288. Becoming Who You Are—Even as You Grow | Marques Ogden on Authenticity

[00:00:06] Welcome back to Girl, Take the Lead, the podcast where we challenge the status quo, share meaningful conversations, and explore what it really means to find our voice and lead with intention. And I'm your host, Yolanda Canny. Have you ever had a moment in your life where everything you built suddenly shifted?

[00:00:29] Maybe it was a career change and you were laid off or fired and happened a few times to me. A role ended or maybe something you thought defined you no longer fit. And in that space, you're asking yourself a deeper question. Who am I now?

[00:00:53] Today's guest knows that moment well. I'm so pleased to welcome Marcus Ogden, former NFL player, keynote speaker, celebrated host of Get Authentic podcast, and bestselling author of The Success Cycle. After building a successful business, Marcus lost nearly everything. His company, his financial security, and the identity he had worked so hard to create.

[00:01:22] But what followed wasn't the end of the story. It was the beginning of something more honest, more grounded, and ultimately more aligned with who he truly is. He's an inspiration for all of us.

[00:01:39] In this episode, Marcus shares his journey from success to rock bottom and the powerful lessons he learned about authenticity, perseverance, and rebuilding from within. It's a conversation about letting go of who we think we're supposed to be and becoming who we really are, even as we grow. Let's jump in. Here you go.

[00:02:08] Marcus, welcome to Girl Take the Lead. I love you. Thank you for having me on, Yolanda. I've had the pleasure of listening to your podcast, and I'm so excited to have you with us. And I've had the pleasure of reading your book. So this is going to be a great conversation. Thank you again. Oh, absolutely. I appreciate us getting connected. And thank you for having me on your show and having me come on and talk to your amazing audience. Yeah. Yeah. And shout out to Linda, who kind of connected us.

[00:02:37] I know she'll be listening. So thank you. I like she. She's awesome. We love you, Linda. So let's start, if you would, to introduce yourself to the audience and tell them a lot about your background. Although, if you're seeing him in person right now, I'm viewing, you'll see some of his background behind him on the visual. It's just terrific. Go ahead, Marcus. Thanks. So my name is Marcus Ogden. I am from Washington, D.C.

[00:03:07] I live in Fuquay, Berea, North Carolina. It's about outside of Raleigh, North Carolina. I'm happy between Raleigh and Fayetteville. I am a dad of two amazing daughters. I have a 22-year-old and 11-year-old. My 22-year-old will be graduating from NYU in May, and my 11-year-old is in sixth grade.

[00:03:28] I am a national, international keynote speaker, business coach, corporate consultant, podcast host, bestselling author, brand ambassador. I own most different businesses that I align with, and I'm also a former NFL athlete as well. Yeah. So let's tell everybody the name of your podcast so that we get that in for them. So it's Get Authentic with Marcus Ogden.

[00:03:54] So it is a podcast that's all about authenticity, how to be authentic, how to be real. And we really focus on our guests sharing their stories and sharing their experiences with our audience all around the globe. Yeah. And your book, the title of your book? Yes. It's called The Success Cycle. So it was written in 2020, and it's about three big keys, right, Yolanda?

[00:04:24] Ambition, drive, and hard work. So ambition is creating a blueprint, creating some type of roadmap for your life. Then you have drive, which is being inspired over motivated. I actually learned that one from one of my mentors, Mel Robbins. So I was on her audio book, Kick Ass with Mel, in 2019. I interviewed with her in her studio in Boston in 2018.

[00:04:52] And she said, hey, Marcus, are you motivational? I said, yes, Mel, absolutely. I'm motivational. I'm all about what I love to do. I want to help you. So, Marcus, you're motivational. I said, yes, man, I'm motivational. She said, well, that's not good. I said, what do you mean? She said, motivation is garbage. I said, what do you mean? It's short term. You want to be inspirational, which means breathe life and hope into people. So that's when I learned about being inspired over motivated. And that's being driven.

