07 – Mike “C-Roc” Ciorrocco

 

It takes a whole mindset shift to be able to take a setback and turn it into rocket fuel to achieve greater things. Mike “C-Roc” Ciorrocco talks about this in his book, Rocket Fuel, which is inspired by his incredible story – from growing up in a broken home to becoming a motivational speaker, creating a book, starting a podcast, creating a tech company, and inspiring millions across the world. In this conversation with Brian Covey, you’ll hear Mike’s strategy of how he turned the challenges that should’ve slowed him down into something that would propel him even further. Mike believes that you are not limited in anything you want to accomplish because you’re placed here by an all-powerful God. Join in the conversation and allow Mike’s story to burn you up and launch you off into your dreams.

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Mike “C-Roc” Ciorrocco

I am super excited because not only have I been following this guy around and seeing what he’s doing, but we have seemed to live in parallel universes. We’re the crazy ones that have got into the mortgage industry and been in it for some time. Not only is Mike “C-Roc” Ciorrocco a book writer, but he also has a podcast, which I look at guys like this and how they’re able to balance running a business, especially in the mortgage industry, writing a book, also having a show and a life. How do you balance all that stuff? I’ve loved Mike’s energy.

As we were prepping for this, we’re looking at what he’s done. Not only has he built a great following and a network, and he’s doing things out there, but he’s expanded what he’s doing as primary lane, and he’s impacting people in a lot of different ways. We’re going to talk about that. You looked at what the title was. Many of you are joining because you’re like, “I’ve had setbacks in my life. I’ve had things that have happened to me. I’ve got knocked down. How do you get back up? Why do you get back up? Why do you keep pursuing your dream?” Mike, I’m excited to have you on.

Thanks, Brian. I appreciate you. I always like to start every interview with gratitude because I’m honored. The fact that people want to hear my voice, and I get the opportunity to come on and share. It’s an awesome thing. I’m thankful. I want to express that to you to start the show.

What we’ll talk about is gratitude, but I love your story. I’ve been getting to know you a little bit, and it seems we’re running similar circles, but some of the people may not know your story and who you are that they may not be able to find on social and the videos and stuff. Let’s go back to your background and your story so they know who you are.

I’ve said this thing over and over again, but it’s okay because I always pretend that nobody’s ever heard anything I’ve said and because it’s true, there’s so much chaos out there, so much information, and people forget things. If they’ve read it before, it’s okay to say it again. That’s true with your business as well. I came from a broken home. I don’t remember my parents ever together. Being in that environment where you’re linked between your parents, and you’re the only link, the reason they need to communicate anymore, becomes a lot of pressure as a kid. Those of you reading that came from broken homes, deal with child support, custody battles, all that, every other weekend with one parent, you know what I’m talking about.

I did that, and from 0 to 8, I lived with my mom, did my dad’s every other weekend. My dad was my hero. He had a masonry business, big forearms, and rough hands. He did well. He always had a lot of $100 in his pocket with a rubber band around it. I thought that was the coolest thing. When I was a kid, he used to flash it. I always looked to go to my dad’s every other weekend. I looked forward to it. When I was about eight, my mom decided to remarry to her third husband. I was not looking forward to that. As a kid, I was like, “Another man again?” Nothing against my mom, I love her to death. It’s just that this is what I’m going through as a kid, thinking about this, my perception of it.

I decided to try my dad’s house out. He was either getting ready to or got married to his second wife after my mom. I said, “Let me try this.” I told my mom. I broke her heart. I went in there and lived there for about three years, which ended up being one of the most difficult things to go through as a kid. Abuse, mainly mental and psychological threats, things being said about my mom that shouldn’t be said, and I used to sleep with my baseball bat at night. No kid should ever have to go through that. I’m not saying that I had it the worst. I know other people had it worse than that, but this is where this rocket fuel kit concept came from.

When I turned about 10.5, I decided to let my mom know what was going on after dealing with it for a while. I wasn’t sure. When you’re in an abusive situation, a lot of times, you don’t share because you don’t feel that people will believe you, and you’re also scared of what might happen when somebody finds out. I spilled the beans. She said, “That’s not normal. You don’t need to live like that. That’s not okay.” I was coming home from her house after a weekend at her house. I was nervous, my stomach was torn up, and I was anxious about going back there.

