Be ready to be inspired to follow your dreams and maybe even start a podcast of your own with special guest Mike DiCioccio, the Founder of Social Chameleon, a podcast production, distribution, and content company!
Mike leads with a service-above-self mentality, seeking ways he can make a positive change within his community and in the world. He is the host of MIKE’D UP!, a podcast that showcases inspiring entrepreneurs, award winning authors, thought leaders, business & mindset coaches, peak-performers, entertainers, and other talented individuals who join the show to share their personal stories and deliver key insights to provide the ammo needed to level up and achieve your greatest dreams.
@mikedicioccio
Tune into Mike’d Up here
Be ready to be inspired to follow your dreams and maybe even start a podcast of your own with special guest Mike DiCioccio, the Founder of Social Chameleon, a podcast production, distribution, and content company!
Mike leads with a service-above-self mentality, seeking ways he can make a positive change within his community and in the world. He is the host of MIKE’D UP!, a podcast that showcases inspiring entrepreneurs, award winning authors, thought leaders, business & mindset coaches, peak-performers, entertainers, and other talented individuals who join the show to share their personal stories and deliver key insights to provide the ammo needed to level up and achieve your greatest dreams.
@mikedicioccio
Tune into Mike’d Up here
Hey guys. Welcome to Heart to Talk the podcast. I am the host and creator Teresa Caesar. My intention for this podcast is to deliver to you wisdom, inspiration, and consciousness. Through solo episodes and conversations amongst insightful people. It is my greatest honor to bring to you talks that come from the. Y'all, I am so excited. Our guest today is the founder of social chameleon, a podcast production, distribution, and content company. He leads with a service above self mentality, seeking ways. He can make a positive change within his community and in the world. He is the host of Mike Depp, a podcast that showcases inspiring entrepreneurs, award winning authors, thought leaders, business and mindset coaches, peak performers, entertainers, and other talented individuals who joined the show to share their personal stories and deliver key insights to provide the ammo needed to level up and achieve your greatest dreams. Welcome to the show. Mike DiCiocco.
Mike DiCioccio:Hey, what's going on, Teresa? Thank you so much. Hey, you gotta, you gotta deflate my ego now after that intro. You deserved that introduction just to say thank you so much.
Theresa Cesare:I'm inspired by all your work. So it's just such an honor to have you here. I would like to dive a little deeper and just tell this audience, your story how you become this incredible entrepreneur launching social chameleon. Your, background in social media production and podcasting,
Mike DiCioccio:well, I want to say you're, you're very kind and even off camera, you gave me some love there. And I just want you to know, I appreciate that. So yeah, my story, I'm from Buffalo, New York. Buffalo is a big part of who I am. If you haven't been here, we're the city of good neighbors. Like, if your driveway is not shoveled and you can tell that the person across the street needs a little help, this is a city that will pick up our shovels and our snowblowers and we'll help each other out. So I grew up in this town and, obviously we got our Buffalo Bills and Sabre. So I just wanted to share that because that's, it's a big part of my story is where I'm from. and my family's from here originally from Italy. And so, when did I get into podcasting and kind of media production to answer your question? Actually, when I was a little guy, I was about eight years old. I'm the youngest of three. My sister's the the oldest. She was, she always wanted to be a school teacher and she actually became a school teacher and she was very into that whole thing. Like my parents didn't have to really worry about her. She was a top student. My brother, the middle child, he was always a goofball comedian, barely passing school. They had to kind of keep their eye on him. And funny enough, he became a standup comedian. Then there's me. Right? The third child, and by that, by that point, my parents just threw up their hands, like, whatever he does, like, he, I just kind of blended in and tried not to get in trouble. I fell in love with music. So music was my first real creativity where it was my lane. Like, my brother had the comedy and art thing. He was actually an artist. My sister's an artist, too. My mom was an artist. So they all had art, and then my art came out on the drum set. So I started playing drums when I was about 10, 11 years old. And as I mentioned, around 8 is, when I noticed I was taking a liking, even before that, to movie production, like kind of movie magic. There was a show, do you remember Discovery Channel? Oh, yeah. There was a show called Movie Magic, where they would show you, remember the movie Speed? I would have, yeah. They had a miniature of the boss, and they showed like how they blew it up, and like, and all the Star Wars miniatures, and I would geek out over that stuff. my brother And I would run around with a video camera, and I'm, I was born in the 80s, so we had like late 80s, early 90s, those shoulder cameras that you might recognize. Now kids would be like, oh, that's like a new style. No, that's what people actually had to bring on the family vacation. We had those for like our t ball games and our family parties and weddings and stuff. And