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Welcome to Insurance Town! Your host is the Mayor of Insurance Town, Heath Shearon. After many years in different parts of the insurance world, Heath wants to share his experience with you. Join in on conversations with Heath and many of the friends he's made along the way.
Insurance Town is a production of Ready, Set, Podcast! Find more info at www.readysetpodcast.xyz
Music: "Mornin, Noon, and Nite" by Daddy Long Legs
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Insurance Town. I'm the mayor, Bruce Sheeran, and the host of this podcast. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm excited you're here hanging out with me today in the program. We've got my good friend, Marcus Ogden hanging out with us. Guys, you may have heard that name before because he's a former NFL player.
Speaker 1:He's a keynote speaker, motivational as hell, inspirational, and he means a lot to me and my family. He's also a fellow podcaster and making some big moves in that space. Guys, I cannot wait for you to meet this guy on the show. Before we do, though, I gotta talk to you about my good friends over at Smart Choice. Smart Choice is the fastest growing agency network for a reason.
Speaker 1:They have agency friendly contracts that help you to be profitable and kick butt and take names. Also, carriers, they love working with you guys as well. And, you know, they it's no wonder that they have 10,000 agencies across the country working with them and over 11,000,000,000 in premium written. Guys, it's unbelievable. You do not wanna miss this opportunity to work with them.
Speaker 1:Go to smartchoiceagent.com and tell them the mayor sent you. You'll be so happy that you did. Ladies and gentlemen, also my friends over at Canopy Connect, your one click solution to getting the deck pages you need to quote your prospects. And if you have not met Ray at a conference yet, start going to conferences. You will meet him.
Speaker 1:You'll see him at the trade shows. Give him a follow on TikTok. Give Canopy Connect a a look on social media, and give them a look for your agency. They're doing a fantastic job, and they have been for 4 years now and going on 5, and they could continue to up the game. They don't wanna just be, a one click solution for your deck pages.
Speaker 1:They want to be, a one click solution for the entire onboarding process for your clients. Go get them and check out at usecanopy.com backslash heath. Get your discount, get your demo, and check it out. Ladies and gentlemen, lastly, but definitely not least, old school marketing. Taking a new school approach to an old school way of marketing.
Speaker 1:Guys, they're doing direct mail pieces in a way that has not been done in a long, long time, if not ever, and that's with handwritten notes, handwritten envelopes. It is unbelievable. It's not a font. It is actual human beings sitting down in the office, handwriting notes for your clients. And that envelope that you get in the mail, do you see that, it looks like grandma.
Speaker 1:It looks like your mom sent you something. It looks like somebody, a friend down the road, a friend in another city, a state, whatever, sent you something, and you know you're gonna open those first, and so will your clients. Go to old school marketing dot com. That's oldeschoolmarketing.com. Now, guys, I'm a get out of the way and let you check out this conversation with my main man, Marcus Ogden.
Speaker 1:My man, Marcus. What's going on, brother?
Speaker 2:How you doing? Hey. Doing well, my friend. You alright today?
Speaker 1:Man, I'm good. How are the girls doing?
Speaker 2:Doing well. My 21 year old is home for the summer right now. She's working. She is a rising junior at NYU that my daughter Farrah turns 10
Speaker 1:to 1. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Did you
Speaker 1:say her name was Farrah?
Speaker 2:Farrah. Yep. F a r r a h. Yep.
Speaker 1:There you go. Yeah. You had a her a birthday party with her last time we were talking about.
Speaker 2:Birthday party for her on Sunday, this past Sunday. That was the 14th July, and then her birthday is Thursday. And so now she's gonna be 10 years old, and, wow, time flies.
Speaker 1:That's wild. Do you think about so, anyway, first question. What, what that's an important question. What y'all do for the birthday party?
Speaker 2:So we were at Lifetime Gym in Cary where I live in I live in a little town called Beakway, Marina, North Carolina. I'm about 30 to 4 minutes from downtown Raleigh, our state's capital, but there's a little town called Cary, North Carolina where I used to live with my ex wife. And I go to Lifetime Fitness as a national chain gym, and they had an indoor outdoor pool, all kind of cool nice stuff. So we had a pool party for her. She had about, oh, about 10 or 12 of her little friends that came to swim and pizza and cupcakes and cakes.
Speaker 2:So she, she had a great time.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. That is awesome. Anyhow, and so you're in North Carolina now. So before we dive into too much, why don't we go ahead and take a quick walk down memory lane? If you'll just kinda give me, you know, prod over you.
Speaker 1:A lot of people, when they see your name, they're gonna know most of the stuff about you, but I'd love for you to just tell the audience that doesn't know Marcus Ogden.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Marcus Ogden is from Washington DC, born in Northwest Washington DC, Columbia Hospital For Women, was raised and lived in Northeast DC my entire life. I went to elementary school, middle school, high school, and college all in Washington DC. From there, I went to the National Football League and played, for the Jacksonville Jaguars. Of course, you can see the Baltimore Ravens, the the, Buffalo Bills, and I finished off my career before I got injured with the Tennessee Titans.
