#210 Ed Latimore - From Alcohol Addiction to Thriving Online Business

If you're only focusing on the marketing and not on the writing , you'll be popular , right , but people take your content seriously . It'll be very difficult to grow .

Can you please leave a five star rating below so we can help more people every single week . Thank you All . Right , dude , let's kick off . Well , I appreciate this . I know a long time coming . I appreciate this , and I want to start with a quote from yourself . Right ? So forget all the hacks , just do the work . Eventually , your brain will get the message .

How many years did it take you to get your brain to get the message ? To do the hard work ?

I think that's what drew me to boxing , for example , and even what drew me to my eventual degree path as an adult , which is , you know , physics is not an easy discipline , very challenging , very difficult . Where I had , I think , challenges was whenever I'd have to like accept just the path that it would take to become better .

And even there I didn't have , I don't think I had problems . I guess I guess , overall , where it comes from is I didn't have issues with the idea , but I recognize that many people have issues with the idea . We live in a very , a very great time in that it's very easy to survive .

You don't have to like you don't need to be able to hunt or grow your own food . You don't need to even have to like live in a congested city versus a suburb because of the instantaneous and ubiquitous nature of communication . It's like everywhere everyone's interconnected and then this is like , and then it's so clean and safe , like you know .

Sure , there are , like your , violent incidents that occur , but that's everywhere . As a whole , the world continues to get safer and safer , so all of this has created an environment where you don't really have to do much Like and not even to be entertained .

I used to have a joke when I was younger I know it was definitely when I was single , because I didn't even think like this in the past 11 years and I used to tell my buddy I was like all you need is Netflix and some Netflix and a crib and you'll be like the man you know , you'll be able to like , have some girls or entertainment , and even if you

don't want that , then you can be entertained by pornography and fast food and the Uber Eats . Like . You don't even have to go to the grocery store Like we even removed that challenge .

So we've removed all of these challenges and that's not really good for , I think , developing your ability to persist through challenges , to go after what you want , anything like that . So I think I came up with the idea , or I said that because I was just thinking about how people have trouble with this .

I don't think I have trouble with it , but I'm fortunate . You know , I'm an older millennial . That means it's a coin flip . It's just the different , the generations to make a big difference . I think like I never . I never discount the role that , when I was born , has played in everything in my life for better or worse .

You have to put down Netflix , put down fucking porn , put down junk food and just repeatedly do the hard stuff continuously . So I think for a lot of people , spinning up ideas can be easy , right , you have a newsletter , it can be a community page , it can be a podcast .

Going zero to one isn't your problem , but staying on that course is , and that is a conditioning for sure 100% , because I think for me it came from individual sports . You were a boxer , I was a hundred meter sprinter , I also played rope at the time as well . But what ?

What I learned more from sprinting versus ropey was the fact that it's on you Like it's just on you right that if you win , congratulations . If you lose , you can't blame anyone . It's as you and eight other dudes right that are out of fucking stutter on the track , and I think that kind of set me up well for when I was older .

But obviously the best place to be set up is , well , not the best place , but the one way to learn is through your upbringing , which , of course , like , had many different challenges , which is interesting , right , because now you kind of you , you almost like laugh about it , use as anecdotes , use as storytelling , which is part of your writing .

But that's hugely influential to you , right , and I want to actually raise a point on that too . So I saw from one of your I didn't cut it in from your posts , your podcasts that your mom was making up to $4,000 a year . What was that experience like ?

It's an interesting environment that is . That is , public housing , because public housing is , is kind of the last battalion . You know where you go before you're homeless , and a lot of people start there , a lot of people stay there .

Subsidized housing by itself isn't a bad thing , but the people and the environment that it brings into it it comes with a lot of , a lot of bad , a lot of rough issues , a lot of crime , a lot of what we'll just call it general ignorance .

And and you know , when you grow up in that environment , well , first of all , wherever you grow up , that's where you are going to get the most influence in your life and it's down .

I mean , like nature is really funny that way the two things that make the biggest difference in our , our outcomes in life , our , what we grew up and our parents , are completely out of our control . So you know , with that said , I remember , I just I don't have like a lot of happy memories or anything like that from childhood .

I don't have many memories like I know .

Obviously I lived from , you know , 80 to 14 , but but not to 14 , where I still , where I go to a school and a completely different neighborhood , do I enjoy memories where I like started to like my childhood and , and you know , made friends and felt safe , but that was getting out of that place I was in and then that was like through no assistance from my

mom , I had to figure out where I was going to go to high school . And that was the big difference because and this might seem like a random thing , like out of out of lines , let me like make sure I clarify this idea .