so my brother and I just kind of took the family camera. I wasn't getting all that much use. And we would write screenplays and we would reenact our favorite, like, comedies. We would reenact Three Stooges skits and Mr. Bean we fell in love with when we were younger and he was so funny. And so we just started creating all kinds of stuff. Some of it was original. My brother was more of the writer and kind of creator and I was like the actor and would come up with some of the comedy and we would like cast all of our friends to be in it. Like after your football game, come over to our house. We're going to be doing this thing, we got creative and we had very little money and resources. So everything had to be very much much. written into it, like if there's a park bench, we're going to have a scene at the park with the park bench in it, we, and that's just where it all started, the creativity side of it. Then, I will say this, going through the school system, the dream got a little bit beaten out of me because I thought I was going to be, you know, my brother and I were going to be like the next Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis and make, making big time movies. We literally had the dream and nobody could have told me differently. And as far as when I got into drumming a little bit later, like around 10, 11, 12, every school band that had percussion in it, I signed up for, and I played, I got very good. That was, that's probably still to this day, my number one talent. So I just really fell in love with creating that way. And my, a lot of my friends that played guitar, we'd just come over. We'd had the, well, you heard of the garage band. We were more of the basement band cause their garage wasn't really set up for playing with all the snow and everything. Um, so we were the basement band. And, on my 18th birthday, I played my first show, like out in a club at a bar called Mohawk place. I remember it very vividly of, of that first stage fright feeling butterflies. Um, but it was amazing. It actually. Being behind the drum set for me is this special place. It's it's like I don't even feel like I'm in the same universe It's weird not to sound like a hippie or anything, but I do mean it like it's a Zen for me I and today I'm wearing a Life. Church Buffalo shirt I know we're doing this audio only but I'm actually a worship drummer today And I do that for my local church. And so I feel like God gave me that gift and it's kind of come full circle I was in a bunch of rock bands and kind of a little bit off the off the I've been on that path for a few years, and I kind of got back into that as well, as a Christian, and strong in faith today. I know this is kind of going all over the place, but that, so, so what I'm going to tell you is, I'll bring it into podcasting for a second. So that was my background in creating, but what ended up happening, I went through school, like I said, the dream got a little bit beaten out of me as far as believing that I could become a movie director. Growing up in Buffalo, small, smaller town feel, nobody was like, coming out of here becoming a movie director, you'd have to go to like, NYU, or a film school in LA. So, I literally was going to do that, and I was very serious with my girlfriend, middle of college, like I was just, just before I graduated college, her and I were very serious. I was what, 22 years old then, and, she said, well, if you want to go out to LA, I'm not going to stop you. She was very cool about it. And I literally my uncle's out there. He works in on major motion pictures. He's a way. He's like a digital recordist when there's the large band of like 100 orchestra members. He's recording that. So when you listen to a movie. He's worked on Planet of the Apes and the new Star Wars movies and you name it. He's recording those bands. He's in LA or sometimes he'll go to London to record. So I, I knew that he could help me out. It's not that I wanted to like squat on his couch forever, but he probably would have given me a couple months to get my, you know, feet underneath me. So she said, you should go out to LA. And I said, you know what, I was very serious with her and I have this Italian upbringing and I felt like my family was more important and I wanted to make sure that I didn't blow that opportunity. So we ended up getting married a couple years after that and we have a beautiful daughter together, Isabel, who's now eight years old. She's our world. our marriage didn't work out after about six to seven years. We decided when Isabel was two, we were just going in very different directions. And actually for about 10, 10 to 12 years, I wasn't doing anything creative. Wise. I was actually in sales. When I got married, I got into insurance sales. I also worked at Sleep Number for a while, and I was a top sales rep for the company, became a store manager. And I'm not saying that my ex wife ever said, you can't be creative. Don't do this. I mean, she would come and support when I was in a band. She'd, she'd be there hanging out with us and help me set up and stuff like that. So she was supportive to a certain degree, but I felt like My responsibilities at the time, Teresa, were to put food on the table, so I had to really do what I was doing well. And also was bringing in dough. And so that became kind of my sales side of things. and then what happened is in about 2016, I was an outside sale. So I'm driving house to house, business to business. And when I was a store manager, I was helping other stores set up across the country. So I was driving quite a bit, mostly East Coast. And I, I