#345： Not Caring What Other People Think Is a Superpower
Episode Stats
Summary
Often when you start making positive changes for the better in your life, you'll have people even close to you intentionally or unintentionally try to discourage you from your path. In those moments, you have to develop the ability to shrug off your critics and not let them drag you back down to their level. My guest today has succeeded in that struggle and shares the lessons he learned in his athlete title book, "Not Caring About What Other People Think Is a Superpower." His name is Ed Latimore, and besides being a writer, he's a professional boxer, is about to complete his degree in physics, served for the National Guard as a volunteer, and is an avid chess player.
Transcript
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brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast oftentimes when
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you start making positive changes for the better in your life you're gonna have people even people
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really close to you who claim to care about you intentionally or unintentionally try to discourage
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you from your path in those moments you have to develop the ability to shrug off your critics and
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not let them drag you back down to their level my guest today has succeeded in that struggle and
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shares the lessons he learned in his athlete title book not caring what other people think is a
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superpower his name is ed latimore and besides being a writer he's a professional boxer is about
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to complete his degree in physics served for the national guard as an americorps volunteer and is
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an avid chess player today on the show ed shares how he wasn't always this ambitious and how he
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spent most of his 20s dorking around he then shares the moment when he decided to get serious with his
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life and the steps he took to start college in his late 20s we then dig into some of the themes
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in ed's book specifically how to develop discipline even though you're not motivated to why you have
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to embrace being mediocre to become great and the difference between good pain and bad pain ed then
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shares what it's like to lose a boxing match on national television and the lessons he learned on
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failure from that match he also shares insights on how to deal with success specifically how to keep
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that edge even when things are going well for you we then end our conversation talking about why not
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caring about what people think is a superpower and why sometimes the people closest to you don't want
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to see you change your life for the better this is a great show packed with actionable insights
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after the show's over check out the show notes at aom.is slash latimore
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ed latimore welcome to the show hey thanks for having me today all right you got a really
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interesting background we're gonna talk about your book not caring about what people think about you
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as a superpower but let's talk about your background because it's interesting you're a professional
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boxer uh-huh you do a club chess yep um you're competitive at that i mean like you say you're
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a competitive person uh it's not competitive competitive but yeah yeah it's a you do club
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chess uh on the uh on the campus team i'm definitely the strongest player here or camp or campus club team
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because i love studying the game and improving i don't really have hobbies because i don't know how
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to just my only hobby is karaoke and even then when i'm done with this degree i'm probably going to go
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and and take some singing lessons and get better there you go well so yeah you're working on a
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degree in physics as well and then you also find time to serve in the national guard so let's talk
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about how did you go about developing this resume i mean these are differently because like you know
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diametrically opposed interests chess boxing etc what's going on there so so the main thing right now
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my degree and i just finished up my my military service so i'm no longer obligated to well i mean
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you're always obligated in your heart but i'm but in terms of will they send me somewhere that obligation
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is is completed but how this all came about is i spent a lot of my early 20s really just kind of uh
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puttering around and and one day i woke up and i said this isn't going to happen and i remember
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exactly when that moment was i came back from la where i had been training as a uh sponsored
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amateur but that they cut me when the program moved forward and i needed a job and work and i
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realized that i hadn't developed any skills in my early 20s so i went to work at t-mobile and i remember
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at t-mobile there was you know it was a sales-based commission job but it really sucked and i was like
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this will not work and the path i'm going on it's not sustainable so at that moment i went and i was
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like okay i need to go back to school i enlisted in the military to get money to go to school and
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i enlisted in the national guard so i could go to school continue to train because i had been boxing
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that i had been doing that uh so i enlisted in the national guard so i could box and go to school
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and still serve and get money from the military and also get some skills the job i selected when i
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enlisted was the 94 alpha mos class which is land combat electrical missile systems repairer
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it's a mouthful but the the tl dr is that you work on the electronic systems of the of military
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weaponry i was trained to work on the bradley fighting vehicle the javelin system the i-taz
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uh there's probably something else in there i can't remember but but the point is you know i wanted to
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learn some kind of skill i wanted to get something under my belt that i could turn into
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profit in the civilian world so so i do that i go and that a i-t which is the the second part of your
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basic training there's there's basic training and you go to your advanced individual training
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where you get training your job well the first the first uh six weeks of that you go through
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something called bmat the basic mechanical electrical theory everyone at fort lee virginia has to do this
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which is where our school was and it was in that school that i realized holy heck man i really like
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electronics because my original goal was to go back for just pure math and i chose that because i was
