INTRO

TONY: Welcome back to the podcast. Now there's a difference between advice that sounds good and advice that's been tested under pressure. A lot of us, well, we hear about mindset, discipline, success—we hear things that are clean, polished and easy to repeat. But you know what, guys? Real growth rarely looks like that. It's messy. It's uncomfortable. And more often than not, it's built through experiences most people would rather avoid.

Today's guest brings a very different perspective to that conversation. Ed Latimore is a former professional heavyweight boxer, a physics graduate, and a writer who has built a following by telling the truth about discipline, addiction, identity, and personal responsibility without sugarcoating any of it.

His work is grounded in lived experience. He really has lived this. This is not just theory. He's walked the walk, talked the talk. And what makes this conversation especially relevant for entrepreneurs and business leaders is that it doesn't separate performance from character. He connects the way you think, the way you see yourself and the standards you hold directly to the results that you produce.

We're going to get into what it actually takes to change your identity, why most people misunderstand discipline, what addiction really is beneath the surface, and how hard lessons, when processed correctly, can become your greatest advantage.
Guys, if you're building something, leading others, or simply trying to operate at a higher level without losing yourself in the process, this is a conversation worth listening to. Let's get into it. Let's go. Bring him on. Hi, Ed, and welcome to The Tony DUrso Show.

ED: Hey, thank you for having me, Tony.

TONY: Oh, the pleasure is mine. I am really looking forward to this. We've got some great conversations going on here. We're all looking forward to learning about how real discipline is built, and perhaps we could start here. Ed, can you take us back on your path? And what did you get wrong early on about discipline? Let's start there.
INTERVIEW – PART 1 (DISCIPLINE: IT NEVER GETS EASIER)

ED: What did I get wrong about discipline? That's a great question. I think the thing that I got wrong about it was believing that it ever got easier. Like I think a lot of people struggle to create new constructive habits or deconstruct old destructive habits because they think that one day they're just never going to be tempted to be lazy or indolent or to backtrack.

And when the reality is, is that it's a constant state of vigilance day in and day out, you're always going to be fighting your body's and I guess your psyche's tendency to take the path of least resistance.

The way I learned this in physics was just interesting, and I've always supported this explanation to every other facet of life, including human behavior. And that's that every organism tries to achieve the most energy-efficient configuration, meaning that we try to get as much as we can for as little as we can. But if you have to make a trade-off, the human is going to optimize—and that's under-optimize—to comfort instead of over-optimize for performance.

And so that was my biggest mistake with discipline is thinking that one day it just gets easier. No, you just—you know, every day what they say in the Army, you embrace the suck, man. You just keep going and eventually you get the reward. And that reminds you of why you did it. But that happiness is fleeting. Just get back on it. It becomes this weird, almost masochistic way of living.

TONY: It's a very interesting answer. And, you know, you are a former professional heavyweight boxer—

ED: I fought a lot.

TONY: Pardon?

ED: I fought a lot.

TONY: Oh, I'm so sorry. Because you've biased information came to me as a former, so excuse me.

ED: That is a relatively updated development. Okay. So it's not—in fact, I probably when we were talking, I probably was former with plans of finding him. But you never want to—you know, at least I don't ever just talk about plans, even though, you know, you get prepped now that it's done and my stuff is active. And yeah, it took nine years off, by the way.

TONY: That's amazing. That's your next fights in July. This episode will be out before then, so—

ED: Well, I fought in July. I don't know when the next one will be.

TONY: You fought in July 2025, you mean?

ED: Yes.

TONY: Okay. Oh, I got you. Okay. Well, good. And what I wanted to mention is I understand the tremendous discipline it takes to do that. To a little degree, I did some MMA for years in martial arts, and I kind of understand that kind of discipline where you have to really—you have to do things even if you don't want to, even if you don't feel like it, even if you have other more important things to do and other things going on, you just have to do it if you want to get those results.

And for the record, you have, which is a very excellent record, I can see that you're very, you know, obviously it's very structured. So at some point in your life when you started, you realized you just got to keep on doing this no matter what, whether you like it, rain, sleet or snow, you know that old phrase. You just got to keep at it if you want to get those results. And if you want to basically shape your future.

INTERVIEW – PART 2 (THE TWO CONDITIONS FOR QUITTING)

ED: Yeah. So, you know, I started fighting at a very late age, at least fighting. I didn't start my career until I was twenty-two. And one of the things that I said to myself, I said, you know, there's only like two or three conditions which I'll stop doing this. One is that I get injured and I'm just like unable to fight. And the other was that someone who I trust in this sport—so at this point, I'm imagining that I have someone I trust one day in this sport, because it's a new network and a new group of people.

But I come to trust someone in their advice and believe that they care about me and they tell me, "This ain't it. Like you should go do something else." And with good reason, because I've had people tell me, even especially with me coming back to fight at forty, there were people like, "Oh, you know, why are you doing this? Why are you doing that?" And there's like legitimate concern, but there's also a projection. Its like, "This is crazy. I would never do something so crazy." So you have to walk that balance when you're taking advice, even from people who care about you.