fell in love with podcasts. It was something I've never discovered before. I'm like, I could listen to Elon Musk right now, just like shooting the shit with Rogan. And I can listen to, Grant Cardone just like I'm a fly on the wall and he's telling me basically everything that's worked for him in business. Or, the guys I really resonated with were... And so I just realized that this medium was special. People are sharing their heart. I listen to different things, similar to your show, um, where people just get real. They get, they dig deep. There's no fluff. It's heart to heart. It's right in your heart. and that's why I love your show as well. And so, I knew that something was going to happen there with podcasting, but I was a consumer first. Then in 2017. I ended up walking away from corporate. It was the year I got divorced I was 31 and believe it or not, I felt like I had a midlife crisis and that little eight year old kid came out and was looking me in the mirror and he's like, what are you doing, bro? Like why don't you go after that dream again? Like nobody's holding you back and picture this guys and I say guys, cause it's anyone listening right now. Guys, gals, Teresa included. Imagine me in an empty apartment. I'm not even fully divorced yet, just separated from my wife, and I have all my life boxed up. Memories. I literally, I found like, my fifth grade yearbook was in one of these boxes. Anything I possessed was in boxes. Nothing on the walls yet. The only thing that was attached to the wall was the mirror that the apartment came with. And I was standing in the bathroom and I looked at myself and I'm like, What do you want to do? I mean, you could do anything. Like, there's nobody going to tell you you can't. Tomorrow morning when you wake up, whatever you want to do. Within two weeks, I had my S corporation, I came up with a company name, Social Chameleon, I walked into my job, I was a top sales rep in the company, one of the top, percent to goal. In July of twenty seventeen, I went into my... Store and my regional manager was there and I handed him my two week notice July of that year, I remember I hit my goal 777%. You don't forget that 777. So I'm just letting you know, I was doing well, like they could not believe I would leave the company because they're like, you're getting paid. Well, you're doing well, you're one of the top. So I just said, look, I get that. I'm like, Doing well for the company, and I love it here, but this is actually not what I feel God put me on this planet to do. And, and so I left the company, and he just was like, couldn't, couldn't believe it. So, I did that all in a very short period of time. If I could go back, I would have game planned it a little bit better. But I knew what I wanted to do, and nobody was going to stop me from doing it. So, I started Social Chameleon, and wasn't even doing podcasting yet. And I'm going to shortly get to the end of the story here. I was doing media, like all kinds of website design, video production. If a small company in Buffalo needed to get their message out, I would meet with them and find a way to get it done. So we were doing branding, messaging, creative art. music helped out. Cause when I would create music for different things that clients needed, like music in the background of a video or a testimonial that I got creative with my music side there. Well, what happened is a buddy of mine, uh, Dave Mamano, who's in Rochester, New York, him and I met, and he had a top podcast in entrepreneurship back in, 2018 and he needed a new producer. His producer either quit or something happened. I think they were like leaving college and got like a job and he was, they were helping him out and he's like, do you wanna do my podcast? I'm like, You know, I have a actual media production degree from Buff State College, four year Bachelor of Arts degree in media production, but I've never produced a podcast. He's like, well, I'm sure you could probably figure it out. I'm like, of course I will, and I can and I will do it. So I said yes, did 50 episodes for him, the show did very well. And then I got this heart tug, and God was telling me to start my own show. And I started Mic'd Up in November of 2019, and one month later, one of my clients I was doing a testimonial video for said, dude, we love your show. What the heck is going on over there? Like, can you do our podcast for us? I'm like, you guys don't even have a podcast. I go, exactly. You're going to launch it. So they hired me to launch it. and that's when the aha moment happened, Teresa. I realized I love this medium. I'm going to create podcasts, not just for myself. And this happened very quickly. And it was before the pandemic, right before in 2019, I said, I'm pivoting everything. I'm going in the direction of podcasting. I know what it meant to me when I'm driving around from appointment to appointment, listening to these amazing podcasts that uplifted me. And I said, I want to do a show just like that. And so the whole purpose of Mic'd Up, as you mentioned at the beginning of the show, is to inspire people to be brave and bold in pursuit of their dreams. And the whole purpose of Social Chameleon. Is to produce podcasts that do the same thing, that enlighten people, encourage, inspire, and have us all reaching up at, you mentioned, at level up to, to reach their goals. So that's how the two things kind of came about and all tie together, and I know that I just came through a fire hose right there to give all that information, so I'm going to stop talking. Ask me anything you want about it though, that, that's my story.