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looking for a way to go to school and avoid lab work in case i needed to miss miss a class because i had
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to work because i knew i was gonna have to work i didn't have any money well i go and do bmat and i'm
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like holy heck i really want to be an electrical engineer this is really cool to me because you do a lot of
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electrical work so when i come back that's the first thing i'll do is i start going to the classes
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for electrical engineering but then one of the classes you have to take you know is the physics
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the physics component physics one and physics two and i remembered when when it hit me we were doing
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an experiment for kinematic motion which is just motion independent of other forces so just you know
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gravity and the initial velocity and some angle and we had to make a prediction where b would land and my
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prediction was spot on and it landed exactly where i thought i was going to land and i said this is
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like magic this is what i want to do so i decided at that point i was still going to go physics and
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electrical engineering but i found a school that had both a dual degree program and eventually i
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focused on physics and that's what i'm going to graduate with this winter as a degree in physics so
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that that's kind of how that that happened yeah and so what do you plan on doing with that degree
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in physics so you know it's funny about that so so one of the reasons why i switched to just physics
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is because i would have to spend another year in school to get the full degree program it's a five
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year program and i and i'm i'm on pace to finish my degree if it was just a four-year program in three
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and a half years that's combined with taking the semester off i really really hauled ass because i
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felt like i had so much time to make up for with that said what i'm going to do with my degree well
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over the past year uh things have really developed in terms of my writing and my outreach and what i
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what i've always dreamed of i mean i enjoy science but i really excel at communication and writing i
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are at the very least i think i have a natural talent that can be honed and get me into the top
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percent in the world i'll never be a top 10 percent scientist i'm not that intelligent i don't care
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that much uh about writing i do believe i can be a top 10 percent communicator storyteller
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and speaker so that is pretty much and teacher for that in that regard too that i learned that this
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past year as well that i really enjoy the teaching tutoring aspect and really and seeing people
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understand concepts and explain them so as to what i'm going to do with my physics degree the short
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answer is nothing directly the long answer is whatever doors open up to me is a result of that
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education and some have already i would i got several private tutoring jobs over the course of the year
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when i needed to to make money and we'll get into that later why i needed to take money but i got those
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because i'm a physics major and i have a a gift for explaining ideas to people it isn't uh a thing that
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i'm going to go into industry with because i just i don't want to work for someone and i really don't
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like the idea of being told what to do or where to be this almost cost me uh two notable times in my
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basic training but once you get to your unit it's a little more laxing but yeah uh so that's where i'm
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going to go with my physics degree pretty much wherever i want to but not for someone else how old were
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you when you finally went back to college and how old are you now i went back to college my very first
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day of college i would have been 28 yeah 28 would have been my first day and and now i'm 32 i'll be
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33 in february so i'm gonna finish right on time i would have finished earlier if i hadn't taken out
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some time but that's uh i i tell people that because i remember saying to my girlfriend at the
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time you know who's still my girlfriend which is great and i i remember saying to her and to everyone
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in general but her first i said look no matter what unless something horrible happens i'm going
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to be 33 anyway the difference is while i turn 33 with the ability to earn more money and have a
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better life for myself or while i turn 33 still chasing after little minimum uh not minimum wage but
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slightly above minimum wage jobs with nothing but nothing to show for how intelligent i believe i am and i
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have been challenging myself so i'm really happy that i decided to because a lot of people don't
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and even when they do decide to go back to school it's certainly not for something as rigorous as
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physics or engineering and so now the we're almost done and i can look back and go wow i finished it so
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no i love that because i know a lot of guys who feel like well i i wasted my 20s it's too late for me
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you know but like your proof like no it's not like you can get started anytime it is never too late i mean
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oh you're talking to a guy like like when i came back from my basic i remember i got home from basic
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and ait and everything i got back like uh like december 20th maybe 21st and i went out i went out
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drinking and celebrating and woke up and i was just like you know what alcohol is going to inhibit me
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making any progress i got too much important stuff i got a great relationship i have the military now and
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then you have to deal with the uniform code of military justice as well as the legal system if
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you get pulled over for dui and i have my academics that i really am taking seriously now and boxing was
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picking up as well i was like you know what there's no place for it so i stopped drinking and that's a
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hard shift to make for most people when i bring that up or when i talk about it but it was so important
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to me because i had i was like you know what i wasted all this time i got all my i had drinking and
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party out of my system that i should have did when i was 18 to 22 it's over it's out of my system now
