Sep 20, 2017
Louise Neville is a Brain HealthTrainer, Concussion Recovery Specialist, Certified Health Coach,Author and Keynote Speaker. Louise works with Athletes, CEOs,entrepreneurs and individuals to maximize their brain health andoptimize their cognitive performance. Louise empowers individualsto reach new levels of health and transform their lives… giving newmeaning to our brain+body connection. Imagine a world whereeveryone knew how to conquer their greatest health concern… andfelt empowered to do it? This is the new world she is working tobuild. Louise is all about inspiring individuals to turn theirhealth dreams into reality. To say she is passionate about‘shifting’ the world’s collective knowledge around our brain-bodymetabolic and energy connection… is an understatement! Educating,coaching and inspiring individuals on how to take back their powerand become their own health warrior - transforming their life, andfulfilling their health goals - is her “raison d’être” and herpassion.
Louise, welcome to the podcast today.
Thank you so much, Colin. I'mreally looking forward to being here.
It's great to have you here. Just give us a little bitof an intro. Give our listeners an intro to who you are, what youdo, what have you, so they can understand what kind of businessyou're in.
Absolutely. I'm a concussionspecialist. I'm a concussion recovery coach and a brain healthtrainer. So what that means is I work with individuals who have hadconcussions who really want to fast-track their recovery. I alsowork from a brain health perspective. I work with CEOs and otherindividuals and organizations who just really want to maximizetheir performance and focus and really have that elite brain whenwe talk about brain performance.
Beautiful. Thank you, Louise. Of course, it's reallyinteresting of how people interact when there's certain businesstypes they're in, in terms of doing business in terms of whatyou're in. So give us an idea of how do you even get into this? Iguess, was this something for you that you woke up one day andsaid, "I want to be a concussion specialist and help people," orwhat have you been through that's really got you on this journey toreally serving other people that have thesechallenges?
Absolutely, that's a greatquestion, Colin. For me, it all came from experience-driven. So Ihave had multiple concussions in my own life. I suffered frompost-concussion syndrome a few times, and my last concussionactually almost ended my life. So it was very severe. I had lost agood chunk of my vision. I had almost no short-term memory. Sowe're talking about a really reduced quality of life. I had beenworking with those symptoms for just almost a year, and I had 20different specialists, and at that point, all of them were sort of,"This is going to be your life. This is what you need to copewith."
I'm an a-type. I just didn'twant to accept that, and that really drove me to seek out othersolutions and other answers. So I started working with R&Dspecialists. I really only did research and looked at researchwithin the last two years, and not only on concussion, but on brainhealth as a whole. I pieced different research components togetherand came up with more of a recovery system, if you will, and reallylooked at how to maximize brain power. So, from that research andthat system, when I started implementing that, within three months,I was fully recovered. All symptoms gone, completely shocked myspecialist that had told me differently.
What happened is actually thebusiness started organically. People just started hearing my story,and then I started to do some coaching here and there. Then itreally turned into, wow, this is a real need out there in theworld, specifically in North America. For various reasons, Canada'sdifferent in terms of our healthcare than the US, but bothcountries have challenges and the outcome is the same. It's thatwe're not necessarily getting the right care from a concussionstandpoint. Most people don't even understand how to reallymaximize their brain to a new level of performance. That isabsolutely possible, but we don't really talk about that inlife.
So what happened is I startedthe business and definitely started really getting the value, bothfrom an education point of view, out there to the marketplace andto different clients, but also it was very rewarding for me to seepeople improve considerably when they have stories just like minearound their doctors didn't really know how to fast-track theirrecovery. They've been told different things. It's been a reallyrewarding experience.
I hear that. I think the key thing for me and what Iwant our listeners to actually just think through today is...youwent through 20 specialists. You went through people that said toyou, "You're going to be this way for the rest of your life. You'regoing to have limited vision. You're going to have all thesechallenges going forward." And you were adamant that, no, thatwould not happen. What I want our listeners to hear is there'sopportunity in your adversity. You've created a business. Yourstory's become such a huge part of creating such a successfulbusiness.
I want people to listen to this because every time youhave a challenge that happens in your life, so many people look forthe danger inside their challenge or inside their crisis, butthere's so much opportunity inside every crisis or challenge thathappens in our lives. I just hope that people just hear this andthink it through, that there might be a business owner lying there,going, "My goodness, I have so much challenge in my life rightnow." But listen to what Louise has to say. There's opportunity init. Yes, right in the situation right now, you might not hearthat.
