From 8 Figures To 8 Dollars Per Hour With Marques Ogden | 734

MORI 734 | Former NFL Player

How do you return from making eight figures in the NFL and as a business owner to cleaning the trash at $8 per hour? That’s exactly the personal life story our guest and former NFL player, Marques Ogden, shares with us today. Tune in to find out what he has done to come back from this low point in his life!

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From 8 Figures To 8 Dollars Per Hour With Marques Ogden

Welcome. Thank you for reading. I appreciate you allowing me to create that ripple effect for you. I appreciate you binging. You’ve been going through all 700-plus episodes and I’m amazed because I can barely get through a couple of my episodes. Good job, guys. As a reminder, go check out our website, MoneyRipples.com, for more information.

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In this episode, I brought on a special guest. He’s someone I heard speak on stage and I love his story so much. Many of you guys have heard my story of going from a millionaire to an upside-down millionaire. Marques Ogden got me beat, I got to tell you. He went from 8 figures to $8 an hour. It’s so amazing to hear his story of being richest to rags and back to riches again. I’m bringing on Marques here, a former NFL player. I will let him tell you his story. Marques, welcome to our show.

How are you doing? Thanks, Chris. I appreciate it.

Tell us a little about you. Some football fans here might already know who you are from the Jaguars but tell us more of your backstory.

I’m from Washington, DC. I live now in Raleigh, North Carolina, with my two daughters. I am a national, international keynote speaker, executive coach, consultant, bestselling author, brand ambassador, and business owner. I am the host of the Get Authentic with Marques Ogden Show. We’re ranked in the top 1% of most popular podcasts worldwide. I love being a dad, a coach, and a speaker. I’m very fulfilled in my everyday life.

Tell us the story. You were in the NFL. You lived the dream. What is it like when it comes to money in the NFL? We talk about money mindset as well as things with creating passive income but what was your experience with money going into it?

I was very fortunate and learned from my dad. He worked for the Federal Home Loan Bank of New York in their DC office. I grew up around money and money management. We were in a very comfortable upper-middle-class living environment until our parents divorced. That caused us to go poor. We have to turn the oven on for heat because my dad, unfortunately, put all his money fortunately to our education but by the time I got into middle school and high school, he had burned through his savings. It was hard for me growing up.

I learned a lot about money and money management from him. Also, how to save, plan, prioritize, start to create that wealth for yourself, and make money work for you, not that you work for your money. That’s why I love your show because, to me, money has a very positive, powerful ripple if you learn how to use it correctly. I went to Howard University and was drafted to the National Football League by the Jacksonville Jaguars and Jack Del Rio, who was the defensive coordinator for the Washington Commanders, still to this day.

What I saw in the NFL is you get paid a lot of money in a short time. You have your training camp and pre-season pretty much the same pay. You have the pre-season where you get the same base pay. When the season starts, that’s when guys are getting paid for seventeen weeks. Now, it’s eighteen. You’re getting big paychecks every week and it’s awesome. Here’s the thing. If you don’t plan, budget, or prepare yourself for that whole process, you’re going to end up having a hard time with money.

It’s about stewardship, how good a steward you can be.

I used to have a budget. I remember I did an article with CNN Money. It showed my rent for my apartment, my car, my food, and my gas. I was spending probably around $4,000 a month. What’s interesting is during that time, since 2003, I was making about $40,000 a month and getting about $10,000 per paycheck after taxes. I was always a cash surplus of about $35,000 given. I took $1,000 to entertain it. I always had a cash surplus. I started to program myself to that effect.

Right now, in full transparency, I’m going through a separation and divorce. I’m on my own living in an apartment. I’m buying a home. It’s interesting. I have a PR side of my business where I help clients get on the podcasts, media, and exposure. I also help people get into the next phase of working on business and aspects of things. It’s been awesome helping people get to that next level.

Now, I’m by myself. I have my child support I pay every month. I have my bills and my team but I’m able to budget. In my planning phase, what I do is when money comes into my business account, I take it from the business account. It goes to the personal checking account and then from the personal checking account, 22% out for taxes goes from the personal checking to the personal savings.

This way, I have money that’s there building but I have no access to that personal savings account. No checks, no cars, nothing. In reality, that money doesn’t exist. It’s for taxes or emergencies only. My point is in my life, I’m able to be much more positive, having a strong mindset around money and money management. It’s interesting because I’m able to budget, preserve, and conserve. I tell people all the time, “Money is so hard to make but I’ll be damned if it’s not easy to spend.”

