought like you can spread a message around the world and like, I mean,

in under, in under 30 minutes, I mean, it's faster than any method of propagation because of the way they set up. It's just one giant growing, self-sustaining, Metcalf, low-biting network. And it is just cool. I love it. I've spent a lot of time and energy figuring out how to maximize the use of this platform. And I think I think it shows and the follow-up current and the engagement and now to live when I make off of it. I think it's just the best thing ever. And you know, Twitter goes away, somebody will come up with something because this idea

of sharing across barriers, like you don't have to follow me to see what I say, but if you like what I say, you can follow me. No other platform structure that way. Just listen. I mean, I write about this, I got a new book coming out and a set of, and of course, along with it afterwards, what I talk about this exact thing that makes Twitter so powerful with it, you can, you can share ideas. No other platform let you do that. And in sharing ideas, you can motivate, you can inspire, you can draw

people in, you can antagonize, you can do whatever you want. I mean, well, you can motivate, you can inspire, you can draw people in, you can antagonize, you can do whatever you want. I mean, you can do whatever you want. I mean, because they've been- The good sums of service, yeah, exactly. All right, but my thought about the terms of service, I mean, he's working playing about, you know, sensitivity and you can't say this because of censorship. And that's never been an issue for me because that's not why I want to use something that's powerful. You know what I mean?

Like, that's really how I feel about it. I'm not saying people should be restricted from saying whatever they want to. What I'm saying is that why would I spend my time when this platform just shit posting and trolling? It's so much more than that. If I want to do that, take over to Facebook and bother some people.

Here, I'm sitting here, and probably the reason you know about me, and so many other people know about me, is because I have thoughts, and I understand how to craft them, and I just put them out, I press a button and then I can amass a group of people where I'm here. I'm not interested in violating the terms of service because that's not my stick. I'm not a shocked doctor.

I'm not, I don't talk about problems, I'm a politics, I mean, I hate politics. Personally, it's just, it's just a very, it's a very powerful tool. It's like, it's like the way I see the Twitter CEO, you know, and these bands and put these words in it, I'm just, this is not my, my, I'm only, I don't think Jack is doing a good or bad job. I think Tom will tell, but what I do know is that

this is a very powerful technology. Probably more powerful than most people realize, because behind any machine are people. And this is the ultimate tool for connecting and finding people. So what I think he's doing is trying to be a guardian of the new magic before we abuse it and like lose it. That's analogy I will go with. Now whether he's making the best decisions on, you know, on guarding it is a different debate, but I think that's how he sees his role, maybe not consciously, but he certainly understands that he is the steward of a thing that can.

I mean, and we'll change the world. I mean, it's changed individual lives, which means as a collective, it's going to change large groups and change the world. Absolutely. So you touched on that you'd come up with some effective strategies for Twitter. Would you be able to lay out some key elements of that framework for the listeners who might want to think about growing their Twitter following or look at some principles on what's most effective? Right above all things man you have to give people a reason to want to see your words but like

because at the end of the day that that's all it means like right now I'm looking at my screen. That's 62.1 K underneath my followers. All that means that I've given those people that many people reason to follow and listen to me. I provided value. I've given them something that helps them. Something that they didn't know. Something to help some make some feel a certain way or think a certain way that they find favorable. At the end of the day, if you want to grow, you have to give value. And I can't stress that enough. Many people when they start on this platform, they don't, they don't realize that the, that if you want, it's like, it's like real life. If you want people to follow you, you give them reason. you know, why should you be my leader? I mean, well, that's why they may need to call it followers, right? But

We want to look at that right, you know, well, why should we let you lead us? What are you? What have you done? What are you say? What have you shown to be To separate you from the rest of these other jokers out here who are putting up pictures of women and cats and trolling and stuff like that. What do you bring to the table? So, it's the number one thing. Number one, the number two things you have to get people to see that you add value and the only way to do that, I've grown my following from scratch and I did that. I didn't ask anybody to follow me. I didn't I didn't pay for play nothing like that right this all is a real people and And the engagement shows I do about 25 million impressions a month. Let me tell you I started like every other account starts and I grew because I identify people that I already looked up to and liked and

