Lewis Howes

have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good Wolfe thanks

for joining us. Our guest today is Lewis House, a former professional football player to sport, All American world record holding athlete and current USA men's national team athlete for the Olympic sport team Handball. Lewis has grace lists such as Details Magazines, Five Internet Gurus who Can Make You Rich, and is also the host of the hugely popular podcast called The School of Greatness. We got to visit Louis in his Los Angeles apartment shortly before he left to

play for the United States handball team in Brazil. Hey, Louis, welcome to the show. Thanks so much, man, how are you. I'm great. I don't get to the pleasure of sitting right across from somebody that often, so this is pretty cool and sitting here in your your Hollywood studio looking out over the beautiful view. Thanks, thanks, thanks for coming out,

not just for me, but yeah. So, our our show is called The One You Feed, and it's based on the parable of two wolves, where there's a grandfather's talking with his grandson and he says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and love and joy, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like hatred and greed and fear. And the randsun stops and he thinks. He says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And

the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. I feed my good wolf, uh in a number of different ways. One, it's my environment. And I've had a number of different environments I've lived in my entire life, from you know, sleeping on couches for many many months and years to now living in a nice place. Um.

But the environment to me is extremely important. Sometimes it doesn't necessarily matter where the environment is, but who's in that environment with me and that type of energy. So I really like to even when I'm sleeping on couches or not sure where I'm gonna live or whatever it may be, as long as I'm surrounding myself with the right ideas and the right people, I feel like my

environment is okay. But also the physical environment uh, in my opinion, is a big benefit to the good wolf, I guess, and making sure that he is fed well. So I've tried to each year I forgot ways to improve my environments with the people, thoughts, and physical surroundings that I'm in, so that I can be on the

track of cheating what I want excellent. One of the things I heard you say recently was that in the past he used to come from a place of and this really gets I think to intention used to come from a place of anger or trying to prove people wrong.

Or you have heard you tell stories about you know, being a little kid and not picked to be on the on the particular dodgeball team or this thing, and how that sort of drove you to a higher level, and yet that you found later as you went on that you might achieve certain things, and yet there'd be a sense of emptiness. And I'm curious about how you have sort of come to a different place and what

what informs your intentions these days. Yeah, so I think I think as a kid growing up, I wanted to feed the good wolf all the time, but the bad wolf will come out. And this coming from this place of anger or resentment or needing to prove someone wrong or that was right and they were wrong. Uh, that would definitely come out a lot, and it drove me to achieving certain things, but it always left me feeling

unfulfilled and left me feeling unsatisfied or empty. And so I started to recognize when I became aware of what was happening over just my childhood and growing up, I realized that that when I would feed the bad wolf um and think that way, it would never leave me

feeling good. So I started to shift out of it and recognize And there was an experience about a year ago where I started talking about uh getting raped as a child wild and how that affected the bad wolf and affected me being really resented, resistant towards people, really stand offish, guarded, protecting myself defensive, and I think that's what it's held me back in a lot of ways

emotionally and feeling connected to myself and other people. Uh So, once I started to become aware of what I was doing and why I was doing it based on these occurrences when I was a kid, I started to have this freedom and it was like I didn't need to feed the bad wolf anymore. I could just be happy with the good wolf and be like satisfied and and feed him to drive me wherever I want to go.

And since then, in the last year, it's been the most incredible experiences of just feeling free, feeling like there's no such thing as a mistake or something that's bad or wrong. It's all a lesson. And so I really shifted my mindset towards anything that seems like it's going wrong is more of an amazing experience, an opportunity for

growth for how I can you know, move forward. As we were right before we came in and we were sitting here, you we talked it briefly about a book you've got sitting here, and you were talking about the um growth mindset versus the fixed, fixed mindset that ties in a little bit. I think what you're saying, yeah, yeah, And I think again coming from a place of the perspective like okay, um, you know, I've got to move

out of my place for six months. Like I could be upset, or I could be frustrated, or I could be you know, confused and mad, or I can look at it as an opportunity. Look at all the cool places. Maybe I can go live in the Hollywood Hills. Maybe I can go travel Europe, Maybe I can go do this.

