High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 314: Resilience in Transition and Failure with Former NFL Lineman, Keynote Speaker and Author, Marques Ogden

Episode Date: February 29, 2020

Growing up in a single-parent home with a father that inspired perseverance and fairness, Marques learned how to define his values and set goals. Marques attended Howard University from 1998-2002 where he played football and then followed his dream and his brother Jonathan’s footsteps, getting drafted into the NFL in 2003. He played five years as an offensive lineman with the Titans, Bills, Ravens and Jaguars. At the peak of his post-NFL career, Marques Ogden was worth $4 million. Following his NFL career, Marques started Kayden Premier Enterprises, a constructions company in 2007 which quickly escalated to being a multi-million dollar construction firm. In 2013, it all crashed around him. Marques got involved in a bad business deal and he ended up losing everything. Now Marques is a keynote speaker, executive coach, and corporate trainer. His passion is to create value for each client and help others succeed where he failed. This clients include Home Depot and JP Morgan and Chase. In this podcast, Marques and Cindra talk about:   How mindset is key to longevity in the NFL How the best in the NFL train their mind His definition of resilience and 3 things you must possess to persevere What he learned from Bill Belichick, the current New England Patriots Coach, Ray Lewis, Hall of Fame player with the Ravens, and Mel Robbins, the bestselling author His lessons learned when his construction company failed 4 things you need to do to have a dream big mindset You can find more about Marques at https://marquesogden.com/.

Hey, my name is Cindra Campoff and I'm a small-town Minnesota gal, Minnesota nice as we like to say it, who followed her big dreams. I spent the last four years working as a mental coach for the Minnesota Vikings, working one-on-one with the players. I wrote a best-selling book about the mindset of the world's best and I'm a keynote speaker and national leader in the field of sport and performance psychology. And I am obsessed with showing you exactly how to develop the mindset of the world's best so you can accomplish all your goals and dreams. So I'm over here following my big dreams and I'm here to inspire you and practically show you how to do the same. And you know, when I'm not working, you'll find me playing Ms. Pac-Man.

Yes, the 1980s game Ms. Pac-Man. So take your notepad out, buckle up, and let's go. This is the high performance mindset. Resilience is all about getting up off the canvas when life knocks you down. And what you need to do to be resilient is focus on your strengths, delegate your weaknesses, and use the strengths as the inner force, the inner drive to get off the canvas when life knocks you down. Welcome to the High Performance Mindset Podcast. This is your host, Dr. Cinder Kampoff. And thank you so much for joining me here today for episode 315 with Marcus Ogden. I am so grateful that you're here ready to listen to the episode. Welcome to the podcast if you're joining me for the first time. If you subscribe, thank you so much for joining me each and every week.

And if you haven't subscribed, make sure you do so. Wherever you're listening today, you can just go ahead and scroll down and hit the subscribe button. And that just helps us reach more and more people each and every week and get better guests on the show. So thanks so much for subscribing. Now today I've interviewed Marcus Ogden. And let me give you a little bit of background of Marcus before we jump into the interview. So growing up in a single parent home with a father that really inspired perseverance and fairness, Marcus learned how to define his values and set his goals. He attended Howard University from 1998 to 2002, where he played football and then followed his dream and his brother's footsteps getting drafted into the NFL

in 2003. He played five years as an offensive lineman for the Titans, Bills, Ravens, and Jaguars. So he lasted longer than the average NFL player. At the peak of his post-NFL career, Marcus was worth $4 million. And he started his company called Caden Premier Enterprises, which was a construction company, and in 2007 had really escalated to being a multi-million dollar construction firm. But just five years, six years later, it all crashed down around him. He got involved in a bad business deal and ended up losing everything. So Marcus is now a keynote speaker, executive coach, and corporate trainer. And his passion really is to create value

for each of his clients, but help others succeed where he failed, and help them learn the lessons that he has learned in terms of transition and resiliency throughout his career and his time as a football player. So his clients so far have included Home Depot and JP Morgan and Chase. So there's a lot of different things that we talk about in this interview. I wanted to really understand his perspective in terms of the mindset and how that's important in the NFL and particularly the longevity in the NFL. So he has some excellent insights on that. We talk about how the best in the NFL really do train their mind. He gives us his definition of resilience and three things that we need to possess to

persevere. We talk about what he learned from Bill Belichick, the current New England Patriots coach, what he learned from Ray Lewis, the Hall of Fame player with the Ravens, and then he was interviewed by the best-selling author Mel Robbins for her book. And we also talk about his lessons that he learned when his construction company failed and four things you need to do to have a big dream mindset. I know you're going to love this interview with Marcus. So let's get into it. Without further ado, let's bring on Marcus. Hey, Marcus, thank you so much for being on the High Performance Mindset.

