Converting Setbacks to Rocket Fuel

Mike "C-Roc" Ciorrocco.  Co-Founder of blooprinted (new tech product), CEO of People Building Inc.

Mike "C-Roc" Ciorrocco is the Co-Founder of Blooprinted, best-selling Author of ROCKET FUEL Convert Setbacks. Become Unstoppable and the powerhouse behind the "What Are You Made Of?" podcast.

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 people. He is driven to inspire others and he measures his success on how he is able to help others achieve greatness. C-Roc had a fire lit in him at an early age. That fire has ignited him with a fierce desire to compel people to see the greatness inside themselves using past life events to fuel their fire.

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Marlana: Mike’s C-Roc Scirocco is the co-founder of Blooprinted, bestselling author of Rocket Fuel and the powerhouse behind the What Are You Made Of podcast. C-Roc has a fierce desire to compel people to see the greatness inside themselves using past life events to fuel their fire. Welcome C-Roc!

C-Roc: Hey! Marlana. Thanks for having me. I always start every interview with gratitude. Because it means the world to me, first of all, that people want to have me on the show and also to your audience. Thank you for showing up and listening or watching.

Marlana: Well! I think what you're going to share is going to be very valuable. So, in the way I look at it is I think there's two parts to this because I think part of it is bouncing back from setbacks and disappointments, and the other part of it is using it as fuel. So, talk to us first a little bit about the first half of it. How do we bounce back?

C-Roc: Well, first of all, I don't like bouncing back - I like bouncing through. So, I don't want to go through something negative, setbacks, discouragement, my own screw ups unless I'm going to be better off than where I was when I started. And so, like the word resilience, is not even powerful enough for me because I don't want to go back. The definition of resilience is to come back, I don't want to come back, I want to go through further. So, everything pretty much that I do Marlana is thinking about going beyond what most people would talk about, because most people talk about what makes them comfortable. And they don't want to get out of this zone where they feel safe. I want to be dangerous. And with the things that I'm trying to do not run out in front of a bus dangerous, but you know, thinking big to get out of the comfort zone type thing. So that's, you know, as far as doing that, I think it's a proactive approach, understanding that when you know, something like you're going for something or even just living your life, that you're going to run into things that aren't going to go the way you expect them to. And let's face it, that's really what a setback is, it's not really a bad thing. It's just something that happens that you're not expecting to happen. So, if you start to expect those things, and realize those things are to kind of guide you, maybe make you switch course, slow down, speed up. Then once you realize that proactively when they come, it's not that feeling in your chest, like, oh, I can't believe this happen. You're expecting these things that happen at some point and understanding that they are for you, not against you.

Marlana: When you go after things, when you make goals, do you look at the goal and then think okay, how can I push this farther?

C-Roc: Yeah, I mean, one of the things that I do is I do set a goal. And I think Is it big enough, because you know what people don't realize in life and that there's a secret to happiness, the secret to happiness is really having something to look forward to, that you're going after, or going towards. And it has to be big and like audacious because otherwise it's not exciting. So that's what makes you happy. Like one of the things that I want to do. I'm looking forward to taking my family to a Caribbean Island, with all inclusive, we haven't done that in a little while. And we're fortunate to be able to do it when we do it. But I want to be able to do that, well, I don't want to use the money that I have. Now I want to figure out a way to do it with Gilgit. How can I get that money? So, that gets me excited, and makes me happy to think about, okay, we're gonna go to that. So, I think what I'm really talking about is putting things out in your future causing and creating your future, and then moving towards that, and that makes you happy when you do that makes you excited. Just think about when you don't have something to look forward to, how that feels.

Marlana: That's true. And you know, once I heard somebody say that, in order to be happy, people need something to hope for, something to do and something to love. So, if you have those things, according to what I read, you'd always be happy. And so that kind of plays into what you were saying about having something to do and look forward to. So then how do we use these setbacks as fuel?

