How Intention Drives Success

Wow, everyone. Prepare yourself for an amazing conversation. We've got Mike C. Rock, a performance expert, visionary entrepreneur, and founder of That One Agency, the number one podcast booking firm in North America. He's the host of the That One podcast and spent a guest on over 2,000 shows.

He's a visibility powerhouse helping elite entrepreneurs, athletes, and thought leaders build personal brands that convert. He shared stages with billionaires and presidents and has built global recognition, mastering the art of turning credibility into cash. He is known for removing excuses and unlocking quantum growth. C Rock connects clients to the platforms and people that accelerate your success.

If you're play if you're not playing all out yet, he's gonna make sure to help you get there. With that said, we've got Mike Ciroc for you. Welcome, everyone, to the Power Up Your Life podcast brought to you by GoBundance Women. I am Kelly Resendez.

And I'm Mandy McAllister.

And we're so excited to have my friend, C Rock, here in the house with us. He never fails to bring a lot of energy and enthusiasm and amazing wisdom to the table. So welcome, Mike. How are you today?

I'm doing great. Kelly, thank you. Mandy, pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.

Great. Well, we'd love to hear a little bit about your journey into really creating that one and and, you know, epic life that you that you get to live.

Well, thank you. Yeah. I I was in the mortgage real estate business for twenty years and made a lot of money and had a lot of success. I had a business with three of my best friends I grew up with since I was 10 or 11 years old. And but I hated it. I hated I hated it.

I came home miserable and I did it for years and years and years and just kept climbing success just pounding the pavement on more business and more revenue and come home to a house on the water beautiful wife, two healthy kids. And it was just, something wasn't right. And I just started thinking to myself, like, I I gotta figure this out. I feel trapped.

And when I hit 40, I was like, I I can't live the rest of my life like this. So I decided to make a change. Things don't change unless you're willing to change. Right? And I just started really exploring, like, who I am and what I'm here for and why was I why was I put on this planet in the first place? And that's how this this whole journey of that one started to, you know, catalyze.

Oh my goodness. Amazing. And tell us a little bit more about what that one is in your words.

So in that process of finding out who I was and starting to move, being mentored by some of the top people on the planet, just being around these guys that have had super success, but they were also dialed in to their mission and purpose, you could tell. I started, you know, I was being told that you gotta get known globally. If you wanna make an impact, you gotta get known globally. And, you know, I hear a lot of people talk about this some things, and I think they're shortcutting them or or or short side themselves. They'll say, if I could just impact one person. And I don't believe in that. I believe that, you know, if you have the ability, you should be trying to impact as many people as possible. And I think when we say that, if I can just impact one life, I think it's like letting ourselves off the hook so that we don't have to figure it out to go to where our potential is.

And so I was told to get known globally by one of my mentors, and I had listened to him. And he said, go get on podcasts. That was Grant Cardone. He said, go get on podcasts. And I said, alright. Which ones? He said, all of them. And I said, all of them? He said, all of them. I said, but I don't know how. He said, you don't need to know how. You just need to commit. Because when you commit, you'll see the how, and you'll be willing to do the how. But if you don't commit and the how shows up and I tell you how to do it, you won't do it. I said, alright, man. I'm all in. Let's go. And he said he said, now just go get on podcast.

So I went to my assistant, Kim, who's our ops manager at that one agency now. I said, Kim, we need to get on podcast every day. And she said, which or she said, how? And I said, I don't know. We just gotta commit. We just gotta do it. And then what happens is I found out a formula from doing this, though. And here's an actionable step. So if you're taking notes, write this down. Intention gives your attention direction.

You see, we only have so many attention units that we can spend at any one time, but yet there's trillions of things, trillions beyond trillions of things that we could be paying attention to at any one moment. But in order to find out the right things that are gonna move the needle for you to pay attention to, you have to set a clear intention. Once you do that, you start seeing things that were right in front of you all along that you didn't know. And what I found too is is that if you don't set an intention or it's not clear, you will serve an intention. Your attention will be directed by an intention, but it's not gonna be yours. And that's when people get depressed. They have anxiety, feel misaligned, drink, do all different kinds of destructive behaviors is because they're living off someone else's intention, and they know it subconsciously. But and then they won't be able to explain their feelings or behavior because they just don't understand the the the formula.

So intention gives your attention direction. What happens is your attention starts paying attention to validate your intention, to things that validate your intention, and then you actually create this your own universe that you live in. There's a big giant universe we all live in, but then each and every one of us based on our consciousness and awareness has a universe we live in every single day. And what's creating that is your attention, what you're paying attention to.

