382 | Crazy Blessed | Marc Mero | Redemption: Choices and Faith

All right, guys, sometimes you're riding high, right? And then before you know it, you just crash. And I think everyone's had those moments. And if you find yourself in one of those moments, you can make some pretty poor decisions or you can make some radical decisions that can lead to your greatest life ever. Because God has never stopped redeeming and restoring. So today I want you to really lean in. I want you to listen to this story, because I have a special friend with me today, and he's going to share about his story, which could be like yours today, which is critical that you make the right decisions when you find yourself there. So I'm going to be talking today with Mark Merrow, and he's going to share his story. It's incredible. Okay, get ready for your jaw to drop because he's coming on the show today. Mark, thank you so much for being here with me.

Hannah, I appreciate you so much. Thank you for having me. I've been looking forward to this.

Oh, my gosh, dude, with everything you're doing in schools today and how you're reaching kids, moms like me, we just want to give you the biggest bear hug in the world because you are a lot of times where we can't be. And I feel like you're just fighting with us for the hearts and the minds of these kids today. So thank you so much for what you're doing for the kingdom.

Oh, my gosh. I. I am. I. I don't say. It's hard to say you're welcome because I'm. I'm feeling I'm the one that's blessed for this, Right? You know, the more we give, the more we get back in our own lives.

Oh, my gosh, dude, it's so true. And it's just. The blessing just keeps coming. Right? I know we hear this trite little saying, blessed to be a blessing, but really, when. When the word says it is more blessed to give than to receive, he means that literally. Like, we are living high, right? It's just so awesome.

Amen. I. You know, I've never found more joy, more happiness, more purpose in my life than serving Christ.

Oh, man. He truly is all sufficient, and he just keeps on being good to us.

Oh, man. You know, a lot of things we. Often the things we take for granted in life are the things we should really appreciate. And people don't even think about, you know, whether it's our health or. Or family or our kids or whatever, whatever it would be. We often don't think about how those are Such amazing blessings. You know, I've been. I've been speaking now for 16 years, and I have never been sick or missed a presentation, and it's just been incredible journey. And so I always take an appreciation of that. My health is so important, and anyone that has lost their health or going through a struggle can realize how important that health is. And those are things we should really be appreciative and thank God for.

Absolutely. And he says he will give us all things. Right. He has said everything he has for us, and that's just not. Is blessing in every area of our life. And so we really need to step into that appreciation. Sometimes I feel like we so focus on the horizon, we forget about that square footage right underneath where we're standing. You know, we had that available all the time. But when I. When I think about your story, one thing comes to mind and is. And that is he truly does work all things together for good. You know, if you could just share some of that.

Yeah. You know, we're going through our struggles and our trials and our valleys in life. We don't understand some of the. Not only learning experiences, but the joy we can get from that to help others. There's no greater joy than helping another person. And that's. That's where I really found my happiness. I often said, you want to be happy? Help someone else become happy. You want to be successful, Help someone else become successful. You're living so you're knowing where it's going, going.

That's so good. So. Well, I want you to share because some people, you know, are familiar with you, but some people aren't. Like, can you share a little bit about your story? As, you know, when you. When you're wrestling, you're riding high, then all of a sudden it just like everything comes to a screeching.

Let me just go back to a little bit further because a lot of people don't. Yeah, I'll share this today was that, you know, I grew up Jewish. A lot of people don't know this. My. My last name was. Used to be Meroitz, and it was shortened to Marrow. And my. My dad was Jewish, my mom was a Catholic. And us kids were confused. But, you know, we grew up primarily Jewish, going to schools and everything. And then it wasn't until later on in life that I accepted Christ as Lord and Savior. And it was, you know, ever since I was a little boy. When I was. When I was eight years old, I started writing down dreams and goals. I had this little, you know, we lived in the worst drug and gang infested neighbors in the west side of Buffalo, New York. My parents got divorced and I started. I've always been a dreamer. I mean, I dreamt of a better life for myself, my family. So I started writing down my dreams.

And goals now, like as a kid, as a little kid does that mark.