Theresa Cesare:I love it. I love that you gave just all the parts to it. It's just, it's so powerful. And talking about podcasts, you're actually the first. Podcast produce that's been on the show and I know I'm in it and I'm not by no means to your level because you are Just oh my god, so incredible as a matter of fact, I'm gonna probably hire you one day to do my show
Mike DiCioccio:I appreciate that I would also like to commend you though because I know you're self taught and I Didn't know that you were doing your own show until like two days ago and you mentioned it I thought you had a producer so you're fooling everybody right now. You didn't have to say that nobody nobody knew you do a great job
Theresa Cesare:and that's the point, like we can do these amazing things and not have to be perfect it just takes, passion and just showing up That consistency And, having that dream, like you said, that's led with, purpose. This is divinely guided like you had that whisper, like, well, you got to go this way. Same thing happened for me. I was like, I don't know how, where this is going to go, but I know I need to come on and share all these amazing people that are just in my circle who inspire me. I want to stay inspired. And that's how my podcast came about. It's just, and then look, here we are.
Mike DiCioccio:you know, this already, but Teresa, I love you. And I'm going to have you on mic'd up and we're going to hear your whole story.
Theresa Cesare:I want to hear it now, but I can't wait, but the point to everyone listening, you know, following your dream, your dream might be anything. It doesn't matter. I know a lot of people have something to say, in
Mike DiCioccio:their zone of genius. It could be in starting a business.
Theresa Cesare:It could be cars. It could be, I want to do what you're doing. Mic'd up and Teresa heart to talk and guess what? There's space for everyone. So that being said, I get people ask me all the time, can you help me start one up? I know there's a lot of common mistakes. Some people are like, I want to start a podcast.
Mike DiCioccio:I would say this there. The power of podcasting is something I talk about. I talk about it more when I have opportunities like this, when I get to be on other people's shows and they ask me that question or similar questions. I don't talk about it as much on my show because I'm really interviewing people and letting them share their heart and their story. But the number one thing I would say is if you wanted to start a podcast, first of all, if you're saying you're inspired and you have a dream and something, it ties back into it, then we know we're starting off from the right place. If it's, I want to monetize this thing because, you know, Rogan got paid 10 million and it's... Spotify deal, and that's how I want to tackle this. Then I feel like you're coming from it at the wrong angle because. You can monetize podcasting, the better you do, the more you know, more downloads and views you get on your YouTube channel. If you do the video podcast as well, the more likely you can monetize it through sponsorships. But really the thing I'm realizing is the way I've monetized before I pivoted my company into, you know, social chameleon, that the version of it now is the podcast agency, podcasting for me, the monetary. Part of it was connections, people, like the people I'm talking to on my show, I've interviewed a world, gold medalist Olympians, you know, world class. athletes and business people, entrepreneurs making hundreds of millions of dollars, you know, these people are friends of mine now and I have access to them in their brains and I could just pick up my phone and ask them a question. I'm struggling with this, you know, and they know me from the show. I had a friend recently invite me out to his entrepreneur, networking event and it was at the Trump Tower and I'm hanging, I'm rubbing shoulders with people, having dinner with people who have Netflix specials. Okay, like, you know, good or bad. I'll share this. Billy McFarlane was there, who's on his comeback from the Fyre Fest. He sat next to me at dinner and I'll say this, like he does. want to make everything right. All the wrongs that he created with FireFest, he's, he's working on it right now, and he's going to eventually do a 2. 0, but he wants to make sure he does it right. So my point is, uh, podcasting allowed me to hang out with all these different people from different journeys, different platforms, and they become friends and network connections, and many of them turn around and say, Hey, Hey dude, like, thank you for having me on your show. You're, you're awesome. And the best feeling I can ever get is more than the money side of it is they say they really appreciated the interview because they know I did my homework and, and do like you're doing like a really heart, you know, heartfelt interview. Um, and cause a lot of times people have them on just to get the name on their show and they don't even do like a full interview or get deep. so the best thing is when somebody notices that I care and put in the time and energy and love. And then they turn around, like many of my clients have now, actually all of them have either been on