Episode 124 - Mike "C-Roc" Ciorrocco - Leaders on Leadership
Setbacks are inevitable in life. How you deal with them is what sets you apart from the rest. Mike Ciorrocco, the founder of What Are You Made Of? has inspired hundreds of thousands of people to use setbacks as rocket fuel for their comeback. He joins host Dr. Tracey Jones to talk about how he paid the price of leadership and shared it with others, helping them out of the challenges they are facing and leading them to success. He talks about overcoming loneliness with the help of his family, holding people accountable, combatting weariness, honing the vision for your business, and more. Plus, Mike also shares why gratitude eliminates anything to complain about and how to see our unlimited potential.
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Mike "C-Roc" Ciorrocco - Leaders on Leadership
I am excited because my guest is Mike “C-Roc” Ciorrocco. Mike is the Founder of What Are You Made Of? Movement. He's also the host of the podcast What Are You Made Of? with Mike C-Roc. He has inspired hundreds of thousands of people to use setbacks as rocket fuel for their comeback. Mike is also the Division Manager of Nations Lending. It is a residential mortgage company, and he and his three best friends have built this. It is one of the most profitable divisions within Nations Lending from the ground up. He's been assisting homebuyers finance the purchase of their dream homes. His passion is helping others, whether it's his employees, partners, or clients. Mike C-Roc, the man, the legend, thank you so much for being a guest on my show.
Thank you for having me. First of all, on every show that I go on, I always start with gratitude because I'm humbled and thankful to have the opportunity to share with people and inspire people.
You are welcome, C-Roc Mike reached out to me. Was it on LinkedIn where you connected with me?
I believe so. That's one of the places where we go and try to find people to build relationships with.
Isn't that cool? To all our leaders out there, there are tons of tremendous people looking for advocates, resources, collaborators, and all that stuff. Make sure you get on LinkedIn. Mike, I'm excited. Do you want me to call you Mike or do you want me to call you C-Roc?
You can call me whatever you want. My friends call me C-Roc.
I like C-Roc, just don’t call you late for dinner. That's an old Three Stooges joke.
I do not see that sometimes.
I like old slapstick. C-Roc, we're talking about something serious and that is the price of leadership. My father wrote a book years ago and it was a transcript that I did from one of his favorite speeches. His most requested speech is called The Price of Leadership. My dad was pragmatic. He was not theoretical. He was all grit, all heart. He talks about what it takes to pay the price of leadership. There are four things that he talks about. We've all heard the phrase, “It's lonely at the top.” He talks about the loneliness that a leader will inevitably experience. Can you share what this means to you and your journey? You've been successful. You’ve built this business. What does loneliness mean to you as a leader and maybe a word for some of our readers that are maybe in a season of loneliness?
Loneliness is something that I've experienced growing up quite a bit. I came from a broken home. I don't remember my parents ever together. There were seven other brothers and sisters that I had, but they were all half brothers and sisters. Being around all those people and being the only child that had the same specific parents, I always had a sense of loneliness. It seemed like a lot of times as I was a kid that some of the conflicts were taken out on me. It's a weird thing. I felt lonely a lot of times.
I went through a stage in my life where I felt codependent where I felt like I had to have people around me all the time. Also, I got used to being lonely. I figured out a way to take things like being lonely, negativity, setbacks, difficulties, which loneliness is a difficulty, and converting them into fuel. Leadership starts when you start to influence people. My mom told me at a young age, before I was even a leader, “You're a leader. You're going to lead people.” I kept hearing that even before I was a leader. I started to believe it before I saw it. That's when it was ingrained in me.
Being a leader is a big responsibility to carry. I became comfortable with being alone. It's true because what happens is that when I have to get on people to hold them accountable, so to speak, and call people out when I see that they're not pulling their weight or not doing what they agreed and gave me permission to hold them accountable for, sometimes you feel you're alone. I don’t know how to describe it any other way besides that. A lot of times I feel like I'm being a jerk holding people accountable. I'm being transparent here, by the way. Sometimes leaders won't share this stuff. Am I being too hard on them? We didn’t get into this world where nobody understands what you're going through because you're the one holding them accountable. I can feel that. I don't know the answer besides you got to get used to it.