So looking at an opportunity to uncover new things, to connect with people in different places, to experience a new journey and see new possibilities supposed to being upset that I get to move out or that I have to and becoming coming from place of a victim where the fixed mindset is. I've also read something that you talked about feedback and talk about inner and outer feedback and how important that is in leading to better life. What

what do you mean by that? So I again, I used to be fed by the bad wolf, and uh, I used to take feedback extremely personally. I used to be so insecure about feedback as opposed to welcoming it constantly, and it's shifted a lot in the last few years where I welcome feedback. I think still sometimes my ego might flare out, but I might be like, try to get defensive, and if somebody gives me feedback, I might try to be like, well, this is the reason I

was doing it, and be you know, justify myself. But really I look at it like, Okay, feedback is telling me what's working for me and what's not working for me, and what works for other people and what doesn't work for them. So for an example, UM, I'll just talk about content on my site. There might be an article that I put out there that some people it hits

a trigger with them. And sometimes I'll get like a lot of emails from people saying, you know, I didn't like how you wrote about this, or I didn't like what you said about this. Uh, just to let you know your you know your your grammars off from your blog post or whatever. I get feedback all the time from people about whatever bothers them, and I can look at it as screw you, like I didn't ask for

your feedback in the first place. This is my stuff, like I don't care what you think, um or I can welcome it and say thank you for the feedback, thank you for acknowledging what it is that was upsetting you or that you liked h so that I'm aware of what's working for you or what's not working for you, as opposed to what's right or wrong, good or bad.

I look at it. It's what's working or what's not working for someone, And I look at that in every instance in my life now with relationships specifically, so if someone is reacting in a certain way with something I say, or with something I do or something I don't do, you know, specifically with women, right if they were done a certain way or whatever, they're upset or they're not upset. I get to look at it, is okay, am I communicating effectively so that what I'm trying to get across

is working or am I not communicating effectively? And based on people's reactions, I get to see if I'm an effective communicator or not and if what I'm trying to land is landing. And uh, since I've removed my ego a lot, and I take it out of myself and just kind of put it here and just hold it in my hand. So when someone reacts or says something, or if I feel like they're responding to whatever I'm doing instead of them instead of me look thinking that

like you're reacting to me personally, to to myself. Where my ego used to be inside of me. I now take my ego out of myself. I just kind of put it in my hand and I have them directing it towards this, and I say, okay, they're they're giving me feedback towards this, and it doesn't bother me anymore because I've removed it from my myself and I look at it differently, and I don't react really that much

anymore to feedback. I look at us, Okay, it's not working for this, so how can I switch it around so that works for that person and it works for me. And I look at feedback and at the ways, you know, the inner feedback my feelings, but also the physical feedback so where's my body at right now? Every moment is it's am I tired and my exhausted and my gaining weight? Am I losing weight? How is that affecting my business?

My relationships? I look at everything as feedback. Now, that's really interesting about the dealing with feedback, particularly in relationships, because my habitual pattern is to immediately start defending myself and not even realizing that they're trying to communicate a message to me, and I'm not hearing the message at all. Right, I'm hearing how does this affect me? How am I

threatened by this? I didn't do anything wrong. And what you're saying is really really powerful thing to be more and a lot of what you just talked about it is I think mindfulness in general are paying attention to what's actually happening in the moment. And then you know, I'm only thirty one, and although I feel like I've had a lot of life experience and many different relationships,

I'm still just scratching the service on being mindful. And every time i think I've got it figured out, that's when I'm like, Okay, I need to dive even deeper and humble myself and continue to dive deeper into gratitude for where I'm at and the lessons I get to continue to learn, and realize that I'm still just like figuring it all out and I don't have all the answers. So for me, it's more of like appreciating the journey

and every step along the way. There's another phrase that I've heard you use somewhere, and it basically said, realize that failure does not equal you being a loser. And I think that ties to what you're saying here a lot, right that being able to what can I learn from that failure. But also, and you talked about things not being personal, the idea that a failure that happens is not an indictment of I think what you're saying of me as a person. It's an indictment of the methods

