Speaker 1: Every day, I try to do a couple of things
Speaker 1: that are extremely painful for me, either emotionally, mentally or physically.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the one you feed throughout time. Great thinkers
Speaker 1: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes
Speaker 1: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
Speaker 1: think ring true, and yet for many of us, our
Speaker 1: thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction, how they feed their good Wolfe thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us. Our guest today is Lewis House, a
Speaker 1: former professional football player to sport, All American world record
Speaker 1: holding athlete and current USA men's national team athlete for
Speaker 1: the Olympic sport team Handball. Lewis has grace lists such
Speaker 1: as Details Magazines, Five Internet Gurus who Can Make You Rich,
Speaker 1: and is also the host of the hugely popular podcast
Speaker 1: called The School of Greatness. We got to visit Louis
Speaker 1: in his Los Angeles apartment shortly before he left to
Speaker 1: play for the United States handball team in Brazil. Hey, Louis,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show. Thanks so much, man, how are you.
Speaker 1: I'm great. I don't get to the pleasure of sitting
Speaker 1: right across from somebody that often, so this is pretty
Speaker 1: cool and sitting here in your your Hollywood studio looking
Speaker 1: out over the beautiful view. Thanks, thanks, thanks for coming out,
Speaker 1: not just for me, but yeah. So, our our show
Speaker 1: is called The One You Feed, and it's based on
Speaker 1: the parable of two wolves, where there's a grandfather's talking
Speaker 1: with his grandson and he says, in life, there are
Speaker 1: two wolves inside of us. One is a good wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like kindness and love and joy, and
Speaker 1: the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like
Speaker 1: hatred and greed and fear. And the randsun stops and
Speaker 1: he thinks. He says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And
Speaker 1: the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like
Speaker 1: to start off by asking you what that parable means
Speaker 1: to you in your life and in the work that
Speaker 1: you do. I feed my good wolf, uh in a
Speaker 1: number of different ways. One, it's my environment. And I've
Speaker 1: had a number of different environments I've lived in my
Speaker 1: entire life, from you know, sleeping on couches for many
Speaker 1: many months and years to now living in a nice place. Um.
Speaker 1: But the environment to me is extremely important. Sometimes it
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily matter where the environment is, but who's in
Speaker 1: that environment with me and that type of energy. So
Speaker 1: I really like to even when I'm sleeping on couches
Speaker 1: or not sure where I'm gonna live or whatever it
Speaker 1: may be, as long as I'm surrounding myself with the
Speaker 1: right ideas and the right people, I feel like my
Speaker 1: environment is okay. But also the physical environment uh, in
Speaker 1: my opinion, is a big benefit to the good wolf,
Speaker 1: I guess, and making sure that he is fed well.
Speaker 1: So I've tried to each year I forgot ways to
Speaker 1: improve my environments with the people, thoughts, and physical surroundings
Speaker 1: that I'm in, so that I can be on the
Speaker 1: track of cheating what I want excellent. One of the
Speaker 1: things I heard you say recently was that in the
Speaker 1: past he used to come from a place of and
Speaker 1: this really gets I think to intention used to come
Speaker 1: from a place of anger or trying to prove people wrong.
Speaker 1: Or you have heard you tell stories about you know,
Speaker 1: being a little kid and not picked to be on
Speaker 1: the on the particular dodgeball team or this thing, and
Speaker 1: how that sort of drove you to a higher level,
Speaker 1: and yet that you found later as you went on
Speaker 1: that you might achieve certain things, and yet there'd be
Speaker 1: a sense of emptiness. And I'm curious about how you
Speaker 1: have sort of come to a different place and what
Speaker 1: what informs your intentions these days. Yeah, so I think
Speaker 1: I think as a kid growing up, I wanted to
Speaker 1: feed the good wolf all the time, but the bad
Speaker 1: wolf will come out. And this coming from this place
Speaker 1: of anger or resentment or needing to prove someone wrong
Speaker 1: or that was right and they were wrong. Uh, that
Speaker 1: would definitely come out a lot, and it drove me
Speaker 1: to achieving certain things, but it always left me feeling
Speaker 1: unfulfilled and left me feeling unsatisfied or empty. And so
Speaker 1: I started to recognize when I became aware of what
Speaker 1: was happening over just my childhood and growing up, I
Speaker 1: realized that that when I would feed the bad wolf
Speaker 1: um and think that way, it would never leave me
Speaker 1: feeling good. So I started to shift out of it
Speaker 1: and recognize And there was an experience about a year
Speaker 1: ago where I started talking about uh getting raped as
Speaker 1: a child wild and how that affected the bad wolf
Speaker 1: and affected me being really resented, resistant towards people, really
Speaker 1: stand offish, guarded, protecting myself defensive, and I think that's
Speaker 1: what it's held me back in a lot of ways
Speaker 1: emotionally and feeling connected to myself and other people. Uh So,
Speaker 1: once I started to become aware of what I was
Speaker 1: doing and why I was doing it based on these
Speaker 1: occurrences when I was a kid, I started to have
Speaker 1: this freedom and it was like I didn't need to
Speaker 1: feed the bad wolf anymore. I could just be happy
Speaker 1: with the good wolf and be like satisfied and and
Speaker 1: feed him to drive me wherever I want to go.