So when in our city and I and I think most places in the in the US or wherever you know , your , your schools are determined by where you live , like obviously you can like pay to go to a school somewhere else , but if you're just going to rely on the public school system , then you are designated by some .

That meant that for elementary and middle school , when I did , when I , you know , went with the feeder zones for my neighborhood . I was with a bunch of other people from my neighborhood , other poor surrounding neighborhoods , and they brought within their own habits and issues . So it was a crazy place . It was a really rough . You know .

We're just not an enjoyable time for me . I look back on that and you know , fortunately at this point in my life I mean it's like one of my 39 . So it's like over , it's over 15 , over 20 years ago . Right , it's hard , it's over 25 . Now , at this point that's crazy . It's a prison sentence for murder . It's how I like to look at it .

I love these murder podcasts and shows I listen to a lot . So I just think about how long that time goes and most of the issues and habits that I developed in that environment I've overcome through my own work . But you're still your base level of thinking , where you come from . That was built there .

I don't know if that's ever able to be completely removed or whatever or modified .

If you're in that poverty , it's a vicious cycle , so on and so forth . Similarly with the food the food is really bad for you . There's a lot of really bad choices . But at the other end of the spectrum there's loads of opportunity .

If you can get one leg up on the ladder , you can get into either a good school but that's probably out of the day at this age or you could just get in and start working with entrepreneurs , start working your way up , get a good opportunities and then you could be someone like yourself , right , like fully independent , break away from that system , be someone's

healthy , fit , happy and so on . But it's like in between you have everybody else but you just have such a wide variety on either side . That's kind of you don't really experience that anywhere else .

I lived in and lived in Portugal for a few not many , not even a year , probably like six months and the biggest difference that I can remember , at least in this regard , is that there didn't seem to be like a concept of of like wealthy and poor neighborhoods in the city , like not out of the suburbs , that shit there were .

There were some places out there and it was like it's like the inverse of the United States , where the inner city is supposed to be rough and the suburbs are nice . Europe is kind of different . But I remember thinking as we move through different cities that you know , it's all kind of like , like there's less .

Like you said , the average might be about the same but there's less variance . And in America , even if it's the same average , you're right it's like because the poor really poor and the rich are really rich . In that disparity .

It's just the gap in between , right , which , you know , it's the opportunity in America , though , right , I know this , we're going on a bit of a tangent , but that's like the opportunity that they push for you to to go and play , and that's the game that asks you to go play , right , it's like if you go and do the right thing , you're going to have space .

So what I liked about you , what I've observed about you , which I think is very cool , right , is that , like you had the handbrake turn into boxing and then you went into physics and then you went into your writing from there , what's kind of gave you that kind of belief to be able to kind of reinvent yourself .

I didn't start until I was an adult , and so what that does is is , you know , when you start as a kid , you you just like that's what you know , that's like fun time that you know you don't have many responsibilities , you can really dig into it and and love it .

And that's why , like , talent kind of emerges when I think a lot of talent emerges from childhood and why a lot of people can only go far but they start something as kids . When you start something as an adult , you're you're juggling versus the stresses of survival , which is something you don't really have to

think about .

As a kid , like I got to make sure I pay my rent because I got a , and then instead of and I have to make a choice at the end of the work day , do I go party or I'm rewind or do I go straight to the gym , right , and so all that I , and then seeing what that paid off for me , how that turned out for me , that it gives you a faith ?

I wouldn't . I mean belief . I guess belief , faith , they're kind of interchangeable , but it gave me the biggest belief for myself that I said okay , all I got to do is make the right decisions and I can do the things along the way . So that's the process of right decisions , and then follow the process along the way I do .

Though if I do all that , then things are going to turn out okay . And they're going to turn out okay and pretty much wherever I want them to turn out okay .

And I think the hardest thing for people in this regard I mean I make it sound simple , but it is but there's one skill that makes a big difference in that stability to look at the future and then really treat it as a real thing . What I've learned is that people are absolutely off what this thing called the future . They don't .

They don't consider how their actions are going to create another reaction , which might create another reaction . Planning is very hard . Imagining that things are going to go wrong , that's very difficult for people . So , as all of this , I think I naturally , for whatever reason , excel at , and that's helped me make smart moves and stick with something .

