Owning Your Story: Lessons from Marcus Ogden's Life

This episode, we have Marcus Ogden as our guest who shares his journey from being an NFL player to losing everything and then rebuilding his life to become a successful executive coach, motivational speaker, and trainer. Marcus talks about his "spoil milk moment" and how it motivated him to turn his life around, emphasizing the importance of accountability and responsibility in achieving success. He also discusses his experience of starting his speaking business and eventually becoming a bestselling author, business coach, consultant, brand ambassador, and podcast host. Marcus highlights the significance of focusing on small steps to achieve long-term success and shares how he was hired by major organizations to train their staff. He also mentions the role of his trusted circle in helping him get his first speaking opportunity.

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
This episode, we have Marcus Ogden. He's sharing with us how he,
after leaving the NFL, developed acompany earning eight figures and then after several
years ninety days, he lost itall and in his downward spiral, he

(00:21):
eventually came to be making eight dollarsand twenty four cents, but then deciding
this is not the end of hisstory, turned it all around. Now
he's an executive coach, motivational speaker, a highly sought after a trainer.
He's going to share with us hisstory. Welcome to night Beat Media's Living

(00:47):
the Dream podcast with your host GregoryTucker, where we discussed the entrepreneur's journey
of turning a dream into reality,showing you how to learn, overcome,
and to strategic action steps. Ifyou're ready to turn your dream into a
reality, then get ready to takeaction. Here's your host, Gregory Tucker.

(01:17):
As always, Marcus, what wealways like to ask our guests is
to tell us about yourself. GregoryMarcus Ogden is a current national international keynote
speaker, business coach, consultant,best selling author. Podcast hosts of the
Get Authentic with Marcus Ogden show,We are right in the top one percent

(01:38):
worldwide most popular podcast. Gregory andI am also from Washington, d C.
And I currently now live in theRaleigh, North Carolina area as well.
Okay, and one of the thingsas I was reading your bio in
your history along your journey that amazedme and especially far As for show.

(02:00):
It's called living the dream, andthat is the journey you took when you
saw a failure. Now you wereon the world stage of what most young
men dream about, and that isbecoming an NFL football player, being at
the top of your game, andthen one day leaving millions the millions of

(02:25):
dollars and traveling around the world inorder to come back or as from what
I understand, eight dollars and twentyfour cents tell us at any point that
you have the reservation or were youat one point thinking how am I going

(02:52):
to make this right here? Orfalling into a downward spiral? Yes,
Gregory. So when I moved toraw North Carolina after losing my business and
everything that I owned, I wentthrough making an eight figure I had an
eight figure year construction company, andI made eight dollars and twenty five cents

(03:15):
an hour on the Great Yard ShiftGregory as a custodian from ten pm until
five am, and I was struggling, missy with how to support my family,
what to do next, lots ofhardships, lots of over drinking,
and this being very just mad atlife and mad at the world. And

(03:36):
what I realized at that time Gregory, was I had no accountability and I
had no responsibility in my life.And I realized at that moment, which
was called my spoiled milk moment,where someone was trash and rotten meat,
Gregory nasty, protruding garbage over mybody, my skin, and my clothes.

(03:59):
And I had that moment. Itmade me real life either to get
up off the curve and fix mylife or stay on the curve and complain
about my life every single day.And that's what drolls me to say,
you know what I was meant for? More, I can do more,
I can be more. Let's getgoing down the path. And that started

(04:21):
me down the train of getting mylife together to be where I'm at today
as a speaker, author, coach, consult and of course a podcast host.
Okay, now all of those things, because a lot of people go
through that and they begin to maketheir way back. But all of those

(04:41):
things don't come together just overnight,because when we hear about the overnight success,
usually that turns out to be yearsin the making. Tell us about
that journey far as putting all thosecomponents together, if you would please,
great question. So I ended upafter my spoilt milk moment, I went

(05:03):
home and I down my stream biggeststrengths, and what I realized was I
was a good communicator. I wasa good storyteller, and I wanted to
help people. And those three thingsformally me becoming a keynote speaker, and
I began my entire business journey onthat path. For two and a half