Speaker 1: And since then, in the last year, it's been the
Speaker 1: most incredible experiences of just feeling free, feeling like there's
Speaker 1: no such thing as a mistake or something that's bad
Speaker 1: or wrong. It's all a lesson. And so I really
Speaker 1: shifted my mindset towards anything that seems like it's going
Speaker 1: wrong is more of an amazing experience, an opportunity for
Speaker 1: growth for how I can you know, move forward. As
Speaker 1: we were right before we came in and we were
Speaker 1: sitting here, you we talked it briefly about a book
Speaker 1: you've got sitting here, and you were talking about the
Speaker 1: um growth mindset versus the fixed, fixed mindset that ties
Speaker 1: in a little bit. I think what you're saying, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think again coming from a place of the
Speaker 1: perspective like okay, um, you know, I've got to move
Speaker 1: out of my place for six months. Like I could
Speaker 1: be upset, or I could be frustrated, or I could
Speaker 1: be you know, confused and mad, or I can look
Speaker 1: at it as an opportunity. Look at all the cool places.
Speaker 1: Maybe I can go live in the Hollywood Hills. Maybe
Speaker 1: I can go travel Europe, Maybe I can go do this.
Speaker 1: So looking at an opportunity to uncover new things, to
Speaker 1: connect with people in different places, to experience a new
Speaker 1: journey and see new possibilities supposed to being upset that
Speaker 1: I get to move out or that I have to
Speaker 1: and becoming coming from place of a victim where the
Speaker 1: fixed mindset is. I've also read something that you talked
Speaker 1: about feedback and talk about inner and outer feedback and
Speaker 1: how important that is in leading to better life. What
Speaker 1: what do you mean by that? So I again, I
Speaker 1: used to be fed by the bad wolf, and uh,
Speaker 1: I used to take feedback extremely personally. I used to
Speaker 1: be so insecure about feedback as opposed to welcoming it constantly,
Speaker 1: and it's shifted a lot in the last few years
Speaker 1: where I welcome feedback. I think still sometimes my ego
Speaker 1: might flare out, but I might be like, try to
Speaker 1: get defensive, and if somebody gives me feedback, I might
Speaker 1: try to be like, well, this is the reason I
Speaker 1: was doing it, and be you know, justify myself. But
Speaker 1: really I look at it like, Okay, feedback is telling
Speaker 1: me what's working for me and what's not working for me,
Speaker 1: and what works for other people and what doesn't work
Speaker 1: for them. So for an example, UM, I'll just talk
Speaker 1: about content on my site. There might be an article
Speaker 1: that I put out there that some people it hits
Speaker 1: a trigger with them. And sometimes I'll get like a
Speaker 1: lot of emails from people saying, you know, I didn't
Speaker 1: like how you wrote about this, or I didn't like
Speaker 1: what you said about this. Uh, just to let you
Speaker 1: know your you know your your grammars off from your
Speaker 1: blog post or whatever. I get feedback all the time
Speaker 1: from people about whatever bothers them, and I can look
Speaker 1: at it as screw you, like I didn't ask for
Speaker 1: your feedback in the first place. This is my stuff,
Speaker 1: like I don't care what you think, um or I
Speaker 1: can welcome it and say thank you for the feedback,
Speaker 1: thank you for acknowledging what it is that was upsetting
Speaker 1: you or that you liked h so that I'm aware
Speaker 1: of what's working for you or what's not working for you,
Speaker 1: as opposed to what's right or wrong, good or bad.
Speaker 1: I look at it. It's what's working or what's not
Speaker 1: working for someone, And I look at that in every
Speaker 1: instance in my life now with relationships specifically, so if
Speaker 1: someone is reacting in a certain way with something I say,
Speaker 1: or with something I do or something I don't do,
Speaker 1: you know, specifically with women, right if they were done
Speaker 1: a certain way or whatever, they're upset or they're not upset.
