How To Turn Your Set Back Into Your Set Up! Feat.C-Roc

Welcome to the script Authentic Leadership Podcast, a podcast we are seeking to lead change while also seeking to understand. We are also here as a platform for leaders to come together to unite, to develop in the power, other leaders and the areas of business, family and community. I'm your host, Lafayette Lane job with my co-host John LeBron. Today we are joined by our special guest, Mike Ciroc Sirocco, who has joined us to have amazing conversation of how to turn your set back into a set up. Put those hands together, put those coffee memos in the comments section. Just a little bit about Mike Ciroc Roc. He is the co-founder of the innovative tech platform blueprint. He is the powerhouse behind the what are you made of podcasts? And the selling author, a rocket fuel convert, setbacks become unstoppable. He is also a performance coach, author, dynamic public speaker, tech, visionary and thought leader. He has been featured by Yahoo! Finance as one of the top business leaders to follow in 2020 and is on a mission to build unstoppable people. He is consumed with the passion to help people break free from the confines of complacency and propel to untapped levels of success. And today he has joined us right here on the Unscripted Authentic Leadership podcast. Craig, thanks for coming on. Thank you guys for having me. And I want to thank your audience, too. For showing up, because it means the world to me that that people are willing to just listen to me talk, man. And I'm very honored to have the opportunity, man. And thank you guys. Absolutely. Let's get right into the conversation. See, Rog, you have an amazing show. I love your your whole model. You always start out with asking your guests, what are you made of? But I want to kind of get into your backstory to see where where you all started from you and how you got into the tech space, how you got into the podcast speaking space and just kind of a giant in the industry now. How did that all start? Well, you know, I I'm thankful for that that, you know, that view that you have. I feel like I'm just getting started still, man. And I came from a broken home growing up. You know, I don't remember my parents ever together. You know, I did the every other weekend thing when, you know, with the custody things dealt with custody battles, child support battles. And then you had stepparents and in the mix and you know, growing up and there was a lot of kids, there was eight total kids throughout all the marriages and all that. And there was a lot of conflict growing up and there was a lot of brokenness you know, a lot of drug addicts, alcoholics, mental mental issues, suicide. My grandmother committed suicide when I was like 17 or 18. And being around all that as a kid and growing up, I just was never okay with with that being the case. Like, I was never okay with life had to be that way. And I also noticed that everybody had a story that they were telling I'm an alcoholic because my parents this and that or, you know, I have anxiety because my, you know, my, my, my childhood, like it was all a bunch of bullshit bull crap. Sorry. And I just thought this is like not fitting in my, my reality. So I would call people out on it. I would tell them, you know what? That's that's not true. It's not true. Like you, you're telling a story that's shaping your future and that's what you're getting. And then a lot of them wouldn't want to be around me anymore. Family members, because I was being courageous and saying that to them. But it's a good thing in a way, because when people are like that and they're taking these stories and they're buying into them and they're shaping their future, it's contagious. And it's good that people aren't around you that are like that. So eventually I just I started seeing these things happen. And I also realized that if I was going to call people out on telling themselves the story to be failures I wanted to start telling myself a story of why I was going to be successful. And I had a I had to honor that for myself. And so I continue to do that. And so ever since I was a little kid, I've always been this people builder. And the spark was really lit, though. When I moved to my dad's house when I was about eight, I moved in with him and my mom was moved in under a third marriage so I did want to move into another man's house and learn another man's rules. And I'm trying my dad's house, who was moving on to his second marriage, my stepmother and you know, I thought it was be a good move. And it turned out not to be the greatest because my stepmom had issues with my mom. She had issues with my dad's side of the family, and all that stuff started pouring down on me. And it was an abusive situation. And I decided to tell my mom about what was going on at one point because I realized it wasn't ordinary after living in an or thinking. It was ordinary for so long. And eventually my mom filed court papers and my dad got serve those court papers and that spark was lit right after this moment because my dad, by the way, was my hero. He had a masonry business like the bricks back here laid brick and block and poured concrete And I looked up to my dad for his heart of worker. He was at his big, giant forearms and rough hands. You could tell like he was a hard worker. And he used to carry $100 bills in his pocket with a rubber band around it. And he used to show us the money all the time. And I thought that was the coolest thing. But when he got serve these papers he when he confronted me about the fact that I wanted to