The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - Ed Latimore On How To Control Your Mind, & Emotions By Being Objective, Educating Yourself, & Looking At Other Peoples Opinions With An Open Mind

Episode Date: May 27, 2021

#360: On today's episode we are joined by former pro boxer turned writer, & online entrepreneur; Ed Latimore. Ed joins the show to discuss how we can control our mind and emotions by educating ourselves and being objective. We also discuss how people with differing opinions should not immediately be set aside or looked upon with hostility, but rather with curiosity and a desire to understand. We round out the show by discussing the benefits of surrounding yourself with people that have opinions counter to your own.  To connect with Ed Latimore click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by HUSH Hush is on a mission to help people around the world relax with ease and fall asleep faster whenever they wish. We love the lunar grey throw. It's the perfect weighted blanked to help melt away anxiety and sleep better. Hush also has an amazing give back program where they donate 1 in 10 adult blankets and 1 in 5 kids blankets to charities and shelters in need. You also have a 100 night money back guarantee . Visit https://hushblankets.com/ and use code SKINNY for 10% off all items! This episode is brought to you by Just Thrive During a time when boosting our immune health needs to be at the forefront of our minds Just Thrive has the answer for you. The Just Thrive probiotic can help boost your immune system and heal your gut. 80-90% of Americans suffer from gut issues and these issues can track to many of the diseases that humans face. With Just Thrive probiotics we can help combat these gut issues. Use promo code SKINNY at www.justthrivehealth.com/skinny to try today!  This episode is brought to you by Oshēn Salmon Oshēn Salmon was created for those who longed for their perfect protein match. One that was easy to prepare, packed with protein, and made us glow from within. Hello omega-3s! Ocean raised salmon has more than 1,500 mg of Omega-3 content which is double the Omega-3 contentus versus most wild salmon. To get your box of Oshen visit www.oshensalmon.com and use code SKINNY for 15% off plus free shipping.  Produced by Dear Media 

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A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the Skinny Confidential, him and her. Aha! Aha! When I meditate, I like to think about how badly a situation could have turned out. That's as close as I need to get.

You don't have to learn everything the hard way because if you do, you probably won't survive long enough to reap the benefit of the lesson. So I try to learn things that way by imagining the experience. And that's where that comes from. We have got an exciting episode for you today. Our friend Ed is on the podcast, dropping some major realness. Ed Latimore on the show today. Many of you guys may be familiar with Ed's writing. He is a bestselling author, former professional heavyweight boxer and competitive chess player. And the way that we got turned on to Ed Latimore was scrolling through Twitter, just perusing around. And I started to see writing from this guy. And the way that Ed

writes on Twitter is literally like an artist. He somehow is able to capture your attention in very few characters. And so we really started this rapport back and forth on Twitter. I started sharing some of the stuff that he wrote. He started resharing what I wrote and I just DM'd him one day and said, hey, you know, why don't you come on the show one day and like, let us hear your story and get a little bit more into the mind, which is, you know, kind of how these things happen these days. And Ed has a really interesting background that I'll let Michael tell you about, but this episode kind of goes all over the place. It's definitely a conversation. I was so inspired by his story and then I was inspired by his tips. I mean, he says some things where you're like, oh my God, that makes so much sense. Yeah. I mean, he's got a very compelling background and story, which we dive into

this episode. The way he'll describe it is he says that he likes to tell people that he's lived four lives. He grew up in the public housing projects of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He knew both his parents, but he didn't necessarily live with them. And growing up poor in public housing projects was, you know, stressful and dangerous for him at the time. And it really got him to start to look at life in a really kind of cynical way. But from those experiences, you know, he learned different street smarts, he learned different skills. He learned how to really pull himself up from the bootstraps and really make a life for himself. And he's extremely successful at this point, got a great platform. And I just, I love compelling stories like this. I love people that take control of their lives,

take accountability and just make the best of it. So Ed has definitely done that and more. Also, he wrote some books. They're available on Amazon. Definitely check out Sober Letters to My Drunken Self. It's a good one. It has five stars. With that, Ed Latimore, welcome to the Skinny Confidential Him and Her Show. This is the Skinny Confidential Him and Her. So listen, I've been a huge fan of you for a long time. Your writing, I think like I love outspoken people that shake shit up and like you're always shaking shit up. You know that. And I don't even think I'm that controversial, man.

It's not that you're controversial. It's that you just, when you say things and I feel like they have impact, right? Like, and I think you know that your writing is in a style that gets, it grabs attention. And you do it in a, especially on Twitter, you do it in a way where you don't have to say a style that grabs attention. And you do it, especially on Twitter, you do it in a way where you don't have to say much and it grabs attention. So you see me sharing your stuff once in a while. And I was like, the last one, I think it was something about haters in the street. And I was just laughing. And I said, hey, I got to get this guy on the podcast, but I needed you to come here because we try to do these things remotely sometimes. It's just not

the same interaction. Oh, no, this is great is this is the first show i've traveled for as you know sometimes i did um a concrete podcast uh two years ago and i just but i just happened to be in orlando and tampa was is an hour and a half away from uh orlando so i drove over and that was a really good experience and i said all right whenever i get a chance to do it again you know as long as i don't have to go anyplace crazy and this this is perfect i mean i'm sure you have no difficulty getting people to go oh austin all right cool you know no one's like man it's a good time it's it's central you know it's easy to get to and you know there's a lot of stuff to do here.

So people are like, OK, I'm going to come do a podcast. I'm going to come for a meeting. But then there's what you're doing. There's so many people to meet, so many things to do, so much good food. It's just a cool place. It seems safe. It really blew my mind, man, when we went to a little barbecue. It was like a row of people in tents.

And they were underneath the bridge, man. This guy had a full-on mattress laid out like a king-size bed. I'd never really seen anything like that. I mean, I've been to Scare Row, and Scare Row is a different animal. But this was interesting. And the cops were showing up to break it up. I don't know. Dave was telling me that, I guess, a while ago, they voted that you could live in tents on the street.

Yeah, they lifted a camping ban. And now they just lifted it, I guess, I think a day or two ago. And now they're like taking care of the campers. We'll use that word. Skid Row. Can you explain what Skid Row is like to anyone who's never been there?

Okay, so Skid Row. I don't know why they thought this was cool or maybe they couldn't deal with it. But Skid Row in Los Angeles, downtown LA, is effectively a homeless person city. And during the day, you see the homeless people, but the freaks come out at night. Full tents pop up in the middle of the street. You can't even drive. When I lived up there, a friend came out to visit me and then she was taking the train to the next destination.

So I drove her to the train station. And the train station in LA is like right downtown. And I had to like navigate. Look, I'm from the projects. I grew up, born and raised there. And I did that thing, you know, that joke,

like when you drive by, you lock the door. I hit the door lock and put the windows up. And I was, you know, that joke, like when you drive by, you lock the door. I hit the door lock and put the windows up. And I was, you know, terrified because the big the big thing about it that I understand is that the police don't really interfere. They kind of let the street govern the street. So there's not it's not safe. They don't really care.

It is more like, what are you doing in this place? You know, the only other thing I've heard of like this, I put a poll up because I was curious about it, was the Tenderloin District in San Francisco. It's very similar, but apparently worse because I guess in San Francisco, there's this whole culture of open intravenous drug use. And that's a very terrible thing as well because you know drug addicts do things the drug addicts do and a lot of that is going to be whatever it takes to get more drugs they're not exactly holding you know if it gets to the point where you're living in the street and doing your drugs probably not holding the jobs you got to get get it how you get it you know usually the scheme ass way i want to go back to to your childhood tell us how you get it, usually the schema-ass way. I want to go back to your childhood.

Tell us how you grew up. Give us the whole story. So what's the best way to put this? Okay. So for those who don't know about the term at-risk youth, I was like, all the markers for at-risk youth, born into poverty. To call my mom a single mom is probably not accurate because I knew my dad, but he didn't live with us.

He lived across the state. I've probably seen him like four times a year. Collectively, we added up, we worked out to less than 24 hours per year that I saw my father. My mom didn't get a solid full-time job probably until I was 15, but we were on and off the welfare system because my mom always tried to work, right? But anyone who knows the public assistance system and the welfare system, it's very hard to work because it's like you make,

as your income increases, your benefits decrease. And you reach this weird point where you're not really making enough to do anything else, you don't have the time to improve or better yourself. So a lot of people go, okay, the most efficient thing to do is just kind of stay on the system. Fortunately, like very fortunate that my mom did not have that attitude. She had her flaws, but I've learned over the years

that it's just a better look to focus on the positive things that I got from that childhood. A lot of negatives, though, and we can talk about that. And that is the typical thing you expect. Saw a lot of violence, engaged in a lot of violence myself, but always defend myself. I'm an unbelievably, I'm probably peaceful to a fault. Boxing really changed a lot of that in me. And now I'm very much, all right, we have a clear boundary

and it's like out here. And if you get a little too close, we're going to make sure you are aware of the boundary. And that's just not physical, but like psychological mostly is we don't engage in random fighting. You do have a peaceful energy though. It's very peaceful.

I try to be peaceful. And that comes, I mean, a lot of that was developed in that neighborhood because being volatile tends to cause a reaction. And sometimes that reaction exceeds your capacity for endurance. So you're going to have to fight some guys. I mean, I fought a lot of guys, but I never fortunately like my fighting stopped and I made smart decisions about where to go for high school. So I wasn't around a lot of the influences.

But there comes a point where you're a child where you're not a child anymore. And now we're bringing big boy weapons to the fight. People aren't, you know, just throwing blows and hitting you with rocks, you know, they're going to shoot or stab or whatever. And those are the kinds of things I got to avoid. When you were little and there's violence around you,

and I'm talking before high school, did you know that there was something maybe not right about that? Or did you just think that was just how you grew up hey look every kid who grows up for you know for example getting an ass beat right i watched a few of the shows so i know i can swear so yeah when you grow up for example getting your ass beat in the house, you think getting your ass beat is normal. I'll never forget, man. I went to a high school completely across town. We had something called the magnet system in our city, and you could go to different schools that were not your feeder school.