Speaker 2:Had a great career playing everybody. I played a lot of teams in the AFC. I just had a really great experience, had some great guys that I played with, like my brother, to Ray Lewis, to Ed Reed, to Willis McGahee, to Byron Leftwich, Brad. I can go down the list. And what I really have learned about that entire experience, The NFL taught me how to prepare for life.
Speaker 2:Well, really important factor that the NFL taught me, I think it applies to life, especially insurance, is how to pivot. Right? How to be poised, inspiring, victory mindset oriented, observing in a tactician. That's my acronym for pivot. And I pivoted so many times in my life, Heath, from NFL athlete to, you know, struggling to die my way as I left the NFL to alcohol addiction, nightlife gambling, you know, pottery, partying, you know, all out, all the different women, all those other type of stuff.
Speaker 2:Right? Then I build a construction company and, you know, that on this picture right here is me winning an award in downtown Baltimore, you know, for our company, and then I really just grew. And then, unfortunately, as the company grew, so did my ego, and then I end up losing everything that I own in 2013 as a result of my ego, my rebuttal, I moved to Raleigh, North Carolina in 2013 April. I had nothing. Like, literally home was being foreclosed on, both cars being repossessed.
Speaker 2:I literally had nothing when I got here except for $400. I had a job waiting for me at Merrill Lynch. Thanks to the NFL. I didn't go homeless because the NFL through the gene Upshaw Trust Fund, which had just started around that time. They paid for 4 months of my bills to my creditors directly, and that kept me from not going homeless.
Speaker 2:But I tell everybody, when I got here, I had nothing. When I pivoted so many times when I got here, fired from 2 jobs in the same week, booked the custodian downtown Raleigh, at my rock bottom moment, and then I pivoted again to speaking in September 2013. And through lots of trials, tribulations, struggles, hardships, nose, rejections, feel like a failure, feel like a fraud, a phony, Finally got my 1st paid job. Took me two and a half years to get my 1st paid speaking job. Finally got that job and learn and got coached, and I pivoted again and again and again through different coaching, instructions, teaching, guidance.
Speaker 2:Now we speak all over the world, and we've been very fortunate, and we're growing a phenomenal business. As you know, my good friend, Nick, who you know, work on some great things together, and life is much better today than it was when I moved here a little over wow. What's that? A little over 11 years ago? Yeah.
Speaker 2:I've been here for about 11 to 11 and a half years in the Raleigh area.
Speaker 1:Wow. So much. I was taking notes over here. So many things that I wanna get into. And, you know, again, I'm a personal guy, so we're gonna get into a few things if it's alright with you.
Speaker 1:Always. I guess, before I get into hard hitting, like, personal stuff, I do wanna ask you. You mentioned and I'm a big NFL guy. You mentioned a couple teams that I know I got a little bit of echo on your end. I could hear myself coming back.
Speaker 1:So, alright. But, so, yeah, Jack Del Rio, Jeff Fisher, you played with some coaches that, like, legendary. Like, I'm a Tennessee titans fan myself. I go way back with the titans. I used to live in Nashville, or Franklin area.
Speaker 1:But, anyway, what was just quickly, what was some things that, you know, stand out to you about playing with some legendary coaches like that?
Speaker 2:So playing for legendary coaches, you got legendary knowledge. And I'll tell you all exactly what Jack Del Rio told us when I was a 22 year old rookie with the Jacksonville Jaguars. He said to the entire rookie class, draft and undracked, it, guys, if you wanna be successful, you have to be your own CEO, your own chief executive officer. I can't want it more for you. Your coaches can't want it more for you than you do.
Speaker 2:If that is how it is and or that's how it's going to be, you will never last of any substance or any duration of a long period of time in the national football that you will get found out, period. And he said the veterans are gonna be the first pass. They're gonna see which one of you is going to bend, which is normal, or you're gonna break, which is not normal. If you break, then you won't be here long. So learning from guys that were phenomenal players like Jeff was, like Jack was, you know, these individuals.
Speaker 2:Even Mike Malarkey was my coach. He was a player. I mean, I I mean, you know, Brian Billick played in comp on the NFL, but he still was extremely knowledgeable. But Jack was a hard hitting line back out of USC, played for the Vikings. Jack was a real go getter.
Speaker 2:Here's the great thing. Right? He that was his rookie year as a head coach. Rookie. So he was all about making a good impression with the Weaver family who owned the Jaguars, with the community, with the individuals that were working in the front office.