move, he didn't have the same reality of what was going on or he was kind of in denial. And I told him that I didn't really want to discuss the situation. I made my mind up. And so he took that $100 bills out that he always carried around and showed off and peeled one off and crumpled up and threw it at me. So here you're going to need this then when you're living on the streets with your mother one day. And about the time I was about ten years old at that moment, first thing I thought is, Oh, no, what did I do? You know, in our lives, when we make a decision sometimes that we need to change or get a different environment change our condition, a lot of times we get scared, you know, you're like, Oh my goodness, because it's so uncomfortable. So that's the first thought that went through my head. The second thought was, you know, I'm not going to need that money. I'll show you. So it's lit a spark that, like, fueled me for 30 some years. I can use that moment over and over again when things got tough, like, I'm not going to need any. And luckily that money actually, I could do this. I got this, and I can't let him win. So growing up, that's kind of what I grew up in. And then from there, I just used fuel anything I could ever use, discouragement, let down setbacks, any of that stuff. I used to store to my tank instead of my trunk where most people keep it. Most people keep their toxicity in their trunk and it weighs them down and slows them down. I was always able to become unstoppable because I would stored it in my fuel tank and I was always able to move faster and advanced further than most people because I did that. So that's a little bit about my background to to answer your question, Go ahead. I love that that whole everything that you just said, especially the part about having the power and taken the power back over your own story, I think that is so important because like you said, people allow their circumstances, their setbacks to define them. But you used it as fuel. Can can you unlock that a little more about the trunk versus the tank? Because I think that's so good. You said that once you pack it in the trunk, instead of put it in the tank. Yeah. Figured out this formula that you can become unstoppable by removing everything that would stop you or slow you down and using it and converted it into a fuel. And of course, my name's Rock, so I figured rocket fuel. And so that's why I decided to write the book. It tells the story of my life and my mentorship as I've gotten into the business world and developed into where I am today. And that concept of what allowed me to propel myself and become unstoppable now. There is a point in life where you get your personal development, you get your wisdom up and your knowledge, and you get past a certain point of demarcation, line of demarcation, where that same toxic toxicity, that toxic fuel doesn't work as much anymore. It only takes you so far. Then you have to figure out, Okay, what can I use? Where's that higher octane fuel? The higher octane fuel comes from your belief system being blown like out of the water, your lids blown off, and you can see so much more into the future and you have bigger goals and dreams and those bigger goals and dreams that you believe you can attain now become your fuel. And it's such a higher octane fuel that you still have to use the old stuff until you get to that point, which is good. But when you get to that, that level you start, you need to start using those those does pull forwards and that's that's the things that you put out in front of you and your future. And it works really good well you said something early on that you were the one who would tell your family like we we're not using excuses and those types of things, it would make them mad. Does that sound about right? Yep. About, about your circumstances. And they would get mad because I've been here and they would say I've been this is my reason for failing this is why I've, you know, have alcohol problems and my parents through this way and so forth. And we've all had circumstances, certainly some much harder than others like yours were definitely harder than mine and so forth. I have seen a quote once that said, when someone takes the stand, it stiffens the spines of others, meaning you standing up made them uncomfortable, but telling them the truth and saying, this is how we move forward. Actually makes people least at least stand up straight. Whether it makes them stronger or not, I don't know. But unless they stiffens their spine, when you take a stand and say, the buck stops here, we're moving forward, there's no excuses for me. What's what do you how do you get past that? How do you get that mentality for not letting circumstances and excuses dictate your future? You say, excuse me. I think I think that my mom conditioned me at a young age because I had a feeling she knew what kind of family I was being born into with all the issues. And I think subconsciously, she started to build me as a as a leader at a young age. 34 years old. I remember her, used to tell me, used to say to me, you know, you're going to be an inspiration. You inspire me so much, you're going to be a leader. And I think that that programing put me into a position where I needed it. I realized that, wait a minute, people are going to rely on me. And just because the people are older than me and and, you know, my grandparent to my uncles or whatever. The fact of the matter is, is that I am a person that's going to like set the tone. And I don't know where, like, other than that. I think that also that, you know, I