It's hard to stick with something when you're expecting quick results , but when you know it , it'll take two , three , five years . All right , then you're right . You just got to put one foot in front of the other and I'll get through this .

It's very logical and , to be honest , man , business is exact same , like I would literally say that it is in stages , like there's different stages in your business and how you grow up and how you evolve as a person . But most people don't understand that , right , they don't think about it .

Now , there's lots of different kind of like ways to take that in terms of , like , how you were , how boxing for you was a first vehicle , and I think this is interesting , right ? Is that ? I think , for a lot of people , you know you struggle with alcohol and you , you know you had a lot .

Well , a lot of people struggle with alcohol for different reasons , right ? But when you find that vehicle , it's almost like you commit to something and then it's like all the other things subside . So let me give you an example .

I create a lot of content there on alcohol and a lot of Irish people comment on it and say , oh well , what the fuck would I do if I gave up alcohol ? But my take on this is like , is like you don't . You don't sit there and stare at the fucking wall on a Saturday night . You replace it .

You either , you know , you go out with your friends , you play , you might play some sport or golf or some shit , but you replace it with something you enjoy . But for you would you have said that boxing was the first vehicle you had to troll yourself into , even though you were struggling with alcohol at the same .

But it was such a life changing experience for me .

And on any particular topic or part of it , like the relapse rate or recovery or what makes someone more likely like A combination like anything that you found in your own research , even at the people that struggle with the percentage of people maybe that struggle with alcohol or people that relapse from it . So here's okay , yeah .

So if you look at , kind of like , what the signs are of someone who is an alcoholic either or someone who can't control , like you know , they need to drink , otherwise they start going through issues , you know , get the shakes , whatever , so they need to drink . Or when they do drink they like Ben's drink repeatedly .

And what I've found is that most people are many people , I would say , at least in the United States . I can't speak for Europe . I know that Europe has a very different relationship with alcohol and I can see that in the laws and the way it's sold and consumed .

But in the United States I find that many people who think that they're just normal drinkers are actually drinking at the alcoholic level . And and you know one could ask what does that mean ? That the criteria is too sensitive , and I don't think it is because they like , if anything . You know , I looked at some stuff .

I was just talking to a guy about how they define Ben's drinking because he made a post about having a bottle of wine with your girl and talking , and or someone said that and he responded you know we should just call that Ben's drinking back in the day and my first response was a bottle of wine in a night is Ben's drinking ?

Oh yeah , like , like that's how , how normalized it is . That me is someone who is 10 years , so we're had that reaction number like wow . So I think many people are heavier or more dependent on alcohol than they know it .

And even if it's not physiological , it's certainly psychological and that the number one worry that everyone has about drinking is like what am I going to do when I stop drinking ? And I'm like , well , you'll , you'll go like I get the question .

So I'm never I'm never a dick about my answer , but but really , like you know , you would socialize and learn to interact and talk to people without the without . That is the background , but it's become so ingrained in our society that we don't even think about it , you know .

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It's also turned into an aspect to whereby you know we go back to like the weakening of like general , like society , right , and this is more of a crutch , and I remember when I was younger , so I actually you know you mentioned about Ireland or the Europe being different .

Maybe central Europe is much more like they may have a better rules , but definitely UK and Ireland drink like fucking crazy , right , and people drink like at night , occasionally , continuously , and so on . So when they're younger and they're going out , I found it's quite interesting as a fact that it is a crutch .

So whether you're out trying to date and get chicks , you have the , you have like a beer in your hand , like I was number one fucking corporate person for this right , I'd have like a beer , cigarette and it's almost like if you removed one of those variables you'd feel awkward . And I heard Pierce .

I heard Pierce Morgan say to Chris Williams and recently he was like oh , but like you know , people are more interesting when you drink beer . And he's like , and Chris said no , I would say the opposite , people are more interesting when they don't drink beer . But people pretend that they're interesting when they drink beer , right ? Or drink alcohol .

So it's almost like , and it's interesting because , like , if you were to redo the entire process , would you have alcohol in society ? No , right , because of all the impact that it's had , negatively and positively . But I think one of the reasons why it's still there is because it's so much fucking money in it .

Then , where I spend most of my time in Southern Europe and I guess France , which is like dependent on the part of Europe . You're in our France , you're in the southern or our northern , but that money is . It's not just the money , all right , that's a big , big part of it .

