The Ultimate Cheat Code with Dr. Marquel Russel

Josh
 Good day, fellows. Welcome to uncensored advice for men. This show is for you guys. We've interviewed pastors, porn stars, kind of everything in between with questions that you have. If you guys are struggling with something, depression, suicide, whatever that is, man, sex relationships, money. There's no taboo topics that we can't talk about on this show, head on over to uncensored advice for men.com, fill out a quick form. There's a little microphone in the corner. You could send in your questions there and then I'll go out and hunt for people who can answer your questions on today's show. I watched this like set the stage for you guys. I was watching this thing on LinkedIn and I saw a video and this guy was hitting mindset and he was talking about growing and scaling and pushing. I wanted to get him on the show. Markwell welcome to the show, man. 

 Josh
 Thank. 

 Marquel
 You for having me, Jason. I'm excited to be here. 

 Josh
 Yeah. You and I are hanging out in a coffee shop or bar or something like that. Someone comes up and they go, Hey man, I'm Bob. Whatever. Who are you? What do you do? How do you typically answer? 

 Marquel
 Who I am is I'm obviously I'm a father, I'm a husband. I made man of God. I'm a visionary. I am a, I am a God, right? This that's what the word tells us. I am. That's what I am. Right. What I do is as part of what I am, I guess what I do is we help businesses scale. Specifically expert based businesses, individuals who have expertise, they may be a coach. They may be consulting. They may be, they may be a service provider. They may be an author, speaker, whatever. They want to get more clients and they want to grow and scale their business while working 50% less, they come to us. They actually help them do that. Today we have a company called client attraction university, and today we've cut back clients to over a billion dollars in revenue for the businesses. So that's what we do. 

 Josh
 Right on. Now, is this something that you kind of grew into? It something that just showed up one day? Did you buy it from someone? Like, how did you get to this point, 

 Marquel
 Man? This stuff found me, Jasmine. How was it before this? I was like in the streets when I dropped out of high school in 10th grade, start selling drugs at a young age, everybody who I grew up around, nobody really had money. Other than the people who I know who sold drugs, I wanted to go to the NBA, go to the NFL. You know, just like any young guy. Right. I know specifically in the black community, I'm assuming it's the same. That's not like a, just one culture thing. I know that was the only thing we saw out. Like we used to go to you, they're going to rap. You usually gonna play basketball, play football, or are you going to sell drugs or are you going to work a job? I didn't want to work a job because everybody I knew who worked, the job were broke and I didn't want to be broke. 

 Marquel
 I started selling drugs at a young age, dropped out of high school in 10th grade. Just went full-time ministries. Got really good at it. I actually, I guess, relatively good. Whatever that means God, I was, when I was 19, I was, I turned 19 in jail and my first son was born while I was in jail. When I was 19 as well. He's eight. What's funny is he's 18. Now he actually has promised a couple of weeks and he's graduating and I never got to that point. Right. So, so yeah, so I went through that whole process, got out, said, I'm gonna do the job. They did that for a couple of weeks. Went back into the streets. I started an entertainment company doing artist management club promotions. I was always in the club every night and I'm here in Atlanta. So the club scene is crazy here. 

 Marquel
 I was in the club every night and I, a buddy of mine ended up introducing me to his cousin who was managing a club, a strip club actually. They gave me a night to start promoting there. I started doing, since were in the entertainment world, I did a night call. I called it was called an industry night where you can come perform your song on stage with the girls. It also gave us the opportunity to promote our music that I was with the artists I was managing. Fast forward, of course I was in the club every night, I ended up getting introduced to network marketing, right. So I didn't know what this was. Somebody who he knew of me. I knew his face, but he was like, Hey man, how many people, got a cell phone? I was like, everybody I know has his cell phone. 

 Marquel
 It was like, well, what if every time they paid their bill, you got paid and I'll be mad. I was like, that'd be dope. He introduced me, he invited me to a meeting. I went to this presentation. I'm not sure if a mental, never marketing meeting, but they were like, Hey, all you gotta do is get to it and they'll get to it and they'll get to them before you knew it you'd make amends that I was sipping pina coladas, drive, fancy cars with company, wearing suits, all different type of stuff. I'm like, I'm in five bridges to get in. I didn't have a car, didn't have a bank account. None of that. I had cash. They showed me how to get a prepaid card. I use that to get in and then I'm like, I'm going to kill this because I know a lot of people, like I knew like one of the hardest things you can do is get people in the club, right? 

 Marquel
 Yeah. In a city that's, it's a club city. So there's so many different options. You, and this is, this was like pre social media. Social media was kind of there, like my business partner. He was on social media because he came from the college world. The only people who I knew who was on social media were college people. Right? I, in the life I was living, I wasn't gonna put that on social media. Went out and passed out flyers, put on your car, walking through the mall, put in. That's how we got people. It was a hard way. Right. I was like, if I could do that, I'm going to kill this. I show everybody else what I was doing. Everybody who I knew. And everybody's like, nah, I'm good. That's a pyramid scheme. I'm good. And I'm like, wow. But I got into an album. 

 Marquel
 This was on the verge of quitting. Almost. I got into one of the guys who recruited me. He invited me to a conference that they were having, hearing it happened to be here in Atlanta. I went to the conference and I was like, wow, it's three, four, 5,000 people. It looked like me excited talking about help me make money. I had never been in this type of environment before. I got introduced to like personal development, Jim Rohn, Les brown. You talk about the mindset man changed my whole life. I'm like, oh my goodness, where it has been all my life. And I was obsessed. I came out of the event, full throttle. I got a few recruits, got a few rank advancements, but I rounded people to talk to. That led me to the internet. I didn't know the internet really. For real, somebody on my team sent me a link to a video series that said how here's, how you build a network marketing business without doing home parties, without doing meetings, all that stuff. 

