 And we're back live here in Haululu, Hawaii with the number one financial literacy show here in Hawaii, The Prince of Investing. And I'm your host, Prince Dykes, coming to you guys live. But guys, we've got a very, very special topic with a very, very special guest. You know, as you guys can see in the description box, as you guys can see in the title. Today, our topic, we're going to be speaking with an NFL millionaire who lost it all and regained it, Mr. Markey Sockton. Now, he's done great things, you know, became an author, you know, he written about his things that you probably see me speak about. So we're going to get into the topics of how did he lose it, his life, how did he lose it, how did he regain it, and what did he learn from it. But we have him here live on the line today, calling all the way from Baltimore, North Carolina. Baltimore, North Carolina. I'm in North Carolina. North Carolina. All right, cool, cool. So we got to call away from North Carolina. And for people out there who don't know who Mr. Markey's Ogden is, who is Markey's Ogden? Markey's Ogden is a former NFL athlete that went to Howard University. And I ended up after my NFL career starting a very successful construction company, using traits that I learned from people like Bill Belichick, Jack DeRio, Mike Malarkey. And I thrived in the business world. I had a degree in study finance at Howard University. And when I got out, things were going well. And then for the first five years, I was moving along, trucking along, things were progressing. In the summer of 2013, I'm sorry, summer of 2012, I took on a big job and I lost despite the skills like leadership, accountability, structure, organizational, you know, tactical planning. And I ended up experiencing great pain and loss in my life. And I had to declare bankruptcy in the summer of 2013. And I also basically lost everything that I owned in less than 90 days on one bad project in downtown Baltimore. Wow. One bad project. So this, and also Ray, you spoke about being an NFL, but I want to let people know how unique your situation is that you grew up, you and your brother both went to the NFL, right? Correct. Correct. And the crazy part about that, you know, for guys that don't know, his brother is Jonathan Ogden, where what's the likelihood of one person making it into the NFL before your dad to produce two NFL athletes? And you actually had the chance to play with your brother on the Ravens, you know, your brother went into the Hall of Fame, all of the great stuff like that. Now when you went through these, you know, you had your degree in finance from Howard, you came up on the likeness of Bill Belichick and all this great leadership, great leadership. You had your finance degree. When you spend your hardest time, why don't you just pick up the phone and call your brother and say, hey, I'm having a hard time, can I get like a million dollars or something like that and fix everything? You know, Prince, I was, I spoke at Lackawanna College to their athletic teams. I'm talking about women basketball, cross country wrestling, male, female, all sports. And I got, I got asked that same exact question. I'm going to give you the same answer that I gave them. If my brother would have bailed me out, then what would I have learned? You don't learn anything when you make a mistake in life and someone bails you out. Don't get any growth. So my brother did not get into a financial dire straits. I did. So it was not his responsibility to rescue or save me when I almost went homeless in 2013. Wow. So now you say, when you, you get into the NFL, we hear these stories all the time. You know, I don't, you know, I'm just a regular Joe who watches football and, you know, hear about athletes' story all the time. You're like, man, you sit back and you guys make millions of dollars. How can you mess up millions of dollars? How do, why do we have this story, you know, over and over and things like that, you've been someone who was drafted, been in the locker room, earned the NFL paychecks and live in the lifestyle and, you know, been in the locker room and having plenty of teammates. How do you see something like this happen? You know, Prince, what happens is as an athlete in the NFL, you get used to big dollar checks. And a lot of times what guys want to do, and I was the same way is you want to continue doing it in a legal fashion where you can make great money and live a lifestyle that you see fit. Most players do unfortunately go bankrupt through cars, fancy houses, stuff like that, which is unfortunate. But there are a handful of us who have gone through the business side where we just made a slightly miscalculated error. And that error ends up costing us greatly. I've talked to guys who've lost it all in restaurants, a former running back for the Steelers, who was a great player. He and I met at an event at Batson College in Batson Park, Massachusetts. And he said after his seven-year career as an NFL running back, started for many years with the Steelers, he said, Marcus, I just made a mistake. I had a restaurant that was going well. And unfortunately, I lost the site. I lost sight of it. I got too overextended and I made a catastrophic error. And that cost me everything. Talking to another guy who was a player at the Virginia Tech office of Lyman, same thing, his name is Jay. And he said, you know, I just lost mine in a restaurant as well. So again, what you're seeing is a pattern of people who just make that mistake and it ends up costing them greatly. Wow. Okay. So I give it. So now, because, you know, we think of NFL athlete, they lose it all. You think that, hey, I brought cars, I brought houses and I, you know, bought this jewelry and things like that. And I lost my money. So what you're telling me is that not everybody is like that. Some people actually try to be, you know, try to invest their money and just make a bad