Then the people who were already following them I followed a few of them and they were saying something good And then I will quote tweet whatever they you know things that they say and add value to it when you do that You that they see that you did it first and then they can decide if it's worth retweet or not. And then as you read as they retweet it as soon as you have added some gray value, then other people are going to see it. And then it just grows and grows. I have an article how to grow your total following and I got a screenshot. I don't even remember the program I used on the website that showed the growth of my following from

beginning to now. it plotted on a time to follow a graph. And you can see it's a nice exponential curve. The way you would think it looks, it starts out growing slow, slow, slow, and then it gradually gets a steeper, steeper slope. All right. And so now I'm gaining about 2000 followers a month I was on a streak for for for 11 months where I gained at least 2000 followers and I haven't gained less than 15 hundred for our two less than 1500 followers in a month I haven't gained less than that probably over two years. I have to go back and see and it will be quite some time so and and and at the basic strategies the same. Advile you, add value, give, give people a reason to follow you.

Make them think about them. Make them feel certain things. How light, how light up a part about life or your life, take from your experiences and once you've learned and repackage it and put it out there. There's so many different places to get lessons that you should not run out of. You should not run out of ways to add value. Really, realistically, the only limitation you're going to have is like,

who's presenting your information through their network, right? Which means at the beginning you got to follow on people not not more but you got to follow with decent amount of people You got to follow more people than you then follows you and then they put your stuff out and they go Oh, this guy says some things. Let's go follow him. Yeah, and then they keep tweeting on and then you just keep growing and growing and growing I mean, it's really it it's really beautiful, man. If you do it right, you'll just keep sprouting up. I mean, next year at this time, I'm going to paste that a little under 140,000 followers. That is not insignificant. Because it's a good platform, man.

You're, you're, you enable yourself to reach and awful lot of people. I think, I think what's cool there is what's accurate there is the fact that you've focused on the fact that you need to add value. And I think what people need to, what people want to hear is, well, this is the golden ratio of following to unfollowing or that all that you need to do is X, Y and Z. But obviously the whole point is to come up with content which is engaging in which resonates with people and that requires you to actually think quite hard and be creative and be original with stuff and add your own flex. That's not an easy thing to write down on a piece of paper.

You know, there's all kinds of, when you look out like, look at influencers on ways that grow Twitter. I mean, people don't like that. They don't know what I'm really right about in the mainstream because it's not easy. It is the hardest platform to grow on because you are judged. I mean, let this be, you know, a commentary on the minds of humanity. Have you want to take it? You are judged by the caliber of your words. And, you know, at first and foremost, not as other things behind that that I think are are equally as important are like are very close,

particularly the image you before, than your authenticity. Like, you know, I always say, I'm the most undocvable man on the internet. You can literally go look up my address if you wanted to with the boxing commission. And I regularly give it to people that want to mail me stuff. I'm not, you can't do anything to me. Doxing was the time, I'm going to get you in prison.

Like, you know, you go get my social security number or my credit card. Yeah, you go on a gel for that though. But everything else, I'm just not worried about that. And that is the authenticity I put forth on a platform, which I know works for my advantage. You know, people feel like they can talk to me and then whenever I have a chance, or if I'm in a city, and someone says, Hey, I see you're here, here, here, would you like to meet up? I always take the opportunity because I'm very grateful because when you have, when you can reach those many people, it's impossible to be broke. I mean you really have to try like

I'm not saying you know you got a ball out of control. I'm certainly not I mean I make a modest living but But they know how difficult whoa how does the business survive itself things and what is it? Sell things the people and so it needs to market and advertise. I have an incredibly powerful organic platform plus I only give out things that are viable. I built them such a so much trust only discussing things that are viable and writing things that help people that if we know when I create a thing it's not really an issue. Like I don't even I mean I it's a sooner point you know guys have said like, dude, you know, you make a killing with the paid ads and guys are always trying to give me a to affiliate and promote a thing. And I, and I have to be very, very

selective because what they don't understand is that the moment I affiliate something, I'm putting my authenticity and reputation on the line. If you have a garbage product, not only are you not gonna make any money from that, I'm gonna look bad for a little, I'm like I'm trying to fleece people. There's always gonna be people who have a problem with you making money.

