Ed Latimore is a former professional heavyweight boxer, a competitive chess player, and a bestselling author. Ed’s writing focuses on self-development, realizing your potential, and sobriety — all of which he approaches from personal experience, overcoming poverty and addiction. Check out his blog at edlatimore.com.
Today, we had an exclusive interview with Ed to learn more about his experience as an entrepreneur. Here’s what he told us.
Q. Tell us a little more about you – how did you get to where you are today?
Ed: Well, all I’ve ever wanted to do was write, which is why I’m one of the few proponents of having a blog. So, I initially didn’t mean to enter the marketing space online, all I wanted to do was write, but it has provided me with many powerful lessons.
In my writing, I try to take everything I’ve learned through professional boxing and my personal experiences growing up in the projects, getting over alcoholism, going back to school to get a Physics degree, etc. I try to take all this stuff to make content around it.
I feel fortunate of being a millennial and growing up at a time when we weren’t trying to build lives people would look at or be influencers. As such, I’ve developed skills that have nothing to do with being popular online.
I was a professional fighter and now I’m a high-level chess player. I have a Physics degree and I’m learning another language. I chase difficult experiences to build a solid foundation. That has helped me get to where I am today.
Q. When did you start boxing and how did that change the trajectory of your life?
Ed: Growing up in the projects can be difficult and boxing did change the trajectory of my life, but not in the way people think. When I was 18, I went to college and felt miserable.
I told everyone college wasn’t worth it until someone called me out. It was the mom of a girl I was dating and she said “Okay, let’s say you’re right and college is worthless. What have you done with your life in the past 4 years besides show up and eat my food?” And she threw me out. I went home and cried, but she was right. I had nothing to my name.
I’ve always said that when I die, I want people to have something to say about me other than “he drank a lot”. So, I had to do something about my situation. At 22, I found a boxing gym and decided to try it out. People usually get started at 14, 15, or even younger.
I was lucky to have great coaches and the right circumstances around me, and I worked hard, which are the two elements I think you need to make it. I got sponsored and that made all the difference because I could just train for 2 years without worrying about working or anything else. That rarely happens.
Boxing is one of the best decisions I’ve made and it all goes back to that. I didn’t understand or realize what boxing was doing for me at the time, but it was sort of purifying to become good at something like that.
It requires you to get rid of many distractions in your life and if you try to resist that, your progress or other parts of your life will suffer. So, I learned a lot from boxing. Not just to be a fighter in the ring, but also to be a fighter in life and go after things. I also learned to relate to people better, take care of myself, and lead myself.
Q. What is it like to be a professional boxer? For all the people who dream about it.
Ed: Well, it’s a hard life. You have to remember something about fighting–it’s not like most other sports where you can make a bunch of money. Most fighters have jobs as well because they need to, I was just lucky enough to have a sponsor at the start and get a promoter by the sixth pro fight I had, which is how I was able to just fight.
It’s hard because there’s a lot of uncertainty in it. Everyone knows they can’t fight at the club level forever or they should know that. I found that a lot of fighters were delusional, which is healthy to a certain degree, but you have to be realistic and also be very smart with your training plan and lifestyle.
In a 9-to-5 at least you have security, right? Your time doesn’t belong to you, but you have certainty, so it has that going for it, I guess. As a boxer, you don’t have that and your time doesn’t belong to you either. So, if someone’s going into boxing solely for money, they’re going to have a hard time.
Q. You mentioned having good coaches and teachers, how did that help as you went into entrepreneurship?
Ed: I didn’t have anyone to formally sit down and coach or teach me about entrepreneurship. I’ve just picked up a lot of things along the way from different people. In boxing, I did have that because I needed it. Mistakes could alter the outcome of your entire life in boxing, so you need a way to deal with them.
For entrepreneurship, I don’t think there’s a blueprint you can follow. There are many different ways to get into it. Like, I could get into drop shipping, start coaching, etc., but there are many different paths. The path you choose depends on the level of ambition, natural talents, the things you love and hate doing, etc.
So, I’ve picked up different things from all kinds of people, trying to see what works for me. I’m still trying to figure that out. I believe it’s truly about finding what works for you. I read this great book, it’s probably one of the best books I’ve ever read, called “Ready, Fire, Aim” by Michael Masterson.
Michael is one of the co-owners of Agora, one of the biggest copywriting companies in the world. In that book, he talks about the importance of finding the optimum selling strategy. Once you do, you have to go all in. That’s the kind of philosophy I’ve adopted. Otherwise, you get shiny object syndrome.
Q. Tell us a little more about your philosophy. What drives you?
Ed: I just want to be healthy and have a good life. A lot of people in entrepreneurship say they want to be millionaires, have a Bugatti, and all these different things. And I’m like, is that really what you want? Or is it what the gurus have told you you should want?
I’ve done the rough math of what I would need to make per year to have that “condo life”. It’s around half a million a year and that’s not a sexy baller number, but most people don’t realize what it takes to make that type of money the way you want to make it. It’s not just about having a product and delivering it, there’s a lot more that goes into it.
For me, it feels gross to focus only on making money. If you want a good life where you’re healthy and you can do nice things with your family, you can work backward and realize you only need $200,000 or so per year to do that.
Then, you can start thinking about how to get there and that feels much healthier to me. Gurus want you to think there’s only one way to succeed because that’s what worked for them and because they want to sell you their particular skills/knowledge. But that’s not the case. As I said earlier, there are many paths you can take, it just comes down to what you want and not many people know that.
Q. Tell us about the book you’re writing. What is it about?
Ed: The book I’m writing is called “Hard Lessons from the Hurt Business”. I’m taking the lessons and experiences from my boxing days and explaining how they have shaped me into the person I am today, and how people can do the same with their own experiences to conquer and overcome their issues. Especially if they’re facing really difficult situations.
Q. What’s your one-sentence piece of advice to someone looking into boxing or entrepreneurship?
Ed: I would say that the difficulty of something is irrelevant if it’s vital to your success. People worry too much about how difficult something can be, but it doesn’t matter. You just have to go in and do the work. If things are never challenging or they’re just handed to you, they’re probably not worth it. There’s no better feeling than working for it and finally achieving it.
To keep up with Ed and his journey, follow him on Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.
