Responsibility for everything.

Continue to live from a loving place.

What do you do if you're dead broke, badly injured and living on a couch?

With no plan for your future from being abused as a child having a learning disability to being broke on his sister's couch?

For almost two years, Louis House has become an inspiration to millions.

This high performance business coach and keynote speaker is also a New York Times bestselling author with one of the top 100 podcasts in the world.

Louis hosts the School of Greatness, which now has over 100 and 15 million downloads. 00:00:55.760 --> 00:01:3.650 Sit down with Dan Lock as he interviews Louis House on how you can achieve success and significance regardless of your age, background or skills. 00:01:6.240 --> 00:01:10.490 Welcomed on I episode off the Damn lock show Today I'm super excited.

I have a friend of mine, your time best selling author.

You probably already know him.

Maybe listen to his podcast if you're an entrepreneur, right?

Former Port Huntley turned lifestyle entrepreneur, super proud.

And his most famous no voice show podcast.

I'm a fan of school off greatness over $100 million So welcome to show.

But look it, lock it down, We lock it down.

So share with us a little bit about your journey.

Maybe give us a like a thief.

Five minutes.

How you got into entrepreneurship.

I wanted to be a professional athlete.

Since I was five or six years old.

I always dreamed about sports.

That was a thing that my dad admired. 00:01:55.480 --> 00:02:0.810 We'd watch TV together, college football, and he was always so excited about these all American athletes from the outside. 00:02:0.810 --> 00:02:1.460 You want to be that? 00:02:1.470 --> 00:02:4.090 Yeah, I was like, Yeah, I want to be all American athletes. 00:02:4.090 --> 00:02:8.900 So my goal was to be an All American athlete and then to be a pro athlete and I accomplished both those things. 00:02:8.900 --> 00:02:11.050 I didn't have a backup plan after that.

My life went until pro sports, and that's as far as I could drink.

So when the dream was over, I got injured point football.

And when the dream was over, I also went through a very challenging experience with my dad.

My dad, right before I went to play pro football, had a traumatic brain injury.

And it's something that I actually don't talk about A lot get a traumatic brain injury.

And he always told me, You know, go chase your dream.

When you're done, you can come sell insurance with me.

He had a life insurance company, and I remember I got it was with Northwestern Mutual.

So he had his own like division in the city and take over the business.

He was like, Come take over my book, you know, work with my client everything.

So I remember going to do the internship. 00:02:56.050 --> 00:03:0.610 I did my I can't remember the test waas, but wasn't serious, seven. 00:03:0.610 --> 00:03:8.950 But it was like the life insurance test, and you can only take it three times before you have to wait like a year or two years to do it again. 00:03:8.950 --> 00:03:15.110 And I failed twice, Okay, so if for me test taking was the worst thing, I would get nervous.

It's hard for me to remember things from a book that was like, I don't know.

I learned with my hands.

I learned from playing sports.

So I remember I passed on the third tribe barely barely passed.

So I had this, like, backup plan.

I guess it wasn't something I wanted to do.

Yeah, so my dad gets injured.

He had a car accident, was in a coma for three months, and we didn't know if he was gonna live or die.

So is this very uncertain time?

And when he was in the coma, I said, you know, what would he want?

Todo He'd want me to go with my dreams.

And so I went after playing professional football right after that, and he eventually woke up, but we had to teach him how to write out a talk out of, you know, you know, change him constantly. 00:03:58.690 --> 00:04:1.910 Like he wasn't a functioning person that he used to be. 00:04:1.910 --> 00:04:2.980 It wasn't my dad anymore. 00:04:4.140 --> 00:04:9.910 So it was an emotionally challenging experience because I lost the relationship with my father. 00:04:9.920 --> 00:04:12.400 But he's still in front of me either.

Teach him how he was like a kid.

Almost and So watch my father be this, you know, provider larger than life hero of mine.

Now I have to We have to take care of him.

It was a challenging experience for me as a 23 year old, and I remember so his He had to sell his business to his business partner at the time.

So there was no Maur financial support that I had because he was kind of funding my athletic endeavors, training everything.

He was like, You go chase your dream like I'll take care of.

So when that was when that realization came to me like I no longer have my dad to fall back on, I no longer have.

I played football and got injured.