(05:24):
years, though Gregory not one paidjob, not one. And I tell
people I realized now woman ever,I was fulfilled in my journey because I
never gave up when times got hard, when things weren't looking right, I
never gave up. I kept goingforward and kept pushing forward. So I

(05:46):
was very fulfilled in that aspect.And after a lot of hard work,
a lot of sacrifice, I gotmy first page speaking job with Millermont College
in April twenty sixteen, and fromat that point Gregory I continued to work
and build, and I then startedto really perfect the speaking business. Then

(06:08):
I became an author. Then fromthere I became a business coach, then
became a consultant. Then I becamea brand ambassador and a business owner,
and I became a podcast host,and I start now ISSU some pr and
marketing for specific clients wanting to geton podcasts and grow their brand. So

(06:30):
it did not happen overnight. I'mgoing to tell your listeners, in order
to achieve what you want for thelong term, you got to focus on
the small steps. And I didthat because if I didn't perfect speaking right
Gregory, and learned the trade andlearn how to actually connect with people the
art of storytelling, the artic bringingvalue, I hadn't perfected that right,

(06:54):
Gregory. Now I'm not where Iam today as a business leader and all
those type of things. Now youare hired by some major organizations in order
to come in and train their staff. Tell us how did those things come

(07:15):
to foolish? Well? I startedoff with and I talk with this all
the time. Lean on your trustedcircle. One of my good friends,
Dave Missmisky, works for NetApp,a Fortune five hundred technology brand here in
the Raleigh area. I trained bothof his sons in football private one oh

(07:39):
one coaching lessons and technique. Well, Dad gave me my first chance to
speak for a Fortune and fiverership brandfor no money to build my resume.
And after doing that speech, Ithought I did phenomenal, But unfortunately I
didn't do phenomenal because when I bepack from said Marcus, great, great

(08:03):
passion, great energy, wrong topic, and I was talking a lot about
my business and my business failure.And they were medical people, right grat
they wouldn't care about my concussions andct and football. And as a result
of not knowing my audience and notknowing how to do what I need to

(08:24):
do, I bombed my first everFortune VD client speaking job. Now,
luckily I was a friend who gaveme another opportunity to speak for them.
About six months later, did thatjob and I crushed it. But over
time I've had to learn how topull in parts of my story, parts
of my life that really make theaudience feel that the message is speaking directly

(08:48):
to them. And once they feeland once they feel that energy, right
Gregory, at that point you becomea inspirational keynote speaker. I can do
aspire in enlighten and educate audiences.Now, that was one of the things
I had heard Les Brown say inone of his pieces, and that is

(09:13):
when he was first starting out.That one time he was on his way
to speaking, he had got finishedspeaking, and I guess he had came
from an engagement and he was comingback and he said something like, oh,
I can do that. But hesaid something to the effect that he
stood up, but his mind shutdown. And that is that, Hey,

(09:39):
sometimes it's as you had mentioned,and that is the first time you
bombed. But how did you overcomethat fear? First of all, and
that is stepping in front of anaudience. My first ever speaking job was

(10:00):
in October of twenty thirteen for theBoys and Girls Club. I remember holding
onto that podium for dear life likeit was a force field that kept the
audience away from me. And overtime to practice through failure and through see

(10:20):
back and through watching myself speak andlearning how to stop saying oh and ah
those killers and just continue to workon my crafty WoT that the morning you're
after year, that's where things startto get better. So for me,
if anybody's listening, learn how toenjoy the process and study and learn how

(10:48):
to perfect your craft every single day, because the more you're perfecting your craft
every single day, the more you'reactually working towards learning goals into accomplishe every
single day. So did you doU? Would you advise someone to utilize

(11:09):
Toastmasters for instance? So absolutely,Gregory. Toast Masters is a phenomenal organization
to practice your craft right anywhere youcan go to get in front of people
to perfect your craft and get feedback, it's going to be awesome. But