But those are the two conditions that I laid out for myself. And because I laid those conditions out for myself, you know, fortunately, neither one arose, at least in a permanent fashion. Like I had to take three layoffs from injury, or rather as a result of injury. But the first one was like six weeks because I hyperextended my elbow and I was like, "Oh, that is a badge of honor. I got an injury and now I can continue."

And then I got a really bad—I actually broke my eye socket sparring. And so I had to have surgery and get that fixed and that sat me down for sixteen weeks. And then I got injured again. This was 2018, right? Because that was when it was in between me getting ready for my next fight that I ultimately didn't take and took nine years off.

So injuries happen, you know, but each time they happened, I was in a different spot and just motivated to get back in the ring. But there was never a point where I was like, "Ah, you know, you know what? I want to give this thing the old college try. And maybe I like it, maybe I won't."

I said, "Okay, I have to give myself—" and I tell guys this now when they ask me should they fight? I'm like, "Look, if you want to try, give it a year." Like you gotta—but that year, you know, that sounds like a long time of doing something you don't like. And what you might find is that you like it. You might find you get something out of it. You might find you hate it, but you can't possibly know until you've had some ups and downs over the course of a year is about right.

INTERVIEW – PART 3 (IDENTITY: SMART VS. HARD WORKING)

TONY: Totally get it. Do you think that the way that someone sees themselves, or perhaps maybe even sees themselves in the future, or what they want to aspire to, does that really change or not? Change is not the right word. Does it really help motivate and shape them to get those results?

ED: Oh, yes. And there's actually like some great research out on this, if I'm remembering correctly, but it's like if you have two ways to reinforce your child or compliment your child. You can complement them on being intelligent. You can complement them on being hard working.

Now, whether they get the—you know, if they get the correct answer, it goes, "Oh, you're so smart. You got that right answer" versus, "Oh, you worked so hard at that. I'm happy you didn't give up and you got the right answer."

See, the problem with one of those perspectives is that it sets a limit on what you can become. Like if you encounter a problem that you can't solve now you feel stupid and that's no good. But if you encounter a problem that you can't solve and you've learned to see yourself as a hard worker, well, now you just keep working harder at it. You know, worst case, you don't solve it, but you probably learn and pick up a few things along the way. And more importantly, nothing about the outcome of the problem changes how you see yourself.

And you take that same attitude and you carry it to other things. I say all that to say that when you perceive yourself as someone who can do difficult things and stick with it—I think that the term that Angela Duckworth came up for this is grit. The ability to persist towards positive, or rather persist towards your goals despite temporary setbacks or obstacles.

If you can see yourself as that kind of person, well, you're going to do the things that kind of person does. And the one thing that kind of person does not do is quit. And that by itself, just by sheer function of surviving, just sticking around the race, you'd be surprised how far you can go.

TONY: This is Ed Latimore. We're talking about how to build unshakable discipline. You can find him at EdLatimore.com. That's E-D-L-A-T-I-M-O-R-E, EdLatimore.com.

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And now back to Ed Latimore, who was talking about how the way you see yourself shapes what you're willing to keep doing when things get hard.

INTERVIEW – PART 4 (DEFINING DISCIPLINE: GROUNDHOG DAY)

TONY: Very interesting stuff here. I really love talking about this. And, you know, I've done a little bit of boxing, but man, it's brutal. And I have high, high respect for any boxer because the amount of work is just—you really have to be able to focus. You have to be motivated. And again, this is all about discipline.

But one thing I wanted to talk about and that you probably have, I'm sure, have a very good answer and point of view is we hear that word discipline. We talked about it. We talked about it, you know, for a couple of minutes already. But people get it wrong. They don't quite understand what that really means. So I would love to get your definition of discipline.

ED: I would say the—you know, the definition, the first thing I thought of was that movie Groundhog Day where you get up and it's the same day over and over again.

TONY: Yeah.

ED: So that is, if I could—Discipline the Movie, I would just say, you know, watch Groundhog Day and you get the general idea. But more precisely, it's the ability to do things consistently, precisely and accurately over a long period of time. And that period of time is until you achieve what you're trying to achieve. And then that's like part one. And then you have to continue to do that because you have to maintain.

What do they say, you know, "Success is rendered every day," right? Nobody owns it. That sort of deal. So if you can do that, you're disciplined. And it doesn't really matter what you become disciplined in. I would say, you know, that I hear myself talking. I do this thing where I talk, I hear the idea, and I go, "Okay, that idea could be phrased well."

