The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 648: Ed Latimore - Going From Zero to One, Taking Ownership, Positive Body Language, Strategic Hardship, & Hard Earned Lessons From The Hurt Business

Episode Date: August 10, 2025

Go to www.LearningLeader.com for full show notes This is brought to you by Insight Global. If you need to hire 1 person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through Talent or Technical Services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world have the hustle and grit to deliver. www.InsightGlobal.com/LearningLeader My Guest: Ed Latimore is a professional heavyweight boxer, best-selling author, and veteran of the U.S. Army National Guard. He earned a degree in Physics from Duquesne University. Ed has gained recognition for overcoming personal struggles with addiction and poverty. We recorded this at our 2025 Learning Leader Growth Summit in Scottsdale, Arizona. He's the author of Hard Lessons From The Hurt Business.  Notes: Key Learnings The Heaviest Weight at the Gym is the Front Door – Starting is often the hardest part. "Zero to one is the hardest part" in any endeavor. Once you begin, momentum builds, but that first step requires the most effort. How You Feel is Irrelevant – "How you feel about doing something is irrelevant. If it is vital to your success, you've gotta bump to the wall a bunch of times." Discipline isn't about motivation—it's about doing what's necessary regardless of feelings. Sobriety: The Hardest Fight – 13+ years sober, describing it as "the hardest fight I've ever had." The turning point came during basic training when he built an identity completely free of alcohol for the first time in his adult life. From Being Liked to Being Respected – "When people like you, they want to party with you... When people respect you, you start getting invited back to family events." Shifted focus from seeking approval through partying to earning respect through character. The Baby Shower Revelation – Breakthrough moment when friends showed up with gifts for his unborn child, "all because he is my human." Realized people genuinely cared about him, which became the foundation for believing he mattered. Taking Ownership vs. Playing Victim – "A judge and a jury do not care about my terrible upbringing if I commit a crime." Despite growing up next to a crack house with family addiction issues, I chose accountability over excuses. Net Positive Impact Philosophy – Goal with raising children: "Make sure they are a net positive, they make things better. At the very least, let's make sure they don't mess anything up." Everyone has an impact on the world for better or worse. Practice Until You Can't Forget – Boxing taught the overlearning principle: going beyond basic competency to automatic response. "We practice until we can't forget... Either you get it or you'll make a mistake, and you probably won't make the mistake more than twice." Tolerance for Boredom Builds Excellence – "If you can be bored, you can go really far because a lot of it is just repetition of really basic things." Elite performers master fundamentals through unglamorous repetition. Body Language Shapes Internal State – "You smile, you feel happy... puff up your chest and the testosterone flows." Physical presentation affects how you feel internally and influences others around you. Fear vs. Responsibility Evolution – Early motivation came from fear of embarrassment; current motivation comes from a sense of responsibility to others. Shift from avoiding personal failure to ensuring others are taken care of. Redefining "At Your Best" – Past definition: having enough money, time, and no worries. Current definition: "Everyone in the house is taken care of." Evolution from internal satisfaction to external impact. Strategic Hardship Introduction – For teaching children without trauma: "Introduce hardships strategically and with awareness." Like weight training—incremental challenges build strength; too much too soon causes injury. Useful Quotes: "How you feel about doing something is irrelevant. If it is vital to your success, you've gotta bump to the wall a bunch of times." "The heaviest weight at the gym is the front door." "When people like you, they want to party with you... When people respect you, you start getting invited back to family events." "You have an impact on the world, for better or worse, that makes a huge difference in allowing a person to not destroy themselves." "We practice until we can't forget." "If you can be bored, you can go really far." "I've had my ego dragged through the mud a lot." "What do you want your obituary to say? I didn't just dabble." "When you're completely selfless, then you're fearless. It's the 'what's gonna happen to me' that creates the fear." "Everyone's always either walking in love or fear." "I hope my kid remembers that I was a present happy dude." Life Lessons: Discipline Over Mood – Make decisions based on necessity, not feelings. Success comes from identifying what must be done and executing consistently. Identity Building Without Vices – Spend time in environments completely free from your struggles to build new neural pathways and self-concept. Overlearning for Mastery – Practice skills beyond basic competency until they become automatic responses under pressure. Authentic Accountability – Find mentors who "live what they're yelling at you about." Real influence comes from demonstrated behavior, not just words. Incremental Challenge Builds Resilience – Introduce difficulties gradually to build strength rather than overwhelming with too much too soon. Present Moment Parenting – Model calm behavior during stressful situations because children mirror your emotional energy. External Focus Creates Fulfillment – Shift from personal satisfaction to ensuring others are taken care of for a deeper sense of purpose. Childhood Dreams Reveal True Interests – "What did you want to do when you were 10-12?" Often reveals authentic passions before social conditioning. Breaking Generational Cycles – Consciously choose different patterns than your upbringing to create better outcomes for the next generation. Humility Through Struggle – Getting "ego dragged through the mud" builds character and perspective that success alone cannot provide. Luck Recognition Builds Gratitude – "The only difference between you and me is that I was lucky." Understanding the role of circumstances builds empathy.   Apply to be part of my next Learning Leader Circle.

This episode is brought to you by my friends at Insight Global. Insight Global is a staffing and professional services company dedicated to being the light to the world around them. If you need to hire one person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through talent or technical services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world have the hustle and grit to deliver. hiring can be tough, but hiring the right person can be magic. Visit Insightglobal.com slash learning leader today to learn more. That's Insightglobal.com slash learning leader. Welcome to The Learning Leader Show. I am your host, Ryan Hawk.