That is weird as that is. But I don't wanna give those people fuel. I don't wanna fleece anyone in the first place. I don't wanna promote a shoddy product. I turned down way more things than I promote. And I only promote what? Well, yeah, I only want like three things. Four occasionally when a buddy of mine

dropped something in it, because he would change my life. I use it to change my life. So yeah, but yeah, aside from all the technical stuff which we could get into that I'm going to put together in my upcoming book and course that I'm working on about, you know, how to write and how to structure things and different ways to weight the words and take your experience and transmute it to a highly engaging tweet. At the end of it all, if you do nothing else, you can make a lot

of mistakes in your formatting, your word balance, your word choice. But if you deliver value, you'll grow. You may not grow as fast if you make the tweet perfectly balanced or avoid repetition of words, but you will grow. I think that's a good way to put it that focusing on the small stuff or sweating the small stuff is a surefire way to actually not get yourself off the ground. I like what you said about not compromising and not doing, not choosing to affiliate yourself with products that you don't fully believe in. That's the same for myself. We have a series that all of the listeners will know, which is Lifehacks. And as a part of that, that is not affiliated with anything that we ever feature, and we're

just completely transparent about websites or apps or approaches or techniques or products that assist us in our life. And it's stuff that we actually use. And sometimes we'll use it for a bit and then get rid of it and do you know but it's it's genuinely it's a manifestation of a solution to a problem that we have found and I think phantom street which is one of my favorite blogs the oh yeah I love that blog shame parishes a absolute animal any of the listeners who want something to get it yes you had me on the by by flew down from Toronto for one day, recorded and then flew back.

I was on the monitor. Monster. So is that out on the knowledge project yet? Yeah, it's been out for a little while, about a year, maybe a little less. Fantastic. I'll make sure that I put the link to that in the show notes below as well.

But there's a really cool media article by Herbert Lew, which says, why phantom street optimizes for loyalty, not page views? And that playing the long game, which Shane talks about so much and focusing on adding as much value as he can, it's such a undervalued way of getting to the top because everyone wants the same as, you know know you were talking before we before we came on air about how you just go into the gym and you'd hit the heavy bag or whatever you know people don't want to have to go to the gym and hit the heavy bag they want the five minute abs workout at home and the and the pill that gives it to them and in exactly the same

way as this is why I think one of the one of the major attractions of reality TV at the moment is that it gets people from no platform to huge platform without actually having to cultivate any added value in the interim. You don't have to craft a character or prove any sort of worth. All you have to do is exist and as a byproduct of that, people are interested in your existence. So, you know, people are interested in your existence. So, you know, operating and optimizing for loyalty and not page views is a sure-fi way to get yourself a tribe that will follow you. I think what's cool now is we're starting to see things stratify out into different sorts of media. So, you know, if you're good on video, then you go to YouTube, and if you're good with words and short form bits of kind of maxims and aphorisms and that sort of stuff, if you're good on video, then you go to YouTube. And if you're good with words and short form bits of kind

of maxims and aphorisms and that sort of stuff, then you go to Twitter. And if you're good with imagery or you're a good looking guy or a good looking girl or you have the nice mise en scène or however it is, then you go to Instagram. You understand what I mean? So these mediums and now you don't have to be a jack of all trades. You know, most people have got one of each or at least two of the three big, big platforms.

But if you're very, very successful, if you're good, if you're good with words and you can articulate yourself well, then, you know, go on Twitter or start a podcast. If you find that you're particularly good, if you know, if you're ridiculously, really, really, really good looking, then you can go on Instagram or you can, if you're a photographer, you go on Instagram, et cetera, et cetera. So it's nice that you've found yourself, you've crafted a arena for you where you're surrounded by people. I mean, you know, Shane Parish, like if you follow Shane Parish, Nicholas Talib, Jordan Pete and Sam Har Harris, Shapiro.