understood that courage. Courage is important. And it took a lot of courage to do this. But I think the opposite of courage is conforming and just going along with the flow. Most family members would just go along with the flow because, oh, that's just Uncle Bob or that's not really the name of anybody, by the way. But that's just uncle Uncle Bill or he's just like that. He's just a drunk uncle or he's just the one that doesn't show up. You can't count on him. And they they just they deal with it. And then when the guy shows up, he shows up to me, I'll be like, Look, you show up to the house when we invite you and you say you're going to be there. If you don't, I'm not going to you anymore. And I don't want you hanging around my kids because I don't want my kids being around somebody that's not able to be counted upon. It's a bad example. It's a bad role model. And I think it really comes down to a couple of things. One, low tolerance equals high performance high tolerance equals slow performance and being non-negotiable with your standards that you've set. And so at a young age, I just had that. I had that mode. Now, I'm not saying I'm perfect because there's times where I need a kick in the pants, too. And I had, you know, that guy that I didn't want to move into his house. My mom's third husband, George, I ended up moving back in there when I was 11 years old. And thank God I did, because George was the one that give me a kick in the pants. Not literally. He was never physical, but he was very hard, man. He lets you know about it. Right was right and wrong was wrong and and do good things. Good things happen. Bad things, bad things happen. And so, you know, a man I don't know except for the fact that I just know what I want and I want to create the environment instead of the environment creating me. And I've always been like that. And I think that's important because we're either the puppet or the puppet master man. That's our choice. Yes. It's like the like the old example with a B, a thermostat or a thermometer right over there. Yeah. Yeah. You're either just dictating or you're either setting the temperature in the room or you are simply just becoming what? The temperature has already been set. You are reading as a reading. The temperature like the thermometer test. So how did you get started then and in your coaching and so forth? When did that start? I think it started the young age, too. I've always been a people builder because I would work with my grandmother all the time because she'd always have issues and I'd always have a talk with her. And I had to go off to college at one point, and when I came back, that's when she ended up committing suicide. And I don't have regrets and I don't feel guilty about it because I, you know, I have to live my life too. But I always thought that I was a help with her in her life. So at a young age, I just noticed that. And I would help guide my family members a lot of times. And so with that experience and confidence with it, I felt like I could help other people. So any business that I've ever gotten into, I've always been a more of a people builder than actually like a manager or boss or any of that stuff. I was just like, How can I elevate people that are around me? Because you see, when you elevate people around you and you have an intention to help and better people around you, a better you right? And it creates your environment. If you're not trying to elevate people and help people and serve people, you're around more people that that aren't as good as they could be. They're not reaching for their potential. Right? And you're creating an environment that's not as a as powerful, you know, and conducive to success. So to me, I look at it as if I have people around me. I'm going to do everything I can to help them elevate them because it's going to make my environment better for all and so yeah. So that's how well then then as far as coaching and all that goes, I've been in the mortgage business and real estate space for almost 20 years and I've been working with my people and about three years ago I decided to start playing a bigger game and getting out there and not just do it with my own group, but really expand out to the world. And I started thinking of myself, you know, it would be great to get known, you know, I was trying to get known in my local market, right? Which is so small thinking I had to get known in the local market, be the person here for mortgages and home loans and real estate. And then I started thinking to myself, Why am I just shooting for this such small little town? Like, what am I doing? What if I was known all over the East Coast? Then I started thinking, Well, well, if I go that big, I might as well go for the whole country. Like, let's get known nationally and be a speaker and coach and help people and then I started to think of bigger than that global, and that was even big enough. Then I was like, Look, if there's aliens, let me get known by aliens. So like, really expanding our mind. God gave us such ability that we have no clue what we're capable of. We really don't. It'd be naive to think that we're put on this earth to only achieve what we have achieved so far. And look at the advancements of human beings over the last ten years, five years. You know, I didn't have there was no cell phones when I was a kid. We'd have computers or Internet. I mean, it's hard to even imagine now how far we've come since I was a kid. And so I just believe that, you know, the God that put us on this planet and created us has given us abilities that that we need