Speaker 1: 0:07

Welcome to the HOSA Future of Health podcast Today. I am deeply honored and grateful to Marcus Smith II, founder of the Circle of M Marcus. Welcome.

Speaker 2: 0:21

Thank you for having me. I really appreciate the time. This is amazing.

Speaker 1: 0:27

Thank you again well, marcus, you know you're, you're, you're a leader. You're inspiring so many millions of people across the nation and really across the world, and I wanted to go right into our interview. You've talked about growing up in Columbus, georgia, and the early struggles that you encountered with what a lot of people are talking about these days, which is anxiety and depression, and even with a loving and supportive family. So how did this all shape what you're working on today?

Speaker 2: 1:09

Yeah, it was something that was really something that I needed to get through as a kid. It was something that we didn't talk about. I think it's important for us to talk about the anxiety and the stressors that we go through as kids, right? My first anxiety attack was when I was eight years old. I remember my grandmother not knowing exactly what it was. She put a blood pressure reading on me, but then after that we just kind of went on about our days and I was able to attack the day, but I didn't know that it was something that was plaguing me. So that carried with me for my whole entire life.

Speaker 2: 1:57

It was something that I dealt with, even through the game of football. Even through the game of football. Football ended up being my safe haven, because it was a comfortable place for me to be an athlete on the football field, to have fun, to not think about anything, nothing that was going on at home. I didn't have to think about school, I just could play football, and so when you really look at that, that's kind of a band-aid, if you really look at it that way, because a band-aid is only there for a certain period of time, and so we look at life like that. Football was my band-aid.

Speaker 2: 2:35

But once I got to the NFL high school college, to the NFL, that band-aid was lifted and I didn't have the band-aid anymore. Now I had fans, I had coaches, I had family, I had everybody a part of the next chapter in my life. But I still hadn't addressed the anxiety issue that I had dealt with when I was eight years old. Now it's compound interest, compound interest that I didn't necessarily have the tools to deal with. So that's why I'm in this space now. That's why I got into this space, because I was dealing with that all through my career and I had some struggles with it and so I wanted to help others when it came to mental health, because I know that that's what I dealt with since I was eight years old. So that's why I'm in this space.

Speaker 1: 3:34

Well, you know it takes courage, it takes an understanding, and you know what it takes leadership to be able to speak up, to be able to consider helping others, to give back, to do all of the things that you're doing today to help, again so many millions of people around the world. And so, marcus, you were drafted. You were drafted in the first round of the NFL, the National Football League, and playing at the absolute highest level. What was it like? Dealing with such mental health challenges, et cetera, and such we all see it such a high pressure, high profile environment, and how did it affect your performance and your identity?

Speaker 2: 4:27

Yeah, it was tough. I'm going to be honest with you guys. It was tough just because I didn't have the tools at the time, I didn't have the team around me to be able to tell me hey, go to therapy. Or I always looked at what people thought about me, and it's always about proving yourself right before proving someone else wrong. So I think I just had that mentality and that's what kind of plagued my mental health, and my mental health kind of went into the dumps. It got lower and lower and lower and my play started to become. I was almost like a vegetable on the football field.

Speaker 2: 5:12

I'm not sure if anybody in the health space could understand being in a pressure environment and you kind of handicap yourself. You feel like you can't move, and so that's kind of where I was. I'm riding on a high, I get drafted first round. It's a great thing, family is fun. But then reality sets in like, oh man, now I have to go perform. Now I have to get a lot of sex. Now I have to live up to the expectation of me just being the best football player that I could be and I wanted to be.

Speaker 2: 5:48

But because I didn't address my mental health issues, it kind of allowed me to take a step back and I didn't play very well and that plagued me as well. So that's how it was. When I look at football, when I look at my family and all my coaches, I just wish I would have the team around me to understand exactly what I needed at the time and to really redefine who the real Marcus Smith was at that time. But I will say it was definitely tough. It was tough because I am the first one in my family to ever make it that far. I'm the first one in my family to get drafted first round in one of the top premier leagues. So it was a struggle in the beginning, but again, once again, I prevail. That's why I'm doing the work that I'm doing now.

Speaker 1: 6:48

You know what, and that's again, that's leadership. It's all about that leadership. And so you've described this challenge as being your toughest opponent anxiety, depression, et cetera and even, you just said, even tougher than you know other players on the field, I mean. So, marcus, can you take us inside what that internal battle looked like and how it affected your sense of identity?

Speaker 2: 7:22

Yeah, the internal battle was obviously looking at myself in the mirror every day and wondering am I good enough? Can I play this sport? Now? This is a sport I've been playing since I was five years old, and sometimes you question yourself. It's like do I belong? Is this somewhere that God has me? And I had to realize that it was.

Speaker 2: 7:48

But sometimes, when anxiety strikes, depression follows, and now you're in a depressed state and it seems like a black cloud is over your head and you can't get over it.