[00:05:21] And then hard work, Yolanda, focus on yourself and not the competition. Work on yourself. Work on your stuff. Work on becoming better with your methodology, with your processes, with your systems. That's what it's all about. So your backstory and how you got to all of that is pretty inspiring. I will say that. Mel Robbins is correct.

[00:05:49] It is just, I mean, your ability, your resilience. You've got to tell folks about your backstory. Well, it's interesting, Yolanda. So we just found out today is March 25th. We found out yesterday that we got, we're getting, we're being brought in for our first TEDx talk in Toronto. And so it's on the power of breakthrough. And I got an email today, Yolanda.

[00:06:17] Not only have they selected us, they've asked us, they've asked me to leave off the event as the opening keynote speaker for the event. So we're very fortunate because it's all about the power of breakthrough and how to actually work through challenges, overcome adversity, and keep going in your life no matter what. So for me, I got drafted into the National Football League by the Jacksonville Jaguars.

[00:06:44] And I played for almost six years in the National Football League, had some great experiences, played for some great coaches, played with great teammates. When I left the game, Yolanda, for about six months, I struggled immensely with alcohol addiction, gambling, nightlife. I didn't have a purpose. I didn't have a passion. I had no ambition, right? And so I ended up finally putting the bottle down and I got into construction.

[00:07:13] And I built a company, or I started a company called Caden Premier Enterprises. We were a small concrete demolition contractor in Baltimore City. But unfortunately, as the company grew to become one of the largest African-American, actually the largest African-American-owned subcontracting company in the city of Baltimore,

[00:07:38] state of Maryland, Virginia, and the D.C. area, my ego got enormous. It got so massive. And I became so pompous. I remember this like it was yesterday. In 2011, May 2011, we won an award as the Minority Contract of the Year for the state of Maryland.

[00:08:02] And when that award was given to us, Yolanda, it's like my ego just skyrocketed to the moon and beyond. You couldn't tell me anything. I was like, I'm on top of the world. I have a multiple eight-figure company. I'm 30 years old, and I'm on cloud nine. You can't stop me.

[00:08:25] Unfortunately, my ego got so massive that it scared people in my company because they couldn't talk to me. They couldn't tell me anything. I didn't listen. I wasn't empathetic. I wasn't compassionate. I was full of like just, I call them personality traits or ethics, rage, wrath, envy, lust, anger. And I ended up scaring my best people.

[00:08:54] They quit. And then between that and then getting a job to go south very quickly where I spent about $3 million of my money in less than 90 days on a project. When the developer and the contractor denied my change order, right, Yolanda? And the bank cut me off. It sent me into a Chapter 7 complete bankruptcy. So it was December 23, 2012.

[00:09:23] The bank called me about 8 o'clock at night and said, Marcus, we've been meeting for five hours to decide the fate of Caden. We're no longer going to extend you any credit. We're shutting down all of your lines, and we're going to come after everything you own in January of 2013. And that's it for you. And so then I had to leave Baltimore and move to the Raleigh, North Carolina area with only $400 to my name, Yolanda.

[00:09:54] That is it. My house was foreclosed on. Both cars were repossessed in the same day. I got here with nothing, and I had nothing, and I didn't know anybody, and I had a job lined up, and I was almost homeless. But thank God the NFL stepped in, and they paid for most of my rent and my bills to keep me from going homeless.

[00:10:19] Now, that time I was working, then I got fired from my job because I just wasn't doing a good job. I got fired from another job five days later, twice in the same week. And then the only time I could get Yolanda was a custodian working in downtown Raleigh for $8.25 an hour. That is it.

[00:10:42] And I ended up finally hitting rock bottom on my ship when I had my spoiled milk rock bottom moment. Somebody's trash and rotten meat got all over my body, my skin and my clothes. And that was my wake-up calling, wow, if I don't change, I become more accountable and more responsible. I'm going to be on this curb for the rest of my life. So I got to work, and I said, I'm going to change. I said, let's try to do speaking.