One thing we always focus on here is that we don’t have to be cheap. You don’t have to be living in a cardboard box but to be lean and productive. Focus on productive expenses and things that either want to enrich your life and/or also help you increase more income too. Always have that not just for a rainy day but even putting away opportunities to help keep expanding and growing that income.

Especially if you’re a business owner reading this episode, you want to put money away to be able to reinvest back into your business. I’m buying a nice home but it’s going to be very lean compared to what I bring in monthly. As our podcast and PR business grows and things of that nature, it’s important that people understand that we are in a position where we need to go ahead, buy something, invest in technology, or get an app.

We had a great talk with a guy about him coming on to help us on the technology side and create an app around some of our content. We can call it the Success Cycle Kit, where we have low-entry opportunities like courses or maybe create a seven-figure business residually. When I was trying to do that in the past, I didn’t have $5,000, $7,000, or $10,000 put to the side. I defer that because I was living paycheck to paycheck but it was tight. I didn’t have any type of plan on how to budget, money manage, or have a good ripple.

As a result of that, I was not able to grow the business. Whereas when I was talking to the guy, I said, “Let me know what it’s going to cost your time.” I’m going to bring him our podcast. “You got to bring your team in. Let me know what that’s going to cost.” I don’t mind having those personal savings. Maybe I’ll take a few grand out from that to invest in the business because I know that’s for taxes but if that can help grow the business, I don’t mind spending $3,000, $4,000, or $5,000 out of there to make moves. I tell people all the time, “Be very conscious of where you are, where you want to be, and how you’re going to get there most effectively.”

Give us a quick little introduction to Get Authentic and the purpose behind it.

The Get Authentic Podcast started because of one of my good friends and you may know his name, a former quarterback in the NFL, Gus Frerotte. Gus is my coaching client. Gus had a podcast called Huddle Up with Gus. One of his team reached out to me. I got on Huddle Up with Gus as a guest. Gus needed some help in how to do better when it comes to coaching. He wanted to be a speaker so he hired me to coach him.

I had an existing podcast with another guy. We parted ways because we had some creative differences. Gus said to me, “Marques, you need to start your own podcast.” I’m like, “I don’t know, Gus. I don’t know what I want to do.” It took him four times. The third time, I said no. The fourth time I said yes. He gets me to do it. I said, “Gus, fine.” One of my team members said, “Marques, you’re such an authentic guy. You’re always telling the truth and always about who you’re. You’re not fake. You’re real.” I said, “Let’s try Get Authentic with Marques Ogden.”

We started on June 22nd of 2022. It was our first episode published. I tell you, Chris. We’ve published 124 episodes so far. We published Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. We’ve interviewed hundreds of people, from people like Celebrity Chef Robert Irvine to Rashad “Suga” Evans, UFC Hall of Fame, to business leaders, business owners, executives, corporate, sports figures, boxing, UFC, football, and basketball. You name it. It doesn’t matter.

The number one thing that people have is to have an authentic story and then be willing to share that story with our listeners. They have to also reshare it to their platform and their network. Our show is about authentic people with authentic stories. We enjoy getting people to open up about things that we don’t talk a lot about.

For example, we had a guy, Brandon Puffer, who was a major league baseball pitcher. He ended up having a bad mistake one night, blacked out, woke up in jail, got a 5-year prison sentence, and served 3.5 years. He wrote a book called From the Bullpen to the State Pen. Brandon talked about his mistakes. He said, “I’m a convicted felon,” and all this stuff but he’s a former major league baseball pitcher.

He’s moved on. He’s helping people. He’s coaching, speaking, and inspiring. He shared on our platform his story, what happened, and what he learned from it. He said he got the most peace from being in jail, learning how to get himself back onto what he called his equilibrium. We’re all about authentic people with authentic stories.

Those stories stick with people. It has that stickiness with those lessons you can learn from it. The hardest times often gave me the tools to help me hit the highest of highs too. It’s those low lows where you get those tools to hit the high highs.

You have to have the ability to be able to bounce back from hardship because if you don’t, then what happens is you’re going to always make the same mistake over and over again. That’s not what life is about.