 Marquel
 I watched this four-part video series and at the end of it, he sold me a book, a 40, a $40 ebook. It came, this is my first ebook. I read the sales letter, which I now know is a sales letter. To me it was just a website. So I read this whole thing. I ended up buying it after reading this page a hundred times, I ended up buying. This is my first online purchase. Of course, that took me through a funnel. Now I know it as a funnel. And I'm like, this is crazy. I'm like, you're telling me these people making all this money and they just teach it to you for a few hundred bucks. This is crazy. Like I'm in. Right? So it was like, cool. I went through a whole process, but I was just buying course after course of the course, the course, I wasn't really implementing anything, blew through all of my money. 

 Marquel
 I transitioned from the streets completely. Cause I got locked up during this whole transition and I had a warrant, but I didn't know about, but I said, what? If I get out of this, I ain't going through the street stuff. I got out, I let the street stuff go, went, full-time in this. I would make no money on my girlfriend is my wife. Now she was a bartender. She was giving me like an allowance from the money that she made everyday. I'm buying courses online, but I want to implement anything. Once I, I bought a course one time and it came with a coaching call and on the coaching call that guy, my guy, Adam, he was like, Hey man, just pick one thing. You ain't gotta learn everything. Just pick one thing and do that consistently. That one thing for me was content. I created a piece of, cause I didn't have to use any money. 

 Marquel
 I can create a limited amounts of it with no money. I started creating content and all I was doing was teaching what I was learning. That's how I started to build the brand up. Right. People started reaching out, wanting me to coach them. Well, first I learned about information marketing. Like you can package your knowledge and expertise and people will pay you for it. And I was like, this is crazy. I learned that people want you to coach them. People was like, Hey man, when you coach me, I'm like, coach, you like, they'll pay me to teach them what I knew, what I was learning online. I was like, this is insane. We grew that coaching business and then people start asking me, well, how do you get clients for your coaching business? They want to learn what I was learning in terms of market. 

 Marquel
 I didn't realize how good I was getting at marketing. I also didn't make connection that when I was doing club motions, I was really doing marketing and branding and direct response stuff then, but I didn't really make the connection immediately. So I started coaching people. People want to know how it was doing that. I got good at it. I was like obsessed with learning and teaching. I found that during this whole journey, I found that my gift was in teaching, like taking complicated concepts and breaking it down really simple. So other people can get it. People started getting crazy results and it was like, all right, we could do it doing a lot of stuff here was like, what's our thing, right? In business. How did you build businesses? How do you make money in America or anywhere in the world? You solve a problem. 

 Marquel
 W the more problems you solve, the bigger, the problem you solve, the more money you make. It was like, okay, eight out of 10 businesses go out of business simply because they don't know how to get class system. What if we committed to solving that specific problem? We did that, fast forward a few years now, a billion dollars in revenue for our clients. And, and yeah. We're just really getting warmed up. 

 Josh
 Yeah. Super cool, man. I appreciate you sharing that story. All right. We're going to go backwards so we could go forward, go, you and I get to go back on your birthday. When you turn 19 in jail, right? Hey, congratulations. You got a, you got a son, congratulations. You're 19. You're behind bars, but you and I get to stand on the other side of the bars and have a chat with that dude. Right. This guy knows how to make cash on the street. Well, by the way, what was your, did you have a street name back in the day, 

 Marquel
 Depending on who knew who you were, but my industry slash street man was chill. So, 

 Josh
 All right. You look across the bar and you go chill. I got, I got something I got to tell you. You could share that with that person. What would you say to that? What would you say the guy 19 year old, behind bar just turned 19. 

 Marquel
 That's a great question. 19 behind bars, I would say that probably books and mentorship are the ultimate cheat code. Find somebody who done what you like to do, and then plug into them and let them teach you how to do it. You don't got to figure it out on your own. 

 Josh
 So chill, we're talking to chill. Right. And, and what would chill say? Would, would he listen? Would he not listen? 

 Marquel
 Probably, definitely not. Listen, probably at that point. Well, I'm not sure. Cause at that point I was kinda like at that point, yes, because I was like desperate. I'll probably say yes, if you kind of guiding them in the right direction, 

 Josh
 Do you, so you said I was desperate and that's when I would, listen for me. Right. Stubborn dude just turned 40. Not too long ago. Been in all sorts of industries. The most common message I get on LinkedIn is like, congrats on the new venture and the new business, the new this that you tried. Right. Hardheaded stubborn. In times of my desperation is when I created the most value. And I was the most innovated. I did the coolest stuff that came out of my deepest pain. Do you think guys in general need that desperation to actually make a change. 

 Marquel
 Sometimes. So, so here's what, here's why I say that because oftentimes it's this term. I never been in a corporate America, but I've heard this term it's in corporate America called the golden handcuffs. Yeah. Right. It was like, sometimes you can be. I've seen people we've even worked with clients. They come to work with us and they're very comfortable. They have a good, steady income. Right. They don't really hurt don't mean anything, but it's like, but they also don't really have a reason to push forward and go hard with everything. It's not until that thing is pulled from them now they're ready to like, make it happen. I think some people, they do require that. Of course, some people, they don't require that, but I think you do gotta have a reason why you should push towards the extraordinary though. 

 Josh
 Yeah. You were pumping music upon stage to got girls dance in you're like, this is cool. Right. You're making money, you're making cash or doing something that you enjoy doing what was going through your head, as you were doing that side of the business and you're, you're growing that because you made a, you saw the phone thing as a, an opportunity to change, to grow to scale. What was the different mindsets that you saw jumping up on stage promoting shaking booty cell phones? 

 Marquel
 I thought be, so the biggest thing for me, one of my biggest desires from as a child was to, I wanted to just be a millionaire. I would just, if it was an opera, is it's an opportunity for me to make millions, is the opportunity big enough? Yeah. If it is cool. When I was doing artist management club promotions, I had my own company. I wanted to bill a label where, and I made my millions in the entertainment world. I just kind of saw this as a different path where I could still have the lifestyle that I want to make the money that I wanted, but just a different path. I think that was the biggest thing. 

