Shawn Loiseau

Bio

Shawn Loiseau is a former NFL player, record-setting collegiate athlete, and high-performing sales leader known for building winning teams and delivering exceptional results. After his football career, he became one of the nation’s top solar sales professionals, recognized for leadership, recruiting, and consistent top-tier performance. Shawn is passionate about personal growth, faith, mentorship, investing, and helping others reach their full potential. His mission is to create a lasting legacy through leadership, family, and making a meaningful impact on the people around him.

Intro

The conversation with Shawn Loiseau delves into the transformative journey from being a small-town athlete to achieving success in the NFL, ultimately transitioning into entrepreneurship. Shawn emphasizes the critical importance of perseverance, underscoring that success is rooted in the ability to perform the small tasks consistently and effectively. He illustrates how chasing purpose rather than monetary gain has propelled him through various ventures, including his triumphs in nutrition, gym equipment sales, and now, solar energy. The dialogue explores the concept of pain tolerance as a vital trait for both athletes and entrepreneurs, highlighting that the willingness to confront discomfort can distinguish those who achieve their dreams from those who falter. Through his narrative, Shawn offers invaluable insights into resilience, work ethic, and the significance of surrounding oneself with supportive individuals committed to shared success.

Conversation

The conversation with Shawn Loiseau, a former NFL linebacker, serves as a profound exploration of resilience and the transformative power of persistence. Drawing from his journey from being an overlooked athlete to making a significant mark in professional football, Shawn emphasizes the necessity of performing the 'little things' correctly in order to effectuate substantial change in one’s life. He recounts his initial struggles, notably the lack of attention from Division 1 schools and the burden of substantial student loans, which he carried while pursuing his dreams. Through sheer dedication and an unwavering work ethic, he defied the odds, emerging as the top tackling linebacker in Division 2 and eventually earning his place in the NFL. His narrative elucidates that success is not merely a product of talent but rather a culmination of hard work, perseverance, and the ability to harness one’s pain into a driving force for achievement.

Transitioning from the realm of professional sports to entrepreneurship, Shawn's post-NFL journey is equally compelling. He delves into the various ventures he embarked upon, from establishing a nutrition store to launching a gym equipment business during the pandemic, showcasing his adaptability and entrepreneurial spirit. He elaborates on the importance of purpose over profit, advocating for a business model rooted in genuine passion and service to others. Shawn's insights reveal that true fulfillment stems not from monetary gains but from the impact one has on their community and the relationships fostered along the way. His experience underscores the notion that financial success should not overshadow the foundational values of integrity and dedication.

Ultimately, Shawn Loiseau's story resonates with those seeking motivation and understanding of the complexities involved in pursuing one's aspirations. He emphasizes the significance of embracing discomfort and challenges, likening it to the behavior of bison that charge into storms to emerge unscathed. This powerful analogy serves as a reminder that facing challenges head-on often leads to the most profound growth and success. Shawn leaves the audience with a compelling message: to chase purpose rather than wealth, and to cultivate resilience in the face of adversity. Through his journey, listeners are inspired to reevaluate their own paths, recognizing that the journey to success is as valuable as the destination itself.

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• Our YouTube channel
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Hello. Please meet today's guest, Sean Louiseau.

If you're somebody who's in a spot in your life right now where you don't want to be, the way to turn that around is to start doing the little things right. Do the little things right. When you chase the money, you're always going to end up with a failure.

What does it take to go from small town kid in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, a kid not one Division 1 school would even look at, to standing in an NFL locker room staring at his own name on a locker?

Today I'm talking with Sean Louiso, a former NFL linebacker for the Houston Texans and Indianapolis Colts with $90,000 in student loans and turned himself into the number one tackling linebacker in the country. But that's just the warmup. When the NFL ended, Sean didn't stop.

He built a nutrition store, launched a pandemic area gym equipment business out of the back of a pickup truck, moved into real estate, and is now the number one solar sales rep in the entire nation.

This conversation is about pain tolerance, about turning being overlooked into fuel, and about what happens when you stop chasing money and start chasing purpose. Let's get into it. Okay. We're with Sean. How are you this morning?

I'm good. Thanks for having me.

Okay. Well, I am very excited. We have to start with the fact that you, Sean Luizo, was in the NFL for three years. That's a rare occurrence.

Millions of people want to become NFL football players. There's only 32 teams, and they don't have that many people on each team. I don't know what the full roster is.

53 Active. Yeah. So 53,000 people every year get to call themselves an NFL player.

That's a pretty rare thing.

And I know you could talk about your experience in the NFL for hours, but can you just sort of give us a sense of what achieving that rare occurrence was like back when, you know, you were getting out of college?