Speaker 2: 8:00

You can't seem to get to the light at the end of the tunnel, if you will, and so in my mind it was crying. I said a lot of tears, just to be honest with you guys. I talked to my parents a lot, right, and even though they didn't all the way fully understand, I was able to express my emotions and my things with them. And then I also talked to my wife and it was a lot of release that I had to do all the way from when I was eight years old. So I would always say you know, make sure that you address some of those issues that were plaguing you when you were younger, because those things just travel with you. You want to make sure that you push those thoughts to the front of your brain and release them out of your mouth so you can be free. Those are the things that I had to exercise. I had to exercise those right away, because anxiety and depression was truly knocking on my front door and I was crying a lot, crying out because I needed help.

Speaker 1: 9:18

Marcus, you know, just as your friend and colleague here, I find it just incredibly brave of you, but I'm grateful to you and I think you know the millions of people that you've touched and will touch and that will hear this program as well will also say, wow, that's, that's incredible advice and that's a leader that you are. And so you've turned this personal experience into purpose through the circle of M. This is a nonprofit that's focused on mentorship and mental wellness. What, Marcus, inspired you? I think we can tell there are some inspiration points here, obviously, but what inspired you to create this organization and what impact are you seeing in the lives of those who participate?

Speaker 2: 10:17

Yeah, I'm going to be honest with you guys. I had a suicide experience and that's just the realest that I can be. I had a suicide experience when I was in Seattle, 2018. And so, after having that experience, I remember talking to my coaches, talking to Pete Carroll, talking to Clinton Hurt, talking to the training staff, and it was the first time in my life that I said I need help.

Speaker 2: 10:47

I had never said those words before because I was afraid, I was scared to say that, because all of my colleagues, all of the people that around me, I was afraid to know, oh, what would they think about me? Would they think that I'm just this crazy person? Would they think I'm not a great teammate? Would they think that I'm just this crazy person? Would they think I'm not a great teammate? Would they think that I'm quitting on them? And so, once I released that and I said that it was so many of my teammates Some people could say the Legion of Boom at the time so many of my teammates came to me and rallied behind me and some of them even said hey, I was dealing with that two weeks ago. How did you get through that? And it was at that moment that I understood how being vulnerable and speaking up was super important and I got some of my teammates to open up to me more than they have opened up to me in the past. And so that's why I eventually created, two years later, the Circle of M Incorporated.

Speaker 2: 11:51

Because I realized and I understood the more that you speak, the more that you free yourself and success is not a destination, it's a mindset.

Speaker 2: 12:00

And success is not a destination, it's a mindset. So being able to pour that in to not only my professional athlete brothers, I also realized that it starts when you're young, so we can pour those things into them early. Then they have a better chance at just life in general. Because they understand, they can articulate their emotions and they could speak that to someone or speak that to a therapist or their teacher if they're getting burnt out, etc. So that's why we do the program now. We start what we call a feelings will every day. I mean not every day, but every program is every Wednesday. We start with the feelings will because we want them to understand what your emotions are and how you can articulate that to someone, because I don't want them to be in a situation where they're not heard and they want to take their own life. I want them to be able to speak up and say what they're feeling, so they can get the help that they need.

Speaker 1: 13:03

Absolutely remarkable and just you know so so incredibly vital, important, critical all the words you can use. Marcus, and so the circle of M blends this emotional awareness, physical movement and entrepreneurial guidance in one single program, something we really truly almost never see. Why was it important for you to create such a holistic approach and how does that combination help people heal and grow help?

Speaker 2: 13:41

people heal and grow. I love that. I love that question because when you really look at it, you see facilities have the physical, physical physical. Everything was physical, especially growing up, right, and I realized that, well, we do everything backwards. It should always be mental first and then physical, because the brain itself controls the rest of your body, it's controlling your physical. So how can we be in physical nature and not have the mental?

Speaker 2: 14:15

You need both, and so that's why we created the mental wellness piece, because if we can talk to you before you hit the field or we can talk to you before you're going into to your career, right now you have the mindset and you have the wherewithal to understand what you're getting into, what you're going into. And that's why it's it's super important, that's why we've mended. It's almost like the mecca of wellness, because when you come in, you sit, you talk with us and you talk to other professionals, and it doesn't necessarily have to be a professional athlete. It could be the nurse, it could be the doctor, it could be therapist, but you're getting all these different perspectives. And then, after that, now your brain is working, now you are now understanding what this is all about. And then you do recreational fun activities to get your mind going, and then afterwards we ask you the same type of questions that we asked you before to get you thinking again.

Speaker 2: 15:24

And so that's why it's super important, because you need both in your life to sustain your life. We all know, doing the physical and keeping physical and not really taking care of your mental, you start to get burnt out. But if you can be able to control both and have the discipline for both, then now we're talking about great leaders. Right Now we're talking about the next president. Now we're talking about people and kids who can lead the next generation of kids. So we're not leaving anybody behind generation of kids.

Speaker 1: 16:02

So we're not leaving anybody behind, leaving no one behind.

Speaker 1: 16:06

I mean, that's a big part of this, and you know your passion.