Louise, I look at ... I don't want to get too much intothe politics of things here, but the NFL in the United States,there's so many, apparently, major lawsuits on the go withconcussions because of course these people are bashing their headsagainst each other because they have this false sense of protectingwearing helmets. I grew up playing rugby. You used your head tothink through the strategy of the game. You didn't use your head tostop other people. That fascinates me, how much opportunity thereactually is in the whole ... or, actually, how much concussion,sadly, there is in the marketplace in terms of the world and aroundus happening every single day.
Absolutely, Colin. In terms ofconcussions, you mentioned politics. There's a lot of politicsaround this topic, not only from a sporting aspect but also from amedical community aspect. We have a lot of healthcare practitionersthat are using old protocols for how to manage concussion or braininjury. In the sporting world, there's lots of cover-ups on manydifferent fronts, by the way, so we have the cover-up that I thinka lot of people are sort of familiar with. It started with the NFL,but which is that concussion is a brain injury, and the moreconcussions you have in your life, you're more at risk forsomething called CTE, which is a very highly damaging conditionlater on in life and can cause death. Then, we also have the helmetindustry, actually. There's been this widespread proliferation ...concept of helmets have to be in every sport. Helmets can save yourlife, but the way that helmets are designed today actuallycontributes to some concussions, so ...
Wow. That's crazy.
It is crazy. We're not gettingthe right information, and there's cover-ups on multiple fronts,right? I think, obviously, not saying one person's to blame becausethat's not accurate either. It's just if we take the helmetindustry right now, it's people trying to do the right thing. Theythought that helmets were the right approach. I think in fiveyears, 10 years, they will be. In five years, you'll see, probably,different design. You'll see a lot more ventilation in helmets.You'll see a much more lighter helmet.
Because helmets right now, theydo two things. They change the physics of weight when we'reaccelerating or decelerating, so that's why the brain inside theskull can move around and create a bit more bruising. But, also, itcreates heat. As we know with anything, when we have heat,everything expands, and so the brain is a bit closer to the skullso, again, that can cause a bit more bruising, which is technicallya concussion. So, when we think about this, it's people trying todo the right thing, but then now that the technology is improvingand that we're not probably using the right helmets for the righttypes of sports, now there seems to be this cover-up instead ofpeople just being open and honest around, "Hey, listen, we needsome new designs. We didn't get it right out of the gate the firsttime. Let's go back to the drawing board and get this done, right,for people's safety."
Absolutely, and I think what's really happening here isthe entire industry's putting a helmet on and trying to bouncethese accusations or these challenges off. What a great amount ofopportunity in this. I really love what you're doing, and I trustour listeners are seeing there's opportunity in every situation,but as a business owner taking your challenge and turning it intoan opportunity, what would you say, if you went back five years,whatever the duration is, and you went back and you said toyourself, "You know what? There's things I'm doing today I wish I'ddone five years ago or known five years ago," as you got intomaking this into a business, what would that piece of advice bethat you would say was one of the key things that you wish you hadlearned earlier on to make this into a business and really run withthings? What could you share with our listeners today?
Absolutely. I had mentionedearlier, I said this started a little bit organically, and I don'tthink I was confident in the business model or that there was evena market out there for concussion recovery coaching. So I don'tthink I really fully, in the early days, trusted in that businessmodel. For all your listeners out there, I think the key thing isreally trust in yourself. If you have a business idea and youdevelop your business plan and it's solid, trust in that and actionit right away. Don't wait. Because obviously the marketplace canchange if you wait, you may lose confidence in yourself if youwait, so it's one of those things of if I look back and I think,"What would I have done differently," I would've jumped in with twofeet right away. That's really a lesson that I want to share withothers.
Yeah, and I think the key thing is, if you haven't got abusiness plan and you're listening, that's something you shouldhave, which I'll be talking on an upcoming podcast pretty soon. Forpeople to really think this through is that you've put this plantogether, you have this courage of your convictions, what have you,and then how many people threw darts at you and said that it wasn'tpossible to build a business? Do you have any family or friendsthat thought you had the most crazy idea? Maybe they thought thatyour concussion was still active.