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let's let's fix things so it's never too late to have the idea that you can fix things and improve
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your life so let's talk about your writing kind of where you're headed we're spending more of your
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time on like what are you trying to do with your writing i mean what kind of themes are you you
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exploring so initially well not only i mean initially and still the whole point of my writing is to
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organize my thoughts and to see how i have learned what i have taken from my life which has been a
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very unique uh story we probably won't get into it in the podcast here but but uh you know there's a
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whole background of where i grew up and how i grew up and things i took from that as well as the the
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i guess the early 20s phase and even now so what i try and do with my writing is i try and break down
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what i have already experienced you can get something from it the my little motto that i have
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for my writing i haven't put up official officially on the site is that i take what i've learned the
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hard way and break it down so you can learn it the easy way that is the number one goal of every single
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thing i write in a non-fiction aspect is to somehow some way make sure people can learn things without
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the way without going through the things i had to go through at the very least make them think
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differently about a decision or a course of action and if that inspires someone who's 16 to go a
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different path or that inspires someone who's 60 to decide that they can go start and do something to
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improve the life then i have succeeded in what i set out to do with the words i put you know to the
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screen or the pad let's talk about your background i mean what what is it about your background
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background that allowed you to learn things the hard way um well i grew up like dirt poor man like
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i am straight out the projects i'm a ghetto kid there's no i mean i don't have ghetto tendencies and
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if i didn't tell you that you probably wouldn't guess it but nah man i grew up in in really rough rough
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rough area rough background very poor a lot of violence around me seeing those things and then learning
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how to not only navigate that situation but eventually get away from it and excel without
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moving out i mean people forget uh certainly my close friends sometimes forget and when i say close
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friends i'm talking about people i met uh from the age of 14 after where i went to a school on the other
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side of town not the schools that my neighbor would have fed me into but even then i i realized you
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know my decision to go to that school that wasn't all my mom's decision i was a lot of that was like
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okay i see where everyone's going and i see where that's going i don't want to be like that but here's
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this opportunity to go to a different place across town with a different crowd of people from a
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different background let me do that if for any other reason than i know where they're going i don't want
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to go so having that experience to come up and and learn to take care of myself early i mean there
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were some things in my personal life that forced me to learn to deal with myself and and manage and go
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okay i'm in this thing in this world alone let me figure it out and when you have to do that when
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you get baptized by fire in that regard uh you you you make some really big mistakes uh but if you if
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you survive them you are so much further ahead than the average person who doesn't even know these
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problems exist let alone how to settle and deal with them and you know i always joke oh it's not joking
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but but i tell it in a joking fashion that i think one of the biggest problems today with the way
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people interact particularly millennials is that they've never been punched in the face for being
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disrespectful i don't think anyone should ever get hit over words let me make that clear but where i
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grew up you never knew who didn't care about going back to jail or going to jail or who had a reputation
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and protect so you just kind of led into every interaction with a minimum level of respect and
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manners you know if things got real they got real but you know you can save yourself a lot of trouble
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by just uttering the phrase my bad when you make a mistake and people can't even do that anymore today
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or at least far fewer than what i grew up in in the environment and the time so what do you think
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allowed you what was it about you that was inside of you that you were able to make that decision to
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improve your situation there's a lot of people who are you know they're in the same situation as you
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were and they just go with the flow and they just sort of like crabs in a bucket right they just let
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the other crabs pull them back down what do you think was different with you um i know one of the
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things that i'm really grateful for is that despite despite everything else in my background
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that fits the trend one trend that i'm very grateful for that we did not follow is my father
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was in my life um until he died he died when he was 18 he didn't live with me he lived in philadelphia
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but and he made that decision despite the emotional pull i think my mom wanted him to stay
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in pittsburgh and he was like for what i i know how to do there's no work um and i just want to get away
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so he went and he did that and then when he was when he was away you know i go visit him and i go see
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a different life and it wasn't that different i mean it's not my dad didn't have money obviously
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but he he worked for things and he he focused on what was important beyond money like he saved up and
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he took us to the beach it was easy to drive six hours to the beach from philadelphia and going there
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i got to see wow there's a whole different world i mean because kids in the ghetto don't go to the
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beach i mean they don't see that my dad took us i said to my dad i was like man you know i really
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want to learn how to ski i think it might be cool so he took you know only now as i'm older am i aware