You know, you know, it's. It's amazing that when I look back now, you know, Zig Ziglar said, don't just think it, ink it, you know, so good a little kid. But it was really, when I was 10 years old, I actually found. I have the book for when I was 10 years old that I wrote these dreams and goals. And now I had most of things as a kid because we're poor, we have no money, my mom's working two jobs and I'm right. So most of things are materialistic. You know, we think those are the things that are going to make us happy in life. So I wrote down, you know, I want a fancy black Cadillac. I want a speedboat. I love sports. So I wrote down, I'm going to be a professional athlete. Not only that, Hannah, I wrote down, I'm a win rookie of the year. I just, so I just saw at that time, I saw Gilbert Perot played, played hockey for the Buffalo Sabres. He won rookie of the year. So I'm like, how cool is that to win rookie of the year? So I wrote it down, you know.

Yeah, yeah, of course I want to.

Be rich, I'll be famous, I want to buy my mama house. All these things I would write down as a little kid. And like I said, most of them were materialistic, you know, because we were poor.

That's okay.

That made you happy. And, and I started pursuing sports. I became very successful in sports. Football, hockey, boxing and. And it wasn't until I was about to turn professional in boxing that I had a serious accident where I had my nose shattered in an accident. Now here I am. I was. I was at the USA Boxing. I was on the USA Boxing team in Colorado Springs, Colorado. And I decided to turn professional because in 1981, the boy the Olympics were boycotted in 80, now it's 81. So I had three more years if I was going to try and make the Olympic teams. So I decided to turn professional. And two weeks before my first professional boxing matches when I had my nose shattered in an accident. And it was in that time off, I really started making some bad choices in life. And that's why to this day I call my program choices we are defined by the choices that we make. And I share with my audience where my good choices took me. And I'm blatantly honest where those bad choices took me. But we become who we surround ourselves with. You know, First Corinthians 15:33 says, don't be misled. Bad company corrupts good character. I mean, God had it right all the way back then.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's. There's no mistake there. There's no confusion there. You become who you hang around.

You show me your friends, I'll show you your future. I started hanging out with kids. See, my whole life was always about sports. I was playing three sports a year for first since I was a little kid, right. Never really had fun. Like, kids were always going to parties and drinking and getting high or doing things. And my buds are always, we had so much fun last night. But I never did that because I was in sports.

Yeah.

And it wasn't until that happened that I said, you know, I'm just going to go hang out with those guys because the surgery, the doctor said it take about a year before I come back and start having contact. I started going to these parties, my friends, and it always starts out so innocent. Hey, Meryl, have a beer. Just try this, man. I smoke this. Come on, come on. You're young. You only live once. Blah, blah, blah. You know, next, you know, I'm drunk and high at the party's going, hey, guys, I'm coming back in one year. I'm gonna be champ of the world. I do this week after week, month after month, but I'm coming back in one year. One year turned into two years. Two years turned to four years. Four years turned to 10 years of my life of drug addiction and working. And the only job I could get with my limited high school education was in construction as labor. And one of those jobs was actually digging swimming pools. I was guy that got bottom of the pool and shaped the pool for the concrete to come in or the walls to go up or whatever. And I remember just being at the bottom of the pool and thinking in a black Cadillac, I wanted to speedboat. I wanted to get my mom a house. I want to be rich. I want to be famous. I wanted to be somebody. And at this point in my life, I was 30 years old now. Years and years of drug addiction. And I. I had a bunch of friends over my apartment. My buddy was flipping through the TV channels and he landed on professional wrestling. I go, whoa, stop it there, guys. I can do that. My buddies who are still my buddies to this day, they bust out laughing. It's going, oh, my gosh, Mark, look at the size of those guys. They'll pick you over their head and throw you out of that ring. I said, no, I can do that. My buddy goes, Mark, you're 30 years old. What do you do, start a pro career now? I just thought those two words and said them out loud. I believe.

I believe it's always about the action.

We take next that can change our destiny. And the action I had to take, I had to find out whether it was a wrestling school. I didn't know how to wrestle, so I was living in Venice, Florida. There's a wrestling school in Tampa, about 60 miles apart. I started driving there after work on weekends. One year later, at 31 years old, I signed this huge contract in professional wrestling. Now all of a sudden, I got all this money. Not only that, I was voted Pro Wrestling Illustrated Rookie of the Year. Something I wrote about when I was 10 years old.

Dude, wait, hold your phone. That is amazing. Oh, my God.