How's your day going? Doing well, Cintra. Thank you very much. How are you? I'm doing awesome. Tell us where you're coming from? I'm doing awesome. Tell us where you're coming from. I'm in Raleigh, North Carolina. Well, actually in a little town called Cary, North Carolina, which is about 20 minutes from Raleigh. Yeah, I actually got one of my

degrees in North Carolina. So I spent about seven years there. So I went to University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Very nice. Very nice. Good school. It's a good school. Yeah. So it's probably nice and sunny there is my guess. It is. It's just sunny, probably about 55, 60 degrees. So not one of our warmer days, but it's not bad. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's like 20 today. So, you know, I'm happy with what we have. I won't complain. Sorry. Exactly. So Marcus, tell us about your passion and what you do right now. So I'm a national and international keynote speaker, executive coach, corporate trainer, and a bestselling author. Awesome. Awesome. And I know one of the things I really want to talk to you about is your time in the NFL. I've provided

mental training to the Minnesota Vikings for the last four years. So I really want to talk to you about your experience in the NFL and your transition, and then your transition to what you're doing now. So tell us just a little bit about your journey from Howard, right, to the NFL. So I was drafted in 2003 by Jack Del Rio of the Jacksonville Jaguars. He was the first year head coach. Phenomenal guy. He's actually back in the NFL as a D coordinator with the Washington Redskins. I'm very happy to see that. Great coach, great leader. The NFL was a great opportunity, a lot of fun, a lot of great memories, great friends. But like you mentioned earlier, it's a very mentally tough game. It's ruling on the mind, the body, and it's a lot you have to do every single

day, everything. So for me, it taught me a lot about teamwork, camaraderie, culture, how to be, you know, more of an effective person when it comes to leadership and being really driven to have a healthy culture. The teams I've seen do the best in the NFL are the teams that have a strong culture. When the culture is strong, then the team is in a much better position to do great things. Yeah, absolutely. So I want to ask you a few questions on that, Marcus. So when you think, you know, and I appreciate you saying that it's a really mentally tough place to be be play after play after play tell us like what your experience was that what

with that like why would you say it was so tough mentally to be in the NFL because everybody you're playing is a professional and you're going to get beat and when you get beat if you don't have the mental stability or the mental mindset to bend but not break yes you're not you're gonna have a really difficult time because everybody wants to be perfect you want to always have every play go your way or every call go your way or everything kind of be perfect perfect perfect but that's not real because like i said the guy on the other side from you if i'm an o-lineman the d-line if i'm a wide receiver, the DB, if I'm a quarterback, the linebacker, they earn a check too. So it's so hard to be able to put yourself in that mindset that if I lose, I can just go, let it go,

walk away, and it's another play. The guys who do that at a high level are the ones that have the longer careers and have usually a better career because they understand one play does not make an entire game. Yeah. Isn't that so true? And I know you've had so much experience in the NFL with various teams. So when you think about you being able to thrive in that space, what did you have to do to be able to really be at your best play after play? I had to focus on my strengths, what I did well, and I had to really work hard with my coaches, position coaches, coordinators to improve my weaknesses.

And I had to learn that constructive criticism is not a bad thing. One of the big things that leaders have to learn how to do is take criticism and learn that inclusion and healthy dialogue is the only way to get better. I had a great call yesterday with one of my clients, Liberty Mutual, and they gave me some great feedback for my talk. Nothing negative, but well, Mark, if you did this, maybe it would help out a little bit more. Or if you focused on this, it would

help you a little bit more with this. And they were great ideas. They really were. And that's what happens. A lot of people do not understand that it's so important to just be able to have people around you to give you real good, healthy, inclusive advice. So when you think about your, you know, your teammates or other people who you

seen really thrive in the NFL, what do you think they do differently from a mental standpoint? Oh, they're meant to, it's, they, again, they work with people like yourself. They get the coaching, not just from their coaches, they hire great mental toughness advisors. They work on it around the clock, not just during the season. It takes a long time to get to that point. People like Ray Lewis, who I played with, people like Ed Reed, my brother, these are people that had that and Ray Lewis would always talk about doing different types of things in the offseason like he would do uh jiu-jitsu or karate or you know yoga you know doing different things that test your mental sights yeah that makes sense for sure for sure what do you think that people do in the nfl when they

