This one was a lot of fun. A few months back, our Editor in Chief, Jon Finkel, told me about his friend Ed Latimore, and I’m glad he did.
Ed’s a former professional heavyweight boxer, U.S. Army National Guard veteran, competitive chess player, and writer whose work blends intellect and grit. He grew up in Pittsburgh’s public housing projects, fought his way through addiction, earned a degree in physics from Duquesne University, and rebuilt himself through discipline, reflection and truth.
He also mentioned he’s fluent in Spanish and just got back in the ring at 40-years-old and won his latest heavyweight bout, bringing his professional boxing record to 14-1-1 .
Ed’s stoic, humble, and as real as they come. What I love about conversations like this is getting to learn from men who’ve lived completely different lives, yet still end up on a similar path. How the places we come from, the hits we’ve taken, and the choices we’ve made shape who we are and who we become.
His new book, Hard Lessons from the Hurt Business: Boxing and the Art of Life, hits hard. It’s raw, honest, and full of lessons on how life’s toughest blows—poverty, trauma, failure—can forge purpose.
In our conversation, we got into all of it: how Ed learned to take pain without breaking, how he turned physical discipline into mental and emotional strength, and what it really means to fight for yourself in midlife and beyond.
Ed drops truth in every answer. I walked away inspired, impressed, and sharper for it and I know you will too.
On Curiosity:
“You have to be curious about life. Curiosity makes everything better. Once you make peace with the fact that you do not have enough time to do everything, you start to ask, what do I have time left to do? Then you just do it.”
On Being a Beginner:
“A lot of guys in middle age struggle with being a beginner again. We get set in our ways, but you have to be willing to start from the bottom and work your way up. There is no point in doing something where you are weak and have no interest, but where you are weak and want to be better, that is a great place to bring your energies together.”
On Physical Activity:
“You have to prioritize your physical connection with the world. If you can be active, you can stave off a lot. Being physically active is a non-negotiable at this point in my life, and really, it always has been.”
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On Learning from Others:
“I always keep myself open and realize that I have things to learn from other people. I continually approach the world like a scientist in the purest sense of the word. I take in data, test it, see where it lies, and then see what I can do with it.”
On Environment and Growth:
“My childhood is really a case of going one path, and I do not think I would ever let my environment change me. But it was either going to change me or I was going to be a true, isolated person with stunted and weak social skills. Changing schools opened up so much for me and showed me a different side of life.”
On Taking Action:
“Back then, I thought, ‘If I died today, what would we say? He played a little college football and drank?’ I never wanted to be at a loss for words if somebody asked me what I had done with my life over the past four years. So I looked for something to do, and I did it.”
On Building Identity:
“Boxing did a lot of things for me. One of the big things it did is that it continued this trend of making connections with people in different areas of life. You develop an identity, and you have something in common with other people who do this.”
On Sobriety:
“My sobriety date is December 22, 2013. I got really busy, and I wanted to stop drinking. The busier I got, the easier it became to work alcohol out, because the other things became more prominent and enjoyable.”
On Habits:
“You have to look at your sobriety like a habit, because drinking was a habit. The longer you can do it without being tempted, the stronger that habit will become. Proclaim you are not going to drink, and do not go out for a week; the habit gets stronger.”
On Responsibility:
“I have to make sure I know what I am doing, test for me, and figure out what works for me and live on my terms. If you get the courage to do that, it is really hard to be unhappy. You are not always going to make the right move, but you have to take responsibility for your actions.”
On Sharing Experience:
“If you share what you have gone through, and you are not a mess from it, and you have figured out how to be okay, you kind of have a responsibility as a human to share that. You can help in a lot of ways if you are honest about your experiences.”
On Avoiding Negativity:
“This is a great time to be alive. That does not mean the world is perfect, but compared to years and times prior, it is a vast improvement. I do not understand focusing on the negative and what you lack.”
On Attention and Focus:
“Attention is a finite resource. Every bit of attention you give to something you cannot do anything about is attention you are taking away from something you can do something about. You cannot do both.”
On Changing Habits:
“I never smoked a cigarette a day in my life, but I started chewing nicotine gum. Once I realized I was hooked, I had to introduce another habit in place of it. I quit cold turkey, and it was tough, but I did it.”
On Social Connection:
“Interacting with other people, our relationship to other people, that is the most important thing. If you can get busy with people, you are in a good spot. None of those pursuits were solitary.”
On Incremental Improvement:
“Try to use every day to be just a little bit better. Do something a little bit better, move a little bit better, connect with somebody. Really use this time because it will run out.”
On Control:
“I cannot change the world, but I can control what is happening in my house, my own health, the kind of day I want to have. If we all just did a little bit more of that, things would be a lot better.”
On Candor and Honesty:
“I never had the thought that I should air the bullshit. What I did think is that I should write. No one can ever call me into question for what I put out there, because it is true.”
On Embracing Mistakes:
“You are not always going to make the right move or the best move. But you have to learn from it and keep going. That is how you grow and get better.”
On Choice:
“We have all got a choice. You can use your time to enjoy the decline or to do something with it. The choice is obvious—get up, take action, and make the most of it.”
In Health,
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Greg Scheinman
Founder, Midlife Male
52. Husband. Father. Entrepreneur. Coach.
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