So I have all this money and the first thing I did when I got my signing bonus, I bought my mother a house in Sarasota, Florida. I paid cash for it. And then I started. I started buying all these other things of my black Cadillac, my fancy house, all the things I thought were going to make me happy, that I want a house on the water. And I got a bigger house on the water. And it just kept escalating, escalating. But then money, fame, and I resort to my old ways. After cleaning myself up for over a year, I resort to my old ways. And the first thing I did wrong again, Hannah, was the people I chose to hang out with. Alcohol, drugs comes back with a vengeance. Not just that. Now prescription medication and pills. And my world start spin, getting out of control. Alcohol, drugs, pills, addiction, bad choices, hanging out the wrong people. I got all this money, I got everything. The world will say, mark, you made it. But because of my bad choices, I lost it all. My ex wife of 10 years, she walked out the door and divorced me. And I don't blame her. But then I lost over 30 friends and most of them died from their bad choices. Many died drug overdose men that I traveled with for 14 years. I wrestled all these guys that passed away before me. And I just was thinking to myself, man, I going through divorce and all of a sudden my. I'm on the road in Japan and you heard the story about my mom passing on when I was over in Japan and my little brother dies two weeks later. He was only 21 years old. My sister was 21 when she died of cancer. So losing my friends, my family, my world is spinning out of control. But all I'm doing is drinking more, doing more drugs. And in Hannah, this is where the story really got bad was what it was. Christmas Day in 2003, and I had no place to go. My. My family's gone. Most of my family has passed on. Many my friends are gone. And Christmas, damn the dell, the day we celebrate the birth of our savior. You know, presence and tree and food and family and all the things that we love. On Christmas, I drove to Cocoa Beach, Florida, and I sat under a pier on Christmas Day. I watched the waves roll in and roll out. And I just contemplated the end. I didn't want to be here no more. I never thought in my life I could ever get to this place. And I look at the blessing now is that I understand what depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts feel like because I experienced them. And maybe if I never experienced, I never would understand it at the level I do now. And I. I drove home from Cocoa Beach, Florida. I retrieved my handgun. I walked into my shower and I had these big walk in showers. At that time, my house was up for sale. I remember just leaning against the wall and spreading my legs and putting the gun to my temple. And the idea was I would slide down the wall. When my bottom hit the ground, I would pull the trigger. And as I lean against the wall, all of a sudden I could just feel my heart pounding out of my chest. And the flashes of my little brother, my sister, my mother, my father, all these people that passed on before me. I kept thinking, I just. I just wanted to be with them. I just want to hear their voice one more time. And then I just started sliding down the wall. And all of a sudden this vision or thought of hell comes into my. My mind. And it was. It was so weird because it was a. One of the first church, the church I got saved at many, many, many years before this, when I was 21 years old. August 23, 1981. I'll never forget it. I heard a pastor speak on and hell and the people that didn't make it to heaven. And he gave his visual of, of hell. And now all of a sudden it's like I see this and there's so many people and they're all in their own torment and they were screaming. And I thought to myself, and I'm making this story kind of short, but I. I dropped to my knees I point the gun away, and I just started begging God for forgiveness. I asked him to come to my life. I asked him to change me. And he. Here's the amazing that happened that day. I have never. I'm now 20 years clean on drugs. I've never touched another drug since that, Praise God. Not that I'm against any of that. Please don't. For me, I just knew I could never go. I knew that if I ever touched a drug again, I would. I would die. I've overdosed on drugs on three occasions where I should have been dead. But I really believe God kept me here for a reason. Now, Hannah, I didn't know what I was going to do. I mean, here I am, Financially, I'm destroyed. I lost everything. And I got a job at Gold's Gym training people. And it was really funny because it's kind of humbling where people would walk in and go, oh, my gosh, Mark Merritt, what are you doing here? I go. I work. Here they go. You work at Goals Gym? Not that it's a bad thing, don't get me wrong.

Right. But still, yeah, from where I was.

To where I'm doing now, it just. People were surprised to see me there.

Well.

I became a personal trainer, and my clients were starting to get some of the best results. We said this wall of fame at Gold's Gym where they put the people that got the best results, and all my people were up there. And so I decided to open my own gym. I took four personal trainers, and we opened this, our own gym, and we had a personal training facility. But lo and behold, to me, they. I get a call from Melbourne High School, and this was in August of 2007. The football coach says, hey, can you come talk to our players? You know, like, 50, 50, 60 kids. Right.

How did he. Like, how did he know to contact you?

From wrestling. And then obviously, we're doing a lot of advertising for my gym, so.