This was in Pittsburgh. Yeah, in Pittsburgh. My feeder school was full of other people from the hood, but this school was not. It was full of people, middle class, upper middle class, and it was a good program. So there were a lot of people who could have sent their kids to some of the private schools, but chose to send them to Schenley where we went. And so all of my friends, all the people I keep in my life, even now to this day, they are upper middle class people. And I went there and I was like, wait, you mean you could talk back and they don't go upside your head? That's crazy. This is weird.

Oh, man, your pantry's full of food. That's crazy. You see all this and you start to go, hmm. So you're telling me there's a different way to live. And then at that point, I think, at least my issue, the more I became aware of the differences, the angrier I got that I was there. And how did that manifest itself? Well, for starters, it started with a lot of avoidance. I don't think I spent one full holiday at home in high school.

I either woke up someplace else or I went someplace else or sometimes spent the whole day there. I'm very fortunate that I had really good friends and families, not just a friend because they embraced me and took me in. And to this day, I'll be randomly thinking about something when I'm writing my newsletter or putting together a post or composing a tweet, and it'll trigger the kindness that was really showed and i'll message and reach out to them and be like look i know you know what you did for me probably kept me from going on a different path i you know just want you to know that your deeds aren't forgotten you're kind because you didn't have to let me visit you could have you know took one look at

me and i was i was composed and together and i think fairly intelligent but they could have, you know, took one look at me. And I was composed and together and I think fairly intelligent. But they could have said, no, you know, we don't need you around. Was there violence in your home? Is that why you weren't escaping? Oh, yeah, violence at home, violence in the street. My mom was a big believer, you know, in just beating your ass, man. That's how we solved a lot of it.

And I think, as I look back at it now, I mean, then I kind of knew this is messed up. But as I look back at it now. I mean, then I kind of knew this messed up. But as I look back at it now, I realize while there was, I mean, just outright abuse, man. I had a scar on my eyebrow and stuff. I had it since once. And once my sister got old enough and tall enough to defend herself, then the police would occasionally get involved. And that was a crazy, crazy mess. Because like once I was like 15,

my mom made a cost-benefit analysis of hitting me. And I wasn't one of those guys. I never thought it was a good idea to hit my mom back. But you never know. You don't want to push somebody. So my mom never, you know, she stopped laying hands on me when I probably finished puberty.

My sister, three years younger though, it takes three years and my sister's like 5'11", man. She was like Yeah. So she'd fight back and that's what it would get into and you just get used to that vibe. There was no, I tell people all

the time, I didn't, I don't know what a safe place is. I didn't have that. Outside was not safe because anything can go down. I was fighting. School wasn't safe. And so I get to high school, that's going to be where a lot of stuff goes down. Home's not safe. You never really know what's going to kick off. I didn't start finding those safe places, like I said, until I started, you know, I got to high school. I played a sport all year round or I had a job. So I never went directly home. Weekends spent time with my

friends, holidays where people are typically home from school somewhere else. Cause usually as a kid, I'm like, as a kid, I think I'm just trying to be fun and social. Right. But as I look back and I look at it in the context of everything, and then I have experiences to reference it. I have a brain. It's like completely finished developing. I can go, yeah, man, I was trying to be safe somewhere, no stress, you know, a little fun. But because every location, it wasn't really this idea of fun. It was you survive, whatever, right? Kids are going to be kids and trying to find places to be kids and have fun. And I think that's all I did. You know what I was using last night when I was winding down? What? It wasn't you that I was using. That's for sure. I was going to say it

wasn't me. No, it wasn't you. It was my hush blanket. It's a weighted blanket and it helps me so much to wind down. It helps with anxiety when i'm feeling overwhelmed when you're annoying me with quickbooks in bed i just put my hush weighted blanket on top of me that sounds weird but listen true story the other night i had a couple too many tequilas yes you did and said a few stupid things and got in trouble with you and um yeah i just like i was hung out with my blanket i was feeling a little bit of anxious the next day. And I'm not going to lie. I may have used the hush blanket to calm my nerves a bit.

The one that I like is the classic weighted blanket. It's really like a minky cover. And it's really soft because it has minky threading. And this one I got in lunar gray. It comes in four different sizes and six different weights. I like intense, but you do you. They also have other options for the blankets, but I definitely would recommend if you've never had a weighted blanket, start with the classic.

It really helps with sleep. It helps with winding down. I'm telling you, put your salt rock nightlight on, dim the lights, put some meditation music on and get your essential oils going. Get under this blanket. You will be asleep so quickly you will not even believe it. My little sister Mimi stole our other weighted blanket. She sleeps with it every night and she swears by it. You should know they also have a give back program. They donate one in 10 adult blankets and one in five kids blankets to charities and shelters in need.

Lastly, there's a 100-night guarantee. So you have 100 nights to test it out. Don't love it. You can send it back full refund. I know you're going to love it though. I'm telling you, get the one that I have. I'm like obsessed with it. To check out the Hush Blanket and all of the Hush products, go to hushblankets.com and use code SKINNY for 10% off all items. Again, that's hushblankets.com and use code SKINNY for 10% off all items. Again, that's hushblankets.com and use code skinny for 10% off all items. So when did you find boxing? Because what I've found meeting capable people over the years, and there's a lot of capable people here in Texas, is they have this calm kind of sure energy because you're a capable person. And I think, you know, I boxed when I was a kid, never to your level, but, and I still train a little bit, but not at the

professional, but what it did for me personally, I think a lot of people in life go through life being scared of a punch that never comes, right? They sit there and they wait and they're like, oh, the anticipation. And when you actually get a bit punched in the face, you actually take a hit like, oh, it sucks, but it's not as bad as you think it was. So you kind of like break this fear barrier. It also kind of puts you in a position where you're a little bit more sure of yourself because you know as bad things come at you, you're like, okay, maybe I can't deal with every situation, but I'm capable enough to deal with average situations.

And so I'm wondering, one, when you found boxing and kind of what that did, not only for you physically, but mentally. Okay. So I didn't start boxing until i was 22. like like they used to be old now what we're seeing at the at the highest level is at the heavyweight because it's a heavyweight there's there's something else that goes on but they used to be old to start but now we're starting to see these guys come from other sports because if you box from a kid, you will not get big enough to fight heavyweight. It's just not possible. Your body's usually going to be in a caloric deficit and you're always burning twice your BMR every day.

It's not going to happen. So what happens to a lot of guys, they come from another sport like football or wrestling or whatever, where they did have to put on weight and then they come box heavyweight. This is the path that De trained with when I was out in California, because that was an incredible experience. It was called All-American Heavyweights. It'll never happen again, probably. This guy, Michael King, decided he was going to invest and get a bunch of backers to come together and train people from former Division I athletes and turn them into fighters and then try and get one to the Olympics, which he did with Dominic Brazil. And Dominic trained out there with me as well. But here's another guy from another sport.

But to be 6'7", how much is Dom weight? Like 250, 240, 250? If you're working out constantly in a heavily aerobic and anaerobic sport, you're not going to put the weight on. So I don't think I started that late. I said all that to say, now I don't think I started that late. But at the time, it wasn't really a trend for guys to be coming over from the other sports. Now that's pretty much what everyone does. If they don't have a super stellar standout pro

career, a lot of them go, let's go try a fight. And these guys are huge and incredible. So I start late and I start because I needed, I didn't have any sweat equity. I tell people this story all the time. I mean, I was talking about how I message people who showed me, you know,

the condescendence when I was a kid. And sometimes it's tough love. And I got a real, real serious dose of tough love. I had went to college one time and it went terribly when I was 18. Dropped out because they were going to kick me out. So I just left early after one semester

and I was dating this girl and I spent like every day at her house and her family fed me, right? But that's nice. But i also was on this like anti-college raid like i think college is stupid and it's a trap etc etc yada yada yada all that kind of rhetoric now i still have that attitude the difference is i got a degree in physics you can't really tell me shit i mean like at the very least you know i went through the fire and i did it but one day she said to me,

and this is key because I'm giving this rant about college to everybody in my circle at this point in my life, including the mother of my girlfriend who is a professor of biology at the University of Pittsburgh. And she said to me one day, she said, okay,

let's pretend you're exactly correct. College is worthless. Well, what have you done for the past four years other than show up here and eat my food? And then she kicked me out. And that was an ego check, right? And cried a little bit, not going to lie. And I said, man, I got to do something. Because I wasn't doing anything at that point.

I was pretty much, I was working at Starbucks, I think. Yeah, I was working at Starbucks, man. Back in the day when you used to yell, man, I called because I know that because I went back for a second job and we don't do that anymore. But that was back, I was 21, 22 working at Starbucks. And so I said, let me do something. I looked at all my options, my personality, and it came down to join the military or fight. But either way, what I wanted to do was get some sweat equity. And I wanted there to be some proof that I had lived. If you looked at me objectively without talking to me, there was some proof that I had lived. Other than stories about my cool personality, I wanted some objective, real stuff.

YouTube was just big coming up. There were videos of fighters everywhere. I said, you know what? I can do that. Let me go through. I won't fight him. And I walked into the gym. And my attitude when I went to the gym, I said, okay, I'm not going to quit.

