The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish - #21 Ed Latimore: The Warrior Poet

Episode Date: August 9, 2017

Ed Latimore might be the most interesting person you'll ever meet. Ed is a professional heavyweight boxer, physics major, and philosopher. He's also the author of the cult-hit Not Caring What Other People Think Is a Superpower. If there's anything Ed feels like doing, he simply does it. This interview explores the physics of boxing, the value of a coach, and much of Ed’s hard-fought wisdom. You’ll discover: How the painful end to a relationship lit a fire under Ed that hasn’t stopped burning How Ed knows when he’s bitten off more than he can chew and needs to ease up on the accelerator Why motivation is a terrible way to achieve great things (and what to do instead) The unlikely way that Ed’s runaway best selling book came about Why Ed thinks every person should step into the boxing ring at least once in their life How people get stuck on the “dopamine treadmill” which feels productive but actually gets you nowhere (this is the kiss of death if you want to accomplish any important goal) Ed’s brilliant philosophy on pain and suffering that will change the way you view hardships in your life Ed’s somewhat controversial approach to coaching children and getting the very best out of them The most important element of creating a positive habit (most people get this wrong) And more. After listening to this warrior poet, you won’t look at life the same again.   Go Premium: Members get early access, ad-free episodes, hand-edited transcripts, searchable transcripts, member-only episodes, and more. Sign up at: https://fs.blog/membership/   Every Sunday our newsletter shares timeless insights and ideas that you can use at work and home. Add it to your inbox: https://fs.blog/newsletter/   Follow Shane on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/ShaneAParrish Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Knowledge Project, the most irregular podcast in the history of the world with seemingly one episode every three or four months. I'm your host, Shane Parrish, curator behind the Farnham Street blog, which helps people make better decisions, learn new things, and discover how to live a meaningful life. The Knowledge Project allows me to meet and talk to world-class people. We pull back the curtain a little to see what makes them so incredible. On this episode, I have Ed Latimore, a professional boxer, philosopher, and physics major from the Steel City. I traveled to Pittsburgh to record this interview, after which he gave me a private boxing lesson. Let's just say his hands are about as big as my head. Luckily for me, his heart was pretty big, too.

This is unlike any interview I've ever done. Listen in, and you'll see what. You have one of the most interesting backgrounds I've ever seen from a boxer. Physics, you're into chess. Walk me through, like, how this happened. Um, you know, so, so there's all. always been my interest in these things outside of like boxing and i've always had the interest in boxing but i didn't get a chance to for lots of reasons and those aren't really

relevant but for lots of reasons why there were lots of reasons why i didn't get chance to do boxing and then one day i at 22 or something uh yeah 22 i decided i was going to do this and part of that is because I just got out of a relationship that was the last of a four years and I was a total chump about a lot of things and one of those things was I wanted to make sure I was in a position to see her every day so that meant taking horrible jobs and not advanced myself in my academics or whatever so at the end of four years from from 18 to 22 I was not, I had not advanced any way, shape, or form as a man. And I was like, okay, this has got to change. And the thing I wanted to do was, I think YouTube was like just getting started.

And I had been watching fight videos. I was like, I always wanted to try boxing. Let's go try boxing. But at that time, MMA was also getting big. And I knew you had to learn Jitsu for MMA. And it was a whole complete system of fighting, not just with your hands. So there was a time for about a year. when I first started training from like 22 to 23 where I was doing everything like every single

night for like six days a week I was either in a boxing gym I was in an octagon training I was either on the mat learning how to roll I was doing kickboxing and I even did judo for a little while but I almost twisted my knee and I was like ah how useful was judo really is it worth twisting my knee so uh all of these things they came together and one day I was like like, all right. I'm just going to go with boxing and go down the line. But it all started with me wanting to do something and put some time in. To reference that relationship that I had just got out of, an argument that will never, ever leave my mind and greatly influence me. I used to be huge anti-higher education. For the most part, I still am. The difference is

not an adult in school pursuing a physics degree, but even there was a plan for that. But it used to be huge higher anti-education the girl i was dating uh this created some classes because her mother was a professor of biology so she'd hear me going these rants every now and then or these arguments or she'd bring up while i'd go back to school and i'd give some type of flippant 21-year-old answer and then one day near the end of our relationship and you can always tell the end is near when they stop caring about you uh one day she says what have you done for four years like whether you're education are anti-education what have you done for four years to show if there is something else to do even if you had sat in a monk convent monastery you haven't done anything for the past four years but

show up my house and eat my food and i was like and that i remember i can't remember i mean i'm sure the man in me is editing the tears that may have happened in my memory but i remember going you are exactly right I have not done anything so when I got in a position I really put the pedal to the metal and that's how I've been living ever since

I mean I took a little reprieve and you know that's part of life you know up and down you can't be in all the time but even now until until recently until the past three months or so I mean it was in the military

boxing going to school and still trying to be a decent person and from my relationship at home because that's important you have to maintain a nurture those relationships. So that is really where that boxing thing, you know, we kind of moved on to a tangent, but moved on to something else. But I started boxing mainly to do something for

four years. Now it's turned into a decade. But we started there. I wanted, I wasn't comfortable where I was at. And it was like, all right, let's go. Let's become something, something more than we are. Tell me a little bit about how you juggle between the military. in school and a boxing career. What's your daily routine look like? You know what's funny? Right now in my life, so where I'm out right now? Last semester, I took off school.

I took off so I can focus on boxing. This semester, I'm taking off boxing to focus on school. I'm done with my service and the National Guard. So for the first time, in over five years, The only thing I do, I mean, I wake up and I still work out, but I don't have to work out the level of, like, where I'm in the gym, two or three times a day, and then I'm trying to put that in between school, and then I have drilling on the weekend, and then I got to come home and do stuff at home.