 Josh
 Now you've achieved, doing over a billion dollars in revenue for your clients. That means, you guys have done well yourselves, right? If we back our way into the numbers, what do you feel comfortable sharing in terms of like the successes or milestones that you've hit, personally, 

 Marquel
 Whatever, whatever you want to do, whatever you want to get into. So, I mean, the biggest thing for us is like, it's like for us ultimately, cause a lot of times people ask us like, Hey man, why you don't like show off cars online and homes and merchant accounts. I'm like, nah, I'm like number one where I'm from, you just don't do that. That's number one. Cause so it could be some PTSD. So that's number one. Number two is like, it really doesn't matter how much I'm winning or how much I'm making or how much we make as a company. If our clients aren't winning. What's winning to us is like our clients want it. For example, so one of our clients, I was speaking to them last week, we started working together in 2019. They, I think they made $5,000 for the entire year. 

 Marquel
 They got to a point where I was making $4,000 a month working a hundred hours a week between both of them. So that's about five miles an hour. When you do the math. When we started working together, 2020, they were making 400,000, they made 40,000 for 2020, 2021, just past it, close it out at 1.5 in their coaching business. They did another, like half a million, a trucking business. They made about 2 million right work in a fraction of the time I have another client who's we started working with us. He was 12. Actually his goal was to make a hundred thousand by his 30th birthday, he made 103,000 by then, now he makes, more than that per month. 

 Josh
 That's right. 

 Marquel
 I was like, that's the stuff that's winning. I mean, of course initially be about the money, but it's like, when it's not about the money no more like then what gets you out of bed? What gets you going? You know what I'm saying? Yeah. 

 Josh
 Yeah. Now you were at a turning point, right? You saw the ability to, you had a warrant. You were, you were this close to quit and you said, right. And, and you had the opportunity, man, go back and make easy money. You could sling stuff and make easy money. Right. Like, or do this. Why, what was the main deciding point to keep you going from going back to the streets? Because that's the easy way. That's the path of least resistance. 

 Marquel
 For sure. I think that the biggest thing was me for me was my son. I, when I was growing up, my dad wasn't around. Like I didn't know my dad. Right. It was the norm for your dad not to be around also like none of them, like when I was going up only like two of my friends really dad was around like in their house. My dad wasn't around and I didn't want my son to grow up in that same environment. I knew the path that I was going down. It only leads, to jail dead. It's a very, it's kinda like, the, like people say, oh man, the odds of going to the NBA or this is like the odds of making it out of the streets, not dead or not in jail or like small in your eyes and going to the NBA, what I'm saying? 

 Marquel
 So it's like, those are the odds. It was even now, it's like a lot of my people still industries, but even my, one of my brothers before he died, he was like, bro, I'm just proud of you because you actually want have it on. You're the only one at this point that made it out. For me, it was like being around, being in my son's life. He's about to graduate now. I got like, I got three other boys. I've got a two year old, a seven year old, eight year old. So it was being around. 

 Josh
 All boys, 

 Marquel
 All boys. I got a daughter as well. She's 20, but I'm all boys for the most part. 

 Josh
 Nice do Marco. I'm proud of you, man. That is freaking awesome, dude. Congratulations. Thank you. Yeah. You, you mentioned like, all right, let's talk to you. You said people, who are like you, right. African-American dudes grown up, in Atlanta, here's the way out of the hood, basketball, football, rapping drugs, right? Yeah. What, what piece of advice you got for those dudes? 

 Marquel
 I would say man. Like for example, so I do a lot of work with like youth as well. Cause I buy, they might have I'm partnering with a white am I with a program called mixed old boys academy. So I get to do this. Like I get to answer this all the time. Right. Cool. It's like, I tell people all the time, it's like, If people were in the streets, it's like, if you can sell drugs, You can run a multimillion dollar business. Yeah. Like all the skills are transferable. Like people always ask me, man, what skills are transferable from that life? Now it's like all of them, it's like, and I was watching this video clip earlier. Let's do name, country wine. He was talking about like, when you in the streets, it's like, and you do that. Well, you kill it in real business because in the streets you're selling a product that you can't even really market like that. 

 Marquel
 You can only market it to a few people because you could go to jail. It's like in the streets, it's like all the, again, all the skills are transferable. You got to understand sales for obvious reasons. You gotta understand marketing for obvious reasons. You gotta understand branding because people know who got the good stuff and who doesn't have, who asked him? You may say, okay, they got better stuff, but it's going to cost you more this person than I, but you can get a lot of it for cheaper. So that's branding, right? What people say about your product it's branding. We gotta have some kind of leadership skills, unless you're like a runner or somebody like running you around, you got to have some level of leadership skills. If you want to play at a high level, you gotta have some kind of critical thinking skills. 

 Marquel
 Cause you like moving on the go fast, thinking like the wrong decision to slow thinking to throw you off. So you gotta have critical thinking skills. All of those you gotta have of course analytics, because you gotta measure stuff. You gotta weigh stuff, you gotta do your number, all the different types of stuff. All those skills are literally transferable into legit business. Or if you can do this in the streets, you can easily do it. As legitimate business, I even work with some young, some other young guys and they do things like filling cars and stuff like that. It's like in there and if you talk to them, they're very calculated around it. They're like we do this and then we do this and we do this. I'm like, dude, if you can put that level of thinking still in the car, imagine if you put that level of analytical thinking into growing a business where you would be. 

 Marquel
 I think a lot of times we just don't realize that there are more options then, the quote unquote traditional routes, 

 Josh
 Breaking a breaking a generational process, right. Breaking a generational pattern. Right. You grew up in a place where you say, you only knew two dudes who had dads. 

 Marquel
 Yeah. 