Did he know about your personal story at that time?

No, he. All he knew is that was a professional wrestler and nobody. Nobody really knew that. That. That backstory.

Yeah. Yeah.

And so he asked me to come speak to his players, and I did. Next thing I know, I'm starting to get, like, emails from the players and going, man, that was amazing today. Thank you for sharing that. You changed my life. I'm done. What a great feeling, you know? And next thing I know, that school called another school, and the Snowball effect started happening. And then my video goes viral and seen by half a billion people. Now you Know, So schools are calling. We. We had. We had 3,000 booking requests the first month the video went viral. So now I'm going all over the world. We average 231 events a year. I'm going all over the world. Not only the world, to Russia, to Guatemal. I mean, to go in a place I never in my thought life, thought I would even see, more or less preach the gospel and talk, right, the saving grace of Christ. Now, understand, at schools, I can't say the word God anymore.

I was just talking with a youth pastor this morning about that. You're not allowed to say Bible. You're not allowed to say Jesus. You're not allowed to say God.

But here's, here's what I do is for number one, we always pray. My team and I pray together before every presentation. And I just pray his love and light shine through me. But you would not believe how many kids ask me, are you Christian?

And there you go, you know what?

But let me. Let me share one.

They're drawn to Jesus. They are drawn to Jesus by that compassion.

I spoke at a high school and it was like a couple thousand kids. It was a huge auditorium. And they said to me after the presentation, do you mind doing a question and answer? I said, sure. And they go around with a microphone and ask kids, and kids say how to get into speaking or how does it feel to change a life or, you know, next question, Joe. And a student said to me, mark, who was the biggest influence in your life? I said, well, I gotta be very honest. My Lord and savior, Jesus Christ. And that whole auditorium, kids start stomping their feet and clapping. It was amazing. The response for just standing on your. Your faith now. Now people say to me, well, why can't you just say Jesus every school? Well, I would never be able to get into another school.

You can't.

You can't just blackball me. So the Bible says, be wise as serpent and gentle as a dove. But here's the thing. When kids write to me and come into my world, say anything I want.

Anything you want, dude. You can preach the gospel to your heart's content.

I never beat people over the head with a Bible. Like sometimes we come across so strong, so spiritually minded, no earthly good, you know, I'll say simple things like that. They'll say, well, how'd you change your life? I said, you know what? I gotta be honest. I got my knees and I just asked God to help me. Have you ever prayed? And it just slowly opens up doors. And whether they want to talk about it or not. I respect it, you know, but I've never pushed it where some kid went back to school, hey, just start talking about if you don't go, if you don't accept Jesus, you're going to hell and blah, blah, blah. You know, that's just such a turn off to people that love is the greatest gift and God preaches it. It's preached throughout the Bible. Love is the greatest gift we have. So when kids see, no matter what they're going through, you know, all the crazy things that are happening in schools today, but no matter what a kid is going through, they see love through me. They see love. I may not agree with their, their lifestyle or whatever, but you know what? They see love. They know I care, they know I want to help, I want to be a light in their life. And we have really saved. We get so many mess from kids that say, you saved my life. And there's no blessing than that.

Dude, that is so beautiful. And I know a lot of, I have a lot of parents, a lot of moms who, who tune in to this show. And one thing I always hear from them is how can I reach my children better? They feel like they're kind of losing their kids, you know, to this culture. And what you said is that message of love, how could that come through? Just want to, just want to pick your brain a little bit before.

We are hitting such a strong point right now. It's something I deal with quite a bit with, with parents. We do a community night a lot of times after we do schools and the kids invite their parents to come out to hear me at nighttime, you know, and it's actually kind of comical because parents will say to me like, they'll hear my speech and they'll say how they watch their kid change. And they go, that's exactly what I told them. But it just coming from a different angle. We're saying the same thing, it's just coming from a different way. But, but the one thing I could say to parents is that, you know, we're really fighting. It's a spiritual battle that we have right now. You know, like I said, I've been doing this 16 years now and we could talk about depression, anxiety, bullying, suicidal thoughts all day long. But I gotta tell you what it really is. It's a breakdown of the family. The core family has broken down. We're seeing, yes, raised by grandparents or single family. Families are trying to make it on their own. Mom or dad, working two jobs, trying to support Their kids, they're not home much. And I gotta tell you another thing, this smartphone has outsmarted us.

It really has, dude. Yes.