You need the ability to bounce back from hardship because you will always make the same mistake again if you can't bounce back. That's not what life is about. Click To Tweet

I would love to give our readers a little taste of some of the hardships you experienced post-NFL. You were starting to have a great business that you had running. All of a sudden, you hit a wall. Tell us a little bit about that.

I ended up starting a construction company, Kayden Premier Enterprises. I grew it to an eight-figure-a-year construction business in downtown Baltimore. I did a talking job or a virtual speech for a client. I said that in that construction company, I was chasing success, which is what society thought I should have, like money, cars, fame, and notoriety. I achieved it. I was never fulfilled in my quest as a construction company owner.

I hated it. I hated waking up every morning and going to work because I didn’t like it. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was in over my head. I then started having success. I lived by what we call personality traits, which are horrible traits like wrath, lust, envy, anger, and jealousy. Over time, in about 90 days between that, with my ego, attitude, and a bad job, I lost everything.

I spent about $3 million of my money in less than 90 days. The developer and the contractor denied my change order. I’m bankrupt, broke, and out of business. I moved to Raleigh, North Carolina. I was fired from two jobs in the same week. I ended up taking the job as a custodian for $8.25 an hour on the graveyard shift from 10:00 PM until 5:00 AM. Finally, thank God, God said, “Marques, you’re not learning. You’re not accountable and responsible. This is your chance.”

One of my favorite authors is J.K. Rowling, who wrote Harry Potter. She’s the only billionaire author in the world, male or female. She wrote Harry Potter in her car. She said that rock bottom was the moment that she rebuilt her life. That’s exactly what happened to me. I hit complete rock bottom when someone’s trashed, rotten meat, and nasty garbage covered my body, skin, and clothes. That was my wake-up call.

I went home and wrote down my three biggest strengths. I said, “I’m a good storyteller. I want to help people. I’m a good communicator. Let’s start speaking.” I started speaking in September 2013. I got no speaking jobs for two and a half years, paid all free. I finally got my first paid job in April 2016 with Miller-Motte College. I was able to take that job, leverage it, move forward, and keep pressing on. I’ve been coached and mentored. I’ve learned how to take advantage of opportunities.

In the last six and a half years, we’ve worked for over 50 Fortune 500 companies as a speaker. We had a call with Wells Fargo but doing some work for them as a speaker. We’re excited about that. I tell people all the time, “Whatever you do well, focus on that. Build your strategy of success off the bat, take movement, and get action-oriented.” Read this audience. Imperfect action is better than no action when it comes to achieving what your heart desires. It’s better to try and make mistakes but own them, fix something, and move on than be paralyzed by fear.

A lot of people have that fear of failure. They don’t want quite to make that step. The problem is if you don’t take action, you also fail too.

It’s worse than that. If you don’t take action, you’re wasting your life. If I fail at something, I can live with that. If I’m paralyzed by fear and I don’t move at all, I can’t live with myself because then I’m stalling. One of the worst words that people who are elderly or on their deathbed say is regret. “I regret not doing this or that.” I don’t want to have any regrets in my life so I’m doing the best I can to live the best life that I can.

Amen to that. What an awesome story. We could talk for hours about this. I appreciate you having me on. Everybody, check out Get Authentic with Marques Ogden. Check out his stuff. It’s phenomenal. I was hooked right off the get-go when I saw it. I was like, “That is the show I got to check out.” Marques, thank you for your time.

I appreciate it. Thanks for having me on. A great quote by Aristotle is, “In times of extreme darkness, focus on the light.” The light is the truth. Focus on your truth, living your truth, and pursuing your truth, and then everything else will take care of itself.

MORI 734 | Former NFL Player
Former NFL Player: The light is the truth. Focus on living your truth, and everything else will take care of itself.

Everybody, make it a wonderful and prosperous week. We’ll talk to you later.

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About Marques Odgen

MORI 734 | Former NFL PlayerA little background about Marques, in 2003, he was drafted into the NFL as an offensive lineman, after 5 years of playing in league, he decided to retire and pursue a career in construction and contracting. At the age 27, Marques founded a construction company called Kayden Premier Enterprises. The company had fast growth and in 2010, but eventually his business went bankrupt, losing almost 2 million dollars on one project in a matter of 90 days.

During his darkest hours, he pulled himself together, got a part-time job as a custodian and with hard work and determination became an inspirational keynote speaker, executive coach, best-selling author and marketing leader, helping to build the success of others.