But remember , in this country we had one of the greatest natural experiments ever launched , when we decided we would make alcohol constitutionally illegal . You couldn't have it , we . It means outlawed and it took . It took , but I remember it's the 18th and the 21st Amendment , but I know it wasn't three years , but that's how much of an impact we did .

It skyrocketed crime , it corrupted the police forces of the country , the law enforcement forces . Because if people , if people can't buy it , that gene is out the back Once , once you , once you took it out , we can't put it back in .

And in this country where , where we sprinkle capitalism on everything and we actually don't sprinkle it , we try and drown our food and it always have an analogy about how capitalism was like salt and we we drown our food in that .

So it only makes sense that they would figure out how to to maximize the dollar out of alcohol , which means that , which means an incredible marketing campaign for a marketing campaign so good that we don't even question certain rights of passage , like how 21 year olds think they have to go to a bar and have their first drink and black out or something .

This is absolutely mad when you think about it , but that's where we're at and that's what I find interesting . Another thing I find interesting this one doesn't relate to me , thank goodness is is when you look at the crimes and I cringe these numbers myself and I think , yes , they still on my website .

I may have taken it down , but we look at sexual assault on the women between the eights of 18 and 24 . If you remove the presence of alcohol , like if that was the one thing that they would change about the situation if you remove the presence of alcohol , you would .

You would eliminate 95% of those assaults and I thought that was insane when I was I was , you know seeing what numbers took me . I was just making a point . I thought I would include this chapter in my book , but it was , it was not . It didn't really fit .

This was myself one of my self published books , sober letters to my drunken self , just giving people emotional tools for sobriety , and and I went , I was putting this chapter together and I was like , all right , this doesn't really fit but it's interesting .

So I just kept the chapter and because of the research I dug up from the chapter and and more or less , if you get rid of and in other words , what I'm saying is the those , those issues are those assaults were reported in the presence of alcohol , Whether it was someone you know , one person was intoxicated or both people were intoxicated .

And if you remove that , then what you end up with is Like most of these assaults don't happen in particular and not in that age range , because one of the things that alcohol does and it it's a double-edged , like my double-edged sword it it has two Deleterious effects on this particular issue .

It's effect one is that it absolutely murders your ability to decode Body language and read people . You just can't do it the one , the drunk , who get the harder it is to read people .

And Then , on the other end of it , the drunk or woman gets , when it's easier for her to get drunk , by the way , the the more , the less aware she is of how her body language is presenting and , and the first thing that comes to mind when I say it like that is oh , you know , she , she led me on .

But no , it's the other way too , which is like she might think she's making it very clear that she's not interested and it's there , and then it absolutely murders impulse control and and makes you think good ideas or makes you think bad ideas are good ones .

And whenever I bring this point up to people , you know , one of the big counter is oh , you know , if you were drinking and you thought about the idea , then you wanted to do that when you were sober . You know , you're just a pearl . We should make sure these guys don't think that way .

That's the , that's the counter To which I always say you know , there's a lot of people in jail right now for vehicular homicide . They weren't thinking about killing somebody when they when they were sober . It was when they were under the influence of alcohol that they took one bad decision . They compounded into another one that led to the death of someone .

That's how that works and people think it's an easy way out to be like , okay , we're gonna just focus on the behavior and say , you know , because , right , there was not every move , because most guys I'm gonna say most I don't , I don't know what , whether I'd say most many , whatever there are several men who drink and don't have this issue or have any of

this thing come up . But when it does happen , we should . We should ask ourselves what role would it alcohol play ? Could we have you mitigate it there ? Because , look , we know it does like , we know it causes so many other problems and first to try and ignore that one is is Incredibly dangerous .

okay , this was a cause and effect of some other reason and it's just . It's just full circle . It just goes full circle under the day . But I think for a lot of people , like there is like that like moderation stage , like I know , whatever I post shit .

One guy in particular , he was like oh , you know , it's okay to have like a glass of whiskey a month , and I was like , yeah , but most people don't fucking drink whiskey for the taste . I mean , most people drink it for what it does to them , right ?

I definitely know people that are my age don't drink it for the taste anyway , or just maybe when you're older , that's what you want to do , but not when you're younger , right ? That's where I kind of that's gonna kind of viewed as shit . Man , how did you ? How did you transition from physics into writing ?

Both physics demands that you're an excellent communicator of . At least the odd is within physics . Like the odd , like there's this myth that like People who are into like the hard braniacs sciences aren't good At communication and that's just code kind of .