mistake in business. I mean, again, I had my company for almost five years. I made a, I made a slight error in my projections and in my cash flow and in my need for liquidity. And I ended up going bankrupt because I had more cash going out than coming in because one job sucked up a lot of multiple seven figures in 90 days. So when that happens, you're in a position where eventually you're going to run out of money. And that's exactly what happened to me. Now, when you guys are in the locker room on the practice field, or maybe at each other's house and stuff like that, you know, you guys are all millionaires. Do this? Not at all. Not enough, enough to make multiple six figures for everybody. Okay, so guys make a pretty good amount of money, right? Oh, no, because the average, the minimum salary now for incoming rookies about 450,000, that's minimum, if you're on, if you're on the 53 active roster, doesn't really have a playing bonuses or anything like that. If you're on the practice squad, I think it's somewhere around 100 to 125,000 for, you know, for you in the practice squad, I think that's about the number. Now those are the low end numbers. So for regular people, that's like, it's great. It's great. It's a great living. Absolutely. I mean, I know people working corporate America who are CEOs that don't make that kind of money. So it's exactly right. It's great. It's a great living. Now to think about it, right? So when you guys are sitting down on the practice squad or whatever the case may be, does anybody ever say, hey, you know what? Let's, let's purchase a franchise or let's get into investing or let's try to build something again. Let's buy a grocery store. Let's, you know, do you guys ever get together? Do those conversations ever come up to say, you know, we know we're not going to be able to, you know, run the football block, catch the ball forever. We have to have something. Most of us only going to be here for a couple of years. Does that conversation ever come up? When you're a young player, I would say probably not because you're unfortunately, and as most of us, I was the same way. You're causing the lifestyle that you're going to play forever. You're young. You think you know it all. But I would say that some of the veterans, like for example, I played in Jacksonville with Tony Brackens. You know, he was a veteran who was always talking about investing. He actually, he bought cattle. Like he had, he was a huge cattle ranch because Tony played at the University of Texas. So he owned a lot of cattle and was doing very well financially off racing and selling cattle. But then you had guys, unfortunately, like Mark Brunel, who was another great football player. I got to him at the end of his career. And it's just total public knowledge. Mark was doing big things investing in real estate back in the mid, the early to the early to mid 2000s. And then I think around the late 2000s, like right around the time of 2010, he ended up going bankrupt, like off a $40 million loss of several properties and deals. And he went bankrupt. And Mark is now coaching high school football in Jacksonville. And I don't think he ever recovered financially. So it's hard, right? Because some guys are doing things that are working. Some guys are doing things that aren't working. It just really depends upon you as a player. What do you feel is going to be the best fit for you? And what do you feel? And hopefully people in your camp or your team can help advise you as well. Now sitting back and seeing the people that have done well, that haven't done well and stuff like that. What are some of the common factors of success and some of the common factors of failure? Some of the red flags out there that you would kind of, you know, the listeners who are, who may be listening and are logging in or who may watch the replay that may be becoming athletes that are currently athletes. What advice would you, what are some things that you saw as like, hey, this was a common factor of failure. Or this was a common factor of success. The common factor of failure is in the beginning, okay, in the first, I say three to five years, you're relying on too many people. When you have a business like I did in construction, I got really lucky they could pass a five-year curve. But I had the wrong people from Jump Street and I didn't realize that it was too late. So most, like again, most have to get into restaurants or, you know, real estate sometimes. Those are the guys that struggle a lot of times where I've seen because they don't have the right team. Guys who are successful is the opposite. Those are guys who do a lot of things by themselves. They've got businesses, they start small and they grow like, for example, Roger Staubach, when he started his real estate, it was just him and his wife. I think like for like the first seven to eight years. And then eventually he started making a lot of money, but he still didn't bring anybody on. So he got past a certain time point. So the common factor of success that I've seen are people who keep their inner circle of employees or trusted, you know, trusted business will keep them small in the beginning and then let's it raise and rise up employee numbers and things like that after you've sustained for a certain period of time. You know what? Listening to that and hearing that, this is piggyback off a story. I know I said this about 10,000 times, but this is very relevant to what you just said. You know, earlier this year I was at, I went to Warren Buffett's annual meeting and before I went to Berkshire, I thought that part was like 10,000 employees there. You're talking about a company that's, you know, revenue and 200 and something billion dollars, you know, just last year alone. So I'm thinking, oh, it's maybe 1,000 people there or whatever the case may be. And I was very shocked to find out that it was, including him at his