to really, really take advantage of and use or we're we're not doing a you know, it's almost a slap in the face to our creator. You know, guys, unless I'm reading a devotion, we see if I can find it because I want to show this is important. I don't know who did this devotional but it's a 14 day devotional. And I read this every day and I have the Bible app. You guys familiar with the Bible app? I'm not promoting the Bible up right now, but absolutely. Yeah, we love it. So. So I use the Bible app and then I'll search for things that are going on in my mind right now. And one of the things I was thinking about was the topic I search for was using everything that you've been given. Right? And the pound for pound principle devotional is a really good one. It's a 14 day one. And I looked it up in every day. It's talking about using everything you've been getting, you know, and being efficient with it and taking it for all that's worth and, and sharing it with other people. And so that's what it reminded me of when I was just talking about that. You were talking a second ago about expectations even for yourself. You know, you started with the mindset of expecting, well, if I could just get known locally, that's okay. But then you raised your expectations to the community, to the local, to the national and to the globe one that you said even the celestial, the terrestrial level T and I wanted to go there because I saw a post that you made in your hashtag was Inspect what you expect, inspect what you expect. You talked about inspecting past decisions and current beliefs, making sure they're pointing in the right direction for your life and for your future and your purpose. Can you unpack that about inspecting your expected oceans? Yeah. You see, everything you do throughout the day is based on decisions you've made in the past. And generally the decisions followed a failure so if you think about this for a second, you try something, you fail. And then what happens, right? Then what's the first thing you do? Wonder why you failed yeah. And you justify it. Yeah. You come up with some reason to make yourself be able to live with that failure to to make sense of it, because we have to make sense of our failure right? And when you do that, you make a decision at that moment, that decision, and the combination of all the decisions you make after failures determine your future and will determine the actions you take, the thought you have the words to come out of your mouth and even to the point where the environment that you keep is determined by the decisions you've made after a failure. And so the problem with this and I was hanging out in a mastermind with John Maxwell Brandon Dawson's master, Michael weeks ago, and John Maxwell talked about the most dangerous thing is a good excuse or a good story. So you you have a you have a failure. Let's say you have your late to work, you're late to the office or meeting because of an accident and the accident. You're driving down the road and somebody runs a red light hits you and it causes you to be late to the meeting or missed the meeting. Now, you explain that to everyone and you even show them the police report and the fact that you had to go to the hospital and cut on your head and all this, and you showed that to them and said, hey, listen, I missed the meeting and I apologize. I got in an accident. It wasn't even my fault. And here's the thing. Most people will be like, oh, man, I hope you're okay. Thanks. Thanks for sharing that with me, man. I'm so sorry you had to deal with that. Your problems will reschedule and they and they accept your story right your excuse, the better the excuse, the more dangerous. Because when somebody else buys that, then, you know, in your head. Okay, I failed to get to that meeting on time. I could have left earlier. I could have left later and missed that intersection when that person ran the red light. I'm in control, not that person. I had something to do with that. Even though they ran the red light, I could have left one or 2 minutes earlier and made all the difference in the world. Right. Understanding that gives you control but when you have that excuse and you use that excuse and that's a really darn good excuse, it's dangerous because going forward, any meeting that you miss, any time you're late, you know that that excuse works for people and you will continue to fail and use that. And that's how your life will go. So that's what I meant by that. You need to go back to decisions you made after failures, after things that didn't work out the way you expected and really watch the decisions and look and see if you can switch the decisions you made. Because the fact of the matter is just because you fail one time or have a setback, one time doesn't mean you're a failure and you can't accomplish what you set out to accomplish. Well, basically, sort of like the book Extreme Ownership, right? Everything you have to take ownership of it, otherwise you don't remain control of the circumstances. Yeah. To the degree you take responsibility, you take control. And I think some people think that means oh, you got in a car accident and yes, I can avoid it. Um, I don't know how to word it properly, but I think it's the principle of taking ownership over all circumstances, even though even if you live by extreme ownership, things are going to get in the way and happen. But it's the responsibility of taking ownership over every step. So instead, where can you be in extra have extreme ownership and still have been in a car accident and missed the meeting? Yes. But then