 George Bruno with the 21 Report. We're at the 21 Convention, the final event of the decade, and I'm talking with Mr. Ed Lattimore. Welcome. Hello, hello, hello. Yeah. What a great talk. Thank you. I put a lot of, you know, energy and time into everything I put out there and I wanted to reflect what I believe and what I believe is going to be most useful, which is more important anyway. And in doing so, I really think that I create things that people resonate with. The speech from last year, really surprised by how well it's been received. I mean, I think it's great. I wrote it, but whenever so many people get so much out of something, it really humbles me and makes me grateful. Yeah. One of the things that popped out, because I had the pleasure of sitting in on it, was when you talked about watching The Matrix again years later and how it was a different movie. And it sounds like it's because you were a different man. Absolutely. Talk about that phenomenon. I think someone said to me one time that like, you hear in song lyrics what you need to hear. And I think that's just a broader way or rather more specific to songs and the broader phenomenon in light art is that what you see is your interpretation of what the artist is trying to perform. Sometimes it aligns directly, which is what I think the case is for me in The Matrix and other times you're like the only one that got it that way. But for me, watching The Matrix now as an adult with my experiences and my life compared to the first time I seen it when I was like 13, it wasn't just a science fiction film with some cool kung fu and shooting and martial art scenes. And it was really a commentary on society. And I think it's always been this way. Like I don't think the powers that be and by powers that be I mean whatever the collective agenda is that is aligned with the capitalistic motive at the moment. Probably the best way to put it without getting too conspiracy theories. Whatever the powers that be have decided the agenda, there's always been a few people who are like, notice this crazy. Because a lot of times what aligns with the most money that can be made is also what's easiest and what degenerates the person, what gets the person dependent on something because you need people to be dependent. And when we speak about these things, there will always be backlash because we are quite literally threatening the foundation of a lot of people and power or a lot of people's life and how they make money. So I saw The Matrix that way and then seeing it that way I was really motivated to put the speech together. Yeah, it worked. It really did work. It made me think about when I first saw it and my comment was I saw it as an interesting cutting edge sci-fi film. And I know now if I see it it's going to have a whole different meaning. I mean I'm just looking at things and I'm actually, I started taking notes. I paused it and was like I need to have, as Steve Williams says, I need to have my crayons out man. I don't need to be sitting here writing and taking notes because it's just a great piece of commentary. It's one of those things where I think they don't realize what they did. The people who created it. You know, I think they were going in that direction. I don't think they predicted the extreme and I think it's extreme, the extreme position we would be in our society today. And so it's just a really good movie and it's like any good story, right? It's a parable in that people want to hear it and a lot of people want to hear one thing on the surface or see one thing on the surface. And then you, people like us, we're going to watch it and go, that's what's really going on. It's not just this soft martial arts movie. It's a very, it's a tree-stealing philosophy and you really want to understand how to think and be a free person. There's quite a bit to unpack. Yeah, I believe that. You know, I tell my audience all the time that I like to consider some of my content and I say this somewhat tongue in cheek. My content is the home of sanity, clarity and reason. And I think a lot of your message embodies sanity, clarity and reason. Thank you. My whole goal, I was just talking to Tanner about this at lunch. The goal isn't to make me feel good, it's to make me be effective. And you have to accept that a lot of times those two goals are going to be at odds and you're going to have to make a decision. Are you going to adopt a thought process and a way of interacting with the world that's going to make you better suited to get what you want and to move through it and to navigate and to protect yourself? Are you going to adopt one that allows you to feel comfortable and bypass any type of work, any type of suffering, any type of long-term improvement and delayed gratification? And those two things are not, they can't be by definition the same thing. You're going to have to pick one together. They are very much mutually exclusive. And so I decided a long time ago that I wanted to have a better life and that requires taking a hard road. With myself, I talk a lot about holding the mirror up and going okay, what is wrong with you? Were you deficient? How can you feel those deficiencies? That's not an easy fun task either. But it's a task that forces you to be sane and rational. And then you combine that with my individual bringing in background where I grew up as a child and some of those neighborhoods were very rough areas. You don't really get the luxury of entertaining irrational thought for too long because you get punished quicker than most for thinking or behaving in a foolish manner. How do people get out of that? The short answer that nobody likes to talk about? Luck? The real answer though. And stay out. That's important. A lot of guys get out whether it be through their artistic achievement or athletic prowess. But to stay out, you have to realize that bad things happen quickly and good things tend to take a while. And if you take that and embody kind of what that means and break it down and apply it to everything in your life, you're not going to do the things that are going to take you back to that point. You're not going to do the things that are going to erode your progress. I know in the recovery world they talk about people, places and things. Do you think that's a factor? Absolutely. I talk about this all the time. I think this is, if we elaborate on the short answer, luck. What are the