my show or met me through podcasting, and they ask me to produce their show, and there it is, I've monetized it. So if somebody says, like, what would you recommend I'm getting started? I would, I would ask yourself, number one thing, what does my budget look like? If you have a very little budget, you're going to need to learn how to do it yourself, and that's okay, because guess what? Everything I just told you was self taught. I went to school for media production, but I was doing video work, field work. I was doing music production to a certain level, but it wasn't really podcast production. It wasn't the talking form, art form, that you hear on a podcast. a lot of that was, was self taught as far as how do I get it on Apple? How do I get my YouTube channel started? How do I actually turn it into a podcast on there? What, what looks good? What sounds good? What equipment do I need? How do I mix, You know, EQ something properly for audio for voice, right? Voice over style. all that stuff was really self taught and you can YouTube your way through it. The reason someone would hire me now is I have four years experience doing that with multiple shows and some of them have become top downloaded shows in the world. So, um, if you want to learn it all yourself, by all means, you can go do it and get the four year YouTube degree. Or you can come to me and just be like... I can actually afford your services, and now I have a whole team, behind me to do it. So that's really it. It's more of the time bandit that people, are paying for. And the professionalism of it looking, sounding good. And then the, the third part of it is we really get behind somebody's brand. And if we're working on your show, we are now an extension of your brand. Like there's certain podcasts I've worked on, that we ended up going in a different direction because their show got out of alignment, I should say, of what we're doing. It's got our stamp on it now, you know? I stay out of politics. My whole thing is I love people and if I can connect with you and even if we have different, whether it's religion or politics or whatever, I just, I look at someone as a human being. And I figure out how I can help them or be a friend or be nice to them. Be kind. I have t shirts that I created that say, be kind, be great, be grateful. You know, the saying on my podcast or on my social media is be great and be grateful. You know, if I can connect with somebody, that's the most important part of it. But yeah, podcasting, I want people who are listening right now to realize it's an amazing networking tool. Teresa and I are talking right now because of our podcasts. Yeah. We've known each other a little bit on social media, but I doubt that you and I would have had this kind of a conversation if I was just coming out of the blue like, Hey, I want to talk to you, Teresa. It's like, Oh, okay. But you know, this ended up being an opportunity for the show and it's grown that way. Last thing I'll say real quick is, If somebody does want to monetize their show and they're struggling with that, because that is a big part of it, like, let's say you're two years in, you're like, man, my wife or my husband says, if I do another episode and I don't make a dollar, I got to put this, I got to kick it to the curb right now. Well, you got to ask yourself what you're, what are you doing? Like, if you're not monetizing it, is it because you're interviewing people that are not in the right line of work that makes any sense for you? If you're a coach or some kind of person that can help someone, um, you don't need, you know, 3, 5, 10 sponsors to make money. Like you just need to make some sales off of what you're talking about. So if you really are a genuine coach, expert, whatever it is in your X, Y, Z industry and people hear you talk about it and you interview people and talk about it, you should really be getting some organic leads coming through people who want to hire you to do whatever you're good at. If that's not happening. Maybe you're not mentioning it or positioning it right and you just need to tweak your messaging and or Maybe you're not as much of an expert yet as you think you are and somebody's seeing through that and that's okay If you're green, you just need to get a little bit more reps underneath you Maybe your prices need to come down so you get reps I'm telling you in the early days podcasting I was I'm not gonna tell you how much or how little I was getting paid. It was lunch money So then after like those 50 episodes I told you I did, I could now tell you, I interview I edited videos with Grant Cardone and Ed Mylat and all these guys because I was doing it for just... To be able to get the experience, and I was doing it because I loved it. And when I was 18, all the way to 27 or so when I was drumming, you didn't have to pay me to go and play at a club. I got paid sometimes, and it felt good. But, I got paid in experience, and fun, and energy, and zen time, like I said, behind the kit. And I get that same thing when I'm doing this, podcasting. So to me, it's just amazing. If you don't feel like that when you're doing it, then I would just say, ask yourself why. Maybe you're not in the right space.