When you're stubborn on the right thing, it's the right thing. Click To Tweet

She said, “I’m going to file court papers, and I’ll get you out of there. However, you need to stick to your guns. You can’t flip-flop. When you believe in something in life, there are going to be people with other agendas. They’re going to try to talk you out of it. Not to mention besides that, they may also try to talk you out of your beliefs because they’re trying to justify their position in life and the fact that they didn’t advance as far as you have. You need to stick to your guns when you believe in something.” I took that as being stubborn like I’ve got to be spot stubborn. If I’m onto something, I’ve got to stick to it no matter what. I looked up the definition of stubborn, and it said in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, which I look up a lot of words because I believe in understanding and communicating properly with people. It said, “Perversely unyielding.” Not just unyielding. That’s powerful enough.

That got me fired up. I ended up putting it on a t-shirt, “Stubborn C-Roc Perversely Unyielding,” because I believe that when you’re stubborn on the right thing, it’s the right thing. It can be the wrong thing when it’s on the wrong thing. Fast forward, my dad finally got served court papers. He got shocked and surprised. I came home from school one day. He had the papers in his hand, and he said, “Go to your room.” I’m 10 or 11 at this time. I didn’t know what was going to happen. I was scared to death. I sat on my bed. He came back. He said, “It says here you want to move back with your mom. You know they don’t have it well there. You’ve got everything you need here. We have money. Why would you want to go there? She’s on her third husband. They don’t have anything.”

We were poor. We lived in a $30,000 house at my mom’s. My stepfather George is a great man. He wasn’t good about getting money. He knew how to stretch a dollar a long way. We used to have a broken-down vehicle in the yard all the time. We went on vacation, thank God, but we went to the Jersey shore with black trash bags as our suitcase. They didn’t have it well, but I didn’t care at that moment. I was tired of going through that. I remember my mom saying, “Stick to your guns.” I didn’t have a discussion with him. I confirmed it. He takes that wad of $100 he used to carry around all the time, peeled one-off, crumpled it up, threw it at me, and said, “Here. You’re going to need this when you’re living on the streets with your mother one day.”

For many years, I’ve been driving off of that spark that was lit right there. I never want him to be right. I don’t want him to win. Every time things get tough or things are going great, and I want to take it to the next level, I always refer back to that and other events that have happened in my life. At that moment, I always thought it was an ordinary situation when I was a kid. I thought everybody goes through that. I figured that I would be able to help people that were given up on because that’s the way I felt. He might’ve felt that way too. Who knows? The fact of the matter is that challenge that he threw at me at eleven years old has gotten me to where I am now, where I kept my graph going up at all times. I’ll end with this. A few years ago, I started to analyze what was going on in my life and why my graphs kept going up because I wanted to grab hold of it and try to get the trajectory even higher.

I found that I was taking everything that came my way, no matter what happened, whether it was in the mortgage business, in the real estate business, in my family life, relationships, it doesn’t matter. Anything that came my way that would stop normal thinking people or slow them down, I was stored into my tank instead of my trunk where it would weigh me down. I was able to convert it into rocket fuel for my future. This is a concept that I’ve developed. Now, my graphs have gone up. Over the last few years, my graph has gone in a rocket ship trajectory. I have to share this with people now because it works so well. It’s like a John Maxwell law. It’s the rocket fuel law.

Thank you for sharing that story because I’m sure some people can relate to that. Whether it was exactly the same or somewhat similar that as a kid, you don’t know, “Is this reality? Is this what normally happens in places? What did I do?” There’s all this that starts to create your identity. I’m thinking about, at that age, that’s starting to build your identity, but also how you view interactions and relationships with people. What I find is it’s encouraging and inspirational. It’s like the fact that you took that, you’re able to look back on it now, recognize the lessons in it and do what you’re doing now.