I'm taking to go about achieving something. And I used

to take, you know, everything, really personally. When I would fail quote unquote, um, I would feel like a loser instantly, And that was one of the things that drove me to being I wanted to be great at everything, so I would throw my entire being into mastering every skill that I wanted to learn, and that was like the bad wolf that was being fed to be successful, to learn things quickly, so that I wanted to fail at them and so that other people Wantn't you give me

negative feedback or whatever. Now I don't take things personally as much anymore, And I think when I would take things personally, it was just like so unfulfilling. I just felt so lonely constantly. I just remember feeling so alone as a child and growing up very frustrated and wondering why I didn't feel accepted or why I didn't have friends, and um, yeah, I just like to go with that taking things personally and just didn't serve me anymore. How

do you go from that? Because I think what you're describing is insecurity, is fear and and this idea that if I just do enough things, if I accomplish enough things, if I'm good enough, then I will feel good inside. And you, I think you have said, well, that didn't really work. How do you make that shift too? Because it's it's confidence, but it's also not confidence. It's it's a I don't know what the right word is, it's a Because I'm getting the sense that what you're saying

is that take accomplishments aside. You don't have to accomplish all these things to feel okay about who you are? How do you? How have you gotten there? It's interesting because I don't think I would have known how to get there unless I had some support from other people, um and guiding me along the way. I think i'd you know, I'm thirty one, and I think I would have been still frustrated for another five ten years unless I had support from other people who are aware that

I was frustrated and I was spending all. You know, I achieved everything ever wanted pretty much, and it was unhappy. So I was just like, why is there a disconnect of me wanted to do these things? Why do I want to do these things? I just started to become more aware of it and mindful, and really, for me, it was having the support of friends and family who were always stood by me and challenged me in a loving way and would ask me a lot of questions and ask me why you know I'm frustrated or why

am I sad? And doing a lot of the growth work myself, like diving in and trying to understand myself. I would spend a lot of money and time, going to workshops, conferences, hiring coaches, and uh diving in for or to learn more about myself. That's how I figured it out. On your show, you ask all your guests what their definition of greatness is, so I'll turn it back on you. What is your definition of greatness? It's the I think it's evolving for me all the time.

But my definition of greatness right now is always giving my best in every moment possible and coming from a place of service, in a place of unconditional love. And if I feel like if I do that every single day and I'm making a difference in someone's life, then

that's greatness to me. What I like about that, I think is that anybody can do it at any place you are in your life, wherever you are, because I think that's one of the things that I've been thinking a lot about lately, is how poisonous comparison is dous, Oh my gosh, Because we could be sitting here and looking at your window and you've got this beautiful place and be thinking, God, Lewis has got it all right. But you could turn your head to the left and

look up on that hill. Right they've got something twice as much, and those people could turn and that chain goes up and down endlessly. And I've just spent a lot of time thinking about how how poisonous that is, because even if I'm if I'm looking up, I'm jealous, and if I'm looking down, I'm I don't know what I am, but I'm not. I'm not connected either way.

I'm comparing. I'm not connecting with anybody. Yeah, I mean, I think I've been really blessed and grateful to want to come from a small town in Ohio so you guys can relate to me on this and just uh, not really having like luxury as a kid, just growing up very humble and grateful, and then being humbled by having an injury after I was like, you know, the biggest ego in the world playing professional football and thought I had it all figured out and losing that all

and then living on my sister's couch for about a year and a half, not having not being to afford anything, I didn't have any money, I didn't how to make money, and feeling helpless. I think that really humbled me to just be grateful for anything and grateful for the couch and grateful for the macaronic use that my sister gives

me as scraps, right, and uh not be ungrateful. So I think it's again creating perspective in myself as which allowed me to not compare because I could be like, yeah, I'm doing you know, I like where I'm at right now. But to someone like I'm Mark Cuban, they might laugh at what I'm making or creating. It's like, oh, I can do that, and it's not my fingers. So letting go of trying to like, you know, compare myself to the people and doesn't work for me, So I just