So for the first time, it's a very relaxed life. I'll tell you what I think I did to survive, because, you know, it's funny about pain, right? when you look back at pain you can't really remember you can remember it hurting right but you don't know how you survived it i heard this referenced um this idea referenced in like women who give birth it's like apparently it's incredibly painful right but somehow they do it more than once in their life i'm not talking about the new mothers i'm talking about the ones that have multiple kids who know what they're getting into uh so as i relate i don't know how i survived i really don't i think about this all the time and i think i'm but i know i'm thinking about it from the perspective

of having less to do and still feeling stressed what i what what i think i did i can't tell you what i feel i did because i can't get back to that feeling what i think i did is i gave up sleep a lot of times um sleep is always optional i'm not one of those guys that can go forever and before hours of sleep right i need my eight hours on average with that said uh on average is the thing we stress because okay so like monday through thursday i mean we're talking three four hours of sleep saturdays i'm not drilling i'll sleep 10 hours man i'll get it in i'll figure it out because there was no way to do all that it just isn't i wouldn't recommend it i'm never going back to a workload like that again unless unless i say unless i have to but but

you know what, there's something about people like me. I say that, but the first thing is hard because my first instinct is to look at a thing and go, I can do that. That makes sense for me. And then I have to kick in the secondary support system of my emotions and my life and go, you know what, that's just not going to be a good look. Now I have somebody in my ear I trust because when you grow up the way I grew up, you don't take counsel well.

and a lot of times that has cost me. But now I'm at a point where I have a small but dedicated circle, people close to me who say a thing and I listen. And my girlfriend is one of those people. And she will check me if she feels like I am going to grab more than I can handle. Because she doesn't really, I want, okay, I want to say she doesn't care if I'm present at home. But I know that's BS. But I think she's more concerned.

that I will burn myself up because then I turn into an asshole man because like here's when I knew it was getting bad when I was doing all that when I was juggling all that I was just doing dishes you know we got a nice little arrangement she does all the cooking I do all the cleaning and unless I'm injured like I cut my finger real bad like like a month ago she was like I got to do dishes now but uh but other than that but one day man I was doing this and she said something to me and I just I snapped at her and I don't I don't snap I don't yell that's not my thing I'm I'm I'm a very calm person. You can know me your entire life and count on one hand the times you'll hear me raise my voice out of the person. But I did that and I was like, okay, this is getting out of hand because all I want to do is do my stuff, do things, go to sleep. I didn't even want to deal with her cordially. So let alone, like, where she's like, I'm going to need some help with something. But, you know, but do I think what I do it all over again willingly? No, but it was necessary because once again.

What have you done for four years? And that's always stuck with me. And it's driven everything. I'm like, you're right. You've got to put time in to get farther and get better. And sometimes you just got to hear it with that tough love aspect. Like before that point, I knew the idea intellectually. Now I know it viscerally.

Like, now I will never forget. You got to put Tom in and how you put that time in and where you put it in, doesn't matter. But the longer you wait, the more work it will take, you know. In my mind, you're the philosophical boxer. You've written a book called Not Caring What Other People Think is a Superpower. tell me a little bit about that book and the experience of writing it so so the book came about it took me a little longer to write it than i thought it would i thought i would have it done in like

six months it ended up being a year because life right it's like the things we're just talking about all that coming together and and then i'm trying to write the book i didn't even think about that i'm blogging so that's but but but one day uh the twitter user who i'm i'm great great um friends but I'm sure we'll meet in person one day, but we talk a lot. He goes, yo, you know, your Twitter feed is really great, man. You ever think about putting it together and selling a book of tweets? And I was like, you know what? I had never thought of that.

That's a great idea. And then I was like, but there's no way I'm going to feel good about just putting out a bunch of tweets. So I went through, I called my whole list. I downloaded the X-HML file and I sat there. And I was like, okay, I'm going to take out the best ones, and then I'm going to put together the ones in certain categories, which ultimately became the chapters of the book. And then I'm going to write an essay explaining each one, and then we're appropriate. I'm going to give an actionable step or an actionable piece of advice for a person to be

able to implement this idea in their life. So it all started with that suggestion, and I'm pretty sure I got that. that suggestion yeah about about 20 months ago maybe maybe a little less and it's just been a constant thing in the making and then when it was coming together I was like yeah I really like this one of the big parts of the book that stuck with me is kind of your philosophy on self-discipline can you walk us through that a little bit uh self-discipline is is highly important right you can't if if you wait till you feel like doing something you'll never do it and furthermore if you give in to your feelings about a thing, you will give up on many things because anything

worth having requires hard work and hard work by definition is not pleasant. I don't care what anyone says to you. Being in shape is great. Running is not great. I used to tell my friend all the time, you're never going to like running. Stop looking for it to become enjoyable. Just go do the damn running and look at the results. With that said, my whole approach to self-discipline is to eliminate the emotional aspect of it or you can feel a thing no one's saying get rid of your emotions not only is that not possible uh if it were possible your life just becomes a series of like indistinguishable moments you need emotion but you you want to control it most people don't have emotional control when you have emotional control then you can look at a thing and go man

for example i i'm an early riser right people like how you get up so early man girls like why you always up so early i'm like because i need to get up real Like how I feel about it never enters. It's just a thing that needs to be done. I always say if a thing is important to your success, it doesn't matter how you feel about it. It just needs to be done. And that's how I view self-discipline.