I'm going to stop this under two conditions. One, I get injured beyond, you know, I can't go forward. Or somebody after like a year, they're like bro let me let me pull you aside and tell you something this is not for you and neither of those things happened so I just kept getting a little better a little better learning because I was terribly uncoordinated it's a joke like I tell people I'm not the black dude that can play basketball you don't don't pick me I can't really do anything it's not my sport and I ended up after you know ups and downs ups and downs I encountered someone I couldn't win I couldn't beat in my city and he beat me one time

and beat me the second time all on points but I couldn't get past them. And I objectively knew, well, no, at that time, I actually didn't know how not good he was because he's my only comparison. And I ended up on totally unrelated to seeking a better coach. I seeked a different coach because he started training at my gym and I said, okay, this is foolish. How are we going to do this? So I started training with Tommy Ankelo and Tommy Yancelo, one, he's a role model, man. He's really my friend, but he's an incredible coach. He's coached guys to world championships. He's coached, he's been coaching Roy Jones Jr. That's how I ended up, you know, sparring, sparring with that because he was coaching him. And Tom took me in three weeks and really fixed a lot and changed my whole ethic and work ethic.

And then that opened up the opportunity for me to win that state gold glove. And the guy I had to beat to go to the state to face the Philly guy on the other side of the state was this guy I beat or I lost to two times. And I finally beat him in this time by a second round knockout. So I was like, oh, wow, I'm so much better. And he gets better. It's been really good. Boxing has been really good for teaching me the power of likability and it gets better. It's been, been really good. Boxing has been really good for teaching me the power of likability and really reinforcing that. You learn a bunch about like

all this stuff you got to, you know, learn to succeed in business. You're learning boxing. So what do you think boxing ultimately did for your mindset? Because I know you talk about stoic philosophy and breaking past the fear barrier a lot, but like if you were to drum it down to what it did mentally for you mentally mentally I know that I can learn anything there's not even a question in my mind because of that and and I tell people all the time that I had the the courage to attempt to get a physics degree at age 28 is when I was actually 29 is when I technically started. And what was the motivation for a physics degree? So when I was looking at like jobs, because at that point in time, I was like, man, I need to get a job. Because I was like, I was selling phones at T-Mobile for like nine, 28 an hour.

I'm like 27. I was like, man, I'm smarter than this. My lifestyle does not match my ego. So I need to like fix one or the other. And the ego wasn't going to go anywhere. So I said, let me get to work. And I got to work and I was looking up like all the high paying jobs and all of them had math involved. And I said, okay, I don't really want to study math. Let me study. And you get a math minor where you complete the physics studies because it's so heavy in math. So that's how I ended up doing that. But I was terrible at math in high school.

I put up and I put an article up how to get better at math. And I wanted to make the point that I wasn't good. I wasn't just some smart kid, you know, writing to other people and telling them you can do it because I did it. But I'm a math with. So I ordered my high school transcripts so I could get screenshots to put them on. And I was worse than I thought. I was coloring it maybe a little bit. The highest math grade I earned a B and worked my ass off to get that B. In geometry, ninth grade, everything else, Cs, Ds, you know, I wasn't good, right? So I really tried to stay away from all things related to quantitative disciplines. Even the first time I went to college, I was going to

like major in, what was it, psychology and like foreign language stuff, right? But after boxing, I watched myself go from this uncoordinated guy. I mean, now I can move and groove. I can, you know, switch hands dominantly and not have to think about it. And I'm just as good with my left as my right. And I said, okay, if I did that with my body, we can do that with my mind. And so that gave me the confidence to put the time in to learn math, go from the ground up and correct all those deficiencies. And I said, just give me enough time and I'm going to get it. And I just kept busting my ass. And that's what boxing did. Boxing let me see that I can do anything. Boxing also changed my relationship with pain and feedback from experiences. Boxing is a very powerful negative feedback mechanism. And it's quick too. You're not going to make the same mistake twice. And if you do, you're definitely not going to make it the third time because you won't be around or you're going to lose and be flushed out to sport or whatever. And that makes you unbelievably realistic.

Because I like to say it builds an unflinchingly comfortable or close relationship with reality. I don't, I never got it. I think that's why I love your writing. You cut right to the fat of it, right? You just, you get right. I mean, you go right through the fat of it. You're just like, hey, and when I, and listen, this is a controversial subject and people, sometimes it hits a wrong nerve, but you talk about how people don't care about your story or what happened to your circumstances.

And then basically you just have to deal with whatever those circumstances are and move forward. And I think like that speaks to me because we live in a time when there's, you know, when people are, you people are looking for a lot of ways to live more comfortably or looking for ways to avoid things or looking for ways to justify feelings against logic. And what you do is you write in a way that says like, hey, cut all the bullshit. This is what it is. It seems like you talk a lot about very stoic victimhood mentality is what i would call it and you cut right to the chase yeah i tried to ocean salmon this is the salmon of your dreams okay so ocean is the new direct to kitchen salmon delivery brand that offers Ocean raised Ocean loves salmon. I am a huge fan, especially since I moved to Austin of cooking this because it's so easy and I'm not the best chef, but this is great for our family. It's

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you will not be sorry and you know what's interesting that mentality that statement you're referencing you know no one cares what happened etc i have a distinct memory of why i came up with that idea and where it comes from. You know, interestingly enough, that way of thinking is not entirely motivated by boxing. A lot of it is motivated by my sobriety. Coming up on eight years sober this December. Congratulations.

Thank you very much. And it is a big deal to me because there's an entire reality of decisions that I simply didn't make because I didn't have to make them when I stopped drinking. When I was drinking, I just got lucky, man. I mean, I've been pulled over. I was telling somebody this story the other day. I've been pulled over at least three times where they should have at least whooped my ass. I mean, maybe arrest me.

But they would have been right to do any of those things. And I don't have an my ass. I mean, maybe arrest me, but they weren't, they were, they would have been right to do any of those things. And I don't have an arrest record. I got lucky. And one day I stopped trying to outrun the law of large numbers, as they say. And I decided to put the bottle down, but. And drinking was the issue. Oh yeah. Drinking was the issue. Was it an actual issue that you had, or did you just notice that there were things in your life that it was doing that wasn't serving you? Man, no, it was a problem. There was a problem. And, you know, everyone has a different sign.

You know, there were all kinds of signs. I have the ones that I distinctly remember. I noticed that it, I remember when I learned that it was affecting my social life. Remember, I'm in my 20s. That's supposed to be the thing you do, drink. But if people are like, yo, that guy, he drinks too much. And I was choosing my social venues based on the alcohol available, which, okay, that makes sense. But then you start choosing family venues to go to.

All right, strike one problem. Physically, my coach was like, smelling one, they were like, were you drinking before you came here? I'm like,

yeah, man, I went and had a few. What? What's up with that? He was like, he loses his mind. I go, now I'm putting

my training at risk. Okay? And I'm not working nearly as hard. Probably getting winded too. It's hard, yeah. And it's not like I had a boatload of money.

I was broken. I was just, I always say, you know it's an addiction when you do it past the point of diminishing returns. I was drinking way past the point

of it doing anything positive for me. So I had to cut back. But I think about me making that decision to cut back. Hearing all the tarnishing of my reputation,

seeing how physically I was not doing the best I could and no one would take me seriously or whatever. And I made a decision. I made the decision before reality made the decision for me. If I had got into an accident or got into a DUI and I couldn't go or do something, then it doesn't mean as much. It's like when you apologize and call yourself out before someone calls you out. It's like, you're not sorry that you did it. You're sorry you got caught kind of deal. Okay. That was what motivated that because I was thinking about, you know, all the things in my life, like the, the esteem that I hold now amongst people. And that means

a lot to me. People can look to me and they can go, okay, this guy's got, you might not like me, but you're not going to be able to say I'm a piece of shit, you know, because I get that under control. People took my sobriety seriously because I took it seriously. I didn't say anything about it until I had at least one month in. And I was like, all right, a month in. Right. Because how many, I mean, you guys have heard it, you know, after a hard night of drinking, you're like, oh, I'm never going to drink again. Right. Doesn't mean anything. Didn't mean anything to me if I just put it on social media to be like, all right, done drinking. Let's go. No, one month. Now I got years on. Now people look and they can go, this guy's serious about this. It's not just paying lip service because he felt bad about doing something or somebody called him out. No, it was a real commitment. So when you get in front of things before reality has to get in front of them for you, people tend to be forgiving. They tend to understand. They can chalk any crazy thing up I said or did, you know,

if anything nuts comes to light or something like that. People go, you know, he was drinking and he's not drinking now and he's been sober since, you know, but not like, oh, I just quit a week ago. They look and go, it's real remorse. I guess that's what they try to do in prison, right? They say, okay, are you showing any sign of remorse? That's what penitentiary means, right? The penitence, to show penitence, to be like, okay, you learned your lesson, but did we have to teach it to you?

If they don't have to teach it to you, people tend to be okay. You're moving forward, you're being a better guy. I started getting invites to the family functions of my friends again, which was a thing we met. And they were like, but I disappeared entirely because that's going to be the guy that shows up, drinks, and makes a fool of himself. But what was the epitome that made you, when you write something like nobody cares about your past circumstances or what happened or what you said, what was the epitome that made you, you know, when you write something like nobody cares about, you know, your past circumstances or what happened or what you said, what was the epitome that made you realize that? And what's the react? And what's your typical reaction when you tell people that?

The thing that made me realize it is I like to dwell on the negative when I meditate. I like to think about how badly a situation could have turned out. That's as close as I need to get. I mean, you don't have to learn everything the hard way because if you do, you probably won't survive long enough to reap the benefit of the lesson. So I try to learn things that way by imagining the experience. And that's where that comes from.

