IAM2656 – Business Coach Shares About The Power of Resilience for Modern CEOs and Startups

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Marques Ogden Teaser 00:00
So, we talk a lot about that in our talks. We talk a lot about how if it's a leadership talk, how to be a servant leader. If it's like a marketing and sales talk, how to build systems. It's a mindset talk, the acronym BISON, boldness, I, integrity, S, self-awareness, O, ownership, N, never ever quit.

Intro 00:27
Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO podcast.

Gresham Harkless Jr. 00:53
Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I have an awesome guest on the show today. I have Marques Ogden.

Marques, excited to have you on the show.

Marques Ogden 01:01
Thanks for having me on Gresh, appreciate my friend.

Gresham Harkless Jr. 01:11
Yeah, super excited to have you on and talk about all the awesome things that you're doing. But of course, before we do that, I want to read a little bit more about Marques so you can hear about some of those awesome things.

And Marques is a national and international keynote speaker, business coach, corporate consultant, bestselling author, and podcast host. He is the host of the Get Authentic with Marques Ogden show, and he is also a former NFL athlete.

And one of the things I love, you know, and having people on the show is always good to highlight a little bit more about things that make them special and that are unique. I think he might be the highest-rated Madden player or player that has been on Madden that I've had on the show.

So that's super excited to have a former NFL player. But he he played with Jonathan Ogden, his brother, Ray Lewis, Ed Reed, all those really huge top names. And what I really love is he's also the best-selling author of Sleepless Nights, the NFL, A Family in Business. And he's a top inspirational athlete, keynote speaker of the year, CORE Magazine's Top 100 Most Influential Blacks Today.

Howard University, I gotta always shout out Fella Bison's authentic Hall of Famer. And I'm excited to have you on the show. Marques, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

Marques Ogden 02:08
Let's go. I'm ready to roll.

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Gresham Harkless Jr. 02:09
Let's get it started then. So to kind of kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit, hear a little bit more on how you got started. What do you call your CEO story?

Marques Ogden 02:17
So, you know, for me, I'm from Washington, D.C. I grew up in a single parent household. Our father, Cheryl Phillip Ogden, raised me and my brother Jonathan Ogden by himself. My parents divorced in 1988.

And, you know, it was great, man, being raised by a great dad who was very involved. great educator, great friend, great protector, all the things you need when you're a young person. And it was just phenomenal. And so from there, I went to Howard University, got a full scholarship to play football for the Bison.

And I went to say, oh, if I play a year or two, that's fine. I only got one scholarship offer at the end. Right before signing day, Howard came to my house.
Hit by our head coach, Steve Wilson, and told my parents that not only is he going to offer me a full scholarship for five years, first year to register, four years after that, he told my mom and dad and me, if Marques works hard, he could be the
first-ever player drafted from Harvard University to the National Football League.

And I thought he was nuts. I'm like, I have no offer. I couldn't even tell him this. Listen to him talk, all that. I remember telling my dad after he left, I said, Dad, do you believe all that hooey about being a four-year starter and being drafted? He said, Marques, be patient. If it's meant to be, it will be.

And that was something that was really big for me because being a CEO, that's when I learned just to trust the process. And I went to Howard, red shirted, four-year starter. and I became the first ever athlete, offensive lineman athlete, from Harvard University to be drafted.

And I'm still the only offensive lineman to be drafted from Harvard University to the National Football League.
And I'll tell your audience one thing, and I'll let you go back to you, my friend. When I got drafted by Jack Del Rio, who was my head coach, he was also a rookie head coach.

Jack told all of us, the entire rookie class, drafted and undrafted players, guys, if you want to be successful in life, if you want to have all that you desire in life, be your own CEO. Be your own chief executive officer.

Jack said, if you wait around for me to tell you what to do, where to go, how to be, all these things, not only will you not have a job with the Jaguars, you won't have a job in the NFL.

And one of my other coaches, Mike Malachi, told us when I was with the Buffalo Bills, if you don't run your day, your day will run you. And he said, if your day runs you, we're going to run your butt right out of this facility and you won't be a Buffalo Bill anymore. So again, if you listen to this awesome podcast, you know, it's amazing how sports business, life are all intertwined.