Thank you so much for being here. Go to LearningLeader.com for show notes of this and all podcast. episodes, go to learning leader.com. Now on to tonight's featured leader. Ed Latimore is a professional heavyweight boxer, bestselling author, and a veteran of the United States Army National Guard. He earned a degree in physics from Duquesne University. Ed has gained recognition for overcoming personal struggles with addiction and poverty. We recorded this at our 2025 Learning Leader Gross Summit in Scottsdale, Arizona. This was a private event for members of my learning leader circle. If you would like to be part of my next learning leader circle,

go to learning leader circle.com. Some of the topics we covered, how and why you should work to beef up your obituary. Love that term. Why you shouldn't just dabble and the importance of building a disciplined routine. We talk about that and so much more ladies. and gentlemen, please enjoy my conversation with Ed Latimore. You have lived and lived multiple lives, right? And this idea of a boxer, a physics guy, you're into chess, all this different stuff. And you've got a whole other parts of your story that we're going to get to. I'm just curious, if your younger self looked at your current self, what would surprise them the most? You know, not all of that. I just, I don't know, man. I'm, I'm,

fortunate, but I think the thing that would surprise my younger self the most is the stumbling blocks along the way, particularly the stuff around addiction and alcohol, because you know, I grew up, I grew up next to a crack house. My mom had her alcohol issues. Everyone in my family had their substance abuse issues to different degrees. I got involved in the selling side of it, the using side of it, all there. So I had this healthy fear of a lot of this stuff, so that's why I never tried anything harder.

But the alcohol stuff, that really would surprise younger me because I know how I am thinking about it now and how I looked at it. And I went through that phase in my life, be like, wow. But on a more positive note, I think the thing that would surprise younger me is how much fun I have being a dad, I didn't know that like that was a really fun thing, man. Because my dad wasn't really around, so I didn't really have any model for that or anything to expect from that. But boy, it is it, it is exhausting.

And there are these like fun moments of frustration. That's the best way to describe it, but it's a really good time. That's those are those two big things that I think would surprise me, which as I'm saying that has nothing to do with any of that. I know. I know. You mentioned your sobriety and we've talked before and you said that that's the hardest fight you've ever had.

What finally made it stick? What finally helped you get past that? I mean, or I assume it's still an everyday fight. Oh, no, yeah. There's 13 years? 13 or 14. I'm starting to lose track and that's good thing. That's good, yeah.

What made it so difficult, you ever hear that quote from Anna Carinida by Leah Toy Story? Like, you know, all happy families are, you know, happy for the same reason. All unhappy families are unhappy for, you know, different reasons. Wait, I'm not smart enough. What is this quote again? Paraphrasing, it's the Anna Karenina quote. He goes, all happy families are alike. All unhappy families are unhappy for their own reasons, right?

And I start with that to say that everyone has kind of their own issue or reason for having a substance problem. And you don't need to know that to kick it. Yeah. You can figure that out later, which is what happened to me. I just knew things were getting rough. But as I look back really close and zeroing, the big thing that happened is I started to believe people cared about me. I started to believe I mattered.

I'll tell this story and then get back to the alcohol thing, but it's key. We had a baby shower for the kid and all these people showed up. All my friends, and, well, mostly my friends, because I don't know. my friends because I'm not really close to my family. And I'm just sitting there like choked up because I'm, I've got this issue where I don't think, or I didn't think that like my friends were like, they didn't really like me. Like I had to prove myself and that's what drives a lot of the things I do. I feel like I got to prove myself for affection and respect and just people like me.

But they showed up. They took their Sundays and brought gifts for this human that doesn't even exist yet all because he's my human. pause there and I had to tell them. I was like, look, you know, you guys know I have this issue or maybe you don't. But for me, this means so much and I, it overwhelmed me. So back to what helped me get sober. When I went away for basic training in June of 2013, came back after basic training AIT in December, went out, tried to party, had a horrible time. And sobriety date, December 23rd.

I sat there, I made this list. As I'm making this list, like, okay, I'm in school now, I'm in the Army now, and there's the Uniform Code of Military Justice on top of civilian justice. I'm trying to make my pro-career matter, and I just started this relationship that's still going on today, right? I don't want to lose any of this. And it hit me that the thing that made it stick, all of that together, though, I had spent that six months away building an identity that was completely free of alcohol.

It was the first time I did it in my adult life and I got to see all these people respect me, look up to me, like me, and there was no alcohol involved. And I said, okay, I don't need to keep trying to be liked, I can actually be respected. And I think the two things look similar, but they're very different. When people like you, they want to party with you, they want to do things with you. But a lot of times they will make you behave in a way that makes you less respectable. But when people respect you, maybe you don't get all the invites to the parties, but you You start getting invited back to family events, you know, because that's when I talk about

my family, I'm talking about my friends. And growing up in high school, they invite me around and a little less, a little less. And pretty soon it's like, I see the pictures, things are happening. I'm not there. But it got a lot easier to stick with it when I finally looked and I said, okay, people care if something happens to me. I care if something happens to me. And that's self-love.

I hate that word. But that's what it is. That's self-love. That makes a huge difference in allowing a person to basically not destroy themselves. We talked about ownership and not being a victim earlier today. And if there's anyone who could have chosen to be a victim, you're certainly one of those people who could have made that choice. And you and I have talked about the fact that a judge and a jury does,

not care about my terrible upbringing if I commit a crime. I use that quote a lot since you originally said it to me. And I think that is the ultimate example of taking ownership of your life. Can you talk more about this? I mean, this is harsh, but the world doesn't care that you grew up next to a crack house with a mom who suffered from addiction and all these awful things. The world doesn't necessarily care if you're going to go choose to harm. other people's lives or commit crimes, you're going to jail, right?

That's taking ownership when you could have easily chosen just to be a victim and follow in that path and commit crimes and do terrible things. And I'd love to hear you talk more about that. That accountability, it has to start with recognizing that you have an impact on the world for better or worse. Like I always say, you know, like her goal with raising our children is to make sure that they are a net positive. They make things better. But if they can't do that, at the very least, let's make sure they don't mess anything

up. No one wants to give birth to a serial killer, right? That's a net negative. No one wants to get birth to a doodle. That's a net negative, okay? When you start looking at your place in the world and you realize that you're not in a vacuum, everything you do is going to affect someone else for better or worse, then you have to take some responsibility.

I don't know where I learned this because I know I didn't learn it at home growing up, but it's always stuck with me this perspective that everything I do is going to affect other people. And so I started to, even from a younger age, even, you know, stumbling around, I go, okay, I can't do that because it will affect someone else negative. And that, look, that's a really great start. If you do just that, you're probably going to avoid prison. Yeah.