Now, when I tell people that idea, the reaction is very, typically there is a more positive than you would think response. But when people don't respond to it positively, when they feel attacked, when they feel like that's callous, I have to remind them that the world doesn't care how you feel about such and such a thing. You see this a lot in people who never dealt with childhood trauma if they were abused or something, and they go on to hurt someone in their adult life. And the fact that they were abused as children, that's terrible. And sometimes in sentencing, the judge takes that into consideration, but a lot of times, you know, it doesn't make a difference. You're still going to go down because you end up messing up. They don't go, oh, you were messed up, that happened. No. Part of being an adult is to take responsibility for things and take responsibility

for your childhood, not to say your childhood is the reason why you're such and such. No, they don't care. They look and go, what are you doing now as an adult? And in fact, our judicial system recognizes this difference in charging people as minors or charging them as adults. When you're a minor, it's kind of assumed that there are things beyond your control that influence you to make a decision and perhaps you did not understand the scope or impact of it. But once you become an adult, they go, ah, you knew better, right? No matter what happened, you knew it wasn't right

to do it again. Now, unfortunately, that's not always a powerful enough deterrent, but it does the job when it has to. And when it doesn't do the job, you know, they go, look, man, you know what you were doing. Let's take care of you now. And now you're not going to have a chance to hurt anyone else. So that is the lesson that it's really practical too

because once you start looking at it, I got to be in control. I got to fix what's wrong with me instead of taking out what's happened to me on the wall. It's the first step. It's one of the first steps to healing yourself, man. I'm a big proponent of that. I mean, I'm a big proponent of people going to therapy too,

but you also got to take responsibility for your own issues and really try and do work on them yourself. I think that's a hard conclusion for many to come to, but it's an empowering conclusion because you also talk about how nobody's coming to save you. And I completely agree because, listen, all of us have our own problems and our own issues and our own families. And I think where many people wait around, they say, someone's going to come and help me or someone's going to point a new way or this is somebody else's fault.

And it's like Jocko Willing talks about extreme ownership. And I love that theory because it's, it comes down to the fact that you are the only person that's going to really dictate the choices you make in life. And those are the choices you, you know, make emotionally, whether, you know, decide to get angry about something or sad about something or the choices of who you decide to be friends with or what you decide to engage with or what businesses you decide to do or not do. Like that ultimately always comes back to you. But I think people like to kick the buck down the road and say, well, it's not me. It's somebody else.

What's been the most powerful thing that you've tweeted or Instagrammed or shared that got a positive reaction, but also a negative reaction? Oh man. All the rage in 2021 is the gut. That is gut health because a healthy gut equals your best immune, digestive, and emotional health. We have been talking about the gut on this podcast for so long. The founder

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You get 15% off. I'm telling you, get some probiotics for the family, Just Thrive, and then grab some for your dog. A few things immediately come to mind. Let's lay them all on the table. Share them all. Pull out your scroll. I told people, you know, it's not that there was this big thing going around that, you know, men aren't trash, right?

Or men are trash. And I said, look, man, look, well, men aren't trash, women aren't trash. Because there was like the counter response, women are trash too. So men aren't trash, women aren't trash, because there was the counter response, women are trash too. So men aren't trash, women aren't trash. The real issue is you're a trash human being, and like attracts like. I think I said birds of a feather flock together. And that idea makes people go, huh, I am the common denominator in all of my relationships, and they keep turning out poorly. Maybe I should do some self-reflection. That's the mature response.

But I think maturity, like any other trait, is normally distributed. And a lot of people do not or are not mature. Occasionally, I'll venture into the realm of things and culture. And that doesn't happen often but when it does i think my response and take on things tends to tends to inflame or it tends to be polarizing do you have a strong agreement or disagreement and i actually deleted the tweet because i was like okay whatever but i'll never forget when there was the the shooting in el paso and then like two days later, a shooting in Ohio. And they were both mass shooting events. The difference was the mode. Well, the difference, I put that in air quotes for a reason, was the motivation of the El Paso right wing versus the motivation in Ohio left wing. And I said, why are we blaming the president for someone else's action? People are dead, and they're dead on either side. It doesn't matter how a person...

That defense isn't going to hold up in court. And it's not a bunch of other people who support the president at the time, Trump. They're not shooting people. Well, we got to look at the real issue. And people don't like that kind of stuff. One thing that really, this, you know, blows my mind sometimes. I said one day, you know, they really snuck color person back into our vernacular by changing the order of the words and adding a preposition. And most people was like, wow, I never thought of that. And then there were like these hardcore people who couldn't see the breakdown of logic.

And they were like, well, what else do you want them to call us? And I'm like, you know, black was working just fine for as long as I've been around. And now they freak out. And when you put out things, I try to be nuanced. I try to think and have my reactions based on, I tell people all the time, I don't have an opinion, but I have his data and I follow data. Okay. And, you know, that bugs people. But yeah, I don't, I try not to. But what doesn't bug people nowadays?

Everything bugs. Here's my thing with everything. Everyone gets bugged about everything. So I admire people who still stand up and say their opinion like you, even though you know that it's going to bug people, because I think there are a lot of people that aren't bugged so you have to make a choice are you going to appeal to the people who are bugged by every fucking thing i mean every fucking thing if they took that productive energy that they were spending online being bugged at everything they would have a whole empire right and you know what's crazy about this being bugged at everything they would have a whole empire right and you know what's crazy

about this being bugged by everything i wondered one of the the interesting things about my i guess we'll call it story arc is i was born and raised in pittsburgh a blue state and a city so it's blue and this is you i don't always talk in these terms but i think it's really useful for this conversation because there are certain traits to follow red versus blue whatever right so i'm raised in this completely blue state blue city and so as an as a uh first generation facebook user all of my contacts are local or not all not all, but a majority of the ones we see are people I've grown up with. Especially in the beginning of Facebook. Okay.

And then I come to the world of Twitter and I start really expanding my horizons, meeting other people. And I see, okay, there's another type of, I didn't know it was extreme. And one thing I always say is like, extremists don't know they're extreme because they spend time with other extremists and then you then you go and see how someone else thinks and i see okay these pieces completely other than the spectrum but just as extreme just the other way just the other way so i try to try to sit in the middle and when I sit in the middle on Facebook, I get a very different reaction when I sit in the middle arguing analysis of a problem when I'm on Twitter.

And first of all, from a social media user interface standpoint, Facebook is effing. Because people have all the characters to type. I deleted my app. It's not, it's not, I don't want it in my ether. I just deleted the app off my phone. I can't take on like, it's almost as bad as just having the news play in the background all day long. It's worse.

You know why it's worse? I don't want to hear what Aunt Sally has to think about politics. I'm good. Exactly. You know, people want to attack and attack you for everything you think and feel. And it used to be, I'm going to attack you because you have a certain thought.

Now it's, I'm going to attack you because you don't think like me. And that is problematic. You can compare it to street gangs. The difference is a street gang at least recognizes neutrality. You know, they do not, extremists do not because neutrality. Yeah, there's something that, there's so many people that say that to us. It's like, you know, they do not, extremists do not because neutrality.

Yeah, there's something that there's so many people that say that to us. It's like, you can't stay neutral. You have to pick it. I'm like, well, I don't, if you, if someone is so extreme on this side and so extreme and you disagree with those extreme levels, then you almost don't have a choice, but to stay neutral because you don't agree with either extreme. At the very least, it's not so much stay neutral, stay objective. Yes.

And when you look at things objectively. That is so smart. What happens a lot of times is you agree sometimes with one side and you agree sometimes with the other. But it's not because your ideology follows their ideology or your biases follow theirs. It's because you looked at the facts and you saw how a thing was and you said they were right but broken clocks are right twice a day

that doesn't mean you should start using them to tell time michael crichton calls this the rain causes wet street our wet streets cause rain type thinking where you look at an outcome and you think that the outcome is why the preceding cause is why it occurred. We try not to get too political here, but I think like, this is the problem that's going on with these like echo chambers is that everyone tries to make everything a political statement these days. Right. And it's not always about politics, right? Well, you know why it is. People are fundamentally lazy, and I don't think that is a negative. As they taught us in physics, we were studying molecules or something to that effect.

All systems will try to assume the most energy efficient configuration. That's a really smart way to say people try to get as much as they can for as little as possible. And that's reflected not just in their activities, but also in their thought process. It takes a lot of energy to analyze and think a situation to buffer your emotional response and analyze it and go, okay, I feel this way. You can't help that. Let me go step and look through the thought, look through the information, see if that changes how I feel. That's why most people don't do it. It's a lot easier to just go, okay, I'm not really against abortion, but I'm for gun laws. So I'm going to go, I'm just going to take on everything, right? And make that me. And then on top of that, people who will hear you think one thing will assume you think that way about everything. And that's very typical because people are systems and they try to assume the most energy efficient configuration for their

thought process and their beliefs. And unfortunately, that is extreme, our extremism and generalities. I'm obsessed with what you just said, that it's not about being neutral. It's about being objective. Well, I think that's what's happened in the American political system is maybe you're somebody that was raised, let's just say in a red state, and you had conservative values, or maybe you wanted the government out of your business, and maybe you had religious tendencies and you didn't believe in abortion, and maybe you wanted different fiscal reform. And then you get a guy like Donald didn't believe in abortion. And maybe you wanted different fiscal reform. And then you get a guy like Donald Trump who's so polarizing and so extreme.

He gets extreme base. And all of a sudden, people that have maybe been their whole life with those values are associated with this person. And all of a sudden, they're put in this bucket where it's like, you're an extreme, hateful person by the other side. But it's like, no, what happened is these two political parties at the far ends that became very extreme, but there's probably a lot more people in the middle that just forgot how to communicate. Well, just like, yeah. Not only forgot how to communicate, but what we have in this country is we have a system that makes it almost mandatory that you,

no, I mean, not almost, it is. You don't really have a choice. I mean, you got one or the other, but things are becoming so extremes. And I always say opposites at their extreme become indistinguishable from one another. Extreme hot and extreme cold don't mean a thing to your nervous system. The extremes are an easy place to be because you don't have to consider both sides. You don't have to weigh out and question your thoughts and beliefs and extremes. Or not extremes, your thoughts and beliefs and feelings. You don't have to analyze that. You just get to have a quick reaction. You get to be cathartic immediately without considering if you're being cathartic about

the right things or if that's the most appropriate emotion to display at the moment. And you just run with it. And most people are like that. So you have company. There are not a lot of people like me, so I don't have company. One thing I say is that when you got to understand what your objective, when you pursue the truth, you get twice the enemies and half the allies because everyone who is extreme, they can't associate with you because you're, you're to the center and they're so extreme that anything that is, anything that is not on their side,

you look like an extreme person. You're just in the center. So you lose the extremists on both sides. And you also lose the moderates because it's not so much that they disagree with you. It's that people are group creatures. We're very social. And if it's between following one guy's truth

or everyone else's laws, you probably have a much better chance of survival and really mental health if you follow everyone's laws, you probably have a much better chance of survival and really mental health if you follow everyone's laws. And it's just, it's not, it's hard, but we're not looking for hard. I mean, we're not looking for easy. It's hard, but we're not looking for easy.