But I tell people, if you're not going to be your own CEO, if you're not going to be your own self-inspired, self-starting person, it doesn't matter what I try to coach you on, teach you, you'll never get to where you want to be. So be your own CEO.

Gresham Harkless Jr. 05:36
Nice. I absolutely love that. So I love that.
You know, you brought us so much knowledge and information. I'm curious if this is like some of the conversations you have. I know you're doing speaking and things like that.

Would love to hear more about like how you're working with serving your clients and of course, hear more of what we can hear on your show as well, too.

Marques Ogden 05:53
Yeah, absolutely, my friend. So I just found out today and I knew about it, but they sent me a confirmation email just probably about an hour ago. I'll be speaking for Fayetteville State University and at their big fintech conferences, their second annual event. And it's really awesome.

And the title, okay, Gresham, here it is, okay? The exact title of it is the following, From Setbacks to Startups, How Resilient Leaders Thrive in a Tech Driven World. I'm going to start off with a great quote. The greatest setbacks are primed for the greatest comebacks, right?

The toughest setbacks or the greatest setbacks we face are priming us for the best and the most brilliant comebacks, right? You have to believe that. And so, I'll also go into the next part resilient or resilience. over the resistance.

You're going to face resistance on your journey, especially as an individual who has to work through challenges and work through obstacles. It's not going to just happen overnight.

Ladies and gentlemen, to be a CEO or if you want to be the CEO of your own life, you cannot sweep things under the rug because all you do, that problem or that issue exacerbates.

It gets bigger, it gets bigger and it snowballs to the point where then when you do have to face it, it's so much larger, it's so much worse off.
So, we talk a lot about that in our We talk a lot about how, if it's a leadership talk, how to be a servant leader. If it's like a marketing and sales talk, how to build systems.

It's a mindset talk, the acronym Bison, boldness. I, integrity.
S, self-awareness. O, ownership. N, never ever quit.

Gresham Harkless Jr. 08:02
Nice. I absolutely love that. And I almost wonder if that's like part of what I like to call your secret sauce, which can be for yourself, the business or a combination of both. But I feel like having that awareness, I feel like so many people sometimes throw in the towel because they're not aware of the journey.

And going back to that, that great advice that your father gave you of like understanding to to stay present in the things that you're doing and trust that process. I feel like so many times when people go through life, start a business, whatever it is, we often think that they're not going to be challenges.

We're not going to have to tap into our resilience energy and our resilience muscles. But I think once you start to understand that, that's going to equip you with a little bit more ideal opportunity to succeed.

So do you feel like your understanding and being able to kind of have that sounds like self-understanding as well, too, is part of what sets you apart and makes you unique?

Marques Ogden 08:47
And I was working a job. I was fired from two jobs. I only had about $400 to my name, no credit cards, no nothing. Zero.

And I ended up literally getting to a position where I said, man. I need to get some help here. And so I ended up literally, you know, took a job and I was making $8.25 an hour on the graveyard shift, working as a custodian. And I finally hit rock bottom when someone's trash, rotten meat, nasty, protruding, horrible-smelling garbage got all over me.

And that was my wake-up call. I said, man, if I don't turn this around, I'm screwed. And so that's when I said, enough is enough. And at the end of the day, what happened is I got off that curb, went home and said, what can I do?

Wanted to start speaking. I started speaking in September, 2013. Didn't get a paid job until April, 2016. Never gave up, kept pushing, kept grinding, finally got my first paid job, got my second paid job the next year for the Buffalo Bills.

2018, I got coached, got developed, I was able to get myself into a better position. Next thing you know, things start to turn around. And when things start to turn around, now in the last seven years, we've spoken for over 85 Fortune 500 clients.

So to answer your question, what has allowed me to keep doing what I do is being a professional athlete, I learned something that if you don't have greater attributes than skill sets, At some point, your skill sets will start to fade and you'll burn out.

I saw a fantastic interview with Michael Irvin. Michael Irvin talked about people that he went up against in his career, guys like Daryl Green, guys like Deion Sanders, you know, just phenomenal Rod Woodson. And he said, you know, all those guys were physically more gifted than I was, all of them. But he said none of them would ever outwork him, none of them.

And he said he got his gold rings going through gold jackets. And that's the type of guys he went against. I mean, Rod Hall of Fame, Daryl Green Hall of Fame, Deion, best corner in NFL history, Hall of Fame, right? And that's who Michael Irvin played against.

