The Determined Society with Shawn French
From NFL Star to Youth Savior: Marlin Jackson’s Mission to Heal Trauma
Mon, 21 Apr 2025
Super Bowl champion Marlin Jackson opens up about surviving childhood trauma, picking off Tom Brady in the AFC Championship, and why he created a tech-driven movement to save kids in underserved schools. In this powerful conversation with Shawn French, Marlin shares how he turned pain into purpose, and how emotional intelligence, faith, and fatherhood are fueling the next generation. If this episode moved you, subscribe now and share it with someone who needs to hear it, whether it’s a parent, coach, educator, or young person navigating adversity. Let’s build a more determined world together. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: Who is Marlin Jackson and what is his background?
29th pick overall for the Indianapolis Colts. Picked Tom Brady off for interception in the championship game to take the Colts to the Super Bowl and ended up winning it. He is from Sharon, Pennsylvania. He's doing amazing things as an entrepreneur now for the community and the education system in America. Marlon Jackson, welcome to the show. John, thank you for having me.
I appreciate the opportunity. Dude, likewise, man. It's great sitting here with you, and we are having some amazing off-the-air conversations just about family, kids, school, just everything. Life. Life. Life. But it's happening, huh?
And it doesn't stop. It just keeps on coming. We just have to choose how we respond, but make sure we keep moving.
See, there's a big difference between reaction and response, right? And like when you said we have to choose how we respond. Now, there's a lot of times where I react to things and then I go back. I'm like, oh, my God, I completely screwed that one up. But, you know, that's a big thing, right? It's like we're all going through stuff. We're all going through life.
We're all struggling with kids doing their classwork, forgetting shit. And, you know, we're, you know, hoping it doesn't cause the next fight with the missiles.
Which can make it difficult to stay in executive function, to stay at the top of your brain. It gets you in that middle of the brain, that amygdala, and you get very emotional. But that's part of the work that I do on the entrepreneurial side is that decision making is that executive function and really just trying to make sure I model it in my everyday life.
dude it's that's tough right it's tough because no because things happen like you mentioned that happens that's right it's just core of your mind and you have to find that way to switch into that executive position to make those decisions to get your business to run exactly exactly and it is it is challenging uh but at the same time we have to realize that it is possible but it starts with awareness a lot of us aren't even aware because in our education system it's not a part of
the teaching that teach you the power of decision-making of consequence of how your brain works. But the more that we start to introduce that concept earlier, the more we empower youth to be able to do so.
Oh, the ideas that we have to make the education much stronger. We don't teach children how to think. We teach them how to take tests. you know, and to judge their worth based on what level they're at, how they scored on the state test, et cetera. So before we get into all that, though, why don't you give the audience a peek behind Marlon Jackson as a youth?
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Chapter 2: How did childhood trauma shape Marlin Jackson's life?
Because it's root causes, right? You know, which like so, so much in our society, we want to look at the surface, right? But it takes a little bit more sympathy, empathy, and then overall work to be able to pause and think there's a reason why they're behaving this way.
Like underneath every single behavior of every child, of every adult, of every human being, there is some experience that impacted psychologically and emotionally who they are that then turns into the behavior that you see.
I struggle with that, not believing it. in the moment, right? I mean, dude, we're married men.
Yeah, but that's the reality. You're talking about the reality.
Yeah, right. Exactly. No, no, totally. No, what I'm saying is like, I'm with you. I'm tracking, but you know, like how do you, right? And cause this is something I'm asking you, right? Is how do you, in the moment, right? Because we all have, like you said, everybody has reasons why they're reacting a certain way, right?
And how do we, as the person receiving that action, kind of filter down and stay in a point where we can actually respond instead of react?
Well, Sometimes it's like, I believe, I say it's about pausing. Like, do I need to step away right now from this conversation? Do I need to go for a walk to be able to compose myself? Instead of being swept up in the emotion. Now, I'm going to say this is not things that I do all the time.
Right.
Right. Sometimes I do.
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Chapter 3: What challenges did Marlin face growing up in a difficult environment?
So when I think about my son, this is the stuff I think about. So that hit me hard right there. Like, you know, and my friends have guns. You know, I go to get my brother's gun, and it wasn't in the place that I knew it to be, which was a great thing. But I say all this to fast forward to, you know, we're walking around looking for them. We think that they're looking for us.
We don't find them, but we get stopped by the cops, right? And I had a book bag. And you know what I did? I took all the guns and I put them in my book bag. Oh, shit. So, like, the cops stop us and they're talking to us and I can hear the clanks in my book bag, right? And he spoke to us, but then he kept it moving. It was on his way. That's something that...
I didn't even think about the consequence. Right. Like when I willingly say, like, I'm put to put them all in my bag, put them in my bag and I put it on my on my back. I'm not thinking about if he goes in this bag, what is he going to find? Right. What are they going to do? Right. You know, and even in the situation where I kicked in this this windshield of this car.