What we're looking for is truth, but that's not everyone. What's an interaction that you've had on the internet that started out negative with someone? Maybe they slid into your DMs or wrote something in a caption that turned out positive. Okay. So there's actually a guy, I thought I would be able to link up with him down here, but I think he's in Houston, not Austin. And we initially really clashed about a lot of stuff related to, and we still clash, first of all, about things. He's left to the point of being a socialist.

And, you know, not this soft socialism, but the real socialism they talk about. And I'm like, eh, it doesn't really work. We got a lot of history to show that. But, you know, we started clashing because I'm objective and not extreme on either one. So I look extreme to an extreme guy, you know, to the point where he was, you know, popping off ad hominem attacks, man, trying to insult me and my girl and my life. And I'm like, this is crazy. And then one day I just, you know, messaged him about something because he was a comedian down here or down in Houston. And I said, look, man, I just want to let you know, I think what you do as a comedian, stand up.

I could never do that. And I think that's cool, man. I respect what you're doing. And it changes the whole interaction because I'm looking at him and I'm reaching out and letting him know I respect what he's doing. And I see him as a person, not as an adversary. We can disagree on certain things, but that's got nothing to do with how I view you as a human. And now he's a solid guy to me. We talk and chat. We still disagree about a lot of stuff, but it's fine. But that's okay.

I don't get why we can't have all different kinds of friends that we disagree with. I don't want to be in a room with all people I agree with. That sounds so boring. Here's the theory I've come up with about this. So when something is wrong, when we decide, not even when we decide, but we'll use the objective case. If you get the wrong answer, that means you did something wrong, right? Almost by definition. I think that, you know, what is that? Reflexivity, right? You did the wrong answer. You got something wrong. And then you check your back work to get the wrong work, right? You check your answer, right? You get the wrong work. And you try to remedy, rectify,

whatever, right? Your incorrection. Apply that to objective thought. Let's talk subjective. Let's talk interpersonal. If you have the wrong opinion to me, because your opinion is different than mine, then you must be rectified. You must be corrected. And if I can't do that, then I have two choices. I have to look at you and I have to assume something about your life is off, is wrong, whatever. You'll get it when you mature, when you grow up, whatever. Or, man, this guy is together, but he thinks differently. So I need to eliminate him from my life because there's no way a correct thing and an incorrect thing can both work. Or there's no way that if he's right, that I'm wrong.

Oh, then that's a big one. I was writing about this recently about how I lost a lot of friends when, oh, friends, right? We'll put that in air quotes, right? Lost a lot of friends when I got my life together. And they didn't drop me when I was being a drunk, drunk Texan, you know, being crazy. They didn't even drop me right when I got it together. But there was a weird period, and it was the timing of it. It was about two to three years in where they were just dropping off like flies and giving me reasons, right? That weren't the real reason. You know, James Altucher says in his book, there's a good reason and the real reason. James Altucher says in his book, there's a good reason and the real reason. And the real reason I believe looking at our interactions over the years that led up to that is I had very different thoughts, but you could sum those thoughts up.

You could explain those thoughts about where I was in my life. Well, when I surpassed you and I'm together on every visible metric or intangible metric ahead, so now you got a choice. You can't just, because if you're using ad hominem attacks, I've removed that tool from your toolbox entirely. And we know you don't have the logical skills not to try and prove me wrong, but to at least defend your position. And emotionally, you're not mature enough to sit there and deal with me without bringing up those topics. Let's just be friends. So your only choice left is to eliminate me. And that's what happens, I think. I think that people go, hmm, you're wrong, but I'm right. And we know I'm not wrong. So since you're the wrong one and we can't explain

this wrongness in any other way, you got to go, you got to go because you, you know, the bare fact of you being around makes me question my decision. So it's like, it's like people who are vegetarian. Well, that's what's happening at a mass level, right? People are getting rid of people in their purview or rid of those conversations because there's no nuance anymore. It's either right or wrong and there's no gray area. Yeah. Crackhead mentality. Michael will not shut the fuck up about this. We're literally in bed and Michael's like, crackhead mentality. I was trying to explain it to him and I was like, I'm just going to wait. Ed's here. He's going to explain it to people. I'm probably like, what the fuck is this guy talking about?

Okay, so first off, let me preface this with something that will sound completely unrelated. You can either laugh a little or cry a lot. And I always say that quote along with another one, that life is a tragedy to those who feel and a comedy for those who think. So let's take those two ideas and just put those off to the side like a footnote or an intro to a book chapter. I grew up around a lot of crackheads. I lived next door to crack dealers. I actually remember, this is a crazy memory, man. I was like four and I remember the babysitter who was next door or the

apartment across the hall was over there. And I thought she had a squirt guns where I start squirting and having fun. It was a small squirt gun, but I thought it was a squirt gun because I'm like four years old. What else could it be to me? I don't know. And I couldn't understand why this made her so angry and why she had my mom was arguing with her back and forth and ended up, you know, paying paying her but we she never let me over there because that squirt gun was a syringe full of heroin all right these are the things that i've been around and grew up around and it's just normal to me but once i realized that i had this these things were off and messed up and make jokes

about it because i'm not gonna cry about it it. It's part of life, but I got to cope with it somehow. So it's my sense of humor. And my sense of humor is that I'm going to take these things I experienced and saw the rampant drug use that I was around and I'm going to have some fun with it. I'm not going to let it be that thing, oh man, I can't believe it. Because I'll get this a lot. Like with me putting my shirt out there for sale, my crackhead hustle tweet. I have people write me talking about, man, you don't know anything about drug addiction, man. This is terrible. This man's profiting off of crackheads and stuff.

I'm like, all right, you can choose that route. Here's my route. Now, if you want to talk about my life experience with this, you know, feel free to sit down and discuss it. But if you're not going to do that, let's just have a conversation or you can go away. But I'm not going to deal with the negativity. But that crackhead hustle thing. So you're pointing this, so you're saying that you saw rampant drug use and it was part of your life and it impacted you, but you saw some hustle in it. I saw a potential for humor and i just may make a

joke and there's a lot of hustle i mean because i was trying to explain it to can i can i i want to know what okay so you want to know what the hustle is right what's the mentality so okay footnote addiction is not hustle all right now do we get that that out the way in case you were going to be like that they're addicted to crack which is what people say when when when when a crackhead needs crack you got to remember crackheads don't going to be like, they're addicted to crack. That's what people say. When a crackhead needs crack, you got to remember, crackheads don't tend to be stable members of community. They're not going to work every day. They're not paying taxes and waiting on that direct deposit to hit

so they can go out and party. No. They got to figure out how they're going to get the money, and they got to do it fairly quickly. And so a crackhead will do all kinds of creative hustles, man. You ever been to the gas station? You got to ignore that guy who's trying to pump your gas for $3. That's a crackhead hustle. I put up an article. I put up an article, took place in Pennsylvania. These motherfuckers blowtorched and broke down a bridge to sell to scrap for crack or for drug money. I'm assuming it was crack.

Guys will work all day, every day to fund that. And they're like manual labor, man, moving bricks and day labor jobs. Crackheads will hustle to get drug money. And you get to see when you look at this mentality, this crackhead mentality, now you get to see what happens when you really need something and you don't really have a choice to get it. So imagine if you took that mentality and you applied that to a goal and go, I really need to finish this book and I don't have a choice. Let me work my ass off. That's where that comes from, right? The crackhead hustle mentality.

And it's funny because they're crackheads. It's funny because they're crackheads. I put this book out. It was like, I think it was my first. It was. It was years ago. My first self-published book, How to Catch and Kill a Crackhead, The Definitive God. And it was just me being funny and having a good time.

But a lot of comparisons I made were to vampires because they seem like vampires to me. They always come out at night. You know, there's stories and these are real stories where guys, you know, shoot a crackhead and the crackhead keeps moving because he's high and he can't register. Funny story, an officer told me once that they got caught up to a crack den or a crack house and went inside and crackhead jumped out of nowhere. I'm like, ah! And he shoots him in the face. This is back when they carried revolvers and I guess the revolver wasn't clean or something like that.

Something took or significantly reduced the firepower. I mean, it was still a bullet and it hurt, but the crackhead fell. He got up. He got up because the bullet wasn't shot out with enough force to penetrate and do any damage. He just put him down and he just got up he got up because the bullet wasn't a shot out with enough force to penetrate and do any damage just put him down and he's got up and come running and you start building up this this uh lore and this legend now where the real thing is but it's not popular enough and it's not really funny it doesn't have to ring to it the real issue is pcp that shit turns people into just super what does pcp what does pcp do? What does PCP do, man?

Okay, so apparently PCP is like, I think technically it's a psychedelic, believe it or not. What is it? Is it like battery acid? What is it? I'm not a chemist. Okay. But I think, you know, it's something you dip a lot of. It's a liquid, you know, and you dip your drugs in them and smoke it up

that way and a lot of times it it makes you I guess they call it butt naked because it makes you really hot

and you got to take your clothes off and there was a story about a rapper who was on it and he ate his girlfriend's face and now he's doing life

so right like these are the stories we could focus on it's angel dust angel dust and Angel dust. And it causes hallucinations, distorted perceptions, and violent behavior. There's a forum on the internet that has all these cop stories about trying to arrest people on PCP.