I'll say that as long as it is a constructive endeavor, one that does not have a cost that exceeds the buy-you gain, you can become disciplined in pretty much anything, from freaking making mugs—I just saw a mug, you know, the person who really approaches their craft like an artisan—to an athlete, to an engineer. All that matters is that ability to continue doing a thing to a high degree of precision and accuracy consistently over a period of time until you achieve what you want and then continue to do that so you don't lose it. That's it.

It's—you know, this is hard because you get bored, you get distracted, and you get impatient. People want to be living in an "everything now" society. It's that Louis C.K. joke where he talks about getting mad at your phone sending a text, and he's like, "You got to realize this thing has to like go up to space and come back down."

But that's like the world we live in. Rather than being in awe that we get impatient because time is compressed. So we expect everything to come quickly. But we can train ourselves to wait on a result and have faith that it will come because we're doing the right work. That's it.

That's it. Every day. And just to like kind of riff on that just a little bit more, I don't want to ramble, but like, I think about this being a father. I talk about this all the time with my wife. We're gonna—we have no idea if we're doing a good job or not. We won't know until it's too late.

So what we have to do instead is have faith that what we're doing, little corrections every day, day in, and day out are making a difference. Because, you know, while having a well-behaved child is certainly a nice badge of honor and a nice thing to have, certainly much better for him to be a well-behaved adult. And he doesn't get that way unless we do some hard things now and stay consistent with those things.

And that's why, you know, kids are cool because, you know, I have no idea what he'll be like in twenty years. All I can do is consistently apply things, the best way to approach things and hope I don't end up with somebody who subtracts from the population.

INTERVIEW – PART 5 (BOREDOM AS A GIFT)

TONY: I'm with you on that. I totally get it. And you know, while you're saying this, I'm not trying to be silly at all. I'm really like thinking with this because I'm still focused tenaciously to this concept of discipline, keeping on it, keeping on it. And you mentioned it as well. It can get boring.

If I had to eat a tuna fish sandwich every day for lunch, it would be like I would scream, it's like enough. But here, you know, we all go to work, we're entrepreneurs, we're business owners in the audience. We're C-level executives. We do the same thing or relative same thing every day, every day, every day. And that leads us to success.

And I'm thinking, how is this? How can we—it's repetition to a degree, but we're also refining it. You mentioned that with your child, you're working to make it better and try to make it better. And I translate that communication from you as we're refining, we're improving, but still, it's almost repetition, yet we have to not make it boring.

ED: Well, I think boredom is a gift. And it's one of those gifts that comes disguised as a curse. I like to say a lot of people miss their lucky break because it's disguised as hard work. You can look at boredom like kind of a passive state of that idea. And that's where your mind is, not where everything is exhausted, your mind, and it's like, "Okay, I need some stimulation."

When you look at it like that, your perspective on it changes because you realize you're not so much bored as you are under-stimulated. And what that should tell you is you can take that and devote it to resources. There's a lot of benefits to being bored. You get to sit and think with your thoughts. You get to work on you. You get to pay attention to things you would never pay attention to or think about. And I think there's a lot of beauty and a lot of solutions that can be found in that.

I can tell you, you know, just thinking about two things that I have done to a point of boredom—I have to continue to do—training and writing. Everybody thinks writing is exciting. And it certainly can be. But I'm not writing because it's exciting any more than I'm training because it's exciting. There are these ebbs and flows, these peaks and valleys, I should say. Some days it's cool and it's great and something must happen. Other days it's like, I'd rather not be here. I actively want to leave and not do this. But ultimately it balances out to kind of this flat curve. You know, some variance in the average, but flat or flat line, I should say.

And I'm saying all this to say, you know, you only feel bored when you're attached to the emotion and that attachment thinking you need to feel good or feel—or like if your workout doesn't count, if you're not in pain, that kind of thing. No, your workout counts if you do the workout, if you make a little progress. That's all that matters.

But that boredom thing, if you could just reframe that boredom and go, "Oh, this is my brain giving me a chance to really focus on a thing," you know, not just go through the motions, really sit and refine it. You can get a lot better at anything.

TONY: Makes good sense.

INTERVIEW – PART 6 (LESSONS FROM BOXING: POSITIVE & NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT)

TONY: Can you give us one good lesson from boxing that you believe can really apply well to business or leadership?

ED: Oh, so many. Just one. I'll give you—I'll give you one actionable one and then one that no one thinks about. One very actionable one is that positive reinforcement helps you to continue getting the same result out of people, but negative reinforcement makes sure that they don't do anything you don't like again. And you need both. You can't—you just can't make things work that way. Too much negative reinforcement, you're tiring. Too much positive reinforcement, and you build frail people who can't take criticism.

So that right there—and then that comes from the way—what I found was the most effective training. Not just that I experienced, that I watched in gyms—who did this kind of, I would say, almost a harsh father because of the way boxing has got to be a harsh father, not like a stern one, but that, you know, when a fighter feels like he's done well and his coach lets him know, that is just as powerful as when the coach tells him, "You have to keep your hands up or you're gonna get your block knocked off, and I'm not working with you anymore," or "You have to keep running and stay—or watch your diet," things like that.