headquarters, including himself, it's 20 people or less. You know, that it was just, when you take out the officers, it was only a handful of people that was running the office every day. And that blew my mind. I'll tell you what, and if a man like Warren Buffett can keep that in line, why can't the rest of us? You know... You're 100% right. This is why I tell guys, now as a speaker, if I travel around, it's important for you to be sure that your circle is small. You don't need to have a lot of people coming up around, around you and you don't just need that. You really don't need that. Like, as you see with me and Marquis, it's just me and Chad. So... And so... Go ahead, Marquis. You know what? It's a lot easier to be accountable when you have less people, especially in the beginning, because people that aren't looking for you to come... You know, that was my problem with Caden. It got to the point where we were struggling, and I had so many employees that came in for, you know, for advances or... I mean, we were losing money that kind of kept getting diapers and all that stuff. I had so many people that I just really lost control. When we started out, I was small, very kind of... I don't want to say mom and pop. We were very small and strategically placed for success. When we just grew out of our range, it was the beginning of the end. Wow. Now, if you've done some great things, like, since you have... Well, we're going to get into... We got to take a quick break here, but we're going to get into you... what you've done post that to come back from that. So, everybody that's out there that's listening, watching, and coming on to the replay and things like that, we're going to get into what has Mr. Ogden done since then, you know, writing books, his latest ventures, what he has coming up this weekend. We're going to get more into that. And from here, we're going to take a quick break. You guys stay tuned with The Prince of Invest. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. Aloha, I'm Kaui Lucas, host of Hawaii Is My Mainland. Think Tech is important to our community because instead of the usual 30-second soundbite, we have enough time to have the discussions to come up with real solutions. And for the first time, Think Tech Hawaii is participating in an online web-based fundraising campaign to raise $40,000. Give thanks to Think Tech will run only during the month of November, and you can help. Please donate what you can so that Think Tech Hawaii can continue to raise public awareness and promote civic engagement through free programming like mine. I've already made my donation and look forward to yours. Please send in your tax-deductible contribution by going to this website. Thanks for thinktech.causvox.com. On behalf of the community enriched by Think Tech Hawaii's 30-plus weekly shows, mahalo. Guys, and we're back here on The Prince of Investing, but you guys that's just tuning in, we're here live with the NFL or veteran NFL athlete, best-selling author, Mr. Marquis Ocklin. We got into some great things early. You know, we always hear about those stories about NFL athletes, you know, that have millions and millions of dollars and what goes wrong. And he spoke and he told his story about the NFL athlete that lost a million and he regains it. Now that we're coming back from the break, we're going to talk about how he regained it. What is he doing now? What does he have available and what is he doing around the country? Now, you guys that listened to my podcast last year, I had Mr. Marquis Ocklin. I spoke about his book, and I was in Japan actually, and I finally sat down and I read it. So great book, but he tells a story about him growing up, him being drafted to the Jacksonville Jaguars, his ups and downs and what he, to losing his father in the story and stuff like that. So he pretty much details everything about how he went up to the peak of his life, to down to, you know, alcoholism, all of the great stuff like that and growing up. Great read for, you know, people like that for a motivation that, you know, my belief is that we all will have a downturn. It's just a matter of when and how you pick yourself back up. So now, what is Mr. Audit up to now? How did you regain this? Because I see you, you know, I follow you on social media, if you're not following me on social media, you're getting sponsors all over the place, you're speaking all over the place and not only are you doing this yourself, you're bringing along other NFL veterans, you're bringing on corporate people, and what I'm public speaking is, I don't, don't quote me, but I know Warren Buffett said one of the best investments you can make is public speaking. And how did you get into this and what are you into now? How did you regain everything? What do you have now? Four and a half years ago, when I moved from Baltimore to Carolina, I ended up working at Merrill Lynch. The NFL helped place me in a job, which was great. The problem was when I got the job and I started working, I realized I wasn't going to pass the series seven. I said, okay, I've got to move on. So I ended up going to a construction company that hired me. They hired me and they fired me in the same week. And I ended up then having to do a job and I had to become a football coach. That's what I knew. So I was coaching football, things were going great, but it wasn't making enough money. I realized that and I said, you know what? I've got to pick up extra income. So I decided to become a janitor. I became a janitor on the graveyard shift making $8.25. Let's hold it right there. Marquis, you're someone who got big checks, you know, six figures, seven-figure checks for the NFL. What was the mental mindset to go get $8 an hour as a janitor? The mental mindset was I'm not better than anybody else. And whatever I have to do to feed my family, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it with pride