It's incredible. But funny story. Random funny story. Why is it called angel dust? So what I read is that when PCP hit the scene, it was serious. All the drug users wanted to try it,

like a new drug, right? And they tried it and it was crazy. It was, you know, people were losing their minds and they said, this shit is too much. The crackheads thought

it was too much and they weren't going to do it. So PCP loses popularity. It wanes and it's used. And then somebody brilliant, I assume, decided to do a rebrand. And they started calling it Angel Dust and the Peace Pill, PCP, kind of like an acronym. The Peace Pill. And then people were like, okay, same thing, different name.

Comes back and- The branding's good. It's great branding. But the point you're trying to make when I think when you, and tell me if I'm wrong, when you use the crackhead mentality is that there's people that are out there hustling, doing whatever they need to do to get their hustle done. And making excuses is not going to ever put you in a position where you can accomplish your goals or your dreams or whatever. Exactly. I'm going to apply the crackhead mentality when i have to get something done but you're using you're using humor in an example that everyone can understand and relate to i can understand why you'd catch some flack for it oh yeah for sure the analogy and

when you sum it up it it makes sense yeah i can't remember the guy's first name, but Tsunomoto, the guy who wrote the Book of Five Rings. No, the Hagakure. I get the two of them confused, but Hagakure. Yeah. And he said, I'm paraphrasing. I'm not going to pause the translation, but what he said, there's not a single person who can't be a good role model if you only focus on their good qualities. And I was like, wow, that's great. So a crackhead can be a good model if you only focus on that hustle. I'm not telling you. And someone was like, aren't you worried that somebody's going to see your advice? You got a big platform and they're going to go, yeah, I'm going to smoke crack. And I said, look, man, if you smoke crack because some guy on the internet made some crackhead

references and he put a book out about his sobriety, that's got nothing to do with me. That's between you and Darwin. Don't put that on me and I'll let that go. But I think that's what people don't get. It's humor. You got to have some fun. Humor in and of itself is not supposed to. It's funny.

It's not supposed to make you feel comfortable. It's supposed to be a release of discomfort and i think one of the one of the sad things today is comedy is so woke now that we're losing that that ability to release you feel like when comedy is some of the best teachers right it's some of the best ways to start conversation and i agree with you like we're getting to a place where like you can't joke about anything anymore right without pissing somebody off. But one of the things we talk about here is, I think the pendulum's going to swing is as soon as everything becomes offensive, nothing becomes offensive, right? Exactly.

Because people don't have, again, if they're lazy in thought, you don't have time to decipher, wait a minute, am I offended? Or wait, should I be offended? Or if that offends others, does that offend me? I think we're getting past the point when we've lost the ability to figure out what is actually offensive, what's really an issue that we need to take on because everything's an issue and everything's offensive. There's a great thought experiment I did. I said, I was at dinner the other night. I went with some friends and it was a couple there that I never met, so I didn't know where they stood. And my one friend, the one who knew me, he really poignantly pointed out that of all the people we know, I'm probably the least in an ideological bubble because of the way I live my life. And I'm always on the internet talking to different people, and I'm trying to be.

And I said to the group, I said, that whole thing about the extremes being indistinguishable from one of the opposites being indistinguishable by extremes. And there's somebody at very left, you know, vegetarian and, and the husband marches and the, the women's rights rally, you know,

good, good people, but just all the telltale signs of being on the left. And she said something that was really revealing. She said, I'm having trouble imagining what extreme left looks like. I can see extreme right. And remember what I said that when you spend all your time around extremists, even moderation looks like extremism to you because all you see are people who think like you. And so she, and then now I had to come up

with a tactful way to say, that's the point I'm making. The point is, is that they're blind to being able to see if they're in an extreme. Yes, that was the point I was making. And so I thought I was like and i realized something extreme extreme tolerance leads to quite a bit of contradiction and you're forced to eat yourself and attack within if we want to take a characteristic of this spectrum and we'll call that inclusion or tolerance right extremely not inclusive like these are my people were national proud white whatever right that's the extreme there and the left everybody is open and the same and there's no type of

it's all a social construct these differences okay and you get the same thing but the way it looks on the left side i said okay here okay, here's a thought experiment. Is it your body, your choice, right? Of course. Okay. So should I get the vaccine or not? Am I allowed to just not get it and you're not going to give me shit about it? And that's, you can see the brain freeze. Oh, that's people's brain freezing right now.

Because you can't't when everything is allowed nothing can be allowed unless you go straight anarchy and then with that you have to just or let me give you another example feminists we talked about this on the podcast before it when really strong feminist i sometimes notice that if you don't fit in that box of what they think is a feminist, then you're kicked out of the box. But how is that? I don't understand. If you're inclusive of all women and you're for women and da-da-da-da-da-da, but then when it doesn't look like the cookie cutter image that you need it to look like. The easiest way for me to sum up extremes in my opinion is when there's absolutes, right?

Yes. When there's absolutes, when it has to be one way or the other. If you are somebody that thinks it has to be one or the other and you can't figure out nuance and you can't change your opinion based on new information or new facts presented, then you're in an extreme. And there's probably people listening there being like, wait a minute, I believe a certain thing and I can't get off of that opinion. Well, if that's the case, you have to look and say,

am I on an extreme spectrum? Because to your point about vaccines, you can't say everything's allowed in your body and your choice and then say you have to get the vaccine for the better of humankind. Because if it's not your individual choice, then your argument's out the window. And I think that is 100% why,

at least on this platform, we try to point out all different perspectives and have all different people because I'm trying to get people out of the mindset of you have to be stuck in your own opinion with the same opinion always. I also think there's something, Robert Green talks about this a lot,

of just because you thought something yesterday, that doesn't mean you can't change your opinion tomorrow. And you can be fluid and not be so formed. And you don't have to put yourself in a box and you don't have to say this or that. You can be fluid with your opinion.

Because we're so... Society in general is stuck. And we're so, society in general is stuck. And we're stuck because first, no group ever battles to a draw. A draw is something they have to accept because the conditions don't allow them to progress and win absolutely. So they have to settle so they don't incur more damage. But they do walk away with something, okay? Put that aside for a note, and we come back.

They've got to pick what battle they're going to fight, and so they choose to fight, we'll say the vaccine, right? But most people don't choose to fight that battle. But when they fight it, they're not fighting it with the idea of let everyone make a choice. They're fighting it so you can think like them eventually. And this is

where this extremism on the other side goes. It's like, okay, we want everyone to think like us. The problem is everyone is different and we can't reconcile those differences in thought. This is what I was talking about with the whole, we're going to cut you off because we

don't agree with you anymore. So now we got to figure out how to make you think like us and be like us and behave like us. But we will settle right now. We will settle right now for you just not being able to talk, you not being able to speak up, but eventually we're going to figure it out. And so to them, it's a temporary victory until the tables turn on themselves. It's a great story. I just remembered, I guess they were trying to throw a woman's march in D.C. after Trump got elected. And they were organizing. And someone came in and was like, wait, we're the women of color. I can't do this.

I can't support this. And then someone was like, all right, cool. We'll include the women of color. It's not a big deal. Of course, we're all equal. And then someone comes in and goes what about trans women we gotta i don't see when trans women represent it and no i don't realize the irony it is being a woman's march but whatever right they go okay we gotta do

that so they so the so they tried to throw this thing for for their for their group collectively they all belong to but because everyone wants to be special and they need to be pointed out they ended up fighting amongst themselves and nothing gets done that way i how about this i don't want anyone to think like me i want they to them to think like them right i don't know i there's i don't want people to think like me think like you want to think like them. I don't want people to think like me. Think like you want to think for yourself. But that's the problem is that people are not understanding that maybe they don't even have their own thoughts right now because they're just getting into group thing. And it's like, well, I'll take another very easy issue to understand. There's an argument for open

borders, right? People want open borders without analyzing any of what's going on in any of these situations. But at the same time, those same people might argue for a passport vaccination or vaccine passport, right? It's like, well, do you want open borders or you not? And here's what they're doing. They're saying, but, but, but, and I'm like, no, no, no, you can't have, but, but, but if you're on an extreme and you have, and you want either to be open borders or you don't, but you can't say, but, but, but, there's a qualification because the other side, and here's why I bring this point, the other side is also saying, but, but, but. And so nobody's talking anymore. They're just saying,

but this is my rule, but actually there's an exception to my rule. And you can't have an exception to your rule, but my rule has exceptions. And the whole world stops talking that way because none of it makes sense. Animal Farm was a beautiful book. And I don't think he knew what he was writing when he wrote it. I mean, he knew what he was criticizing. He was effectively criticizing socialism. I think Animal Farm came out like 1950 and it was right after World War and the Cold War was revving up and he was criticizing Animal Farm, the ridiculousness of communism or, you know, hard socialism, soft communism. What are the differences, right? And one of the things that is a theme that continues to play out through the whole book

is how they set the rules for the animals. And then they kept changing the rules with every little thing until eventually, and the animals were like, oh, it must've said that always. Okay. It must've said that. Yeah. Okay. And they just go along with it until they destroy themselves.

Right. That's the end of it. People also don't read a lot. I mean, I don't think people realize how quickly civilizations can crumble. And I'm not saying that's where we are, but I think people feel so important. They think, oh, it could never happen here. And it starts to happen when people stop having conversation. Exactly.