Rather, you can cut off a kid's arm. You really had to cut off their arm and take away their cell phone. You know, it really is detrimental to their health because we're seeing kids that are very seldom sleeping because they're scrolling all night long through some of these social media platforms, not getting enough sleep, not getting health, they don't have regular meals because they're so invested in what someone says about them or if they get a like. And a lot of times you get a like, you have to do something inappropriate. And it's very sad that some of the big influences are people that do really cruel things or mock people or. Or punk people or whatever it would be.

Yeah, yeah.

But if I could say something to the moms and dads out there, you know, our. The one thing we have is prayer. And, you know, I know a lot of people say, well, yeah, that didn't work, or whatever, you know, but I gotta tell you, don't ever stop praying about your kid. You know, these are. These are God's children too. I mean, they're worse and foremost, they're God. We're all God's children. But, man, check out who they're spending time with. Like I said earlier, we become who we surround ourselves with. If you're gonna let your kids spend the night at someone, what do their parents allow at that house? They may not. They may not parent a kid like you do. So you really gotta be comfortable in friendships with other parents to know what their priorities are in that household.

Right, right.

Check your kids, social media. You know, you gotta be invested in them. You've gotta. It cause a lot of strife, a lot of heartache, a lot of pain. But the pain that could happen in the long run is a lot worse than checking your kid's cell phone.

Yeah, that's just collateral damage. Let's get the real. Let's get to the heart of the issue. But I love that, mark, what you're saying, like, pray over your children. Look at the people they're hanging around. Watch what they're being exposed to on social media. And what you're seeing right here is be integrated in their life. It's a worthy fight for your children.

Yes. Invest in what truly is important in this life. God. The greatest gift God gave is your children, and you've got to be invested in them. And sometimes parents are so inundated with social media themselves Right. They're missing the boat on what's really.

Going, or they feel like we could Talk for another 30 minutes just on that. It's such a. It's a pandemic. It's horrible.

Let me. Let me share one more quick story with you. I recently had a community night, and, you know, the parents asked me questions at the end, and they're really. I. I really enjoy those because it's really engaging, you know, and parents said that, well, the reason why I give my. Because I'm not big on giving the kids these. These cell phones at such a young age. You know, you're. You're opening the world to things that they. They don't. They're not prepared to see. And a mother said to me, you know, she gave her. Her daughter. She got her daughter a cell phone. Her daughter was, like, eight. Eight or nine years old. And she said that, my daughter and I are best friends. She would never do something inappropriate with this cell phone. And I said, do you realize how powerful peer pressure is? Do you even understand what kids go through with peer pressure? Not only that. Don't be your daughter's best friend. Be her best parent. We try to be such good buddies with our kids that they lose that. Mother, daughter, or mother or father, son, or whatever relationship that is. They lose that because that's my buddy, you know, he's not gonna care or she's not gonna care, or, I can do this or do that. She'll forgive me. She'll get over it. You know, that type of thing. Be their best parent, really. You got to have. You know, we. See, the thing is, we got to have boundaries for our children. And whether you like or not, kids really do want boundaries. When there's no boundaries, it's like. I heard something like a. A river without banks is a flood.

Wow.

Boundaries for our kids.

Yeah. Yeah. So powerful. Oh, my goodness. Mark, you have been such a blessing today. Thank you so much for inspiring us for helping parents and for being on the front lines of this battle for our kids. Dude, thank you for all that you're doing, Hannah.

Thank you. Can I. Can I leave and just pray over, please?

If you could wrap us up in prayer. Love it.

Oh, heavenly father, Lord, we come before you with such honor, God, that. That we're able to have this conversation. And, Lord, you know, first and foremost, that we. We want to protect our children, Lord. And the enemy is after our children. I just pray that we put a hedge of protection for all the parents that. That are working so diligently and, and love and care about their kids. Lord, I pray for these kids that don't have parents are being raised by the wonderful grand grandparents who stepped in or friends or family that, that they're with that you I pray over them. Lord, I just pray you bring them wisdom and comfort and, and guide them. God, but as parents, help us, Lord. Help us realize what we can and can't do. How we could be more patient in our lives, how we can talk more calmly without exploding or, or being angry and not using detrimental words towards kids, but lifting them up and building them up. I'm asking this and believing this. In Jesus name, Amen.

Amen. Thank you so much, Mark, and it's been a pleasure.

God bless.