I appreciate that and I appreciate your transparency. It was your mom that said, “This is what you are.” It was my dad who told me that as a young child. He’s like, “There's something different about you.” He said many words. I don't think he used the L-word, but I knew what it meant because he was a leader. It was cool because that let me know, at a young age, I'm cut from a different cloth. If I don't appear to fit in with everybody else, it's okay because there's something different about me. Did you feel that way too?
I did. I wanted to ask you before I go into this further. Your dad was doing this as a profession. Sometimes I feel like I don't do good enough at home. When I'm helping other clients, it's like the old roof is leaking. Did you experience that? I'm switching this around you.
I appreciate that. He would say that he drew so much energy and content from his family. If we're going to be completely transparent here, that is where he felt like he failed the most as far as leadership because he was always busy pouring out with everybody else.
I can relate to that.
You come from a lot of siblings. I come from a lot of siblings. There are those of us that need a lot of care and feeding. We’re like, “You’re telling me I’m a leader? Okay. Let's get to lead.” For my siblings, it was tougher. It's all about how resilient and adaptive the child is. My dad came from a broken home like you. His mother abandoned him, poverty. He flunked out of school. He felt stupid. He marginalized a lot but was like, “I'm still going to own it.” I'm glad you said that. As leaders, we do often wonder, “If I’m pouring so much into the outside, what about my own home base?”
My wife questions me a lot. She keeps me in check. She questions me and I get defensive sometimes, I got to step back for a second say, “Let me analyze that.” That is something that I feel constantly that I need to continue to work on.
We do. I'm newly married. I got to learn not to do my own thing.
Congratulations.
Thank you. Peter Greer was on my show and he's the one that started Compassion International. It’s phenomenal. He’s a man of God. He was honest. His wife finally said to him, “I know you're saving the world and you're bringing Glory to God, but you've lost me. I won't leave you but we're done.” He was fixated on changing the world, he forgot the greatest thing that you can change is your own family and those nearest to you. This is a big guy. Thank God that you have a wife that is open and honest with you. Thank God that you’re a husband that’s open to receive that. We're constantly cross-checking each other.
I am blessed and thankful that I have her to do that for me as much as it might be difficult for her because she wants to support my mission.
It's a healthy balance. I love that you talked about when you're holding people accountable. I'll be completely transparent with you, too. I've had people on the show tell me, “There is no loneliness.” I'm like, “Surely, you have had to tell people and be the hammer. Otherwise, why are you there? If everybody does everything right 100% of the time, you're drawing to salary for I'm not sure what.” There's vision casting. If you don't hold people accountable, I'm sorry, we're all human. We’ll all look for shortcuts or lose our edge. I appreciate you saying that. That is a lonely part of leadership because sometimes we feel like we're having to be the black hat and we don't like that as leaders.
The people that say, “It's not lonely to me,” they may be successful but that doesn't mean they couldn't be more successful. To me, they're probably trying to be more friends and worried about being that light than being a leader. They may say, “I'm this successful.” This isn't against anybody in particular. You’re here but if you were leading to the point where you had to feel alone because you had to isolate someone to help them achieve something and hold them accountable, maybe you would be way up here.
That's a beautiful point. I was a prior military so I talked to a lot of prior militaries and it's funny because the military people are all like, “You got to lay it down. You did not fulfill the needs of the mission and something must be done.” It's funny because they're always like, “You're constantly evaluating people and measuring them.” There's the empowering but there's also the responsibility. Leadership is, “I want to build you up but if you're not cutting the mustard, we got to talk here because something's got to change.” Thank you for being transparent about that. I remember reading this stuff about, “Leaders, they influence and they bring out the best in people.” It's a two-way street, like your wife telling you something. You were open to hearing that. You didn't go, “I don't care. My way or the highway.” Otherwise, that would not be a good leadership-followership, husband-wife dynamics. I appreciate you sharing that.
When you're leading people, a lot of times, people are afraid to say something or guide people in the right direction because they're worried about what they'll think or they may leave or what have you. At the end of the day, if you're not holding people accountable that you made sure that aligned with your goals and your team's goals and they gave you permission to hold them accountable, you're doing more harm than good. A lot of people don't realize that.
Brandon Dawson is a mentor of mine. Brandon talks about what he gets his information from all his mentors. It’s been passed down the line. He always talks about that a leader's job is to make people’s success easier. That's something that runs through my head constantly, “How can I make my team's success easier? How can I make their lives easier?” It’s not about being a boss. It's about showing something that, “Maybe they didn't see this way before.” That's something that sticks with me quite often.