There's a, you know, the meme goes out and I try not to trust just the meme. I go do the research, but it's true. You do the research and people don't realize it's not like everyone in Germany was Nazi. In fact, most people were not, but a small group, you just kind of kept giving concessions. And next thing you know, you got that situation. And so much of the playbook, you know, all you got to do is just read it. The information is there. If information was a problem, I say, or rather if information was a solution, everyone would be jacked, tanned, and rich. But that's not always the case. But we know where this goes, right? We have so many examples in history of where this goes, but people don't study. They don't study and they're not incentivized to study.

There's a whole group of young people coming up who think free speech is a bad idea. And how do you get to that point? How do you start thinking that? Well, you're uncomfortable now, but you don't realize that you should probably just get a little tougher because when you start to eliminate that, that's one of the things that is a common feature in the crumble of all a society's regimes, et cetera. Let me ask you this, Ed. Let's say Sally's listening to the podcast right now and Sally's going to go and have Thanksgiving dinner

with her whole family. And she sits down at the table and Aunt Susie starts going off on her political opinion and Sally does not agree with her aunt. How do we learn to control our emotions to get to a place of productivity? Okay. So emotional control. How do we learn that? How do you stop being so reactive? Not really reactive. I'm very, I just look at people and go, right. But, but I think how I've developed that ability is that I, I have my perspective based on how I think, not on how I feel. So I don't, I don't feel like a person's attacking me.

Like I, I am not my opinion. This is my point. So I never feel like how a person thinks or feels is an attack on me, even if they try to make it an attack. And so I never invest too much energy into how I feel. I tell people all the time, I go, look, man, I don't even take my own opinions seriously enough. I'm probably going to change them. So I'm definitely not going to fight with you over them because you think my opinion is more serious than I'm doing. It's my opinion.

When you are very content in how you've arrived at your conclusion and you feel confident, you don't feel the need to defend it. Certainly not against a random attack. It's the random attacks that rile people up. We call it hit dog syndrome. You throw a rock into a pack of dogs and the one you hit will bark. If you say something crazy, if you make a general statement and the one that bugs you, we know you're the one who's offended. We know you're the one who's bothered. We know you're the one who has the issue. So if you want to get

control, you just have to make sure that you are confident in your beliefs and you won't feel the need to battle back and have a purpose. When you have a purpose, that really helps. I think about all the people who come online all day to just attack some idea, some group, some person. And I'm like, man, you need a girl or a puppy or some kids, something like something important enough to where you're looking and going, this is just a bad use of my time. What do you think the reason is that people choose to be offended? Because in my opinion, being offended is a choice that I consciously make. If I'm offended, instead of looking at the other person, I look at myself to why that offends me. Well, it's that, that it goes back to that really, I think it's famous. I mean, famous in my world anyhow. You know, you are, what I say bothers you because, or when I attack your

thoughts or your opinion, it bothers you because you believe them for emotional reasons, not intellectual ones. It's how you feel, not how you think about it. Because thinking is really cool. And we don't do enough of it. And the world throws you that. But the really cool thing about thinking is that it forces you to not be emotional about something. It forces you to follow a line of reason and logic. And even if that reason or logic disagrees with how you feel, at the very least, you followed it through and then you can argue your side or the other side. Emotions are different. Emotions, the more emotional you are, the more emotional you are, the more fearful you are, the more agitated you are, your amygdala actually revs up, but that shuts down your prefrontal cortex. And I am by no means like a brain nerd dude. I only know this because I was

writing a chapter for a sample or something that I have a book I thought I was going to write. Maybe I'll still do it. But I had to research the nature of fear. And I learned that when you're afraid, your amygdala goes crazy. But then there's an inverse dial, inverse relationship of your amygdala activity and your prefrontal cortex activity. The front of your brain, it goes, yo, chill, make a decision, calculate how this is going to work out, think. So when you're emotionally revved up, it's very hard to think. And there comes a point where

you're not thinking like when you're full on, it's like, because the book was about boxing, I read about boxing. And I was talking about what happens when you're afraid and when you're in the ring and how you deal with that fear. Well, one of the things we figure out real quick is you don't have time to think. And you probably couldn't either way until you get calm. But when you're first in there and you're afraid, you're literally acting on survival.

And that's how we respond. We act on survival. People have got to train themselves to think because thinking tamps that response because you can't do both at the same time stop drop and roll if you get lit on fire stop think and speak that's what i was trying to before you speak to hit on and what boxing taught me when i was a kid is it takes you out of thinking with fear right because when someone when you first start boxing, someone's hitting you and listen, you're going to be scared anytime you go in the ring, especially if you're

in a fight and that comes up. But what boxing teaches you in my personal opinion and what it taught me was how to set aside fear and think logically in situations that typically would be fearful, right? And when you're able to do that, you're able to make such better decisions. And again, it's going back to that thing. It's like, we fear the punch that never comes until you understand how to deal with those punches. Until you know how to deal with it. I always say boxing is like turning down the noise on reality. You get used to, what's the first, one of the first things you got to learn how to do? You got to learn to not flinch. You won't last long enough if you bite on everything that comes at you, if you treat every threat the same. But you could still get a hit. It's not a fake. It's actually a

thing. So what's the solution? You can't always defend and flinch, but you can't always just sit there. I'm not going to respond. No, you get control. So you're able to move fluidly when attacks are coming. You're able to react to them correctly. And if it's a fake, you don't bite on it, but you're still in a position, but it's a relaxed position. When you are, when you're in the ring and a fighter is able to, as soon as you get tired, you start falling for fakes more.

You don't have the energy left because it takes energy to think. And it's not thinking in a sense that we go, I'm going to sit down and write this problem out and solve this boxing. No, it's a different kind

of a controlled thought, but it's still a control. It's proactive thought, not reactive thought. Reactive thought is not in the realm of intellect. It's not in the realm of reason. It's in the realm of this is what is in front of me.

I need to react quickly. Let me do it before I perish or before I'm taken out. And I think that's how people are very revved up to words. Words, when you let the words have an emotional effect on you, you're going to lose every time. That's one of the reasons why there's trash talking fights the trash look we don't know

there's a difference between trash talking like you know i'm talking about than the pervert that's hysterical and screaming and anybody that's been in a ring or been in any kind of fight you never take the person that's screaming and yelling or like in a street fight right the guy that's screaming and yelling i'm i'm not worried about that person i'm worried about the person i'm worried about the guy who's sitting over there quiet and he's got his hand on his hip, you know. Yes. I'm worried about you too.

No, but that's my point is like, if you look at social media or like any of the internet, it's like the loudest like rabble, screaming. That's not,

serious people can't take those people seriously, which means, you know, you can't have a productive conversation. The only way to have that is with the calm manner and saying like, hey, let me hear you.

And maybe you're right and maybe you're wrong. Yeah, right. But it's not going to, I mean, what am I? I'm a realist. I mean, I'm a realist with a slight optimist lean. Like if I have to take the bet on humanity, I'll probably realistically, I'd probably short humanity. Like that's just, you know, that's the reality of it.

But when I try, when I get in touch with my feelings and I decide I'm going to be affiliated and I want everyone to be good and I'm looking at the impact, I hope that my words and writing have, I do it because I want to change the odds, man. I want to get us like, not a plus. I want to win. I want us to get along. I want to win. I want us to get along. I want everyone to be able to talk to one another. I think like world peace is a silly goal.

That's an extreme. What I really would prefer is world thought. Like if I could get just 10% of people to think and discuss things, that's a good, that's a drastic improvement. Think about how many people you interact with on a daily basis, in person or on the internet. And so much of it is just reaction, reactionary reaction.

And now people think that because they can Google something that they understand it. And that's another problem in and of itself is people who think they're reinforcing their opinion with thought.

And the reality is, you can find a spin on anything, almost anything. So you got to learn how to think. My dad used to tell me this quote for as long as I can remember. It's like his favorite thing. If he's listening, he'll probably laugh. And he used to say to me when I was little, he said, 2% of the world think, 8% of the world thinks they think, 90% never thinks, decide which percentage you want to be. And I think about that all the time because hopefully you can work towards getting in the 2%. Hopefully, I think the most dangerous place to be is in that 90%. But I think there's a lot of us that fall in the 8%. And it's constantly working, questioning your thoughts, questioning

your beliefs, questioning the general narrative, questioning the status quo to get to a point where you're thinking more. And so I agree with you. I would love to know what Ed's tools in his toolbox are. What are your morning routine tactics? Are you practicing stoicism every day? Your workouts? What sets you up for a successful day? What sets me up for a successful day? I think the first thing that sets you up for a successful day is sleeping well the night before. And that's a whole other discussion, things that make you sleep better. But the TLDR is try to get to bed at a decent hour. That starts, that's how it all starts. As far as, you know, when I, the first thing I do when I get out of bed in the morning, I try to get started on the task immediately, whether it be physical or mental. I try to have it be physical because moving is just better.

Whether that means going for a walk, a jog, doing some dishes, you know. Take a fucking hint, do some dishes tomorrow. Yeah. Wake up and do it tomorrow yeah wake up and and do do it all wake up and do dishes and then doing that

I feel like okay I got a small one out the way something's clean something's moved something's created and so the rest of the day

goes okay goes at least I've had a I tell people all the time I've had a bad day in a very long time. I think the last bad day I had was the day before I stopped drinking.

That's how I look at it. Right. But the sleep is key. The movement is key. And, and I, I have a completely stress-free environment and I worked hard to do that. What does that look like? A stress-free environment. I don't argue with my girl.

That never happens. I can't even. I don't know if you guys can see this. She's like, take a hit. Well, that's a good tip. Well, here's the thing. Now, when I say I don't argue, that doesn't mean there aren't disagreements. If Michael's choosing to be offended at me, that's his problem.