Like the way people try to make it seem like anyone who's in shape is dumb and when the reality is that like when the reality is that like there's a much stronger correlation between high Q and physical fitness , then there is like anything else but To to speak about these topics in a manner toward not just Like let's forget about talking to people who aren't

Studying . You have to be able to communicate with your peers and be precise , like if I said to you you know , speed up or slow down . Actually , I'll give you another example . It's this really funny . I used to have a teacher just kill me when I would say I'm gonna turn up the volume To hear better .

It's like you know , turn up the volume , you increase the sound like , and that's a really precise but it's , you know , one of those things you'll think of all when someone talks about . You know Speed versus velocity , with two different things , with two different I'll give you variations to the average person , the same thing .

But if I say one , I'm I'm speaking about one thing . If I say another thing , I'm speaking about something else . Another one that's often used Entretangibly is accelerating and speed . I mean , you have to know how to be precise with your words and then say as much as you can with as few as words as possible , but not miss out on the details .

So , as all of this is writing training , you know I can look at my writing before school and after school and I can see a quantum leap in ability .

It's interesting to observe like you've different products in the back end and you're growing really consistently across it , but it looks like that you have like that really nailed down framework in the back . It looks very familiar to me to , like you know , matt Gray , dan Coe , decoder Robertson , and it kind of has that kind of look and feel .

So how did you think about like building your audience and kind of advice for people to build their audience ?

It's just different topics , different ideas . What do I know ? What am I trying to learn ? What am I trying to accomplish ? What am I doing ? What are my insights ? And there's a certain level of relatability and admirable Admireability and you just continue to put it out there when it comes to audience building

With people . For forget is that most people aren't going to talk about what they do . That's just , you know . We think everyone wants to talk about themselves , and maybe they do , but they're not gonna do it in a way that benefits someone else .

When you're gonna do that , when you can create content that people want to Consume for whatever reason , whether they're entertained , educated , inspired , right , it's very easy , it's really easy to say this fun and it's useful , and it's a different way to For a person to make a living .

So , if we were talking alcohol , for example , you're taking your personal experiences , you're relaying that and you're relating to someone who's on the pursuit of giving up alcohol .

For a while I was focused on SEO big time and now it's like Not my focus because there's just so many other ways to to grow an audience .

Like people just don't Really get how useful Instagram is for For written content . You .

Like 1% of the people on the platform posts on LinkedIn , compared to Twitter , is like you know 80% or some shit . So when you can write and write clearly and come to , to come to LinkedIn , you can just kill it because it is filled with like platitudes , bullshit , like virtue signaling , stuff . Right , but forget about that , forget about that people .

If you just focus on the content and just focus on helping people , it's the latest , like one of the strongest platforms in the world to grow and it's been like that for years , man , it actually hasn't changed . Yeah .

But what it does is that it removes it . It automatically removes low value people , and when I say low value , I don't mean like they don't make money or anything like that . Far from it . There's a particular class of individual who comes on social media and does nothing but fuck things up . All they do is you know , they're just trolls .

Very hard to like you . You reduce the likelihood of crossing paths with that personality when you make a requisite for being on the platform some type of in-person connection , because there's a level of accountability that comes with it . Sure , I've encountered some anonymous or not accounts on LinkedIn , but they don't . They don't go far whatsoever .

They no one takes them serious . Then they look at you like what ? What are you ? Why are you here ? Like it just feels out of place . It feels very in place on Twitter and , to a lesser extent , instagram as well .

Linkedin is different to to do well on LinkedIn or not even to do well to even be recognized Cause I was just looking at me like oh , this is a weird thing , and just block it Like it's just cause it doesn't fit in LinkedIn . You can't come and then and then all and then , on top of that , here's another great thing that LinkedIn has .

If , if you're not even remotely serious about about social media , the , the barrier to signing up is not much higher . But there's stuff , more steps you have to do to set up a profile . If , if you were just coming to make an alert or account or something , you're probably not going to do it . So what ?

What LinkedIn has done is , as long as it stays this way , I hope they don't make changes . I hope I hope over the leadership is they , they recognize the thing that makes LinkedIn great and they don't change anything because there are more people coming over . But , but I'm , I'm , I'm , I love this . I just really like it there .

Man , it's just a different caliber . Everyone's like title and name . You can look them up , and when you look one , when your face is out there and when you said and what you say can be tied back to where you work and do business .

Yeah , you know , you tend to not be an asshole Like it's just , it's just , I think I think that's much better and I think that's much more um , I just think it's much more uh , much more wholesome .