the next time when you get there, it's, hey, guys, my fault I got in a car accident. It's my fault. It won't happen again. Here's, here's, here's go for it. Here's the bottom line. The story doesn't matter, correct? The story doesn't matter. It's the fact that you relate. You relate. It is what is. Yes, right. Here's the other thing. People are so keen on trying to figure out what the blame doesn't matter, man. With the blame. The blame. It doesn't matter. Yeah, it doesn't matter, man. They get that out of your head. Like blame doesn't matter. And most of the time, when you blame something, you're blaming the wrong target. You're right. You're blaming the wrong thing, so it doesn't matter. So if you can handle this and you can master this philosophy, it's powerful, man. You just wasted time coming up with the story exactly as an energy drink or you had said something. Where did I put that? It was again as an Instagram post I saw you had done and said, if you want to be happy and satisfied, you must determine your purpose and plan your routine. Since we are sort of talking about moving, setting up to move forward, how regimented do you keep your daily routines? I live by my calendar so you know, I have an outlook calendar and from when I get up until I when I go to bed, it's all planned out. And my wife said to me one time So I have to be programed into your calendar for you to do something. I'm like, Yeah, if you want me to get it done, if you want me to get it done and you want me to commit to it, I need to put it in the calendar to make sure it gets done, because I have to account for every moment of my day. And I haven't always been like this man, but it's changed my life to be in control of my life by being on a calendar now on the weekends doesn't work. I don't I don't do I don't play the calendar game unless there's something going on. We put it on there, but it's Monday through Friday. I know exactly what I'm doing. Every 15 minutes of every day. I have the same story. My wife says, So do I got to put it in there. Mike, we have a shared calendar and so does that in here doesn't it doesn't count. And so don't get mad if I double book something because I had no clue. Yeah. I mean, it's how do you value time? And also how much how much mental energy does it free up for you putting things into the calendar? I think most people don't understand that. I say, So what are you doing on Friday to see? I'm pretty sure I have this and this. I said, Do you consciously reap reward work your calendar in your brain every day to make sure you don't forget something next week because you that I honestly don't know what my calendar looks like next Friday. I just look at it. You know, Sunday I kind of look through the week and say, oh, I got these things going on. Yeah, but I'll tell you, I do tell you this, though. This helped me to once I got going, I start I didn't do that for a while. Where I wouldn't know it would be on my calendar and it's out of mind. But now lately what we've been doing is every the first of the month we look at the calendar for the whole month, my, my assistant and I get together and we spend about 15 minutes and we go through the whole calendar because also which you want to make sure of is that what's on your calendar are things that are going to be the most productive to go towards your targets. And if you have stuff on your calendar and you wait till that day to find out if it's really beneficial thing to have on your calendar at that moment, then you're too late. So what I do is I always look at the calendar month ahead and make sure that everything on it is going towards my targets and goals because, you know, look, our time is valuable and somebody asked me the other day like, Dude, you got to tech startups, you've got a mortgage company, you're trying to get into movies. Now, you coach, you have a podcast, you wrote a book how do you do all that? And you have two kids and you're married, how do you do all that? And I'm like, I don't know. I just I count for my time. I count for my time. Everybody has more time than they say they do. But I also I also buy time from people, man. I've got a lot of I got a big team. So, you know, I think it's all stems from that, though, man. Get in control of your life by using your calendar. You're talking about goals and setting expectations and deadlines and calendars. Can you speak to the importance of not leaving things unfinished? Yeah, getting caught up in the cycle of well, I have this on my calendar I had it on my reminders for the day, but I'll get to it tomorrow. I'll press that snooze button. Yeah. Chaos and confusion stem from open cycles. So what you're talking about right there is when you don't complete a cycle, if you start something and you don't close it, stop it. In other words, you have an incomplete cycle. In the more incomplete cycles you have, the more chaos and confusion there is. And it's impossible to be successful when there's chaos and confusion. And so completing cycles, like even leaving a room and shut the light off, flushing the toilet, putting the toilet seat down when you're at your house, picking something up off the floor that you might have dropped or left on the floor, making your bed when you wake up in the morning putting clothes away, doing your laundry and not leave it in in the washer and dryer. You know, all these little things that we do throughout our lives cause chaos and confusion. In our lives, in our brains even. And you just talked about this with regards to your account, using your calendar, you free up so much space and