I love that you're focused on not just having it be successful but as successful as it can be. We all know there's no lid on that.
We're put here for a reason. We all have a purpose. The other thing is we're put here by our Creator, whatever anybody believes. I believe in God. I believe that we all have a certain potential and none of us know what that potential is. If we're not going to go up and keep going up and chasing whatever it is, once we hit a goal and go to the next thing, to me, it's a slap in the face to my Creator. That's the way I view it. I feel that’s something that drives me every day is the fact that I got to reach for that purpose. It's not about greed. A lot of people that quit on themselves will call other people greedy, obsessed with money, success, achievement, or whatever the case is. It's not about that. We're put here to build, create and achieve things to a certain level, which I don't know what that level is. It's not for me to know. I don't want to ever disrespect. That's the way I view it.
The next thing my dad talked about, “If you're going to be in leadership, it's going to be wearisome.” If you're going to be doing anything worthwhile, there are going to be times where there are people doing more than their share, people doing less than their share. How do you stay refreshed, C-Roc? You talked about making sure the chain is strong across all the links. How do you stay at top fighting form?
You got to take care of your body. A lot of people do not focus on that. I approach everything with the same vigor and rocket fuel, like working out. When I'm in the gym, I press the limits. You got to press the limits in all aspects of your life. When I first wake up in the morning with my eyes open, I'm gracious. I'm thankful that I woke up. I look and say, “I have fingers.” Some people don't have hands. I wiggle my toes, which is corny maybe, “I got to hop out of bed because I got to use these legs.” That's what goes through my head and then I hit the gym.
When I go to the gym, I hit it with the intention that I need to improve. It's not to maintain my body. It's not to get my heart rate up. It is to go hard and try to improve in some way. Doing that and seeing what I achieve in there extends beyond the gym into my relationships, my work, everything that I'm trying to accomplish because I see what I can achieve there and how I push the limits. “Let's try to push the limits here.” I continue to take care of myself so that I'm in the best possible shape. I didn't always have the means but I figured out ways to travel to inspirational places. I like Miami. I like the weather. Who doesn't? I like big buildings. I like boats. I'm not into buying a boat or buying a car for myself. I'm not into that. Seeing that it's possible and seeing what people have that maybe is not where I live right now inspires me. I do those things.
That’s a great way to look at refreshment, go to things that inspire you. A lot of people talk about nature but I'm all about the body as a temple. You can't run the race strong and finish the race strong if you're not taking care of this incredibly, amazingly, resilient thing that will take care of itself if you do little things for it. The next thing my dad talked about was abandonment. Abandonment tends to have a negative connotation. In the context of the price of leadership, my dad would always say, “We need to abandon what we like and want to think about in favor of what we ought and need to think about.” He looked at it as more of clarity or focus. C-Roc, how do you stay focused? I'm sure you're like a lot of entrepreneurs out there. Your brain is firing. You got a million things. You got people calling and wanting a piece of you. How do you stay on point?
It’s awesome that he was talking about that. I talk about my kryptonite being complacency. When you think about what you want to think about and what you enjoy thinking about, that's being comfortable and being complacent. I love that. I talk about removing all obstacles. If I have somewhere I want to go or something I want to achieve, I need to identify the obstacles and remove all obstacles or convert them into rocket fuel. That's huge.
Here's an example. I told my wife, “I'm a big Eagles fan.” I used to be a big football fan. The Eagles stink this 2020 but I still get into football usually and I watch something. For some reason, my purpose and my intention is on something bigger that it's taken away from my thoughts towards football during football season. I play golf. I'm a low handicap golfer. I used to play three times a week. I play once a month now. I stopped doing it. I redirected my focus on my goals and what I want to achieve. I still think you need to take some time to go do those things too. It's crazy how the interest isn't there anymore.
I love that you said redirect because a lot of people are like, “I'm not focused. I'm not that person.” You are. I'm not either. It's all about priorities and being disciplined. I love that you said that. The habits I had years ago, I’ve completely shifted a lot of stuff and got more diligent about, “What do I want?” That fire in the belly for stuff that used to occupy my mind is not there anymore. You fall out of love with that stuff. Why? It’s because you've fallen in love with something else, a new passion.