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of how much the financial burden was for him even though he was working he went and paid for ski
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lessons so i was you know i'm the only kid in the ghetto i know knows how to ski i used to play a game
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when i got to high school and i was around a different crowd and they had ski trips i used
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to play a game let's say it was called spot the black person right and it was just me having fun
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under the ski lodge but but the point is that i got to see different things very early and i'm very
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fortunate that that occurred that i was able to spend some time out fathering at the really see a
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different way and know that there was something there was there was another possibility than what i'd seen
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i think a lot of people lack that they don't get to see that there is another life that there is
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another way it's one thing to read about it on the internet to see pictures of a place it's a totally
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different experience to walk with sand underneath your feet and go i really like this warm weather
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how can i make sure my life somehow gets me closer to it you know i love that's great so let's get into
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some of the themes in your book not caring what people think about you as a superpower i love you start
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off the book talking about discipline you're doing a lot with your time so i imagine you've had to learn
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how to discipline yourself and it sounded like you you didn't always have that discipline and there was
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that moment you realized you needed it what did you start doing what were those first steps right
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like we talk about physics right an object at rest stays at rest an object in motion he goes like that
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to get something moving takes a lot of energy and force like what was the thing that you did to get
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yourself going in that disciplined route in life so the first thing i have to state is that always
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always always and i believe this is trainable i'm i'm fortunate i guess in the i didn't have a choice
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but to develop this trait but but if you can suffer like if you can endure pain man there's a place for
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you in this world somewhere because if you can endure her pain that means that you'll do what it takes
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if you know what you want to happen you know it some people there are a lot of people with grit but
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they don't know what to do with it they're just like ah man i'll slug out these these night shifts
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and these these 20 hour shifts and i'm like well you can take that grit and you can apply it somewhere
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else um it depends on what you want so so i preface preface it with that once i realized that i needed
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to change it was just a matter of looking around and going okay you know what do i need to do to
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make x y and z happen you always need to have some type of future orientation you need to be able to
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stop and look in the future and go okay i see that i would like to not okay so it was like a big deal
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for me i remember this this clearly right before i went to la and you always need a hard things to
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kind of wake you up or bad things to kind of wake you up right before i went to la and started training
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i got invited out there it's not like i went and and struck out and went on my own i got invited and
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they paid for me to fly out and everything and my living expenses out there but right before that
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happened uh the lease on where we lived we that ended i didn't have any money because my
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unemployment had just run out mind you i'm on unemployment at this time and also my credit rating
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was sub 500 so no one would even rent to me let me tell you what it's like to know that not even if
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you have the money in the bank no one's gonna put you in a place to live miserable i was so grateful
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that la happened but what that did for me though when i was in la i had no bills and i was they were
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paying me i think like three grand a month every single dime i got i put towards paying off any debt
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paying off anything and started boosting my credit i was like you know what i'm going to delay and i
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seen a lot of guys around me they didn't understand what i was doing i was like no no no i know what
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it's like because of that pain of not experiencing uh the freedom to get a place to live so i'm going
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to make sure in the future when this happens you know you always got to look and go i am i going
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to need to get a place again let me make sure this won't happen so i tell that story to illustrate
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that to have discipline to to develop discipline self-discipline you have to be able to
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suffer once you realize that you got to have a thing you're suffering for i'm not going to go out
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because i'm i'm that then that's a small stuff for small sacrifice it's not as big as like okay like
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i'm going to join the military and go away from everything i've known and then do a basic training
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so i can get money to go to school and i can have a skill set on my resume in case i want to work
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all these things you need to be able to look to the future see where you want to go see what you have
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to do to get there and then and that part what you have to do to get there is always going to be
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uncomfortable and is always going to require self-discipline and self-control but i believe
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that if you have a strong enough why you'll you'll figure out the how and to get your why you have to
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be able to project into the future yeah you talk about you just kind of referenced it to a little
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bit that idea of you write about in the book good pain and bad pain what's the difference between the
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good pain is the pain you endure in pursuit of something that that you believe wholeheartedly
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will improve your life bad pain is the pain you suffer avoiding the things that you know
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will make you better right and but by by definition that means the things you're avoiding that will make
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you better means you're almost certainly doing something that'll make you worse you know you can
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have the pain of a hangover or you can have the pain of spending three hours in the gym per day