You can't consider your feelings. Because your feelings always. Your feelings are like, they're always going to find the easiest way for you to do a thing. They don't want you to work hard. Hard work sucks. But if you want the good things and the cool things in life, if you even want to be having an average life you've got to go do hard things that you don't want to do

and eventually you you just stop thinking about it and then you learn to see the world as a matter of what must be done versus what must not be done you mentioned self-confidence it strikes me as it would be very difficult to get in a ring uh without self-confidence how do you how do you develop that or how do you think about that um getting in the ring you know my i never think about my confidence is that through process too right okay so you just reminded me of a really interesting thing that happened in l in l a la when i lived out there i got i got evaluated by sports psychologists we all got evaluated by sports psychologists out there and he said as you get close to the event you get more confident and then you're more confident more relaxed as the event occurs that first that second part

I think it's typical of most athletes. Once you get in there, they say once you get hit the first time, then, you know, you're good. That part before, how I get more and more relaxed, or how my confidence rises and grows. I don't think that my confidence is growing so much as I'm accepting the inevitable. I've already signed on a dotted line. The fight's already going to go down. And in my mind, the outcome is actually already predetermined. No one knows what it is, but it's already set in stone.

so there's nothing for me to worry about that is the first thing that detachment that's the first thing and i think that's the most powerful thing for me about fighting is that you i don't care if i get hurt i know what's going to i know i'm going to experience pain right so what is left for me to worry about i you know i just got over being now the worst thing that could possibly happen this happens i've dealt with that i've been embarrassed on national television right Uh, you go and do all these things and you realize the world does not stop. No one cares. It really doesn't matter. And then you get the confidence to really act. As long as you think people care what you do, as long as you think that somehow your little existence is going to make a big ripple in a long grand scheme of things. You're going to be terrified to act. But once you understand, once you realize that it's freedom. It's free. Once you see that no one cares, no one thinks about. it except maybe the people at the moment like no one cares anymore i don't care anymore right i can like say hey i got stopped i got knocked down on tv and it doesn't bother me because it's an event

that's gone and i've learned from it and i've taken the best parts of it to make myself better most people get too attached too fixated on a single event so they cannot be confident so when i enter the ring i'm not thinking about a bunch of other things going on my mind by default I don't know how other fighters achieved this but I know they achieve something similar they might not use my wording but I think the process and the benefit

is the same by default I don't worry about anything else going on but the guy in front of me but I'm not even really worried about him because the worst thing he can do he can't kill me and even if he could then life would be over what is there to worry about you go have fun and you perform

and you get it done once you realize that the worst thing you could lose. That's the worst thing that happened. Randy Couture said this to me. Once again, you live in L.A., man. You meet all these people. Came to the gym one day, and he was giving us a little speech about something. And he said something, once again, it will always stick. Much like the four-year thing, this will always stick. He said, if the worst thing that happens to you in your life is you lose a fight, then your life is going pretty great. And that was when I was an amateur, and it stuck

with me ever since. This is, it's just a hobby. It's fun. People worry about getting punched in the face. People worry about getting... But then you realize it's just pain. Pain is the same as pleasure. It's just a feeling. It's going to go away. But as long as you think, as long as you avoid that, you know, you can't have fun.

You can't get the benefits of life. It's a good time. I wish every man would go at least have box an amateur event. He ain't got to go pro, but it's very easy to become an amateur boxer. In the book you talk about the concept of good pain versus bad pain, and you said good pain comes from pushing towards a goal, bad pain comes from avoiding challenges, and you're going to suffer either way, you might as well be better. You walk me through some of the thinking that led you to that.

Right. So I'm pretty sure when I wrote that, the first experience, because I always think like this, I think that everything can be like combined and explained, and you can take one idea and use it to explain other ideas. so I'm pretty sure I was actually thinking about like romantic endeavors when I wrote that and I was like okay it's going to be hard if you're with somebody but it's going to be equally hard if you like are to always run her away and I was like oh man that's like the same in fitness like either you're going to suffer because you're unattractive and you have horrible health

or you're going to suffer while you're working out that pain for running so what's the difference Is it all suffering? The difference is one kind of suffering is moving towards something you want, a good body, a good partner. The other kind of suffering or pain is going away from things, going away from putting the work in, going away from being vulnerable and opening yourself up and taking risk. So no matter what, there is going to be an uncomfortable process. And I think that's just part of the rate of change in his life. I always thinking things in terms of calculus for some weird reason. the rate of change of life.

If you're going up, you're going to have effort and have an issue. And if you're going down, you're going to have an issue. It's just what issue do you decide to have? Do you want the issue of, oh, man, I got to put these late nights in and do this work, or I've got to work out of the gym, or I got to argue with this person to make sure that we have a good understanding and reach a compromise about a situation? Or do I want to have the pain of being an in-sale and a fat bastard that just sits around in the basement all day and does nothing?

and no one really likes you get to pick your poison when you're in the ring do you have any emotions going through your head like is it a feeling or is it just you're you're kind of robotic at that point i have learned something really interesting about myself i don't i am completely detached that may be more harmful than helpful uh i'm like the other end of the spectrum in that regard on the other one end i think you have the caricature that most people think of which is like this emotionally reckless boxer that's full of anger and just wants to bring pain like uh like mike tyson in the interview they ask him like why are you so angry in a fight mike and mike goes it's a fight what's it matter uh that's like one extreme i'm pretty

strong on the other extreme and that's not good either ideally you want some type of emotion You don't want to be, you want to care enough to not care if that makes sense. You need to care about the outcome enough that you want a good outcome, but you also are more concerned with a process. Like I take the work very seriously. Clearly, I couldn't have gone and done the things amateur or professional, but I did not take the work seriously. At the same time, in the ring, I'm very, very detached.