These are hard things. They're adjustments. But if you can make a person feel good when they do the right thing and figure out a way to make them feel a little bad—I know that sounds sadistic, but if you can find a way to make them feel a little bad when they do the wrong thing, you get more of the good thing and less of the wrong thing. The trick is to balance it.

That's the obvious one. Here's the less obvious one. Everyone thinks boxing is a solo sport because you only see two guys in the ring fighting, plus the ref in the center and then like the guy in their coach. But I'll tell you what, I've watched several guys in the community not last because they are unlikable, because a few things happen when you're unlikable.

Especially at the amateur level, for starters, although you don't get paid as an amateur, the shows generate money. And if you are not likable, if people are not going to come see you fight, you don't make for someone to put on a show. You're just not good. And then the guys are volunteering their time. They gotta work with you as well.

It's amazing how much someone will do for you if they feel like they appreciate, or that you feel like, or if they feel like you appreciate what they're doing. They will bend over backwards. They will spend their money and give up their time. I had coaches I should have paid, you know, but they—that's what they loved it. That was a real volunteer base.

But then you got to deal with like, you got to deal with other gyms to get sparring. Yeah, you go in there and fight and hit, but it's done with respect. The minute respect is gone, then nobody wants you in their gyms. You can't get any sparring. You can't get better. Guys won't let their guy fight you. So you can't even get a fight. You got to go out of town now. Most boxers don't have that kind of those kind of resources to do that.

So you got to be likable. You got to sell tickets. When you're a pro, you got to convince people that "I want to turn pro." I had my first six fights in West Virginia about an hour away, so I had to convince people to spend thirty to fifty dollars, come see something, to drive an hour on a Friday or Saturday night, nonetheless, to come see me perform a job that, if I do well, won't take very long.

That takes a certain degree of likability and support. There is no downside to being likable. None, right? And tons of upside. No one's saying be a pushover. Certainly makes people respect you, but you do yourself no favors if you don't learn how to work with others and make them like you. You learn how to treat them with respect.

And I got that from boxing because a lot of my career was able to advance. I was able to get a lot of opportunities because people liked dealing with me.

TONY: That is such a perfect answer. And it's so true because I remember when I—one of my coaches, Johnny Tsunami, when he was out fighting, we would travel wherever—just huge groups sometimes, rent a bus, just a ton of people just to go. Whether he won or lost just didn't matter. It was just such a community of just being with the person. He was so likable, so much charisma that it was almost worth everything just because of that. And I get that from that side. On the audience side, I totally track with you on that. Very, very important to draw those people in.

ED: Yeah. If the person wasn't likable, really? Not a chance.

TONY: Yeah, it's really interesting. It's so true. And you're right. And it's the one thing you just don't hear about, you know, you see on TV in the news, you know, the good guy, the bad guy and the guys fighting at the news things. But there's still something about them that makes people like them and enjoy them.

ED: Because look, this is a—my coach described a really funny one day and it always stuck with me. He says, "You gotta understand this. This thing is like a cage with rats in it. And in that cage, there's one big piece of cheese and all the rats gotta eat off that cheese." That's not the end of it. If it was, that wouldn't be as remarkable.

He goes, "That's the real cage and all the other rats outside of the cage. They're trying to get into that cage. They think they're in that cage, but they're not in that cage. But they know it or not. Something's off. They can't quite figure it out. So what they're going to try and do is every single opportunity they get to have one of the rats die, starvation, get voted out the cage, anything, they're going to try and take advantage of that and move and get into the cage."

It's a small, small cage with one piece of cheese, that one piece of cheese. Not all the fight fan—people think that there's, you know, nothing compared to any of the—it's probably more soccer fans. In fact, I think in Latin America that alternates—I mean, soccer and boxing are two big sports. The United States is a different beast. But I bring that up to say not a lot of money in the sport. Okay, not a lot of money. You see the superstars. So there's this illusion.

But most guys who are not headlining the card, they gotta work jobs, man. I mean, it's a little different now because the internets opened up a lot of opportunities with sponsorship, but for the most part, we're not making that much money to fight. So you gotta figure out—you gotta figure out how to make every dollar go. What's going to be your advantage?

One thing that you can do is just be kind. And if you're kind and you're respectful, you're going to bring money to a fight, right? You bring—because people are going to come and want to see you, support. That makes a promoter more likely to put you on his card. You know, that puts other guys on notice that fighting you makes the most sense financially. So they're going to be more respectful at the very least.

You know, that's one of the other cool things about the way this ends up shaking out. If you do it correctly, if you win the love of the people, then you can effectively police bad behavior by influence alone. Because if there's this a-hole on the other side of town who can't sell a ticket, and he's facing eviction and he's got a car notice and like, you know, he's five months in arrears in child support, and he needs a payday, he's probably going to act a little nicer if he knows that fighting me is going to generate a bigger purse, because people like me.