He wasn't there from he wasn't able to be there for me. 00:04:57.020 --> 00:05:0.670 Financially, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, as a mentor. 00:05:0.670 --> 00:05:1.930 He wasn't gonna be there for me. 00:05:2.640 --> 00:05:4.850 And I didn't have his company to fall back on. 00:05:5.070 --> 00:05:6.130 Nor did I really want to. 00:05:6.140 --> 00:05:8.010 I mean, I almost failed it three times in a row. 00:05:8.010 --> 00:05:9.010 I didn't really like it. 00:05:9.020 --> 00:05:11.410 Yes, I like people, but I don't want to sell insurance.

Just what he knew for 33 years and That was probably the biggest thing that happened to me, because if he was still healthy and alive, might be just probably was the selling life insurance in Delaware, Ohio, you know, and be rising up in that city or whatever.

You know, maybe I'll move to the big city of Columbus, Ohio, you know, but I so is Muchas.

It's sad for me takes to know that he's still alive, but it's like a complete different relationship, and it's sad for me to know that happened.

But I also think it had to happen for me to be become the man that I am today and to have the the courage to be able to go after something that I didn't even know was possible. 00:05:52.230 --> 00:06:0.440 So when that happened, I was on my sister's couch after this accident for about a year and 1/2 trying to figure out who I am in the world. 00:06:0.640 --> 00:06:3.320 You know, who am I without this identity as an athlete? 00:06:3.430 --> 00:06:5.860 You know, everyone liked me because I was good at something. 00:06:6.330 --> 00:06:7.700 But now 2.0, yeah. 00:06:7.710 --> 00:06:9.940 But now that I can't do this, what are my skills? 00:06:9.940 --> 00:06:12.350 One of my talents I'd like direction.

I had seven years of college.

It took me a graduate like I wasn't skilled at anything but sports and people.

I learned howto at an early age, observe people, and I became very intuitive about how people think why they do the things they do.

And I started to be aware, insensitive and very emotional to people's feelings, their desires, their dreams, their past, their everything.

I didn't know that was skill that I could use for my greater good and the greater good of everything.

Uh, and I started to find mentors, and this is going on more than three minutes, but I started to find mentors during that time because my dad was my mentor.

Now he was no longer able to be there looking for a moment.

I was like, Who's the father? 00:06:59.430 --> 00:07:1.670 Figure that I can finally look up to you respect? 00:07:2.340 --> 00:07:6.920 And I needed to find many of them because he was, you know, a great mentor in all areas of my life. 00:07:6.920 --> 00:07:13.950 So I had three key mentors that so the first mentor was a guy named Chris Hawker.

So when I got it, when I had surgery, I broke my wrist and they had put a bone from my hip and my records.

You see this car?

This car here took a bone out of my head, put it on my wrist.

I was in a cast from my shoulder to my fingers for six months like this was in this position.

And when you're to cast like this, I could move it here.

I can move it here, it here, but castrate my arm.

So it kind of arrested.

And it would like to scratch my shirts.

When I was shirtless, it would like to scratch my skin.

It smelled.

It was dirty.

All these things didn't look good.

So I invented this cast cover.

Actually.

Still have one hope.

I think it's in that locker.

It's sort of that this is over.

15 years ago, I think I invented this cast cover that actually went in ali baba dot com. 00:07:58.460 --> 00:08:0.300 I had, like, 60 bucks to my name. 00:08:0.360 --> 00:08:8.720 I was like, Here's what I want to hear is the design I wanted to be like a wristband because I wore responds in football was like, I need a long wrist band. 00:08:8.730 --> 00:08:10.540 Yes, that's double thickness.

Yes, that's different colors that it's a thumb hole.

Always.

You were just thinking doing it for yourself.

I just wanted a solution.

You're creating a product.

I need a solution for my pain.

Yeah, that's it.

That was It was my first entrepreneurial idea, but I didn't know what what it wa ce.

So I got this thing back from China.

That was like, six weeks later, after I sent it, wired this money, I was like, I'm never to get this money back.

Yes, and no clue is going on with you.

Was was a difficult communicating with you.

Emails back and forth don't understand.

Try to understand with including you.

But I want an Ali Baba and, you know, posted something is Yeah, and I got this box back with all these thes cast covers.

Right that I made and remember seeing myself.

Wow.

This thing is amazing.

It's I could change him out with different colors, You know, it fits over the thumb hole.