Yeah. So, long story short, but every kid's dream when they're growing up is to play on TV and be a professional athlete.

And growing up, I grew up in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. I went to Shoesbury Public High School. Nobody had ever made the NFL from that high school. I had never played a guy who went to the NFL.

So for me, the dream of playing in the NFL, everybody else laughed at it, but, I mean, I always kept it as something that was possible. My father was my biggest advocate, my biggest fan. I pretty much lived in the gym.

When I got to high school, the dreams started becoming more Realistic. Junior and senior year, I pretty much dominated Central Massachusetts. I got named Massachusetts Player of the Year my senior year.

But I didn't even get looked at to go Division one. Not one Division one school wanted me.

So most guys who go to the NFL come from a Division 1 school and they pretty much know they're going to be an NFL player at an early age, because genetically, you see these guys in the NFL and they're massive or they're just super strong. Most guys in the NFL right now, they're the freak of freaks. They're 6 foot 4, 6 foot 5, running at the speed of Olympic track athletes.

And most of them have under 7% body fat. But I was a small kid. Not the fastest, not the strongest, but I mean, I worked harder than everybody on the field.

So I think work ethic was just my biggest thing that I leaned on. And when I got to college, I went to Division 2 Merrimack. They never had a guy who went to the NFL.

Uh, I was the only guy in the NFL who had student loans. I left Merrimack with $90,000 in student loans.

Most guys who go to the NFL, they have free scholarships and, you know, they pretty much get their school paid for. I had went to school for criminology. I wanted to be a state cop. And senior year, I had NFL scouts at every single game.

I have five NCAA Division 2 records at linebacker. I was the number one tackling linebacker in Division 2 my junior and senior year.

And, and I was able to be the only guy from Division 2 that year to get looked at for the NFL at a very high level. So just the journey of going to the NFL was insane.

To be a guy who said that I was in an NFL locker room and see my name on a locker, it was so surreal. Like, it never seemed real, but the journey getting there was awesome.

Okay, so, so, so you were a linebacker. And what I learned earlier from you is that one of your specialties was kickoffs.

And so you're running down at full speed and, and, and you're hitting some guy. And I guess you. You actually did get a few concussions from that along the way.

Yeah, I definitely did. So they changed the rules in the NFL to protect players.

Now they're trying to lessen the opportunity for players to get concussions by shortening the amount of space they have to run down on kickoff. But when I played, it was a 60 yard full sprint and you didn't know who was coming for you.

But most of the guys that you were running down to hit it was like a car accident. Every collision, because guys are going full speed at each other, and the first thing that hits is usually head to head. So.

Okay, so let me show a picture of what you look like for the first team you played on. Going to show this picture of you on the Texans.

Houston Texans.

One thing, too, for everybody to note is that so far, Sean's arms are just, you know, normal, clear skin. Okay, so that was one year on the Texans. So then you went to the Colts, which, of course, you know, everybody in New England really doesn't like.

The Colts, right?

No. They were our arch nemesis when they had Peyton Manning.

Yeah, that's for sure. I really was a nervous wreck every time we were playing against Peyton Manning.

Always.

Okay, so then you did something to your arms.

Yep. Tattoos. Fully covered both arms at that point, I was like, okay, I can get tattoos. I don't have to go into the real world. A 9 to 5 job.

So I basically was like, hey, I'm going to be a professional athlete. And my father was not the biggest advocate of me doing tattoos in my arms, but.

And who are you standing next to?

Probably one of the most smartest, humble, nicest guys I've ever met in my life. He was just a guy who did everything right.

I'd come into the facility at 5am he'd be on, literally, an ice tub, hot tub, bath, back and forth, reading a newspaper. He drove a Honda guy with a $20 million signing bonus, and he acted like he had no money. He was just all football. But he was an incredible teammate.

You were also friends with Adam Vinatieri, which fans of the Patriots will remember very fondly.

Yeah, Vinatieri. I think everybody who is from New England and Indianapolis absolutely loves that guy. Gave us so many memories.

When I showed up to the Colts locker room, he was the first guy that I was just like, holy smokes, man. Like, pinch me. Is this really Adam Vinateri? And he heard my accent right away, and we started talking. He's like, are you from New England?

I'm like, vinny, I'm just gonna tell you, man, as soon as we leave this conversation, I'm calling my father and telling him that I ate lunch with Adam Vinatieri. He's cracking up. I'm like, man, this is so cool. Like, he was just an awesome guy. He was awesome.

We want to talk about how you transitioned out of the NFL and then you did a series of startups.

But I want to know, you know, do you feel like the NFL in any way helped you get the basic things you needed, terms of leadership and, and drive and all of that? I mean, how did the NFL set you up to go do startups?

Yeah, that's a great question.