If you follow a group of guys like them and yourself, the volume of wisdom that you're getting hit with, it's in the fucking PSIs, isn't it? It's like a 16 bar pressure of wisdom that's just coming out you on a daily basis. And you don't need to look online. If you had Twitter and Medium, I reckon that you'd probably be able to grow yourself into an absolute monster of an intellect in no time at all.

Oh, absolutely, because they add value. Yeah. There are always adding value, so there's never a dull moment between, you know, you can get on, I mean, I really love phantom street as a result of seeing to live on on Twitter. I picked up his books, you know, and I'm, I'm loving his books. So, so what that's what it is, I mean, but, but think about this, this is what I always point out too. One of the things that really things that really helps you grow is life experience. And you know, the more you've experienced outside of Twitter, you know, the more likely people are going to follow you. It's like, you know, you can't get famous from social media. That's not, we don't want to play that game,

right? What we want to do is we want to go and develop ourselves and have a lot built up on a lot to say and then come and deliver valuable perspectives on it. Or just in life in general. I mean, I know I'm the beneficiary of the halo effect. People go, oh, this guy, he boxed professionally and he got a physics

degree and he wrote some books. Oh, we got to follow him and it just, it looks better. I mean, it looked at the very least, you know, people aren't going to go, what are you doing here? Wow, who cares about you? It's like, well, I'm here because I earned it. Why are you here? Yeah, I couldn't agree. What I think what's cool there is saying that, saying that you shouldn't aim to get famous through social media, that the fame should come as a byproduct is exactly the same as saying, your body should not be the purpose of your training routine. It should be a byproduct of it. You know, you should train hard.

You should do what you like to do and you should put in the time and the effort. And then when you look in the mirror it shows. If you reverse it and you aim for the top of the mountain then you get lost along the way. There's this cool, a really cool quote that you talk there about why should people listen to you? And everyone wants to be able to expedite their route to success, right? They want to be able to, where's the shortcut?

What's the, you know, Ed Lathamore's five quick tips for, you know, Twitter success. They don't want to hear that you need to tweet. I mean, am I right in thinking you've had like, you do like a thousand tweets a month, something like that. Yeah, but yeah, between 1,500 is generally were awful. So, I mean, that's, that's fucking terrible. That's like 30 to 40 a day. That's a massive volume. People don't want to know that they have to put that work in. So, I mean, that's fucking terrible. That's like 30 to 40 a day. That's a massive volume. People don't want to know that they have to put that work in, but for people to talk about why should they listen to you,

there's a quote by Johann Wolfgang von Goff, which says, all truly wise thoughts have already been thought a thousand times, but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again, honestly, until they take root in our personal experience. And what I think this refers to is the fact that there isn't a shortcut to getting life experience, like without context or buy-in, even the most enlightening concepts don't resonate. That's why your life doesn't change when you see one inspirational quote on Instagram,

it needs to be part of a big narrative, it needs to be part of a big narrative, it needs to be part of a bigger picture. And, you know, seeing one out of context, quote, it's not enough. It's immersing yourself in good content, like you say, people who add value, guys like yourself and Shane and Nick Talib, and you know, like those, the volume of,

I can't get over what I look at when I look at my Twitter feed, I actually unfollowed everybody on my Twitter and I'm now following 30 people. Oh, awesome. Which was, for me, it's just a much more curated news feed. You know, a lot of the time what my friends are putting on there that it's retweets,

like my friends are my real friends, I have them on Facebook and that's great. But what they put on Facebook is usually stuff that's actually meaningful. I bought a new house, I've got a new car, me and the Mrs are getting married. What they posted on Twitter was just like, drop, like fucking, it was just, like, dissolving my brain. Because I think for a lot of people, Twitter's kind of the, it's the last thought, the bottom of the wrong, for many people, because it's a little bit more nuanced, and the fact you've only got a limited number of characters means that you kind of need to work a bit harder as well.