I mean, attached from an outcome. Yeah. And, you know, maybe it's not a weakness. I think a lot of times we sometimes question how we think about a thing because everyone else around you thinks about a thing in a different way and you realize you're a minority. That doesn't mean you're wrong, but it's certainly easy to feel that way. So I've wrested with that a lot. Should I be more attached to the outcome? Should I be less attached to the outcome? Am I just right? But I don't feel, I I mean, I'm not angry at the guy. I can laugh and joke with him beforehand, hang out with him afterwards. It's just a fight. It's just a fight. It's not the end of the world. We're not, like, ripping each other's families apart.

I don't even, I mean, I'm sure I can figure it out, but I don't even how to trash talk, man. I just go, oh, that's nice. Nothing can save you when we actually start fighting. So, yeah, to me, you know, you enjoy the time in the ring. It's very enjoyable. How do you stay motivated to get better? Like after you win, how do you go to the gym in a couple days and reset? Okay, let's pretend I didn't have a mastery mindset.

What I do have and have always had, and I think this is a good sign of a good coach, man, you couldn't tell whether you won or lost when you start watching film. Because things start getting picked apart, what you did wrong, what you can't get better. And if you want to get better, if you're there to improve, you take them and you start getting to work and you realize, I always say you always one mistake away from losing the last fight, which means you catch it and you go, okay, man, it's a good thing that I had just learned that from my last right and didn't catch up to me this fight. Likewise, the fight I lost. If I had somehow got that lesson beforehand in a fight but I didn't lose, then I'd be like, okay, I learned it and then come keep moving forward. But to stay motivated, even if you didn't have all that,

the one thing you got to realize is that you're never going to be perfect. And you're not aiming for perfection. Once again, I think of things in terms of calculus. You are approaching perfection. The limit is it approaches perfection. you keep pushing hard work. If you keep doing work, you're going to get closer and closer and closer. But that's got to be your goal.

You're always going to be improving. I always tell people to talk about when they want to box. I'm like, if you want to do this, I'll tell you the reasons why you shouldn't. You shouldn't do it for money because there ain't no money in boxing. You shouldn't do it for to prove the haters wrong because they still want to hate. Now that it's going to wait for you to mess up. And you definitely shouldn't do it for any female attention. you should do this because something deep inside you just says man you got to get the ring man

you got you got to get better and no one can take that away from you you could never make a dom everybody could hate you you could get injured no one can take away from the take away from you the feeling of mastery the feeling of getting a thing and be like oh i can do that i couldn't do that a month ago and that's like my favorite part about being in the gym it's like i can do a thing Now that I couldn't do like skipping rope is a perfect example. Oh, a terrible rope skipper. Now, I can cross my arms and jump and all this stuff. But I had put in time.

You just go every single day. I used to have a horrible jab because I couldn't figure out the mechanics. But in my mind, I was like, I'm going to get a good jab. I'm going to get a good jab because my coaches is important. And now I understand enough to know it's important. So now I know how to throw a jab ball. These are the things you just, you got to always want to be better. Why do you think athletes have coaches and most other people don't have coaches or not even don't have them but are dismissive of them?

Like nobody's in my car coaching me how to drive better, right? It depends on the task, really. So why do athletes have coaches? Why do the, there's a lot of business owners, hire a coach. Why do life coaches, the good ones, right, exist? some tasks you need constant feedback about you need constant feedback about you need constant feedback because the human being's natural tendency is entropy to always seek the easiest way the configuration of events that will result in the least output of energy a coach is there to make sure

that doesn't happen furthermore coaches there to correct you when the little things are occurring The little deviations are occurring that will eventually take you one way. And by the time you get there, you don't realize they were occurring. Let's use the example. Like, why don't you ever coach your car? Well, if you make a deviation, you're going to know real quick if you're going straight or not. And you can adjust that on your own. The self-correcting mechanism is there.

The self-correcting mechanism is not there for an athlete or for a business owner or a person trying to improve their life. It's just not. I mean, even if they know, and they're the best. No, even Tom Brady still has a coach, right? He's the all-time winning his Super Bowl quarterback history and all these records. And this is a great play. But he has a coach because when you have so many parts, you know, we just look at a got-thorn of football and playing the game. But we forget we're looking at over 20 years of parts that have learned to work together.

The slightest little bit of the slightest part of that system getting out of whack and out of alignment will bring the whole system down. And the coach's job is to, that messing up, fix that. That's messing up. Fix that. And to keep everything tight. I like that a lot. In the book, you also had some profound thoughts that I want to hear your explanation on, on whether it's easier to ask for forgiveness or beg for permission.

Oh, man, both of those. Okay. So my personality, man, I don't really, I'm really bad at moderation. I'm just bad at it. I don't drink, right? It's easier for me to not drink than it is to figure out which ones, what's enough and what's not enough, right? So with that taking, going from that base of lacking moderation, forgiveness and permission, in my opinion, are two cons of moderating activities. You ask for forgiveness when you've done a thing and you need to buffer or mitigate the effect of your actions.

Likewise, you ask for permission when you're pretty sure you're going to incur the wrath of someone, but by definition of you wanting to do it, at the least you'll be someone who's satisfied. So it's this way of existing to please the most people you can. and I don't really care for that thought either. This doesn't really lead to a happy life. It doesn't lead to a happy life. So what you have to do is you have to get very comfortable acting and doing with what you think is best for you.

That's what I think is the secret to a happy life. I'm not talking about being selfish and I'm not talking about being a criminal or anything. When people hear that, because it's a nuanced thought, they automatically jump to the negative or positive of the extremes. We're thinking I can respect, sure, but you're missing a point. The point is you need to get comfortable.