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both are painful but the difference is spending your time in the gym is going to eventually get you a
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body that you know that should make you more attractive and more appealing to people and make
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you healthier or you can you know be on the bed all sore with a hangover taking years off your life
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probably doing something stupid and embarrassing or probably have done something stupid and embarrassing
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and root to getting that hangover so those that that little example with drinking and we we take it
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to a bigger level you can be in the right now i'm just unbelievably miserable finishing this final
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semester of physics because it's it's so difficult i love the material but it's so difficult but i know
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that in in december i'll be able to probably say i finished this thing whether i use it or not is
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kind of irrelevant at this point now because if i you know i can or there are jobs and if i don't
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i know how to i've learned how to make money and and fend for myself but i'll have that i have
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finished this thing i have done this and it is hanging here it's mine it was painful but i did it
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there were sacrifices but i did it there were life changes that i didn't want to make but i knew i had
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to make but i did it or i could have spent the past four years living uh like a full party and drinking
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going out doing minimum wage work to have just enough money to pay pay rent in the shitty part of
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town and not and feed myself horrible food and i'll be in pain at 33 but what did i get for it i
00:23:47.560
was avoiding doing the hard work that would have made my life better so those are the two kinds of
00:23:51.560
pain you get the pain from going after something that you want something that you desire something
00:23:56.420
that's going to make your life better or you get the pain of suffering the consequences of avoiding
00:24:00.980
that work how do you keep yourself going in pursuit of those long-term goals that you have
00:24:05.940
because a lot of these things you're you're going after take a while take years you know becoming a
00:24:09.920
professional boxer that takes years of training getting a degree that takes a certain amount of
00:24:14.020
time and it's painful right it's not fun oftentimes so how do you keep yourself going in spite of all
00:24:20.580
that i love the process you have to fall in love with the process because if you if you focus on the
00:24:25.740
outcome uh you know i think okay so you ever hear that story or what they say like you know the
00:24:32.660
slowest pot to boil is the one you're watching it's because you're watching it with the expectation
00:24:37.100
that it'll boil and that's all you can think about never for you know you forget that it takes time
00:24:40.980
to put the energy into the molecules and the water and it's got to reach a certain level of energy and
00:24:46.300
they got to start moving all this stuff right so so all you're focused on is the outcome of that
00:24:50.680
water boiling so it seems like it takes forever and you might and you'll get you should get bored
00:24:55.420
and walk away right uh you take the same approach to anything you want to achieve and accomplish in
00:25:02.440
life if you only focus on the outcome if i was only sitting here going man i can't wait until i'm
00:25:10.020
selling a million books and i'm a professional boxer and i have this physics degree i might get bored i
00:25:17.280
might start to hate the work i have to do and i think a lot of people focus only on the outcome
00:25:22.500
and so when they then when they really get in there and start going and they hit that middle
00:25:27.800
part where they're too far along to reasonably quit and they can't see the beginning but they still
00:25:32.600
can't see the end they're like what have i got myself into and then that's when people drop out
00:25:38.900
they decide that it's not worth it they lose their motivation however if you go into this knowing
00:25:44.540
they are thinking that the process uh the the the enjoyment of adding new skills or putting new
00:25:54.420
things in your mind or understanding the universe that's enjoyable or are are seeing how people
00:26:00.820
respond to little articles and how they how they write you or for a little thing that you shared
00:26:07.340
and the impact you can make and the skill you can increase on how you string words together and
00:26:14.260
express yourself that'll keep you going because then now you're getting enjoyment from the process
00:26:19.200
and since the process never ends you know you'll always be happy you won't lose motivation but the
00:26:26.320
moment you start focusing only on outcomes i know you only care about the outcome you will get
00:26:31.620
bored you will hate it or you'll start to take shortcuts and a shortcut always appears to save
00:26:38.000
you time but that interest then you know that interest is is running and you have to pay it back
00:26:42.640
somehow some way at the end yeah it's true like i've noticed in my own life whenever i focus on the
00:26:48.480
outcome like even when you achieve the outcome you wanted it's always kind of a letdown when you
00:26:52.740
actually achieve it hey it's no fun like like i'm sitting here right now as i talk to you
00:26:58.480
there's a there's a book over next to me a solid state physics book i was i was doing a little
00:27:03.300
studying before we we we started talking and and it's just really interesting to me how all of this
00:27:10.980
works i'm learning about something called the dubai frequency how you know the the science of it is
00:27:17.540
is beyond what i understand right now not to explain it casually but the point is that i want to learn how
00:27:24.780
to understand it casually so i'm not gonna get frustrated when i don't i just take that as part
00:27:29.700
of the understanding process it's like you have to not know before you do know otherwise you would
00:27:35.040
know and you would never not know right so moving from not knowing to knowing to uh novice to to expert
00:27:43.520
to inadequate to sufficient to beyond that is a process and you have to love that process otherwise
00:27:51.080
you would just quit man and i don't want to quit i don't know right and you have to love it too
00:27:56.280
because you talk about this in your book you're gonna you're gonna be mediocre at this stuff for a
00:28:00.880
long time for a long time i mean it's not even i remember to put it in perspective well i've been
00:28:07.620
boxing now for over 10 years 10 years and i did not learn how to properly like to where i would feel
00:28:13.840
comfortable going here's how you should do this uh i did not feel comfortable throwing jabs or straight
00:28:19.780
rights probably until about year eight like to where i could walk into a ring and do this and
00:28:25.660
throw this shot real time not like against the bag where it's not hitting back where there's not
00:28:30.800
stress that long you know i've seen guys there's i tell the story to people to illustrate what happens
00:28:37.040
when you care about only the outcome when i was an amateur there was a guy that came into our gym
00:28:41.980
i won't say his name and you know in case he oddly enough listens to this but i doubt he will
00:28:46.560
uh but he came into my gym and he was doing great he won like his first seven or eight fights
00:28:51.940
and won them big and then he goes to his eighth fight and he gets stopped and he decides that
00:28:59.920
boxing and by stopped i mean he gets uh he gets tko'd in a third round and he decides that boxing is
00:29:07.600
not for him and i'm like what you just lost one time it wasn't even like it was your first law
00:29:12.300
your first fight i mean you had eight fights why would you think that but for him it was about
00:29:17.260
the outcome he was talking to me the whole time about how he had invited these girls to come see
00:29:22.020
him fight and he was worried about how the girls meeting each other and i was like man i i didn't
00:29:28.000
really understand that at the time or get it or care really um but later on i thought back to that
00:29:33.740
and i was like wow that guy was just in it for the accolades and recognition a minute they took