I think that without my drive and me inspiring to be an NFL player, the journey to get to be an NFL player, all the little things that I learned along the way, I think most people will ask, like, what's the best trait of an entrepreneur? Is it vision, is it work ethic? I think it's pain tolerance for me, especially as an entrepreneur.

Like how much pain is your threshold and what are you willing to push through to get to the other side? Going to the gym every single morning, even though your body's hurt.

That consistency of going to the gym, not going out and drinking with my friends, not partying, going to bed early, that required so much sacrifice to be able to make it to where I wanted to be. And an NFL journey isn't like go to college for four years and then have your profession.

It was 18 years of a journey of working every single year, going through four years of high school, four years of college, and then potentially hopefully getting a chance to make it into an NFL locker room.

But all the little things that I learned along the way as far as work ethic, networking, I was a captain on every team, so I was able to get in front of a team and inspire them through words.

But most people don't realize the people who are leaders and people who are business owners, you're not just leading through your words, you're leading through your actions. So you gotta lead by example. And if you're saying you're gonna do something you have to do.

If a football game was 60 minutes, I was willing to be the hardest worker on the field for the entire 60 minutes. Anybody who's opened their own business or who wants to be an entrepreneur, we don't work nine to five. It's a 24 hour job.

You have to be up and ready to go and there's nobody who's going to support you other than you. You have to be your biggest fan.

You have to know that it's going to take sacrifice and most of the stuff that you want that are the bigger the dream is going to be, the harder you have to work.

And when I was able to make the NFL, I definitely used my leverage for advert the NFL emblem as a way to kind of get Myself into doors, into sitting to tables that I wouldn't have been able to get. So, long story short, I opened up a nutrition store. But being an NFL player, the segue into being able to connect with owners of companies.

Like I was able to sit down with the owners of Metrex, the owners of bsn, the owners of massive supplement companies who wanted to get their product into an NFL locker room. And I was able to leverage social media and advertising to get products into networks.

And I was able to get the contacts of all the owners of these companies. And while I was playing in the NFL, I would always make the joke like, hey man, I should start my own store.

Like, I don't have to go through a middleman. Like, I'm going direct to the owner and everybody who owns a business. If you're in sales, you have a wholesale price and you have a retail price.

So I was able to get my cost way lower than GNC Vitamin shop. Amazon wasn't around at the time, but I was able to sell products for 10 to 20% cheaper than everybody else.

But my gift was I was the guy in my nutrition store.

And when somebody walked in and they saw that I was the guy who was living fitness in the gym, every day looked like fitness and I was selling them, hey, I personally take this, I'm getting results. I wasn't a guy who was just watching a video telling you how to get in shape. They were like, man, you played in the NFL?

No, I'm actively playing in the NFL.

They're like, wow, you know, so like my ability to use something I was passionate about and make that into a business, I think that was my biggest gift that I got from the NFL.

And that wasn't your last startup, that was your first. So what, what happened to, you know, tell walk us through the next three.

I didn't go to school for business, I went to school for criminology. But I knew if I bought something for a dollar and I sold it for more than a dollar and I did that, that would be a successful business.

But I realized that my gift for advertising was how I treated people right?

So if I had a great product and I gave somebody a great customer experience when they came in the store, would that person come back and bring one person? And could I get this person to come in every single month and could I Have enough things in the store that would make make people want to come back.

Almost like a dollar store mentality. So I was able to use clothes as advertising.

Every customer that came in the store, whether you bought something or not, if you looked like somebody who would be in the gym or you were fitness, I was giving you a free T shirt with my logo on it. I started to notice that every single gym within a 5, 10 mile radius, everybody was wearing my logo.

I was getting free advertising, and my dad and my wife at the time were like, sean, why are you giving away all these shirts? It was costing me 2 to $5,000 a month. But that 2 to $5,000aMonth was customers who were my billboard in the places that I wanted to advertise.

And I'm like, hmm, I'm onto something. If I'm treating people good and my product is great and I have my logo everywhere, eventually people are going to be like, what is this place?

So I was able to do that for five to six years very successfully. I was averaging 400 to $700,000 in sales out of a 500 square foot store. We were dominating the industry.

I was probably the number one store for supplements within central Massachusetts, maybe in Massachusetts. And then Covid hit. So everybody was stuck in their house. Nobody was coming into the store.

But I saw that everybody in my network that was fitness was looking for gym equipment. And I had the network with the guys who had warehouses who were selling gym equipment.

But the transition when Covid hit, all these gyms were going out of business. Boston sports club was liquidating. They were selling all their gyms. I was finding out that people were looking to build home gyms.

They were looking for plates and dumbbells. So the guy who was buying these gyms was calling me, hey, Sean, do you want any of these dumbbells, these plates?