And you take it a step further and you've remembered it like, you got one body and you got one life and how people are looking at what you do from afar, they're going to judge you. And they're not just going to judge you. Now we're getting back to that effect on the people. You know, they're going to see how other people interact with you as well and what's people decide to interact with you. You don't want people to cast you off or to distance themselves. You behave in a way that makes you a net positive to your surroundings.

People like to be around you. At the very least, they don't feel like they got to clutch their purse. Yeah. Yeah. You talk a lot about discipline. You write about discipline and how discipline is kind of like the way out for you, but has been the way out. How have you become a more disciplined person and what role did that play and how

helping you get to where you are today? Oh, the boxing thing, man. This is where it comes from, right? Yeah. And I don't know if we talked about this before, but I tell people a lot. So first we got to go all the back to high school. I was terrible at math, like bad.

In fact, I technically, technically, didn't graduate from high school, like on paper. I had no faith in my quantitative abilities. And then, you know, I was smart enough to know And then, like, you know, you can't do anything that is worthwhile to go to school for don't bother with it, okay? So I start the boxing thing, and I was terrible when I first started boxing. Like, like, legitimately bad.

There's an amateur fight. I was fighting this guy who was way more skilled in him and doing it for a long time. And I was at two left feet, no leverage, it was all arm punches. I swung a few times and I actually fell over and knocked myself down. encountered as a knockdown. And then I took the training seriously. Well, I was always taking the training seriously, but really started to learn, really started to improve.

And then I eventually beat that guy. And I go on two. I went to stay tight and then go on the national gold gloves. And then eventually I didn't win that with tournament, but another national tournament. And so all throughout my amateur career, I'm watching myself get better at something that I was really bad at. And the only reason I got better at is I took accountability. I made the change when I needed to make the changes and it was a very disciplined approach

And I watched how that made me It like a change in my life like like like I'm sitting here with you right now, you know Because of what I was able to do when I fought and then what I was able to do And when I decided to go back to school Because remember I was bad at math. I said okay if I did this with my body let me do this with my mom Okay, let's go right back to the basics all the way back to where I didn't learn even learn how to do fractions correctly Rebuild that foundation do that and I said okay, well I did this with my body. I did this with An abstract skill math can I do this with my writing can I do this in every other area of my life and and each time

It's not like no one says boxing is fun It's kind of fun to beat a guy up like kind of but that guy is not like that guy is not like It's not like he's not trying to beat you up back, and he's good at it, too. And math is enjoyable, but it's not very enjoyable when you don't know what you're doing, and you're like a fish out of water, and these problems are hard, and you've invested this money already, but you've got to figure it out. And all of this comes back around to the key idea here. How you feel about doing something is irrelevant if it is vital to your success.

I live by that and it has changed the trajectory of my life. I don't look at things like I do or don't want to do them. I go, is this or is this not necessary? And if the answer is yes, then it's got to be done. And if I don't like it, okay, what am I going to do, complain? Well, I mean, there's something beautiful about the simplicity of that right there. James Clear was here a few years ago, and I told you this. He quoted you, and it's, I've re-quoted that a thousand times.

I feel like, I think it's about, like, how hard sometimes it is to do the first thing to get started. The quote is, the heaviest weight at the gym is the front door. I love to hear what you were thinking when you came up with that. It's beautiful. And then what that means to you that the heaviest weight at the gym is the front door. When I said that, that was back in the 180 character days of Twitter. And so what that did, you got to train your short game, your long game, right? I started to think in Twitter.

It's actually a useful skill. Well, yeah, like, you know, Twitter is what it is, right? But one of the things that, at least when there was that restriction, now they removed it twice, first. taken it to 240 and now you can extend your tweets and then well what it's done is it's removed the need for economy of word choice compression of ideas is something you're good at James like a lot of the best thinkers are able to compress these long thesis statements into bumper stickers into the the meat exactly and I think that's a very useful skill and you know the way they trained a lot of us coming up in school this essay has got to be a minimum I know this should

be a maximum, there should be a limit. And then you got to get that idea in there clearly. So what all I'm thinking about is like, okay, well, it's hard. You know, zero to one is the hardest part. Well, it's a cool way to say that. Well, there we go, okay? And just thinking about that, I just, I'm looking at Jimmy Sunny because Jimmy's been incredible helping me in my journey as a now, like a, you know, not yet, but at least

date's done. They sent me my checks as far as I. I know. The book's going to come out. But Jimmy was really helpful, not just helping me get connected with people and talking to me about different marketing aspects of it. But one thing, I don't know if I told Jimmy this. When I sat down and write the book, I didn't really know what I was writing, right?

I knew that they paid me to write a book. And if I didn't write that book, they were going to take that money back. That's what I knew. All right. So I said, all right, let's just start writing something. And that's what happened. I just started to write. Funny story about this kind of a side note.

The first book I wrote, there were three books. The first book I wrote, about 45,000 words. And I remember clearly I said, this isn't what they want. I don't think they want this kind of book. It was pretty much an autobiography with some key moments in my early life up to when I graduated from high school. So I started writing the other book. The next book, that was a set of themes around, you know, discipline, motivation, dealing with pain, forgiveness, those kind of things.

We're taking different aspects of my life. And then it was time to submit the manuscript. And I looked and I said, I don't know what they really want here. These are two different books. You know what I'll do? I'll combine them. And I did that. And I remember my editors sending me these praise.

He's like, this is the greatest thing I've ever read. No, he didn't say that, but that's how I heard it. Okay? And I'm messaging my age, and I'm like, yo, it's no like this all the time, or is he just, you know, or is this for real? He goes, no, I never heard him be so happy. This is great. And then Crickets. He got to the second book.

And I saw the feedback, and I realized that I was like, oh, wow. I wasn't supposed to write that second book, but it's a good thing I amended that first one because he's like, This is the direction you want to go. But if I had just been sitting there thinking about this the whole time I wouldn't have anything, I'd have nothing. You gotta be willing to correct. I tell my wife all the time, she's involved in the travel industry. And every now and then she'll get a client, and it'll be the weirdest problem.