 Josh
 You didn't have a dad. You need two dudes that had dads, right. Breaking that, breaking the pattern of that. That's tough. What have you found was the greatest challenge in breaking that pattern? 

 Marquel
 I think the greatest challenges was just changing my mindset when I was in network marketing. One of my mentors used to always say, if you can have everything you want in life thinking the way you think wouldn't you already have it. And that was huge. Right. Dad network marketing is what introduced me to personal development. And I'm still obsessed with it today. I think the biggest thing was like changing your mindset, changing your habits, changing the way you think. Right. All that good stuff. I think that's the, that was the biggest thing. That's the biggest challenge. 

 Josh
 Yeah. Now coming out of the hood into jail, I actually, before I go there, how'd you get caught. 

 Marquel
 I mean, which time. 

 Josh
 How'd you screw up? Obviously you're, you're doing stuff that, you're selling drugs and such like that, but you made a mistake that puts you behind bars. Like what was your mess up? 

 Marquel
 I had a couple of times when I saw, I had a couple of times. I'm so crazy. I literally, we're talking about this. I'm working on getting my record expunged in order to protect stuff. Cause I actually had to go pick up my background, check the other day and it's like 18 pages. Right. I'm just kind of going through it. I'm like, it's just crazy. 

 Josh
 About that one. 

 Marquel
 Yeah. It's like 18 pages. I know one of the times, my very first time we got pulled over me. Just not thinking, moving too fast, drop the stuff on the floor. They saw it, you know? That was a couple of times it was just like in the cars one time, it wasn't even on me. They broke up, came into my studio. It not like weed. I got one of the artists try to hide this stuff. They found it. So they locked all of us up. So, it was a few different scenarios. Yeah. 

 Josh
 Yeah. As your, as you're going through this journey now, right. Hood prison, back and forth from streets to behind bars and you said, didn't graduate, didn't go to college. Right. That is a unique world for you. Now you're working with people and you've turned in people into success, but you're also around success. Do you ever have a hard time with your identity? Like trying to fit a certain way or act a certain way? Like wh how does that feel internally? 

 Marquel
 Initially I did, when I first came into this world, I've thought that I would cause I was like, who's going to listen to the young black guy dropped out of high school, got tattoos all on me, go T like who's going to listen to me. So I had that early on. However, once I realized that I could actually be me 100%, that's when things took off and it just became normal. Now a lot of my clients, or to your point, doctors, MBA re more degrees and at the monitor and sometimes it still trips me out and be like, wow, they're here learning from me, which is fascinating. 

 Josh
 The weirdest thing happened to me, man. Like here I am a business guy, right? Like God's calling on my life is you're going to invest in dudes. You're going to be a business guy and investor. I go bankrupt identity, like cracked, like how could this guy, this is my calling, right? Like, this is what you made me for. I've read all the books. I've done. All the things, made all the mistakes. Like, I'm down in the dumps, bro, like really depressed and really like really having a hard time struggling mentally. I was talking to a billionaire friend and they were going welcome to the club. I go, what do you mean? They go, now we can trust you. Like you've risked it all. You've gone this. They gave me a new way to look at the same problem. Like, I'll tell people now I'm like, yeah, I went bankrupt or whatever. 

 Josh
 And they're like, oh cool. No worries. Hey, we help us. I'm like, no, it doesn't make sense. Right. When you show up authentic, I think people receive you more. 

 Marquel
 Have. 

 Josh
 You ever tried to fake it? Right? Like have you ever found yourself faking it or your wife goes, why are you acting like that? Why are you acting like a fool? Like, why are you doing this? I've shared with her. I had a question. 

 Marquel
 I haven't met. I was so if you look at some of my older YouTube videos, I was this, at this point I had like hit rock bottom. I was living in a $400, my apartment rats roaches the whole night. I built this bookshelf, like in my office that I got from family dollar. I'm not like a handyman, so it didn't look good. I had all my books on there and I just shoot videos. I'm high smoke, weed real heavy the whole night. I S I was in a minimum like, Hey, welcome to my beautiful home. I'm in my home office, blah, blah. But I'm in an apartment. It's technically a home office. It was like me just kind of speaking to my situation. Yeah. Other than that, not like any over the top weird stuff, like trying to have, nah. Other than that, 

 Josh
 You've gone to this level of success. Now, your part of your mission is passing down success to other people, to boys on the street to other clients. Right. You're trying to change the trajectory of lives for other people. Now you step to a whole new level, right? You're rising up to new levels. What challenges do you face now before it was, how do I pay my bills? How do I stay out of jail? How do I see my boy? Right? You moved up to a whole new set of problems. What kind of problems do you have today? 

 Marquel
 I think the biggest thing is like, it's like you create a new identities at every level. Right? I, when I worked with a lot of entrepreneurs is like, when you're going from entrepreneur to CEO is two completely different things. Like you can be an entrepreneur and call yourself a CEO. But, but just because you're entrepreneurial, doesn't quite mean you're a CEO, especially if you're like a solo preneur, it meaning it's just shoot. Now I've shifted from it just being me and my company to now we have like 30 something people on our team. So that's a totally different mentality. Right. I shift from a lot of the doing, doing in the day-to-day everything to pulling myself out and having other people do the things that I used to do. And then focusing more on developing leadership. Right. It's not just going to company is growing people, it's growing leadership. 

 Marquel
 It's like more duplication. So that's something that level. People, a lot of people don't understand that making money is one thing. When you make the money, like, what do you do with the money? It's like, how do you grow the money? How do you protect the money? How do you preserve the money life? All in so many different ways to do it. Now it's just developing a whole new set of skills and then just doing business at an even higher level. But I'm obsessed with like, learning. So it's cool. Cause I'm here for it. Cause I'm always like, okay, what am I learning? What am I missing? What am I missing? It's like, but to answer your question though is like, it's that next level of growth? It's like, you hit this level. I kind of look at growth. Like this year you grow and then you kind of hit a plateau and then you grow again and then you hit a plateau, right? 