You need to be able to do what you feel is best for you. If you do that enough times, you will see certain things that you look at as, like, maybe soft or altruistic. No, those are great activities. For any other reason, you're nice and kind to everyone you meet because it's the best thing for you. is I always say there's no disadvantage to being likable, right? You end up in a position to have more influence and to be, have more people like you if you're likable. Now, I'm just using an example because people talk about, oh, what about doing things to make people like you? I'm like, yeah, but you're doing it for your injuries.

You're not doing it for them. And everyone wins. It's like the idea they talk about economics, where the black hand of economics or something like that, where if you just let the market be free, it will adjust and sort itself out. Right. If you just let people pursue their interests, eventually they'll do what's best for the group. And I really believe that, and that's where that forgiveness or permission idea came from. Either one is an attempt to kind of reconcile clashing feelings and perspectives. I'm like, no, you don't need to worry about all that.

Just do what's going to work best for you. If people got a problem with it, they'll disappear. And if they don't, they will gravitate towards you. and you're influencing the happy life you'll have will just become happier and better and you'll be able to better serve the people that do stick around. Speaking of people that disappear,

one of the other aphorisms in the book that kind of caught my attention was as you raise your value, more people will want more of you, but you want less of them. That's like, we'll just use like a hot girl, for example. Start there, right?

The hotter she is, the more guys want to date her. but because she's so attractive she will most guys by definition will not meet her standards because everything's like a pyramid in that respect right at the bottom of the pyramid or most as the as everyone right and then you move up and all the people the bottom below you are like oh I want to reach up and I want to be higher up and they're like why would I want to go lower right and once you're at the top of the pyramid or very close to the top there's so many people who will be like, I want to reach up and you're like, well, why would I let you pull me down?

And that's the struggle that happens all the time. You, as the individual you become, you start to radiate a certain type of energy. And hopefully it's positive, right? And as you radiate that positive energy, as you become a better person, as you become more influential person, as you improve your life, people go, that's a great person. I want to spend more time on that person, but then a funny thing happens. They think that, but they don't, they're not at your level. And so you're like, okay, what's the tradeoff? You don't have a lot of time in the role.

You have a little bit of time. So you got to decide, am I going to go spend time? Am I going to give my energy? I'm going to continue to do myself and do better and pull those people up. Hopefully, it inspires them to improve. but that big discord that great discord that occurs more people wanting your time is you become more valuable you experience that when people

will not improve but they just want to spend time around you because they see you as like you know something worth spending time by home do you see that changing the standards of the people you hang around like your friends and your like how does that influence Um, okay. So I've been, I've been really fortunate. I've been the victim of positive peer pressure. I've always had great friends. And they have always, uh, I feel like now I'm starting to catch up to the people they are to put it in perspective. How did you come to the conclusion that you wanted to stop drinking? Oh, man. You know, I looked at everything in my life, what I wanted to accomplish where I was going to potential I had. I wasn't satisfied what was in my life. And I did a quick 80, 20 analysis. And I was like, huh. In fact, I used to say, I used to say, if I used to say 95% of my problems, my personal problems are exacerbated, are caused by the influence of alcohol, which is like an embarrassing thing to say now. Like, man, I was content with most of my life being a shit show because of drinking.

Which I mean, it wasn't that bad, right? What just wasn't what I wanted it to be once I realized what I wanted it to be. and I looked at all the things and I said alcohol is a commonality there alcohol is a commonality or alcohols and all of this what is the benefit do I need to keep drinking no okay see you and that's how I know I'm not like that's how I know I don't I'm not an addict like all the guys that I've talked to who have been able to just quit like that are not addicted in this sense right a lot of guys are the ones that like just stop smoking cold turkey for example. He's like, I don't want to smoke anymore. Peace. Smoke for five years. And those those are the true. I can quit when I want to tell you people. And I don't smoke. I've never smoked

by I'd imagine my brain chemistry is probably so much similar. But yeah, I just looked at everything and I said, you know, this is not going to work for me. Now, one day I might drink again once I've accomplished some things I want, but right now, and I have no desire whatsoever. What happened when you stopped? What did you notice? that you didn't expect um you ever watch angel the old show angel uh that bought the vampire over the soul and he was a vampire so he did a lot of ill shit as a vampire and all of a sudden

he's got a soul and now he feels guilty about it and so he spends a lot of time brooding and feeling bad and trying to do good to make up fraudy evil we put into the world that is something that no one warns anyone about like all the people are talked to who stopped drinking. No one ever mentioned that. I don't think I'm unique in that regard because I've mentioned it and pee and God's right between all the time

and talk about that same experience. I say that you, it's like taking sunglasses off and seeing the light. Your eyes hurt because they're getting used to the light. And the sunglasses analogy with like your emotions. None of my emotions are muted.

I feel things completely. I'm not celebrating with alcohol. I'm not drinking alcohol when I'm down. I got to experience and enjoy life the right way. And likewise, I can look back at all the stupid things that I did and all the stupid ways I may have behaved. And I feel genuinely terrible about it. And no one ever warned you that that's what happens.