But we have a good communication system. I think it's important. I tell people all the time, I was just telling my friend last night, I said, whoever you pick, one of the things you're going to have to make sure you pick is you pick somebody based on how they disagree. Because every relationship is good and everyone's good, but it ain't going to be good all the time. And you don't want to find out you got like somebody that thinks they can swing on you or something crazy like that. No, you want to pick someone who you can disagree with. Well, and I have a wonderful person at home that helps. I don't have to suffer anything. I don't want to suffer. That helps. My goal is not so much to like earn as much money as I can. My goal is to do it the way I would like to do it.

And I've been very fortunate in my story and how people respond to me. It's really afforded me a lot of opportunities. And most importantly, it's afforded me the opportunities to where I don't have to suffer people. I don't want to suffer. I don't have work for anybody. I don't spend time around people who don't make me feel better or anything like that. So really, I'm a big believer in the big wins. Good sleep, good people around you, make sure you're eating well. If the meal is not home, quote, we go to a restaurant where it's

damn good. I can't remember the last time I got some legit processed food, whether high-speed processing like some McDonald's or something that comes in a package. And yeah, I work holistically. I think if you take care of the big things, it makes it easier to take care of the small things. And the small things are where the leverage is really gained, where you really move ahead. But it's really hard to focus on a minutia if you haven't dealt with the majority yet. I have a question that I've never asked anyone on the show, but I feel like I can ask you this.

Do you schedule time in your calendar to read? Because you seem like a big reader. Oh, you know, I should. I don't though. I just, I have books that I know to read and I just stock up. And look, man, I have physical books. I have a decent enough library,

but I've been putting a lot of books on the Kindle lately because of the way I decided to read. I started to go through. And then when I see a great quote, I just highlight it and export it out to read wise. I think now the Kindle app has that same feature. And then I'll go back. And now what I'm doing on my website is I'll write out the 10 best ideas based on a quote and really try and break it down and think. Like, for example, that Hager Kodak quote I gave earlier,

I may have got the wording wrong, but I got the idea right. And that's the idea. You know, you don't want to just read the waste of time. You got to somehow get that in your brain. And I found thinking about it, i.e. writing about it, really helps. And then on top of that,

I get SEO boosts from my site and brings people in. So it's a win-win when across the board. But my reading is not scheduled. It's just like, what does my time look like? Everything is writing, right? Maybe shoot something related to a course that I'm putting together. I play a lot of chess and take a lot of walks with Anna or go to the gym.

And I read. Those are the times. If you were to leave our audience with a book, a podcast, or a resource that's really changed your life, what would it be? A Course in Miracles. A Course in Miracles. Oh, that's my mom's favorite book. It's a heck of a book. It is. So what it is, I'm going to give you the folklore behind it. And don't really pay attention to that because it's not relevant and can distract you. But I think it's worthwhile mentioning. The woman claimed that at some point in her life, she was inhabited by Jesus who worked through her to write down this word for word. And the whole book is, it's a course in forgiveness effectively.

It teaches you forgiveness. The first part of the book is the theory behind it. And then there's an application, the second part, that are exercises you do every day. And actually, it's 365 exercises for that many days in a year. And you just go through it. And I read that book when I was 23. and then I read it again. And then now I have a copy of it. And what it did was it fundamentally changed my relationship with humans because now I'm able to look at people and I go, okay, I look at them

through the lens of forgiveness. And now forgiveness is a very natural thing to me, but it's a practice. You have to continually practice. You have to know what forgiveness is. I tell people all the time, forgiveness is not a substitute for justice. I think the average person has that interpretation of forgiveness.

We're going to let something slide. We're going to forgive and forget. Like, no, you're still going to have to go to jail. I'm not going to mess with you. But it's for my internal peace. So I don't go out and do something horrible to other people. One of the examples I give in an article is I say, imagine that the guy, all right, I talked about the El Paso killer, actually. And I go, okay, you know, that guy's going to do life if he's not dead already.

He'll be punished sufficiently. But what we can't do is undo what he did and the effect that he has on people, the effect that he's had on people directly and indirectly. So what is our choice to always be angered and to always be agitated and to not trust and deal with all kinds of things? Or do we look at and develop a way to forgive this act? And that bugs people because of what they think the word forgiveness is. But all forgiveness means is that you no longer need something from a situation to feel even, to feel paid back, whatever. That's what happens when you get loan forgiveness.

They're like, yeah, you don't got to pass anymore. It's all all good that doesn't mean that that loan's not in the books and you didn't get something from it it just means you know you let it go and that's the same with forgiveness you don't have to what we try to do is we attempt to balance the emotional books we go you did that so i'm gonna do that to you and that's gonna make me feel better it never really works that way never you always disappoint you like oh i still feel like shit well because you didn't deal with So I'm going to do that to you. And that's going to make me feel better. It never really works that way. Never. You always disappointed. Like, oh, I still feel like shit.

Well, because you didn't deal with the issue. And that's what forgiveness tries to help you to do. And that's why that book is so important to me. Because that book fundamentally changed my relationship with my mother. I was on a point where I was very, I was talking about how I grew up earlier. And as I got more and more exposed to the differences, I got angrier. I got angry. And I just was like, why would you have me in these circumstances? This is terrible.

And, you know, all these things I could have did as a kid. You had this issue or that issue. And that's why I didn't do it because of that. And it really became a volatile relationship with my mother to the point where we like stopped speaking for a little while. And then I found A Course in Miracles and I started reading. And I was like, okay, here's a way to live, a way to move forward. And now I have a great relationship with my mom.

It doesn't mean I forget anything that happened. I go, okay, you did the best you could with what you knew at the time. And if I was in your situation, I probably would have done the same thing. And I understand that now. And I know that your heart was in the right place or the best place it could be given how you grew up and what you knew. And I'm going to no longer expect this to be balanced or fixed by anything you can do in the present. Anything you can say, we'll just let that be. I know your character about certain things and I know how to protect myself.

You know, the old fool me twice, shame on me kind of deal. But everything else, I don't let it have an effect on my emotions. That's the power. That's the key of forgiveness. I feel the same way about forgiveness as you do. Can you pimp yourself out to our audience? I feel like a lot of people are going to want to follow you. What's your Instagram, your Twitter, your website?

Where can they buy to support? Give us all the details. Let's make it, you know, if someone is born in the future with my name, I feel sorry for that guy. Because I have taken Ed Latimer everywhere. That's my instagram handle at latimore my twitter handle at latimore my facebook page and profile is at latimore my website is at latimore.com so and on the website you can sign up for the newsletter and all that kind of thing if they were going to start with one article on your site with one or two what's

your what do you think the one or two. I think my articles on forgiveness are really important. So any article about forgiveness, I think I have four, maybe three, three or four. That would be like if my impact on you is going to be any kind of way I would like you to be able to move past emotional issues, emotional troubles, things that block you up. That would be the first thing. And then after that, let's jump into something practical. I think all the guys can read my article about how to be an attractive man. I think that makes a big difference because I don't just talk about the appearance that plays a role. You are very handsome.

I told you when you walked in. He's very handsome. And you when you walked in he's very handsome and check these clothes right these clothes are are um for i have a sponsor which is which is very cool uh state and liberty check them out oh you know and if you do buy them buy through that link because then they can see that they made a good call investing in me the shirt is a great color it fits my instagram feed i couldn't be more happy about it great fits me what's really cool about it. Great. Fits me. What's really cool about it, you know, and I don't know, I'm plugging State and Liberty, whatever.

They reach out and they're like, you know, we never had a guy on Twitter before. And I'm like, okay, cool. We'll try it. Okay. And Twitter wasn't working. So what I did is thinking and smart, I go, I've got this great article about how to look better and be a better man. Let me put the link there. And I went and checked and I was looking at it, totally forgetting that I'm not an affiliate. I'm just a sponsor. So I was

like, man, I'm having no luck. And then I went and saw, and I was like, oh wow. Okay. So I sold, you know, $10,000 of the clothes through this link. Let's go. And I messaged him. I was like, Hey, you guys want to kick me some more clothes? I just know that. Yeah, sure. What's the tag so I can tag them on Instagram when I post a picture of you? State and Liberty. State and Liberty. I love the lilac moment.

And it's great because what that inadvertently led into, that's why you got to be nice to people sometimes. I have a friend and she shoots a lot of the photography when I have my photography go up on Instagram. So she saw some pictures of me in this shirt state and liberty saw them and they're like wow those are great can we use those I was very cool go for it and then I noticed they never used this so I when they wrote to me though they were like hey can you send us some more of those photos I was like yeah sure no

problem but like it's curious like why didn't you use the photos before and I'm like oh we discontinued that shirt so you can't I I mean, right? But, you know, I'll make sure whatever one you get, we're going to use that. We're going to make sure we have it in stock and then you'll be on a website.

I think they should do an ad collection. That would be and it would sell. I think it would sell. I think it would sell at the very least because, look,

I never take for granted that people like to listen to things that I deliver. Like, I never take that for granted, man, because fortunate. It allows me to make a living being myself. But what do I say on the side of the tongue? I take what I learned the hard way and I break it down so other people can learn it the easy way. And that's what I'm trying to do.

I'm trying to make a difference. So yeah, check my site out. Check me out. Unless you've got two big fans here and I'm glad you came out to Austin. I'm glad we got to do this in person. Yeah, check my site out. Check me out. Listen, we got two big fans here. And I'm glad you came out to Austin. I'm glad we got to do this in person. Yeah, me too. Anytime you come to Austin or LA, you have an open invite to come back on the podcast. Oh, awesome.

Awesome. I want to take you up on that. Anytime. When you have your collection out. The collection out. The new book that I'm writing. Definitely when you have a new book, you're an open invite.

And anything we can support man. Awesome Oh, I greatly appreciate you guys having me. Thank you so much for coming on. You're amazing very much for having me To win a copy of ed's book sober letters to my drunken self All you have to do is tell us your favorite part of this episode on my latest instagram at lauren bostick We love your feedback. Thank you guys as always for supporting the show and feel free to follow us on Instagram at TSC Podcast. See you next time.