let it go, right. I think that gets back to the theme we've sort of been talking about about being internally focused on how I feel inside because external focus, like like we just said, you can there's always a positive and negative external comparison always, and I know when I'm in that space, I am profoundly unhappy. Yeah, it's not fun to compare. When I used to come to l A, I used to have a lot of that

when I was younger. Yeah, I would come to l A and I would see there's so much money here, right, I mean, it's crazy, And and once I learned to sort of do less of that. I began to really appreciate l as it is a wonderful place. Yeah. Yeah, you've interviewed a lot of really fabulous people. If you had to try, and this is not an easy question, but boil that down to what is the one characteristic that that seems to define those people? What do you

think it would be? I would say overcoming adversity. It's probably the main thing that you know, some of the people have come to mind is Kyle Maynard born without arms and arms and legs and grew up in a society where everyone around him was able bodied, and he had to crawl everywhere. And he climbed Mount kilman Jaro on his elbows for twelve days to the top. And he fought in a UFC fight against someone with arms and legs and just got pummeled on his you know,

on his back, and has done some incredible things. He does cross fit, He has no he lives with no excuse, uh mindset. Everything he figured out a way to do it. I think about just people with all the extreme adverse city that they've had a face that I've interviewed, and what it took from them to overcome those adversities to get to where they are. And I really think that's kind of been the key for a lot of people have interviewed and their success. What what powers that in people?

Because that's a that's not a common skill, right, it is not something, but I think it's one that everybody would like to have. I mean, your show, my show, there's a lot there's a lot of people out there listening who feel they're in a place of adversity of some sort and may not feel that they have that that courage. So what are what are some things you you would throw out? There is ways to build that because I don't I don't think it's I don't think

it's you're you're born with it. I hope not anyway, Right, I think it's a internal game that a lot of people play and they feed a couple, you know, they feed each of the wolves at different times, and you know, I want to be able to speak for them necessarily, but I can speak for myself that the bad wolf when I would feed it had a lot of dry I've had a lot of passion to get what I wanted, and it was like unstoppable feeling. It was like another being. When I would feed that wolf, um, but then it

would leave me with an empty feeling. But the now, when I feed the good wolf, it's like I feel this drive and passion in a whole different way. It's unstoppable in like a loving way as opposed to uh, I don't know, a fearful way. And uh, I think a lot of people that I've interviewed have fed both of those wolves and they started to shift from the bad one to the good one. And then that just

overtakes like this momentum for them. Once they start to do that shift and come from a better place of abundance, a place of love, a place of inspiration, this momentum takes over and everyone starts to see that, and it just starts to blow up for them. Yeah, momentum is such a such a big thing. It's funny. Like a good example of Chris My, you know, co host here, he's been He's been working out stays a week for quite a while now, when it used to be so hard to do it at all, right, but once you

get going, it just rolls. He's outlifting cinder blocks by the board this morning, right, just to keep it going. Whereas when you're too dead stop? Is it hard to get moved? You've said elsewhere that the goal is not to make life easy, but to keep growing. We've talked a lot on the on the show about the idea of comfort, that that comfort is not the same thing as happiness, and I think you're saying the same thing there. Can you share a little bit more about how you

put that to work. Yeah, it's interesting. Someone emailed me yesterday and asked me they're doing like a speech on entrepreneurs and she wanted to know the main attribute that piece of advice or attribute that I feel like I had. Um, that's helped me towards getting success. And what I what I talked about was falling in love with pain. And every day I try to do a couple of things that are extremely painful for me, either emotionally, mentally or physically.

And I usually do this in the gym because that's the easiest place to do it. I try to push myself so to the edge of exhaustion or uh, muscle fatigue or where I'm about to throw up or something where I feel so uncomfortable. UM. I do this in relationships. I'm like, shoot, I really don't want to have this conversation with this person right now. I really do not want to talk about this, and then like, that's when I need to do it. Okay, it's it feels painful.