I didn't think anything about a consequence. Like, you know, I was in the moment reacting. Right. And I was reacting in a way that I was conditioned very aggressively, like overly aggressive, you know, doing the most. Because like so often, like we want to please our peers. Sure. And I, you know, I had some timidness in me. But then in that, I would go over the top to try to cover that up.
get it like i'm gonna just so they don't even know i don't have no i have no fear i'm gonna be the loudest i'm gonna be the one that's out i'm gonna do that i'm gonna do the most yeah right yeah you know which can lead to a lot of negative things occurring but this is when i when i even saying this i always think about god and like the grace that he gave me because in either of these situations i i didn't get in trouble right like you know um i don't know how
In either situation, I know in one situation, somebody didn't tell on me, right? And that person had the heat for that. His name was Bubba, right? But things like that, and when I remember and I think back, and I have a lot of things that I think back on, I'm like,
whoo god like thank you and that's part of why i know my purpose like is is like you know he gave me that grace for a reason to come out of that situation because i should have been in juvie right i should i should have been locked up for those for those could have been a lot worse and it could have been a lot worse bro like to your point like you don't think of those consequences right like i'm listening to the story you're talking about getting in trouble and someone telling you i'm thinking like what if a gunfight broke out you're dead
Yeah. So then that's the thing. When you don't learn your lessons, sometimes they circle back around. Right. So then that almost came back to get me in college. Okay, okay. Right? And I know we'll get into that, but... I was in a situation, in an altercation, the person that I'm into it with pulls out the gun and starts firing.
Oh, shit.
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Chapter 4: How did Marlin's experiences influence his approach to fatherhood and family?
Yeah, right. And that's the hard part because people, you know, it can be difficult, you know, because we are all a mixed bag of emotions and experiences that are coming together as one to achieve a common goal, you know, and you have to value and recognize the whole person, right? And their perspective, their background, their ideas, their thoughts, what they add to the pot,
Because that, you know, feeling of value makes people want to give more. Right. And it makes them feel the sense of belonging. And when people feel belonging, they show up in a very impactful way. Like, you don't have to try to pull it out of them. They'll just give it.
Yeah. Yeah. I think it's too, it's like, it's the competitive spirit, right? Everybody wants to win. Like everybody wants to do a great job and, and communicating that and being on the same wavelength is super important. Right. And it's, it's important in entrepreneurship.
And then even as, you know, your career in the NFL, like you, I mean, you want to talk about a mixed bag, a team, talk about that locker room, man. Like a lot of different individuals, you know, very decorated career, obviously went to the Superbowl, won one. Talk about that a little bit.
Yeah, but that's the – I mean, I feel like it's one of the places where I learned the most in life was the Indianapolis Colts, University of Michigan, high school on a certain level, but University of Michigan and then the Colts where I was more mature, you know, from just life and growing. And the players that I had the opportunity to be around – So many Hall of Famers. Peyton Manning.
And when I think about Peyton, I think about his mentality as a leader, his work ethic. You know, he was obviously one of the most talented players, but he worked the hardest.
OK.
And the thing is, when your best players work the hardest, there's no excuse for anybody else. Come on. Like it it it raises the bar to another level. It raises the standard and it's and it's set there.
Yeah.
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Chapter 5: What role does emotional intelligence play in decision-making and relationships?
There's communications tools, and then there's high-level data analytics. But all of those tools together are spread out across the day to be a part of the routines of students within the school, the opportunity for intentional breaks, the ability to be able to report safety or wellness needs. And then on the other end is for those educators or those parents to be informed.
of what is going on with my child, having all the data to drive the decision-making, right? But then having an algorithm that automatically sorts and categorizes students in the categories of risk, which helps educators.
When you think about data collection from our observation to how I document, to how I evaluate, we streamline that process to make it very easy, which can be very time consuming, right? And then empowering educators when it comes to classroom management. You know, because the ratios between students and educators makes it difficult. If it's one of me, 25 of them.
And even more so if I'm a school counselor or a school social worker, maybe one of me and maybe 600 of them. Exactly. So if you don't have tools and you don't have resources, a lot of students fall through the cracks. And we have embedded ourselves within the school structure. And it's not just a technology, it's a relationship where we've created our proven process, right?
A proven process from the point of discovery. Right. Lead generation, finding alignment to partnership. We're going to we're going to come together and sign this contract. We're going to now we're going to onboard you with our implementation. We're going to then begin begin the training process to help you understand. We're going to put together your implementation plan.
Then we're going to monitor your implementation plan and support you with your implementation plan. We're going to have these check-in points, fidelity check-ins, data dive sessions, at-a-glance reports, ultimately to report impact or impact reporting. But it's through that how we are part of the school culture and climate and the interactions that are occurring every day where a kid like myself,
When I was in third grade, my mom came home. Mom was missing. Ended up being locked up from boosting, for stealing from the store. Got to go and live with my grandma. Nobody at school knew, right? So I had a lot of behavioral issues that school year. But nobody actually had a conversation with me to say, hey, what's going on?
Yeah, see, what I'm loving about this SAS program, right, is the fact that it's not just support for the students. It's the support for the teachers. It's support for administration and all the support within the school to where there's indicators and data to point to this is where this child's struggling. This is where that child's struggling.
So it's a collaboration effect of how do we get these kids through? Because one of the hardest things as a teacher that teachers deal with, and I know so because I did used to teach is is not understanding what that child is going through. And how can I craft this conversation of like, I think this kid's high. Or this kid is falling asleep in my class.
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