lucky things that I think happen immediately I got exposed to? I tested for this gifted program in elementary school and that allowed me to go to a different school one day a week and that exposes me to different people and I get to see a different way of living than what I was accustomed to when I grew up. And that plants a small seed of ambition in my mind. It shows me another way that I want to be like and so I select a completely different high school to go to across town. And that puts me for four years consistently around a completely different group of people who show me a different way and plant even more seeds of improvement. And it was, it was improvement. I mean I like to say I'm very much the beneficiary of positive peer pressure. I could have been degraded and brought down and I was brought up. So those are the things I can't control. Those are the people, those are the places, those are the things I get to just spend a lot of time around. I'm forever grateful for, I tell them randomly all the times to the day. It wasn't for your kindness to me as a teenager, I would have turned out this way. It wasn't for your kindness to me. Maybe I don't have enough money to deal with that and I got to do something crazy to get it because it's so important. So these things, it really comes down to that. The people plays the things. Now you got to be kind enough to make those people like you. You have to be likeable but that's a different story. To that point, yeah, people plays the things man. Also in the recovery world, not to be pounding on that drum for too long, but there's always the concept of triggers. And triggers are always something that people talk about in a negative sense. Are there triggers for success? Not just triggers for relapse and... Oh yeah, you know little habits but you have to build those. Things degrade naturally if you don't do anything to them. You have to build them up. This is like the second law of thermodynamics when they talk about entropy. You have to build a thing up. One of my favorite habits for example is working with the headphones on. Even if I don't have music, that's me stay focused. It's drinking coffee before I go running the treadmill. That's like the most from a purely athletic standpoint. It's not a good habit. But it gets me on the treadmill, it gets me fired up and lets me put in two and a half, three miles that I need to stay healthy when I'm talking to my girlfriend. Once she starts getting crazy about something, I try to look at her like, I go, oh, a kid is being crazy again. No, that's not to say that she's like childlike mom, but it allows me to not... Because what type of adult gets angry with a child? You're not supposed to be reasoning with the child. You're supposed to understand that it's a problem. So it puts me in a firm mind for understanding. So I build these triggers and they help me in all areas. Money, man, you want to talk about a great trigger there? Whenever I get it, I go, I pay some debt and I save it. Then whenever it's left, I figure out what I'm going to do, right? But that's a habit because it's very easy. It's more natural for me to go, you know what, man? I got an extra hundred dollars. I'm going to go buy some nonsense. There ain't got to be anything I wear. It can be some food. I used to spend all kinds of money on food. Couragingness. But now I realize, save, save, save, so that when something happens, I'm in a position to take advantage of said opportunity. So you build those triggers up. They do not happen automatically. Yeah. I bet you, you know, triggers that degrade you happen automatically. You know, it's very easy to, like guys, but I talk a lot about quitting porn, internet porn. There's a trigger for a lot of guys just being at the computer about themselves. There is nothing that happens for that. You don't have to make that happen. No, you just sit at the computer by yourself and you don't have to battle that with another thing. You have to build up to get rid of it. You're going to have to get a program or something that blocks porn sites, or you're going to have to make sure you use your computer on other people. But you see the point, you have to put effort into that. The things that mess you up, those just happen. Triggers for negative things just happen. They're always there. But triggers for positive things and triggers for success, you have to create those triggers. Is that what you're saying? Absolutely. I like that. I like that. So you're not just a victim. You're making things happen rather than having things happen to you. That is the crux of it. If I could, like, sum my message up. Yeah, I would say that I don't think I have said that. There are two types of people. People who believe things happen to them and people who believe they make things happen. And it takes a rare mind to be able to hold both of those thoughts in your mind at the same time and still work effectively. Most people lean on one or the other. And that's fun, right? It just so happens that if you lean on the idea that things happen to you, you're going to look to complain about things. You're going to look to put your energy where you're not going to be effective on circumstances beyond your influence. But if you believe you make things happen, you're going to solve problems in your own. You're going to put your energy on yourself, things you can control. I find that if you have to go to one extreme or the other, some extremes are still better than other ones. It's not always all extremes are bad. Yeah. There's someone out there and they're stuck. And I like to tell people that 2020 is the year that they get unstuck. What advice would you give someone who feels stuck? Hold that mirror up, man. You have to take an honest appraisal. Give yourself an honest assessment. And that's a really big thing I'm starting to realize. I really believe that getting on the path to success if you just build the right kind of habits up, it's going to largely take care of itself. Sometimes it'll be faster, sometimes it'll be slower, but your life will improve. That is the easy part. The hard part is that in this respect to go, I need to improve. I am not where I want to be. I am not who I want to be. I'm not in possession of the things that I thought I would be in possession of. If you can do that, then taking the steps is natural, but that's the hard part. A lot of people feel really comfortable