I want to unpack some of the identity of who you are. I’m looking in the back there, like, “What are you made of?” It seems like who you are when I follow what you’re sharing and what you’re doing now, it is almost like a spark, and it’s unfortunate. When you go through a situation like that, it almost built you, and it made you who you are to be able to take on the challenges and to think big enough that a kid that’s going through all that could one day impact thousands and millions of people.

Let’s shift over the book because I love how you mentioned that rocket fuel. That was originally how I found you, as the book, and it was out there and maybe some of the grant stuff. I was like, “Who is this man?” I was immediately like a magnet like there’s something there I want to see what’s happening. I’ll give you that as there’s a magnetic piece to what you’re sharing. Let’s talk about writing the book, Rocket Fuel. Why did you do it? What’s the story within Rocket Fuel? What would they get out of that?

My stepfather, George, that I mentioned, took over from being my father when I was 11. He was a good man and passionate. He sits in a party somewhere, gathering, and he’d sit on the couch and be quiet. If you started talking about things he was passionate about like hunting, fishing, baseball, football, he would jump off the couch, get in your face, all excited. Some people would be thrown back by his passion and his deep voice, but he was a good man. He taught me right from wrong. Do good things, and good things happen, do bad, and bad things happen. These little simple things of how you can live your life to avoid chaos and confusion. He did a great job with that growing up.

When January 2019 came around, he was hunting, came out of the woods, and passed away from a heart attack. There’s a story in the book about that. I go into detail because it was crazy how I found out and all that, but I wasn’t ready for him to pass. As a mentor, he was great, not in finances but in everything else, he was a great man. I went through about two weeks after that. I journaled a lot. I’m thinking to myself, “It’s not ready.” All of a sudden, this thing came into me, this energy, this passion. I can’t describe it any other way that it was his soul or spirit. Something came into me that I did not have before.

All of a sudden, I had all this energy and passion for making a difference and start sharing my story. I wrote it in the journal and in the book as well. I was like, “I found out this power. This passion in the world better look out now. It’s on now.” I get chills thinking about it. I went to the Growth Con, the first time ever. My brother was reading The 10X Rule, and my younger brother said, “Mike, you’ve got to read this book. This guy sounds like you.” For years, I was caged in. I ran a mortgage division. We did a great job. We had seven branches, but I was bringing people in that were producers, but they were not culture people.

They were not team people. They were me people. I was bringing them into this small mortgage company chasing production. “We got production, yes,” but every day I would go home and be miserable. I’d have to deal with attitudes. I’d have to deal with people not doing their job right on the front end of the loan, and then there will be a nightmare and a rush in everybody on the backend. It was a mess, which was my fault, not their fault. What happened from there is I got caged up after a while because I knew the right thing, but I was afraid to lose the production. If you’ve been there before, maybe earlier in your career, and you’re like, “You’ve got to weigh the options.”

I caged myself up and felt like I can’t hold people accountable. I can’t do the things I want. I can’t be hard on people because they leave. Over the years, I got into this cocoon. When I read The 10X Rule, my brother gave it to me, I’m like, “This guy is talking to me.” Everybody resonates with Grant in some way or the other. It gave me validation to unleash the animal, unleash the beast. I knew that I was doing the right things. Now I can do it because I have a book to refer back to. It’s like, “This guy is doing it. Look at his success.” I went to the Growth Con. I was sitting in the middle of the field next to the pitcher’s mound.

There are 34,000 people there. A guy named Pete Vargas comes up on stage. Pete hadn’t spoken in front of many big audiences by that point, and this is the biggest audience he ever spoke in front of. I saw this fear in his eyes. Nobody knew who he was. All the other people were celebrities and Pete’s on the stage. He was sweating. He did a phenomenal job. His story is fantastic. He did a great job. You could tell. He admitted to this day that he was scared to death. I noticed that, and I’m watching. His story about him and his father connected with me. I’m sitting there, and everybody else disappears. It’s me and Pete. I’m like, “I have a story like this. Pete is doing it. He’s scared to death and sweating. I can do this.”