Oh my gosh, yes, Colin, yes. Oh.So I actually had a definitely two-fold problem. The first thing isthat, in my personal experience, some people knew about myconcussion, other people did not, and so it was hard for me to evenunderstand who at this point knew. It was also interesting becauseI didn't want to just blast out, "Hey, I'm recovered from myconcussion." I wasn't ready at that moment to do that. As themonths went on, I just didn't even realize that some people stillthought that I had a concussion or concussion symptoms, which wasinteresting in itself.
But in term of the naysayers, Idefinitely had quite a bit of that when I talked with specificmedical organizations. The medical community is a bit more of aniche community in itself. For them, there's a lot of nay-saying interms of, "Well, concussions don't really need coaching. This isnot really what we recommend." When you take hits to your personand obviously to your confidence, you really have to get past thatbecause had I listened to them, then I wouldn't be doing what I'mdoing today, and I wouldn't be helping the many people that I amhelping today. That's a really key thing, really going back tohaving that self-confidence in your business plan and in whateveryou're trying to deliver, if it's service-based, whatever serviceyou're trying to deliver to the community and to your targetmarket.
Yeah, and what I love about this is how you've takenthis amazing opportunity, and, yeah, you've got the medicalcommunity saying, "Well, no, you could never do it." I think it'sthe same thing that happened with the taxi industry and Uber.Everyone said that Uber would never be successful, and now the taxiindustry is screaming, attempting as much as they can to shut downUber, and Uber just keeps on growing and growing into multiplemarkets. I think that's what you've done. You've been the disruptorin your industry. There's a traditional way of doing it, anddoctors have said, "No, you can only do it this way."
I want our listeners to realize you need to be adisruptor in your own industry. People say you cannot do something,even people at a very high level. Of course we all respect doctors,they go through a lot of education to get where they are today, butthe challenging part is they only have one way of doing it.Remember, the more educated you become, the more specialized youbecome in a much smaller slice of the pie as opposed to being moreopen and a greater general knowledge of what's happening around theworld.
I think the key thing for me, for our listeners toreally listen to this today, Louise, is that there was opportunityand people attempted to shut you down and even maybe even say thatyou still had symptoms of concussion by doing what you were doing.But the key thing is you had the courage of your convictions, youhad the plan, and you followed through on it. If there was onepiece of advice, Louise, today that you could really give ourlisteners in terms of ... As they move forward and they have theirplan and what have you or whatever they need, what would that pieceof advice be to really help people stay committed to what they'redoing even though they're going to face some challenges as theymove forward? Is there anything you can say to them, like, "Listen,listeners, this is what I did to stay committed even though I'vegot these people telling me I couldn't do it?" How did you staycommitted on a daily basis to get where you are today?
Absolutely. To stay committed,there's not one thing, for me anyways. It was a multitude ofthings. One, it was being surrounded by really great people, reallysupportive business owners, and really having that community ofsupport where there's a lot of open-mindedness.
Also, I guess, when we talkabout confidence, it's also all around making sure that you reallycome back to why you're doing this. Obviously, anyone listening, ifyou've taken any of Colin's courses, you'll know the universalchallenge line. I've hit that many times, that universal challengeline, and for me, what really gets me through is when I come back,I center myself and I really go back to, Why am I doing this? I'mdoing this to truly help others. I'm doing this to make sure thatother people feel empowered in their recovery, other peopleunderstand that they can improve their health, they can improvetheir brain health, and they can get to a better place. When Ireally focus back onto that, if you want to call it, thatheart-centered purpose, that really gets me through. That reallypowers me through to that next level, to really say, "This is whyI'm doing it, and because of this, I'm not going to let anyone stopme because I know that there is value. I see value every single daywhen I work with my clients."
Yeah, and I think that you've also seen it, too, whenyou know you're living on purpose and you know you have a real truemission and why in life is when you start to go from doingone-on-one coaching, which I know you do a lot of one-on-onecoaching. You've also made a really big decision to move intoactually doing workshops where people can come out -
Absolutely.
... that have concussions to really understand. You wantto help as many people as you can, and that's the real leveragepart of it. Instead of working one-on-one, it's working one-on-manyfor people to even understand this, more so, even the familymembers to understand what's happening with their family. We've hadsome challenges here, even at my own company, of people that havebeen through concussions and really behaving in a certain way andreally, we sit back and we go, "Wow, I can't believe that personbehaved that way." But then you realize a lot of it has to do withthe concussion that they have or that they think they've overcomealready.