How did it change the people you hang around? Well, I'm fortunate because I have the good friends, right? So it didn't really change that at all It has absolutely I know myself well enough to know That if I was still drinking I probably wouldn't have gotten to harm My relationship now

Not because I would have been like Me or her I just would have been an asshole I'd have been out at night Maybe chasing girls or something Who knows But it is In terms of the people that I hang around

I'm probably not meeting people That I would have met I'm not getting invited to things Where I would feel bored I got a theory about people at least my kind of drinker I got a theory I go like

I'm going to be like bored here so I'm going to drink I'm going to get exciting for myself have some fun a lot of stuff bores me so I don't go to a lot of stuff now but I do love

spending time one-on-one with my friends like the way we're talking right now that's how I do all my socialize and I haven't been to a group event I'm going to a birthday party this weekend but it's like all the person that I know really well and is a really good friend and inviting me and understands how I think of

view the world. So I know I'll be fine there. For the most part, yeah. I mean, I don't spend any time in group activities because it's boring, man. You're a huge believer that hard work and discipline are a precursor to success or deserve success. Can you tell me about how you would instill that in other people like kids or when you're coaching kids. How do you, how do you foster that kids have to get used to the idea that there's no such thing as being naturally gifted so the first thing you do i mean i we're going to work from the assumption that children are a blank slate whether you believe that or not is irrelevant but for the sake of this argument there's enough truth in it that we can use that as a basis for what i'm going to say

you have to begin speaking to children immediately in terms of effort and as opposed to any ability. There's no such thing as a good child. There is a such thing as a child that was able to wait 10 minutes and be quiet. There's no such thing as a kid that's good at math. There's a kid that was able to struggle through a problem. You don't want to get children used to the idea of instant gratification. There's an odd that they have to wait for things.

They have to work and earn everything. Even if it's a small thing, I don't know. when I say work and earn, I mean, they have to get used to the idea of effort equals a thing. Like, if a kid wants to go, like, have candy, I'm not saying don't give them candy, right? I mean, I am saying that at the core, but, but for this argument, I'm not saying don't give them candy, say, okay, you want candy, I'm going to need you to do X, Y, R, Z. I mean, obviously, like, good moral things that will help them become better, but they must learn the concept of exchange. I think the quicker you can get a child to understand the idea of exchange.

I mean, and I'm speaking hypothetically. I mean, I'm sure there's a parent or a few hearing this going, that's impossible. Maybe it is. But based on some experiences in my past, I've got more experience raising children than people probably think or no. With that said, I think the sooner you get a kid to understand that nothing in the world is free, right? that they don't have to like have an economics understanding it's got to understand i got to do a thing for a thing to happen if i don't do something some bad things don't happen and that's what good parents do you just you just got to keep it up with academics and behavior and things like that

and i think that you start there as they get older i think the i think the sooner you can get them into some type of skill-based thing or effort-based thing that will make them see the value of practice and work, I think that's good, too. You know, whether it's like, there's this thing, kind of music going on now, or you can get a kid to go, like, run, even going running with you, just having fun with that, just getting them comfortable with the idea. like life is not always enjoyable it's not necessarily bad it's just not always a pleasant show of relaxing and having a good time you want to get them to see that it's not supposed to all be enjoyable right but so often it seems like parents are focused on preventing disappointment only giving happiness not instilling those and that is not life i mean that's like that's the equivalent of of raising a teenager in college and there's breakfast

them to understand the world, right? And see how that's turning out so far for a lot of young kids. People cannot expect the world to always be nice. That's just foolish. It's way better. What's that saying? I love some of these cliches, man. I got a few of them.

It's not about waiting for the rain and stop us learning how to dance during a storm, man. And that's the truth. You don't, because it's avid flow. It can't always be good. And you wouldn't want it to be good. It's like music, man. music is not enjoyable because of the note you hit, it's the space between the notes. You need things to not be there.

You need things to not be good to appreciate when they are there, when they are good. People try to avoid that not part all the time, only to realize that it's just not fun, right? You had some pretty profound thoughts on relationships in your book as well. Can you kind of walk me through your high-level view of your philosophy on those? my great my high level view of relationships is that it's better to build a life and bring a person into it than it is to try and build a life around a person if i could sum up everything and give you like the meta framework to work with that is the framework you want to start with you want to go all right how am i going to become a better person and that's going to force you to become a better person

that's going to force you to grow it's going to force you to improve it's going to force you to become more attractive. That's going to force you to focus on any goal. And then when you meet the right person, then the right person is better able to fit in because it's not going to be compromised. I think compromise is one of the worst things you make in a relationship. You have to make it on some things. Like, well, explain that to me. Like the compromise. So you should compromise on certain behaviors, right? You should improve. You should you should learn how because you're never going to be 100% compatible with a person and that's not the goal the goal is like okay you're 75% compatible how do we make that 25% work that's where

you start compromising but when I hear stories about guys moving all the way across the country for a girl they they have only been with for six months and like probably better if you just meet one there and you'll be happy with instead of the stress of a new one or when I hear like what are some of the worst ones I've heard? There's some of these stories. A girl, this is an extreme version, right? A girl that decides she's going to forsake her entire family to marry a guy. I'm like, okay, I see the idea.