Theresa Cesare:Wow. That's so well said. And that's why I wanted this audience to get to hear that because like there's so many podcast production companies out there, and I just loved your energy and authenticity. Most of all, you say two things like what you mentioned a bit ago, be great. So tell us the importance of daily gratitude
Mike DiCioccio:yeah, that's a great question. daily gratitude is something I even still, I say it all the time. It's in my email signatures. It's all over my social media. I still forget to do it every single morning and every single night. I kick myself sometimes. Like, how did I forget to do that? but when I do, I'll tell you this makes you feel amazing. And you literally get into this. Feeling the space when you're in true gratitude and you're thinking, man, I'm just grateful for that phone call I had today or talking to Teresa tonight. Man, if there's one person who listened to that and got some kind of inspiration, man, that feels good. I'm so grateful for that opportunity. I'm grateful I got to talk to my daughter on the phone for a half hour today, which is true. I'm grateful that today was beautiful outside. I got to work in my garage and it was just amazing. Little things could be huge things. This client just paid me. I'm grateful for that. When you're in that space, in that feeling, you cannot really be in a place of depression or sadness. So it really like fills you up, not allowing those other crutches to get in there. Um. I know that it's not something that stays all day long. So it's kind of like your, your espresso shot of coffee, like in the moment you're feeling it. It doesn't necessarily last all day. So I think it is great to take time throughout the day. And at, at dinner, I, uh, we pray. And we also have my daughter, and I will say things we're grateful for. She usually lists people, which is cute. She'll be like, Mom, Dad, Grandma, the dog. You know, I'm like, okay, we got to work on that a little bit. There's more to it than just, and that's great. Those are good answers. She's grateful for our family members. But, you know, I'm teaching her that there's more depth to it, you know, things we could be grateful for. The ability that we were able to play a game that day, that we had the money to afford that game, whatever it might be. Go to the park, you know, it doesn't even have to be monetary. It could just be, I'll tell you what, the number one monetary thing I can give my daughter is my time. It's actually not money at all. But the, exchange that I can give her is not money. It's my time. I know that's a tangent, but yeah, great gratitude is huge. And so that's why I talk about it all the time. And the be great part of it, a lot of people don't ask this much about that. I think it might be self explanatory, but I think there's a little bit more to it. Be great to me means if you're listening to this podcast and you're a school teacher and it's summertime, all right, or you're, you got, you know, tomorrow you have a full day of school, whatever it is, be great at that when you're in front of your classroom. don't just take it like. Oh, this is another day. You got 30 lives you can inspire. Go be freaking great at it. If you're the school bus teacher or driver, you're the school bus driver. Be great at that, right? You know, make sure your safety is top notch. If you are a fireman, be great at that. If you're a cop, if you're a doctor, I certainly hope that you take it seriously and you're great at what you do and you're not just like, I'm just going to do it. The people who poured this coffee for me that I'm holding, you know, they could be great at that. There's some people that Walk through that drive thru, they walk up to the window miserable, and they kind of show their emotions on their face, and they just hand you your thing and your change, and they just kind of grunt off and handle the next customer. Or they could be like, Oh my God, thank you so much. Have a great day. Like, enjoy the sunshine. Cheers. And you feel great. They feel great. So to me, be great means just really give it the best, because There's no guarantee we're even going to get another chance to do it. If it's the most mundane thing and you're just half assing it, like, who knows if you're going to get another chance to be great at it. So don't miss your opportunity to be great today.
Theresa Cesare:Wow. That's so good. I'm going to go be great. That's it. You're already doing it. You are great. Teresa, you're great. And that's how you stay motivated. Right?
Mike DiCioccio:I don't want you to be fooled here, like there's days when I know, oh shit, like, I'm not having as good of a day as I could right now. And some of it's my mindset. Like I just, maybe a call went sour. Someone didn't show up and I was looking forward to interviewing me. Life happens. Things go sideways. But right now. I get to this place. I learned this rule from Ed Malet recently. It's the 5x5 rule, right? If something's going on right now, if it's not going to be important, uh, five years from now, then it's really not something to spend five minutes today being upset over. You get a flat tire on the way to work tomorrow. That sucks, man. That's gonna be shitty. You got to deal with it. It's gonna cost you some money. You're gonna be late to work. You're probably gonna get in trouble. it's, understandably, you're gonna be upset. But, if you let the rest of the day, the rest of the week, you go home and now you're upset with your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your spouse, your kids feel it. All that energy doesn't need to be there. Like it's not in five years, you're not going to remember it. It's not a big deal. So just handle it, take care of it, go on with the rest of your day and now be great at the next thing. Right. And so that's, that's what I mean when I say that.