00:29:38.720
that away from uh the outcome he was like okay well this sucks i'm gonna leave i'm gonna get out
00:29:45.440
of here and that's miserable you have an article about how what it's like losing a boxing match
00:29:49.420
on national tv uh no less what was that experience like for you in the moment what was it like you
00:29:55.740
know the days afterwards right like when you're able to process it so so in the moment right you know
00:30:01.780
it's funny i i just i 10 10 months right took 10 months for me to finally watch myself get knocked
00:30:07.480
out it also took months for me to finally say i got knocked out you know it's a really weird feeling
00:30:11.760
you have with that but it but it really humbles your ego and you really learn to you learn it's
00:30:19.000
not the end of the world i mean and you know that intellectually but now i know it viscerally
00:30:22.780
i understand that people lose i will maybe lose again when i start fighting again at the end of this
00:30:29.020
year but how i dealt with it in the moment i just my first thought to be totally honest with you my
00:30:36.160
first thought was holy heck we just paid for this trip to paris how am i gonna pay now because
00:30:42.640
they're gonna take my contract that was my first thought um oh we already paid for the trip but i
00:30:48.260
was like how am i gonna enjoy myself in paris they just paid for me they just they're gonna cut my
00:30:51.980
contract i know it uh but then then i was like and you learn man you get tough skin man social media is
00:30:59.460
rough man people do not care because i had crossed over once they seen you on television i was no
00:31:06.440
longer a human being that they were interacting with i was i was like a you know and this isn't
00:31:12.520
obviously this isn't apply to everyone i interact with on the the social media scene uh but a lot of
00:31:19.060
people they they kind of see you as this thing that is is not real like a like a television show
00:31:25.040
and they talk to you like you don't have feelings and when you were in the moment right after the
00:31:30.740
fight man that stuff but i woke up one night and some guy wrote on my wall man you got knocked the
00:31:35.440
f out homie i was like man like why would you write that i just deleted and banned him but but now i
00:31:40.620
don't care now i look at it and go wow you know that's a learning experience and you know if you've
00:31:46.080
ever been in a fight at that level i mean most people aren't making five figures when they lose they
00:31:50.880
lose fights and look like jackasses and so i had to i remind myself of these little things about how
00:31:56.800
far i got but then i got fired up afterwards a few months later i was like all right i'm gonna come
00:32:01.500
back and i'm definitely going to do well and i could look and see what i learned but for the most part
00:32:08.140
because you know this is a strength and a weakness of mine i'm i'm so detached emotionally from from many
00:32:15.780
things and this fight included i didn't feel a certain kind of pain but i did know that i was
00:32:24.700
in for thrashing on social media and i think i i feared that but but also and i wrote in the article
00:32:33.340
about the fight that when you when you when you fall down you know you're on your way up and you fall
00:32:40.980
down uh the people you pass um metaphorically when you pass on the way back down they're you know
00:32:48.420
how you treated them on the way up is how they're going to treat you times 10 on the way down and i
00:32:52.800
and it was at that point that i realized that i was a cool guy and i was really and again that's
00:32:57.220
always my stick i rather learn and connect with people i'm never interested in boasting or bragging
00:33:01.460
uh beyond self-promotional things and even then i don't do that too well
00:33:06.480
so after the fight i just kind of was angry i just wanted to sleep and i was sad but the next day
00:33:16.340
you know i write about this the next day i look at the news and at this point in time uh some guy
00:33:21.880
walked into a mall in washington and shot up some people there was a cover on the aleppo syria thing
00:33:28.100
there were the protests in charlotte because i think somebody in charlotte carolina because i think
00:33:33.300
uh there was some kind of police shooting and i was just like man there's like real problems the
00:33:37.480
worst thing that happened to me man i just got i lost the fight and got paid at that uh so i'm like
00:33:42.480
whatever uh well not whatever but it really put things in perspective for me the next day so i it didn't
00:33:49.440
bother me too long i was just like i gotta get back to real life and deal with things and but but now
00:33:54.340
you know it's weird after all this time now i have kind of a competitive drive and burn i really can't
00:33:59.100
wait to get back in there after this degree is is behind me the process if i was focused on the
00:34:04.000
outcome that would be it you know someone asked me the other day are you gonna retire from boxing i'm
00:34:08.760
like why would i do that i'm only 32 you know the i think five of the top 10 maybe a little more all
00:34:15.020
of them are over 33 and i'm like man i got great i have a great upside i've only lost one fight and
00:34:21.700
more importantly i lost it in a really boxing's a strange business losing that fight that way with my
00:34:28.940
record may have financially definitely financially was one of the best things that could have happened
00:34:34.160
to me but also in terms of uh marketability well it was it's so easy to get fights now because people
00:34:42.480
think they can beat me which is great but there's not a lot of tape i mean i think the fight led the
00:34:46.700
fight didn't last me on one round and i believe the official stoppage was sometime around the two
00:34:51.360
minute mark so there's nothing out there so we have a chance to do a really great thing when we come
00:34:55.600
back and i will be completely cleared of my schedule i won't have the degree i was you know
00:35:01.180
drug juggling and juggling i won't have military service i was juggling i can really focus and see
00:35:07.060
see how good i can really become failure has its challenges success also comes with its own challenges
00:35:13.420
people don't think about that but it does like you you get complacent you get lazy how do you keep
00:35:19.180
your edge even when you've experienced success like you're saying you're on your way up with your
00:35:23.380
box until you got to this match how did you keep your edge during that time and how have you kept
00:35:26.880
your edge when you've experienced the other successes in the other parts of your life oh man
00:35:30.360
but because i i know i know from hardcore experience intellectually all that like i understand that
00:35:39.500
there's one is always someone better i mean everything is a competition and you cannot forget
00:35:44.520
that in the moment you forget it's a competition you will lose the competition and you'll wonder what
00:35:48.700
happened and i'm like well you were competing you stopped competing but part of what keeps a person
00:35:54.920
competitive is you have to remember uh it never ends it it's never going to end it's always going
00:36:01.240
to be stressful you'll always be tested there's always going to be something to draw out a better
00:36:07.980
part of you and as long as you remember that you're never going to feel satisfied with what you
00:36:13.660
accomplish i mean i i think the most elation i've ever felt uh right so so to put it in perspective
00:36:20.460
you you guys contacted me uh to to join this wonderful podcast and i was like man that's great
00:36:26.880
they recognize my wedding and my first thought like after like you know i think i think i went ahead
00:36:32.300
an ice cream cone and at my first thought while i was eating ice cream cone i was like man uh but i've
00:36:40.340
really got to finish this other project and and i really got to finish the this degree thing and
00:36:46.020
this twitter project i'm going to come out with this is great so so my i never get caught up i know
00:36:52.560
there's a twitter project i'm working on but but i never get caught up in what i've accomplished because
00:36:57.680
i know that it's all transient it's all gonna stop and and you don't uh one you can't keep paying
00:37:03.980
yourself on past things i mean unless you have something really great but even then i mean the
00:37:07.640
attrition of life is very real uh or the inflation of life i should say that that if you're doing the
00:37:14.580
same thing in a year that you're doing today i mean you've wasted a lot of time and you apply that
00:37:19.960
over an even larger time scale if i was behaving the same way now that i was behaving at 22 oh goodness
00:37:26.940