Speaker 1: I get to look at it, is okay, am I
Speaker 1: communicating effectively so that what I'm trying to get across
Speaker 1: is working or am I not communicating effectively? And based
Speaker 1: on people's reactions, I get to see if I'm an
Speaker 1: effective communicator or not and if what I'm trying to
Speaker 1: land is landing. And uh, since I've removed my ego
Speaker 1: a lot, and I take it out of myself and
Speaker 1: just kind of put it here and just hold it
Speaker 1: in my hand. So when someone reacts or says something,
Speaker 1: or if I feel like they're responding to whatever I'm
Speaker 1: doing instead of them instead of me look thinking that
Speaker 1: like you're reacting to me personally, to to myself. Where
Speaker 1: my ego used to be inside of me. I now
Speaker 1: take my ego out of myself. I just kind of
Speaker 1: put it in my hand and I have them directing
Speaker 1: it towards this, and I say, okay, they're they're giving
Speaker 1: me feedback towards this, and it doesn't bother me anymore
Speaker 1: because I've removed it from my myself and I look
Speaker 1: at it differently, and I don't react really that much
Speaker 1: anymore to feedback. I look at us, Okay, it's not
Speaker 1: working for this, so how can I switch it around
Speaker 1: so that works for that person and it works for me.
Speaker 1: And I look at feedback and at the ways, you know,
Speaker 1: the inner feedback my feelings, but also the physical feedback
Speaker 1: so where's my body at right now? Every moment is
Speaker 1: it's am I tired and my exhausted and my gaining weight?
Speaker 1: Am I losing weight? How is that affecting my business?
Speaker 1: My relationships? I look at everything as feedback. Now, that's
Speaker 1: really interesting about the dealing with feedback, particularly in relationships,
Speaker 1: because my habitual pattern is to immediately start defending myself
Speaker 1: and not even realizing that they're trying to communicate a
Speaker 1: message to me, and I'm not hearing the message at all. Right,
Speaker 1: I'm hearing how does this affect me? How am I
Speaker 1: threatened by this? I didn't do anything wrong. And what
Speaker 1: you're saying is really really powerful thing to be more
Speaker 1: and a lot of what you just talked about it
Speaker 1: is I think mindfulness in general are paying attention to
Speaker 1: what's actually happening in the moment. And then you know,
Speaker 1: I'm only thirty one, and although I feel like I've
Speaker 1: had a lot of life experience and many different relationships,
Speaker 1: I'm still just scratching the service on being mindful. And
Speaker 1: every time i think I've got it figured out, that's
Speaker 1: when I'm like, Okay, I need to dive even deeper
Speaker 1: and humble myself and continue to dive deeper into gratitude
Speaker 1: for where I'm at and the lessons I get to
Speaker 1: continue to learn, and realize that I'm still just like
Speaker 1: figuring it all out and I don't have all the answers.
Speaker 1: So for me, it's more of like appreciating the journey
Speaker 1: and every step along the way. There's another phrase that
Speaker 1: I've heard you use somewhere, and it basically said, realize
Speaker 1: that failure does not equal you being a loser. And
Speaker 1: I think that ties to what you're saying here a lot,
Speaker 1: right that being able to what can I learn from
Speaker 1: that failure. But also, and you talked about things not
Speaker 1: being personal, the idea that a failure that happens is
Speaker 1: not an indictment of I think what you're saying of
Speaker 1: me as a person. It's an indictment of the methods
Speaker 1: I'm taking to go about achieving something. And I used
Speaker 1: to take, you know, everything, really personally. When I would
Speaker 1: fail quote unquote, um, I would feel like a loser instantly,
Speaker 1: And that was one of the things that drove me
Speaker 1: to being I wanted to be great at everything, so
Speaker 1: I would throw my entire being into mastering every skill
Speaker 1: that I wanted to learn, and that was like the
Speaker 1: bad wolf that was being fed to be successful, to
Speaker 1: learn things quickly, so that I wanted to fail at
Speaker 1: them and so that other people Wantn't you give me
Speaker 1: negative feedback or whatever. Now I don't take things personally
Speaker 1: as much anymore, And I think when I would take
Speaker 1: things personally, it was just like so unfulfilling. I just
Speaker 1: felt so lonely constantly. I just remember feeling so alone
Speaker 1: as a child and growing up very frustrated and wondering
Speaker 1: why I didn't feel accepted or why I didn't have friends,
Speaker 1: and um, yeah, I just like to go with that
Speaker 1: taking things personally and just didn't serve me anymore. How
Speaker 1: do you go from that? Because I think what you're
Speaker 1: describing is insecurity, is fear and and this idea that
Speaker 1: if I just do enough things, if I accomplish enough things,
Speaker 1: if I'm good enough, then I will feel good inside.