[00:11:11] So I started speaking in September 2013. I didn't get a paid job for two and a half years. 30 months, everything was no, no, no, or free. Nothing paid. Got my first paid job in April 2016. Second job, April 2017 paid. 2018 met Mel Robbins, learned the business.

[00:11:36] And the last, let's say, 10 years of being paid as a speaker, we've worked for over 90 fortune, 500 companies as a speaker. And we've worked on so many more. You name it, finance, real estate, healthcare, you name it. And now we speak nationally, internationally. We're a best-selling author, podcaster, all these things. But I tell everybody, I'm a man that's been made millions of dollars.

[00:12:05] I've been flat broke. I've had it all. I've had nothing. I've made, you know, thousands of dollars per hour. I've made $825 per hour. I've been all around the Marbury Bush. But where I'm at today, I'll never go back because I'll never, ever again, right, Yolanda? Let my ego get bigger than the good part of my soul.

[00:12:29] So is that where your direction and authenticity kind of started to get some traction? Yeah. That's a great question.

[00:12:43] So Yolanda, my authenticity started to gain traction when I started speaking more and telling people the truth about my failure, about the struggles, about not being able to achieve success, about the struggles between, you know, me growing the business and then actually losing the business. It's not because the business did anything wrong. I did everything wrong. My employees and my team members were great.

[00:13:13] But they didn't want to work for me because I was very tyrannical. I was very egotistical. And I didn't listen. So I don't blame them. Of course, I blamed them then. But now I don't blame them. They didn't do anything wrong. So the company took a demise, took a fall because of me.

[00:13:31] So what happened was the more I started to be authentic and vulnerable and real and sharing with people my experiences and all that, that's when authenticity started to take more flight. And then what happened is I had a podcast, Yolanda, with another gentleman. And we called it the Levin Marcus Show. And we started out and we did pretty well. I mean, we were growing. We did stuff like that. And I was bringing in good money through sponsorships, right?

[00:14:01] Unfortunately, my co-host and I did not see eye to eye as far as my progress. He felt we should be making more money and a lot more of it. I didn't see it that way. We were just still young. We were trying to get going. We didn't really have a ton of downloads. So it was like more about relationship selling, which I just call relationship building and not transactional. So people loved us and paid us to partner with us.

[00:14:28] But when we didn't agree and we got into an argument, we parted ways, right? And from there, I launched Get Authentic with Marcus Ogden because I was tired of people on social media or some people on social media making it seem like, right, Yolanda? Their entire life is full of glitz and glamour and gold. And everything is easy. And there's no problems. And social media is just nice and lovely.

[00:14:57] And life is all rosy red. And I'm like, that's not the way life is. And so I wanted a podcast that was really about the real realities of life. The authentic parts of life. As a result of that, the show was launched in June of 2022. And now here we are in the top half percent, most popular podcast worldwide. We are in the top business podcast in the world as well.

[00:15:27] And we interview all types of people, Yolanda, from all walks of life and people love. It is amazing that that topic could grow into, do you have over 800 episodes? It's like, authenticity for people is just such a great topic because we all have our moments where we've hit that bottom for ourselves.

[00:15:55] And you, you know, demonstrate it so well for all of us. You know, perhaps we haven't been in the NFL, but there've been points in our lives where we really question, who are we? And what are we really about? And one of the wonderful things you say in your book, I knew I couldn't do this job. And if I stayed, I would get sucked into the trap of living someone else's dream.

[00:16:24] Not my own. Right. That was so good. I, I went, oh, all of us go through this discovery moment. I think of when we have our bottom and we're questioning who we are and is this my thing or is this somebody else's thing that I'm actually trying to live? You know, I had the pleasure of interviewing Coutinho Moby, who's a former NBA basketball player today on our podcast. He grew up in Philadelphia.