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So if you want to learn more about how you can build a great podcast and have a fully managed for you , schedule a call with me at Vox and we will help you achieve your podcast goals . Yeah , man , that's the one issue I kind of had with . Twitter is just like you know , anyone can say anything because they can put a fucking photo .

Fight club , they can make sure .

Like people are like oh , like my business is , I've generated . I generated like $50 million for my client last quarter .

And then , okay , my face and my , my , my background , like , is here , like one of the coolest things is that LinkedIn recommendation thing , like , like that , just that , it's great . It's great . You know , someone else has to fill it out . It's a cool time .

And what I tried to do in the book is look at the through lines of the lessons I learned from from boxing , from going back to school , from getting sober , from growing up in public housing , and , and there are .

There's a specific lesson from each point and and I draw on my experiences and research to make the point , to make the lesson the value of the lesson .

You know , how do we continue to move , how do we continue to grow , how do we get more fans ? And a book was the next natural step . And then I said , all right , what can I create a book around ?

And now one of the things I picked up real early about about this whole book thing because a lot of my platform was built from the first , the first self-published book I had , and I've learned , if you , you know , obviously there's like the general idea you want the book to be about and you don't want to discard that .

But if you start with a cool title and mind and then you come back and go , how can I support and cattle hey , you'll support this title of content I think you're going to go a lot farther in terms of marketing than if you come up with a book and then try to create a title around it and I know the copywriting bros do this a lot that they'll , they'll

write the copy and then kind of present it as this the product you should design , and I think that makes a lot of sense , certainly as a writer at least , anyhow . So so that's where this came from , that's how this has been , where this book came from .

It that that like no one gives a damn how good of a writer you are , like like your skill doesn't matter ?

Not only does it not matter , but if you're not careful , you'll mess around and get the wrong idea of what a skilled writer is and you'll pursue that and wonder why you you know you haven't gained any type of fan base or following , because I don't care what anyone says .

If you don't , if you're not writing to build fans , followers , readers , go write a journal , like go write a diary . The fact that you're putting it out there means you want people to see it . So let's maximize that . Let's play to that Like the skills are going to develop .

They're two , in fact , they are two different skill sets , and if you only focus on the writing and if you only focus on the marketing and not on the writing .

You'll be popular , right , but you know , when people take your content seriously , it'll be very difficult to grow , because you know , if our market is shit card to you constantly and everyone who gets it is like man , this car is terrible , and I'm not mentioning my marketing it won't be trusted . Okay , so you need to write these skills .

But on the other end of it , if you have the absolute best and we'll even say car and that price , conscious to everyone , can afford , but no one ever knows about it , no one ever hears about it , no one talks about it , it's just flaws on the radar and because they don't market and it's not a name , then it won't sell either .

And maybe I use the cars was the wrong item , because there are cars that don't advertise , but everyone knows what a label is . So the idea should , like , still be clear , which is you need to be a good marketer and a good writer , and that means learning to think like a market .

You already think like a writer , okay , because by virtue of writing , but then all of these things , they have to come together . I just love it too . I don't even remember how I got on this , the topic of marketing . That's how passionate I got about this thing Right . It just came back to me .

If you're not writing to to build followers , if you're not writing to build a fans and a readership , then then you should be honest with yourself and go keep a private journal or substack something . But if you're honest with yourself , you're writing because you want to be read . That's like like that's why we write most of the time .

I'm not talking about your private journal . Yeah , outside of the private journal , anything put out that are you written , anything put out that written is to be read . That's that's what we do . So then you should learn how to make sure you maximize that part of of the system .

Only writers will say some delusional shit like write every day , you'll get better . Like no , like I can go to boxing gym every day . I'm not going to suddenly turn in a Floyd Mayweather . No , if I had Floyd Mayweather's coach , all right , that's a . I got a much greater chance . What do I say to this about writing ?

You got to have a writing coach , someone who pushed back against you . Get some feedback . This is another reason why you should be publishing in public , because at worst case scenario , you know you get some trolls and they attack you right in you . You sharpen it up . But either way , if you don't have feedback , it can improve .

Whether you have an editor , someone who reads over to catch different typos , and then you come back in a read and go , oh , that sucks , all right , that's like the first way to get better at writing .

The second way to get better at writing is you want to read other people's stuff and that's been edited Like , like , so published and he typically anything that's made it to like publishing by a big house that's been professionally edited and there's a lot to say about like . People like to shit on the traditional book publishing by process .

