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In this coaching session you’re gonna meet a former NFL player named Marcus. He’s here because he wanted my advice on kicking ass in business.

My name is Marcus Ogden. I’m 37 years old. I’m from Washington DC. I played in the NFL from 2003 to 2009. I am a keynote speaker. Since Marcus is a keynote speaker, he’s also a great storyteller. And in this coaching session you’re gonna learn the power of owning your whole story in life and in business, including the painful parts. And for Marcus, that means telling the story of what it feels like to go from being an NFL player, to owning a business, to then losing everything.

Say, my God, my God, why me like… why the hell would you bases take for me, everything. My house gone, both my trucks repossessed in the same week, gone. I was just trying to basically scraped to stay alive. You’re listening to live coaching sessions with real people. Hi, Mel. I’m Aisha Hamid from Pakistan. Love you Mel. Hi Mel. I wanna be coached by you. Pick me, Mel. Hi, Mel. My name is Lisa. I’m from Brazil. 54321, come on Mel Robbins, please pick me.

Facing real problems. Anxiety of what other people think. Self-acceptance is my biggest thing. Procrastination is causing me to just build a wall. The fear of losing weight. That should stip this fuck.

And experiencing real change. That’s powerful. That was the real talking. Oh, shit. Now I really know what to do and I feel empowered. That is nuts, Mel. You blew my shit away. This is Kick Ass with Mel Robbins.

So tell me why are you here? What can I help you with? I’m kind of stuck in my business where I’m trying to get to that next level. I get up at 5 o’clock every morning, go to the gym. I’m out there talking people through… I have a lot of through linked in. I’m active there all the time, meeting people and going to different ghetto gives get gigs. I get all that but to become like yourself. You really need to have that quantum leap and I don’t know how to get there.

I can certainly help you because it sounds like what you want to do and I can relate to it, we’re gonna get into it, is this idea that you put in the work, you check all the boxes and you grow, but then you hit the ceiling and you start to feel stock and you have no idea, at least I didn’t at the time, how the hell do I create a quantum leap for myself, correct, when I feel like I’ve hit the ceiling and I don’t know what to do next. So tell me your story. Okay, so I’m from Washington DC. I was raised by single father. My brothers often on some issue in the NFL football Hall of Fame. I played in the NFL from 2003 to 2009. Get out of NFL had a tremendous time struggling with the transition, like what do I do next. Like you say, you’re lost, like what is the next piece. So I ended up starting a construction business. I got a business partner which is a mistake. He had been in this business of construction for almost 40 years. The problem was, I was a commercial contractor, he was a residential contractor. By the time I realized he was in the same stratosphere as doing work for commercial, it was too late. I signed a bond. I was already on the hook. So everything was going great though. We went from zero dollars to eight figure businesses in five years. I was, I’m a people person. I can market well. I can go help close deals. That is my strong suit.

So I was a CEO in charge of marketing getting jobs, all collections, all that. So in 2012 we went for very large contract and took a job 4 million dollars, hit a snag and I had to spent millions of dollars in 90 days unexpectedly. It was not planned, end of 2012. So probably like August, September, so I spent the money, it’s now December what you paid back by change order by the developer, contractor, they denied it. I never got a signed document because I shook their hand and we’re gonna take care of that and by the way, if you don’t do it we’re gonna call your boss. So they put pressure on me and I was young and my partner said what do we do and he said let’s go for it and I didn’t get a signed contract cause that was really under the gun. The concrete contractor was pushing me, the developer was pushing me and I was very young and inexperienced. Right. So I the job and I did not get paid back by the developer contractor and I end up going bankrupt in 2013.

So then I go to Carolina with the NFL’s help and I applied for that called the Jean Upshaw trust assistance’s fund. It’s a fund that helps players that are in financial hardship that can prove it with tax documentation, bank statements, so when I moved down to Carolina from Baltimore, the NFL help get me a job at Merrill Lynch. I was working there for a couple of months. I gotta let go, because I wasn’t going to pass a series. I was filling in my practice tests.

Now, hold on. You went to Harvard, that’s not an easy school to get into. No, it’s not. And what did you…? Finance. So, how embarrassing was it for you to be a major in finance, a Harvard graduate and go bankrupt and then get a job with the trust from the NFL and collecting bargaining agreement. Very nice. And get a job at Merrill Lynch and then get let go because you can’t get past the seven? You know.. I mean what was it like in your head? It was a nightmare. It was… oh, it was I call it walking hell on earth. It’s like, you realize that what you did in school, you’re not good at anymore because I had graduated over almost 10 years ago and all I knew for that real time, for most the time was football. When I got to Merrill Lynch everything that I studied in collage, I forgot. And trying to re-program my brain and reinvent myself in that lane was a mistake. Yeah. Total mistake and I ended up getting let go and I got to Harvard. And construction company, yes construction company, I’m all ready to go. I know what to. Hired on Monday, fired on Friday. Holy cow. Fired twice within a week.

So what did you make that mean? Cause obviously you gotta process it. I made it mean that I was in the wrong space and that I need to go back and find my passion which was football. Now how the hell, cause that sounds like a transformed idea. Because if I got fired twice within a week I’be like, the world sucks, there is no God, this isn’t fair, fuck all of you. You know, what happened. I don’t believe that you are that transformed. Well, okay, okay so let me go back. Forget that. I’m gonna tell you how quantum leap your motivational speaking is but I wanna know you as a human being. So when I got fired the second time, okay, I got hooked on alcohol. I drank and I.. What was your drink of choice? It was Miller light and tanqueray and tunic. Tanqueray, how the hell can you afford tanqueray? I couldn’t really afford it. So Miller was, I had tanqueray every once in a while. Both Miller… You gotta take a lot of Miller lately. Oh, yeah. How much weight did you get? I came down to Carolina, probably about 2.80 then I got fired twice. I probably from my 2.8 about 3.30 and probably about 4 to 5 months period, it was just hamburger helper, Miller light, hamburger helper, Miller light. That’s all we could afford. We couldn’t afford nothing else. That’s what it was…

So that’s what I did for about 4-5 months. And I coach football and that was a re-transformation because that’s what I knew but it’s sucked because I’m like, man like this is my life but I’m literally on, what’s it called? Living social and I’m bruising living social finding phone numbers of people to call and say hey, you wanna get some stuff on the side?