 Marquel
 You get that next level information you require, you grow again. Just, I think it's just, but most people look at girlfriend's just like that, but grow, I don't grow up. It doesn't happen like that. It grows, you will have a girl flax and then you plateau out . The sooner you can get the new information that you require. Yeah. That's when you hit that new trajectory of growth and then you plateau out again. 

 Josh
 The ultimate cheat code mentors, people who've been there and mentors and advisors and books, Courses, training, like self-development. 

 Marquel
 I did a live before this and I was telling them, yeah. While most the reason were able to go so fast because people was congrats. We got an email earlier about the Inc 5,585,000 list or whatever. I was telling him that one of our secrets quote, unquote, is while most people are trying to figure stuff out on their own, we invest our time figuring out who to hire this already figured it out. 

 Josh
 Yeah. 

 Marquel
 Versus trying to figure it out on our own. 

 Josh
 Yeah. There's an interesting book. I just read it's called who? Not what or something like that. Who not how yeah. 

 Marquel
 Yeah. Like, 

 Josh
 Man, it freaking, cause I I've been a self, self-employed entrepreneur, self printer, solopreneur, and then I'd got some investors and then I got a partner now I have a team now and I'm like leader. Like I don't want to be, I didn't want to be a leader. I just want to do my thing. Cash checks. Yeah. I'm getting stretched, but yeah man, there's now it's like everything I do, I'm like, who should be doing this? Why should I be doing this? Right. What task do you still need to get off your plate? 

 Marquel
 My biggest role outside of being in the CEO is the most, I also I'm CEO. I had the marketing department as well. We haven't brought in a, a cm most, we brought them to CMO at one point, but then it didn't really work out. I kind of stepped back into that role. I would say the next thing, and I'm not like in a super hurry to do it cause I want it to be right this time. Next would be definitely a COO. 

 Josh
 Yeah. What's your favorite tat and which tat might you want a one day cover up? 

 Marquel
 My favorite tat is probably my son's name, man. I got my son's name or of besides. 

 Josh
 Do you forget that you have tattoos sometimes? What does that mean? You're like, 

 Marquel
 Yeah, exactly. So yeah. One of them, my son's name is one of these and cover it up. Probably not man. I like them. I like them all. Like they're all part of the journey. 

 Josh
 Yeah. I got some cards that helped me ask some questions. So, kind of throw a little curve ball in this. So tell me when to stop, 

 Marquel
 Stop. 

 Josh
 All right. Here's the card that we're going to ask when you were a child, how did you imagine doll adulthood would be? How does that actually compare to your reality? 

 Marquel
 When I was a child, how did I imagine adulthood to be? Well I think as a child, you want to be an adult so fast just because of the freedom, right? I just can't wait. I'm growing. I can make my own decisions. However, as an adult in this always kind of sound crazy. Adulting is really about the structure having structure. The freedom is in the structure, right? Even entrepreneurs like entrepreneurs, a lot of times they have an issue when I teach them about stuff like scheduling of the days and things of that nature. They have an issue with that because they're like, well, I became an entrepreneur, so I wouldn't have to do that. 

 Josh
 Yeah. 

 Marquel
 I want freedom. I'm like the freedom is in the structure. Right. I think that will be the biggest thing. 

 Josh
 Yeah. Now your boy's about to go to prom about, to graduate. You proud of them. Give them like, what are you most proud of about your son? The one about to go to prom. 

 Marquel
 I would say that just that he made it man, like he's 18. Like I said, we worked with a gala, young brothers, man. I I've worked. I know brothers who we worked with regularly, 16, 17, 18 years old who were facing 30 years, 60 years, one young brother was facing 360 years in prison. Right. Young guys. It was like, he doesn't have any charges. He has a clean record. Doesn't have any kids. You don't, he's doing this thing. 

 Josh
 Yeah. Wow. Awesome man. Awesome. If I asked your son something about you that he would find funny or embarrassing, what would he say? 

 Marquel
 That's a good question, man. I don't know. My kids are interested in, I don't know what he was saying. To be honest with you. I have no idea what he was saying. That's a good question. 

 Josh
 Yeah. Well what's the, so the cool thing about having this show is all this crazy s**t that pops into my brain. I I'm allowed to ask it and I love this thing, man. This is my favorite job in the world. Cause I get to meet some cool people and then pass on the wisdom and knowledge to other dudes like aye man. Oh, I didn't know how to learn from other people's mistakes. Right, right. I had to say, oh man, that looks tough. I should try it out myself. Right. Wisdom is learning from other people, right? Yeah. What's something that you wish you would've learned even at now. I don't know how old are you now? 

 Marquel
 I'm 37. 

 Josh
 I'm older than you. Did you look a good man? Okay. Yeah. All right. What's something that you at 37 years old, you're like, man, I wish I had this s**t together now. Like I wish I knew this and that. You're trying to learn it now. 

 Marquel
 I wish I knew the power of hiring coaches earlier on. 

 Josh
 Yeah. 

 Marquel
 Yeah. When I was trying to figure out when I was buying courses and all that, I wish I understood the power of just hiring a coach. Who's already done it. Yeah. Who can just walk me through a faster, 

 Josh
 So valuable. What do you look for in a good coach now? 

 Marquel
 I guess I got like five criteria. One of them is I'm going to see if I can memorize them. One of them is, are they still doing, are they currently doing, have they done? What I desire to do? Or do they just talk about it? That's number one, number two. Do they still do it? Or did they just use to do it back in the day? Now all they do is just make it a living, talking about doing it, right. Number three, do they actually have results? Not just their results, but I'm more so interested in their client results and not their results. That's the results to me because it's one thing to being a great entrepreneur and it's another skillset to be able to teach it. 

 Josh
 Totally. 