C-Roc: I'll tell you a quick story. You know, I came from a broken home, I don't remember my parents together. And I went through a lot of child support battles, custody battles, jealousy from one step parents and like all these different things that were going on, and there's a lot of broken people around law, alcohol, drugs, abuse, suicide, people that use drugs for anxiety and an overdose like just wild things as a kid that I shouldn't have really experienced, but I did. And so, when I was eight, I decided my mom was moving on to our third marriage and I didn't want to really learn another man's rules or move into another man's house. So, I said let me get my dad's house to try. And he had just moved on to a second marriage. And I thought that was a good move, but it ended up in the long run. Not a bad move because I get a lot of fuel out of it. But I ended up going through a lot of abuse. My stepmother was jealous. My mom, there was some conflicts that I don't know the whole story. But they dealt with a lot of conflict that poured down on us children. And when that happened, I went through abuse to the point where some of the stuff that I was seeing in here and I would want to sleep with my baseball bat when I was nine years old. And living in a house, which is supposed to be your safe haven your home and having to sleep with a baseball bat, because you're just not sure what's going to happen. It's not a good place to be as a kid. So, I dealt with that. And I got fruit flies flying around. If anybody else deals with fruit flies, we put two times a year we get like fruit flies to station. So, if you see me waving, that's what it is. Anyway. So, what happened after a while I realized this is not an ordinary situation. Like you can't be in a situation like this. I'll go to other friend's houses and realize; they don't deal with this stuff. Why am I dealing with it? I want that life. I want the happiness. And so, I told my mom what was going on. And she quickly filed court papers to get me back to her house. Because one thing about my mom's house it was a loving environment. It was not abusive, even though she had no money. She was poor. She did marry three times. She's not perfect. Nobody is, but we had love, right. And so, when she did that, she told me Listen, “you need to stick to your guns, because when you believe in something and you want to do something, people are going to try to talk you out of it. They're going to have their own agendas, and you're going to have to figure out a way to not let them guide you in that way. You need either cause and create your future, somebody else will.” So, I remembered her saying that and when my dad finally got the court papers delivered, one day I came home from school after waiting weeks for this to happen. The tension in a place you can feel it, like it's thick, and I'm like, oh boy! Here we go. So, he told me to go to my room. And my dad, my hero. He was a Mason, he had his own masonry business, very successful big forearms and rough hands. Like he shook his hand. You know, he was a hard worker. And it used to carry water $100 bills were Italian, we don't care, while it's nice to carry water $100 bills or the rubber band around it. And he used to flash it all the time and show me it. And I thought that was the coolest thing as a kid. So, he comes back with these court papers and says, “Hey! It says here what you want to move back with your mom. You know, I don't understand this. You have everything you need here. We have money” because he was successful. “We have money to go places, I don't understand this. And your mom's not well off. She's got no money. She's got men coming in and out of the house. Why would you want to do that?” And I'm like, I'm sticking to my guns. I kept thinking in my head stick to your guns. I said, “I made my decision up.” He said, “Okay!” So, he takes the water $100 bills out, peels went off, crumples it up and throws it at me and says, “here, you're gonna need this when you're living on the street to your mother one day.” And the first thing that went through my head Marlana was, what did I just do? Like what nuclear bomb that I just set off. I had this thing in my mind, Oh my gosh! I can't believe what I just did! And it's kind of funny thing, when you're abused, you sometimes will go to this place where you're like, you don't want to disrupt anybody's life. You don't cause any problems. You don't… you also worry about what's going to happen to the abuser. If you tell people, it's a crazy thing. So anyway, the next thing that came to my mind pretty quickly though, was I'm not going to need that money. Like I know how to make money. I'm not 11 years old, I sold golf, golf balls on the golf course next door to the golfers for 25/50 cents, and I know I can make money, I'm not going to need that $100 I'll show you, kind of things. So that went through my head and 30 some years I drove off of that the best I could do and be the best I could be at everything sports schoolwork, I needed to prove him wrong. And I don't know if that's healthy or not. But what I was doing, I found out later on in life, after analyzing going through a bad business deal, losing a million dollars, I started realizing there's something happening in my life. That's extraordinary. And it's that anything that comes my way that was slow me down or stop me, or try to my own screw ups discouragement from other people being bullied as a kid bouncing from school to school, I was taking all this and this is the carrier, I was taking all this and stored it in my fuel tank, instead of my trunk where most people keep it. Most people keep it in the trunk where it weighs them down and slows them down and stops them. I didn't do that, I would put it in my fuel tank and use it, convert it into fuel motivation, whatever you want to call it. And I would blast off from that. So, I call that the rocket fuel law. It makes you unstoppable if you can figure this out proactively. And so that's how you do it. The other thing is, once you get your engine refined and you start realizing your mindset, all the reading that I do and the development that you do for yourself, your engine gets to a point where it's refined, and there's some kind of line of demarcation you cross, where you don't use that toxic fuel anymore. Like you need something else more high octane in your tank, because otherwise you're just going to hit a ceiling and you're not going to get very far. And that extra high octane rocket fuel is the stuff we talked about when we started the show, which is causing and creating your future. And the stuff that you're looking forward to, that's pulling you forward and it pulls you forward faster than the old toxic fuel pushes you. So I hope I covered that and answered your question there.