That hit me. I told the guys I was with after that day at the event, I’m like, “I’m going to do this. I can do this.” I was already coaching realtors. I was going in, speaking in front of realtors, and helping them market their business and mindset, but I’m like, “That’s not a big enough game for me.” When you’re doing something in life, and you’re growing about it, but it doesn’t feel quite right, something’s telling you, and something’s pulling you, you’ve got to pay attention to that. For me, I was playing way too small of a game. I had some potential inside of me that I wasn’t given credit to.

When you're doing something in life, but it doesn't feel quite right, you have to pay attention to that. Click To Tweet

I ended up winning some money playing golf in Ocean City, Maryland. We played golf for money. I did well. I took it and put it into a seminar with Pete at 10X headquarters. I went down there. I met Jarrod Glandt and connected with a bunch of people. I learned how to speak from the stage, share your story, connect with people’s hearts. From there, I was like, “I’ve got to get on a podcast. How do you do podcasts?” I didn’t know. I thought it was difficult radio, this and that. This kid was there. His name was Chris Donaldson and he said, “Why don’t you come on my podcast? I’d love to have you.” I said, “I’ve never done it before.” He’s like, “You’ll be great.”

I got on there when I got back from Miami, and I was like, “This is what a podcast is? This is the greatest thing ever. I love this. I can do this.” From there, it started. I realized that people don’t share their stories because they’re embarrassed by it. This is all for me. They think it’s ordinary. Nobody cares. The other thing and the most important one, they underestimate the power of their story to inspire hundreds of millions of people. That’s where the podcast got started because I wanted to share my story and then also allow people to come on, have a platform where they could share their story and I could connect with super successful people that way as well. It took off, that happened. I’m thinking, “I’ve got to write a book.” That’s why I started journaling. If you dealt with this with your book or you will when they write the book that’s going to be your book, instead of the podcast part, I felt like, “Why would anybody want to read this?” You get this negative voice in your head, and you’ve got to beat it up because it’s all garbage. It’s all fake. People want to hear people’s stories.

How cool is that, Pete? One person inspires you to then go inspire hundreds of thousands, millions of people now. I love how you say that because that’s something a lot of us have dealt with, and we’re honest about it. I went through everything you’re sharing there. It’s one of those surreal moments. I’m like, “I’m with you. I was there.” I was there starting the podcast. I remember, there were a couple of people I’d followed, and I was like, “They’re doing it. That’s cool.” I went on and put my toe in the water. I was a guest on a few podcasts. I’m like, “I want to interview some cool people. I know some cool people. They’ve got great stories.” You get into it, but there is that voice inside your head.

If you’re somebody reading and you’d be like, “I have this desire to do it.” There are a lot of people like Mike, like myself, that will help you, inspire you, and give you some tools to get you there, but that would have been such a tragedy had you not stepped forward. I think about some of the feedback we get. Had I not stepped forward out of my own selfishness or limiting beliefs and done it, I wouldn’t make an impact, which then leads you to your book. How much have you grown as you look back, from when you started that to now? Did you feel like it was this exponential growth by getting in podcasting, doing the book and finding out your story, learning how to communicate that?

What Grant does is a great job. I’ve immersed myself in his content. I went head first, and no life preserver or nothing. What it did was accelerate everything. I get so much done in a day. It’s amazing. It’s all because we lie to ourselves and say we don’t have time. The question was exponential. First of all, the impact Pete has. They still don’t understand. I’ve told him. Grant doesn’t even understand yet. They’ve unleashed an animal. That’s going to share their message. I’m going to continue to give them credit because even though I have my own content, I’m a loyal person to the point where somebody helps me, I’ll never forget that. I’m going to share that with people so that they know, and it’s exponential what they do, the impact that they have.

I have several coaches in different areas of my life. I was talking to one of my coaches, and she always starts the call with, “Over the last two weeks, what have you gotten into?” I’m like, “Not much.” Then I start listing it off to her and then it goes on for fifteen minutes, and it’s like new stuff. I’m like, “I didn’t even realize I accomplished that this week or the last two weeks.” What this stuff has happened in the podcast, the book, our mortgage division is growing like crazy. The other thing is that I DM people like crazy. I don’t remember how we got connected, whether it was LinkedIn or DMs or what it was exactly, but not only connecting with people like yourself.