I was showing up with my pickup truck. I could only fill it with £6,000 of plates and dumbbells.

I would show up at the gym, I would advertise on my Facebook and Instagram, hey, if you want gym equipment, come to my store. I was selling the £6,000 of equipment faster than I could get it to the store. I sold like a hundred thousand pounds.

You needed a bigger truck.

So I ended up getting a bigger truck. I ended up getting a trailer. I ended up growing from just dumbbells and plates to getting treadmills, getting cable machines.

And I bought these big storage containers where my business was. I'm right on the corner of Route 9 and we get A million cars a month. There's a Whole Foods in a Starbucks right next to me.

So I had this storage company put their storage container there. I offered them advertising. I'm like, hey, I'll let you guys. They're called my box.

I'm like, hey, if you put your my box on the corner here, you're going to get a ton of advertising through cars. Would you guys be willing to put a box here and let me use it? So I got the free boxes. I was putting these boxes in my.

Basically in where my store was filling them up with gym equipment. People were showing up, hey, Sean, I want the treadmill. How do I get it to my house? And I was like, yeah, I can deliver it.

I never delivered gym equipment before, but I was like, I'll figure it out.

So I went to Home Depot, bought a set of tools, show up at somebody's million dollar house, and the only way to get it in the house is down at basement bulkhead. So here I am taking the treadmill apart. Never did it before, but in my mind I'm like, I gotta figure this out. Like, this is massive. Thank God.

Were you allowed to use the NFL logo? Was that a thing or do you. Was that not allowed?

So if they had pictures of me and stuff, like I was using the NFL logo, I wasn't making money off it. I wasn't selling NFL logo products, but I was definitely using it for advertising. Like I was connecting me to being in the NFL.

And their logo is massive. Obviously you don't want to try to go at them. And it's like if I put the logo Nike and sold the shirt on it, they would come after me.

But I wasn't selling anything NFL. The only thing I was selling was, hey, I'm Shawn Louiso and I played in the NFL. But so you're allowed to do that.

You're allowed to put it next to your picture just to show that you were. Because that's somewhat good advertising for them, I suppose.

For my resume. Yeah, it would be my resume. And then for me, it was just my proudest thing that I accomplished at that time. And yeah, the gym equipment took off.

I was delivering gyms from Vermont all the way to Pennsylvania. We had did $1 million in gym equipment sales in like my first four months. Like, I couldn't even keep up.

I had another guy who I played in the NFL with, who I was like, bro, I need you to help me carry this stuff into houses. Like, no. Anytime I would ask somebody for help to do this we'd be halfway down a basement bulkhead with this equipment.

They're like, sean, I'm never doing this again. I'm like, I get it, man. Nobody wants to carry this stuff down bulkheads and up flights of stairs. And they wanted commercial gym equipment in houses.

But we weren't saying no to anybody. But, yeah, it was crazy. I was able to keep Undisputed Nutrition, my store, afloat.

We segued into building home gyms, and then I was doing home gyms and the nutrition store at the same time. So that was my second startup to.

That transition to the, you know, your discovering the wonders of solar power.

Yeah. So during the NFL, the smartest thing I did with my money that I made from pro football was me and my wife, we invested into properties.

We have five investment properties in Worcester. And during COVID again, we're doing upgrades to the houses. We had refinanced the homes.

We locked in the interest rates at like a 2 to 3%, which was great. At the time, I didn't know what was going on. I didn't even know what a refinance was. It was my first time doing it.

But probably one of the smartest decisions we made in real estate during the time we're doing renovations on the house and we're getting little kids, young kids coming by the house. Not little kids, but kids like under 24 years old. Like, hey, if you want a new roof, you should look into solar.

Hey, if you want to get electric upgrades, look into solar. And I had never looked at solar with the traveling and not being at home. And when I was in college, I lived on campus.

I didn't really worry about the electricity bill when I have my store, Undisputed Nutrition, because my town, Shrewsbury, we have Selco, which is a municipality, so we don't pay the crazy delivery fees that Eversource and National Grid customers do in Massachusetts.

But I had started looking into it to look into home upgrades and seeing the transition, what was happening as a homeowner and as somebody who owns a house. Everybody who owns a home, you have to pay two bills, no matter what. It's a mortgage and an electricity bill.

And the electricity bill isn't something we can negotiate. It's a monopolized industry. And I just had seen this huge shift because one of the states that I played in was California. Another state was Texas.

And both of these states have massive issues with. With delivery of electricity. They're getting power outages, they're getting brown outs. Now with data centers coming to the Grid.

Every single house that's being built is fully electrified on a grid that was not prepared to handle this much demand. So the shift in Massachusetts I was seeing as a dad, I have three kids under seven years old, you start to notice, wow, bills are crazy.

