"An entrepreneur is someone who has made a decision to choose their own path in life"
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Rio Rocket is a multi-hyphenate film, television, and voice actor who has a recurring role on the ABC TV Series FOR LIFE and motivational spokesperson for Lowe’s Companies. He is active in the blockchain, DeFi, and NFT sectors as a digital creator. Rio is also the host of the Design Your Decade podcast. The DYD Podcast is an audio platform based on the 5 Pillars of Success designed to market the specialized consulting services of Rio and his co-host Rosann Santos in the field of career growth and professional development.
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Table of Contents
Thank you so much for giving us your time! Before we begin, could you introduce yourself to our readers and take us through what exactly your company does and what your vision is for its future?
Rio Rocket: Design Your Decade is an educational skill-development platform that focuses on the “The 5 Pillars of Success.” The company co-founders Rio Rocket and Rosann Santos provide consultancy, workshops and coaching for workplace career-growth and professional development.Our primary platform is our podcast. It was originally intended to be a streaming video portal, as the “Netflix for Career Growth” but the Pandemic caused us to pivot into a more manageable audio format. The podcast puts humor and career advice in a blender to entertain our audience as we educate them on strategies and mindset for career success.
NO child ever says I want to be a CEO/entrepreneur when I grow up. What did you want to be and how did you get where you are today?
Rio Rocket: My first love was the arts. I was born with artistic talent and I could draw before I could read or write. In my twenties I began a career as a graphic artist and web designer in the early stages of the modern internet. Through passion for my craft and delivering world-class service, my career evolved and grew into a full-service commercial graphic art, web development and digital marketing service.
As with any entrepreneur who eventually reaches the summit and needing a “bigger mountain to climb”, I entered the acting arena as a voice-artist. I evolved into a film and television actor, commercial model, motivational speaker and event host. I have been featured in advertising and marketing campaigns for Jack Black Skincare, Altice, 10% Happier, Cuties Diapers, Cabem Technologies, WOM Chile móvil, VH1, Bee Bald and many others. Three years ago I began working with Lowe’s Companies as a motivational spokesperson. I also have a recurring role on the television legal-drama FOR LIFE, executive produced by Hank Steinberg and 50-Cent.
Little did I know that an opportunity would arise where I could pool these talents and experiences into helping others. In 2019 I embarked on an endeavor with my business partner Rosann Santos to create a specialized career consultancy called Design Your Decade.
Tell us something about yourself that others in your organization might be surprised to know.
Rio Rocket: I have an entire comic book universe in my head that has been developing since I was a child consisting of hundreds of original characters and stories.
Many readers may wonder how to become an entrepreneur but what is an entrepreneur? How would you define it?
Rio Rocket: An entrepreneur is someone who has made a decision to choose their own path in life. They will not be capped or limited by taking a position in someone else’s organization. They have chosen to establish their own organization and fulfill their own dreams. They are willing to take risks that most people aren’t in order to achieve an uncommon level of success.
What is the importance of having a supportive and inclusive culture?
Rio Rocket: In today’s social climate it is more important than ever to develop an inclusive culture that instills a positive attitude toward our cultural differences. This begins with an awareness of an individual’s own cultural worldview and expands into developing an inclusive mindset and cross-cultural skills. In the modern workplace the success of an organization is impacted by its employees ability to communicate with and effectively interact with people across different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. The establishment of equitable leadership practices must be put in place to reinforce these practices for the betterment of all. Diversity is being invited to the party, Equity is providing the means to get there and Inclusion is being asked to dance.
How can a leader be disruptive in the post covid world?
Rio Rocket: By challenging the status quo and social norms. By not allowing what we’ve been told what we can or can’t do to dictate our pursuit of growth, creativity and fulfillment. A leader understands that something is only impossible until it’s been done. Ok the pandemic happened, now what? Assume you will now have to learn how to pivot and be digitally agile. The pandemic has disrupted all of our lives but disruptions can be a time of opportunity. There have been more millionaires minted in times of economic recession and downturn than any other time. One thing that hasn’t changed is that you have to be diligent and vigilant in your growing your brand, corporate culture and community just as it always has been.
If a 5-year-old asked you to describe your job, what would you tell them?
Rio Rocket: I am a professional pretender who is paid to entertain people as an actor, educate people as a consultant and inspire people as an artist.
Share with us one of the most difficult decisions you had to make for your company that benefited your employees or customers. What made this decision so difficult and what were the positive impacts?
Rio Rocket: The original intention of Design Your Decade was to be the Netflix for career growth. There are many streaming networks but with the exception of MasterClass, most of these platforms are purely for entertainment. In the original iteration of our idea, we would create a streaming portal that focused solely on career growth with specificity toward any particular industry or occupation.
The pandemic made it nearly impossible to safely orchestrate a filming and production environment required to facilitate this. At one point I thought we may just give up on the idea but not being one to give up, I began researching alternative delivery methods. I discovered that an audio only format could still be an effective medium to reach our audience and keep our organization alive. Although this meant sacrificing the visual aspect of teaching the upshot was that it is much more efficient to product audio content. It saved us a ton in time and production costs and we were thrilled with our end-product.
Leaders are usually asked about their most useful qualities but let’s change things up a bit. What is your most useless talent?
Rio Rocket: My most useless talent is my ability to cut my own hair by holding one mirror while standing in front of another. I suppose it’s not “entirely” useless but it’s certainly only useful to me.
Thank you so much for your time but before we finish things off, we do have one more question. If you wrote a book about your life until today, what would the title be?
Rio Rocket: “I AM RIO ROCKET”
Jed Morley, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Rio Rocket for taking the time to do this interview and share his knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Rio Rocket or his company, you can do it through his – Linkedin Page
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