Like he said, it wasn't his skills that made him, and I do not like the Cowboys, but I do like Michael Irvin. And he said, it's the will. He said, you may have more skill, but I

Gresham Harkless Jr. 11:39
have more will. Yeah. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an Apple book or even a habit that you have.

What's something you lean on that makes you more effective and efficient?

Marques Ogden 11:52
Our team, without a doubt, the team. Without the team, you have nothing, right? Nothing. Because I can't do everything, you know, myself.

There's just no way. So like I have an amazing podcast production team with Ben Boquist. You know, our operations team, Synergist, they are fantastic. We have a great CRM team, Rebecca Cowles with CRM done better.

I have a phenomenal executive assistant, Abby Solomon, who helps handle everything for me from doing work with the CRM people, emailing people, opportunities, you name it, the whole nine yards. She is great. have a great internal manager, Don Wiener, great website guy, George Saad.

You know, great business coach, George Sandman, great client success man, and Daniel James, got a phenomenal videographer, Donovan Barnes, I could go on and on, great accountant, great lawyer, right? With Without the team, there's no way I get to where I'm at today.

There's no way I could do all the things that need to be done. If I didn't have a team, there's no way I could do a podcast for 45 minutes a day or do my walks and talk to clients and all that. We're now setting up systems. Without the team, there's no way that gets done.

Gresham Harkless Jr. 13:13
Yeah, that's such a huge thing. And so you might've already touched on this and you've gave us loads of what I like to call CEO nuggets. So these are like word of wisdoms or piece of advice.

It might be something from your book, or if you were to hop into a time machine, you might tell your younger business self or potentially your favorite client.
So what might be your CEO nugget?

Marques Ogden 13:28
Never, ever not listen to your paid team, the team that you pay your money to. Don't waste payroll. Because when I lost my construction company, my top employee tried to tell me we were in trouble.

But because I was so short-sighted, I was so blinded by money, because I used to think, oh, I've got this line of credit, that's an asset. A line of credit is phenomenal to have for your business. But I'm going to tell you what it is.

Marques Ogden 14:00
It is a item that the minute you use it, it becomes a liability. With, you got to pay interest on top of that. So having lines of credit available is, I think, key in business. But you have to know how to use it properly.

Otherwise, it could destroy your business. So for me, it took me a lot of time, but I was able to get to that point, you know, in the process. And so my point is, is that the one thing I did horribly as a CEO was I didn't listen to the people I was paying to work for our company. And that was the biggest mistake I ever made.

Gresham Harkless Jr. 14:42
Yeah, I appreciate you so much for sharing that. So I wanted to ask you now one of my absolute favorite questions, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. I know we touched on it a little bit, but I wanted to ask you from your perspective, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Marques Ogden 14:54
Being a CEO means having the responsibility and having the the importance of knowing that you are taking care of people that are in your charge. It's not a title. It's not a privilege. It's a responsibility to serve those people and get you and get them to where you want to go.

That's what it's all about. Anybody that doesn't do that as a leader, you're going to struggle from my opinion, from my perspective, trying to get where you want to go.

Gresham Harkless Jr. 15:30
Well, Marques, I truly appreciate that definition. Of course, I appreciate your time even more. So what I wanted to do now is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you could let our readers and listeners know.

And of course, how best people get ahold of you, get a copy of your books, podcasts, find out all the awesome things that you're working on.

Marques Ogden 15:47
Yeah, the best thing to do is if you want to check out our podcast, it's called Get Authentic with Marques Ogden. It is on every, it's on Apple, Spotify, we have a YouTube channel. Check us out. Go to our website, www.marquesogden.com.

Check us out. Shoot me an email, Marques at marquesogden.com. Love to hear from you. And love to stay in touch.

Gresham Harkless Jr. 16:14
Absolutely. Well, I appreciate that so much, Marques. Of course, we're going to have the links and information in the show notes as well, too, so that everybody can follow up with you.

And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Marques Ogden 16:24
Appreciate you my friend. Have a great one.

Outro 16:25
Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO podcast powered by CB Nation and Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I AM CEO is not just a phrase. It's a community.

Check out the latest and greatest apps, books, and habits to level up your business at CEOHacks.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.

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