I don't have this NFL money coming in anymore. As an entrepreneur, you have a lot of overhead, a lot of cost, and kids are expensive.

But one thing that I kept seeing go up, even with my seven years living in my house, I went from paying a $300 gas bill to heat my house in the winter to twelve hundred dollars in the wintertime in just three years. And it was just delivery fees. So I was like, you know what, man? Let me look into this. I'm in so many houses anyways. I'm killing my body.

If I can do this on my investment property and I'm passionate about it, I'm definitely going to try to do it. So my first house that I did it on, I upgraded the house. I was like, this is amazing. Why doesn't everybody do this?

And I was like, this is a business that I can control my time. I can be somebody to upgrade people's homes.

I don't know how long this is going to be around or how long the program will be around, but I know sunrun is the best company, and I know that I am going to do this on every property that I can get qualified. So I transitioned to sunrun. I'm going into my third year. Going into my third year, I'm the number one sales rep in the entire country.

The partnerships they're building are massive.

The data centers are causing so much demand and stress on the grid that sunrun is the only solar storage company that is going to be basically within this field that can keep up with what's happening.

And just the transition of what's happening with the utility companies right now, it's just a really good opportunity to help homeowners save money on a bill they have to pay.

But just for me, the opportunity to be able to help people, the job is chaos because our job literally requires us knocking doors or meeting people and trying to convince them that electricity is more expensive than it should be.

And once people can really understand the way electricity works and how this bill works and how it's monopolized, it might not work out for everybody. But if it does work out and makes sense for homeowners, this program is really good. So I, I basically went all in on Sunrun.

I sold my nutrition store last year and now I just do this full time. I ended up becoming a manager with Sunrun and just forward thinking.

I think that this is just something that the entire country needs as far as trying to help us with just clean energy. So it's been fun.

Sorry for the interruption, but in addition to the podcast, you might also be interested in the online program I've created for startup founders called who says you can't start up in it, I have tried to capture everything I've learned in the course of founding and running nine startups over 37 years. It's four courses, each one about 15 video lessons, plus over 130 downloadable resources across all four courses.

Each course individually is only $375. The QR code will take you where you can learn more. Now back to the podcast. So you're not an employee and so you've got this.

Even though sunrun is a huge company, but you've got a little fiefdom that you're building that sort of feels like a startup. You're not really an employee, so you're on your own. You've got to hire people, you've got to do your own marketing.

Like you said, you got to knock on doors. Am I saying that right? I mean, is it kind of like a startup?

Because we're essentially contractors working for the largest solar company. Our job is to find homeowners that will qualify through sunrun and us as the contractor is, does this make sense for the home?

What can I get this home for? Upgrades to incentivize the town, the utility to pick this home?

And what would make sunrun think that this customer is a good fit for them to invest a 60 to $80,000 solar system on this house? Sun Run. They have the best product. Not every house in Massachusetts makes sense with the way that the sun works.

In Massachusetts, the summertime is the best because the sun stays out until 8 o'. Clock. So the goal is find houses that get sun all day.

But if we get a house that has a lot of trees, me as the Sun Run contractor, I have to use a tree company to pay to get the trees cut to get the house qualified. If we show up to a house and the roof isn't good.

My job is, can I get enough panels on this house to get this house qualified to have the money to cover the budget to upgrade the roof to save the homeowner money. So when you're looking at homes, some people who do this job, they're very commission driven.

They only want to help the houses that don't need any upgrades and don't need any help. But I use my business model that I had with my nutrition store and the gym equipment is, it's a volume game.

If you treat somebody right and you give them a great experience, whatever we can fit for budget on the home, whatever that home needs for upgrades, it should be no cost for the homeowner. The sales rep should be doing the right thing, should be making sure we put the panels in the right spot. We have a good esthetic design.

We're listening to what the homeowner wants with the home, what upgrades the homeowner needs and then worst case scenario, if it doesn't make sense, there should be no pressure, pressure for the homeowner. So I was able to use, hey, I have this on my house.

Hey, these are the things that I've done for homes and I was able to qualify last year, 126 houses. I was the number one guy in all of Sunrun last year. On average I'm doing 20 to 40 houses every three months.

And the houses that I'm helping, the goal is how many upgrades can I get this house, raise the value of the home and give the homeowner a more stabilized, affordable electric bill. So for me it's awesome.

I just know that the transition what's happening with Massachusetts because I don't know who's going to listen to this if you're in other states, but Massachusetts in general, every house is getting a smart meter. Smart meter is able to do on peak and off peak rates.