My heart is pounding. I need to call this person. I've talked to this person right now and confront this conversation whatever it is. I really don't want to talk to my family member and tell him about getting raped as a kid. You know, I was feeling that when it was coming up for me. I was like, this is a painful thought, so let me do it. And what I've learned personally is the more pain I experience, my body, my mind, my emotions expand to take on so much more that doesn't affect me that I used

to when I was a teenager or something. Um that little things. Uh Now I can just take on so many little or big things and absorb them or just let them bounce off me without a affecting me. Whereas I see other people any little thing, they react where they get frustrated. They're like, oh, the world is over, and I'm just like, that's because you haven't built up

enough pain endurance. So I really try to get out of my comfort one as much as possible, and uh, experience as much pain as weird as that sounds, but the more pain I experience, the more I can endure and create in the world without anything affecting me. It's the mindset of your You're you're thinking if pain is a positive in that case, right, You're not. And another thing I've been thinking a lot about lately is resistance

like that. You know, it's a it's a Buddhist concept, right that says it's not the thing that happens, it's how I react to it. But that is I've I've just been trying to play with that lately of noticing like, Okay, I am resisting whatever this thing is. And if I just don't resist it, if I sort of notice it or think about it, but don't fight, it's like so

much of the pain just leaves that. That the the emotional pain that I'm stacking on top of it, right, Yeah, the pain, the emotional pain, and the guilt, whatever it may be. So you are playing handball at a at a pretty high level. Now, what else is in your You've got some other goals in the future, You've got a business is going well, You're playing handball. Is there anything else out there that you're working Yeah, I'm working on a book right now. You know, I've always been

attracted to books. I think one because I could never read as a kid, and it was always a struggle for me to read and still is sometimes to day. But I always was inspired by the idea of books and that you could learn so much from just reading, you know, a hundred pages in a book, and you could really expand your mind from these idea is and you could get them in the hands of everyone who

could read that language. And um, I've written a couple of books, but mostly through through Kindle and uh, I've never had a book like in the Airport or Barnes and Noble. So it's not you know what, it'd be cool to be able to get my message out there to more people and to inspire people to experience their own greatness. Whatever it looks like for them doesn't need to look in a certain way. So I'm working on

a book right now that I'm very excited about. It's about greatness and achieving greatness in your own life and the goals that have that out in bookstores in the next you know, year, year and a half. Um, my dream has always been to be an Olympian, and I want to inspire people to follow their dreams, no matter how big or small they are, no matter what it

looks like. Uh. And for me being a thirty one year old still trying to go to the Olympics, a lot of people think a little crazy because I'm too old and I'm starting a sport, you know, later in my life. And these guys are twenty three, twenty four, in the best shape of their life. They've been playing since their seven uh. And I just want to continue to show myself and other people that anything's possible. And even if I don't make the Olympics, I want to try as hard as I can. I'm gonna give my

best and that's all I can do. One of the four agreements is to always give your best. I believe that's one of the four greements. And um, so I'm just gonna give my best and go for my dreams, because why am I alive if I'm not going to

go for my dreams. Yeah. And I think we talked about rich role recently get right as we were coming on the show, and he talks a little bit about because I like what you said, They're about even if I don't make it, because you talked about becoming an All American and that was a big goal, and you you talk about sitting at the ceremony feeling empty. Right,

So it's not about achieving the goal now, right. So it doesn't sound like the the Olympian is a is a place to shoot for, But it sounds like it's it's the process journey. What in that process do you love? Oh man? I started this journey in two thousand ten. I moved to New York City. I made enough. You know, Originally I wanted got my sister's couch. I want to just feel like I could be a grown ass man

and pay for my own place. I was able to do that, and I got a four month apartment off First and High in the Short North, and I was like, Okay, I've got my you know, I can at least pay for my own rent and buy my own food in the Short North. And I loved that experience. And then I was like, but I really want to learn this sport. And there was no team in Ohio, so I was doing research and I knew that the best team was in New York. I said that's where I want to

learn from the best. So I said, when I make enough money here, I'm gonna pack up and move to New York City and start playing this sport. A year and a half later, my business was just taking off. I was like going beyond what I ever thought I would make in my life. And I said, okay, now