 Marquel
 When you're a great entrepreneur and you can teach, that's a very rare set of skills. Yeah. Right. Everybody can't do that. Most people can, you can build a multimillion multibillion dollar business. It doesn't mean you can actually teach it though. Right. So, so I want to know if they got results. That's number three. Number four is I look at, do I values align? Right? For example, I always tell the story of like one coach I was working with and I found that he was like, I was out of the mastermind or whatever. He was cheating on his wife and stuff like that. And it's no judgment to him. He still got mad respect for him, but our values just in the line. I was like, that's not a value outline with so cause I always tell people like one thing I don't do business with brothers who cheat on their wives. 

 Marquel
 Why not also Greg? Great question. Great question. That's the same thing for women, the women who cheat on their husbands. Right. The reason I don't and I also don't do business with brothers who intentionally, why won't say intentionally, who don't take care of kids. Now let me say this. There are some brothers who got a bad head, right? So they're in the city. They can't be involved in their kids' lives. I get it. If like your kids are around the corner or they're in the country now and you can, if you actually want it to, I can't respect that. Let me ask you a first question. Why do I do not do business with brothers who cheat on their lives? Well, this is somebody who you walked down the aisle with or however y'all got married and you profess before God that this is your person. 

 Marquel
 This is the person you'd laid next to every night. You probably got it. You probably share a joint account with them, all the different types of stuff. It's some, this, somebody that should be able to trust you more than anybody, right? You would cheat on them and you have zero integrity with them. The person who committed the rest of your life to how can I expect you to have integrity with me? Somebody who you barely even know in some respects, but this just like your wife or your husband. It's like, I it's tough for me to trust you. Cause like you're the closest person to you can't even trust. You. 

 Josh
 Know? That's good, man. That's that's really good. Yeah. I'm 37 years old. So you grew up in Atlanta. What kind of music did you listen to growing up? Like you're, let's just say you're like high school. You were in ninth and 10th grade. What kind of music were you listening to? 

 Marquel
 So I listened to 'em. An average, a grade probably was more so like always been an outcast man. Yeah. That's my favorite group of all times I grew up in the masterpiece area. No limit. Yep. 100%. He was spending those, I still got like a CD book. Like if I look my, I think I like my CD book and everything. I'm a huge music hip hop head for. 

 Josh
 Sure. Yeah. And NWA. 

 Marquel
 Of course. 

 Josh
 What's up. 

 Marquel
 Tupac of course. 

 Josh
 Oh Tupac. Yeah, dude. Oh, so good man. Great. Lyricist. 

 Marquel
 What about missing NWA? NWA was. 

 Josh
 That was before you? 

 Marquel
 That was before me. Yeah. 

 Josh
 Yeah. That was, that was before you and you said you wanted to be a rapper. Did you ever run into. 

 Marquel
 I a rapper. I want to be like more of the executive. I wanted to own the label. Be behind the scenes. I remember my, yeah. My goal was never to be the guy out front. Like how I I'm the I'm a personal brand and people want me to speak at stages and on the show, like that was never part of my goal. I always wanted to be, even when I did music, I wanted to be the guy behind the scenes and I pushed the artists up. 

 Josh
 All right. If I picked up your phone right now and I scrolled through some of the music, what's the number one song you play. 

 Marquel
 Right now? My number one go-to is I liked the little baby album. I'm working out, I'm listening to that or I'm Jeezy. I'm still the OGs. That's the best stuff. I like meat meal as well. Like, I think my go-to when I'm like, it's probably a little baby, like he's right. 

 Josh
 Now. What about the wife? What kind of music does she, like. 

 Marquel
 Wife is more so heavy into like she listened to some gut RNB every now and then, but her go-to is like the gospel for sure. 

 Josh
 Oh, cool. Very cool. All right. As you're building this span, like you've hit some levels of success. You've got 30 employees, you've got team members you're growing, you're scaling billions of dollars in revenue. How do you know you're winning? How do you know you're right on? How do your compass is right? How do you know you're on track? How do you know you're succeeding? 

 Marquel
 I know. Cause so success to me is having a big vision and an everyday take a steps towards that vision. Yeah. Long as I'm waking up every day and I'm taking steps towards the big vision, I know it went in and part of our vision, I shared it with our team, my team. I talked through it a couple of weeks ago at our team meeting is like, we just had our client only event here in Atlanta. We had about a hundred clients there, our goal over the next five years or so is to feel the Phillips arena for our client only event. The Phillips arena holds about 21,000 people. We'll feel that in the next five years and then 7, 9, 7, 8 years or so maybe two or three years after that, we'll share the Mercedes-Benz stadium. And that's this whole 71,000. That's what we go on with things. 

 Marquel
 And, and I ultimately want to build a school as well to teach like entrepreneurship, not the real, like the real stuff that you actually going to use in life. 

 Josh
 Yeah. 

 Marquel
 So. 

 Josh
 Who would you consider like your best dude in the world? Your best friend? 

 Marquel
 My best friend in the world is probably my is tough man. I would say I would, I probably have to give you two who are my pastor, which is cool. Cause we like talk about chat music and we talk about everything. So it ain't just like Bible stuff. It's, it's usually rarely ever Bible stuff actually. My guy joined my business partner. 

 Josh
 Yeah. Yeah. How do you talk to you and your pastor? Are you know, your best buddies? How do you guys talk to each other? How to dudes talk to dudes, right. Successful. You guys are driven. How do you guys talk to each other? 

 Marquel
 Meaning when you say talk to each other, how do we talk? Show me like how, like what medium? Or like just how, 

 Josh
 Yeah. Like that. Not medium, like okay. Tax or whatever, but like how do you do, are you guys encouraging to each other? Do you like tell each other, you love them? Do you tell for sure. Do you, are you able to confront them? Like how do you like talk to us about some of the stuff that when people see you guys interact and they're like, man, that's weird. 