I again consider that a form of cope , because if I'm looking on a book that's been professionally published , that means they put money behind it . Once you understand the business structure , it's basically venture capital . They want this thing to succeed so they have created the best , most polished product they could .

So if you look through that writing , you're going to see polish and how would you look ? And you should aim to emulate that in your own writing to lessen the gap between your first draft and the final draft and improve the quality . So those two things right there reading professionally edited work and getting feedback on your work .

As far as the marketing side goes , pretty much the same idea , maybe with some slight twists and copyouts . The marketing you know I learned copywriting because and when I say learn copyrighted , I don't mean again , don't just go out there writing copy and just hope it's going to sell some . No , I studied some masters man , study some books .

We learn and then learn human psychology as well , because you got to understand how people react to stuff . If you like like , for example , if you don't understand cognitive bias and the bias in this particular instance will use this loss of version bias .

If you don't understand how that plays into getting people to pay attention to things , then you're not only will you suffer , for you'll likely be taking advantage of it or , let be taken advantage of , buy it in when you read like headlines .

And loss of version bias is the idea that , like we experience , we feel a loss greater than a gain of equal amount , even though it should be the same . You know , losing five dollars hurts a hell of a lot more than making five dollars . It hurts a lot . You know that and that's significant . That means we pay more attention to to negativity .

We pay more attention to things that can hurt us . This is why the news is the news .

If you look at the way headlines are structured , you pick some up . If you're not one for formal study and you like to absorb by osmosis , that's a great way to study how to make titles . Look at the headline titles of the most viewed news stories , the most clickbait baby .

The goal is to create clickbait , but the goal is to understand why this is getting so much engagement , which is what you're trying to achieve . You're writing more engagement .

And it's not for you to write the device of content , it's to see why that works and why it doesn't work .

And I think the beautiful way that that I see this and play at a lot of times is that when you read and you read like like a cash for tithing , for instance , cash for tithing , the great book on this it's like you read and then implement , but you need to have the implementation . So if you have a Twitter account , you can .

You can implement as you do it , like I reread expert secrets and I literally had it open .

I had it open while I was typing and I was like this is so fucking valuable as a result , because when these guys tell you to open a spreadsheet and create all your stories and your epiphany stories and your obstacles and your bridges and all this stuff , if you actually do it again , cause and effect , this will take an impact six months , 12 months , 18 months

from now and you will have like an exponential takeoff . But I just think that , like most people aren't willing to implement the work , they'll read the book but then it goes fuck the book to the site and then blame the book in six months . How do you tighten that feedback loop ?

You just you do it , you do it and you have faith that you're doing the right thing , because the things that are going to pay off the most for you they're not going to have a quick , quick feedback , and I think that's by design , because you want to weed out people looking for an easy way .

You want to weed out people who who are going to , who don't really have what it takes and to just stand around because they get . They got some quick pay off , they got , they got some out of it fast . This like like general fitness , for example . This is why I never thought about this . This comes in the view of my head so .

So general fitness is relatively easy and quick to attain and that's a good thing , because you know all you got to do is get up off the couch for four weeks and a workout , watch what you eat and you you cut your risk of all cosmotility in half If you're like your typical sedentary Westerner .

But here's the kicker about this If you come into it looking for an instant result , it's like you come out like I worked out three days .

If you make it that long and I'm still like I still can't , I still got a gut and I'm like , well , it's not supposed to take that long , but this is a thing that's going to make a huge difference in your life , like , like a massive difference , and it takes long . It's about adopting and this is what I'll say .

It's about adopting a kind of lifelong added , you know , pursuit attitude towards these things . Yeah , if I go , alright , man fitness , like that's what it is , it's lifelong . For me , it's not less diet or and then chill . No , no , it's lifelong , which means creating habits to support and sustain the goal .

Writing back to the idea made I did lifelong pursuit to improve , improve , improve , improve . So my , my past time is , you know , like to read . I got a fiction book right here . I got the ballad of songbirds and snakes , that the new hunger games installment , but . But I also have right next to it , how to , how to lie with statistics .

I was looking through that . The kids are this and these are on my desk because there's a book , some reading , but there's a whole bookshelf behind me and make reading part of my daily activity , and I'm always going to make writing part of my daily activity .