I got connected with a guy named Jared Yellin. Him and I are now partners in a tech company. We’re 60 days from the launch of an MDP product that’s going to disrupt the entrepreneurial personal development space. There’s nothing like it out there. It’s called Blueprint. It’s a couple billion to $3 billion product at the end of the day. There’s no doubt about it in my mind. It all came from me saying yes to go into Growth Con, read The 10X Rule, and go on about everything that goes on along with that. It’s a phenomenal thing. It’s going to be a great story.

 

I will tell you about the book in the Bible about Noah. For those of you who don’t know the Bible story, you might have seen the movie about Noah building the Ark. I’m not saying I’m Noah by any means, but when Noah was told and had an inclination or was told by God to build this ark, all the steps that it took. It took 100 years, and there was never any rain in this area, but he was told to build this ark. It was like five football fields long, 500 yards long. He didn’t understand exactly why he was doing it. Every day, subconsciously, I’m trying to tell myself, “Why am I doing these things? It’s because I want to make an impact. It’s because of this and that. I want to get attention for our mortgage business and grow that. I want to sell books.”

At the end of the day, you don’t know the big picture, what I call the omni focus vision. We’re all individually focused instead of omni focus. You don’t know a lot of times until you get down the road in the journey and you look back, and you’re like, “I’m glad I said yes to that. This is crazy. Now I have a story to tell. All this stuff has been leading up to this. All the connections I’ve been making are to feed this app that we’re developing.” This isn’t all about the things I’m doing. I’m doing this as a role model. I want to impact people and show them, “You can do it as an ordinary man or girl.” Anybody can do this stuff if you say yes to things and commit.

One of my mentors shared with me one time, “You can’t see the picture when you’re inside the frame.” I thought about that. I was like, “Picture frame?” He’s like, “You’re not seeing it. You’re in it. It’s normal for you. Some people will see that.” We were going through that with the book release like, “How do you find time to do this and do that?” I was like, “I’ve surrounded myself with people.” That’s something I want to get in with you here is, I’ve surrounded myself with people that have challenged me to think bigger, but they’ve also shown me some areas where I was wasting time. Maybe I could delegate this, maybe I can upskill in an area.

What would take me 2 hours could take me 1 hour or 30 minutes. I would get better at things. We minimize that. I’d love to hear in your growth of like, “There have been times I look back and I’m like, ‘I didn’t recognize it.’ Now I look back and it’s like, ‘I’ve become better at this.’” Not only will it generate more revenue or it’ll expand my network, whatever the goal is, but you’re saving time to go do other things.” It’s all lining up, it’s there. If you found that in your growth, it seems like that was a catalyst you got around. Some people that are thinking bigger, you go to a conference, now you’re connected with these people. Was that what you think is one of the main catalysts in the last few years to say, “Mike, you’re playing too small. You’ve got to go big.” Is it that association?

It’s simply that like, “What game are you playing? You’re playing too small. You’re comfortable. You’re complacent.” That’s my kryptonite. My superpower is being stubborn, and that’s a good thing. It’s on the right thing. My weakness is comfortable, complacency, boredom. I had to get coaches. Richie Dolan is one of my coaches that I work with. He coaches the Lakers and LeBron James. He works with the Heat and built a lot of brands. I work with Richie. He said, “You’re just not playing a big enough game. You’re celebrating the little wins.” That made me think and I’m like, “I can do whatever I want.” I started thinking about the fact that we were all put here by our Creator that is all-powerful.

To me, it’s naive to think that we’re limited in anything that we want to accomplish because we were put here by an all-powerful God. Whatever your beliefs are, I don’t apologize ever for my beliefs. I know for a fact what the deal is. It’s 100% faith that I can accomplish whatever I want to. That’s what I started thinking. When you want to do something big, a lot of times you get scared, you get insecure. The best thing to do is, one, pick one thing and start with the one thing, and chip away at it. The other thing is in your insecurities, it means you don’t know something. The solution for insecurity is to learn whatever you’re insecure about. I figured these things out. Now, the unstoppable feeling that I have and that I can transfer to other people is amazing.