Speaker 1: 16:17

You know when you started with I love that question, and you could see that you really love the question, but you really love what's behind it and you were eager to answer that. That, and that's what we're talking about here, is, marcus. What you're talking about is real, real people, real issues, and, in your case, you're providing real, tangible solutions so that someone has the tool to be able to change the world, rather than just the facilities, like you said, like the structural. You know, you got the gym, you got this, you got that, but you don't have the mental toolkit to say, okay, here's how I approach this and I need to get my brain in a place where I can be together and then excel at the rest. Right, that's what you're talking about here. So you're not just an advocate, though, marcus, and you're not just an athlete. You're also a husband, you're a dad and you're a man of faith. So how have those personal roles shaped your mission and the way you lead others, both on and, maybe even more importantly, off the field?

Speaker 2: 17:30

Well, first and foremost, you know, my faith always comes first. That's the first thing my belief in God and how I am able to move forward. You know, god was there with me in the suicide attempts. He was there with me once and he was there with me twice, with my wife being there and then my mother-in-law being there. So if it hadn't have been for those two people in my life, I might not be talking to you today. Right, and I think my kids and my family have really shaped how I view other kids.

Speaker 2: 18:07

Right, because everybody is different and it's important as a man of faith to meet people where they are not where they're going, but be present with them in the moment, because I truly understand if you're present with them, if you can meet them where they are, they don't feel like they're ostracized or they don't feel like they're being talked about in a bad way. They actually feel like someone cares. And so my family is a caring family. They love me dearly and I love them. My son, my daughter. My son's name is Ezra, my daughter's name is Sarai. They teach me a lot of patience, but also it allows me to work on some of those mental health tools that I've learned with them, because that's something that I didn't have.

Speaker 2: 19:04

But I not only don't, I don't wanna give that just to them, I wanna be able to give that to others, right? Because the kids are the future. They're gonna shape the world and so, with social media, with all of these things that are around them, if they have the tools to be equipped, they're going to be better than ever. They won't be a statistic. No matter what color they are, no matter what they look like, they won't be a statistic. They'll be a leader and they'll be more than a conqueror. But my family is a reason why I do what I do. But there are a lot of the reasons why I excel at a high rate.

Speaker 1: 19:51

You know it's just profound. It's profound and as we look at HOSA, future health professionals many of our listeners for this podcast are future nurses, future doctors, future public health leaders, future mental health advocates, who will soon be literally on the front lines of healthcare. Marcus, what would you want them to know about the connection between mental and physical health, beyond what we've already talked about here, especially when working with youth and athletes?

Speaker 2: 20:34

Yeah, I love that. I really do. I love that because I've seen it firsthand. My wife is a nurse, she's a midwife, she went to the University of Pennsylvania and also she went to Georgetown. So I've seen her go through a lot in the nursing space and all they had to do being on the front lines, even down to school, and being in clinicals. So I truly understand where you're going and the work that it takes to be in your field.

Speaker 2: 21:07

And one thing that I would want to say to you is be where your feet are, wherever your feet are planted, that's where you're supposed to be. There are gonna be times where you're gonna feel like you wanna quit. There are gonna be times where you're gonna feel like you're by yourself, but I wanna encourage you to continue to stay at it, because what you do is truly a need in this space and that we need. You Also wanna encourage you to have your tools. I want you to have your team around you. It could be a parent, it could be a teacher. I want you to have someone that you can confide into and we call it an emotional dump to be able to get all of your emotions out, so you're not bottling it in, in, and so you don't get burnt out. But the number one thing I would say be where your feet are, because you're meant to be there love that be where your feet are.

Speaker 1: 22:19

I'm gonna use that if you don't mind. That's, that's incredible. It's such great perspective and such incredibly invaluable advice. And so for the host of students and future health professionals listening today who want to make a difference and they all do what is your call to action, marcus, and how can they step up as leaders and help end the stigma around mental health in their schools, in their communities and even in their careers?

Speaker 2: 22:57

Yeah, I would say, as I said in the kind of in the beginning a little bit, you know, I would say that my call to action would be to you're not alone. First and foremost, help is on the way, and success is not a destination. It's a mindset that success truly is the pain, the struggle, the things that you are dear along the way to get to your destiny. That is true success.

Speaker 1: 23:41

Marcus Smith, the second founder of the circle of M and the definition of leader. You are the definition, my friend. How can folks find out more about the work you're doing at the circle of M?

Speaker 2: 24:00

Yeah, so you can go to our website. It's the circle of Mcomcom, and you can also go to my personal website, marcussmith2.com, the second being two uppercase I's. Sometimes it's hard for people to know that, but you can find me that way, and my Instagram is thecircleofm marcussmith2 me that way.

Speaker 1: 24:31

My Instagram is thecircleofm. Marcus Smith II. Founder of the Circle of M. You are changing the world, my friend. Thank you for all you're doing. We'll welcome you back anytime. Look forward to staying in touch. Thank you for changing the world.

Speaker 2: 24:45

Appreciate you. I thank you for having me. We changed the world together. We can't do it alone.

Speaker 1: 24:53

Thank you, marcus. Thank you so much, no problem.