And I agree with it in theory. In application, you have just ended the entire association with the entire association with the people. would have invested Tommy. Now, granted, you didn't ask to be here, whatever, but there's a lineage and a history that comes to that. I mean, that you're deprived of your future offspring of having her family and for what? So you could do a thing. Far better to build around the life that you are actively making. Someone that is circumstance, your family, some of that is career that you're making. But I think prematurely getting into a relationship means the relationship you're on work. The foundation is just not as strong. And people forget the.

foundation starts with you. It's not with the people. It starts with you. And then when your foundation is wrong, you select better. You have better standards. You know, you're not. I remember there's an inverse relationship between the amount of crazy I dealt with and where I was at in my life in terms of the women. And now that I'm out of a stable position, I have such a wonderful person. I sit there sometimes. I'm going to go, man, I didn't fuck up. I don't know when when it's going like correct itself, but like it will. And I feel that way. I mean, yeah. So some guys listen to your mind called it like a beta idea but like no I feel genuinely blessed right and I sit there and I go man this ain't going to laugh like it's a weird thought but that's the thought

you should have I guess you should and likewise I'm sure or I hope anyhow that she has a similar thought right and if you're approaching the ideal if you're approaching something that does not exist but you want to exist. You should be approaching a relationship as if you're introducing, like you're hiring for a company. You wouldn't build a company around somebody that you, does you not wait yet? No,

you build the company first. You find the employees that fit or the employee, whatever your style is. But that is my high level view. Everything else I say, I think, I mean, unless I'm total, everything else I say can be traced to making that idea happen. you also mentioned something about uh i forget the exact wording but it was like you can learn more

about watching a couple argue for five minutes than be happy for five years what did you mean oh my goodness man this is this is beautiful and you can't you can tell a lot because look everybody is great friends when everything is getting along every every relationship is perfect when it's perfect when it's not going well then you get to learn about Okay, like we were saying about how music is not just the notes playing, but it's the notes not playing. Life is not just about the enjoyable parts. It's about the not enjoyable parts too. Everybody gets into relationships with that same mentality that's got to be fixed. They want it to be good all the time. But that ain't going to happen. So when it goes bad, then you get to learn. Okay, how do we, how is this person's conflict resolution? How do they work together? How do they work together? How do they? see problems. I can't tell you how many people I watch that see disagreements is an attack on the other person and there's a way to bring down. That's how they view victory in an argument, bring the other person down on us. Instead, if you want to make a relationship work, right? And this is just

how I would do it. You need to look at it as a, here's a problem, but we got to solve. How are we going to solve this? And us not solving it is part of the disagreement right now. In fact, I could even say it is the sole disagreement, this problem that we have, and we have two different ways, two different approaches, perspectives on how to solve it. The key, this is where that compromise now becomes important. It's not important in the 80%. It's that 20% that you disagree, and that's what a compromise is important. How are you guys going to work together to give the thing done?

So you can learn a lot. You can't learn a thing about a couple when they're having a good time. You learn everything when they're having a bad time. who yells who raises their voice who shuts off who broaches the subject objectively who starts attacking character as opposed to the problem who brings up old stuff audits is it comes of who stays on target you look at this you can get a whole map and the more experience you have looking at this the more you can look at a couple ago I know exactly how long you have left like yeah what's your experience with couples that are happy and how they argue is it all about

kind of that compromise or trying to find a solution instead of mud slinging or i have a buddy coming up this getting married he's been in with his girl for like two years and and my best friend out in l.A i was the best man at his wedding getting married when we were 23 so and he they were together for like four years beforehand uh so over 10 years how do they argue i haven't really seen my friend getting married coming up in June, I argue, but the couple in Cali, I've seen them argue a few times. They, they never, I want to say never, but very rarely. No, in fact, I mean, I've never seen it. I'm thinking about it. They don't insult one another. That always stood out to me. And I always took that as a powerful lesson. They never insult one

another. Now, they are highly critical of how one might handle the problem that occurs. But in terms of character assassinations, those do not happen. They're focused on solving the problem, not on destroying each other. You know, they don't view each other as adversaries. And that's what happens. And I think that's the commonality. All the happy couples I watch, They'd never, ever view each other as adversaries ever. They're always some, always in my house, I use the word team a lot. I'm like, we're a team, we're working together. As long as we're together, as far as I'm concerned, we're a team.

And you either are on my team or you're not on my team. She's bought into that, and that's good. So I think that's a really powerful framework. That's the framework I certainly observe in all the successful couples that I have had a chance to see up close and personal. We're not talking about people who got married and like the 60s, where it was a different game yeah this man again man it's 2008 maybe teamwork man teamwork work together pick each other up and one it goes down you know whether there's all this argument

after the day about whether it has even possible to find or not um it definitely it's possible what you're gonna build the life you want and you got to want that some guys don't want it some guys don't want to put the work in the build a life but when you do those two things then you attract a person that will be a great teammate for you what's your philosophy of happiness and what that means and how to achieve it? Happiness is happiness is not an average rate, man. It's a rate of change.

They're going to think and calculus again, right? If a person is sitting still, no matter where they're at, whether they have a bunch, let's use money. If a person has a bunch of money or no money, they just sit still and do nothing in their life. They're going to be unhappy. We tend to think of people being rich is happy.

But no, there's nothing for, nothing that pushes them, Nothing that makes them grow and change. You can be miserable being poor. You can be miserable being rich. You can be miserable in a relationship. You can be miserable or single. What are you doing to push yourself?

All happiness is, in my opinion, is a person pushing towards something. Not the avoidance part. That struggle is this weird type of intertwine duality. You're pushing towards something. Pain is part of it. Happiness is like the other part. And they all kind of work together. And if you rest on your laurels too long, you'll become unhappy.

But you always have to push towards something. And if a person wants to have a happy life, they must always have a challenge to push towards. This is why I think the people I observe who are great parents are not even great parents or good parents. There's a general, I don't want to call it lightness because that's not correct. Levity, maybe, I don't know. So they feel every day has a purpose because the purpose is raising this little person. And because there's purpose, there are goals, maybe not explicitly stated, but certainly outcomes that one is trying to achieve, processes they're trying to enjoy. And I think that's why having kids does such a thing for a person.

They say having kids makes you grow, it makes you mature, whatever. I think what it really does is it makes you focus on what's going to make you happy. and you've got to make it happen in that process and you quickly realize that happiness is not material. It's easy to have a temporary boost of happiness but a material thing, but all it is is a change in position. There's that rate of change.