It'll, you know, 10 years doing this, it'll just be a new problem. And when you first start something, you run into these problems on an exponential curve. You just keep hitting them and eventually it goes linear and then it turns log over the and you stop bumping into the wall so much. But once you bump into that wall, you know where the new problems are, but you got to bump into the wall a bunch of times. A lot of people don't want to bump into that wall. This is where discipline comes in.

You got to go, okay, it's going to hurt, it's going to waste time, I'm going to hate my life, but I will learn something and eventually what I create is going to be really cool. Well, boxers, not a boxer, I've done it a little bit, but certainly nothing like this, have to live and die by routine. Like some, there's like wrestlers, boxers, like some of those routine regimented kind of work ethic type people, you gotta be in such impeccable shape.

How have you taken this learning of routine and being regimented and getting after it every day to like everything outside of boxing? First, boxing is really boring. It's boring and it's miserable. I don't know, my coach and I were talking about this last week, I've always believed this, he's always believed it, but this was the first time the idea was said out loud and we said, yes, there's something wrong with every single

person who decides to do this for real. There's got to be. Most people run from fights. We try and get into them. But the way you do that is you just make it, you just practice until you can't forget. Like I think that, I think in psychology the term is overlearning And they've done some research on this. Like if you were learning a new set of words and a new language and you memorize those words and then you go, I got them and you chill out. And the second person goes, I'm going to learn those 10 words and then I'm just going to say them all the time over and over and over and over again until they don't sound like,

you ever say words so much, it doesn't sound like a word anymore. You're like, is this real? Yeah. Okay. Turns out that person in that overlearning situation, their attention is going to be far superior to yours. And that's what we got to do in boxing. We practice until we can't forget even if we wanted to.

See guys walking around a shadow box and part of it's like obsessive, but the other part is just rehearsal. And when you realize how well it works, because that's a great place to see how well something works, either you get it or you'll make a mistake. And you probably won't last to make the mistake more than twice. And in parenthood, that has been a godsend. Because it feels like Groundhog's Day, man. Like every day, wake up, get a snack, change, go to the park.

Snack time, wake up, go to the park, get dinner, bedtime, read a story, tuck them in, go to sleep, wake up. And then sort of, and then it's just the same thing. And every time, then I look up and I go, man, why you get so tall? Right? It's like, when that happened? But I know that kind of monotony can really break a person. Yeah. You get a tolerance for boredom, and we're getting away from that because phones.

It's always something novel to look at, right? I'm reading a book now. Real book. Pages. And I'm like, wow, this is crazy. There's no flash of notifications or anything. pop up. I remember this. It's like the 90s. It's a good time. But my point with saying that is that routine works, systems work. It's the human that gets bored with them. And if you can be bored, you can go really far because a lot of it is just, even at the highest levels, from what I've seen with my own eyes in boxing, it's just the repetition of really far.

basic things, like super basic. If you look at, I don't know if anyone in here knows any of the guys in a sport, some of these names are bigger or not, but Terrence Crawford and now he in the way and Alexander Usik, if you look at these guys practice and now all these guys on YouTube, we're trying to break these things down and show these crazy fancy things, but we look at them, people who know, all they do, their footwork is just perfect. And it's perfect, not fancy, but these basic things are perfect. And all I've done is just string together these different aspects of the sport that are boring and basic.

And they do them so well that they'll fight unconscious. There's no time to think. So if you can get really comfortable with what it takes to attain that level of muscle memory, then you can do anything. Because that's the only way to get good at anything. just do it a lot. It's like you're unconsciously conscious. Like you just, you get to the point where it just is automatic. Right. And that's boring. Yeah. You got to be willing to do that. Peyton Manning was famous. He said when I don't love taking every rep in practice, I got to stop.

I got to stop. Like, so he took every rep, every single rep in practice. And when that day comes, I got to stop. So I'm going to open up in a second. I'm going to ask one more to give you guys time to think. So I want you to, you know, feel free. I know Ed is. I don't even look at you guys. Sorry, Bob, man. I'm just lacing this way in. So one of the things, my buddy, Brooke Cups is back there, and we talk a lot about body language, right?

And having positive body language. And I think boxers have to have this, man, right? You're not going to walk in a ring with bad body language, or you're getting killed, right? And from a leadership perspective, I don't think this is a small detail to be like, yeah, I'll worry about that later. I think it's something to think about all the time.

Can you talk me through whether it's intentional or not thinking about your positive body language, entering a ring or going for a speaking gig or any, anytime really in your life, being a dad, but the importance of having positive body language? Yeah, I wish I could have remembered the research, but I know it exists. That idea that if you smile, you'll feel happy. You don't smile because you're happy. Sometimes you do, right? Yeah.

But you can also work that system in reverse. You smile you feel happy. It's like you puff up your chest and the testosterone flows because you feel like you're stronger. Yeah? So if you can do that with your body, then you have to remember this. We make a big deal. I make a big deal.

I hope you guys do too. So I'll say we, we make a big deal about how we talk to ourselves, right? But what you're saying is accurate. And a lot of people don't put that much energy and that much effort into how they, you present themselves physically, not just in body language, but in grooming, but in style. Yeah. Because that is the first way we gather information, we see it. And then you get the feedback.

And if you get great feedback, you, it becomes this self-fulfilling loop. You go, okay, these people must like how I look. I must be a cool person. Let me act like a cool person. And then they go, he's acting like a cool person. We shouldn't he is cool and then it bumps up and that's how we take advantage of it I think that's how we should take advantage of it as far as like in and boxing goes right It's weird man. You got this posturing this going on and guys are about to fight

There's no reason to posture but we got to do it. It's this show and it can make a difference Mike Tyson talked about this all the time He's got that great monologue where he's like I'm looking at the guy across me and I'm looking at his eyes The sea I'm waiting for the moment he looks away and that's when I know I got him And the guys are losing the fight before the fight even starts because they're scared and they betrayed their own self and the other guys looking to wait to see what happens. So to take and apply this to every other part of life and that fatherhood thing is really key to, I can't act scared because then they think something's wrong.