[00:16:54] He was telling us how, or he was telling me how he grew up with Kobe Bryant. He knew Kobe Bryant from when he was like 11 or 12 years old. And he talked about the mamba mentality when it takes to have a type of edge. But he also said, if you want to make a living, work for somebody else. If you want to be wealthy, work on yourself. And that stuck with him because again, he talked about investing in you.

[00:17:21] Now I'm not telling you if you have a career working for somebody else to go and quit today and go out. I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is that what I believe Coutinho was saying is the best person to invest in is yourself. When you invest in yourself, it's never, ever bad. It's always money, time, effort well spent. So I was living somebody else's dream, right?

[00:17:47] And when I got here and I started this business, Ogden Ventures, it was hard. It was extremely hard. Nobody wanted to take my phone call. Nobody wanted to even talk about hiring me. When I got through to people, it was always no, no, you have no experience. No, no. I could go on for days. But what I realized over time is I was approaching people with my hand out.

[00:18:13] I was approaching people with no type of value I could give them. I was approaching people expecting them to do all the work for me because I was a former NFL athlete. Like, oh, I'm a former NFL athlete. Now I'm a speaker. You should be privileged to want to hire me. My attitude sucked. So once I learned how to change my attitude and what a lot of people say, I couldn't agree with this more.

[00:18:41] If you're going to be a speaker, it's not about you. It's not about you or what you want to say, what you feel the client wants you to say. It's about the client, what they need you to say, right? And the client wants to know, are you going to do research about them, about the company, about the theme? Are you going to tie in? That's how we got the TED Talk. The TED Talk is about the power of breakthrough. That's what it's about.

[00:19:10] And I've been breaking through barriers, walls my entire life. But the last, let's say, 13 years of my life, I'm at 45, 32, from 32 to 45. The last 13 years since April 2013 has been a whirlwind of ups, downs, depression, bankruptcy, broke, fired, up, down. Kids, family, marriage, struggles, divorce, up, down.

[00:19:40] You name it. I've seen it. I've been through it and I've dealt with it. But I'm still here because I keep breaking through barriers. I keep breaking through walls. And if you're listening to this awesome podcast, the key to breaking through walls and barriers is believing in yourself. I know that sounds cliche, but if you don't have the mindset to believe in yourself, why would anybody else?

[00:20:10] If you don't have the ability to say, you know what, I know I can do this. I know I can start this podcast. I know I can start this new venture. I can go and speak on stage and share my story. I can put on social media that I have struggled and had hardship and lost and suffer and pain. I can't put that out there. If you don't believe it, it'll never happen.

[00:20:34] Because again, it took me two and a half years to get my first paid speaking job. If I didn't believe this was the right thing for me to do, I would have gave up on it a long time ago. And I tell you what, my days are stressful, long, full of stuff. But I'll tell you this, my days go like that because I actually love what I'm doing. It's difficult and challenging at times, but I love it. So I wouldn't change it for the world.

[00:21:02] So again, understand, follow and invest in your dream whenever possible. You can never go wrong investing in yourself. Yeah. Well, I guess that journey of investing in ourselves and finding ourselves and what's important to us and the values that we hold. It's like at the bottom of all of that.

[00:21:28] And I guess you could put that all together and call that authenticity because you're actually being true to who we are. Yolanda, authenticity is knowing who we are in the moment, knowing that the moment is going to change. We don't stay the same. If we're not growing and not advancing, we're dying. If we're dying, we're in a really bad spot.

[00:21:55] Ladies and gentlemen, you should never, ever want to be the same tomorrow as you are today. Never. Never. Again, this morning I was up at three o'clock this morning. I had something to work. I had some very challenging things to work through this morning. You know what? Today I was able to handle that. Six months or maybe a year ago, it would have really broke me down because I would be like, oh, my God, I got to do this. And I got to do that. And I got to do this. And I got to do that.