So I started seeing a podcast everywhere in my network, and I started reaching out to my friends in my network. Hey. Let's get on your podcast, man. Let's shoot some content. Let's light your podcast up. And I just started stepping into someone that lights podcasts up before I even did a podcast. And I started going on, and I would just have a conversation with people, bring energy, and that led to more podcasts, bigger podcasts, bigger stages, speaking in front of masterminds and retreats. And before you know it, I'm speaking on stage with some of the biggest people on the planet, which led to hanging out in the green room with these people.

Mhmm. And and then I noticed something. What Grant was talking about when getting known globally, it'll create an attraction model versus Chase model, which most people are in. And this attraction model started to have these people pull into me, and they felt like they were cool with me, and they felt like I was a peer. Mhmm. And I noticed that. I'm like, this is powerful, man. I I can't keep this to myself. I'm the guy I'm the kinda guy that doesn't have a filter. I share stuff too much sometimes, but I had to I had to share this with people. I had to tell people about this.

And so what I noticed with these folks hanging around, these folks in the green room is that they they all became that one by standing out. And how do you stand out? You find out who you are. You find out what you're put here for, and you know your insecurities, your weaknesses, and strengths, and you lean into it unapologetically. Mhmm. And that separates you. You're not better than anyone everyone else. Yeah. You're just different, and different is what matters. Differentiation is what matters.

And so there's two things. This is another thing you want wanna run write down. This is a very practical thing as well. There's there's a survival behavior and a a non survival behavior. Survival behavior is differentiation. Okay? This goes for you being differentiating, and it also goes for you paying attention out there and differentiating people versus identification. Identification is a non survival behavior, and identification is identifying, with a group of people or with other people.

Here's an example. So I had a a first grade teacher, and she was mean. And as a, what, six year old, I remember her. And I remember her traits. I remember her smell. I remember her voice. And as I got into you know, let's say I'm 40 years old, and I see a I'm I run into a lady, and I'm doing business, and I run into a lady that reminds me of this first grade teacher. Her smell, voice, the way she acts, her demeanor. And then I treat this lady and this experience the same way that I would that first grade teacher, which was like a you know, maybe shut her, pull back Mhmm. Get anxiety. The vibe would be off. It wouldn't be a good vibe just to do business with someone, help someone, and serve someone. And so that's identification. That's identifying that lady, that customer prospect, to a first grade teacher that reminded me of her. That's a non survival behavior.

So it works out looking out in the world, and it also looks for yourself. Differentiation is a survival behavior, thrival behavior, thriving. And so I noticed that, and I that's how I came up with the brand, that one. I've I just said, well, when you become that one Yeah. Yeah. That that's where success comes.

There's patterns in everything. Right? Like, you're never the first one to do anything. If you just, like if you become that one in anything, just look at anybody else who's done something and been the the leader in whatever they do. There is a pattern to be followed.

And I I I totally resonate with this idea of you're gonna be climbing a ladder furiously. You need to make sure that ladder is up against the right wall, and it it sounds like you absolutely realize the mortgage wall was maybe not your wall. So Yes.

You know, I I'm curious to, you know, the the person who hasn't yet found their wall. Right? The the right thing to be running after. When you're stuck around finding where you should be going, what do you do, or what patterns have you seen other people employ to get unstuck?

Well, there's a thing called confrontation confronting, and most people avoid confrontation. They avoid confronting things in their life. And and then when you know you need to confront something, you'll start to feel it. Right? And and it gives you, you just you just know. It's there's a anxiety that comes with it. There's some kind of feeling. And the longer you take to confront something, the more pressure builds up.

So confronting something could be a tough conversation you have to have with someone. And that tough conversation is something you need to lean into as soon as possible because what happens is it pressure builds up. And the longer you wait, the tougher that conversation is gonna be, or there's gonna be ramifications from not having that conversation. So or or dealing with a, a misaligned job that you're in, a career. Right?

And so we're all forced to confront at some point that it's it's a universal law. Confrontation is required. It will be dealt with at some point. It's whether you're gonna take action sooner than later or voluntarily versus force.

And so what I advise everybody to do and what I've seen is is that those that confront that issue, that feeling, and become self aware of what's going on and assess the situation, they have the ability to confront it. And once you confront it, it's like a weight comes off your shoulders. You're clear thinking, and then you can move faster.

Oh, so good. So good. You talked a little bit about mentors. So we all kinda recognize that this is a big piece, like, really just finding those people. Talk a little bit about who has you know, who who has really mentored you in your life, and how did you find them? And then what impact have they really made for you?