A lot of times it has to do with the people that are associated with those activities or thinking or what have you. Those people may not be destined for the journey that you're on and they may not be supporting the journey that you're on. There's an audit that goes on in my mind a lot, the people that I'm around. Everybody has heard about that like who's in your crew and all that. Also, the thoughts that go through my head, I audit. The activities that I'm doing, “Are they going towards where I want to go or taking me away from where I want to go?” I'm conscious of that. That's helped me big time.
I love that you do a mental audit. I'm like, “You control your thought processes.” I love that you talked about traveling partners too. As you suit up to climb different peaks, you may need a different Sherpa or guide to get you up to the next level. Everything is always in transition. You have to be comfortable with change.
When it comes to my spouse, for example, people talk about growing apart. You need to grow together as a couple but then you have friends. It's the same way, you grow together or you grow apart. It's an intentional act. There are going to be times where you're going to have to separate from people. I’m not talking about your spouse because I believe in figuring out a way to work that out and grow together. Friends or acquaintances, you're going to have to make tough decisions because some people aren't going to support you where you want to go. Are you going to make the decision to allow them to steal from you or not? That's a decision you have to make. It sounds harsh to some people that you have to make those decisions. At the end of the day, if you want something, are you going to remove all obstacles? Many people are limited by the obstacles that they're not willing to remove like your dad was talking about with the thoughts.
You eloquently said what abandonment was. You got to abandon what no longer serves you. As you evolve as a person, that's going to be different things. If somebody is in your life occupying time and not contributing to that, sometimes it does sound harsh but it's not a good fit anymore.
If people want to hang out with me, find out what I'm interested in going towards and accomplishing, creating and building and encourage that or be a part of that. That's how you can be around me and hang out with me.
The last point he talked about was vision. I remember when I was a young leader, I would hear vision and I'm like, “I'm a realist. I don't know if I have this vision thing.” My dad was like, “Vision is seeing what needs to be done and doing it.” Some people have vision but they never take action and execute. What does vision mean to you? How do you continue to hone your vision for your business?
To me, vision needs to be big. We don't know what our potential is. When you start to have a vision of something, you generally tend to go towards what you can believe that's happening or happened in the past. To me, what I've learned over the years is that I need to go beyond that. I need to imagine that I have the opportunity to do whatever I wanted to. Physically, we can't fly flapping our arms. We have certain physical limitations. To accomplish what we want to accomplish by flying, we can do that. Mentally, there's unlimited potential. We don't know what's possible. My mentor, Grant Cardone, talks about 10X. You got to go big. You have to go big with your vision.
It sounds like you're reading great books. You're hanging out with people. How do you get your future lands on? How do you go to the next big thing?
The action that follows the vision is what matters. I tell my team all the time, “If we're trying to accomplish something, we need to figure out what it is we want with no limitations. Don't put any limitations. It doesn’t matter if you're going to get there. It doesn't matter how you're going to get there. We don't even care about that right now. We want to know what you want. Let's figure out what we want. What sets you off? What moves your needle?” What happens is that if we have that big enough, it's enough excitement and it moves that needle, you'll be willing to do anything to get it. There are going to be setbacks and letdowns. There’s going to be all these things that we're going to come across. We got to proactively plan our vision to be big enough to be able to overcome the hurdles, setbacks and everything that we can’t anticipate happening.
Once you get that singular focus, you become emboldened that you become relentless. You don't listen to the naysayers. Sometimes you can't even sleep. It's a passion. Maybe it is an obsession. That's where life takes us. I did a critical thinking seminar and it's called Abductive Thinking, it's when you think and there are no limits. It's beyond thinking outside the box. You don't even know the word box. You think about, in the realm of the ideal, unlimited possibilities. As you eloquently pointed out, I still see myself as past Tracey. I don't know where future Tracey can be. How do we get out of our own minds and ignite this God seed in all of us? You believe it's there because that has the potential to be anything in the world. We haven't even got to crack that code.
I watch Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and all these people that have achieved such big things in business. I'm thinking to myself, “At some point, they were ordinary guys and they've had an idea and they got maniac, obsessed about it.” I do that sometimes where I'll get a little discouraged because I'm not making the progress that I want in something and/or somebody is discouraging me. They're not being supportive as I want them. I'll tell them the accomplishments that I had. I spoke to an NBA player in an interview and I want to tell my friend about it because I'm excited and then they're like, “Eh.” They don't even respond to the text or something like that and I think to myself, “What do I have to do?”