Speaker 1: And you, I think you have said, well, that didn't
Speaker 1: really work. How do you make that shift too? Because
Speaker 1: it's it's confidence, but it's also not confidence. It's it's
Speaker 1: a I don't know what the right word is, it's
Speaker 1: a Because I'm getting the sense that what you're saying
Speaker 1: is that take accomplishments aside. You don't have to accomplish
Speaker 1: all these things to feel okay about who you are?
Speaker 1: How do you? How have you gotten there? It's interesting
Speaker 1: because I don't think I would have known how to
Speaker 1: get there unless I had some support from other people,
Speaker 1: um and guiding me along the way. I think i'd
Speaker 1: you know, I'm thirty one, and I think I would
Speaker 1: have been still frustrated for another five ten years unless
Speaker 1: I had support from other people who are aware that
Speaker 1: I was frustrated and I was spending all. You know,
Speaker 1: I achieved everything ever wanted pretty much, and it was unhappy.
Speaker 1: So I was just like, why is there a disconnect
Speaker 1: of me wanted to do these things? Why do I
Speaker 1: want to do these things? I just started to become
Speaker 1: more aware of it and mindful, and really, for me,
Speaker 1: it was having the support of friends and family who
Speaker 1: were always stood by me and challenged me in a
Speaker 1: loving way and would ask me a lot of questions
Speaker 1: and ask me why you know I'm frustrated or why
Speaker 1: am I sad? And doing a lot of the growth
Speaker 1: work myself, like diving in and trying to understand myself.
Speaker 1: I would spend a lot of money and time, going
Speaker 1: to workshops, conferences, hiring coaches, and uh diving in for
Speaker 1: or to learn more about myself. That's how I figured
Speaker 1: it out. On your show, you ask all your guests
Speaker 1: what their definition of greatness is, so I'll turn it
Speaker 1: back on you. What is your definition of greatness? It's
Speaker 1: the I think it's evolving for me all the time.
Speaker 1: But my definition of greatness right now is always giving
Speaker 1: my best in every moment possible and coming from a
Speaker 1: place of service, in a place of unconditional love. And
Speaker 1: if I feel like if I do that every single
Speaker 1: day and I'm making a difference in someone's life, then
Speaker 1: that's greatness to me. What I like about that, I
Speaker 1: think is that anybody can do it at any place
Speaker 1: you are in your life, wherever you are, because I
Speaker 1: think that's one of the things that I've been thinking
Speaker 1: a lot about lately, is how poisonous comparison is dous,
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, Because we could be sitting here and
Speaker 1: looking at your window and you've got this beautiful place
Speaker 1: and be thinking, God, Lewis has got it all right.
Speaker 1: But you could turn your head to the left and
Speaker 1: look up on that hill. Right they've got something twice
Speaker 1: as much, and those people could turn and that chain
Speaker 1: goes up and down endlessly. And I've just spent a
Speaker 1: lot of time thinking about how how poisonous that is,
Speaker 1: because even if I'm if I'm looking up, I'm jealous,
Speaker 1: and if I'm looking down, I'm I don't know what
Speaker 1: I am, but I'm not. I'm not connected either way.
Speaker 1: I'm comparing. I'm not connecting with anybody. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think I've been really blessed and grateful to want
Speaker 1: to come from a small town in Ohio so you
Speaker 1: guys can relate to me on this and just uh,
Speaker 1: not really having like luxury as a kid, just growing
Speaker 1: up very humble and grateful, and then being humbled by
Speaker 1: having an injury after I was like, you know, the
Speaker 1: biggest ego in the world playing professional football and thought
Speaker 1: I had it all figured out and losing that all
Speaker 1: and then living on my sister's couch for about a
Speaker 1: year and a half, not having not being to afford anything,
Speaker 1: I didn't have any money, I didn't how to make money,
Speaker 1: and feeling helpless. I think that really humbled me to
Speaker 1: just be grateful for anything and grateful for the couch
Speaker 1: and grateful for the macaronic use that my sister gives
Speaker 1: me as scraps, right, and uh not be ungrateful. So
Speaker 1: I think it's again creating perspective in myself as which
Speaker 1: allowed me to not compare because I could be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm doing you know, I like where I'm at right now.