(11:30):
doing things like what we're doing right, Gregory, getting on the podcast right.
People are consuming content now more thanever on podcasts, and when I
go on every podcast, right Gregory, I treat it like a speaking job.
I don't want to use space fillers. I don't want to stammer.
I don't want to stutter. Idon't want to for my words. I

(11:54):
want to be very polished, Iwant to be very proficient. I want
to be very excel at speaking becausethis is another opportunity to practice what I
do. That's my job. Ispeak for a living. I talk,
I coach, I educate, Iinspire, I try to ENLiGHT. If
I'm one podcast treating it like this. Oh, it's another podcast. It's

(12:16):
gonna talk like this, and I'mjust gonna go bs around, right,
Gregory, that's not doing me anygood to better myself at my crap of
speaking. So I'm gonna challenge yourlisteners. Get into toast as if you
want to speak awesome, but alsoget on the podcasts radio when you're having

(12:37):
conversations with people, being titched abouthow you're talking. Good pace, good
inflection, good energy. All thosethings are gonna make a huge impact on
what you do. And it's withanything. What about having a coach,
Oh, coaching is everything. Idon't don't care graduate what you do,

(13:01):
what, industry, professional sports,working, corporate America. Everybody needs a
coach, right. Plato was asuccessful teacher. He was taught by Socrates.
Plato taught Aristotle in his school.Aristotle left the school when Plato died.

(13:22):
Aristotle coached Alexander the Great to bea better, more well rounded individual,
and that type of leadership did whatmade Alexander the Great one of the
greatest conquerors of all time. Becausehe was coached by Aristotle. What how
to be diverse, how to bewell rounded? How to approach life from

(13:46):
not just a war prospective, butmath, astrology, English literature, poetry
that made Alexander what prepared for anythingon the battlefield. So coaching, Gregory,
can change lies and the trajectory oftime and mentorship. Mentorship is all

(14:11):
about having somebody that you can trustthat is going to give you sound advice
when you reach out to them.And that's important because mentorship is another level
of coaching, but as somebody youcan lean on and talk to, have
a dialogue you know has your bestinterest at heart. Okay, well,

(14:37):
Barcus, this has been very valuable, especially far as to our listeners or
are looking to pursue that journey ofgoing into being an inspirational or a motivational
speaker. Now, what are someof the ways that they can contact you

(14:58):
or that they can follow you onyour social media? Thank you very much,
Gregor. And they can follow meon Instagram at Marcus Ogden, m
A r q U E s Og d E N. Facebook is Marcus
Ogden, TikTok is at Marcus Ogden, seventy one's at Marcus Underscore Ogden,

(15:24):
Late tinnis Marcus Ogden. We canalso go to our site www dot marcusden
dot com or shoot me an emailMarcus at Marcusogden dot com. Reach out
to us. We'd love to connectwith you. Okay, this has been
great right here. I know you'rea very busy man and it is much

(15:48):
appreciated that you took the time outof your busy day in order to appear
on this podcast here. So asalways we like to tell our viewers or
our listeners, and that is,whenever you're writing the story of your life,
make sure that you're holding the pen. And I'm hoping that our listeners

(16:11):
have at their pen at they're ready, because you drop some very valuable gems
right there. Now. Is thereanything else that you would like to leave
the listeners with? I will saythis and Plato made it very well known

(16:32):
through his teaching, which I couldagree with. More own your story.
If you're going to go out andtry to position yourself to speak coach and
like start whatever, own your story. There's only one of you and that's
more than enough. When you ownyour story, you own your place in

(16:56):
the world. Wow. I hopeyou found that informative, inspiring and in
doing so, hit the like buttonleave us a comment. We hope to
have this story push this story outfars to other individuals who need inspiration.
Thanks for listening to night Beat Media'sLiving the Dream. If you enjoyed this

(17:21):
podcast, please leave a comment orhit follow and subscribe on our late so
you can stay up to date onnew episodes until next time. When writing
the story of your life, besure you're holding the pen.