And then I start acting like something's wrong because then I triggered a whole fear cascade. I have to remain calm in the face of a danger. I have to always look for solutions, even if a situation seems hopeless. Because the minute I accept it, it's hopeless, I try. I'm not saying there's always going to be a solution, but I have to keep trying. And then remembering that I can't mope around the house, because that's bringing me down. I got to move around. You got a lot of yourself.

That's pretty much what you got to do. But it's a very useful lie because your brain's dumb, as weird as that sounds. Your brain is stupid. Doesn't really know what's going on. If you're walking around all proud and happy, knowing you got a big bill due and you don't know how you're going to make it, your brain's going to go, man, we must have figured this thing out.

Why feel down? Because no matter how bad a situation is, if you let your internal state go to heck, that doesn't help you solve it. Reality is going to be reality. You can't change reality. But you can change how you interact with it, how you perceive it. And if you don't take that seriously, a reality will steamroll you in these bad situations

that you could potentially have found a way out of. Or you take something that is just, this is the coolest thing with babies, anybody with kids knows, I learned it kind of the hard way, I guess. But like, when he was learning how to walk, he falls. And they get two responses to this. You can freak out and go, oh, it's the baby going to die. Or you just look at him and go, hey, was that fun? Or sometimes start laughing.

He's looking at you going, it must be funny. Let me laugh too. It's the same thing. Like, it's the same thing with people. And that's what leaders figure out is that when something's going on, if I start acting like it's going, everybody starts panicking. If I act like it's calm and cool, it's like that scene in the, the Titanic when they're sinking and they just keep playing the music, that's crazy, right? But look, if the maestro's like, if we're going to play some music, those guys are like,

I guess we're going to play some music. Maybe this is not bad. So good. Let's open it up. Who's got a question for Ed? What do you think? Yeah, go ahead, Rob. Talk about personal accountability. Who was some major influence, and your life, mentors, and what do they do to impact your mindset? So, I didn't have a male that I looked up to until I was 28, 26. I just know the age range because the first person that I really looked up to who really helped me accountable was my coach, my professional coach, when I switched. And he made it very clear.

He never told me to stop drinking, but he made it very clear he disapproved of it. He lived life very clean He will live, he lives, he's still alive He lives life very cleanly One time he invites me over to his house For his father's birthday And there's cake And I know Tom doesn't

Think I should eat sweets When I'm trading But there's cake and it's in his house So I have a piece of cake And he loses it And he's like, what's wrong with you? Like you invited me, the cake is here It was like, I didn't eat me

Why'd you eat it? That type of accountability, that's the person who I look up to, the first role model that I really ever had. Because for whatever reason, when I'm looking at somebody in the media or the TV, that just feels like fiction to me. I know it might be manufactured. I can't really see how the sausage is made, so to speak, so I don't fall for. I've never had an idol or a role model that I can't see or touch. And I didn't have my father around or any positive people around growing up. I didn't have anyone to look up there too.

But when I got to that gym, which was different from where I was when I was in an amateur, this was the first person and I said, this guy's living what he's yelling at me about. It'd be one thing if he was, you know, throwing him back and eating cake himself and then no, he lived, he lives it. And so I said, I want to be like this person. So good. Matt. You mentioned the sheer bored of when you have a day and you were completely bored of the process,

what gets you through that, that mechanism? I want to give you a magic answer. I really do. I'll do the next best thing. I'll tell you what scared me, what scared me is being embarrassed, and that's what I used as being afraid. I said, okay, if I lose this fight, we'll just talk about boxing and go bigger. If I lose this fight because I was not prepared, it'll be my fault because I decided that

today is the day I'm going to take a day off and I don't want to be embarrassed, so let me get in there and get in the gym. And then once you get in there, you know, after about the first 10 minutes, you're in. It's that zero to one, it's the problem. On a much greater scale, I'm not so fear-driven anymore. Now it is this sense of responsibility. And that sense develops, well, from having responsibilities for start, but how does one get responsibility?

That process that leads up to it, all of those boring rest. boring reps and I hope this doesn't sound too circular but that's what is a hard kind of a hard question is there's no there's no one thing that gets me through it's just I look at it and I see it's what has to be done and I want it's I want the outcome but I also don't want what happens if I don't succeed so all of these things come together and it's just in the back of my head you got to do this you You got to do this, you got to do this. And eventually, it gets done.

Or it doesn't, and I'm very confused. Yeah, listen. The theme of our summit is at your best. So what is at your best look like? And how has that changed over time? So at my best, for me for a very long time, just meant, you know, little things. Like, I don't have to know what day of the week it is. Or I can just go to the grocery store.

I go on a trip or whatever. I got to have my time. I have enough money to enjoy my time. It's a good day and there's no worries. That's what I'm my best meant for a very long time. Probably at the very least over the last five to seven years minus two and a half. So like the better part of the decade. Now though, very much.

So what at my best means is that everyone else, everyone in the house is taking care of. And if I have to lose a little sleep to make that happen or miss up. out on something, that's what at my best means now. It is very external. It is about the people around me. If everyone else is doing well, then I know that I've done the best I could. I think what would bug me is if someone is disturbed for some reason, and it was because of something I didn't do that I should have done, you know. So yeah, that that's a little bit of. That's a That's where the big shift is come. It's that it's no longer about how I assess my own time and my own satisfaction.

Now it's about the people around me. Yeah. Oh, go on. Yeah, Mark. Why are you so humble? You're so accomplished, but yet you talked about your sobriety and you thought. No, man, because I've had my ego drag through the mud a lot. Few things will humble you, like looking like an ass.

And ass. I just can't. I mean, I'm just trying to think off the top of my head. Really big humbling event was getting knocked out on TV. That'll do it. Because you go and tell all these people to watch you and then you can let yourself get kind of obnoxious about it too. And then like that, it's over. And it's not the way it, what you want it to go. And you got to remember that that can suck. Being broke. After having money, then being broke, you know, they're up and down and seeing how quickly life can change Remembering this is I think when people say this a lot of times what I'm about to say I think what they're trying to do is kind of bring you down in a negative way But remembering where I came from and interacting with many of those people still I know that I know there's no guarantee right just because it's going well now I mean, it's not, it's always gonna go well. And I never forget that I just always feel like I'm one step away from anything putting me into a really bad position.