Speaker 2:Jack really wanted to prove he belonged as a head coach in the National Football League. So Jack's story, Jack's teaching about being your own CEO has stuck with me, and I talk about that in almost every speech that I get because I don't get it's leadership, culture, marketing, and sales. It doesn't matter. Whatever you do, if you're not your own self inspired, self starting individual, you will never ever make it, and you will never ever reach your full potential. Just not the way this is not gonna happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I I think that has so so much that could play into again, you're an insurance town. So in our insurance industry, whether you're a producer, whether you're account manager, whether you're owner of an agency or anywhere in between, I think you have to operate in that same prowess. Like, you can't have your coach being your the owner of the agency or the owner of the business or your client for that matter. They can't motivate you every day.
Speaker 1:They can't rely on them to make it happen for you. You've gotta be the one to get up every day, especially right now. In our industry, you probably learned this from guys like Mick and David Crothers and Ryan and myself. We're in a hard market. Things are tough.
Speaker 1:They're getting yelled at every day. You know, my rates are going up. This is going on. This is going on. You gotta be able to be your own CEO.
Speaker 1:You gotta be able to motivate yourself. You gotta be able to, take care of your desk yourself. I think you're you're nailing something there.
Speaker 2:You know what, Pete? I'm gonna tell you exactly what one of my mentors, Mel Robbins, who is a phenomenal keynote speaker. She is one of the best. She's great. Has her own had her own TV show in the past, her own podcast.
Speaker 2:She wrote the book 54321, and she's just been sensational. And she helped to mentor me around 2018 when my career started to kinda go more like this. And she says motivation is garbage. And that means if you're motivated, all you care about is the short term success you're trying to get for that moment. It's about being inspired.
Speaker 2:Again, if you're listen to this. In the insurance space, producer, back office, own an office, whatever, doesn't matter. It's all about your ability to inspire those around you to be better than they were yesterday. Right? So as a producer, you have to really focus on these three things, focusing, being precise, and having great precision, and attacking.
Speaker 2:If you are a leader or you own an agency, focus on things like visioning, inventing, sense making, relating. Be the type of leader, the type of owner that is visualizing things has a purpose for the organization. Be an owner that's inventing new ways to give your team what they need. Be a leader and owner that can help make sense of things for people that don't understand what's going on. If you're an owner, help people by relating to them so they know you're real and it's not just trying to drive them to make money.
Speaker 2:And, again, I'm speaking at ITC TechConnect in Vegas. So Mick Anderson or Ryan. Ryan got in touch with the board, which David is on as I'm sure you know. Ryan is on, Nick is on, and our brand got hired to speak as the headline keynote speaker at ITC TechConnect in Vegas in October at the Mandalay Bay. And we're talking about is, the ego mistake from 8 figures to 8:25 per hour, how to thrive in a certain time.
Speaker 2:And again, Drake was one of the board members told me the exact same thing. You said it best. He it's tough right now in insurance. It's competitive. Margins are shrinking.
Speaker 2:Opportunity are dwindling. It's like if you make a mistake with people, they're less forgiving, But it's all about you figuring out to have, like you said, that championship or victory mindset, and also having the ability to be inspired and not try to find somebody to tell you what to do, where to go, where to be, and get you fired up. You can fire your own self up. It doesn't matter where you come from. It doesn't matter what you do in the insurance space.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I I completely agree, and, you know, I think that, you know, whether it's a a hard market, soft market, you know, back in my producer days, which I haven't been in there in a few years now, but there was that roller coaster. You know, you never know. You could have riding that big high. You just wrote a big massive account, and things are going really well.
Speaker 1:And then the next month, you may have 4 or 5 accounts that just say no or something happens or their competitor comes in and knocks you out or, you know, you get to that deadline and, like, the carrier pulls out. You can have you can have anything happen to you at that moment, but I think that's where you build your character, Not when you're winning. I and I'd love to hear from you being in that high level competitive thing. You know, I played high school. I never played college or, you know, or even pro ball, obviously, but life in general, I think you you build your character.
Speaker 1:I tell my kids this all the time. I have a 16 year old, 11 year old, and a 14 year old, and I tell them this too. I you find out you build character, and you you find out who someone really is in the tough times.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely. And Aristotle, who was one of the greatest philosophers of all time, was hired by King Philip the second to coach his son, Alexander the Great. And the first thing that Aristotle taught Alexander that needs to be shown at all kind to get people to follow him, work with him, do things for him, is character. Aristotle said, if your men ever question your character at any moment, it's over. It's done.
Speaker 2:They won't go through a brick wall for you. If you're listening to this podcast in the insurance space, understand it's the same thing. If you own the organization and your producers and your back office questions your character, they'll do the bare minimum, and they won't go through a brick wall for you. If you are a producer and the back office questions your character, they're not gonna go all the way for you to get things done behind the scenes that you need to have done. Right?