 Marquel
 Yeah, for sure. We, so first of all, we have a lot of fun. We do. We laugh a lot. We play a lot. We don't really take everything too seriously. We're more so laid back in our approach. We definitely if need be, we definitely can confront each other and we appreciate being confronted by each other. When one of us see us, call it, go follow the shore. Or not playing to our capabilities. We talk college alone that and definitely let each other know that we love them. Love each other. Definitely. Always encourage it, encouraging each other to think bigger if we catch anyone saying any negative stuff, calling them on that. Yeah. It's definitely a brotherhood in that respect. 

 Josh
 No, that's good, man. My, my business partner, if I've gone down this path and I'm like, man, I'm not good at that. They'll go, you knock it off. They'll correct me. They'll rebuke me. They'll be like, you knock it off, man. Like, that's why we're a team. This is what we're doing. You're great at this, you focus on your, and we'll, we'll lift each other up. We'll we'll correct each other and lift each other up. Like, I just wanted to hear, like when I hear someone who's spent a lot of time trying to fix their brain, trying to fix their mindset, trying to grow, like being around people who lift you up, I think is pretty important. Now. In, in the hood, on the streets, I grew up in south Florida in Fort Lauderdale where I was a minority, getting my ass whooped every day. 

 Josh
 Right. Getting out of getting out of a situation, getting out and elevating your mindset for me, it was tough because people want to keep you at their level. Right. When you start to succeed or move up, people will move it. I've made a lot of public failures and people will be very apt to go. Ha I knew it you're a loser. Right. How do you, how do you deal with that? Like, how did you deal with that growing up? Did you have to remove friendships that you have to move, remove relationships? 

 Marquel
 I think so like one, so one thing for me is like, I'm when I, so like I will, if I rock with you, like, I guess the pickles I love hard. Right? It's like, if I rock, which was like, I rock with your heart, but if it's ever you cross me and it's like, when I'm done with you, I'm like, I'm done with you. It's like, oh it ain't, it's hard to, it's hard if ever to come back. It's like, the people are, I keep a small circle and it's like, and I always tell people it's like they said, okay, well, how do you change your environment? Or how do you get negative people around you? Or, get people it's like, as you grow, right. If you're focusing obsessed with growth, people would just begin to fall off. Right? For example, I hear people say, well, my path to growth, I had people telling me that they, they didn't believe it was going to work or they didn't think things were going to ever work out for me or they didn't believe in me or I never do whatever it takes or blah, blah. 

 Marquel
 I honestly never had that. Right. Because I think one of the, let me just assume it. I think one of the reasons it was because like, even when I was in the streets, I was always onto something next level. Like I was in the streets, but I had an entertainment company doing this. The evening when I was in school, I sold weed at school. I also was like had other stuff going on. I was always like enterprising. One of my brothers, but as we go back to like fourth grade, he was telling me, we chatted a couple months ago. He was like, bro, people who know you, none of what you're doing now is really a surprise. We've always seen that you were on to something different. Just didn't really know what, but we always thought that you just thought different. You was always a leader. 

 Marquel
 You're not like my, even my mom, even when I had to get in trouble at school and stuff that she's out of black, she think I used to be following, parents that are going to be like, you've been the follower of the situation because he be like, Russell's are leaders, Russell's leaders. So I guess that was in bed. I always been like a natural leader, even when I wasn't doing the right thing. I didn't get a lot of the negative. Like, Hey man, you missed this. The third, I mean, not to my face. I don't know what people were saying like around, but yeah. 

 Josh
 Yeah. I heard this people's opinion of me is none of my business. It's true. Right. My coach tells me that I'm like, cause I have a need for validation and approval, right? Like I'm constantly going, Josh, God loves you. You're accepted. You're fully accepted, man. Jesus loves you. You, you got it, man. You don't need that dude or that person to like your love, you got it. You got all the love you need. Yep. That's hard for me. That's a real big challenge. What advice she got from me for like, how do I grow out of this? Or how do I expand? Or how do I get better? 

 Marquel
 I would probably say men, just probably just those words that you just, that you tell yourself when it comes up, continue to do that. And also just kind of put memories. I mean like reminders of that around you. I even turned it into like a morning affirmation, even affirmation, put it around your office and your environment. Now you're always just reminded of it over and over again. 

 Josh
 Yeah. All right. So, Hey, I hate to tell you this man, there's a fire in the building. You could only leave your office and grab one thing. One piece of memorabilia out of where you're at right now, what would you grab? 

 Marquel
 One piece of everybody. 

 Josh
 Gets out safely, but you could only grab one physical item. What would you grab? 

 Marquel
 Like a mini, like a physical item, like. 

 Josh
 A keepsake, somewhere, something around you. That's important to you. 

 Marquel
 Probably. I got a picture of my mom over here. Probably a picture of my mom and I had to grab my laptop, man, but, 

 Josh
 And the laptop. Alright. What, what are you afraid of? 

 Marquel
 It's a great question. A climb of my X minutes, the other day at our event. He was like, bro, that's the best answer I ever got to that? What I'm afraid. He was like, what's your biggest fear? My biggest fear is having a fear that holds me back. That keeps me from moving forward. 

 Josh
 Yeah, man. Yep. I get that. What would, what would happen if you're confronted with that fear? Like how do you and I are hanging out and you're like, that's that fear starts creeping in. And how do you confront that? 

 Marquel
 The only way I know, man, just go through it. 

 Josh
 Yeah. 

 Marquel
 That's the only way I know. I just know. All right, we just go through it. I've been through some crazy stuff in my life. It's like, that's why I always tell people like legitimate businesses, easy quote unquote, because like everything that I've like, and it's no different from anybody else. Like even I tell my clients, it's like, think about the most challenging stuff you've ever gone through in your life and overcome. It's like the stuff you're dealing with in your business. There's probably no comparison. None of that. 

 Josh
 Yeah, totally. 

 Marquel
 I just, the only way I know is through. 