Marlana: You did. I love that you shared that story and I know that you have some ideas around people telling their stories and tell how and why that's important. And also what keeps them from doing that much. Talk to us a little bit about that.

C-Roc: Yeah, you know, in 2019, my stepfather, George, who I left them, most of my mom's third husband, he ended up being my mentor and a great father to me. Thank God for George. George passed away of a sudden heart attack in 2019. Coming out of the woods hunting in the wintertime, it's something he loved to do and gotten his truck and texted my brother and said, hey, I got out of the woods safe. And then after that, he passed away. And the two weeks following that were very difficult, obviously, anytime you lose a parent, and I went, shortly thereafter to a thing called the TEDx growth conference in Miami, Grant Cardone filled out this Marlins stadium with 30, some 1000 people. And I went to that, and there was a guy named Pete Vargas that stood on the stage. And he was sharing his story about him and his father. And I felt like everybody else in the crowd had just disappeared. It was just me and Pete, he connected with me on that level. And I listened to the story. And I was super inspired by his story. I said, you know what, I got a story to tell. If he can do that with me, I can do this with other people. And I need to do this. It's like an obligation to do this. Because if I can make people feel the way Pete just made me feel that story, I could really impact the world. And so, I realized that why haven't I been doing that? And that was like the catalyst for me to start really going after it and becoming known globally. But I realized, what were the reasons, and I realized there was a few reasons. One was, you think your stories are ordinary, and that nobody really cares about an ordinary story, they want to see extraordinary stories, when actually, that's not the case, because more people will connect with you when you're tall, talking about a story of something similar that they went through. The second thing is you're embarrassed, you know, I used to go on vacation to this jersey shore motel, with my mom and my stepfather and the four kids that we have that in our family, and then also we brought friends and we would stay in a small little hotel room with two beds, and sleeping bags, I don't even know how we all fit six of us plus friends in this room. And we would go with black trash bags as our suitcases. And so that was embarrassing, demand away. You know, I didn't know that we didn't really have money. But it was kind of embarrassing that carry your suitcase in the black trash bag or pull up to school in some of the types of cars that we had, which were beat up hand me downs. And so, a lot of people won't share their story because maybe they're embarrassed by that kind of thing, or the abuse that they went through, the drug addictions that they had, or the people around them had. And so, you know, I found out Wait a minute! If you're embarrassed, like what your stop and impacting other people, because you're worried about you, you're being selfish. Mm hmm. And the other one, which was the most important one was that you underestimate the power of your story to inspire and impact millions and millions of people. And that hit me hard. And I really set on, like, set out on a journey from that point saying, that's not going to happen anymore. I'm going to get my story out the people, I'm going to relate to people and I'm going to have content to go, and which is my mission, everything filters through this mission of all people are unstoppable to live in the life of their dreams. I'm going to use my story, to guide people in my mission, and impact this planet.

Marlana: I love all that. And you know, it's interesting, because I always tell people when they're thinking about a personal brand and building one, that it's never about you, your brand is not about you. It's about the people that you serve. And if you have something to say, something to share, somebody needs to hear it the way you're going to say it. And it needs to come from you. By doing that you can affect people, show them that what's possible. And I think that's so powerful.

C-Roc: Yeah, what you just said, it's not about you, it's about the people you're serving. And I'll tell you a quick thing. You know, I go to speaking events. I do a lot of podcasts 300, some in last 12 months. And some podcasts, there's nobody that ever listens to them.  some podcasts that is the first episode I've done first episode for people before, but also been on ones that have hundreds of 1000s if not millions of people watching. Same thing with live stages. And it doesn't matter to me, I don't get more excited, less excited for any of them. Because I care about the person that's on the other side of this. And if one person or any, it doesn't matter 10,000 people but one person, I care about that person, it's not about me because the other part if you're worried about the amount of people obviously you want numbers, right? But at the end of the day, it's selfish to think just about yourself, your ego gets in the way. So, what I do is I have very high intention that when we get off this call if I'm on a 10,000 show, I want every person that hears my voice to feel it. I want them to be shaken so that to tell people, but if it's a show that only it's the first episode and I had no listeners yet, I want that podcast hosts to say look, I had care On my first podcast, I mean, you guys got to find out about this guy like it, he shook me and not stopped talking about it after the interview. So, I have that intention because I want to make that person feel. Well, the way my heroes made me feel. And that's important to me. So, it's, but it's not about me, it's about what impact that can have for other people. And by the way, when you do that, if you're a speaker, coach, trainer, salesperson, and you get nervous to talk to people or talk in front of people, the only reason you're nervous is because one, maybe you're not prepared. And number two is because you're worried about yourself more than the people that you're serving or speaking to. 