As far as time goes, I have people that do things as far as the mortgage business. I have people in my leadership team that I know run the day-to-day operations of the mortgage thing. I work on the business, not in the business. I started feeling guilty when I first started that like, “I’m used to working in the business, and now these guys are doing it. I should be in there more.” That’s not the way you run a business. Now they handle the day-to-day operations. I work on it with them, and then I have freed up time to do the other things that I want to do. They’re all supporting me in doing that because it helps them as well.

That’s the separator I see and we’re starting to see it. Maybe it was the catalyst of 2020. We’re home more and we have time to reflect. We’ve cut out some things. We’re dealing with stress and a lot of different things happening, but I’ve realized some people have started to play big. I love your story because it’s one where there are a lot of things you’re building, but one thing I noticed you’re building throughout this is your personal brand.

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I know some people reading love to know the story, because you even mentioned it that they start to think, “Maybe it’s not for me. Nobody wants to hear my story. I’m not a brand, this, that and the other.” You and I both lean into this very hard, they know you, and then they know the company you work for and the things that you do, but they know your brand. What would be some tips you would give people that are starting to play in that space, or maybe a little bit in there on building their brand? I see you leaning into this quite a bit, you’re getting out there, and I think it’s helped rocket fuel your success there.

I understand big companies want to make sure that their people are branding their company and what have you. I learned my lesson. I worked for a small mortgage company. When I first got into the business, I didn’t know what the heck I was doing. I didn’t have a mentor. We went and the action that hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard. We worked our tails off and we did well, but the thing is that I branded and promoted the company name over myself. I heard people before. I see the other people that were promoting themselves, and I didn’t wrap my head around it. I didn’t understand it. That company ended up that we had issues. Here I’ve spent all that time, money and effort branding this company that I didn’t own.

I vowed and never to make that mistake again. The other thing is I love the mortgage industry. I hate aspects of it. It’s what pays the bills, but I don’t ever want to be a prisoner to anyone or anything. I want to be able to create my own economy. I’ve taken 100% responsibility for this. It’s my duty and job now to make myself in a position where I’m not a prisoner. That’s very important to me. I felt like I’d been a prisoner. I’m sure you felt this in the past where rates drop, rates go up, the values go down. Licensing happened in 2008. That whole thing that happened. I’m never going to ever put myself in a position again. If that happens, then I’m going to be struggling, or my family is going to be in jeopardy.

In 2008, all of us went through that. That was the wake-up call. That was the first big one in my career because I’d started in 2001. Things were good through that. For the next few years, it was desert land. We were trying to figure this out, where to go. I think those are the lessons and experiences we take forward. As you look back, what are some of the biggest lessons in the last few years that you wish you would have known? You look back, and you would tell someone else on their journey. What’s one of those big lessons that you’ve taken away?

When we went to this new platform with the company where I am now, we’ve focused on culture first. I didn’t know this before, or I did, and I was too scared. I wasn’t a good enough leader because I was worried about the production leader. I got to the point where, when we started this and when we moved, it was 22 of us that I took with us to the new company. I said, “Here’s how we’re going to do this. We’re going to focus on culture first. This is our foundation. Anybody that has any issues with it, you can work somewhere else, and that’s fine. I’ll help you find another job, but this is how we’re going to do it.”

I’m going to make sure that we looked at their personal, professional financial goals, and we lined that with our vision. If there were any conflicts, we settled it. If they weren’t on board, they had to go. I don’t care how much production they did. I don’t care. I had to be okay, going by myself, going back to be even a loan officer, by the way. If I had to do that, I would do it and feel confident that I could add one person at a time and build again the right way. I did that.

Out of the 22, we had 5 leave, but I had to have that confidence to say that, “I’m okay doing it this way by myself if I have to. This is how we’re going to do it. I know this is a successful blueprint. I know this is the way to do it. If you’re on board, you’re on board. If you’re not, tell me now. Lay them all down.” I didn’t ever do that before because when I did it, I was afraid people would leave. I didn’t have the confidence to go out and find more people or do it myself. Even though I did it, I didn’t feel it in my mind. That’s a lesson.