Speaker 1: But to someone like I'm Mark Cuban, they might laugh
Speaker 1: at what I'm making or creating. It's like, oh, I
Speaker 1: can do that, and it's not my fingers. So letting
Speaker 1: go of trying to like, you know, compare myself to
Speaker 1: the people and doesn't work for me, So I just
Speaker 1: let it go, right. I think that gets back to
Speaker 1: the theme we've sort of been talking about about being
Speaker 1: internally focused on how I feel inside because external focus,
Speaker 1: like like we just said, you can there's always a
Speaker 1: positive and negative external comparison always, and I know when
Speaker 1: I'm in that space, I am profoundly unhappy. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: not fun to compare. When I used to come to
Speaker 1: l A, I used to have a lot of that
Speaker 1: when I was younger. Yeah, I would come to l
Speaker 1: A and I would see there's so much money here, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's crazy, And and once I learned to
Speaker 1: sort of do less of that. I began to really
Speaker 1: appreciate l as it is a wonderful place. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you've interviewed a lot of really fabulous people. If you
Speaker 1: had to try, and this is not an easy question,
Speaker 1: but boil that down to what is the one characteristic
Speaker 1: that that seems to define those people? What do you
Speaker 1: think it would be? I would say overcoming adversity. It's
Speaker 1: probably the main thing that you know, some of the
Speaker 1: people have come to mind is Kyle Maynard born without
Speaker 1: arms and arms and legs and grew up in a
Speaker 1: society where everyone around him was able bodied, and he
Speaker 1: had to crawl everywhere. And he climbed Mount kilman Jaro
Speaker 1: on his elbows for twelve days to the top. And
Speaker 1: he fought in a UFC fight against someone with arms
Speaker 1: and legs and just got pummeled on his you know,
Speaker 1: on his back, and has done some incredible things. He
Speaker 1: does cross fit, He has no he lives with no excuse,
Speaker 1: uh mindset. Everything he figured out a way to do it.
Speaker 1: I think about just people with all the extreme adverse
Speaker 1: city that they've had a face that I've interviewed, and
Speaker 1: what it took from them to overcome those adversities to
Speaker 1: get to where they are. And I really think that's
Speaker 1: kind of been the key for a lot of people
Speaker 1: have interviewed and their success. What what powers that in people?
Speaker 1: Because that's a that's not a common skill, right, it
Speaker 1: is not something, but I think it's one that everybody
Speaker 1: would like to have. I mean, your show, my show,
Speaker 1: there's a lot there's a lot of people out there
Speaker 1: listening who feel they're in a place of adversity of
Speaker 1: some sort and may not feel that they have that
Speaker 1: that courage. So what are what are some things you
Speaker 1: you would throw out? There is ways to build that
Speaker 1: because I don't I don't think it's I don't think
Speaker 1: it's you're you're born with it. I hope not anyway, Right,
Speaker 1: I think it's a internal game that a lot of
Speaker 1: people play and they feed a couple, you know, they
Speaker 1: feed each of the wolves at different times, and you know,
Speaker 1: I want to be able to speak for them necessarily,
Speaker 1: but I can speak for myself that the bad wolf
Speaker 1: when I would feed it had a lot of dry
Speaker 1: I've had a lot of passion to get what I wanted,
Speaker 1: and it was like unstoppable feeling. It was like another being.
Speaker 1: When I would feed that wolf, um, but then it
Speaker 1: would leave me with an empty feeling. But the now,
Speaker 1: when I feed the good wolf, it's like I feel
Speaker 1: this drive and passion in a whole different way. It's
Speaker 1: unstoppable in like a loving way as opposed to uh,
Speaker 1: I don't know, a fearful way. And uh, I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people that I've interviewed have fed both
Speaker 1: of those wolves and they started to shift from the
Speaker 1: bad one to the good one. And then that just
Speaker 1: overtakes like this momentum for them. Once they start to
Speaker 1: do that shift and come from a better place of abundance,
Speaker 1: a place of love, a place of inspiration, this momentum
Speaker 1: takes over and everyone starts to see that, and it
Speaker 1: just starts to blow up for them. Yeah, momentum is
Speaker 1: such a such a big thing. It's funny. Like a
Speaker 1: good example of Chris My, you know, co host here,
Speaker 1: he's been He's been working out stays a week for
Speaker 1: quite a while now, when it used to be so
Speaker 1: hard to do it at all, right, but once you
Speaker 1: get going, it just rolls. He's outlifting cinder blocks by
Speaker 1: the board this morning, right, just to keep it going.
