United States Marine Corps to Business Ownership, A Founder’s Story with Mark Ledlow

Mark Ledlow started off his career in the United States Marine Corps, During his time in the Reserves, he worked in Juvenile Corrections and as a Reserve Police Officer. After graduating from college with a Bachelors’s Degree Majoring in Criminology Minor in Psychology, he worked in Corporate America moving up the Ranks Quickly into an Account Executive Role with Washington Mutal. Then the 2008 Market Crashed, He left Oregon and moved to LA and pivoted, and became an Executive Security Professional. He has protected the World’s Wealthiest Families members to Corporate CEOs and high profile Public Figures. In 2013 he launched his own Consulting Company. In 2018 Mark’s Father was diagnosed with Stage 4 Brain Cancer, Mark stepped away from the industry to support his Fathers medical needs until his Father Terry Ledlow, A Navy Veteran and Business owner himself passed away. Those years with his dad were some of the hardest in his life, but the most rewarding years of his life, Passed away on May 1, 2019. Mark took some time to deal with the grieving experience of now having lost both parents. As you could imagine this hit him pretty hard. A year later Mark launched The Fearless Mindset Podcast in honor of his Dad’s Fearless Mindset battle with Cancer.

Website Link of the podcast: https://The-Fearless-Mindset.simplecast.com

Link for LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-ledlow-a3498412/

I grew up on the West Coast, Dad was working 2 jobs plus going to college full time and was also in the National Guard Reserves, During the late 70s, I can remember we went through some tough times during the recession. Dad had a Sales job and times were very hard. I can remember living in a hotel for a while in Sacramento and moving from town to town wherever dad could find work. We moved to Redding California, it was so hot in the summer that we moved to Yreka, it was freezing cold and always snowing. Then we moved to Southern Oregon, a little town called Grants Pass. Home of Dutch Bros Coffee. My parents fell in love with this house on the Applegate River, this would be the start of my High School years. Grants Pass gave me some of my greatest memories of High School sports Varsity Football. Fishing after school got out with my buddy Scott. He had a beautiful lifted Ford 4 wheel drive and we would be taking 4 wheeling up on the BLM Roads after school on the weekends and we would get stuck in the snow or do 360s on black ice. We had so much fun and there was always cruising on Friday/Saturday nights. There were no cell phones back then No social media. I loved playing team sports and love Adventure. I was recruited to play Football at a University in Virginia, but I had a crush on a girl and stayed in Oregon. I quickly realized I did not have the patience to be a sports fisherman, I became bored quickly trying to act as I enjoyed it. My senior year in High School I can remember watching the Fire Fighters rolling out past our house in the Applegate Valley during fierce lightning storms and I thought to myself I wanted to do that when I graduated from high school. My dad wanted to make sure I had a work ethic, so in Jr High, in Yreka, my dad got me a job picking up trash on the litter patrol for Cal Trans, wow, that was crazy. I found a lot of money and a lot of bags of this weed stuff too people would probably throw out of their cars while being stopped by the Police. I spent many summers in High School busting my back bailing hey and doing hard labor work. I knew at a young age I did not want to work like that.

I knew a few business owners and was always intrigued by what made them tick, My dad owned a Hearing aid Company and loved the Independence that it offered him. I was invited to attend some Business Conferences and realized quickly that job people and business owners thinking patterns were the polar opposite

The Biggest Transformation of wealth that I have ever seen was the transition of the Industrial Revolution to the Information Age or Digital Age, as Economies shift and change so must you change your thinking in how you do business. Amazon is a perfect example