Looks better. 00:08:59.990 --> 00:09:2.540 How do I make I can make some money with this one, though? 00:09:2.540 --> 00:09:3.540 Who Alice needs did. 00:09:4.460 --> 00:09:5.510 There's lots of guys would break. 00:09:5.510 --> 00:09:8.400 The lady's got a few of them more than you know. 00:09:8.480 --> 00:09:11.170 So I remember I was dating a girl at the time.

I was just like, I need to meet an inventor.

Someone who has done this before that can help me.

This is an invention, right?

Even though it's just a piece of cloth.

Yes.

And she goes, I know an inventor and he just moved back to Columbus.

Ohio's where I was living at the time.

He just moved back.

I need to be this guy now, like, put me in front of him.

Call him.

I need to meet now, OK, I mean, the guy the next day, and at the time I was a couple months out of football.

It was a football player.

I was looked like pretty much like a thug.

I was wearing a backwards cap.

I had baggy pants.

I had, like, I was just this athlete jock mentality s.

So I show up with these baggy pants and backwards cap toe a bar to meet this guy in this cast, and I was just, like, so passionate about this idea. 00:09:57.960 --> 00:10:2.940 What is scared of you, like I gotta go imagining a little intimidating rough around the edges. 00:10:4.350 --> 00:10:10.720 And he I was just like convinced this guy knew the answer because he'd done it before.

It may be.

May be afraid to say no.

Thio was complete opposite of me.

You know, he was more like, analytical and nerve, you know, any sense he was just like.

But I brought this passion in this energy that was just like, I didn't make this happen.

And I want to work with you on to make this happen.

I don't know why, but he brought me on for six months.

I worked in the for free for him for six months at his invention shop in the kitchen.

He had a closet that I had, like, a little desk that he put in for me.

And I was working for him doing phone calls, trying to promote his other products, going to trade shows with him, just learning about how to take an idea and bring into reality.

So how do you make the idea something that is marketable?

How do you brand it?

How do you design it?

Three D model.

Everything.

Patton Patton s.

So I learned this crash course on bringing an idea until life from idea concept prototype to the marketplace, and I was probably some of the best education I ever had because I just had an idea for this solution of a pain that I had.

So he was a great mentor at the time for me.

Taught me everything about, you know, naming.

He had ever 85 products, brought the market.

So he was always like, Let's brainstorm the name of this, the concepts, the message, the message before you in the inventory thing.

Yeah.

So he taught me so much in short amount of time about how to bring the idea of life and make it successful.

I remember being so afraid to speak in front of people at the time.

I couldn't speak in front of an audience of five without trembling, stuttering, very insecure.

Even though you're pro athlete like you, that's a present.

Yeah, yeah, but I was horrible in school communication form on school, the teacher would always ask us, say, open up chapter whatever Page three, and read aloud to the class. 00:11:58.240 --> 00:12:0.550 And I would just wish they wouldn't call my name. 00:12:1.180 --> 00:12:3.310 They always like, Like like like don't call me. 00:12:3.510 --> 00:12:7.640 But when I tell you that I was such a slow reader. 00:12:7.650 --> 00:12:11.500 It was just I couldn't even read the simplest things, and I stutter.

So I just always felt like everyone was laughing at E.

Always probably was laughing at me all the time when I would read aloud.

Yes, Dad.

Kind of conditions.

You don't you want tea?

You want to be in front of an audience.

Unless I'm playing a sport, something.

I'm comfortable.

You don't have to speak.

That's the way it is.

A healthy seek.

Yeah, because I could inspire people through my way of being in my performance.

So I was always very insecure around speaking in front of other people, and I can't remember.

Someone told me at some point, if you really want to change the world, you need to learn how to communicate in front of an audience, whether it's a boardroom of people trying to share, you know you're messing with the company one of one, or if you want to move a society, you need to be communicate.

Yeah, with confidence.

Yes, and I don't know, whatever. 00:12:56.770 --> 00:13:2.720 It was the reason I think I was willing to explore all the areas of my life that I was not good at the time. 00:13:2.720 --> 00:13:4.460 Yeah, because my dad wasn't around. 00:13:4.460 --> 00:13:5.290 I had money. 00:13:5.290 --> 00:13:6.850 I was Sounds to me always. 00:13:6.850 --> 00:13:9.260 You trying to find yourself trying to I was like, What? 00:13:9.260 --> 00:13:11.480 Can I d'oh to improve my life?

Joined Toastmasters.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

You'll be shocked, like everything you share.

Well, okay.

My dad went banker when I was 17 years old, so I had to figure it out.

Exactly.

Like that wall?

Yeah.