One of the reasons I stopped drinking, for example, you know about the law large numbers, right? You know, there's a chance, a thing will happen, and the more trials you have, the closer the outcomes look like the theoretical outcome. So like you flip a coin, you flip it. 10 times, you get head seven times, assuming you know, you're not dealing with some shady characters, that coin is not rigged. But you flip it 50 times, it's more like 26 and 24.

And overall, you get closer to that one half. So crazy stat, most people who drive under the influence don't get pulled over. It's terrible. It's like 1 in 2,800. And unfortunately, you know, I've driven under the influence. I was drinking and I get lucky, get lucky four, five, six, who knows, a lot of times. And it's like, well, how many times can we outrun the law large numbers? And so I stopped.

And I tell that story to set up this part where I worked with a guy. Clearly the guy had a problem, but I worked with a guy when I was working at Starbucks. He had five DUIs. And I'm like, man, the only difference between you and me, though, is that I was lucky. You are lucky When you remember it All it takes is Some people ain't even bad

Just wrong place, wrong time And you got to You got to remember that you're not that different You may have made some different choices And accountability and that's great But it doesn't elevate your value Relative to other people Kind of intrinsically

You know there's like that human value thing And there's like oh how much money do you make Two different things But remembering the first one That is key. I think more people need to remember that the only reason, you know, lucky, where were you born? Who were your parents? All this stuff comes together and it keeps a perspective that allows me to remember.

I'm not anyone special pretty much. Yeah, go ahead, Mike. One of the things you talk about often is the concept of sustained excellence. I think one of the traits for that is being fearless, like just seeing all the competitions you've done and being in the military is, as you can do your own work, how do you remain fearless as you can do through your life? Funny answer here, I think.

I know I'm going to die. I mean, we're all going to die, right? Some people are in denial of that, some aren't, but one day I'm going to die. And on top of that, it's going to take 100 years, maybe 150, unless I do something really good or really bad,

no one's going to ever remember me. So that means I've got to make the most. my time here and not waste it and I value that time. So I have to try at least to do the things that I want to do and to do them to a high enough level to where I'm like, okay, I didn't just dabble here. I picked up a new skill, I met some new people. It's the most interesting man in the world used to say I beefed up my obituary, like that kind of thing.

So just remembering my mortality is a really... powerful driver. It's also why I'm just procrastination is like just an awful habit in general. And the distractions of all around there's so like if you really just wanted to do nothing, you could just sit, never get out of bed and on your computer between the Netflix and the Hulu and the social media. There's all the stuff that'll just take, take, take, take. Take, take, take. How are you going to give? Change from a consumer mindset to a producer mindset.

Remember, you only got a finite amount of time to produce. That right there, you'll never want for any challenge in the world ever again, if you think that way. That you've only got a little bit of time and most people are just going to be consuming and you can figure out a way to produce. Pat? Ed, this is kind of a follow on to what you're saying just now. We look at the list of things that you've done at the beginning.

It's on the war there. Boxing, physics, now writing, and you're talking about only having a finite amount of time, right? How do you go about making the decision of what the next thing's going to be? Say the hardest thing is to start. It's like, what are going to start next? Man, I wish when I was a kid that I had, like, got a chance to do stuff, because I feel like I'm just playing catch up now. And that's why I keep doing so many other things.

As far as figuring out what I'll take on next, there's the path that is grooved out and kind of makes the most sense based on your previous set of skills. And then there's this path and it's a jungle and you got to decide, do you really want to go through the jungle? For example, here is a jungle that I'm pretty sure I'm going to not, I'm just going to stop because I keep running the wall. Really wanted to learn Russian for a while like it was really fascinating me got a guy on a gym who speaks Russian be easy

But Russian is just Difficult and and it's difficult without the payoff the Spanish that I know I can use that I've used it here in Phoenix and this is in America Never gonna use that But the fiction that's why I carry this notebook around by the way not to take notes while right, but I was I was sitting up there before they came and got me and I was I was just taking notes on the next scene. That makes sense. I wanted to do fiction.

I've always wanted to write fiction. I stumbled into this non-fiction world, which is cool, but fiction is interesting to me, and that's what I'm always wanted to do. So that's what I do not. And here's, like, kind of a cool test to try. If you're trying to think about the next thing, if you think about what you wanted to do when you were, like, 10, 12, you know, right when you had, like, agency but no real responsibilities, what did you do for fun?

I wrote stories. I used to, back before computers and the before times, I used to steal rungs of paper and those bonders that were like, it was like this weird kind of fake plastic that you opened up and had the metal. And I didn't write. I don't think they were any good, but I wanted to try it and we'll see how we can, how we do now. But that is, that's kind of the path to go.

You look at what you find interesting, then you decide how difficult. Is it worth trying out? Are you going to get some from it? And then if it checks those boxes, do it. If it only checks that interest box, but that difficulty box isn't worth it. You let that go. And if it doesn't hate either one, you move on and you'll find it. This is so much, so much in the world to figure out and do and have fun with.

Yep. So you talk about the small little boring things and you reference it to the box. What are the small boring things you do in your process now to maintain new sobriety? So what the sobriety thing? I kind of cheated in the first year and a half because I was super busy. I didn't have time to go anywhere. And when I finally went out, 15 months in, it was to watch John Jones and the Daniel Comeyer fight, the first one, anybody who's fans' MMA.

And there was alcohol on a tick. and I was like, I just don't want that. Like it was a weird thought process. I was weird, man. It's here, but not interesting. So I can answer this question how I approached it initially, but now it's part of me. I've got my sobriety day tattoo to my arm, little hashtags for each year. When I first started, I knew that I had to make sobriety a habit the same way I made drinking a habit.