Speaker 1: Whereas when you're too dead stop? Is it hard to
Speaker 1: get moved? You've said elsewhere that the goal is not
Speaker 1: to make life easy, but to keep growing. We've talked
Speaker 1: a lot on the on the show about the idea
Speaker 1: of comfort, that that comfort is not the same thing
Speaker 1: as happiness, and I think you're saying the same thing there.
Speaker 1: Can you share a little bit more about how you
Speaker 1: put that to work. Yeah, it's interesting. Someone emailed me
Speaker 1: yesterday and asked me they're doing like a speech on
Speaker 1: entrepreneurs and she wanted to know the main attribute that
Speaker 1: piece of advice or attribute that I feel like I had. Um,
Speaker 1: that's helped me towards getting success. And what I what
Speaker 1: I talked about was falling in love with pain. And
Speaker 1: every day I try to do a couple of things
Speaker 1: that are extremely painful for me, either emotionally, mentally or physically.
Speaker 1: And I usually do this in the gym because that's
Speaker 1: the easiest place to do it. I try to push
Speaker 1: myself so to the edge of exhaustion or uh, muscle
Speaker 1: fatigue or where I'm about to throw up or something
Speaker 1: where I feel so uncomfortable. UM. I do this in relationships.
Speaker 1: I'm like, shoot, I really don't want to have this
Speaker 1: conversation with this person right now. I really do not
Speaker 1: want to talk about this, and then like, that's when
Speaker 1: I need to do it. Okay, it's it feels painful.
Speaker 1: My heart is pounding. I need to call this person.
Speaker 1: I've talked to this person right now and confront this
Speaker 1: conversation whatever it is. I really don't want to talk
Speaker 1: to my family member and tell him about getting raped
Speaker 1: as a kid. You know, I was feeling that when
Speaker 1: it was coming up for me. I was like, this
Speaker 1: is a painful thought, so let me do it. And
Speaker 1: what I've learned personally is the more pain I experience,
Speaker 1: my body, my mind, my emotions expand to take on
Speaker 1: so much more that doesn't affect me that I used
Speaker 1: to when I was a teenager or something. Um that
Speaker 1: little things. Uh Now I can just take on so
Speaker 1: many little or big things and absorb them or just
Speaker 1: let them bounce off me without a affecting me. Whereas
Speaker 1: I see other people any little thing, they react where
Speaker 1: they get frustrated. They're like, oh, the world is over,
Speaker 1: and I'm just like, that's because you haven't built up
Speaker 1: enough pain endurance. So I really try to get out
Speaker 1: of my comfort one as much as possible, and uh,
Speaker 1: experience as much pain as weird as that sounds, but
Speaker 1: the more pain I experience, the more I can endure
Speaker 1: and create in the world without anything affecting me. It's
Speaker 1: the mindset of your You're you're thinking if pain is
Speaker 1: a positive in that case, right, You're not. And another
Speaker 1: thing I've been thinking a lot about lately is resistance
Speaker 1: like that. You know, it's a it's a Buddhist concept,
Speaker 1: right that says it's not the thing that happens, it's
Speaker 1: how I react to it. But that is I've I've
Speaker 1: just been trying to play with that lately of noticing like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I am resisting whatever this thing is. And if I
Speaker 1: just don't resist it, if I sort of notice it
Speaker 1: or think about it, but don't fight, it's like so
Speaker 1: much of the pain just leaves that. That the the
Speaker 1: emotional pain that I'm stacking on top of it, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the pain, the emotional pain, and the guilt, whatever it
Speaker 1: may be. So you are playing handball at a at
Speaker 1: a pretty high level. Now, what else is in your
Speaker 1: You've got some other goals in the future, You've got
Speaker 1: a business is going well, You're playing handball. Is there
Speaker 1: anything else out there that you're working Yeah, I'm working
Speaker 1: on a book right now. You know, I've always been
Speaker 1: attracted to books. I think one because I could never
Speaker 1: read as a kid, and it was always a struggle
Speaker 1: for me to read and still is sometimes to day.