Marlana: And it's the power of one, it's the affecting, the one changing, the one connecting with the one. And by doing that you will affect many, eventually. I know you have programs and processes and all this kind of thing. So, tell us a little bit about Blooprinted. What that is?

C-Roc: Yeah, Blooprinted it’s spelled b-l-o-o instead of the color, we just switched it up a little bit. Blooprinted is a marketplace, like Pinterest, or Amazon where you would go and search for just success blueprints. And I say just success blueprint because it's not products and stuff on there. It's blueprints to success. In any vertical, any industry, any lifestyle, travel hacks, writing a book, starting a podcast, starting a business, we have physical trainers on there. dieticians, real estate people. So, if you want to accomplish something in life, and you want to figure out how to do it, you don't want to learn it, you just want somebody to tell you how to do it, this is the place for you. And when people go here, they'll search for these topics, they'll search for their experts, whoever they may know, some people on there, and they can buy the blueprints. And when you buy a blueprint, it's not a course. People get confused sometimes think there's a course not a course because of courses or classes you sit in and have to watch and pay attention to, which I don't know about you. But I don't want to sit in class anymore. I dropped out of college with a 4.0 because I don't want to go to class anymore. This is something that will give you the exact steps and you just follow the steps. And if you follow them to the tee, you should have similar results as the expert had. And I just had this issue in my past where I wanted something and I would just go do it. But I didn't know what I was doing. And it ended up costing me a lot of time, money, stress, health, relationships, confidence reputation, I could go on and on and on. And so, when I saw this, I'm like I gotta fix this problem. I'm not going to complain about the fact that digital courses aren't working effectively. I'm not going to complain about the fact that I've never had anything like this. I'm going to just solve this problem. And so, we created a Blooprint and if you go to blooprint.com/vip right now, we're looking for our first one hundred creators to come in, that have expertise or knowledge and want to make impact and want to make money with their expertise or knowledge. This will fill up quick by the way, we already have 20 people in the first week signed up and we're going to 100 and we're going to get ready to have a webinar here soon in Grant cardones Studio, because he's a part of this as well. He's partnered in this and he's gonna have a Blooprint. Yeah, so we're excited about this.

Marlana: That's great! So, you got these blueprints for things and if you can take the setbacks and stick them in the tank to make them fuel then you're all set?

C-Roc: Yeah, exactly! That's a perfect formula. Yeah, look! It's about becoming unstoppable. Well, what's stopping people’s not knowing how to do something right? Well, if you tell them exactly how to do it, and all they got to do is follow the steps and learn on their way like I don't want to learn by somebody telling me something I want to get involved and create hands on and I'll learn on the way that's what I normally do anyway. But I mess up, I make mistakes that cost me more time and I don't want to do that anymore. So I'd rather learn from experience but learn how to do it the right way the first time you say was your biggest challenge to have to go through out of what seems like many. You know, I don't get to see my dad anymore which bothers me sometimes, but it's not up to me really at this point. 

Marlana: So, then, you still have these things going on. Are you still using them as fuel? Or has it become something different?