Speaker 2:If you are a person in the back office and your character is spotty, the producers and the office leaders and all of them went, wow. Can I trust you to get this stuff done? And then what happens? It slows down the process. In any type of business, it's a numbers game.
Speaker 2:Yep. It's a numbers game. And character is built on trust. And you build trust and competency, show you can do your job, having people's best interest, which means you actually care about them over you, and reliability and heat. That's where most people fall off.
Speaker 2:We had an 11 o'clock appointment today for your interview. At 11 o'clock, I was on here already. I got on a 10:58, eastern, ready to go. Most people are not reliable because they do not value other people's time. If you're listening to this, and then especially in insurance, where other people and trying to get to the customers, you have to master your schedule.
Speaker 2:Time block and put things in, get things done. It's everything. Because again, if you want to build character and show character comes to people trusting you. If they know you're competent, know you have your vet their best interest, and they know you're reliable, trust will get built. That's how I'm even here right now.
Speaker 2:Right? He met Mick. I was on his podcast. I said, Mick, you're gonna have me on mine. Have me on mine.
Speaker 2:Follow through. Have on the next week. We became good friends. You just need Orion. I got into the job at ITC TechConnect, And then I met, you know, I met Drake.
Speaker 2:And then I met Dave. And then I met Josh Gurland. Then I met market I met Marcus Harris. Right? So all these people just goes boom boom boom.
Speaker 2:But if I didn't have the trust from Mick to start out, all these people now that are on that line, even including yourself, all these other awesome people that are all just now in my world who is make with satellite reliable. You can't trust me.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So they're going, like, getting past this wall, get to you over here. I get to the wall. Bam. Fall down. Like, it would like like a Bugs Bunny cartoon, and I'm done.
Speaker 2:And that's because Mick knew I was reliable where a lot of people are not in business.
Speaker 1:No. I get it. And I would and I think you're dead on, and I would add to that, something that because I talk a lot, you know, and say just about, you know, the things that you can control. There's a lot of things we can't control right now in the industry. We can't control price.
Speaker 1:We can't control whether, you know, the carriers are pulling in or out. We can't control all things. One thing you can't control is your attitude. And, that's a big thing I talk about is, know, I talk to my kids a lot about their attitudes, and, you know, I've got teenagers. You remember those days with your oldest, and you're coming there with your youngest, that preteen teenage years, they got that attitude.
Speaker 1:I tell them all the time of if you have a positive attitude, you know, if you come to work every day positive, you know, it's just gonna make a world of difference. I I see too many, backup, but we'll use your terminology back office people or, you know, service or even producers. They're just negative. Like, oh, we'll always meet this. The markets are so hard, and these carriers are pulling out.
Speaker 1:And this is going on, and I can't get this to happen. And this guy won't call me back, and this is going on. And it's like, you're putting that negative vibe out there. People don't wanna be around that, and that kills your credibility.
Speaker 2:You know, I took notes something. Reading a book right now. It's called the oxcart technique. K? Great book.
Speaker 1:Oxcart. Okay.
Speaker 2:Yep. Yeah. Great book. And you know what it talks about? And I love it.
Speaker 2:It talks about emotion, not knowledge drives action. And if you want to be inspired and be excited and show you love and again, Aristotle talked about this. Number 1, he taught Alexander character. Number 2, he told Alexander is emotion. He said if people if you're men don't feel you're excited about the battle or leading them to conquer, whatever they were doing back then, they were like, yep.
Speaker 2:All this all Alexander wants is more territory, more riches, more this, more that. Like, all my life is is just meaningless. Versus, like, wow. Alexander wants to spread the Greek name, the Greek tribe, you know, the Greek heritage into other territories for the legacy of the Greeks. Well, hey, man.
Speaker 2:I wanna be part of that. I'm a Greek. This is awesome. Then they're gonna go to battle for you. Same thing here when it comes to you own a a a an insurance agency.
Speaker 2:You produce in it. You work in the back office. Doesn't matter. People are gonna feed off your emotion. You're passionate about something and you're loving it.
Speaker 2:They're like, yep. This is a person that I know just doesn't want my money. They actually love what they do. They love who they are.
Speaker 1:Right. And people feel that.
Speaker 2:They are doing. And people feel that all day long.
Speaker 1:All day long. You're a 100% correct. I I think people, you know, that's one of the things that you know, I I don't do a whole lot of things well, but I I do I do live my life in a lot of passion and a lot of love. And people tell me that a lot of because you're so positive, because of your passion, because we could feel that. I'm 22 years deep in this industry, 2nd generation, you know, been around a while, but I've always tried to remain positive, tried to have passion in everything I do, and I think it's it's helped me in so many ways.