And once they activate the smart meter, they're going to be able to charge homes upwards of $0.70 a kilowatt. They're in peak demand like they do in California. The only homes that are going to be protected by this are homes with the solar.

So I just know that this is a great thing. For me, it's a product that doesn't cost homes anything. So it's weird like being a salesman and selling something that doesn't cost anything.

It's more like trying to convince the homeowner that this is a great decision.

But the difference between my nutrition store and solar is if you didn't like the pre workout, the protein jug or something you bought from Undisputed, you could come back the next month and get something new. If solar doesn't make sense for you and you put solar on your house that's there for 25 years. So it has to make sense.

The smallest system we can do is five panels. The biggest system we can do is 60. If we're getting a house that's getting 30 to 60 panels, it definitely makes sense.

The home is going to save thousands of dollars a year on electricity because they're not going to pay delivery fees anymore. So that's the goal, is try to show as many homes as we can.

So besides the things you've just mentioned about upgrading their electricity panels, maybe upgrading their, you know, their roof also, you know, removing some trees, hopefully not too many so that there's more sun on the roof. And, and I, and I do know that you've got some cool tools that show the roof and the sun exposure.

But there's, there's another aspect that's of this whole solar panel business.

It's very complicated because you've, you've got to deal with the towns you've got to deal with, or you've got to help the homeowner, but you, you really end up being the front person. You've got to deal with the electrical. You know, Monopoly company Eversource is certainly what it is in our area.

There are rules and regulations that keep changing at the federal level, at the state level. That's a lot to keep track of.

Yeah, it is. Especially it's different state to state.

So even as a Sun Run employee, for myself, if you had a friend, a family member, somebody in Connecticut that wanted to look into solar, I could help them. But the Connecticut market is different than Massachusetts.

If I had somebody in California I played football with, hey, Sean, I want to get solar on my house. Anywhere that Summer Run operates, I, the sales rep, can help them try to upgrade their home. But you have to know what the federal rebates are.

The state rebates are. The program is different in every state. Not every state offers a no cost program. Some states we only allow you to buy the solar system.

But for us and me myself personally, 98% of people I sit down with are not buying this solar system because we're one state where the utility offers net metering.

So not every state, the utility will offer net metering, which is, the utility is literally buying the power you produce, selling it to the neighbors and giving you credit for it on your bill. Which makes sense in Massachusetts because We're going to need to use that banked energy in the wintertime.

But with Trump taking away the 30% rebate last year, Sunran was able to navigate through that by using reserve money because they're backed by 13 trillion on the stock market and they pre purchased all the solar systems to lock in the tax credit, which basically was able to make us withstand. Trump trying to diminish what's happening with solar. I don't know what his agenda is, but I just know that he is not pro solar.

So solar has to happen, especially in a state like Mass. Texas is having a very hard time right now keeping up with the 50 data centers they just built.

And there's a lot of states that have massive opportunities for homes to upgrade right now.

Well, he, he likes coal and oil and, and, and it's not because he actually knows that they're, they're good. It's, it's that he knows those are his friends and, and they're, they're rich. But you're, it's not just that solar is, helps people save money.

It's, it's just, it's good for the environment.

Yeah, it is. Yeah, it definitely is. It's something that if people saw the way that electricity is made, it's not healthy for the environment.

It's not clean energy. It's actually dirty energy. It's dirty for the environment.

And the process of electricity, the way we're using it in Massachusetts right now, the technology is a hundred years old. The power lines, the way they're set up is not for the technology we need today. The reality is not everybody uses a flip phone.

People use a smartphone. It took a little bit for people to realize, hey, this smartphone is the technology we need right now for our society.

Almost every house will want to or have to transition to solar energy because once we start getting into the peak demand, the amount of money it's going to cost to buy it from the utility or what happens if your power goes out. Right. Like, people don't realize there's some states where you lose power and do you have a backup plan? Do you have a generator?

Do you have capability of charging all the stuff in your house? Most people's homes are fully electrified. They're smart homes.

Most people, I don't even know if they'd be able to live without their cell phone for a week, which is kind of scary. But I know you could because I know you talked about your background and the training you've done and the stuff you've done is Definitely inspiring.

So that's one of the big reasons why I wanted to come on here, because I see a lot of the stuff you do and the wisdom that you share and the stuff that this channel does is you've done some pretty incredible stuff yourself. So.

Well, I want to switch to.

Back to talking about you as well, because we all know that every person who does one startup, much less four, has, you know, basically does it by having a lot of grit. But I can't think of something that requires even more grit than playing in the NFL. And. And you talk about how you've.

You were motivated really early, and. And you mentioned, you know, the role your dad played. But.

But, you know, dig deep for us for a second and tell us where you think your grit has come from.

Yeah. So for me, the grit and the pain tolerance is just sometimes you don't realize what you have in life until it gets taken away.