[00:22:25] And you know what would have happened? Nothing. Right? There's a saying, in order to really be successful as a leader, learn how to move and or break down mountains, which means you need to learn how to break things down into small, manageable action steps to execute. If you give your brain too much to do, if you overwhelm it, it shuts down.

[00:22:51] So, again, learn to invest, believe in you, because as long as you do that, you're always in a position to win. Well, you talked a little bit about breaking things down. And I know in your book, you talk a lot about goals. And a goal without an action is just a wish. And love that. And also loved, I got to say, I'm going to be honest with you.

[00:23:19] You know, I'm a former marketing professional for 42 years. I wrote marketing plans for all kinds of products and companies, et cetera. And to do a five-year plan, my hat is off to you, my friend, because five years is a tough. Long time. But you say that that's important to do. Now, for my podcast, I do an annual plan. No problem.

[00:23:46] But I saw it as a real challenge to think about it for five years. Like, five years out? Oh, my God. Are we still going to be talking about authenticity? Can things still be that, you know, interesting for people? I know. I just, I might, I just bow down to you and go five years. You know, Yolanda, you know what's funny? I had a five-year plan when I launched the podcast.

[00:24:12] And I ended up filing for divorce the next month after starting my podcast. But my five-year plan never changed. It didn't. Because, and now I'll be in year four of the podcast in June. But the five-year plan was to just every single day continue to do something, one thing towards moving the podcast forward.

[00:24:38] That's where I feel most people struggle when it comes to the podcast industry. They expect something to happen overnight. One hit to go viral and they become the next Joe Rogan. People have no idea. Joe Rogan had his pockets for almost, I think, about eight to ten years before he ever made any actual money. It's unreal. People don't see the work. They don't see the grind.

[00:25:06] They only see the end result. Right? People say, oh, my God. Like, Fernando Mendoza is going to be the number one pick in the NFL draft this year to the Raiders. I'm 99.9% sure. Oh, my God. He's going to get $60 million. Like, okay, that's awesome. But do you see or have you seen the work he did through middle school, high school, college, training, summers, all year round to get to this point?

[00:25:35] Probably not. So, again, people fall in love with the result. They don't fall in love with the actual grind. And it should be the reverse. You should fall in love with the grind and then the outcome will take care of itself. Right? I always tell people, focus on your output, not the outcome. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:25:58] No, that's really good stuff because I think a lot of resignation and different emotions can happen when we feel that it's a failure. Now, what I loved what you wrote about is that some of those goals you had, you even mentioned some, that didn't work out. That you, it didn't appear to you as failure.

[00:26:26] Was it a new opportunity for you? How did you kind of navigate through those? What happened is when I got into construction, Yolanda, I was chasing money.

[00:26:37] And when I lost everything, after calming down and cooling down and then moving forward in my speaking career, the more I started to speak and get known for it and book work for pay and get, you know, recognized by my peers that this is my actual career. What I realized is what I went through was a learning lesson, right?

[00:27:05] And I need to have that learning lesson to help me in my new career be even more relatable to people because a lot of people can't relate to playing professional sports. But a lot of people can relate to losing everything in a business or making a mistake or making a miscalculation or getting over leverage.

[00:27:31] So what I realized is that at the time I deemed it a failure. But as I went on in my new career, I looked at it as a learning lesson. And I now help others to hopefully, right, Yolanda, not make the same type of catastrophic mistakes that I made. We're all going to make mistakes. You do this wrong, you do that wrong, that's okay.

[00:27:55] But I'm hoping that people that hear me speak or our podcast or our coaching will be going on shows like this awesome show. Just don't make the catastrophic mistakes that I did that cost me everything that I almost did not bounce back from. Yeah. So, Marcus, would you say that your superpower is perseverance? Oh, absolutely.

