The Best of Ed Latimore: Big Ideas From His Last 3,000 Tweets
Dear Everybody,
Ed Latimore is a best-selling author, former professional heavyweight boxer, and competitive chess player. His writing focuses on self-improvement and a practical approach to stoic philosophy.
I organized and distilled his last 3,000 tweets into a summary of his big ideas, in two parts:
Growth, Self-Empowerment, and Self-Sufficiency Mindset
Quotes on Living Your Life With Purpose
PART ONE: GROWTH, SELF-EMPOWERMENT, AND SELF-SUFFICIENCY MINDSET
The game is ruthless…
Nature doesn’t care about your opinion
The universe doesn't have it out for you
Power and influence are amoral
You aren't special…
No one is coming to save you
No one cares what happened to you
No one cares what you’ve been through
Avoid danger…
Learn to maximize benefits
Be able to move fast if the shit hits the fan
Use good times to get ready for hard times
Remember, for real tests, there are no retakes…
Stay ready so you don't have to get ready
You only see the holes in the roof when it starts raining
The worst time to learn how to swim is while you're drowning
Always want the truth…
Even if it doesn’t agree with your truth
Especially if it doesn’t agree with your truth
(Shut up and get ahead)
Always accept the truth…
Accept what you’ve done
Accept you’re powerless to change the past
Accept forgiveness from yourself
Face your flaws…
Admit you have problems
(Ignoring your flaws is the greatest source of tragedy)
(When lies catch up, it’s ten times worse than if you had just faced them from the start)
Let shit go (i.e. get ready to change)…
You don’t need consent
You just need to embrace what you want to become
Help yourself change (i.e. work on your flaws)…
Deal with your problems
Take care of what you can
Start using things to your advantage
It’s almost never too late to do better…
Make yourself do something
Take one positive action now
The longer it takes to change, the harder it is to change
Remember, the world will go on no matter how you feel…
Don’t look for pity
Feelings are not the basis of a sound argument
Entitlement and hustle don't play nice together
If you think the world owes you something, why would you work your ass off to get it?
Along the way, never ignore red flags…
Eliminate self-destructive behavior
Destroy whatever casts sinister shadows
The best advice comes disguised as a warning
Be unreasonable about the bullshit you let seep into your life
Never underestimate how much you can lose by choosing the wrong company to keep…
Reduce hatred in your environment
“Go where there's weather you enjoy”
Never forget, you’re a product of your environment, and your actions reinforce the influence that the environment has over you
Don't trust people who try to convince you of anything regarding their character…
If you learn how to listen, a person will tell you anything you want to know
Good qualities speak just as loudly as bad qualities through action
You can't judge a book by it's cover, but you can make some pretty accurate guesses
Be at peace with yourself…
You gotta do you
Find people who dig you as you
Be your best self and you’ll attract the best people for you
Get that hustle up…
Put skin in the game
Fight hard ass monsters
Grind out from the ground up
Embrace the burden of performance
Don’t just have an opinion!
Get (and keep) control over yourself…
You’ll become untouchable
You’ll add richness and depth to your life
You’ll know to concentrate on what you can control
Walk with a guide…
The fastest way to become successful is to learn from other successful people
A good teacher can shave years off your learning curve, even if you already have talent
You don't have to agree with someone's perspective to learn from it
Push past limits in prep and practice…
The best hunter of monsters is a worse monster
You only know where the edge is by going over it
Do what needs to be done when you don’t want to do it
Once you've pushed yourself enough, the noise of reality gets turned down
Meanwhile, be likeable…
Be kind
Be polite
Be engaging
Make it easy for people to see the best in you
Don't be a kiss ass, but people should be excited to see you
When people like you, they'll go out of their way to help you succeed
But never try too hard to make people like you…
Improving your life can piss people off
Refuse to make apologies for being different
Good manners and standing up for yourself are not mutually exclusive
Don’t backpeddle
Take shit on the chin…
Bad shit doesn’t make you a victim
Even when you win, some people will think you lost
Some people will refuse to see you what you've become
Choose your battles wisely…
If you're gonna be a thinker, you also have to be a strategist
You can't expect long-term moves to make sense to short-term thinkers
Keep a low profile and mind your own business
(It's hard to hustle someone who wants to do right by other people)
Trust that hustlers get lucky opportunities...