 

That happened to me several years ago, and I was one of those. You all can look back, but that is such a valuable lesson. All of us are younger in our careers or the experience level of not protecting the culture and the team first. That’s a recipe. If you look at any great sports teams, the chemistry, and all that matters, and that was the light bulb moment for me too. I was like, “It’s no different than sports teams you grew up on. Some of the teams on paper were not as talented or physically gifted, but yet why did you win championships? The chemistry and the culture mattered.” I think about that. A question for you as you look forward. I know you’re a guy and you think big. I want to challenge some people to think bigger. What’s something maybe you shared or not shared that’s like a 2030 version of Mike? Where are you? What does it look like? What’s something that maybe you couldn’t even put your eyes on yet? It’s a massive vision and goal or dream that you want to try to accomplish.

2030 is a long way also. We have exited a tech product company by then for billions. I’ll be able to do whatever I want to impact people. I’ll have the ability and resources to go. My thing is, how can I reach more people? I need to figure out a way to reach hundreds of millions of people. There’s got to be a way to do it. How is that way? That will give me the resources and finances to do that, but I’m not going to stop there. I want to do another tech product and continue to grow the mortgage side of things as well because that part to me is easy. That’s not something that’s a challenge. That’s going to be the case. Grant is going to be getting older, and there are a lot of people out there that are speakers and teachers, but there are going to be some big shoes to fill. I’m up for that challenge.

You’re built for it. I love what you were sharing. I believe this wholeheartedly, God has gifted each of us with unique gifts, talents, and experiences that it’s robbing other people. If we don’t give those back, we were given those gifts to give to other people. Not to hold them and to keep them for ourselves. I love how you’re sharing that out there. What would you say to people reading this and they’re like, “That’s cool, Mike did it, but I don’t know? That’s not for me. I don’t know if I could do it there?” Some things you would say to them to get over those limiting beliefs that they have holding them back.

First of all, we always have to figure out what it is that we want to do. If you ask people this question in a perfect world, “If you could have anything you wanted,” don’t say money because what’s the money going to get you? “What is it? How do you want to live your life? Who do you want to live it with? Where do you want to be? What do you want to be doing?” Get clear on that. In a perfect world, you found a genie lamp, you rubbed that lamp and the genie popped out, and gave you anything you wanted, what is it? Ninety-five percent of people don’t know the answer to that question. That’s the first place to start. Nothing else matters if you can’t get that right.

Once you get that and visualize it, I like to sit on a couch a lot, not watch TV, but relax and breathe. I close my eyes and visualize things as granular detail as possible. The color, the texture of things. I’ve got it in my brain because it starts to become real at that point. I commit to that. I’m a burn ships kind of guy. I’ve done it several times in my life. I’m crazy for doing it. That’s okay because I get crazy results by doing it, but I fully commit. From there, it’s very simple. When I talked about George, my stepfather, and the things he taught me to keep it simple, I filter everything in my life through that vision. It’s no limitations, whatever I want. From there, it’s thoughts, words, actions, attitude.

Are they going towards that ideal life or away from it? It’s very simple. You don’t have to overcomplicate it. When you start doing that, you start seeing things. Your eyes open up to all different kinds of opportunities. The problem is most people aren’t willing to take the time to do it. They don’t believe it because they don’t do it. If you don’t do it, you’re not going to see it, so you’re not going to believe it. You’ve got to believe first. That’s the basics of it. That’s what changed everything for me.

You had me thinking back. As I grew up, my dad was a psychologist and was a pastor as well. He still counsels some of the most mentally ill but also helps out pastors where they don’t have places to go. I remember he was teaching me in high school, visualizing the soccer game. I was like, “I have no idea what this is.” It still comes into play. I love that you share that. That would be something I would encourage people with is to put that in place and have some people meditate, and they do things. There’s a little overlap with some of that. The visualization in business, life and everything, what you described, to your point, if you can’t describe it, you can’t visualize it and see it, it’s hard to get it.