[00:28:22] And as a matter of fact, perseverance is tattooed on my right elbow line. There you go. Yeah. Because here's the thing. That's, again, the TEDx talk in Toronto is about the power of breakthrough, how to build perseverance and resilience. And that's what I've been doing my entire life. Especially, like I said, the last 13 years. It's been a roller coaster like you wouldn't believe.

[00:28:50] But again, I never, ever got myself, you know, off keel. I never, ever got myself to a position where I felt I couldn't bounce back. There were some tough days, don't get me wrong. But I always believed I could bounce back. I always believed I could have that type of opportunity to move forward. I believed in myself when most others didn't.

[00:29:16] So, yes, perseverance is definitely one of my superpowers because without it, I wouldn't be where I'm at today. Yeah. And I wonder if ambition is like right next door to it for you. Oh, absolutely. Oh, my goodness. So, I've got perseverance here and I've got determination here. But ambition is all about creating a blueprint, creating something, a structure for your life.

[00:29:46] And that is something I'm big on because I tell people, if you don't have a plan for your life, if you don't have a structure or a system or some type of blueprint or map, you're going through life aimlessly with no purpose, with no sort of like plan. And again, you have to at least have some sort of plan. One of my favorite quotes is the plan was useless, but he had one.

[00:30:14] The planning was indispensable. General Dwight D. Eisenhower. So, he says you have to always have a plan. Now, sometimes it could be garbage, but you got to at least have one. And then the planning, how you pivot, how you adjust, how you tweak, that's everything. You could have never told me, right, Yolanda? I was going to be a keynote speaker for a career.

[00:30:40] So, y'all, we are having a conversation with a very large technology company on April 13th. They found us through a speaker bureau. Now, funny thing is the event planner told me, Marcus, I heard you speak at Aberdeen High School. Now, here's the thing, right, Yolanda? I spoke at Aberdeen High School in May of 2005.

[00:31:09] Oh, wow. That was 21 years ago when I was playing football in the NFL for the Baltimore Ravens. I was not a speaker. I was just doing that to fulfill getting out of the community and building relationships with our fans. But she remembered that. She told me that on Wednesday of the, I'm sorry, yesterday. I was like, oh, my God.

[00:31:36] She said, I remembered you from Aberdeen High School, which was, again, 21 years ago. Wow. 21 years ago. That's what it's all about, right, Yolanda? That's what I'm talking about, right? That's impact, right? That is doing what you know you're supposed to be doing. That's investing in yourself and then turning around and investing in others.

[00:32:03] So, again, I had no idea when I spoke at that school I was going to be my career 21 years later. But obviously, the woman that heard me speak always believed I could. And now here we are again. And this is a big opportunity. This is their first ever learning summit in Indianapolis. And they're so excited about me being the potential closing keynote speaker. Whoa.

[00:32:32] Well, Marcus, your action plan is just amazing that you are following in your roadmap. Thank you. That's awesome. I appreciate that. And, well, when it comes to the roadmap, you had mentioned in the book several aspects of it. You know, having a mentor or a coach and other things. What do you see there as being most important for our audience to know about their roadmap?

[00:33:02] In order to create a roadmap of efficiency, I believe you need to have a mentor or a coach that helps you create it. Because a mentor or a coach can help you see things that usually you can't see. And this is what's going to help you. Again, Mel Robbins gave me great insight on how to stop being motivational and be inspirational.

[00:33:30] And without her guidance, I don't know if I would have ever really truly learned that. And she said, Marcus, if you want to be a motivational speaker like everybody else, that's fine. If you want to be inspirational, like the few speakers like myself or Les Brown or John Maxwell or Brene Brown, you have to stop thinking short term. Think long term.

[00:33:55] So when you do that, you then shift from being motivational to inspirational. When you become inspirational, you become so much more of a sought-after asset or commodity in this industry. Yeah. Well, Marcus, is there anything else that we haven't covered that you want to leave with the audience? I have a few more questions to ask you. No, this has been great. Hey, we're doing great.

