INCREDIBLE Story: This Guy's Determination Is Crazy | Poor Inner-City Youth To Author

This guy will stop at nothing to achieve his and his team of three others' goal to grow an indie ebook/content company into a major player.

Showing promise at an early age, House was approached by teachers urging him to accept an offer into the prestigious T.A.L.O.N.S gifted education program -- at the time, only 1.4% of students were accepted.

The purpose of the program is to help nurture and accelerate a rare & valuable skill or talent, which can range from mathematics, coding, science, or linguistics/writing.

Combined with a mature-beyond-years and a vivid imagination, his art ranging from creative short stories, paintings, and even on the more serious side, essays, were featured on display in the Vancouver museum.

The promise of a strong future was always in jeopardy, however, given his environment -- living on the infamous East Hastings St., the worst street in Canada for drugs, crime, and an overall atmosphere of despair. Raised by a single mother, his mom worked long hours full-time to provide for him and his younger sister -- it required moving new schools yearly -- which made making friends who were there for the long haul nearly impossible.

After his parents split up at 8 months old, his grandfather played a big role as a male influence and was the same age as most people's father. His grandfather passed away suddenly, where House stayed in his hospice until his grandfather's last day.

The effects were devastating, stating: "I haven't been able to relax since.
No, seriously. That feeling of 'everything is going to be alright' never returned. That's why I'm a work addict and can't enjoy leisure even at the cost of my health. I hate it. People that love me hate it."

To honor his grandad, he earned a college scholarship and graduated with a B.S. degree in business communications and worked in the digital marketing / advertising agency business all 2010's. One agency in particular, he was one of the first employees and played a key part in its growth to a global agency -- becoming Head of Business Development at 24-years-old.

Building the team and process from scratch, it was highly scrutinized by the company's executive team, both questioning the CEO's decision-making entrusting such a key function to someone young, and the ability for him to lead a sales team (let alone build one).

The goals of the company were lofty and expecations were high -- but in a year and a half, the team went on to break industry records, dating back decades, and received accolades from Forrester Research, Google, and other notable industry veterans.

The startup-turned-powerhouse ended up being acquired, which was the goal he and his team had eyed since the onset; One that came "10 years too early" according to House. Upon further clarification on that statement it was due to not being able to enjoy the fruits of his labor and the "weird feeling that comes with checking off everything on your life's to-do list", among key relationships and other assets built over the years being disbanded.

Once again, he found himself back in a familiar place -- on his own -- and became a consultant advising top startups on lead generation, digital marketing, and sales. With a strong creative foundation from childhood and learning strong business & sales acumen from his grandfather, he blended the methodologies together, leading to some highly unorthodox practices -- ranging from training new hires to marketing / sales tactics themselves.

Despite fierce skepticism, pressure, and scrutiny, he took bold risks and never wavered from his convictions -- which lead to enormous payoffs pushing him higher in his climb to success.

"I look back at my childhood which was pretty rough -- without my mom's sacrifices, I don't even want to think about where I'd be. But it [East Hastings] forces you to grow up at a young age, and things that terrify most people even in their adulthood, don't really shake you. No matter what's going on, you always remind yourself 'I've been through much worse'"

Now, set to go after the next vision, win or lose, he co-founded Rainy Night On Hastings with two others -- one of them being Harley Cristensen, who House claims is "his favorite writer / storyteller, which is why I was thrilled he agreed to this. Everyday I wake up and say, I'm working with Harley. That's badass."

They make a formidable team, where their skillsets compliment each other. It's been noted that Harley leans on House for dialogue, which is one of the key hallmarks of the Rainy Night On Hastings style, where Harley 'shapes worlds with such a richness in-depth and subtlely - and writes at the perfect pace, that he 'sort-of' ruined books for me because now I just find myself comparing, which I shouldn't", House says.

They knew of each other, briefly meeting when they were living on Hastings, but came acquainted by a 'strange coincidence on Instagram of all places in a comment section about indie ebooks'.

The Rainy Night On Hastings brand and essence can be experienced firsthand in this video, which shows the inspiration for a lot of the themes: bravery in difficult circumstances, independence, finding humor and normalcy in the darkside of life, and a 'ground-level view' of characters with authenticity that's hard to replicate.

"That's because we actually lived it. Right in the thick of things. We're part of the thick of things. It's always embedded in us", House said of himself and Harley.

This video gives you raw footage of East Hastings St. from 3rd party commentary and a transparent interview with House discussing the inspiration and meaning behind Rainy Night On Hastings.

"We create TV series in 10,000 word books -- each book being its own episode", stated House. "Our standard is the Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Entourage, etc. There's no expectations to achieve what they did, those are legendary series, but we're going to aim for that -- and why shouldn't we? It does you good to demand the best from yourself"