And some people think that, like, everything in your life, everything, people really care. The reality is, nobody cares. Like, I learned at a very early age that if you were really good, people really wanted to see you fail.

And I think people loved seeing me fail more than they like seeing me succeed, which was weird. My mindset became very early that I wanted to have.

When somebody said my name, whether you liked me or didn't like me, you were gonna say, wow, that kid works his ass off. So that was my M.O.

When I would walk into the gym, even When I was 14, 15, 16, 17 years old, I would find the guy in the gym that was working the hardest. I would set up right next to him. And my mindset the whole time was, I want to work so hard that this guy doesn't want to stand next to me anymore.

When I would walk onto a football field, whether it was practice or a game, I would find the guy who was supposed to be the best player on the field. I would walk up to him right before the game, and I literally would say not the nicest things, but in, like, the nicest way.

Like, you're going to have to see me for the next 60 minutes. I'm going to be a nightmare for you. So I was able to have this split personality. It's psychotic to think about.

I was able to put a football helmet on, or when I would go into the gym and put my earphones on, I would change my personality to this person that was not Shawn Louiso. I was able to not have a pain tolerance. I didn't care what time it was. I didn't care if I was hungry, I didn't care if I was thirsty.

I, I was pushing myself to how far can my body go without shutting down? And my body never shut down.

And the farther I would push myself, the harder I would push myself when I would be on the brink of even when I was in like Houston, 105 degree heat.

We're waking up at 6am, having practice, going into the facility, watching the film for an hour and a half back on the practice field during peak sun hours at midday during Houston. And I'm looking around saying to myself like, dude, I'm going to quit. I'm going to die here. And I wouldn't die.

And at the end of the day you're saying to yourself, like, I just push my body to where I probably don't think I could have ever pushed it. And some people in their life never push their body to that point.

And I think that if you can physically and mentally push yourself to certain states in your life and you can do this through exercise or even like climbing, hiking a mountain, do little things that you push yourself where you look at the bottom of the mountain, from the bottom of the mountain, you look at the top and you're like, I don't think I can ever make it there. The reality is, that's life, right? Like, most people like to be at the bottom of the mountain. It's comfortable.

Most people are hanging out there and negativity spread so fast to be the guy at the top. When you're all the way by yourself, it's very hard to look around and be like, man, this was really hard to get up here.

It's hard to share that story to get up there. But the climb to get there, the journey to get there, that's life, right? Like, most people don't realize that until it's too late in life.

Most people, kids who are my age, I'm 36 years old. The reality is most people who are 36 and under, they don't even have the money to buy a house. They're renting, right?

They had, they're in college debt. They're stuck in a gerbil wheel where they're working a 9 to 5 job.

Then Friday and Saturday, they're going out and partying and drinking on the weekend.

Then they wake up Monday with no money again and they're doing the same thing year after year after year until they are able to break that process and be like, you know what, man? I'm going to do something that no one thinks I can do. And I had that at 14 years old. I'm going to work like an NFL player at 14 years old.

So I'm hearing two things, Sean. One is the work ethic, but the other sounds like from early on you had a chip on your shoulder that motivated you for sure.

And do you think that was because you're not, I mean, you're not small, by the way. I've met you in person. So when you say, yeah, well, I'm small, okay, relative to the 6 foot 5 monster, yes, you're, you're smaller.

But, but the, the, I mean, I swear that it sound, it sounds like, you know, it's the small town, it's coming from Massachusetts. It's. It's something else. You know, a set of things like that that sort of created this chip on your shoulder.

And, and the, and the defense against it was the work ethic. But the, the, the source of the chip on your shoulder, I'm still kind of curious about.

Yeah, I just, I was, I. In my mind, I always felt like I was overlooked and I wasn't good enough.

And I, like, there was always another guy who was being noticed and it wasn't me.

And then the transition happened when we hit high school, because the kids who were always a little bit better than me growing up before I was 14 and I started going to the gym, those kids who had it at an early age, they got comfortable. They didn't go to the gym at 14, 15, 16 years old. They were like, oh, I'm already the best.

So when I was able to use the gym and I was able to work hard, and those days were stacking up and the months were stacking up, and then I had them by a year, and then I had them by two years, I was able to go in the gym. I was squatting £600 by 17 years old. So I was just an absolute meat stick. I loved the gym. All I did was eat, sleep, and breathe. The gym.

I was going to the gym with school clothes on, anticipating getting out of the school and going right to the gym. So I think that was just me. I always looked at everybody like they were making fun of me and that, oh, Shawn's not going to make it. Get a real job.

Sean, what are you going to do when you go to college? Just be a cop. And then I was like, you know what? I'll study to be a cop, and if I don't make the NFL, I'll be a cop.