creativity and clarity when you complete cycles. So again, I'm not perfect at it, but when I know that I'm off and I feel like things aren't going as smoothly or I'm not as clear, I always looked at what cycles are undone. What can I wrap up? What can I close out? Very good. I never kind of get in wrapping up a little bit. Can you talk to about your I was I was on your website blueprint and checking out all kinds of stuff on there. You want to you want to put in a like a little and just tell us about that. Yeah. Yeah. So actually today is the first day. It's a it's kind of a soft launch. But if you get a blueprint Inc.com, the site's live and we actually have some creators that have put blueprints up on their for sale blueprint. It is a marketplace for step by step processes. To achieve something different categories, verticals, industries. And so for example, there's one on there right now that I put up there on how to start a podcast from start to finish and how to become omnipresent market. The podcast, get guests. All that stuff is listed in there step by step. If somebody were to just follow the steps, they can achieve a similar outcome that I had there's another one on there about developing a luxury brand, creating a brand for yourself. There's another one, and all these are there not courses are step by step processes. So it's like a checklist that you follow with tasks, and as long as you go through that, you should get the outcome. There's another one on the perfect pitch. If you're trying to pitch someone something, how to develop the perfect pitch. So I think there's four on there right now. We have about 40 creators that are in the works are building their blueprints. And again, the moonshot with this is that you know, I said Moonshot, but we're going to make it the series. I should raise these numbers. But our, our goal is 15 million unstoppable people as soon as possible. To achieve an outcome that they set out by giving them the exact steps to achieve them. So yeah. So that's what blueprint it is. It's spelled B L O printed dot com. So what is an unstoppable person like you want 15 million am yeah. Somebody that sets out to do something and they go do it and they don't stop until they get it. Very cool. You know, that's one thing. It was like a what if a little like a VIP group or something, you know, that anybody that comes in there and buys a blueprint should become unstoppable because all they got to do is follow the steps, you know? And there's nothing wrong with the just in sometimes if you're trying to set out to do something, but at the end of the day, you just don't quit and you're unstoppable, man. And so we're providing a way that people have not had in the past. You know, they used to have to go on a YouTube or kind of Google search something, and they don't know the credibility of the person that's teaching on the blueprint and or the steps and blueprint. It is, you know, vetting our creators to make sure they're legit. We have a quality control process in place to make sure that the blueprints are legit. And as the people buy them, all they got to do is follow the steps. And it's going to change. Lives Matter Sea Rock always asks our guests. The last question is just to give us one last piece of advice or whatever is on your heart. That you want to share with the audience. I think I want to say we have a bonus segment that a week called Off Script. Can you give us an off script moment off script moment, man? You know, I I think that I always, you know, like to wrap up with the fact that no matter where we are in our lives, no matter how far along you are in your and your journey, and your career, we all should be playing a bigger game. We all should be reaching for further, reaching for bigger. Because you see, man is not happy unless he has a challenge in front of them. People think a lot of times that that they're better off if they could just be free and sit on the couch all day long if they wanted to and go to the beach if they wanted to, but without problems, and challenges, I think life life is boring and that will lead to death. You see a lot of retirees that die pretty quickly if they don't set themselves some challenges and problems in front of them. So I just want to challenge everybody to play a bigger game, think bigger, go after bigger, and really, really see how far they can take their potential stay connected with Sea Rock. Beyond just listening to this podcast, you can do that several ways. Follow him on his social media and Mikey, see rock am I KFYI see our old sea on social media platforms. Listen to his podcast app and listening. It is an amazing podcast. The podcast name is listening. Yes. What are you made of? What are you made of? Listen to that. What are you made of? Podcast. Also check out his website as he just talked about blueprint it dot com that is b l 00 p r i a.p dot com and also check out his book. I see it right behind him. Purchase his book Rocket Fuel. Again, we say thank you to see Rob for having this amazing conversation with us today about how to turn your set back into a set up. Stay connected with us here, unscripted, follow us and unscripted leadership on all our social media platforms. You can join our patron family there on patron dot com backslash unscripted leadership and check out our website unscripted past leadership dot com and our podcast is available all podcast platforms. As always, we pray that you'll be the leader that God is called you to be. We're here to build bridges and not walls, bridges connect and walls divide until next time. God bless you.