Almost every stroke of luck is preceded by immense preparation
Be in the right place at the right time long enough for something good to happen
(Luck is simply the things that happen that are beyond your control)
Remember, good things take a while…
Fix your attention on one thing
The long game is the strong game and the only game that will keep you in it
It's the little stuff done right for a long time that's responsible for most of your progress
Therefore, respect and value your time…
Each wasted moment will never return
Procrastination is a cruel thief that robs you of your most precious resource
The most disrespectful thing you can do is wasting a person's time (including your own)
Don’t pretend life is easy to figure out…
Some lessons you only get after you fail the test
You can only become a master through miscalculation and misstep
It’s not a mistake if you try something to improve your life and it doesn’t go as planned
So do the simple things right…
Don’t hit the snooze button
Don’t lay in bed on social media
Wake up and immediately start working out, cleaning, or writing
Exercise every day…
Physical discipline gives you the ability to change any emotional state
In other words, exercise is good for your emotional health
Things that are annoying before a workout are hilarious afterwards
Further, emotional health enables clear thought, and clear thought keeps you from doing something irreversible that you might regret
Connect with people…
Be real about your flaws
Don’t front like you have it all together
Get feedback from people with different backgrounds
Learning from others is how the smart get smarter
Document your growth…
Set goals and commit to them
You’ll know when you've grown when you look back at your old self with a bit of embarrassment
(When growth stops, death follows gingerly)
Practice gratitude…
Be grateful you made a change
If you didn't make the change yet, be grateful that you have a chance before it's too late
Lastly, some practical life advice: don't smoke crack…
Don't borrow money from the wrong people
Never make eye contact with a crackhead on payday
In summary, and by definition…
Awful people don't tell you that they're awful
The path is full of adversity and void of support
As long as you don’t quit, you can’t really fail
PART TWO: QUOTES ON LIVING YOUR LIFE WITH PURPOSE
Lies are necessary when the truth is too difficult to believe.
-Pablo Escobar
You follow drugs, you get drug addicts and drug dealers. But you start to follow the money, and you don’t know where the fuck it’s gonna take you.
-Detective Lester, The Wire
One ship sails east and another sails west,
With the selfsame winds that blow.
'Tis the set of the sail, and not the gale
Which determines the way they go.
-Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Comfort = Defense, and over time, decline.
Discomfort = Offense, and fuel for growth, over time.
-Alex (@TheForeverAlpha)
The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.
-G.K. Chesterton
You are the product of the people you surround yourself with:
It’s better to hang out with people better than you.
Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you’ll drift in that direction.
-Warren Buffett
The less you can see with your eyes, the more you need to see with data.
-Tim McLean
It seems to me that truth is a product, a result, but honesty is a process, an attempt.
And sometimes when you’re honest you get the truth and sometimes you don’t; honesty is no guarantee of veracity.
-Jack Four
History sure is more interesting when a leader rebels against the swamp of the system, and also when a man ignores his own personal cowardice and decides to act like a free man and override his fears of being an outcast.
-Roman McClay, Sanction
While multitasking isn’t bad for all occasions, if what you’re doing is important, it’s best you focus solely on this subject.
-Jose Rosado
The problem is that people are different and we hate difference.
We, as a species are attracted to sameness at every level and there is no getting around this; except by lying. And so lying is exactly what the liberal reformers are doing.
-Roman McClay
Risks are distributed, not eliminated.
-John Osbon
For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?
-Matthew 16:26
There's a huge difference between being a savvy business owner, and someone with a hobby/passion that wants to make a living out of it (this bridge is often difficult to cross).
-Ryan Holmerr
Life is a long journey with a map written by a fool.
-Juan Nepomuceno Guerra
Just because you have a superior or even winning position doesn't mean there's nothing your opponent can do.
-Jeremy Silman, The Amateur's Mind: Turning Chess Misconceptions into Chess Mastery
Love is the illusion that one woman differs from another.
-H.L. Mencken
The difference between fact and fiction is that fiction has to make sense.
-Mark Twain
You know it's real when you are who they think you are.
-Drake
A man would do nothing, if he waited until he could do it so well that no one would find fault with what he has done.
-John Henry Newman
Thank you for reading!
If you'd like more Big Idea Summaries like this, please do join the email list.
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Sincerely,
Justin