That's, you know, and I made that scenario up. And I have—I'm sure it's happened. I have never had it happen to me. But I say all that to say again, back to that main point, that main idea, that kind of crux of this, there is no downside to being respectable, being likable, having good manners. And if it's free, it's free. It costs you nothing. It can change your life. At the very least, it can keep your life from being more difficult than it has. It won't be boring.

TONY: That right there is a shift most people never make. Instead of seeing boredom as something to escape, he's saying it's actually part of the process. And if you think about it, a lot of what creates results in business is doing things that aren't exciting anymore, consistently day after day. And that's where most people quietly fall off.

And before we continue, I just want to take a moment to thank you for being here. Your time and attention really do matter to me, and I appreciate you choosing to spend part of your day with The Tony DUrso Show. And if today's conversation is giving you something to think about, make sure you follow the show wherever you're listening so you don't miss what's coming next. And if someone comes to mind while you're listening who could benefit from this, please go ahead and share it with them. That's how this message spreads.

And if you're not already receiving my Elite Entrepreneurs newsletter, you're always welcome to join us. A couple of times each month, I share insights like this, along with practical ideas that you can apply right away in your business and life. And you can find it at TonyDUrso.com. That's Tony D-U-R-S-O dot com.

I appreciate you being here. And now back to Ed Latimore, who is talking about boredom and how it's actually part of getting better, not something to avoid.


INTERVIEW – PART 7 (COMING BACK AT FORTY: RECOVERY & SMART TRAINING)

TONY: Really love that answer. It is so, so true. Now, you mentioned this earlier. You went back into boxing at forty and at forty, people don't think you're even going to go anywhere. I remember interviewing Diamond Dallas Page, who became a world champion at forty. It's like going back into that. It's brutal. It's hard physical work. And to get back into that, let alone excel, it's like, what are you thinking?

And I'm curious, what does that teach you, you know, about performance and keeping up with the thirty-year-olds, thirty-five-year-olds. What does that teach you about performance and aging as well?

ED: Oh man, my whole mindset about this stuff. So I've always been big into my health. I didn't realize how much of an advantage—advantage will put that in air quotes, as we'll soon see why—how much of an advantage that that is for this type of thing, even though it seems obvious. But first, I took nine years off. That means that's nine years of no damage to my body. No damage, no wear and tear, no concussions, nothing like that.

So it was really nine years of healing because before that, I had been fighting continuously from, what, 2008 to 2018. So ten years of continuous fighting. Your body can—is just not—I took, I took a year off in that and I actually cleared up a few neurological issues that year off, but for the most part, you know, we'll say one year and that was 2017. So it was a lot of work.

But here's where it gets really cool for me because I didn't take any damage. I think the damage is where it wears down athletes. I don't think it's the age per se. And we see this in the quarterback position. Traditionally has a high level or high degree of longevity. It's the least contact portion of the game. NBA and MLB players last a long time, a lot longer than football players where the average career is three point three years. It might even be shorter than that, but I know that was either the average for a running back or the league as a whole. I suspect it's probably the league as a whole. There's just so much damage and it's damage you've been taking continuously.

But realistically, for most of these guys from the time they hit puberty, if not before. So I didn't have that. Stopped drinking in 2013. So did not have any wear and tear in that regard. And I put a lot of research and energy. I mean, you can't—you can see some of those books back there. It's everything from sports biomechanics to biochemistry.

So I try to educate myself on that stuff. And all of that comes together with me going, "Okay, if there's any reason why I can't compete, it is not going to be because of my age. Not at forty, anyhow. Fifty is a different story, but not at forty."

And then it was just, you know, what was hard about fighting now compared to nine years ago? Nine years ago I didn't have a child. Because to me that's the biggest difference, man. You know, my training would be hitting full steam and he gets sick. And when he gets sick, he's not the only one that gets sick. He's just the one that gets sick first. So we're all messed up for six weeks. And once I was like hitting a nice stride, I lost six weeks because either I got sick twice or I had to—or I was waking up and staying up all night with him, stuff like that.

And then that's just like the sleep aspect, not counting kind of, you know, because my wife also has a business and she's here—like our babysitter is here right now. My sister would come over, but we don't have childcare. And it's—or rather, if there is no childcare—like there are some days, I can't always be like, you know, she's supportive to a degree, but I can't always be like, "I'm off to the gym," you know?

So those are the challenging parts that aren't really health related. But in terms of the health, I can tell you, I can say this with a degree of certainty that will make anyone listening to this in the health fitness performance space roll their eyes—I am at least as physically capable, if not more at forty than I was at thirty-one.

TONY: That was what realistically would have happened. You know, not at—the eye rolls are done. Realistically, what happened is that I just learned how to train smarter. I learned to train smarter and my body is completely recovered. When you're an athlete, recovery is a luxury. Maybe luxury is too strong of a word because that's something you can actually attain. It's a dream. That's what it is. It's a dream. But I got to recover completely.