Speaker 1:I did wanna, you know, pivot using, you know, your, yeah, your thing there as pivot. And immediately, when you said pivot, I don't know if you're a friend's guy, if anybody listens friends, but I immediately go to the scene in in Friends where they're pivoting the couch up the stairs. And so, you know, my wife and I love friends. So, anyhow, pivot. So, but pivoting this conversation a little bit, you know, I wanna get into when you did hit that low.
Speaker 1:In a couple of years there, you were in that low, when things just, you know, went as you call it, rock bottom. And, I I wanted to hear a little bit about that, you know, because I got 2 points I wanna get in there on this, but I'll start with broad level. What is it you feel like that got you through that rock bottom time, and how did you was that a bootstrap? Like, I'm gonna do it myself. I'm gonna do this.
Speaker 1:Or did someone come along and help you? Or was it a god thing? Or was it a this thing or a kid? I don't know. Well, just talk to me a little bit high level, and then I wanna get into another thing real quick.
Speaker 2:So I ended up losing everything in April 2013.
Speaker 1:I think you told me that $400 when you moved?
Speaker 2:$400. That's all I had left when I got here. And the NFL league office, the NFL PA, retired players, the player care foundation, they were everything to keep me from going homeless. They helped me get a job here in the area for Merrill Lynch. They were a major positive factor.
Speaker 2:But unfortunately, when they were trying to help me with the job, things like that, I did not have my attitude readjusted because I still blame everybody else for the failures of Kaden and not myself. Once I finally took full accountability after my spoiled milk moment as a custodian with somebody's trash, rotten meat, nasty, protruding, horrible garbage got all over me. That was the wake up call that I so desperately needed. But more importantly, it was also the attitude readjustment that I so desperately needed. And at that moment, I made a decision If I don't get up off this couch and this curb, quote unquote, I'm gonna be here for the rest of my life.
Speaker 2:This is what I used to do. I'm pulling at my NFL jersey for the Baltimore Ravens. That is a part of who I was. It's not who I'm going to be going forward. I tried to back any NFL for so many for years after I was out.
Speaker 2:That wasn't gonna happen. I was just too old. I was just too beat up, and that's just the way life goes. And I understand that, and I get it. But again, finally, it took me that rock bottom moment to say, okay, Marcus.
Speaker 2:If you're gonna get this going, you have to turn it around. And you have to stop asking people to help you, things like that. I don't mean, like, give me money, like, help with this, help with that. Well, no. No.
Speaker 2:No. No. You gotta actually figure out your purpose. And once I found my purpose of speaking and inspiring and helping others, then that's why I said, okay. Now it's time to get moving, started speaking.
Speaker 2:But again, still didn't have any luck in there for 2 and a half years. And if you're listening to this, if you are a a person working right now, if you're a producer who's do who's had great success in the past, maybe going through a hard time right now, which we all do, Just remember the cardinal rule. Never get up on yourself, and it's a relationship business like anything else, and just keep pounding. That's what I did with speaking. Two and a half years, not one page.
Speaker 2:I just kept pounding, kept going, kept going. Found out my first paid one. Then I kept pounding and pounding, and I go, what do I need to do better here? I need to do better there. And just kept moving and moving.
Speaker 2:And, again, if you listen to this, if you want to strive to thrive in the insurance business, Focus on these three things, innovation, movement, being dynamic. K? Innovation, find ways to get out in front of people that is unique and creative. Innovation and creativity creates an environment of free thought, new thinking, and better thinking. That's my perspective.
Speaker 2:K? Number 2 is movement. If I feel like I'm having a bad day, I get up, I go for a walk. I mean, I work out every day. I just started this new kick booty workout from a a friend I gave him.
Speaker 2:He's a former strength coach in college football. He was the youngest strength coach in college football. Gave me a kick ass workout. It's 4 days. I do 4 plus do an extra day.
Speaker 2:So I just finished my first cycle yesterday, but I ran this morning 2 miles. Right? I've lost about £30 in the last 6 months, and now I'm gonna start getting more cut than fine because movement is everything. Movement creates a sense of, like, they they call it micro breaks. If you're working, you're struggling, get up, take a 5 minute walk.
Speaker 2:Walk to the light. Do something. Stretch. Whatever the case may be. There's something movement begets energy.
Speaker 2:Energy begets confidence. Confidence begets results. And the last one is again, is be dynamic. It takes the same energy to dream big as it does to dream small. So why dream small?
Speaker 2:Whatever that is for you in the insurance space, whatever that is, don't dream small. Dream big. So, again, these are some things that we talk about in keynotes. At least we talk about you know, we go into a lot more detail in our in our 1 hour keynotes or in our half day workshops. But, again, be someone that's all about solving the problem Yep.
Speaker 2:Change. Don't be smart as always complaining about what's not going on.