And then it's to the point now where , like , that's just how it is and I'm like , oh man , I got to , got to force myself to go write some . Like no , I'm a create , be creating either way . Very rarely do I go a day where I write but and ? And then my , we draw that parallel fitness , especially like being a being a father and our new father .

Like I don't have time to get to the gym all the time , but I do have my workout , the little little variable resistance bands right here to hit sets . In between , I always take the kid for a walk or always watch what I eat .

Like there are all these things that go together so that , like , while I can't like live the life of a pro athlete anymore , I don't have to let my health and fitness go to shit Because I built in these systems to support me . Saying what , writing , say what , anything that I think is worth doing .

Right , if I don't go to the gym , I feel weird , like I have a day off tomorrow . My coach is like I need two days off a week generally . That's what he wants to do , and I fucking hate it . I usually end up walking five miles on the beach the day that .

I won't say nothing else because you still need something to write the book about . Write a book , self publish it , make it a damn good piece of self published content , which means go out , get the editor , um , cover , design , all that . I'd recommend writing a book because there is I can't think of anything easier that produces a faster audience growth result .

Now , what that said , uh , when I say faster building audiences never an overnight thing . You got to have good content , things to say , um , because what a book does is a book makes someone that's got a good title and um and like , there's like stuff in it , there's like the authors , at least remotely interesting .

Then it can get you a lot of interviews on podcasts and I let me tell you my , my , that was like the thing that really leveraged my growth is people found not caring what other people like as a superpower and I was getting . I had four while I was a non dated podcast gas request and each time one drop it just went higher and better , higher and better .

Uh , as a result , I mean I punched way above my way from my audience level . I mean , I was on on the knowledge project with Shane Parrish . I was on a modern wisdom with Chris Williams uh , the Jordan Harbinger show , art of Manliness , skinny confidential . These are like I mean , these are podcasts with millions of of you and it really helped build me up .

Scott Adams had me on a few times , uh , his coffee show , all because of a self published book . And here's the kicker that audience made big houses in the publishing world go oh okay , this guy can sell books and he writes already and he's got this interesting story we can work with . Let's do something here .

And so now I'm writing a book for a , for a house . Now I don't . I have no idea what life will look like in five years as a result of this book being published . I know a little life look like five years after the self published book , because five years after not caring with , look like five years after not caring with other people .

Think , as a sewer power was 2022 . And I know what my life was like then . It was great , and most of it is a shoot off of the stuff I did with that self published book . It opened a lot of opportunities . It's all about opening opportunity . If you want to , if you want to like , if you don't have , you're like .

Here's the thing this , this is such an interesting topic , so I'm jumping all over the places of my mind . Charles , to figure out building an audience , you need to have , like , something unique and interesting . There are there , there are like , and the more unique and interesting you are , the easier it is right . So some guys you know have have .

That's one of the reasons why I like . I like Dan Coe , because I can't really tell what that guy is about . Like I was to dive into his backstory , but but he really he really beat the system into the dirt with the way he's . He's a girl in his following and it's it's really impressive .

I say that it is being really impressed , but it's saying , from what it sounds like to watch his content , is that he I think he hasn't talked about it , but he's he's got something that really trained him in the , in the art of thinking . I love it . Maybe he's just writing .

But on the main idea here , if you don't have something unique about you that you can build around , a book is really going to help . If you're a good writer , you can like position that . Or rather , man I , I want to keep editing myself . You guess you should write a book . That's the answer . I think everyone should write a book .

That's just to sum that up . Your expectations of it should be directly reflected in what you could do if you had not wrote a book . There you go . There's a great way to sum everything up .

But if you're going from zero , I would actually suggest a podcast , because a podcast can give you the audience , it can give you the reach , it can give you the , it can give you the learning lessons to go and be the person that you actually want to be and the education , which is basically what I did . I started on 24 .

I was literally new , nothing , and I just slowly , slowly built up 200 and 210 episodes in to the point that I was able to build , to the point I was able to build a business because of what I've learned from my podcast and then be able to like share those lessons with people to get to the point where , by now , that pulls in people .

As a result , do you get me ? Just because it's just like seeing the journey and seeing the progress . So it's almost like a .

It's like another way to do it , from a different lens , because , like everyone's telling you to like post on LinkedIn right , but , like the reason I asked you , that is because your perspective on it is like it's a different angle , and I think a podcast is a different angle too , and I started wanting so much people to crush it right and people like you come

to it . So , yeah , man , I want to say a big thank you when you release the podcast , when you release the second book , let's do the second episode in person . We'll do it in America .