And so I think that made a big difference. And then the other cool thing is my coach, you know, it's not like he was just sitting on his ass for nine years. When I returned, he had a lot of different things to train that also lined up with a lot of stuff that I had figured out on my own, studying the biomechanics of a fighter.

And so I actually didn't even spend that much time in the gym, certainly less than when I was in there, because it was more efficient—two hours, four days a week. That's so different than how I basically lived in the gym. I mean, at least in the evenings, that's quite something.

TONY: I'm going to ask you about stoic street smarts. I want to get to it, but right before I do, I think it's astounding that if you ran into your thirty-one-year-old self or had a fight with your thirty-one-year-old self, you feel you're in better shape, better condition, better trained. You would beat your earlier self because I don't think I could say that about my earlier self.

ED: He's probably physically stronger, but that's only because he prioritized strength. I am absolutely, definitely more mobile for no other reason. I'm ten pounds lighter, fifteen actually—fifteen pounds lighter. And I have a better control of my body. And what I mean by that is here's a thing about boxing that, you know, again, a lot of people don't understand. It takes a long time to learn how to throw a punch, like a really long time.

When I see these fight videos pop up on the internet, my first thought is always, "Thank goodness these people aren't trained." Like, because they can do real damage because when I punch, it does damage because I know what to do. And it took me fifteen years to learn how to do that.

That matters in terms of the comparison to me, to my thirty-one-year-old self. I did not have—I had maybe ten, fifteen percent of the knowledge I had about how to move and be as smart and how to move correctly. You know, how to relax and how to tense properly, where the twisting should come. You know, there's a whole body—and this is slightly out into the weeds. So I'll keep this really, really short.

But there's a whole body of research, courtesy of our friends in the old Soviet Republic, which is when a lot of this research came out before they were Russia. I mean, these guys studied how force is transmitted, what parts of the body is engaged depending on the level of fighter. And you can find their research on the internet, you can learn anything.

And it helped me really understand a lot and also map it and see how top performing fighters today do it without, you know, without Russian research paper or anything like that. But I can go in there and train and practice it because I'm not just like a nerd reading this stuff and not going to go do anything with it. But I'm also not just like this dumb jock who's like, "Oh boy, that's hard." Like, I can bridge both. And I think it's made a big difference.

So back out the weeds.

INTERVIEW – PART 8 (STOIC STREET SMARTS: CONTROL & READING PEOPLE)

TONY: I like that a lot. I want to go over stoic street smarts. What is it? What does it mean and what do we do with it?

ED: So stoic street smarts is a marriage of two mindsets that I picked up growing up to survive. The first is stoicism, and I didn't even know that was a word till I was like in high school. Maybe I just knew that the only way to kind of survive my environment, particularly at home and also at school in my neighborhood, was to be non-reactive. I can't remember what that movie is, where it's like the only way to win the game is to not play, or something like that is pretty much how I learned to survive in my own home.

And I realized that I couldn't control—I couldn't control my mother's temper. I could control myself. That was it. Couldn't control her or her emotional manipulation or physical abuse. Couldn't do anything about that. I could control how I showed up and how I dealt with the world.

And as I got older, that just naturally aligns because I think there's a bit of natural genetic alignment with our personalities. But social philosophies come easier to others, and some don't. I think it just happened to naturally align with how I am built. So it's how I approach everything. That's kind of the stoicism side of things.

Street smart side of things, I think I also have a bit of aptitude here, but man, I'll tell you what, you know, having a conscience is a real thing. So you get—so what street smarts and we'll get back to that conscience thing.

Street smarts is just the ability to read and understand people. That's it. You know, like no matter what you want to throw on it, it is that. It's people smarts. EQ if you want to use a pop word or emotional quotient or emotional intelligence. The problem is that most people are introduced to that as a means of survival. So they learn how to run the game.

But I'm much more interested in connecting with people. You know, I had a lot of positive experiences seeing what happens when you learn to become likable. And so, you know, all that talk we had about the lessons learned from boxing, you know, that's part of the street smarts, the reinforcement. It's this ability to look at how a person is, you know, what they're thinking, what they're feeling and anticipate and move around it.

And when you combine that with being in control of your own emotions and temper, you get an unfiltered view of the future. I like to say. And more poetically, you know, people are predictably unpredictable. And that sounds like a paradox, but you realize all you're doing is not projecting what you want.

Being in control of yourself and not projecting what you want a person to do onto their behavior or interpretations of their behavior, and instead reading it for what it is. Do those two things. And you have just a little bit of real intelligence to manipulate that pattern into something constructive for yourself and others. Then you end up—you can end up in a pretty good spot.

And I think certainly if I look around in my life and the people I've managed to put around me, I think I've done that well and continue to do it well.