Speaker 1:Heck yeah. One of the things I I I gotta get into with you, and then we'll I'm gonna pivot back into the Amplify, your leadership. But one of the things I I I've gotta ask you about, I've got 3 brothers and 2 sisters. You know, some of them are half brothers and sisters, but I I come from that. And, you know, some of my brothers are, you know, highly successful here, and some of them are highly successful there.
Speaker 1:There's a lot going on here. But my question to you would be, when you were at that rock bottom and you've got Jonathan you've got your brother, you know, who's, you know, Jonathan Ogden, like he's successful, done the thing, got the awards, done the thing in the NFL. You know, what was that like for you knowing you had that? I mean, it would've been easy if you just be like, hey. Loan me some money, brother.
Speaker 1:You know, whatever, or help me out here or do this or people might have thought that. And, was that something that got in your head, or did you find yourself in the comparison game? Did you find yourself struggling with that at all, having a successful brother when you're in this time of making $8 an hour? You're on mute, brother. No.
Speaker 1:You're good. I can I can
Speaker 2:get it? So so I I just wrote something down about the divine rule that I live by. K? If I called my brother and asked him for a loan, right, what does that teach me if he says yes? What does that teach me?
Speaker 2:Nothing. 0. And life is about learning lessons. Right? Great quote by Denzel Washington.
Speaker 2:If you haven't failed, you haven't tried hard enough. And that's Amen. Huge. Right? And that's huge.
Speaker 2:Because here's the thing. Everybody who is successful that I've met or heard of or read about has all has some type of failing moment. It's not the end, it's a failing moment they've learned from. You can flip the page. Page is gonna be pain, adversity, which turns into gratitude and empowerment.
Speaker 2:Pain, adversity, gratitude, empowerment. And so you can flip the page in that regard. Right? And so at the end of the day, that's a major factor. How do you flip the page?
Speaker 2:Right? So again, going to my brother was absolutely never a thought of mine because
Speaker 1:I bet.
Speaker 2:That would not have taught me anything. And now who I am as a speaker and everything else, I know there's some speakers out there. Again, I know there's some speakers out there that create a fabricated story to try to, like, move people and sell them just fine. And I that's whatever that's what you do. That's on you.
Speaker 1:But
Speaker 2:buying is real deal. You can go and verify, you know, when I I remember I remember trying to I bought my home about a year ago. So blessed, so fortunate, bought a half $1,000,000 home by myself. I was still going through the separation divorce process. I had worked hard for about 3 months.
Speaker 2:I was in a negative state from November 2022 until basically about the halfway through January, beginning of February 2023. Every night, cry myself to sleep, was feeling like a failure, feeling like, am I still am I gonna make it tomorrow? Am I gonna, am I suicidal? What's gonna happen? Like, what the hell is going here?
Speaker 2:Finally got my act together in the beginning of February, middle February 2023. Worked hard, bought my dream home by myself. Like, it was at 2 month 2, 3 months later, May 15th 2023, turn my life around. I'm still every day trying to get better, work on things. But again, that's what I've gone through.
Speaker 2:Having my brother bail me out, I have no story to
Speaker 1:help. But in that moment, though, when you're at the rock bottom, it's hard for a lot of people to think 6 steps ahead, 10 steps ahead, where you're gonna be then. What was that for you? Like, in that moment, when you're at the bottom, hitting like, nothing's working out for you, how is how did you make it through that in thinking that far in advance? Because, I think a lot of people in fact, probably 90% of people would have said, I'm gonna take this bail out over here.
Speaker 1:But in that moment, did you was that easy for you in that moment to have that thought of, no. I need to learn something?
Speaker 2:And you know what's funny? He yeah. Because of how I was raised by our father who was a single dad, it was easy to realize I had to fix it. Now what wasn't easy was between April 2013 and September 2013 before the rock bottom moment, I kept blaming everybody else. So that was the problem.
Speaker 2:Right? The problem was me. But I never ever thought to go to my brother and get a bailout because, again, right, that's not something that's gonna teach me anything. I had no idea how my life's to turn out. But, again, I didn't wanna be that individual who was bailed out.
Speaker 2:Because, again, I didn't wanna owe my brother anything.
Speaker 1:Right. Right?
Speaker 2:I didn't wanna have to owe him a 1,000,000, 2, 3. I I didn't want to go. I don't I didn't I had because I had no idea what I was gonna be doing next after all that. Right? No idea.
Speaker 2:So, again, if you're listening to this, if you're going through a hard time, a struggle, got it. I understand. But here's the thing. You are strong enough to move through. If you're in this space and you're a producer or work in the back office or you own your own insurance company and you're struggling a little bit because of time, situations, economy, all these things, I understand.
Speaker 2:But don't try to not look within yourself first.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:You have what it takes. And most of the time, if you give yourself time, you have what it takes to get things moving. But don't throw the towel in too fast. Let's try, you know great quote by Usain Bolt. I trained 4 years to run 9 seconds.