And junior year, they were like, sean, you have a chance to go to the NFL.

Well, at least you thought through an alternative to the NFL because.

Yeah, yeah, the guy, the guys that get that make it all the way to the NFL, but then they wash out quickly, but they've already spent all that money they thought they were going to get.

That's.

That's a sad situation.

I think it happens a lot.

The percentage of guys who go to college and just breeze their way through with a BS degree and then they go to the NFL and they're cut the first couple weeks and never get another shot and they're back working at Radio Shack in their hometown. It's sad.

Any. Anything else you want to add, you know, to. I mean, you've given some great advice. You've given some very motivating kinds of life lessons.

It's been a thrill to talk to you. Is there any. Anything else you'd like to, to add as a, you know, a, A Shawn Luiso pearl of wisdom?

I think that the biggest thing that I've tried to learn is there's no money and material that you're ever going to achieve or have that is going to give you true happiness.

There's a lot of people who think they want to be an entrepreneur because they're going to make a certain dollar amount, be able to buy that dream car or have the dream house.

And I promise you as a kid who I've made a million dollars playing in the NFL, I made a million dollars in my nutrition store, I made a million dollars selling gym equipment. I made a million dollars doing sun run.

There's no million dollar amount that is more valuable than surrounding yourself with people who truly want to see you do good.

It's so hard to surround yourself with people who are at a different level than you, because most people, in reality, once you reach a certain level, people don't want to be around people who drag them down.

So if you're somebody who's in a spot in your life right now where you don't want to be, the way to turn that around is to start doing the little things right. Do the little things right. When you chase the money, you're always going to end up with a failure. There's, like I said, there's.

There's guys who I watch playing the NFL cash in $200,000 checks every week. They were miserable because they chased the wrong things. The foundation of who you are as a person. If you're a good person, you do right by people.

If you start a business and do a business that you're passionate about, like I Got advice from somebody. When you invest in stocks, you should invest in things that you actually buy and do.

If you have an Apple iPhone, that's a good stock to invest in, right?

But if you're somebody who drives a Honda and then you go and work for a dealership trying to sell a Toyota, do you really feel passionate about about selling a product that you don't have?

So if you want to be an entrepreneur, find a product that you love, find a product you're passionate in, and just be the hardest working guy day after day after day, doing the right things and always chase the people. Your best advertisement that you can ever have in this world is what you leave with people.

You can never take back a first impression and people will always remember bad things more than the good things, right? You can do a hundred things good for customers. One bad experience, one bad thing that you do is going to be amplified.

But whenever you have something go wrong in your life, always face the problem head on. It's almost like I heard this analogy about a bison. Bison. Whenever they see a storm coming, they run towards the storm.

The reason why they do that is you always get through the storm faster. In life. Whenever you have problems, if you try to run away from your problems, they're always going to chase you.

You're going to be stuck in the problem because you're going to be running at the same pace as your problems are coming.

Whenever you have a problem, whenever you have things in business that are going wrong, if you have things that you have to confront with people in your life, confront them head on and go right through it because you're going to get through that faster and be able to come out the other side. And I just feel like my best thing that I'm able to achieve in life is listening more.

Obviously, you guys can tell I love to talk, but when I'm around people who are inspiring and they've done things that I want to learn, I would encourage you guys to ask questions.

If you don't have people in your life that you can ask questions too, of where you want to be, you got to find a source where you can fill yourself up.

Whether it's podcasts, whether it's going on YouTube and finding somebody who you're inspired in your field and try to fill yourself up with great ideas. The more ideas you fill yourself up with, usually you start sharing that with other people. So I hope everybody has a great rest of your summer.

And Jyothi, thanks so much for having me on the podcast.

You bet. It's been a pleasure and thank you so much. And here are your toolkit takeaways. 1. Pain tolerance is your real edge.

Sean pushed his body through 105 degree Houston practices until he thought he'd quit and never did. He says that's the trait that separates entrepreneurs from everyone else.

Before you launch anything, ask yourself honestly, how much discomfort can you actually sit with before you fold? 2. Your story is your marketing. Nobody wanted Sean out of high school. Not one D1 offer.

He turned being overlooked into his edge, then turned that same story into the reason customers trusted him. Whatever makes you different isn't a liability to hide. It's the thing people remember. And three Run towards the storm, not away from it.

Sean's favorite analogy? Bison charge into a storm because it gets them through faster. Run from your problems and you'll move at the same pace they do.

The founders who confront trouble head on are the ones who come out the other side. Now go run straight at whatever storm you've been avoiding in your business. And that is our show with Sean.

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This is Jothy Rosenberg saying TTFN Tata for now.