In retrospect, I kind of did that automatically by just not drinking. But there's more to it. I learned how, at first small steps, and then on and on, how to actually talk to people and interact with people without alcohol being the pretense. You know, like, let's get some drinks. A lot of people, one happy hour away, one missed happy hour away from being lonely, and I didn't want to be that guy. I didn't want to be boring out there when I was not drinking.

So I spent a lot of time consciously trying to meet people during the day, coffee shops, learning to talk, learning to connect, really have a conversation for no other reason, then I'm not trying to drink. I won't say I like them, because some of them I don't talk to anymore. But it really helped. And so to bring all this together, not I'll have like a clear answer. And I don't know how much stock you put into like the Myers-Briggs thing. I'm an ENTJ.

One of those things they say about the ENTJs for other E&Js in the room is that like we think out loud and then as we're talking the idea becomes crystal clear. So it's become crystal clear to me and it draws my life quite as he hits because he's the opposite. Is I identified some other positive habit. When you remove something, you got to fill it with something. And so I found a really small, easy one. I just stuck with that, stuck with that, stuck with that. And then when that became no issue, you stick with something else.

Now, like, I mean, I was never like, I don't want to step foot in the bar, but I also have no reason to be there at this point in my life, but I can go into a bar. There can't be alcohol around. It's no big deal. Because I started with this small thing of just talking, trying to talk, which is like, people hate that small talk thing. I love small talk. It's a good time.

Yeah, go ahead. I've seen many of the boxing matches. This may be a stupid question, but I'll just ask. When boxers come in, we spoke about, they display a lot of body language and all of that. But in majority of the bouts, you see when boxers walk in, they have the cape down and they're not looking at anybody.

Both the boxers are not actually looking at anybody. Is it the show for the audience, Or is there body language? Is there a language which is communicating between the two bosses? So, like, there's two things going on at the same time and you've got to, like, fight them. On the one hand, you don't want to think about anything else but this fight coming up.

Some guys come out really relax or whatever, and sometimes they're, like, dapping people up. But for the most part, you're trying to, like, stay locked in and not be distracted. And then there's the other part where you're like, I really don't want to think about this going badly. And there's a possibility

it could go badly. So you don't want to think about that either. So you've got this thing. You don't want to think about what you've got to think about and you don't want to focus on anyone else. But that's the only, like, it's this cacophony.

And you can't make out anything individually. You just see everything. What's trying to happen here is you're really just, just trying to create this space. And in this space, nothing else matters. Because boxing is really weird. If anyone's ever boxed, you'll know what I'm talking about,

but that's what I say, but if you haven't tried to imagine this. No one is doing anything else but looking just at you. That's it. You are almost naked and there's a chance you're gonna get embarrassed, right? All of this is going on and kind of, It's like, I wrote about this once just to myself and I was gonna use it somewhere. But like, there are like five fundamental fears. I don't think I'll get them all.

It's like self-mutilation, not self, it's like mutilation, restraint, invasion, like something gets in you, loss of autonomy. Some, I'm almost there. But boxing brings up like every fear all that once. And not the match itself, but, like, as you're leading up to the anticipation of this thing, that you can't run away, something, you're restrained. I mean, like, that's the part, just even now when I think about it, just they put you in these gloves, and they got to put the gloves on before the fight goes. That's obvious.

What you don't know, what a lot of people don't know, is that once they, the official comes, checks, makes sure there's a good tape, you're in. You can't take that tape off. If you got to go to the bathroom, right? That's it. Funny story, a guy I trained, but he had to go to the bathroom once the gloves on, so, you know, coach had to help him out. So you got all these things going on, and you don't want to give in that fear.

You don't even want to give it energy. But it's just, it's loud. It's loud, and you can't ignore it. So the best thing you're trying to do is just turn everything into a blur. It's like, look over here. I know all these people are ever going to stare. at this bottom of the wall kind of deal and block it out. Maybe it helps.

Some guys it doesn't. But you see, you know, when guys are the zone in, all it takes it, when we get in there, a lot of guys who said this, I agree with the truth. You want to get hit. Not so hard that the fight's over, but just enough to know, okay, I'm in a fight. This is not paper. I'm not going to crumble. Let's go.

And now that brings you real front and center. But up until that point, all you've got, you got this, this long, they say they draw it out. I'm watching a fight and I hate how long that the opening stuff is drawn out. So I know what it's like, and I know what it's like in there too. It's like, why can we just start the fight? Okay. No problem. Oh, yeah, go ahead, Mirita.

You've briefly touched on it that you grew up next to a substance abuse issues. Like you are the person you are today and you've learned the lessons that, you know, from that brain partially and it's made you into this super centered person that you are today. You mentioned you have children. How do you find the balance of like trying to teach your children the same valuable lessons that you've learned from all those horrible experiences while obviously they live a very different life than what you did? How do you teach them those things in a much more safe and secure upbringing?

So you're familiar with survivor's bias. The idea is like, okay, you know, we look at the people who succeed as an example of the process and everything that led up to it being successful. So in this context, one might look at me and go, well, you know what you need to do? You need to move out of the suburbs and drop yourself right down next to a crack house and get yourself a pet crackhead while you're at it. Okay? What a lot of people forget, most people who grow up in my environment, they are not

anything close. I know guys, when I was doing research for my book, I just wanted to look stuff up to. I started going down memory lane and looking up some names and they've seen a bunch of guys in prison for different things. So my challenge is not so much because the research, even if the research wasn't clear I've seen it with my own eyes, but the research is clear on this too. The research is very clear. That environment messaged you up pretty bad.

And I've had to deal with a lot of things too. My challenge is not how to teach him the lessons from that life. I don't want him to know anything about that because love is a lot better. The challenge for me is how do I get him to know that exists and to know what those people are like and to people are like and to develop a sympathy and an empathy for them without him getting too close to it, you know? I want them to know the stove is hot, but I don't want them to touch it. Problem is, as a good friend of mine said, when you play in the mud with white gloves,

the mud never gets glovier. Right? So I thought about this. I talked to my wife about it. Probably going to take them to the boxing gym. You know why? Boxing gym is great because it's this weird microcosm where the drug dealers and the cops are training and nobody is on as nobody comes in trying to bring the business it's like a second john wake at the

Continental that's what it's like we don't conduct business here right and you get to get to see that now boxing is great for this because it's this hard painful thing and but it's but it's conducted with respect because it has to be. Otherwise, it devolves into a street fight. And those don't have rules. Those don't have dignity. Those don't have respect. So what I'm doing with what my son is, introducing him to boxing. If he wants to compete, I'm not going to encourage or discourage, but I will probably have an argument and see what happens. But I guess to the crux it is, I introduce hardship strategically and with awareness, because the analogy I use, if I give you a weight, it's like 2x times your max, you're not going to be able to move that weight.