 Josh
 That's cool. All right. We're we're coming up on time and I want to respect your time. And I got a few more questions. Okay. Five years from now, we crush your goal. We pack out the stadium, 71,000 of your clients. We do this event, like I'm helping them see on the back end or whatever. I don't care. I'm there. I'm celebrating you and cheering you on events over people start heading home. We get to go like kick back and like celebrate. How do you celebrate your success? Now? 

 Marquel
 It's a good question. Typically after events, we always do highs and lows. Probably just sitting around with a team, talking about highs and lows, relaxing decompressing, maybe some indoors, some food, maybe it's kind of laid back, right. Maybe, probably going on a vacation to decompress. 

 Josh
 Where are you going. 

 Marquel
 At that point? I don't know, man. It would probably to just look at where I haven't gone at that point. 

 Josh
 True. True. 

 Marquel
 Yeah. 

 Josh
 What questions should I have asked you in this interview that I didn't, I completely screwed up and I just didn't ask you. 

 Marquel
 Oh man. You did great. This is good. 

 Josh
 Thank you. 

 Marquel
 Yeah. I don't think you, I think you covered on basis. 

 Josh
 So let me do this for there. There might be some dudes that want to find out more about you. Where could they go? 

 Marquel
 So a couple of things. Number one, whatever your favorite social media platform is, Instagram, Facebook, whatever your favorite one is. If you catch me on faith, if you go to my Instagram, Marco Russell Marq, U E L R U S S E L L com over there, connect with me, join our community on Instagram and shoot me a direct message. Let me know you was on Michelle and I definitely love to connect. I got a special gift for you that I can hook you up with. Also, if you're a business owner and you want to get more clients for your business, if you go to paid@playbook.com, that's P a I D ad a D playbook.com. You get our pay. That playbook is for 100% free and it shows you how to get 50 to a hundred leads every single day for your business, that actually convert into clients. 

 Marquel
 So that's my gift. 

 Josh
 That's awesome, man. Thank you. I see I'm on LinkedIn. Are you Dr Markwell? 

 Marquel
 Yes. Yes. I'm Dr. Ma I actually, I got my doc honorary doctorate. Was it January? I think something like that or end of year. So I got doctors. There's a little nest right there. 

 Josh
 W what's your doctor did. 

 Marquel
 Philosophy, Christian leadership and business. 

 Josh
 Awesome. If we're on a plane or something and someone's having a baby and they're like, we need a doctor. You're like, not me, dude. No, I'll pray for the baby. But. 

 Marquel
 I mean, it was really cool because a few years ago, cause a lot of people freak out when they see me speak at events. Cause they normally think I'm like the help them just at the event. I get on stage and they're like, cause I got a hoodie on or some shoes or first one's like, everybody else's assistance. And they're like, who is this dude? I'm like, I was telling Dre one time like, Hey, what's going to trip them out. If I figure out how to get one of these honorary doctorate. Cause I'm not interested in going to school to get a doctorate. Like if I get one of these honorary doctors that these people were getting and they had to introduce me as Dr. Mark Lauren, that's going to really trip out. So a few years passed Dr. From Christian leadership, higher place, Christian university. 

 Marquel
 He reached out to me, we actually met this all white party. We chopped it up. He reached out to me afterwards and were like, Hey man, we, our school wants to honor you with the doctorate for just the impact you have and in the marketplace. Then, and the kingdom of God and I'm like, well, what does, what do you mean on me? Like what does that look like? He was like, we're going to do this and this. I got the whole doctorate regalia and everything. It's like a whole thing. It was about. 

 Josh
 That's super. Hey bro. I know, I know. I promised that were going to close out. I got to ask you a few more questions. You cool with that? Like five more. All right. Your dad shows up right now, right? Like, so we're walking. We just got off stage and you got, doctorate hoodie on and all that stuff. Your dad's sitting there and you get to have a chat with your dad who said you didn't grow up with your dad around or something. What would you tell your dad? 

 Marquel
 What's interesting, man is I actually met my dad last year or the year before he actually died a few months later. I think, yeah, he died a few months later. Yeah, I didn't really have, we didn't, it wasn't like any bad blood or nothing like that, but yeah, they'll probably be an interesting one if he showed up. You know, it was all good. 

 Josh
 Yeah. 

 Marquel
 Awesome. I wasn't like angry as much. I wasn't angry. As I thought I might would have been. 

 Josh
 What a gift of being able to just see him. Just, just see him for . You didn't have to do anything crazy, but see him and then he pass on, man. That's a cool gift. 

 Marquel
 For sure. 

 Josh
 Yeah. For, for the young dudes out there, right? The guys who are looking and they're being tempted by the streets, they're being tented by easy money. They're being tempted when they don't have maybe hope of something different. Yep. What love do you got for them? What can you say to that? 

 Marquel
 I would say number one, there's no such thing as easy money. Well, so while I say this, so I would say that's another word. All money is easy money, right? Why is all money easy money? Because the way that you make money is by solving a problem, somebody. I would say, what's your long-term play and what are you good at? Tap into that because there's multiple different ways to make money and you can make more money than you ever imagined. Completely legit without having to worry about somebody, taking it from you. But money, all money is easy money. I don't know that's different from the, we can default to like, no money's easy way, but actually it is because the money is already printed. It's already around us every day. We gotta just figure out how do we get in front of it and your way you get in front of it back creating a solution to somebody else's problem. 

 Josh
 That's super good, man. Dudes listening in man as always reach out to our guests. They thank you for being on the show. Their contact information will be in the show notes, their handles, follow what they're doing. Follow them on social, connect with them. If you need help with your business, if you need help in life, reach out to them and say, Hey, I heard you on the show. I need help. That's the purpose of this show is to get you dudes and me. I get free help all the time. Cause I get free counseling. Pretty much get help. Uncensored advice from men.com. Love you dudes. Talk to you all on the next episode. 

 Marquel
 Thank you.