If I stopped now, I won't be able to accomplish what my Bill Gates or my Steve Jobs thing is. I don't know what it is exactly yet but there's something out there that's going to happen. I know it. I'm going to hit a home run and it's going to have an impact. If I stop, get discouraged and give up, I won't get it and I'll be like everyone else. That's the thing that rolls through my head a lot. I think about the people that have achieved big things and the fact that they went through the same things we all go through with discouragement and difficulties but they kept pressing.
It's the old Bum Phillips quote, “The only form of discipline that lasts is self-discipline.” It's nice to have a cheering section and fans. Some days, I have them. Other days, I got the haters. Self-motivation is if you can stay on point and draw that internal fuel to keep you going. I don't care if you are Steve Jobs or whoever you talked about. I'm sure there are many times where everybody poo-pooed on them and said, “No.” We can't stop with that.
For somebody like your father, for example, that did what he did, I love to know some of the things that went through his head as he was going through his journey to be the success that he was and what he did. I always like to examine that.
That's what I study. What is it that ignites people? Why do some people fade away and other people get up and fight? For him, it was three things. It was the love of my mother, his life partner. It was the love of the insurance industry, sales, that let him know. He had wonderful mentors, Christian businessmen, that said, “Charlie, as much as you want to put in sales, you can get tenfold out.” Number three was when he had a personal relationship with Christ. When he knew, “Forget my biological family.” If you had a good one, great. I did. In his, it was deep wounds. He didn't have to claim that anymore. Those are the three things that poured into him and let him know, “It's not where I started from. It's not nature or nurture. It's life. It's who you surround yourself with. It's what you pour your life into, either yourself or a higher calling.” For him, that was it.
We haven't talked leadership wise. You have a new book, Rocket Fuel, coming out.
Rocket Fuel is coming out. I want to share one thing on leadership. This is something that I've implemented in our group at Nations Lending. We've seen an 800% increase in our business. It all changed when I developed the idea. Everybody knows this. I take it for granted sometimes and some people may not. Culture is your foundation. When I get into this new company that we're working in, we focused on four pillars for our leadership and our culture and this is something that changed everything for us. Number one was having that big vision we talked about and making sure that we understood what our team individuals' visions were. We made sure they aligned. If they didn't align and we have a conflict, we got to figure out how to get in alignment or you have to go work somewhere else, nothing personal. Number one is big vision and alignment.
Number two is gratitude. People talk about it so much to the fact that nobody understands why gratitude is important. Gratitude eliminates anything to complain about. When you're thankful, you're telling your Creator, your universe or whatever you believe in that you want more of what you're thankful for and anything that you had to complain about goes away. We had a lot of animosity in our group between our producers and our processors in the mortgage industry. There was animosity and conflict. How do we solve that? It’s by expressing gratitude in our meetings. We would go through and start the meeting. We name a person and what they did the week before that went above and beyond. Animosity disappeared and people started to feel appreciated. Gratitude is number two.
Number three is unlimited income potential. To me, a leader should be able to help others change their lives. If they're not in a sales position, it’s not by giving them higher salaries and all that but by providing them an opportunity to have unlimited income potential. What I mean by that is our salespeople can sell as much as they want and you train them and they can have unlimited income potential. What about the people that are in sales and get commission and they're on salary and what have you? Do you encourage those people to go out and help the business bring in revenue and reward them for that? That's what we've done. We've created the opportunity for our people that aren't in sales to go out and be salespeople as well and ask for business. In turn, it helps change the financial situation for their family, one. Number two, the revenue that's brought in not just coming from sales has helped pay for salaries which allowed us to hire more to provide better customer service. That’s number three.
Number four was accountability. My mentor, Brandon Dawson, talks about this a lot, “You have to work on yourself as a leader first before you can help others. Secondly, you help the team, which is accountability and create an environment of team leaders. The whole team holds each other accountable." When I took the lead and implemented those four pillars into our business, our business skyrocketed and we grew like a weed in a good way. Not the negative connotation of weed. I wanted to share that with you.