don't thrive like what have you seen you know your teammates who maybe lasted one or two seasons uh you know isn't the average like 2.7 years that you want it's like 1.4 something like that yeah oh it's worse than uh than it was several years ago like what do you see those guys do in terms of why do they not stay? When they make mistakes, it becomes emotional and personal. And a lot of times, the guys don't take the constructive criticism well. They feel it's an attack. And it's not an attack. It's not an attack.

It's getting you in a position to be better. So it's not attacking your ability to play the game. It's trying to help you find better ways to maybe do your job more effectively. Yeah. So when you think about, yeah, I like what you said about taking that constructive criticism, not taking it heart to heart or taking it emotional or believing it's who you are. That's kind of the way I think about it. How did you do that, Marcus? You know, like in the NFL, but even now in the example you gave yesterday, if someone giving you some feedback on your talk, like how did you actually not take it personally? Because you look at I look at it as growth here's the thing if someone's giving

is taking their time to give me feedback that they don't have to do right that's a bonus right it's not they don't have to do that like i'm contract to do a job i did a job that was it they don't have to get take a survey they don't have to ask people what they thought to help make him better. And for goodness sake, they don't have to share it with me at all. So I look at feedback as a gift now. Now, early in my career as a construction owner, when I built the business, I liked criticism, construction criticism. When I got to my height and I thought I knew it all and I had this eight figure year business, Cintra, if you didn't agree with me, you were out. So I lost that inclusion. I lost that dialogue. I lost that ability to take constructive criticism.

And that was the beginning of the demise of my business. Okay. So I want to ask you some questions about that in a second. But one other question I want to ask you about the NFL that you just mentioned is like the teams that you see do really well, have a great culture. And I want to pick your brain about that. Like, what is, what does that mean to you? How do you see that in terms of like, what is a great culture and how do you think that the best build that the kansas city chiefs are an amazing example they have a young quarterback who believes in his surrounding cast he follows andy reed's guidance to the t he works hard he's very diligent he is uh very humble there's four big things you need to have to have a victory mindset which a victory mindset we know is exactly what you need to have to have a healthy culture you have to aggressively resolve problems you have to be somebody that is in a position

right to innovate and adapt you have to be somebody that's humble yeah and you have to be somebody that is open to effective and honest communication those are four ways to have a victory slash championship mindset and those create a healthy culture now four things that create a very healthy, sustainable culture, great teamwork, keeping it simple, prioritize and execute, allowing anyone to lead from anywhere that has the company's best interest at heart. And look at the Chiefs. Great teamwork in the Super Bowl. They kept it simple. When 49ers made a mistake, they would capitalize, right? They prioritized and executed.

They saw that San Francisco was getting higher than themselves in the third quarter, so they made some adjustments. They reprioritized, and they executed the tasks that were set by the coaches. And again, people were leading on the field and getting things done and not waiting for Reed, Mahomes, you know, other players to do it. They were leading for the Chief from anywhere on the field and in the stadium. So that's how you create a culture. Yeah, love it. And when you say aggressively resolve problems how do you see the best cultures do that they basically they find out what the what the issues

are and they provide solutions they don't look at well there's a problem who's to blame what's going on why are you not getting it like instead of having like conversation around who started the problem or who caused it they have conversations on actually solving the problem huge difference yeah it is it is yeah what do you see the difference being like give us a little bit more insight there sure so basically like with the 49ers like perfect example now when they lost the Super Bowl John Lynch made a statement which I thought was totally not necessary to make a day at Super Bowl. Well, I'm a little bewildered why Kyle Shanahan didn't call a timeout in the third quarter. So he's basically blaming Kyle for not doing something at the time. And look at the,

with the Chiefs, what they did is said, well, you know, we were struggling in the game, but we got together, we had some conversation. We saw that they were running the football effectively, that they were doing more controlling the clock. So we had to readjust our thought process and create healthy solutions to solve the problem of the 49ers dominating the first three quarters. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, what I'm hearing is like blaming, complaining versus really solving the problem at hand.