C-Roc: Yeah. So, here's an example. Biggest challenge. Like my stepmother, when I first started doing podcasts would reach out the podcast hosts and threaten to sue them because I was sharing my story. That's a challenge. Yeah, see, but she would reach out to the mortgage company that I run a division for and say, “hey! I'm gonna sue you because you're sponsoring C-Roc’s podcast. And C-Roc is telling stories”, which I've told the story so many times, and since she's done that, I just went out and extroverted more and pushed more out. Because the more I talk, and I put so much social media content out, it's crazy. But the more I talk, the more people can see the genuineness in me, I don't have anything to hide, and I just share the stories to help people not to bash anybody but to help people and you cannot possibly put out as much content as I have. And go on as many podcasts and not have something consistencies and that nobody will ever find that so what's the biggest challenge at that point to me is I just proves further that I have to be successful. I have no choice, I can't back off the people that are trying to stop me and the enemies of the mission, not me. By the way, people hate on you or discourage you. It's they're telling a story about themselves. It's not about the person they're hating on. And so, you kind of feel bad for those people and I want haters and I want discourages are people that try to challenge you, I want them to win. I want them to win at a game of life. And so, what I do when I'm getting a little bit of tangent here, but this is the biggest challenge, what I do is I keep extroverted and I keep pushing out regardless, and I might even take it up a notch, it might give me a little trigger to push out more. Because if you stay consistent, a couple things happen. The people that are supposed to be in your life, what they'll do is they'll start getting interested in what you're doing. And then they'll start called the hater cycle, they'll discourage you, they'll make comments at first, sometimes they're innocent, they don't really mean it, they just say the things wrong things, they start to get interested in you. And then what they do is you keep going and you keep having success, you keep elevating, then they start paying attention. They're like, man, I knew he was going to be successful; I knew she was gonna be… I knew and I told you about her, you know, and that's what will happen. I've seen it over and over again. Now, some people won't do that, some people will hate on you at first discourage you be negative, and they will not get interested in you or say I do it. They will just leave, and they'll never come back. And that's a good thing. Most people think bullies and people that are discouraging and hating on them will press through forward if you keep pressing forward, and I think it's going to get worse. Actually, it doesn't, that bullies do not last. If you stay consistent on your mission and you stay serious and committed. They leave. They just don't have the time and energy that you'll have. 

Marlana: So, if people only get one thing out of this episode, what's the one thing you want them to walk away with?

C-Roc: You are unstoppable to live in the life of your dream, you just have to decide that, then be committed to it and be consistent with all thoughts, words and actions in that direction. 

Marlana: And I was talking about consistency is greater and more important than your emotions or how hard something is. You have to be consistent regardless. And if you can be consistent when it's hard, you can be consistent when you don't feel like it. You will have 100% participation from yourself and become unstoppable. And I'm sure you cover some of this in your book.

C-Roc: Yeah, Rocket Fuel is the book. Grant Cardone wrote the foreword, and convert setbacks become unstoppable. I did not put the higher octane fuel part in the book, I came up with that after that was published. So, I'll either have that in its second edition, or maybe do another book. 

Marlana: Well, that's great! And, you know, this is really been such a great conversation, I really appreciate it. So, with that, I only have four final questions for you.

C-Roc: Alright! Let's do it. And Marlana, by the way, great job. I enjoyed this.

Marlana: Oh! Thank you. So first one is what's the best piece of advice you're ever given?

C-Roc: Don't quit. Just long as you're on this plan until you're plugged, just keep going forward towards what you want.

Marlana: Second one is share with us one thing on your bucket list.

C-Roc: I want to exit Blooprinted for $15.4 billion. So, this is a startup, it's just starting now. We have attention on it already by the big, big tech companies and people that acquire companies and being mentored by some of those. So that is my bucket list. And it’s not about money, it's about a game and a target to hit. And then being able to do the impact that I want to do is going to require money and time. And that allow me to have that.

Marlana: And I think that's a misconception that a lot of people have too because generally when people with your kind of heart and your kind of vision go after money, it's never about the money. It's what you can do with the money.

C-Roc: Yeah, I mean, I have everything I want right now. I don't have a nice house, I have. I'm not even a car guy, but I have nice cars. I have my family's health. I have everything I want right now. We travel sometimes and do one thing. So, it's not about that, it's about freedom and money to be able to do things that I want to do and not be controlled by anything else. 

Marlana: Next one, when the toy companies finally get around to making an action figure view, what to accessories will it come with? 

C-Roc: Wow. Haha? You know, I don't know, let me think about that for a minute. That's a good one. I would have to say a microphone or something, some way to communicate with people and get the message out. So that would be one and I have to have a camera, right? So, I would say a cell phone that'll include everything and then my family like little action figures in my family with me.

Marlana: That sounds great. And the last one Scirocco! How do people find you?

C-Roc: Best way is Instagram or LinkedIn. You can message me; I answer my DMs. I love people messaging me and engagement me but just follow my content, I promise, it'll inspire you, it'll help change your life if you just grab onto one piece. But Mikey Scirocco is on Instagram and by the way, if there's any creators out there that have expertise or knowledge, go to Blooprinted blooprinted.com/vip. And you are going to want to be a part of this because like I said that we're not stopping, and we're going some big places and I want everybody early on to benefit.

Marlana: Love it. Thank you so much for that and thanks for being here.

C-Roc: Thank you Marlana, appreciate it.

www.marlanasemenza.com

Audio : Ariza Music Productions

Transcription : Vision In Word