and I did it to be able to sustain a lifestyle. I mean, we were at the point where when I first moved down here, like I said earlier, I was almost homeless. If the NFL had not stepped in to help me financially, I would have been homeless. So I said, you know what? If the NFL can save me with their help, I'm going to go ahead and do whatever I have to do to make this living. So I did it. And when I was taking out someone's trash in my building, on my shift, someone's trash got on my bare skin. And you know what? This is all being a janitor. Nothing wrong with doing a job that's honest living. When I studied finance, I went to Howard. I played in the NFL. I ran a multi-million-dollar business. I knew that I had a story to share with people. So I sat down and realized that I want to become a speaker. Just like anything else, when you transition, I took it all the time. I talked about transition. You have to start at the bottom. It's just the way it is. So when I started at the bottom, it was a very upsetting, very aggravating, and I didn't get hired for my first speaking job until 30 months, my first paid speaking job, 30 months to get. 30 months. And I wanted to quit so many times, and I said, you know what? I quit. I got to start transition again, and I got to be at the bottom again. So I come to go all the time when you're looking to make a transition, give me at least five years. If you don't, what you do, you've been spending all that time, and it's a waste. And once you waste time, you can't get it back. So I got my first paid job and I did their 100th commencement graduation speech. Ever since then, friends, I got on fire. You know, during that 30 months, I wrote my best-selling book, which helped me kind of get myself started, but it still didn't break the doors down. Once I figured out what people wanted to do and how you talk to people and how you get event plans to hear what you want to tell them and what you want to hear and be honest and how you can help them become more profitable and employees more excited. Then you have something special. So I took that recipe for the last 18-plus months. I've now spoken for the Home Depot company. I've spoken for, you know, the National Football League. I've spoken for Cisco, JP Morgan as a client. New York Life as a client. I can go on and on. And now the NSL just hired me to actually teach current players that want to learn how to public speak, how to public speak. And that's going to start next March. It's March 18th through the 21st at the University of Southern California. And I'll be doing that with several other instructors to current guys. And then I just completed which will go live tomorrow my first online course which is called the Ogden Masterclass. Talked about how to brand yourself. How to become a speaker and monetize your brand. It talks about how you transition. You name it. It talks about all that stuff. And I'm really big on giving people information that they can utilize to be successful in their own lives. Wow. So you pretty much went through the downside here. But when you decided to pick up and become a public speaker you finally went through the ugly phase and you finally start to pick yourself back up you actually borrowed this up and put it into a class. Now how can people get the class or be able to take the class online who may be looking into public speaking or looking into branding themselves. Well the link there's an actual link which I'm going to send you with a special code so the normal price is $4.99 but we're running a special through the end of the year but you can get it right now for $2.49 with a 50% discount and again if you're going to spend money to invest in yourself to brand yourself and I wish when I was starting as a speaker most of these courses I had a print call $1,000 $900 bucks and if you're like Robbins or Cardone yeah you're going to want you're going to get paid that money I get that but if you're somebody who has no credentials and I met a guy who he just became a life coach he's like in his 60s all my life coach he did an online course he charged me $1,000 for his course I'm like how did that be signed oh I've got four I'm rolling I'm like do you got four I mean you're way overpriced so we made it a little great deal because I talked about how to get booked for business the art of transition what is a brand versus branding how to leverage relationships in your current life to be successful we talk about all of this in the course so again it's really about you investing in you I mean you'll spend $250 on a nice leather coat or a pair of boots or whatever you're going to spend money on but if you're trying to develop yourself into making more money and trying to be a better person and trying to be a better you and create extra streams of revenue $249 is a steal Wow okay now you this weekend this week here you have your speaking academy coming up right correct that's correct now what is this how often you do this and what is this all about once a year and then at the end that 3 main reason number 1 to improve communication skills number 2 to help you learn the art of successful networking and 3 to help you enhance your brand I saw this a little over a year ago we had our first one in Atlanta we have about 50 people 4 sponsors the second one was in Kansas City 25 to 90 and 18 sponsors and now this one 150 attendees, and we have 25 amazing sponsors, and our title sponsor is the Home Depot Company. They put up a good amount of money to have their brand attached to ours. Think about this. In my course, I talk about how four and a half years ago I'm flat broke, almost homeless. To today in the last 18 months, because the first 30 months I got no work, in the last 18 months now I have sponsors like the Home Depot, New York Life, I'm speaking all over the nation. I've got the Indian internationally, having a master class, working with Grant Cardone's