living on a lot, man. And a lot is really nice and really comfortable. Even if it doesn't serve you, it keeps you from facing pain voluntarily. And that's what a lot of is. They would rather suffer the pain of deception involuntarily than the pain of reality voluntarily. You're going to be in pain the way you might as well choose the one that's going to put you in a position to do something. Tell us one lie that you were taught by society that wasn't true, that was all wrong when you finally became aware. I would say that looks don't matter. That's a big one. Looks do matter, but you also have a lot of control over that. Another one, I mean, we're from the food pyramid age. That's a really big thing. You want to talk about getting wrong? This country is the fattest in the world. It's not a coincidence. I mean, there are other things we did, but a big thing that we had, and quite literally an inverted way to eat it. It's just not healthy for you. Continuing the theme of nutrition, I like to touch multiple themes, you know, not just relationships. If you need to eat three meals a day, another horrible one, doing a lot of damage, big, big damage. Those are some off the top of my head that we can be talking about are all wrong. That doesn't. When it comes to money, I think the idea that I needed to always own a home, otherwise I was going to be ruined. There's a big debate about rent versus own, but the idea is, you know, you have every, it depends. There's no easy just follow this. No, it depends. You have to look deep and weigh your own circumstances out. That's really important. Those are some really big ones. I would get that your parents care about you. Unconditional love is maybe your parents. I don't mean that your parents don't care about you. I just said the world cares about you and like your parents, you know, meet someone that does like that. Unconditional love is reserved for parents, the children. No one will love you unconditionally. And anyone who's been dumped, they learn that real fast. And it's really, really painful, but that sucks. God's can be emotional. Now you got me in a role thinking about things that I kind of leaned on, but yeah, that was another big one. You know, God's can't show emotion and affection. I think that's a really bad one. It probably does more damage. Because you know, I don't just lean on the criticism of one side. I try to criticize both in a pursuit of what's true, what's going to help me best navigate the world. How's that? All reading is not, you know, reading is not always better than television. You can read a lot of garbage and some TV can teach you. Now do I think the engagement for reading forces your brain to work in a different way? Sure. But yeah, college is necessary for success. There's a huge one right there. Now you got me in a role. I mean I probably could just keep finding. Because what I really try to do is break down what is true, or what I think I know, and then expose myself to different viewpoints and to make a decision. A really good example in my personal life that just happened is my mom is buying a house and I told her, don't buy a house. She had a lump sum payment from an injury. I said, don't get a house in a rent, you know, whatever. And I realized that I was reflecting my bias in this whole rental versus buyer thing. So I just, I calmed down, I looked, and I was like, wow, this is actually a really smart place way to do it. In these conditions, yeah. I learned something because you taught. And it's just how it is, man, right? It's like cyberbullying. Sure, it's nonsense, but at the same time, if all you grew up in, it's not like we grew up, you know, these kids are born into the Internet. So it makes sense. Look, and on top of that, look, if their hardest conflict is somebody saying mean things, we can look at the negative of that, or we can go, well, no one's getting their ass kicked anymore. So there's that too. So this is how it goes. So with TODR, man, there's a lot of things, but your job is to always expose yourself and try to get your mind as close to the truth, or at least to the nuanced truth as possible. Heavy hitting on those topics, I'll tell you that. And we could do a whole series on all those topics easily, easily. Excellent. Triggers for success, you have to create because the triggers for negativity just happen and they're plentiful and they're out there waiting for everybody. Absolutely. It's called discipline basically. Yeah. Fantastic. Ed Latimore, on the 21 Report. Thank you, Ed. Thank you. What was your experience so far with the 21 Convention? Oh, I was dead. I was dead. Professional, all across the board. Really good energy with a lot of people, and I just like it because it's a very positive direction. This, George, this has been a first-class event. It's fantastic. You guys are in a really tight ship. I've been to a lot of conventions over the course of my business career, and I can tell when things are well-run and when things aren't, and this is a very well-run operation. I was very impressed. It's pretty incredible to see where Anthony's brought it, especially from last year, which was my first year here, and to see the upgrades he's made has been incredible. I've got my notebook, and with every speaker, I've written down about two or three lines under each of the speakers of just the key prime stuff that I got. That's good. That's good. It's very surreal, man. I'm really enjoying it. I'm happy to live in such an era where such a thing like this is possible. I have never seen a group of guys like this. A group of 200 men were focused, squared away, working on their values. Just never met a bigger group of wonderful guys. It's kind of neat because I've been to a fair amount of conventions in my day, but you never see one where the guy's like, here you can just see Ed Latimore talking to Tanner about boxing. You just sit down and then you tell your boxing experiences. Everybody's kind of pinging off each other. It has been fantastic, and it's been four days of guys all on the same page, working in the same direction. Fascinating meeting some of the people, hearing their stories. You've got people traveling from other parts of the world to come here just to see some of the speakers. That's amazing. The thing that's impressed me is that everybody here is very serious. They're taking it close to their heart. What a great convention. Thanks, George.