Once the change isn't happening anymore, you're back to being unhappy. So your whole life, if you want to be happy, you've got to push towards something. Does that matter what you push towards? It doesn't matter what you want to be, what you're trying to become, but you've got to be trying to become,

you have to try to become something. you have an interesting philosophy on that too you said don't don't tell people what you're trying to become just talk about what you have become yeah man uh social media age right we are affected with this this disease of self-promotion but we're not self-promoting what we've done we're self-promoting what we plan to do and then we get a bunch of people to go oh man good luck go forward you go girl whatever you see and your brain and this i mean this is true there's a lot of research on this your brain goes holy shit look at all this approval we must already did it why are we going to keep doing work now we're going to stack off uh there's just no benefit of

talking about what you've done um at best case scenario you do it right which is what you were trying to do worst case you don't and if you don't now you've told all these people that you are going to but there's nothing to show so now what do you do you do hop on what do they call the dopamine treadmill you get back on and you talk about the newest goal i mean i don't know i don't think i've seen you on facebook at all but i'm sure there's some version that's on twitter though twitter tends to skew kind of different in terms of the activity that goes on amongst the users you see every someone goes I'm trying to lose this amount of weight I want to do this I'm going to start this and people go there's a bunch of likes and there's a big rally

behind it and in three months same shit they're in the same spot nothing happened nothing changed why because they get all the validation your brain look I'm never going to be a guy that says motivation doesn't count for a thing and motivation is important but it's a finite resource and it will exhaust itself and when that falls off You got to rely on maybe habits, system, and necessity, all kinds of things to get you through. But because that system is in place, it can be hijacked. And one of the ways we hijacked is we go and we get out as false recognition. It feels, look, man, I've gotten a reasonable amount of recognition in my life for things that I have done.

I'll tell you what, it's a lot. It feels a lot better and it's a lot less nerve-wracking when a person can congratulate me for something. And then they can also go look it up independently online and go, oh, okay, right? He really did that, yeah. But if a person, but if I charm it, like when I'm like a buddy tells me he wants to do something, I go, cool, man. I never ask about it again because I don't want to stress them on. I know they ain't do it. Otherwise, they'd be all over it telling them I would hear, I wouldn't, I didn't hear all about it, right?

but you don't hear the result and you talked about habits and systems there uh what's one habit you've changed recently that's made a profound impact on you do you want to know this is silly man this is this is real silly but it but it's true i washed the dishes as soon as i'm done eating how has that impacted you all right so so i don't know if you when i was growing up My mom used to do that, like, right away. You'd be, like, eating your last bite and she'd be grabbing the plate. Yeah, so I used to make that bed up immediately when I got out of it every morning, but I didn't. And then I switched it to the dishes.

What does this do? First of all, the staff was just some, like, regularity. Two, I got to do the dishes anyway. If I'm already up and moving around, man, I'm telling you, this is the best part about studying sciences, right? Not like the knowledge, but the analogies you can make. Man, inertia is real. The minute you sit down, you do not want to get up. And if you keep moving, you don't want to stop.

That's all inertia is, right? And objects, you know, resistance to a change of its acceleration. If you, if I'm already up moving around, putting dishes in it, and I just, while I'm standing, then I go, all right, man, let me, I'm just do these dishes right now. Now I don't have to think about it. it's already taken care of and when I sit down to go do something else I don't have to worry about doing work or rather I don't have to worry about

interrupting my work to do that I don't have to worry about going there the kitchen smelling funny I don't have to worry about the cats creeping out I don't have to worry about my girl going while I'm cooked when my dishes is going to get done you know I don't have to worry about anything I have all I've done

it's a small thing but I've relieved so much and maybe that maybe that is a sign of how cool life is these days that like that little hijack makes such a big difference. But I think the bigger lesson is that if you can take advantage of inertia and just do things when you're already moving so you don't have to start, restart, start, restart, your life will be a lot easier.

You don't have a thing about motivation to do your dishes or clean your room or do your homework or whatever you got to do or go running. It's why I get out of bed. My secret to getting up early is just to start. moving. You don't have to have to do anything. Just don't sit down for 15 minutes. You'll be surprised by how I wake you are on 10, you know? This has been an amazing conversation, Ed. Ed. Where can people find you online? My Twitter account is great. I'm always saying stuff on there. That's how you found me. So that's at Ed Latimore, L-A-M-R-E, and E-D at the beginning,

Ed Latimore, one word. I'm hoping that someone on website spelled out. And my website is just www. edladamore.com so my name does i own my name always own your name man i learned that early on in the uh in the internet game you own your name and people can find you easier so ed latimore just like it'll be tight on the podcast on twitter and on and on my website and i'm also on facebook i have a facebook page but i post there occasionally sign up for the mailing list see some things as a sent to email out today about some stuff that i don't always post because i'm all I like to communicate with everyone and just express my thoughts and likewise get thoughts back.

So I'd love if you stop by and drop some thoughts off. Thank you so much. This has been great. Thank you very much. Hey guys. This is Shane again. Just a few more things before we wrap up. You can find show notes at FarnhamstreetBlog.com slash podcast.

That's F-A-R-N-A-M-S-T-R-E-E-E-T-B-L-O-E-E-E-E-B-L-O. g.com slash podcast. You can also find information there on how to get a transcript. And if you'd like to receive a weekly email from me filled with all sorts of brain food, go to farnhamstreetblog.com slash newsletter. This is all the good stuff I've found on the web that week that I've read and shared with close friends, books I'm reading, and so much more. Thank you for listening. Thank you.