Rocket Fuel is a book that I was going to name What Are You Made Of? like my podcast but it didn't have the punch that Rocket Fuel does. This isn't an entrepreneurial book that I'm writing. There's an entrepreneurial book called Rocket Fuel. This one is about turning setbacks into rocket fuel. I say rocket on purpose and not regular fuel because rocket fuel is the only thing I know that can get you into space. When you're in space, you're away from other people's problems that they throw at you.
You get to pick the problems that you choose to solve. It's not anybody else's problems that have been thrown up on your plate. You're away from gravity, which is all those negative, suppressing things that pull you back away from your dream. Rocket Fuel is my story and the things that I went through. It tells the story about being around broken people and how I was able to convert those things to propel myself into my future and where I'm going. I'm excited to get that into people's hands. It's available for presale at MikeCRoc.com/book.
Where can people get in touch with you? What is the best way to get in touch with you, Mike?
I'm all over the place. I'm not hard to find. I did that on purpose. LinkedIn, Facebook, and @MikeyCRoc on Instagram. I love Instagram. It's one of my favorites. I love engaging with people in the DMS, the direct message section. If you look me up on there, I have a great following. I love to engage and I will not shy away from you if you send me a message.
Tell the name of your podcast.
What Are You Made Of? That's about self-affirmation talk. I talk to myself a lot. Maybe I'm crazy. When I'm things are tough, I always say, “What are you made of? Look at all the stuff you've been through. You got this.” I started sharing my story and then I encouraged other people to do that so then people wanted to come on the show to share their story. It became a hit. I loaded up too many episodes. I had many in the can that I couldn't record more and I felt bad because they were taking so long to get out and release into a week. Check it out. That's a good one. I have some good entrepreneurs on there and some great stories of people that have used their setbacks as fuel for their success.
The four points you mentioned at the end, vision alignment, gratitude, unlimited income potential, and accountability. Is that part of Rocket Fuel? Where can we find more on that?
That's in the book. I wrote about that in the book and how I came up with that, along with numerous other things. Leadership is a big part of the book, for sure.
I’ll be looking for that. At least we got the four cornerstones so we can start working on it. C-Roc, thank you for taking the time to share with leaders. I wrote down a ton of notes. You spoke to me. There are a couple of things you said that hit me. I thank you for that word, confirmation and affirmation. Thanks for sharing with all the leaders out there too.
Thank you for having me. I appreciate the opportunity. I'm thankful.
You're welcome. We got a lot to be thankful for. To our readers out there, thank you for being part of the Tremendous Tribe. If you like what you learned, be sure and hit the subscribe button. Make sure you go over to C-Roc and subscribe to his as well. Do us the honor of a five-star rating. Also, reach out. Send us a note. If you also like what you learned, go over to TremendousLeadership.com and become a subscriber and you get two free weeks of eBooks. To our tremendous leaders out there, thank you for continuing to pay the price of leadership. We value you. We're thankful for you being in our tremendous tribe and part of the tremendous legacy.
Important Links:
Peter Greer - Past episode
Rocket Fuel - by Mike Ciorrocco
Rocket Fuel - by Gino Wickman and Mark C. Winters
LinkedIn - Mike Ciorrocco
Facebook - Mike Ciorrocco
@MikeyCRoc - Instagram
About Mike "C-Roc" Ciorrocco
C-Roc is a motivator, facilitator, dynamic podcast host, public speaker, fierce friend and coach.
At his core, he’s a grinder – just a guy who had a fire lit in him at an early age. That fire has led him to inspire others to see the greatness inside of themselves using past life events to fuel their fire.
Mike is an executive manager at Nations Lending, a residential mortgage company. He and his three best friends have built one of the most profitable divisions within Nations Lending from the ground up.
His passion is truly helping others. Whether it’s his employees, partners, real estate agents, or anyone else looking to better their business, personal life, or mental game, C-Roc always is up for the challenge.
He has spoken in front of thousands of real estate agents, showing them how to grow their business not only via traditional marketing methods, but also by using outside-the-box digital and social media marketing.
On his podcast, "What Are You Made Of?" He dives deep into his past to show how you can feed off good and bad experiences.
His forthcoming book is titled, “What Are You Made Of?”
C-Roc lives in Ocean City, MD with his wife Jennifer and their two children, Nicolas and Sophia