i would be embarrassed you wouldn't be talking to me are you whatever i would just be chilling around
00:37:31.400
probably somewhere in a bar at happy hour being a fool but that's how you stay focused and that's
00:37:37.760
how you keep going is that you remember that it never is going to end and what you've done
00:37:42.640
loses value almost immediately and you have to just keep chasing new ways to be cool and new ways to be
00:37:50.080
interesting the new ways to prove to yourself that you did it that it wasn't luck i mean i think that's
00:37:55.760
what really drives me is that i'm really concerned that anything i've done is luck so i have to repeat
00:38:01.700
it i have to come that's how i battle my own imposter syndrome is i have to i have to prove to myself that
00:38:09.140
i did not just stumble upon whatever i've stumbled upon it wasn't just a good idea at a good time that
00:38:16.320
i can do it over and over and over again and live by the the merit of my own mind and accomplishments
00:38:22.500
yeah what you were saying reminded me of a phrase i've heard you know success isn't owned it's
00:38:27.240
borrowed and the rent is due every day every single day i mean i i'm i'm so busy i haven't had a chance
00:38:35.360
to write anything new for my blog and i can just see every day the traffic is on a downward slope it
00:38:42.500
has a negative slope you know so the wallet has sustained itself it's big enough now just big enough
00:38:51.100
not huge but just big enough to where like people can find it through search engines looking up very
00:38:56.860
important terms at least important to me i know that i need to get out there and do something new
00:39:04.060
uh i need to get out there and put out some new work and that's going to be you know that i'll just
00:39:08.680
stay up one night all night after i put mechanics or electromagnetism in my mind well so you also have
00:39:14.700
a section in your book dedicated to self-control and i'm curious you know your first part of your book
00:39:19.000
was a lot about self-discipline and you had a section on self-control do you see the two
00:39:23.000
as different and if so how very much so very different self-discipline is about what you do
00:39:29.280
self-control is about what you don't do right so you self-discipline yourself you go to the gym every
00:39:37.020
day this very good example actually now i'm thinking about it in my head before i say it right
00:39:41.460
self-discipline is going to the gym every day no matter how you feel and doing some kind of work or
00:39:47.680
sticking to the routine that you've created that is self-discipline that gets you to move that makes
00:39:52.600
you do a thing when you were not doing a thing before self-control is not eating ice cream every
00:39:58.960
day self-control is not ordering a you know a shot after you've already had too many self-control is
00:40:08.160
about keeping you from from succumbing to your worst tendencies the tendencies of a human being
00:40:16.280
that if left to their own devices will destroy and consume that person and prevent them from even
00:40:22.700
being in a position to exercise their self-discipline you know self-control is is not having another
00:40:31.620
drink and getting behind the wheel of a car because that'll ruin your life if you get pulled over and
00:40:37.020
it doesn't matter how much self-discipline you have or at the very least the the benefits you can derive
00:40:42.440
from that self-discipline now are significantly limited because your opportunities are going to
00:40:47.200
be limited and that's just assuming you don't go to jail right so so self-discipline is about what
00:40:52.700
making yourself do new things self-control is keeping yourself from doing things that
00:41:00.320
probably will undo you i mean if that is that is the big difference to me and i think i think it is
00:41:09.000
it's significant it's important to separate the two you know we talk about training people i used
00:41:14.960
to give training advice i don't do any more really unless a person really has but but i think one of
00:41:20.680
the most important things one of the most important sayings they have in the fitness world is that you
00:41:26.100
can't out train a bad diet right there you can go and do all you can run miles man but but if you are
00:41:34.000
going out and drinking every night and because you can't control yourself to to to be busy on a thing
00:41:42.160
that will make you better or to avoid your you know because we all want to have fun and we're people we
00:41:47.040
we we we avoid pain and seek pleasure but if you can't control yourself to do that then you're going
00:41:54.840
to only seek pleasure and the pain like we were talking about earlier the pain is how you do
00:42:00.200
things the chasing the pain of achievement so you a lot of your audience is is male i'm curious in
00:42:06.720
your experience with working with your audience interacting with them where have you seen a lot
00:42:11.060
of men fail when it comes to self-control a lot of guys that the biggest most cons or the most
00:42:17.820
consistent downfall guys really um needed one female attention and they will settle on whatever
00:42:27.880
attention they get as opposed to having a standard for themselves you know because the self-discipline
00:42:33.820
part is getting yourself to the gym make sure you learn the skills so you can make some money
00:42:37.420
you know you're dressing well ironing your clothes for you guys like those are just things you do right
00:42:42.840
the self-control part goodness gracious i mean the the they don't think about the the quality of the
00:42:50.940
what she brings to the table to make that to make the interaction worthwhile to be part of i mean
00:42:58.860
sex is abundant half of the population is one is female so that gives you a little leeway
00:43:06.820
to to be selective and to decide what is most important for you and to not just and to not just
00:43:15.260
fall over and fall in love with the first woman who gives you a little more attention and a little
00:43:21.740
more love and feeling than the other one you know and and i wish i talk about this all the time not all
00:43:29.140
the time but enough i i say that i say that you know a big problem is you can't trust a guy who who is
00:43:38.080
not capable of dealing with women well because he will sell you out the moment he's got a chance
00:43:45.240
to if the woman will give him something he wants and sales understand this i mean look at every ad
00:43:50.640
for cigarettes and or well not so much anymore but look at every ad for alcohol they understand you
00:43:56.380
can't even you're not even legally allowed to drink but how do they circumvent that and hijack your brain
00:44:01.260
they put they put beautiful women on board right because they know that if there's a woman involved
00:44:06.760
you'll do something i'll never forget when when this when when this game really hit me i was walking
00:44:11.800
to the mall and there were a group of women they were selling this soap this black soap this is
00:44:18.200
important the soap was black mind you this black soap and they were like come here and check out this
00:44:22.860
demonstration of how this soap cleans your hands and they washed my hands and the soap would rinse off
00:44:29.240
and they were like look at all that dirt in the tub and the soap was 75 dollars and i'm sitting here
00:44:33.200
thinking like this some 75 dollars soap and all it did was disintegrate and come off into the bin i mean
00:44:40.960
you you can't see that but but why is it selling why are they able to make a living that way because
00:44:46.340
man these are these were beautiful uh sephatic jewish women and they they were just i mean they look
00:44:52.880
like princess jasmine and it was incredible that there were three of them so any guy that came up i mean
00:44:59.360
if he was any kind of slob or whatever he would spend money and and logically you shouldn't think
00:45:06.360
about it doesn't make sense but that's that's how we fall into it no self-control that's that human
00:45:11.360
tendency a pretty girl touched your hand and now you're like wow that never happens to me let me
00:45:17.140
spend money on this 75 so it just washes down the drain all right so so like the sex part looking for the
00:45:25.020
the short term it's physical satisfaction with women that's to the hinderman of their long-term
00:45:29.820
happiness and and fulfillment absolutely and and somebody's getting paid off of it because they
00:45:35.440
they know they know that most of us don't have self-control that they see women they go oh man
00:45:40.940
these girls are gonna like me i better spend this money now let's talk about this let's go with your
00:45:45.240
kind of this is a nice segue to our our next part of the of your book about relationships and let's
00:45:50.100