So, yeah, man, I mean, I am sorry to my friends that I've been followed, but I've got you on Facebook for a good reason but you were posting shit. And you know I post, I also post shit but you don't need to follow me. So I've absolutely loved today. I'd, when is, you've got a number of projects on at the moment. Tell us the timeline of what's coming up at Elmer? The big main, I guess, two big main things. One is my book about the transition to sobriety.

I call it sober letters to my drunk self. And I wrote that. I mean, as the title suggests, I wrote it just a series of essays that I wish someone had wrote to me five years ago and put it together. Now we're really moving along, which is what's great. The last thing is I just got to get, I guess two last things. I get the final file to upload to Amazon and I got to go record the audio, because now

I understand. I mean, more people just do the audio thing and I'd be full-list to not do it that way especially with this kind of book So there's that and I want to release that on my sobriety date, which is December 23rd The other thing I have set the come out is I have an ebook on writing tweets particularly you know how how it's called engagement as a new cocaine. I'm really, really excited about the cover.

It's got that strong marketing look to it. I don't know if you've seen the cover floating around. I haven't yet. No, the internet, but what it's really cool. And I'm just gonna be talking about how I think about writing, because what's happened is when you write this many tweets, you, I'm not sitting there crafting a perfect Twitter every time.

I just, I know I just think in a certain way, do largely to the influence of the platform and from there I have reverse engineer and I thought about it and looked at some things and there are definite patterns. It's to the point now where I like I can I'm surprised when a certain tweet does not do well or does really well. And but it but it's happened to you and feel like I have a pretty good idea of like what is going to resonate and how it's going to resonate based on the topic and the way it's written, the way it looks is important. People don't realize that. So I'm putting all that together. I think people want to get a lot out of it. And just like it's a bit of a marketing lesson here on the side.

So I know what I'm gonna initially price it as part of a deal with a guy I'm working with, it's gonna be 25 bucks, right? I'll probably pop it up to like 37 or 42 or whatever those weird numbers are. But think about this for a minute. I have 62.1,000 followers. If I get 2% of them to buy that, then I've made more than, and the, the, the advertisements built that I have that many people. Obviously, I know

what I'm doing. And that's just the kind of thing that happens when you, when you build a respectable following and you've done it. And, you know, I'm, people are going to see how I think about the platform myself, I'm like, how I think about the platform myself, from like whatever I made for me, what's more way more important than me, is I just like sitting there crafting words. I'm very lucky that I was born, when I was born, and this technology was created because it really gives me the ability to craft

a lifestyle and pursue the things that I think are important, which are knowledge of development and health, and really giving something back to people. You know, what good is my life if I accumulate all of this knowledge and I do nothing to pass it on? Oh, man. I couldn't agree more. I think that's a really lovely sentiment, the fact that all of our victories and all of our suffering is

that made greater, both greater and less painful by using them to allow people to avoid the pitfalls and to expedite the successes that we've already encountered. Oh, absolutely. You know, it's really just, it's just a cool thing, man. We got a great, we have a great world. There's nothing to be, nothing to be sad about, man. Got to be happy. Right. Well, Ed, thank you very much. Would you be able to tell the listeners where they can find you online?

I'll make sure it's in the show notes below, but let's get everything plugged now. So I don't forget. Oh, yeah. My website is where I write my long form essays. That's just edlatamore.com. And my Twitter is the same where we were just talking about, I put a lot of good stuff out there, I think. And that's Ed Latamore.

My Twitter is Ed Latamore. Fantastic. Well, Ed, it's been absolutely brilliant. Good luck with your final month. You've got just about four weeks to make sure that everything's finished and ready for Amazon. So I wish you the best of luck in getting all of that completed. And then once the Twitter course is out, make sure that you give me a message on I'll make sure I fire it out to all of the listeners as well.

All right, thank you. Thank you very much for your time, man. Catch you later on.