Theresa Cesare:I love it. I love it. Well, before I ask you the ending questions, I do want to ask you one more thing to tie it up with these audience following their dreams or listening to their hearts for direction, um, and serve in their purpose. Do you have any last tip or message you'd like to tell this audience?
Mike DiCioccio:I'm excited to say this. Whatever it is that is in your heart that you feel called to do. You, you gotta listen to your heart. Your heart's not gonna steer you wrong, right? Don't be inspired, try to, for a moment, clear yourself from any kind of external things that might make you feel a certain way or want to. Move you in a certain way, but just get real with yourself, and whatever it is, that's what God in the universe put you here to do. That's your thing, and that's how I feel with Mic'd Up. I feel that I'm in the right spot to be the right person to deliver that message. Um, so, it just, it lights me up when I'm behind the drum kit. I feel I'm the right person for the gig, for that job, to make the people in that audience feel a certain way. So when I just said that, everybody listening, what's the thing that you just feel is your calling? If you got paid a million dollars tomorrow and one day to do it, or you got paid zero, what's the damn thing that you know you are the right person to do it? And that needs to be your inspiration for why you do what you do. And if you do it and you do it great. Yeah, you're gonna get paid for it at some point. If it's not right away, you will. Maybe you have to take on a couple clients for, like I said, peanuts in the beginning, you know, lunch money. But eventually people will see your value. You need to see your value in your worth, and when you believe in yourself, and you know your worth, you'll be worth every penny, and you will get that because you will resonate, and people will feel it, and then you deliver. And that's it. So there's something everybody listening to this right now is called to do and I'll say, well, it's a shame if you live the rest of your life and you never go and do it because you were called to do it. We're expecting you to do it. Go do it. Yes, we all are. And tell us about it. Yeah, please tell us about it. Share it, share it with us. I love it. Celebrate your wins. That's something I do struggle a little bit is taking time to breathe and celebrate your wins
Theresa Cesare:I love it. Okay. So I'm going to ask you my traditional ending questions. Before we close up this episode. Yeah. First one. What is your favorite quote?
Mike DiCioccio:Be you. Everyone else is taken.
Theresa Cesare:Okay. Second one. What is your favorite book?
Mike DiCioccio:So Milad. It was his first book. But, I also have an entertainment side to me if you couldn't tell, and so Scar Tissue by Anthony Kiedis, the lead singer from the Red Hot Chili Peppers was probably my most interesting read. Wow. That dude has an amazing life. He's I think 16. He's still jumping around on stage and my favorite band of all time, Red Hot Chili Peppers. So his autobiography was like, I couldn't put the thing down. And now, I love reading business books and Think and Grow Rich, I read twice, it's highlighted, it's dog eared. and School of Greatness by, uh, Lewis House was a good one too. So those are my Mount Rushmore books.
Theresa Cesare:I love it. Some good reads. All right. And the last question, what do you want to be remembered for?
Mike DiCioccio:You know, the word that comes to mind, and it's probably because I'm looking right at you and I'm on your show is heart. I never answered that question that way, and I've been asked it in maybe a different way before, but I would say my heart, meaning that everything I did for a client, or for family, or for friends, was genuine, from my heart, and I always meant well. And there's things that I do regret in the past. There's, you know, obviously I went through the divorce, and there's things I'm not proud of, and, things that don't define me, because you may trip up in life, and you may go down the wrong path for a little while, like I did but the most important thing is what do you do next? And I feel like now I'm on this new journey, and I'm back tied in with my faith, and I'm leading, with my heart again. And I feel really good doing that, and answering this question right now, being genuine, is making me feel really good, because I'm excited about what I get to do with that. But, Hopefully I pass away when I'm very old and there's a great group of people around that casket or whatever and what I'd want them to say about me is Mike always led with his heart that's it. Simple.
Thank you so much for tuning into this episode. Please download, rate, subscribe, and share this podcast. Also, be sure to visit my theresacesare.com to check out my inspirational merch, connect to my social accounts, and much more may you continue to be filled with wisdom, inspiration, and consciousness. Otherwise, friends, I will be back in two weeks for another episode of Heart to.