talk about the title of your book not caring about what people think about you is a superpower there's
00:45:55.700
a section in your book about this why is not caring about what people think about you a superpower
00:46:00.260
because you have to remember something very few of us are fortunate enough to be born into
00:46:06.620
a a very supportive environment and i don't think that lack of support comes from
00:46:12.840
people who actively want to keep us down i'm not i don't think it is an active
00:46:18.580
intentional crab in a bucket mindset what i do think because i think change terrifies people
00:46:25.300
because if you change and you get what you want what is the excuse that the other person has for
00:46:33.200
not doing that you've eliminated especially if you have a similar uh handicap or impediment
00:46:40.640
so if you want to get what you want you know you're gonna have to act opposite of the people around you
00:46:51.380
opposite of the wishes of your parents opposite of what you've known your entire life and that societal
00:46:59.320
pressure is way more powerful than people give it credit for give it credit give credit to you're gonna have
00:47:07.360
to at some point go wow it is not going to like you just gotta look at it and go to it doesn't matter
00:47:14.260
do i care what you think do i care what collectively a bunch of people think because it's not just one
00:47:18.820
person one person by himself that isn't a mob it's a bunch of people who go crazy that turns into a mob
00:47:24.900
likewise one person who disagrees with you that's you know you everyone can deal with that we call those
00:47:32.080
people friends a lot of times when a whole group is adamantly opposed to the way you see the world the
00:47:41.060
way you think a goal you have or they tell you it's impossible you have to not you you have to not
00:47:48.040
care what they think because the moment you care then then your emotions get involved and your emotions
00:47:52.520
are powerful they're gonna make you go oh man this is this is really like this is really painful you
00:47:57.680
probably shouldn't do this you know you can't you can't care i mean i think one of the things that
00:48:02.400
i think that i'm most grateful for in the weirdest way is i don't have a great relationship with my
00:48:08.140
mother so i never am swayed by my mom trying to emotionally get me to think a certain way because
00:48:15.960
i don't care i don't think that's a the best way to that mindset but i recognize that mindset prevents
00:48:25.600
me from ever making a decision based on what my family wants you know i i grew up and and our
00:48:33.260
parents come from a generation where this country was was way more segregated than than it is to
00:48:40.580
i don't even think it is today i mean there were literal laws on the books
00:48:43.920
when my mother was a child so she couldn't understand why i would ever have white friends
00:48:50.440
or a white girlfriend fortunately for me i didn't care what she thought and those people are the
00:48:56.740
best friends of my life but if i had cared maybe i would have altered some decisions and some of the
00:49:03.080
good friendships that i made so so when i say you don't care what people think you have to not care
00:49:11.280
what people think when you start to change and when you start to go beyond now now granted i mean
00:49:15.880
for all the any any pedantic people listening i'm not talking about if someone says man you're
00:49:21.660
probably drinking too much or man you should probably stop smoking crack like you you should
00:49:26.440
care about that stuff because we're talking about your well-being but but when we talk about actions
00:49:32.160
where there's no harm you're not breaking the law and it's really just a different way to think
00:49:37.060
and see the world you cannot care because you to make any action you have to change how you think
00:49:42.520
to begin with that's where it starts but so it sounds like you don't care what all people don't
00:49:48.020
think about there's like like it's certain people right there you probably reach a moment where you
00:49:52.220
find a new group of community new friends where they're on this they have the same standards you
00:49:56.780
they're going in the same direction you and like yeah you care about what they think about you because
00:50:00.420
they're they're holding you accountable absolutely and that's one of the you know someone said to me a
00:50:04.560
very very long time ago i don't i don't talk to the person anymore but this always stuck in my mind
00:50:10.040
she said and this is this was for a romantic relationship but i think it applies to all kinds
00:50:14.740
of relationships she said that for two people to work they have to be going in the same direction
00:50:19.280
at about the same time at about the same speed and if and if any of those factors are not similar
00:50:25.640
someone has to be willing to slow down change direction or wait right and that really stuck with
00:50:34.160
me because when you when you do change you when you decide you want to be something different you
00:50:40.280
have to remember that a lot of people are going to remember and will feel comfortable with the old
00:50:44.900
you and the new you is going to piss them off and it's not going to piss them off because they don't
00:50:49.780
want you to succeed they just don't know how to deal with the change you're literally a new human
00:50:54.280
being with new values and and and a new standard that you hold yourself to well think about it if
00:51:01.000
you've been hanging around with people and you had one standard for your life and now you have a
00:51:05.160
higher one you're going to ruffle feathers at the very least there are going to be some people who
00:51:09.740
feel like you feel like that you're better than them that you don't deserve to do this they'll they'll
00:51:15.920
take subtle jabs or maybe overt jabs at you but you still have to persevere and the only way to
00:51:24.160
persevere is to reach a point where you go okay you know i don't i don't care what you think
00:51:27.620
you know sometimes you say directly sometimes it's implied about not responding but either way
00:51:33.740
the idea remains your opinion holds no sway and furthermore your opinion is is uh is going to block
00:51:41.700
what i'm trying to do so we we can't vibe at that level anymore and it's not like you lose love for
00:51:50.680
these people or anything like that it's just that you understand that emotionally they're not ready to
00:51:55.400
deal with a a change now once again you know if you're doing something stupid listen to your friends
00:52:02.360
but if you're just changing how you think and going after something different you gotta good you gotta
00:52:06.240
do it you you have to change you have to to make make adjustments in your own life and get around
00:52:13.100
people who do think and have that standard because they'll push you up pop peer pressure can can elevate
00:52:17.920
you or it can hold you down it's just whichever kind of pressure you want well ed this has been a
00:52:22.400
great conversation there's a lot more we could talk about but where can people go to learn more
00:52:26.200
about your work my website www.edlattimore.com all my writing is there and links to other things that
00:52:33.840
are related to and affiliated with me my twitter account which is where i'm highly active i love
00:52:39.240
twitter i think it it rewards it rewards a verbal acumen so my twitter account is the same
00:52:47.680
ed latimore at ed latimore dot you know not dot com just add ed latimore i'm on my facebook page
00:52:54.280
my facebook fan page at latimore boxer but but i'm mostly active on my website and my twitter so
00:52:59.300
that's the best place you can find me at latimore.com and at ed latimore awesome well ed latimore
00:53:03.600
thank you much for your time it's been a pleasure all right thank you very much my guest name is ed
00:53:07.480
latimore he's the author of the book not caring what other people think is a superpower you can find
00:53:11.560
that on amazon.com also check out his website ed latimore.com where you find more of his writing also
00:53:16.500
connect with him on twitter at ed latimore also check out our show notes at aom.is slash latimore
00:53:21.640
where you find links to resources where you delve deeper into this topic
00:53:24.520
well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice
00:53:39.540
make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com if you enjoy the podcast i've
00:53:43.900
got something out of it i appreciate if you take one minute to give us a review on itunes or stitcher
00:53:47.400
helps out a lot also share the podcast with four or five of your friends that helps out a lot as well
00:53:52.220
thank you so much for your continued support and until next time this is brett mckay telling you to stay