Speaker 1:Right. Right.
Speaker 2:4 years to run 9 seconds. And he said, so many people quit after a month or 2 of something.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:He said, 80% of people will fall off on their own because they have no dedication to get where they need to go by putting the work in.
Speaker 1:So be
Speaker 2:part of that 20%. If you're listening to this podcast and you're in the insurance space and you're not doing what you wanted because of the whatever the case may be, just keep going. Focus on being part of the 20% that never gives up no matter what.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And so one of the things and you don't have to mute because we go I'm a come right back at you. But, you know, one of the things that, I wanted to again, I I I gotta I gotta get this out. You one of the things you and I text about and one of the things I I I love, you know, about talking to you about some things on a personal level is talking about kids. You know?
Speaker 1:And you text me about your kids. I've texted you about mine. We we've talked about that a little bit. Is that something you're intentional with your kids about right now and talking to, you know, Farrah and talking to your oldest daughter about, you know, this is what daddy went through, or this is what I went through. Here's what's going on, or you try to shield them from that.
Speaker 1:Talk to me a little bit about that in a couple of minutes.
Speaker 2:No. I totally Ava knows everything because Ava's 21. I met when she was 8, and we moved to Raleigh. She was basically just turned 9. So she saw everything from Right.
Speaker 2:The trucks getting repossessed, the moving trucks getting here, trying to barely, you know, make enough to support the family and this, you know, pay enough to, like, living paycheck to paycheck and being able to barely get by and having no money in the bank account and be able to just eat what we need and and spend at the grocery store 25, $50 for the week to eat. I mean, she remembers that. You know, when I was able to find make a little bit more money to we got we only have one car for a minute. We couldn't afford to. I could buy by another one.
Speaker 2:I bought this old beat up f 150 with the front seat torn out of it. We call it the green hornet. It had no air conditioning, no nothing.
Speaker 1:Right on.
Speaker 2:Empty chair. I have I could drive on my side, and the patch, I could put a blanket in it and wrap the thing underneath the, the seat to so it wouldn't fall out if she ever rode in the car. That's what it was. And Ava saw all the progressions, all the stuff that we went through. And so Farrah is actually coming with me to a speaking job in September in Phoenix because I'm speaking at the Biltmore on a Saturday.
Speaker 2:So she's flying with me on Friday morning. We're flying directly to Phoenix. We're gonna stay at the Biltmore. I'm gonna have a bunch of fun on Friday. She's gonna see me speak on Saturday.
Speaker 2:We're gonna have a bunch of fun on Saturday. If there's a direct flight back home on Sunday Love that. To Robin. So my girls know. And I tell them all the time, all the things I have now, this house I mean, I bought my I bought a brand new 2024 Yukon Denali XLSLT about 2 about 3 months ago.
Speaker 2:My dream car. Right? And I tell the girl, everything I've gone through has allowed us to get to this point that we have this house, and I have this, and working on this, and having that. But I had to go through hell on earth to get here. So my girls know everything about what I've gone through.
Speaker 2:Because, again, if you listen to this podcast in the insurance space, you're gonna go through hard times, especially with the economy, things you can't control. But you can control these things. Right? If you would be great as a insurance producer, either a producer, an agent, a back office, an owner, whatever. The 4 b's.
Speaker 2:Visualize what you want. K? Vocalize to yourself. You are good enough to be doing what you're doing. Vote.
Speaker 2:Do something positive, listen to this awesome podcast, read a book, go for a walk, whatever that's positive towards being where you wanna be, and then venture. Venture out and find your tribe. Yeah. I'm getting in with Mick. Now I've met Heath.
Speaker 2:Now I've met David. Now I've met Ryan. Now I've met Josh. Now I've met Marcus. So on and so on and so forth.
Speaker 2:That's the type of venture out I wanted to do to find the tribe that connects with my vibe.
Speaker 1:Dude, I think that's awesome. And so you brought up Mick a few times. You brought up some of the friends that you've met in the insurance industry. And all the things we've talked about today all go back to leadership. And and being a leader, what no matter where you're at in the organization, whether you're back office, whether you're, you know, front of the house, whether you're a producer, whether you're the owner, all of this goes back into leadership, and I've seen some things posted.
Speaker 1:I've seen a lot going on. You've got something coming up with Mick. I think it's called Amplify Your Leadership, if I get that right. Talk to me a little bit about that for a minute, how people could find that. Give me give me something on that, and then, you know, maybe if this comes out, you know, and they missed it or they've listened to it a year from now, tell me some other things you got coming up, what you got going on.
Speaker 1:Let's just finish out with you. Tell a little bit about what you've got going on Business wise, you could help them. You're on mute again. You're good, bro.