TONY: You know, there's something deeper underneath what Ed just said there. He's talking about reading people, understanding them, not reacting too quickly. But what he's really describing is control. Control of yourself first before you ever try to influence anyone else. And in business, that's a multiplier.

If you look at where most mistakes happen, it's not usually because someone didn't know what to do, it's because they reacted too fast. They assumed too much. They pushed when they should have paused. And what Ed calls stoic street smarts is really the ability to step back in real time, to observe instead of react, to understand instead of assume. And that's rare because everything around us pushes speed—faster decisions, faster responses, faster movement.

But better decisions, they usually come from clarity, not speed. And that's something you can hear developing in this conversation. He's not just talking about discipline as action. He's talking about discipline in how you think and how you respond.

And now back to Ed Latimore, who was talking about reading people and staying non-reactive, what he calls stoic street smarts.

INTERVIEW – PART 9 (APPLYING STOIC STREET SMARTS TO BUSINESS)

TONY: Does that in a way, help us become more successful in our business? Does that help us become better? It almost sounds like learning not to be reactive, but to understand better and give a better response. I could be understanding it, but that's kind of what I'm getting out of this.

ED: Yeah. Because if we want to like apply this idea to running a business, you're dealing with people. You're dealing with people that you manage and, you know, are in the lead. You're dealing with customers, you're dealing with rivals. It's all people. Like no matter how technically advanced the world gets, the underlying source code is people. And people are run by emotions, their fears, their hopes, the avoidance of pain over the pursuit of pleasure. Like all of these ideas, that's what people want on.

So you have to spend—yeah, at least I think you should certainly spend a disproportionately high amount of time understanding the human. You can do that because every organization has them. You're building a base skill and base approach to things. It just so happens that my framework for understanding people is born out of learning how to make sure they don't rob me or shoot me, or something like that, or kick my ass and all the things of that nature.

But also, you know, and then that sounds negative, and I suppose it is. But, you know, I probably avoided a lot of conflicts because I understood everybody wants to feel like you're not disrespecting. One of the big lessons I picked up like, how far going "my bad" can—like just say "my bad." Even if you weren't wrong, just making somebody feel like you recognize that you messed them up somehow, you're intruding on their space, you made them feel like less than.

Now you don't have to agree. You know, like they say, "Offense is given, not taken." No. That's something that immature people say. Hey, look, even if a person—if a person feels offended, understand why they felt offended. And then here's a really decent, easy thing to do. Just try not to offend them kind of deal.

All right, so if you take that same idea of just seeing what makes people tick and just using it to help them get the best, because if you can help them get the best out of themselves as you work with them, well, you get—you know, your organization benefits. The people around you benefit. There's absolutely no downside to this people thing.

And the stoic street smarts framework is just how I frame it, look at it. But I'm sure there are many, many people who are smarter than me and who are more learned, as they say, who have frameworks probably mirror.

TONY: You know, while you're saying this, I—it made me think of times where I felt very assured that if I—that I should say something or do something for a situation. But I decided not to—applying stoic street smarts without knowing it. And then later on I realized, boy, am I glad I didn't say anything. Boy, am I glad I just shut up and just observe because I didn't have the situation right.

I thought one thing and I felt very strong about it, but I didn't react and I'm glad I didn't. And I think of those times and I was like, you know, even when you think you know everything that's going on, you still don't know what's going on and why the people that are involved are doing what they're doing. You just really don't know what's going on in their lives. And sometimes, yeah, sometimes it is very smart to just not say anything because—and just let it sort out that way. I know it sounds weird. It works, doesn't it?

ED: Yeah. And if you have to figure things out, you know, here's like a tactical—well, not trick, but a tactical method for verifying your hunches without coming across as too forward or whatever. You know, I try to say back to people what they're saying to me, but I always—I don't say "correct me if I'm wrong." That sounds for whatever reason, I feel like that tone has come to be interpreted as a little bit aggressive.

So instead, what I say is, "I'm gonna say back what I think you're telling me. I want you to correct me where I'm incorrect," and then I proceed to say what I think they're saying. One of two things happen. Either I'm told, "Yeah, that's it." And now everybody's kind of like, you know, moving and vibing. Or they correct me where I'm incorrect and then I form a more complete picture.

But what I found, man, that's one of those ones that just deal with people. "Correct me if I'm incorrect" has helped me understand a lot of situations that could have—or rather understand a lot of people's motivation. Because the situation is the situation, but the motivation, if you understand the motivation, then you can kind of predict what they're going to do and also figure out how to get them to not do it. If that is what your interests are, that will definitely save you from being in pickles or predicaments because you really just don't know everything that's going on with the other person. It could be just exactly correct what you've observed, or it could be wrong. And if it's wrong, you'd be so happy that you didn't act on the opposite.