So as a kid, I had mentors like coaches. My stepfather that stepped in to be my dad when I was around around 11 years old, 10, 11 years old. Mhmm. He was a mentor in a way, not with money. He wasn't really good with money, but he he told me these simple, you know, taught me these simple lessons, like, do good he had deep voice too. His name was George. He passed away in 2019. Right. But he said he he would say, do good, good things happen. Right? And, you know, you gotta, you know, face the face the music. You wanna you wanna dance? Pay the piper. You gotta pay the piper. Or he would say, what was the other one that he would say? It was something like shoot. It's up my mind. He would have all these little, like, one liner things, and and it stuck with me.

Then as I got older in business, I would have people that I would work for, and I would look up to them, and and they would mentor me. I had a sales job when I was 21, and a guy named Joe was a mentor of mine. He had a great family, great marriage, two health you know, wonderful kids. And he made his own mistakes and all that. He taught me from his mistakes what he learned. And but I would watch at that age, in my early twenties, I would start watching these mentors, and I would see what I aligned with and what worked for them, and I'd be paying attention not just what they said, but what they did. Mhmm. And then I would learn from them. I would take the good stuff, and then I would leave the bad stuff.

But then as I got into the business world, I got around some people that I was looking up to that weren't the most ethical. Okay? And I fell into this thing because I saw them super successful. In business, there's a lot of people that have success in business Mhmm. and they're not as ethical as they should be. Right? And they're gonna face the piper at some point any you know, it's the same thing, confronting. But I would I fell into some stuff, you know, early on where I was doing things that I I probably I I thought at the time, I was like, yeah. That's how it works, but it wasn't the right thing to do ethically.

Yeah. And then I got into a point where I had money taken that that should have been mine. It was taken. Long story I'm not gonna get into, but I didn't press the issue with it because I knew inside that I didn't do the right things. I started to realize, like, I needed to learn more, you know, better ethics. Right? And so there's times where I had to pay the piper. Like George said, you wanna dance, you gotta pay the piper. You do good things, good things happen. Do bad things, bad things happen. And I started realizing these lessons were costing me a lot of money and a lot of heartache, a lot of stress, and that was keeping me from going to the next level and continue to go and keeping me from quantum leaps, which I talk a lot about.

And so once I was in that and started on this ethical path, and I wanted to I wanted to be the best version of myself, I would start reading books. And I would be mentored from afar without the mentor even though that they were mentoring me. And I would just immerse myself in the ones that I felt, like, a good energy from. Mhmm. And, again, taking the good and leaving the bad because not every human beings are flawed. Right? So all human beings, you put them on a pedestal, they're gonna disappoint you. Mhmm. But I would take the good stuff, and then I would apply it, and it would work, and then I would pile on and then compound it.

And so Grant Cardone was a was a big mentor of mine early on, and I got everything I could get out of him. And then eventually, like, books and not not him not knowing who I was or that I was even being mentored. And then I started, you know, entering into that world and being around them, trying to serve, do business with them, introduce introduce them to people, and, and then you get attention. You get known, and then you keep showing up. You keep showing up, and they start paying attention to you. And then other people see that, and then that's when proximity kicks in. So, yeah, that's,

that's the process. I love it. I I I love the idea of starting with values or principles. You know, it becomes this filter through which you can just put everything to decide what the next right step is.

You know, when you're the this idea of being an entrepreneur in general, it's super unconventional. You have to be willing to to zag when other people are zigging in in the world in order to find whatever level of success or be that one. You know?

I I wanna know from you, what's an unconventional strategy that most people would think is crazy, but that you know to be absolutely true?

The first one that comes to mind, I'm gonna share. Much. That is commit before you have it all figured out. Because most people don't they don't move. They don't do anything because they think they have to have this plan and goes back to the lesson that Grant said to me when he said get known. And I said, I don't know how. He said, you gotta commit first. Commit first.

I still do that to this day. We're getting ready to have an event this weekend, and Kelly's gonna be attending. And I just had this vision, and I started moving in the direction and committed to it. I had no idea how to do it. I mean, I had probably had some ideas of things I was gonna try. Right? No idea, how it's gonna, like, play out necessarily, but I had the vision, so I just started going.

And then things happen, and you have things happen that are unexpected, and you have things that come, oh, I didn't know that. Or this is gonna cost this much, or, you have a capacity issue. You know, all these different things come up, and we just just hey. Everything always works out. That's what I tell myself. Everything always works out. Keep going, dude. Keep going, dude. Mhmm. And then we just figure it out on the fly.

So commit first, figure the rest out later. If you try to figure it out and then try to take action, you hear all these things. It's unconventional because people say you gotta have a business plan. You You gotta have a plan of action, blueprint. No. You commit first, and then you start developing this thing, taking action while you go. And that's been the biggest success for me. That's awesome.