Exactly. Blaming and complaining does nothing. Nothing. Then that's why that's why companies that do it or players that act like that, they end up out of the league or those companies like my old company when I had that issue end up going bankrupt. Yeah. So tell us a little about that. You know, you leave the NFL, tell us about your transition out and then starting this construction company and give us a little insight on how that went for you. So the companies, I left the NFL in 2007, 2008 season. I struggled with transition for about six months. I got hooked on alcohol, everything bad. I found a construction business in 2008 and I grew it from $0 to about an eight-figure business by the beginning of 2012. We were the largest African-American subcontractor in the city of Baltimore and the state of Maryland for two years. And then I ended up going out of business because I got pompous, I got egotistical,

and I got arrogant. And I lost sight of how to have a strong, healthy, inclusive environment. And once that happened, Cendra, my staff picked up on it. That, along with a really bad job where I spent about $2 a half million dollars in 90 days and was not paid back by the developer and contractor, I went bankrupt and I lost it all. And I lost it all. What was that like for you? Just going from high playing in the NFL for four different teams, you know, to then losing this construction company. Oh, it was absolutely horrible. It was embarrassing. I felt less than a man. I felt that I had no worth. And most importantly, unfortunately, I felt that I had no purpose,

no ambition, no drive. And that's what I feel happens to a lot of NFL players when they transition. They have no purpose, no end in sight. They don't know what to do next. And when you feel like that, if you can't get out of it, I read an article, Cendra, that one of the big reasons that NFL players go broke is divorce. Because when they leave the game, they don't know what to do next. So the wives, they're at the golf course all the time, or they're drinking, all this stuff. And then they don't really know what to do next. And then the wife feels they have another child on their hands.

And they get tired of it. And I can know what that's like because I went through that period between 2013 and 2014 for about eight months. That was me. Going to a job as a custodian, drinking Miller Lights 12 packs every night. You know, that's all I could afford. And I had $7 for a 12 pack. That's what I did.

And I always was like going upstairs in my room, no office playing video games, like, you know, playing like poker on the machine and literally having no type of ambition. It was Groundhog's Day. Yeah. That's all it was groundhog's day yeah no it was when you think about helping the guys transition out better you know and what your experience was what do you think can be done related to that because i see it as well you know that yeah it's really difficult transition in

general is difficult but then you're going from a high-paying, typically high-paying NFL job to you're not sure what. What do you think can be done, Marcus? It has to have players figure out what their strengths are, what their passions are, if possible, before they leave the game. Because at least they know what their passions are and they like to do. When they leave the game, that can create a strategic plan and a tactical plan to stay on course to get where they want to go with that with that business or with that that passion thank you thanks for your insight there and when you think about what did you learn

you know from the construction company and how it failed what did you do what were the lessons that you took that now you have made you stronger number one do not get mesmerized by early success number two do not let confidence become consistent egotistical egotistical behavior okay and the, listen to your trusted staff and advisors. I literally did not listen to any of my employees as a result of that syndrome. My best one left in the summer of 2012. And that's when everything started to go downhill for our business. Sure. Sure. Because you weren't listening and weren't open to feedback or way dialogue you need to grow dialogue that's right got it um i saw uh that you had an interview with mel robbins i really like mel robbins and i really like her book kick ass so you were featured in her book on amazon um bestseller i think uh what did you learn from that experience? Being interviewed from her and kind of telling your story. I think you're chapter five.

Is that correct? Chapter three. Yep. Three. There you go. So I told her what I learned from her is that we all make mistakes. In order to get ourselves off the canvas, we have to take accountability, take control of our life and get up and get moving. Yeah. Everybody has problems. Nobody's going to care about yours. Yeah. Yeah. That's probably true.

Right. So how did you move on from construction company and feeling like that you were less of a man, not really understanding your purpose to now what you're doing, keynote speaking, executive coaching? How'd you make that transition? I just had a pivotal moment happen in my life. And when that moment happened, it made me realize that if I don't get control of my life today, I'll be sitting right here every second of the day, blaming somebody else for my problems and for my issues that's what that's what it was so i said nope this is not going to be the way and i that day i came home wrote down my goals so i want to be a speaker and i started this so i could help nfl players not go bankrupt and broke and as i started to do a little bit more speaking for some local organizations and some other businesses,