Nothing will happen. No matter how hard you push, it's not going to go anywhere. Not only that, but you might hurt yourself trying to move it. But if I step it up incrementally, okay, you're going to get stronger. You're going to be able to eventually deal with the other stuff. I think a lot of things we call trauma are a lot like that, that people get hurt really early and really intensely, and they can't recover from it.

Not that these things are ever good, but it's a lot different if I pick a guy out the crowd and go smack them up a few times and call them names, he's going to be mad at me. It won't recover. If I do that to a five-year-old a few times, what the heck happened? And now they're like the two young to grasp,

And I don't want to never have to deal with that. So all that together, put a bow in it, is I'm introducing a hardship strategically and with love as opposed to. I'm just going to throw you into the wolves and hope you come back with a cape. To close, man. Talk about beefing up your obituary. It's a great. It's a great one. What do you want your obituary to say?

Oh, man. You know what? I just hope that on my way out, because when I'm gone. I'm gone. I hope on my way out, I hope my kid remembers that I was like a present happy dude. Because like I don't have no real memories of my dad. Like I have trouble remember what he looks like, right? And my mom don't really have pleasant memories.

My wife, when I met her dad already passed. I have figured out over the years that her and her mom and her sister, they don't have a good relationship with her mom. So like, for all intents and purposes, he's got no grandparents. As I get older, I don't want that. I want 100 million. Okay, yay. I kind of, I don't mind my parents. I ain't gotta like us, but, you know, I don't want to come out with excuses.

Why don't want to talk on the phone kind of deal. But as far as when I die, man, you know, it'll be cool. No one's going to read it. No one's going to know. I mean, maybe I'll invent something cool or do something really, really cool, but not really When I'm gone, I'm gone and it's going to take a generation or two before it won't matter. I know that's not a cool answer, man. It's real.

But like, I think a lot about that. Like, I'm 40, right? I'm about halfway done here. Hopefully not halfway done. I think I want to live to 1 in 20, but that's just me. You're a third. But I think about the time I got left, but once it's up, it's up. I guess I'd like to write a best-selling fiction book.

Ooh, there you go. And yeah, maybe one day I'll get back around the Russian, but it is just a miserable. It's hard. It's hard. My high school was unique, and I got to take Japanese, and I took it for four years. And then when my first tried college before I failed out, I took it for another year or so. And I was really, like, I was that dude, man, what they call, Motakus? I loved the Japanese culture.

I thought it was really cool and it hit me one day. This is a very difficult language and only one country speaks it and a lot of them speak English. And on top of that, that's a long flight. I probably don't know. So I lost all interest in Japanese. Russian is a little like that except I don't want to get thrown in for just being an American. I don't know if that is what will happen. I know some fighters that have gone over there had no problems whatsoever.

I just hope, man. remember that I tried to help. I love it. Well, the book that everybody in here is going to get is called Hard Lessons from the Hurt Business, and I know how already worked on it. And I'm just really grateful that you decided to come here. By the way, Ed is also going to stay with us, coming to dinner. He'll be with us tomorrow.

So he's going to be a regular attendee. He wanted to be attending the whole time, and I said, let's make it like a little bit of a surprise. And so I want to tell you guys a story. This is cool. So first he invites me, and I said, great. And I'm like, man, this is really cool you invited me. Do you want me to do a presentation?

He goes, yeah. So I'm putting together the presentation. I get an email. Hey, hey, I got this idea. I got this idea. We had James Clear to do this thing last year. You want to come and do that? I said, do I ever?

Because this is a lot easier than creating. No, it worked out, dude. It did work out. Yeah, yeah. But he'll be worth us the whole time. You're all getting at this book. I'd like you to like order it on Amazon, addition to getting it for me, that stuff matters. It should be a bestseller. I know it's not like,

I mean, it kind of matters, I guess. I want to support Ed and his work for all that he gives to us and gives us so many people like super inspiring, dude, like just amazingly inspiring to me and to so many, man. Yeah, I appreciate it. Give it up for Ed Ladimore. Awesome. It is the end of the podcast club. Thank you for being a member of the end of the podcast club. if you are, send me a note. Ryan at LearningLeader.com, let me know what you learn from this great conversation with Ed Latimore, a few takeaways from my notes. How you feel about doing something is irrelevant if it is vital to your success.

You might have to bump into a wall a bunch of times. A lot of people don't want to do that. If you're willing to do the hard things, you'll be a better person for it. That is the difference between great and good. And then the heaviest way to the gym is the front door. You got to get started. Lace up the shoes. Once you get moving, the momentum will carry you a bit.

But you got to get started. Start the thing. Whatever it is that you're hesitating to do, just get started. Start before you are ready and figure it out as you go. And then what do you want your obituary to say? He said, I didn't just dabble here. I love it. I think the biggest difference between people who leave a positive dent in the

world and those who don't is the willingness to fully commit everything you have to something, to put your whole heart and soul into it. Anna Wintour once said that people respond well to those that are sure of what they want, what people hate Moses in decision. So don't just dabble with things, make a decision and commit everything you have to it. Once again, I would say thank you so much for continuing to spread the message and telling a friend or two, Hey, you should listen to this episode of The Learning Leader Show with Ed Latimore. I think he'll help you become a more effective leader because you continue to do that.

And you also go to Spotify and Apple Podcasts. You subscribe to the show. You're rated, hopefully five stars and you'll leave a thoughtful review by doing all of that. You are continually giving me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so, so much. Talking to soon. Can't wait.