Talk to me a little bit more about what you see quantum leaps are. Like, how do you describe that? A lot of us have heard of, like, the quantum field, like quantum physics, other things. How has it applied in your life in being able to create, you know, the level of success you have?

Yeah. Quantum leap is when something happens that you don't expect to happen to the degree it happens, the level it happens. You know, we all chip away at a goal. We expect different levels of achievement, chip, chip, chip, chip, chip away. But if you're not open to something happening beyond your imagination, whether it's somebody coming into your life that you just hardly can believe, or if it's, amount of money that comes your way and you can't even explain it, I've seen all of it.

And the problem that most people have is they put it on a pedestal like it's a, a luck, a happenstance, coincidence. But they take their power away from because it and creating it because they believe that it was something by chance or coincidence.

What you have to understand is we are put here and built by a creator, all powerful God that created us to be creators. Mhmm. We're we're made in the likeness and image of him. Mhmm. And when you really understand that and you start having a relationship, I have a firm belief and and faith in God, and and, I'm never afraid to share it. I'm I'm very convicted.

And when you start to realize that we're put here as creators, you start to realize that, wait a minute. I'm the one causing and creating these things, good and bad. Mhmm. And when they these things happen, if it's bad, it's, it's not that I'm on the right wrong path necessarily. It might be that I need to learn something. Yeah. And then taking that lesson and then keep going. Keep going, dude. Keep going, dude.

But when it works, understand that you did something right, and then let's put the pedal down on that one. Right? Put some some some rocket fuel on that.

You're gonna keep getting that lesson until you learn that lesson. You know? So when it for the person who's like, yeah. That's nice, Mike. Like, that that's cool. Like, quantum leap leaps, that's something that can happen to you, but that's that's not me. What do you say to that person? How can they prepare their brain or get more open to limitless possibilities?

I would just tell them, yeah. You're right. So, I mean, whatever you believe and say is true as far as I'm concerned to you. It's your your your relative truth. Right? And it's kinda contradictory because truth is truth. But if you if you don't see it and believe it, you won't or you don't believe it, you won't see it. Like, it it's just the way it is. So if somebody comes to me, I'm not gonna try to talk them into it, but I will be a living demonstration and showing them what happens.

And then, you know, everything that we do, like, we went to New York a couple weeks ago, and we filmed content because it's not to show off. It's not to just promote necessarily. It's to be a living demonstration of what you can do and accomplish. And I promised early on when I started building my brand that I was gonna show the the the, the journey. I was gonna be transparent with the journey so people could see it.

There's been people that have watched me from the beginning when they I first said, I'm starting a podcast. I'm going on a podcast. I'm starting a brand. People closest to me would say, you? You have a you're gonna have a podcast? Or they would throw digs like, hey. Why don't you go do your podcast or something? And they would make comments.

And then if I said I had, an amazing introduction to someone, I met somebody amazing, I had certain success, I would share it because I'm so excited, which is a mistake, by the way. And they would be like, oh, really? Okay. And I I thought that you should be excited and congratulate me and excited as I was, but they're not because they reflect upon their their level of, commitment to their dream. And and you don't get the feedback that you're expecting, so I stopped sharing this stuff.

I just let my let the stuff show, and there's a cycle that happens with that. And people at first act disinterested, throw digs at you, then they go away because they they just lose interest. But you keep going, keep having success, they start peeking back in again, and they're like, what's he doing? What's she doing? And then you keep going even further, and they're like, I told you about him or her. I knew it. So there's this whole cycle that goes on, and I'm very familiar with it. Yeah. And so yeah.

That's awesome. So, obviously, success leaves close. And what daily disciplines or habits do you have in your life or business that you really are, like, set on? Like, your nonnegotiables. Like, your fifteen minutes, right, that you do.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm very good at consistency. Actions that are consistent and piling them up. Piling them up so heavy.

So someone I was on a podcast the other day. I was interviewing a lady, and she was talking about when I was interviewing her, like, yeah. We just moved up to two episodes a week, and she was so excited about it. And I'm like, congratulations. That's awesome. You know? And then when we got off and it was that the recording stopped, she says, so what do you do? And then I I said, we're gonna have a podcast. I need to see. I was going into it. And she said, well, how many podcasts, like, do you do? And I said, well, we do five to 10 a week. She goes, wait a minute. You mean five to 10 episodes of your own show? And I'm like, yeah. She goes, why do you do that? And I'm like, what do you mean why do I do that? Like, what kind of where is that coming from? Right? Like, why do I do that? I said, you know what the answer was. Right? Any anybody can guess what, can can guess what I, what I said back to her? You got me there. Because I can. Yeah. I said because I can. And she's like, wow. Like, that's crazy. And I'm like, to me, it's not crazy. I feel like I should find ways to do more.