Speaker 2:So right so right now, we've got going on our amplify your leadership, academy. And we're having a free workshop coming up on Thursday, July 18th from 1 to 2:30, but that's kind to announce what we're doing. And we're gonna be launching the community later this year, probably around, you know, all going to August, September. It's a community to help you become a better leader than you already are, to become the best version of yourself. I'll be talking about this also, workshop, how to become a bolder, more confident leader.
Speaker 2:And then Mick will be talking about how to lead the modern employee in today's environment. And we're all excited about giving you tips and tricks on how to really tie this in as a leader, how to lead people, how to say no, how to work with people, how to connect with people. Mick is so good at what he does in that space, and I'm good at what I do when it comes to becoming a more bold and more confident leader. Then our other partner, Victor, will be talking about branding and how to scale. It's all designed to give you action steps on what you should be doing, but more importantly, help you to increase productivity 25% or more in your respective industry by getting more work and most productive work out of yourself and the team that you are serving as a leader.
Speaker 2:And that's a huge, huge part of this, of our workshop It's inspiring you to actually move the needle forward. That's absolutely everything. And so we're so excited about this. Love working with Mick. He's been huge in my life.
Speaker 2:We're great friends. I'm excited to be like yourself and all the other people in your space, and just meet some really great people who are very, very fulfilled and successful, but are also very humble, and they remember how they got there. Nobody in the group that I've met through Mick has an ego. Well, we all have one, but it's all in check. It's smaller than the good part of our soul.
Speaker 2:We all have an ego. We wanna be confident. We wanna be poised. We wanna be proud of ourselves. That's great.
Speaker 2:But we don't ever wanna get to the point where I know it all, and I'm the best. I call it the Marcus of 2012. As a matter of fact, right, he on my wall, I have an award. I won it May 19th 2,011. It's the Pioneer Award.
Speaker 2:It is the recognition of the outstanding business achieved. I am the minority contractor of the year for the entire state of Maryland. I keep that up because when I won that award, as soon as I left that copy, like, that breakfast, I got my I received my award, that's what my ego went from here to there. And as soon as that happened, he everything bad started happening little by little. It got more toxic.
Speaker 2:It got vested with just jealousy, right, we call those the personality ethics, wrath, lust, envy, jealousy. You name it. And next thing you know, man, I feel what's that? A year and a half later, right, things start to happen. I'm out of business.
Speaker 2:And I had I remember when I was telling to my daughter, I remember when I were going out of business right here, people were stealing trucks off the lot. They were breaking stuff, vandalizing. People were doing anything and everything just to steal and get what they could. Our trucks got stolen and sold off. Laptops got stolen and sold off.
Speaker 2:I remember that guy was yesterday, and that award was the beginning of the end for me. So if you're listening to this episode, remember, we all have an ego. Just keep it in check. Never let it get bigger than the good part of your soul.
Speaker 1:Love that. And so the last thing, if you wanted to share this at all, I I know this, and I edit it out if I need to, but you've got, you know, a website. You've got some other services that you guys do or that you do. You know? I would suggest and if if you're not interested in doing this, again, I can edit.
Speaker 1:I got the power of that. If you're an agency listening to this, big or small, and you want to, you know, bring Marcus into the agency or even hire him to come to a Zoom call to talk to your team, I think that'll be, an incredible offering and something that'd be really cool. I do know you have some time, you know, on your, your calendar. You could book time with you for 20 minutes or so and, you know, stuff like that. Talk to me a little bit about that.
Speaker 1:Did I speak for you? Maybe you'll be mad at me for saying that out loud, but I do think that's something you would do because you're so giving of your time, and you wanna impact so many people. So talk to me a little bit. If there's any offices or services, I mean, that you wanna offer them, let them know, and then I'm a let you roll because I know we got a hard stop.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man. Of course. And people looking for a keynote speaker, virtual or in person, looking for business coaching, looking for consulting, looking for anybody to help you around improving your leadership, improving your mindset, enhancing your culture, getting better at marketing and sales, be able to really connect with people and networking, really create what I call that baseline conduit of trust and admiration and respect to build your business, reach out to us. You can go to marcus@marcusogdan.com. You can also go to our website www.marcusogden.com, or you can download our free app.
Speaker 2:You can go on to your app or Android app store, type in my name, marchuesogden. Up pops the app. You can go to our website. You can check out free exclusive content. You can follow our podcast.
Speaker 2:Everything you want to have access to, you can get it right there from our app. Again, go to your app store, type in Marcus Ogden, connect with us. We do speaking jobs. We do virtual. We do in person.
Speaker 2:We do consulting, group coaching. You name it. We can help you become even better than you currently already are with our help and with our products and services.
Speaker 1:Love it, bro. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for being a part of insurance town. My citizens are gonna love you. Thank you again.
Speaker 1:Hope you have a great day, brother.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me on. He appreciate it, brother. Yep. Alright.