people out of New York, you know, and all of this in the last 18 months. So I discuss all of this in my course to help people be able to have success that I have had if you're willing to put the work in. Okay. So, and this is a great networking event. Tell me some of the people, I know you had a lot of Hall of Famers, a lot of NFL athletes. This is a great networking event to even get in and get around to. And this is in Baltimore this year, right? Correct. Correct. Yeah, we're in Baltimore this year, our last one. The next one will be in Jacksonville and then Vegas. But we have a lot of former NFL draft picks, first rounders, got to play in the league 10 years. We got people coming from the NFL league office. We have a tons of veterans, active military, I've got a guy who just retired the master chief for 26 years and with the seals, he's a master chief for 26 years. And then I mean, I got guys coming from Texas who are special forces. I've got, you know, retired colonels from the Marines from the army. You name it. We've got 1425 brands like JP Morgan employees, Home Depot employees, New York Lights coming out. It's just a whole array of people and everybody's there for one of those three reasons and they're also there to make friends. A lot of my attendees who meet each other, like for example, we have a guy coming from Carolina who I met a couple of months ago named as Trent and one of my other good friends, Dave Swanson, who came to my academy in Kansas City and now coming to Baltimore, well, Dave and Trent were classmates at West Point. Wow. And now they're reconnecting because of my academy. That's awesome. I wish I could be there this week. You know, I know I was scheduled to be there this week and things like that. But in best show, we will be there, you know, representing, you know, I know Chad will be there, but I have to catch one. I can't guarantee it in the future, but I will definitely make one of them. You know, some way, somehow, you know, now I'm going to be back on the states. You know, when I be back into the mainland, I have a great opportunity to make it, but I'm definitely going to get to one of those events and stuff like that too. So the big thing is I can tell you all the time is what makes us different is we are a big networking organization. Well, we have our business. Yes, we have speakers. Yes, we talk about leadership, order transition, order perseverance. This is two diligence, you know, how to give an elevator pitch. Yes, we have breakout sessions. Yes, we do all that. But what makes us special is we really dedicate a lot of time to the networking. Like for example, tomorrow from six to eight is informal networking at the hotel bar. Then we go from eight to nine on Thursday morning networking registration. Then nine to four is the academy. And then we have a break and then we go from six to nine p.m. Another networking at the hotel. So I'm a big believer that if people aren't networking friends, they're not getting a chance to enhance revenue. That's true. Now the thing about it when you say transition, you're speaking about athletes that become, you know, going back to regular life. And that could be, you know, by me being military, that's a great way for you to, you know, for a lot of military veterans that transition as well too, right? We have a ton of veterans. Like I spoke this past September at Bunker Labs with their event called about 200 veterans who are now entrepreneurs trying to enhance their brand. I have a ton of veterans that I work with that support me, that I support them. I'm a big believer veterans are the key to success for our country because they give so much sacrifice. If you can help them build a life after they get out of the military for all they've done for our country, you have a lot happier veterans. And you have a lot more people that actually want to join the current military to help protect our country. Okay. Now we've got to close out here. Is there anything you want to say to listeners, watchers, people around the globe? I'm going to say this. If you want to be successful, make yourself the top 5% of society. 95% of society quits when times get hard. And they spend the rest of their life wishing and regretting that they had not given up the 5% that stick through. Jane Johnson aka The Rock, Steve Harvey, Tony Robbins, Grant Cardone, J.K. Rollins, Mark Cuban, Damon John, Sean Puff Daddy Combs, Jay Z. I can go on and on and on. Ray Lewis. These people are the top 5% and are the top of their lane or the top of their specific brand or their genre because they didn't give up. Again, the best thing I can tell you, because again, I'm a guy that I'm telling you, Prince, I'm a guy four and a half years ago that nobody wanted to talk to, hear from, or even be around. And now these businesses want to hire me. I mean, Prince, I've already got 20 speaking jobs lined up for 2018. I signed a 12-city speaking tour last night. I'm doing it from every city, from like Charlotte to Miami to Los Angeles to Boulder all over. And I'm doing their national convention in August in Las Vegas. And I just got confirmed for another job for a lot of money speaking in Vegas in February. And again, 18 months ago, Prince, 18 months ago, I just got my first paid job. Wow. Okay. Well, guys, there you have it. You got, what else do you want to say, Mr. Sondin? So, Prince, so Prince, so if I can do it, why can't you? I'm no better than anybody else. I just persevere and I stuck to it. So if I can be successful, why can't you? All right. Guys, there we have it. You know, producer talking to my ear like, hey, man, it's just no time is up. But anyway, I'd love to know how I do. Guys, my name is Prince Dykes. This is Prince of Investing. Don't forget to hit the like, subscribe, comment, share button. And don't forget to whatever you see me do across the world, cartoons, podcasts, peace, be safe. I'm out. Thank you.