I saw people have problems just like we do. And it expanded. I've got back into my whole business knowledge and I started doing some things for some small corporate clients. And now I work for 13 Fortune 500 companies of the 13, eight of Fortune 100 in the last three years. Yeah, that's excellent that's

excellent how how long did you make that transition to say okay i'm gonna be more of a speaker and 2000 i started my speaking business in 2014 it took me two and a half years to get my first paid job got my first paid job april of 2016 i've been doing it ever since, but I started the business in 2014. Yeah. But I like that it took you a couple of years to get a Spade Pig speaking engagement. I'm guessing just as you continue to work on your craft and continue to get better at speaking and things like that. Correct. And build up my archive, get a better website, get more videos, do more podcasts, get my brand out more, and really put the work in. That's right. So Marcus, I'm hearing that you have a head of

a lot of resilience in your life, right? Being able to bounce back from difficulties. So give us a sense of, I know that's one of the things that you talk about in your keynote. Give us a sense of like what resilience is to you and what do you think you need to do to be more resilient? Resilience is all about getting up off the canvas when life knocks you down. And what you need to do to be resilient is focus on your strengths, delegate your weaknesses, and use the strengths as the inner force, the inner drive to get off the canvas when life knocks you down. Excellent. Excellent. And you've obviously done that in a lot of different ways. Well, how would you tell people to do that? I would tell them again, whatever their strengths

are, focus on that, but then start telling their inner circle what they're good at, what they want to do, because your inner circle is your gold mine that was how I got my first corporate job was by doing a uh telling one of my clients who both his sons were my kids that I trained in football he worked for net app and as a result of that syndrome I got my first non-paid but Fortune 500 corporate client as a speaker. Excellent. From your inner circle. That's excellent. So I know also part of one of your keynotes is to talk about how, what did you learn from Bill Belichick?

And what did you learn from him in terms of being a good leader in Keys to Success? The number one thing I learned from Bill is if you're on time, you're late, which basically is you have to be the best leaders are always prepared and are always arriving early before everybody else. That was the main thing that I learned from Bill Belichick. And I got to meet him when I was 15 years old. He's working with the Ravens and he's just phenomenal at teaching people how to always be early. If you're on time, you're late. Yeah. Excellent. Excellent. And you also talk a little bit about like your success cycle. What does that mean to you? The success cycle is three major pillars that are put into motion that you achieve success for any type of business or type of professional or

personal agenda. Number one is ambition. What are your goals? Create your blueprint for success. Two is drive. Break out of your comfort zone into your breakthrough zone and be inspired to make a real, long-lasting change over just someone who's motivated for a short-term gain. And three is be hardworking.

Focus on yourself and not the competition. That's true, because we can really get into the comparison game, which doesn't really help us thrive and be our best. That's correct. Marcus, you're like a fire hose today. Man, I love it. How can people reach out to you and learn more about what you're doing? Hire you as a speaker or, you know, follow you on social.

They can go to my website, www.MarcusOgden.com. They can find me on LinkedIn, Marcus Ogden, Facebook, Marcus Ogden. Instagram is at Marcus Ogden. And my Twitter is at Marcus underscore Ogden, Facebook Marcus Ogden, Instagram is at Marcus Ogden, and my Twitter is at Marcus underscore Ogden. And shoot me an email, marcus underscore Ogden at yahoo.com. That comes right to my phone. You can reach out to us, chat with us about a speaking event, consulting, but do check

out our website and get in touch with us. Awesome. That's wonderful. And is there anything that you'd like to expand on that we haven't talked about or, you know, any final advice that you'd have for people out there who are really trying to work to be at their best, mastered their mindset, you know, be really achieve their goals? Last thing I'm going to say, you have to believe it before you see it. If you don't believe it in your mind and you can't visualize it

and create a plan, attack and go get it, you're never going to see it. So, and again, if you don't believe in yourself, why would anybody else? So you have to believe it, truly believe it at your core before you can see it. Excellent, Marcus.

Thank you so much for joining us today. Loved all your advice and we'll have to have you on again soon. I love it. Thank you so much for joining us today. Loved all your advice and we'll have to have you on again soon. I love it. Thank you, Cintra. I really enjoyed it. Appreciate it. Thank you. Way to go for finishing another episode of the High Performance Mindset. I'm giving you a virtual fist pump. Holy cow, did that go by way too fast for anyone else? If you want more, remember to subscribe and you can head over to Dr. Sindra for show notes and to join my exclusive community for high performers where you get access to videos about mindset each week. So again, you can head over to Dr. Sindra. That's D-R-I-C-I-N-D-R-A.com.

See you next week.