It's so awesome to hear you as you walk through yourbusiness and what you've done. I'd like to just ask, really diginto a really important question of what are you going to do goingforward? You say you have a why and you have your own purpose andwhat have you. What do you see in the next five years for yourbusiness? So, what are you going to be maybe doing differently orwhat have you thought through of or what are you going to be doingpricing-wise maybe? Maybe you started out at a certain price range,and now you're starting to realize, "I should've had higher pricesfrom the day I started." What are you doing differently around whatyou've learned so far in the last five years or the last few yearsthat you're going to carry forward and even maybe dig deeper intoso that you actually continue to build and serve so manypeople.
Absolutely. I think that that'smore of a three-part question for me. The first thing is youmentioned Uber earlier, and I just really want to go back on that,so Uber as a disruptive industry. What I'm doing right now, as youmentioned, is quite disruptive, so what I've done is I've basicallytaken concepts that really exist more in other industries, and I'mapplying them into the health industry. So when we talk businesscoaching, if you're at 500,000 in your business and you want to getto a million, it's a pretty no-brainer that you can get a businesscoach. You might hire a business coach, you might take, Colin, someof your courses as a trainer, someone to coach you through this,right? Because this is what we do. In relationships, relationshipcoaching is becoming a little bit more of a known practice, ifyou're having troubles in your relationship, to get some coachingon that and how to move forward.
But health coaching doesn'treally exist. It's really interesting that I'm taking principlesfrom other industries and applying them in health. From thatdisruptive type of concept, what that's created for me is someopportunity. I challenge your listeners as you listen to this toreally think about what other principles that are out there inmaybe other industries or maybe in different business models thatyou can now apply to your business model. Sometimes, we get stuckin one mode of working. Well, it's always been done this way, andthis is the way I should do it. So I really challenge you to takelittle tips and tricks and techniques from other places and bringthem into your business. So that's the first thing.
Let me just add to that for a second, Louise, because Ithink that's such a great point, before you carry on. I think thekey thing is for people to really see that, that there's so manygreat tips and strategies out there from different industries.People come to me very frequently, they'll say to me, "Colin,you're not a realtor. You've never had a concussion. How can you bea concussion coach. You're not a mortgage broker. How can you coachme as a mortgage broker?" I go, "That's the thing I want you torealize." When you get stuck in your industry, all you ever seem tohear is, "Well, it's only done this way in our industry," and whatLouise is saying to listeners today is that you need to sometimesget out of your industry, do things differently. Stop being thetaxis of the world, be the Uber of the world in your industry byusing different strategies and techniques from otherindustries.
Absolutely awesome. I'll let you carry on, Louise. Ijust wanted to really add that because it's such an important thingfor people to really understand, that there are opportunities andyou've just got to think outside of the box and sometimes thinkoutside of your industry. Go get a coach or mentor or someone who'snot in your industry because if they are, often they'll tell youit's only done one way, and that's the way your industry's alwaysdone it. Be the disruptor, don't be the conformer.
Absolutely. That's a great wayto put it, Colin. Thanks. When you do that, that createsopportunities. It actually will create new opportunities that youmay not even have envisioned. For me, I had initially onlyenvisioned ever doing one-on-one coaching, and so what that's nowturned into for me is I'm running workshops. I actually run aCalgary concussion group out here in Calgary. It's just allowed me,really, to expand into a one-to-many type of environment, helpingmore people. Interestingly enough, it actually created this uniqueopportunity, when we look at destructing the industry. It created abrand new opportunity I hadn't even envisioned. What started tohappen is people that were interested in brain health but did nothave a concussion started to apply some of my techniques and beinterested in what I'm doing.
And so you had asked me thequestion around what am I envisioning for the next five years? I'mactually going to be launching a brand new brand. It's actuallygoing to be called the Brain-Body Shift. So it'll be abrain-specific brand, so not concussion, and it'll be forindividuals who are just looking to really increase their brainperformance. A lot of the work that I do with concussion and a lotof the techniques that we use and the system as a whole absolutelydoes apply to improved brain health, even for just any individuallooking to improve their health as a whole.