I do little stick figure drawings. I want to be a speaker. In 2017, I got this thing in my head like, “I’ve got to speak. I’ve got to get a message out to people.” I don’t know what it is. I’m getting this inclination, I’ve got to speak. I started doing this thing where I would take a piece of paper. Some people whiteboard it, and that’s fine. You can do it either way. I drew myself a stick figure. I didn’t have to draw hair because I’m bald anyway. It was around the head. I drew myself on a stage, and then I drew the stage and a bunch of little circles for people’s heads in the audience. I kept drawing it and then put it all out.

It looked like a man standing on a stage, and there’s a bunch of stick figures in the audience. I drew some words and things like, “What am I talking about?” I started to think about it and visualize it. It works for me. When I wanted my wife, this is something I did way back in the day. I’ve been married many years now, but I imagined what I wanted in a woman. You’re not going to find what you want until you figure out what you want. I visualized the type of woman, what I wanted her parents to be like, how I wanted her to treat me, how I wanted to treat her. When I came home from work one day, and she was sitting in my house on my couch, it was like somebody came and delivered her. My friend had a girlfriend, and he was renting a room off of me. I said, “You cannot bring that young lady over here unless she brings some friends.” He did it a couple of times. He brought some girls there and we didn’t connect. When I saw my wife, Jennifer, I knew it because I had already done the work. She didn’t know it.

Sometimes we overlook things and we overcomplicate things in life that were not meant to be complicated and how you’ve been able to simplify that. You’re running at such a high level, and it’s a different frequency. I tell people, “The energy you get when you’re in your zone, and you know you’re doing what you’re supposed to do gives you more energy. If you’re not feeling that now, chances are there’s something that’s out of alignment.” That’s where I love how you’re providing not only coaching and inspiration, motivation, and things there, but actual tools and steps that you can go and take action in your life. That’s what I love about the show is getting to bring on great people like you. I can tell with your energy.

I was excited for this one because I knew you would bring not only the things that I’ve seen, and you can get in the videos. You can’t fake energy. You can’t fake people. It’s the confidence that inspires you to do you, not confidence that you go, “It’s all about them.” You’re living that. I want to affirm what you’re doing and what God has gifted you with. You’ve got big things ahead. This is exciting to bring you on and share. Where can people follow along in your journey? I know readers are going to be like, “I need to follow that man.”

Instagram is usually the best way. I’m all everywhere. Omnipresence is the key. I’m on every platform, but I love Instagram for some reason. The DMs to me are easier to work through and LinkedIn as well. If you want the book, go to MikeCRoc.com/book and you can get a copy of my book. I want to give something like a freeway to your audience if that’s okay. If you DM me now on Instagram or LinkedIn, whichever one is easiest for you, I’ll make it easy for you. Time Management, I have a course that I did. I’ll give it to you for free. It’s all about getting your time back because you mentioned that at the beginning of the show, “How do you accomplish so much, run a mortgage, can do this, this and this?” You know what it’s like to write a book. You have to have some kind of strategy and intention. I have that for all of your audience for free if you DM me Time Management.

I am following along. We’re going to be cheering for you and supporting your journey. I believe in that abundance mentality of you surround yourself with other people doing big things. To your point, you find yourself in situations where opportunities are created, not because we sat on the sideline. We got in the game. I would invite everybody, get in the game, stop warming up on the sidelines thinking about what could be. This has been all about giving you tools and inspiration. I love this tool that Mike’s giving you on time management. Make sure to DM him. Let me know if there’s anything I can do. We love when you give us feedback, like and subscribe the show.

My book came out. It is humbling, to say the least, when you put something out and you put yourself out there, there’s a collaboration with some amazing people, but my chapter was from my heart and some things I wanted to share. I’ll go back to what I said, I believe God has gifted us all with unique gifts and things that we need to give back and make the world a better place. He’s counting on us. We’re counting on each other to make the world a better place and live your best life. Do that. Take something you learned and apply it. Make sure that you know we are here for the journey with you. Thank you, guys. Mike, you are crushing it.

Thank you, I appreciate you.

I appreciate you. We’ll catch you on the next episode.

Important Links: 

• Mike “C-Roc” Ciorrocco
• Rocket Fuel
• The 10X Rule
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About Mike ‘C-Roc’ Ciorrocco