But so everybody has a different level of thinking. Right? And then they reflect on where they are and what they believe is possible for them. And then they they they portray it onto you, and you gotta be really, really conscious of this because it can affect you.

Oh, before we move on, just share a little bit about what you do with your fifteen minute minis because you've made a big impact in my life in doing in in suggesting that you do that. So tell us a little bit about that habit.

Yeah. So it goes back to 2020 during the pandemic when we were locked down. We all can relate to this. Right? And if you could just imagine a guy like me that loves people, loves connecting, loves serving, being stuck in a pandemic and lockdown, I just wasn't having it. So I said, you know what? I'm gonna start doing little speed networking calls with amazing people. And how? I don't know. I'm just gonna commit. I'm gonna figure it out.

Created a Calendly link, fifteen minutei dot com, and linked it to my calendar, scheduled all my calendar blocks that where I was willing to do these things. And I started reaching out to mutual friends of mine. I was getting connected with a lot of people, but also a thing called perfect strangers. Perfect strangers are people that I have identified that are making an impact in the world. That when I'm on Instagram, I'm hyper intentional looking for people that are making an impact that are serving the people that I would wanna hang out with. Right? And I wouldn't even think twice. I would just DM them. Hey. I love your content. Love to explore connection, collaboration. Let's I have a great podcast we can talk about having you on. Let's let's let's hop on a fifteen minute call over the next week or two.

And people started answering, and people started answering who were very accomplished people even. Celebrities, athletes, billionaires. I was just blown away, actually, to be honest with you. And then they would book a call, and it got so popular. I was doing five to eight a day, Monday through Friday.

Mhmm. And I had to decide when things started to open back up whether I wanted to continue to do it or not because it was taking up a lot of time, but I couldn't help it. I couldn't help keep going. I still to this day do five day to day because we've raised over 15,000,000 from those calls. We've connected a lot of people to people that they needed for their business or life. Collaborations happen. Businesses started that have done millions of dollars. And, of course, a lot of podcasting and massive network expansion, which allows me to serve more. So that's why I keep doing it.

And the call is based on a framework of finding out what people are working on right now that has them excited and what their vision is. What this allows you to do is allows you to actively listen to this and then speak into it when you're it's your turn. And you could shape what you're sharing, your story or what you're doing and where you're taking it to feed into helping cause and create a future for them, which is the most attractive thing you can do for someone is calls and create a future for them.

That's amazing. Well, I wish we had more time today, SeaRock, but I think my biggest takeaways are number one, you know, just the the commitment that you need to make before you have it all figured out is huge. And then really just connecting with as many people as possible. I think that's how the quantum, you know, leap works is that you never know when that call is gonna open up something bigger. What about you, Mandy?

There was a couple that I really love. That intention gives your attention direction. That is so incredibly important, and it's something I say in a different way. And I really love this idea of being a living demonstration, you know, living in my own values in a big way.

You know, we and living in our values in this big way, we always like to, you know, serve those who serve us. So, Sirach, tell us, you know, our listeners or us, what is an introduction or a resource that changes the ballgame for you, something you're working on that we could help serve?

Yeah. So in business, most of the time, we're thinking about individual, transactions. Right? Onesy twosies, onesy, onesy, onesy. I always think to myself, and this goes for business networking. It goes for all these things. How can I get multiples? How can I serve multiple people? How can I get more efficient and effective?

So for me, I'm always looking for people that have other communities and networks that that could use access to what I have access to so that I can serve their communities as well in multiples because there's only one of me. So I'm always looking to leverage time, expertise, systems, process, networks. And so for me, that's somebody that has multiples to serve.

And you did an amazing job coming into GoBundance Women and sharing how we can build influence through podcast guesting, which is really what that one does. So how can our listeners find you if they want more information on podcasting or being on your podcast, whatever it might be?

Yeah. That one connect.com. That, the number one connect.com, you can check us out at the agency. And then also on Instagram, mikey c rock, m I k u I c r o c. You could check it out there. You could DM me. You could check out the content that we put out, and that's the best way.

That's amazing. Well, thank you so much for joining us on the Power Up Your Life podcast. If you love this episode, don't be afraid to share it. Thank you so much again, C Rock. And if you wanna really just level up your business, you can check out powerpowerupyourlifenow.com. Tons of resources, including podcasting. And so we will see you on the next episode.