I'm really excited about that. Ihad never envisioned this when I first started the business. It's abrand new opportunity for me. Definitely working with organizationsand CEOs, looking to help their teams really get to the nextlevel.
So let me ask you a question around, which I really loveas well within what you're doing. Let's go back to the one keything. Tell me a little bit about your pricing, where you startedoff pricing-wise. You don't have to give me the numbers, but whereyou started off and where you're at today and where you're goingaround pricing because I think that's a big part of this wholeconfidence thing that so many people say, "Oh, no, I need to startoff low." Give us where you're going and what your experience hasbeen around pricing, and what advice would you give our listenersaround pricing?
Absolutely. Initially, I wascoaching for free, let's face it. That's how it all started for mebefore I actually did up my business plan and, actually, it kickedoff my business. In terms of pricing, I've gone through probably,at this point, definitely three sets of pricing. With theBrain-Body Shift, what I've also realized, too, with the new brandthat I'm going to be launching, is that I realize in thatparticular sort of environment I'm definitely going to need someonline programs, so I'm actually building out some online programsas well. So not only many-to-one or, say, one-to-many groupcoaching but also some things that you can just download and use onyour own.
I think what I would share withlisteners is don't think of your pricing as necessarily ... Becauseyou set your price at one point, this is the price that it has tostay at for ten years. I don't think it really works like that.This is always trial and error. If you can, when you start off,really have that self-confidence to really understand your worth inthe marketplace and do that market assessment and really see howyou can really affect change and then price thataccordingly.
For me, it was a little bit hardbecause, don't forget, as we talked about earlier, I'm thedisruption in the market, so I had no benchmark in terms of whatpricing strategies would be effective. For me, it was a little bitof trial and error, and also, understanding my new market is veryinteresting as well, so the non-concussed market. That would needdifferent online programs, so also I switch it up. I really thinkthat that whole trial and error is really important, pilotingdifferent things, very important in my business.
Yeah, and I think that's one thing I know that I'm goingto be doing an upcoming podcast, an upcoming episode, as well, isI'm going to be talking around really cash-flowing your pricingbecause it fascinates me how many people start out at pricing thatthey think is really acceptable but actually doesn’t make money. Sowatch out for that episode. It'll be coming up in the next fewweeks, to all our listeners, around pricing.
So, Louise, thank you for that. This has been awesometoday. I really, really love you coming on the show and sharingyour brilliance with our listeners. As we round off for today, forme, I really wanted to, most of all, say thank you, Louise. I'mgoing to just do a little bit of a summary here for our listenershere, a very quick, short summary.
Number one, be courageous. Have the courage of yourconvictions, everybody. Really, really important. When you make adecision to be a disrupter in your industry and you decide to be anon-conformer, you're going to get arrows thrown at you and havedarts shot at you and what have you by so many different people.That's okay. You've got to get a thick skin so you can move forwardand keep on doing it because when you know you're doing things thatare right to serve humanity and you're doing it through yourbusiness, you've got to keep going no matter what. And, yes, thosearrows might hurt, but guess what? When you get to where you needto be, you become the disrupter. And as you go through yourpricing, be thinking of your pricing. Think of your pricing in avery structured way of, "Okay, what can the market bear? What is mypricing currently? Am I even going to make money at what I'mdoing?" Have you cash-flowed that pricing? If you're not sure whatthe cash flow means, we'll talk about that in an upcomingepisode.
So, Louise, it's been so super interesting listening toyou today, as well as just hearing where you're going and whatyou're doing. I'm sure there's people out there that might havepeople in their lives that have had concussion, or they might evenbe listening and not even know they're suffering frompost-concussion disorder or what have you. So how can people easilyget hold of you if they have any questions, what have you? Andplease, listeners, you're more than welcome to connect with Louise,but she's not going to give you free consultation. As much as shesaid she used to do that, she no longer does that. Just saying. Ifyou want to get hold of Louise ... Louise, what's the easiest wayfor them to get hold of you?
Absolutely. They can go to mywebsite at www.concussionshift.com.
Louise, just thank you for being on today. I wish youmassive success as you go forward, and I look forward, maybe in afew episodes' time or maybe in a year's time or so, to get you backon to give us an update on where things are at.
Absolutely. I'd love to,Colin.
Ways to contact Louise:
- Website: www.concussionshift.com