was the time to leave Columbus. Moved to New York City with a suitcase and uh found a sublet, went right to practice and showed up the first day the only American out of you know, people from all over the world who played the sport who lived there now, and said, Hey, my name is Lewis House. My goal is to make the OSA national team and go to the Olympics for team Anball. And everyone laughed at me and it was funny, yes you three days ago, four

days ago. I was with the same team four years later at the national championships and one guy, one of the guys who was a good friend of mine, he goes up to me, he goes, I remember that first day you showed up to practice and you said, Hey, what if Lewis House and that would be you know, an Olympia And we all laughed at you, and now look where you're at. Now you're with us. We just won the national championships and you're on the USA national team.

He's like, what a journey it's been on for you to watch you grow over the last four years and for me the ups and downs. I've had a number of injuries in the sports. I've had to not be able to play for a couple of months. I've learned a lot. It's been extremely frustrating for me because I like to be great at something right away, and it's taken time for me to develop my skills as this

in this sport. So the journey of learning new things, connecting with a community of people are so passionate about something. I mean, this team is so passionate about each other, and they all came together because of one sport. So learning so much about cultures and language and just like their lives, it's been an incredible journey. You've been doing

athletics for a long time. I think you've probably learned a lot through that, right You've learned a lot of the discipline and the things that let's let's pretend somebody is not going to be playing high school sports because they're forty or what are ways that people in their day to day life can build that discipline that you're you're talking about, because that it sounds like, you know, I watched my son, right, he plays lacrosse and he goes every day and he does it, and it there's

a building of that that I think a lot of people really wrestle with. I think it starts with parents and like creating setting good habits for any of your kids, you know. I mean, I'm not a parent, so I don't know, but my you know, the school system also helps you because it's like, okay, every day is there's practice. If you're in an instrument, you're gonna practice every day

in class. And I think if parents can really support their kids at least like being consistent with practice to mastering one specific thing, then once you learn how to master something, you can repeat it with anything. So it's just staying consistent. So if you're older, something small every day, right, keep even in the right direction. The biggest thing that I've seen from a lot of people that I've interviewed are just people in the online marketing world who are successful.

The ones who are successful, they're not the smartest they are so consistent, and I'm just like, man, if they're smart as well, that's great because then they can accelerate that growth. But I look at my you know, myself, I would not say that I'm the smartest by any means for a lot of people that I hang out with. In fact, I like to hang with people who are so intelligent that I just feel dumb, right, And but a lot of them I'm doing better than and it's

because I'm just consistent. You know, a podcast every week. I was doing a blog post every week. I was creating a new product every couple of months. I was just being consistent, doing a webinar every sing all week promoting a product. I wasn't trying to do new things. I wasn't trying to act like I knew something I didn't know. I was just consistent with what I knew. And uh what other people were like way smarter than me.

They weren't consistent. And some of my you know, good friends that I was like, these guys are killing it in the online business world. When I first met them, I was like, man, these guys are just doing everything right. Within a year and a half, I just saw myself accelerating past them. And I was like, I don't really know much, but I'm being really consistent with what I

do know right, what you do. And I think there's there's a lot to be said for what we focus on, think about create because it's there's so much, I mean, there's so there's always another blog to read, there's always another book to read, there's always another program to try. There's there's so many of that things, and and that not flitting from one to the other, so much about picking something. And that's why that's what I like about talked about the idea of a book. I mean, the

book is a really cool thing. I grew up with books, and but there's also something about two pages of an idea versus you know, ten paragraphs of ten different ideas that you get, you know, from the internet world, of course. Yeah, well I think that's all I've got. Louis, thanks very much for having us over to your place. It's really been enjoyable to be here. And thanks for your help in uh sort of reaching out to us early as we were a new podcast and introducing yourself. And it's

been a pleasure to get to know you. Yeah, I appreciate it. Thanks so much for having me on, all right. Thanks. You can learn more about Louis House and this podcast in our show notes at one you feed dot net slash Lewis