TONY: So it is. I like that stoic street smarts. And I've got just like one more minute here. And I really wanted to get this question in. And it's like, we're, you know, we talk about business leadership, we talk about running our show here and how important discipline is. And I'm just wondering, is there a basic entry? What should we do? Is there something we should focus on? Let's put it that way. If we want to start improving ourselves in this to help run our business, what could we do? Where could we start on improving our—what is it—our ability to be disciplined?

INTERVIEW – PART 10 (GET IN SHAPE: 15% BODY FAT, 23+ BMI)

ED: Very simple. Man, I love this question. I'd say you get in shape, right? And not just in shape. Pick objective metrics. Here's one I give guys. I don't have this stuff off the top of my head for women, because I'm a guy and most guys talk to me about this, but I guess I should at some point.

I go, "Look, guy says he wants to be in shape. I say, okay, you should aim to get to fifteen percent body fat and a twenty-three or greater BMI." True objective measurements. What does this do? What's like the value of this? You can't fake this. You can't fake it. It's easily observable. So you get to see the impact you have on the world.

It is—if you are nowhere near this, this is a great exercise in doing a thing just gradually and having faith in the outcome. Because while it won't take as long as raising a child into a competent adult takes, it takes a bit longer than instant gratification tends to be in this world. So you have to keep doing it.

Like, you know, if you start out—God, you start out like twenty-five percent body fat, the average in this country, by the way, and I give that advice, the only way to get there—and have to be in my goal, you can't Ozempic that, right? You can't GLP-1 agonist that. The only way to get to that goal is probably going to take you about a—you know, twelve to eighteen months is consistent little work every day.

And once you see that first bit of progress, that's going to really get you hooked, but you can't even see that until you get the consistency. There's a lot said about, you know, former athletes that go on and do other things in business and stuff like that. And people say it's the sports that made them disciplined. And I say, that's correct. No surprises there because imagine getting to the top of your sport, not even getting to the top. Let's say you become a really good college player. That is easily a decade of just minuscule, consistent work daily, daily, daily, and seeing the result.

So now no one has to make you a believer in the process of daily, consistent, disciplined action. You already have it. So what we have to do to the rest of the population, if we want to make them disciplined, is we need to pick a goal, an outcome. For an athlete, it's already built in. So they've got a lot of experience with that. But for you, the non-athlete, we give you this body fat percentage and BMI challenge, and then you just work gradually towards it.

And as you see the progress, you go, "Wow. Okay, so I see this is really cool. I've been doing this for a month and I'm nowhere near where I need to be, where I am ten pounds down. Oh goodness. Like, that's significant. That is real." And then the reason why working out is great for this as opposed to really anything else is you can see the result, you get the result feedback—no BS, the scale is not lying to you. It's not telling you that you don't look that fat in that outfit. Like no, either the number is the number or that's real feedback you can trust.

And that little bit of trust that little bit of progress that changes your mind and how you look at consistent daily action. And you start to see, I'll just, you know, use a quote, a cliché to save my brain from coming up with something more creative. But what's that saying? You know, we underestimate what we can do in a day. Or rather, we overestimate what we can do in a day and underestimate what we can do in a year kind of deal. Everyone thinks they can do more in a short amount of time. But just the power of daily, day in, day out—this makes a big difference.

TONY: It does. Especially a little bit at a time because the little results add up to quite a lot over time. So that's the one thing. If you're not making the result, just maybe do a little bit less, but just be consistent. The way I look at it, and you can accomplish it if you keep that as your goal, as we talked about earlier, keep that focus on it.

I really, really like all that. Once again, this is Ed Latimore, how to build unshakable discipline. We only touched the surface, guys. You got to go to EdLatimore.com. Find out more about him. He's got a book out. He talks about stoic street smarts and so much more. And I just want to thank you so much. I really liked it, I enjoyed it, I love this interview. It's a little refreshing. Instead of, you know, the BMI and the KPI and the metrics for running your business. And this, it was just another way of looking at it. But it applies so much to business and I really enjoyed the viewpoint of it. I just want to thank you so much. This is very good.

ED: Hey man, anytime someone gives me a chance to ramble on, I'm gonna ramble. So I appreciate you giving me the platform and allowing me to teach what I've learned.

TONY: Wonderful, wonderful. Thank you so much, sir. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

OUTRO

TONY: All right. That was absolutely great. Well, there you go, guys. That was Ed Latimore. And wherever you're getting this, please follow the show, by the way, because it really helps to bring more amazing guests to you like Ed Latimore.

And if you like this show, tell your friends about it. Tell them about Ed, tell them about stoic street smarts, tell them about what he's been through and he's done—amazing. He's got a great career. I have great respect for the man and what he's accomplished. Check it out and find out for yourself and tell your friends. Absolutely.

And what else do we have to do? Well, all right, let's use this and let's help you move on your journey to success. Thanks. Remember, just take action. Success awaits those who persevere and remain steadfast despite the odds. Sow good seeds, do good deeds. And I'll see you on the next episode.