[00:34:24] So a question that I ask all my guests, and I'd like for you to approach it, think about it for a moment and maybe approach it, because I'd like to ask you two questions. One is what you would tell your 20-something self today. And the other is what would you tell your 20-something daughter today? I would tell both, right?

[00:34:50] I never, ever think that you have it all figured out. Never. Because that's what happens to me. My 20-year-old self, I was in my 20s when I lost my, well, I was 30, but I just turned 30. But, like, I was 31 when I lost everything.

[00:35:08] In my 20s, in my construction company, around 28, 29, around 29 years old, I made this shift to thinking everything I did was right. I had to have all the answers. Now, I could do no wrong. And that was the beginning of the end for me in that industry.

[00:35:29] So I would tell myself, I would tell my daughter, I would tell anybody in their 20s or 20 years ago, never, ever think you have it all figured out. Because you don't. And once you realize that, you can actually ask for help and take help and take guidance.

[00:35:50] Now you're into another well of grace because you can stop trying to be everything all the time and ask for help and ask for guidance. Now you're in a different league than all by yourself. Love it. Love it. And I'm wondering if you got a chance to go to our online store. Is there anything there that I can send you? Or should I make you something and surprise you? Please make, please make.

[00:36:17] I'm just so grateful to be on your show. Talk about what we do. Help spread positivity, encouragement, authenticity, vulnerability, honesty to your audience. Whatever you send me, Yolanda, I am absolutely sure I will love it. And then lastly, how can our audience find you and get your book and find your podcast? Thank you very much.

[00:36:45] So for our podcast, you need to go to YouTube, Get Authentic with Marcus Ogden. You can go there. You can go to Spotify or Apple. Again, Get Authentic with Marcus Ogden. You can like, subscribe, follow, leave a five-star rating and review. We always appreciate that.

[00:37:04] If you want to contact us, go to our website, www.MarcusMARQUSOgden.com. And if you'd like to contact me, please go to the email, Marcus at MarcusOgden.com. Those are the best ways to get in touch with us. And we look forward to connecting with you and hearing from you as well. Right. Great.

[00:37:31] And would the email be the best way if somebody wants to get you as a speaker for their events? Yes, ma'am. They can shoot me an email, Marcus at MarcusOgden.com. It'll come straight to me. And I'm very responsive. And I get right back to people in a very timely fashion. Yes. Thank you, Marcus. And thank you again for sharing your wisdom and your inspiration for all of us and writing

[00:37:57] your book, doing your podcast, getting the word out to help so many other people. I think we can all relate to you and to your story. So thank you. Yolanda, I want to thank you so much for having us on your show. I appreciate you. And thank you so much for the opportunity. My sincere thanks to Marcus for such an honest and powerful conversation. One of the ideas that really stayed with me from this episode is this.

[00:38:28] Authenticity isn't something we arrive at once. It's something we return to as we grow. Here are three reflections to carry with you. One, growth doesn't mean losing who you are. It means becoming more of who you are. Two, rock bottom moments can become the turning point, not the end.

[00:38:55] And three, and perhaps most importantly, investing in yourself is never wasted. If you'd like to learn more about Marcus, explore his book, the success cycle, or follow his podcast, get authentic. We'll include all the links in the show notes for you. And if this episode resonated with you, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Join us in our Facebook group.

[00:39:24] The link is also in the show notes. Thanks for joining us. Next week on Girl Take the Lead, we welcome Carmel Clark, founder of the Center for Transformational Influence. Carmel's work spans the globe, coaching leaders, guiding women entrepreneurs, and creating transformative experiences that help people step into who they're becoming.

[00:39:49] From leadership and sustainability to personal growth and bold exploration, this conversation opens up what's possible when we lead with intention and continue evolving. You won't want to miss it. As always, thank you for listening and for being part of this community.

[00:40:10] Until next time, listen inward, lead outward, and remember, becoming who you are is a journey, and you're right on time. Talk soon. Bye.