Speaker 1: But I always was inspired by the idea of books
Speaker 1: and that you could learn so much from just reading,
Speaker 1: you know, a hundred pages in a book, and you
Speaker 1: could really expand your mind from these idea is and
Speaker 1: you could get them in the hands of everyone who
Speaker 1: could read that language. And um, I've written a couple
Speaker 1: of books, but mostly through through Kindle and uh, I've
Speaker 1: never had a book like in the Airport or Barnes
Speaker 1: and Noble. So it's not you know what, it'd be
Speaker 1: cool to be able to get my message out there
Speaker 1: to more people and to inspire people to experience their
Speaker 1: own greatness. Whatever it looks like for them doesn't need
Speaker 1: to look in a certain way. So I'm working on
Speaker 1: a book right now that I'm very excited about. It's
Speaker 1: about greatness and achieving greatness in your own life and
Speaker 1: the goals that have that out in bookstores in the
Speaker 1: next you know, year, year and a half. Um, my
Speaker 1: dream has always been to be an Olympian, and I
Speaker 1: want to inspire people to follow their dreams, no matter
Speaker 1: how big or small they are, no matter what it
Speaker 1: looks like. Uh. And for me being a thirty one
Speaker 1: year old still trying to go to the Olympics, a
Speaker 1: lot of people think a little crazy because I'm too
Speaker 1: old and I'm starting a sport, you know, later in
Speaker 1: my life. And these guys are twenty three, twenty four,
Speaker 1: in the best shape of their life. They've been playing
Speaker 1: since their seven uh. And I just want to continue
Speaker 1: to show myself and other people that anything's possible. And
Speaker 1: even if I don't make the Olympics, I want to
Speaker 1: try as hard as I can. I'm gonna give my
Speaker 1: best and that's all I can do. One of the
Speaker 1: four agreements is to always give your best. I believe
Speaker 1: that's one of the four greements. And um, so I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna give my best and go for my dreams,
Speaker 1: because why am I alive if I'm not going to
Speaker 1: go for my dreams. Yeah. And I think we talked
Speaker 1: about rich role recently get right as we were coming
Speaker 1: on the show, and he talks a little bit about
Speaker 1: because I like what you said, They're about even if
Speaker 1: I don't make it, because you talked about becoming an
Speaker 1: All American and that was a big goal, and you
Speaker 1: you talk about sitting at the ceremony feeling empty. Right,
Speaker 1: So it's not about achieving the goal now, right. So
Speaker 1: it doesn't sound like the the Olympian is a is
Speaker 1: a place to shoot for, But it sounds like it's
Speaker 1: it's the process journey. What in that process do you love?
Speaker 1: Oh man? I started this journey in two thousand ten.
Speaker 1: I moved to New York City. I made enough. You know,
Speaker 1: Originally I wanted got my sister's couch. I want to
Speaker 1: just feel like I could be a grown ass man
Speaker 1: and pay for my own place. I was able to
Speaker 1: do that, and I got a four month apartment off
Speaker 1: First and High in the Short North, and I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I've got my you know, I can at least pay
Speaker 1: for my own rent and buy my own food in
Speaker 1: the Short North. And I loved that experience. And then
Speaker 1: I was like, but I really want to learn this sport.
Speaker 1: And there was no team in Ohio, so I was
Speaker 1: doing research and I knew that the best team was
Speaker 1: in New York. I said that's where I want to
Speaker 1: learn from the best. So I said, when I make
Speaker 1: enough money here, I'm gonna pack up and move to
Speaker 1: New York City and start playing this sport. A year
Speaker 1: and a half later, my business was just taking off.
Speaker 1: I was like going beyond what I ever thought I
Speaker 1: would make in my life. And I said, okay, now
Speaker 1: was the time to leave Columbus. Moved to New York
Speaker 1: City with a suitcase and uh found a sublet, went
Speaker 1: right to practice and showed up the first day the
Speaker 1: only American out of you know, people from all over
Speaker 1: the world who played the sport who lived there now,
Speaker 1: and said, Hey, my name is Lewis House. My goal
Speaker 1: is to make the OSA national team and go to
Speaker 1: the Olympics for team Anball. And everyone laughed at me
Speaker 1: and it was funny, yes you three days ago, four
Speaker 1: days ago. I was with the same team four years
Speaker 1: later at the national championships and one guy, one of
Speaker 1: the guys who was a good friend of mine, he
Speaker 1: goes up to me, he goes, I remember that first
Speaker 1: day you showed up to practice and you said, Hey,
Speaker 1: what if Lewis House and that would be you know,
Speaker 1: an Olympia And we all laughed at you, and now
Speaker 1: look where you're at. Now you're with us. We just
Speaker 1: won the national championships and you're on the USA national team.
Speaker 1: He's like, what a journey it's been on for you
Speaker 1: to watch you grow over the last four years and
Speaker 1: for me the ups and downs. I've had a number
Speaker 1: of injuries in the sports. I've had to not be
Speaker 1: able to play for a couple of months. I've learned
Speaker 1: a lot. It's been extremely frustrating for me because I
Speaker 1: like to be great at something right away, and it's
Speaker 1: taken time for me to develop my skills as this
Speaker 1: in this sport. So the journey of learning new things,
Speaker 1: connecting with a community of people are so passionate about something.
Speaker 1: I mean, this team is so passionate about each other,
Speaker 1: and they all came together because of one sport. So
Speaker 1: learning so much about cultures and language and just like
Speaker 1: their lives, it's been an incredible journey. You've been doing
Speaker 1: athletics for a long time. I think you've probably learned
Speaker 1: a lot through that, right You've learned a lot of
Speaker 1: the discipline and the things that let's let's pretend somebody
Speaker 1: is not going to be playing high school sports because
Speaker 1: they're forty or what are ways that people in their
Speaker 1: day to day life can build that discipline that you're
Speaker 1: you're talking about, because that it sounds like, you know,
Speaker 1: I watched my son, right, he plays lacrosse and he
Speaker 1: goes every day and he does it, and it there's
Speaker 1: a building of that that I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people really wrestle with. I think it starts with parents
Speaker 1: and like creating setting good habits for any of your kids,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, I'm not a parent, so I
Speaker 1: don't know, but my you know, the school system also
Speaker 1: helps you because it's like, okay, every day is there's practice.
Speaker 1: If you're in an instrument, you're gonna practice every day
Speaker 1: in class. And I think if parents can really support
Speaker 1: their kids at least like being consistent with practice to
Speaker 1: mastering one specific thing, then once you learn how to
Speaker 1: master something, you can repeat it with anything. So it's
Speaker 1: just staying consistent. So if you're older, something small every day, right,
Speaker 1: keep even in the right direction. The biggest thing that
Speaker 1: I've seen from a lot of people that I've interviewed
Speaker 1: are just people in the online marketing world who are successful.
Speaker 1: The ones who are successful, they're not the smartest they
Speaker 1: are so consistent, and I'm just like, man, if they're
Speaker 1: smart as well, that's great because then they can accelerate
Speaker 1: that growth. But I look at my you know, myself,
Speaker 1: I would not say that I'm the smartest by any
Speaker 1: means for a lot of people that I hang out with.
Speaker 1: In fact, I like to hang with people who are
Speaker 1: so intelligent that I just feel dumb, right, And but
Speaker 1: a lot of them I'm doing better than and it's
Speaker 1: because I'm just consistent. You know, a podcast every week.
Speaker 1: I was doing a blog post every week. I was
Speaker 1: creating a new product every couple of months. I was
Speaker 1: just being consistent, doing a webinar every sing all week
Speaker 1: promoting a product. I wasn't trying to do new things.
Speaker 1: I wasn't trying to act like I knew something I
Speaker 1: didn't know. I was just consistent with what I knew.
Speaker 1: And uh what other people were like way smarter than me.
Speaker 1: They weren't consistent. And some of my you know, good
Speaker 1: friends that I was like, these guys are killing it
Speaker 1: in the online business world. When I first met them,
Speaker 1: I was like, man, these guys are just doing everything right.
Speaker 1: Within a year and a half, I just saw myself
Speaker 1: accelerating past them. And I was like, I don't really
Speaker 1: know much, but I'm being really consistent with what I
Speaker 1: do know right, what you do. And I think there's
Speaker 1: there's a lot to be said for what we focus on,
Speaker 1: think about create because it's there's so much, I mean,
Speaker 1: there's so there's always another blog to read, there's always
Speaker 1: another book to read, there's always another program to try.
Speaker 1: There's there's so many of that things, and and that
Speaker 1: not flitting from one to the other, so much about
Speaker 1: picking something. And that's why that's what I like about
Speaker 1: talked about the idea of a book. I mean, the
Speaker 1: book is a really cool thing. I grew up with books,
Speaker 1: and but there's also something about two pages of an
Speaker 1: idea versus you know, ten paragraphs of ten different ideas
Speaker 1: that you get, you know, from the internet world, of course. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well I think that's all I've got. Louis, thanks very
Speaker 1: much for having us over to your place. It's really
Speaker 1: been enjoyable to be here. And thanks for your help
Speaker 1: in uh sort of reaching out to us early as
Speaker 1: we were a new podcast and introducing yourself. And it's
Speaker 1: been a pleasure to get to know you. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: appreciate it. Thanks so much for having me on, all right. Thanks.
Speaker 1: You can learn more about Louis House and this podcast
Speaker 1: in our show notes at one you feed dot net
Speaker 1: slash Lewis