Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another S.D.M.E.R. My name is Alvaro and today we're going to have with us Mike Graciano. Now, if you want to learn what it takes to take your business to the next level through PR and media, he's the guy. He's the founder of Mindful Media, which was recently listed on Forbes as one of the top seven PR and branding firms for entrepreneurs on 2021.
He's also the youngest Canadian to visit all 193 UN nations in the world. Very excited to have him here today. Hey, hey, what's happening, Mike? What's up, brother?
How you doing? Good, yourself? I'm good. Good morning from Vancouver, Canada.
How are you? Things over there? Good, man. Beautiful.
Sunny day. Summer's coming, man. It's really nice. Obviously, it's not like Miami, but we're getting there.
That's good. We have a few people joining us this morning that say that we're looking good. So, must be the weather, right? So, hey, thanks, Mike, for joining us this morning.
This is fantastic. I was making a quick intro about yourself on how amazing has been the journey for yourself and helping many, many entrepreneurs to really take their business to the next level through your PR company, Mindful Media. So, tell us a little bit about your story yourself and how do you get where you are today? Well, if we're going to start that story, why don't we start here and show you guys this?
So, I started traveling. I did 193 countries. So, every country in the world. So, I got all my views of the clear, all my passports.
So, we had a project called Global Degree. We're visiting all 193 countries in 72 months. So, this is how my journey began. So, I've been traveling for the last six years and I got home just before COVID lockdown.
I got home February 2020 and seven days later, the whole world shut down. So, that's how it started and the whole travel industry shut down, as you know, right? And so, I had to go back to the drawing board. I had to reinvent myself like many people did in 2020.
And I thought to myself, there's a quote by Zig Ziglar. You might know it. You can have anything you want in this world if you help others get what they want first. That's awesome.
Yes. Yeah, and that really brought an idea of service to me. I'm a humble servant, but an ambitious one. So, I was leveraging press to get to every country.
I mean, when I said I was going to go to every country in the world, no one believed me. But I got to press to believe me. And when I got an interview in the Huffington Post, I then sent that to TripAdvisor and Discovery Channel GoPro got them as partners. And then once I had them behind the project, I wanted to film, hired a film crew and photographers.
And then once I got them on board, then we filmed the content and got a big audience. And the bigger the audience, the more press we got. So, it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. And I asked myself if I could leverage press to go to every country in the world, imagine what I could help other people accomplish.
You know? And so, we created a, we created Michael Media with that exact mission. We want to help mindful people who are trying to change the world, get the biggest press in the world. That's amazing.
Well, the story is so inspiring because it's not easy to travel these days. And you definitely made it happen before the pandemic visited every country. Now, let me ask you this, Mike, because there must be one place that you really like the most. I'll give you some surprises in each continent, each region, Central America, Guatemala.
They call it a nature playground, a place called Simuq-Champay. There's natural rock slides and vines you can hang on like Tarzan. You can climb up waterfall caves. It's just beautiful.
In South America, Columbia, obviously, we party with 50,000 pumpkins during the World Cup in Brazil. If you remember that. In Asia, we went to Bhutan, the world's happiest place. It's, if you want to know what the world looked like 2,000 years ago, go to Bhutan, everyone's still in their traditional robes and, you know, Buddhists in these like, forts and just really incredible Mongolia.
We spent time with Eagle Tribes in the middle of the Gobi deserts, Africa, Namibia, as incredible, Djibouti, and Europe. I check out Malta. Malta's a little secret of Europe, and Montenegro as well is some of the best boating in the world. Not many people know about it.
Out, what was the biggest lesson? First off, asking each hour's eve. I think people want a lot, but they're not asking for it. And they're not asking for the right people.
I think you need to have courage to ask for really big things, because you only live once. And you may as well, why not? You know, why not go to every country? Why not go make a million dollars?
Why not go and go to space? Why not? You know, it just experience everything in life, right? So, you know, a lot of people regret not taking more risks.
So I'd say go for it, have courage to ask big things, have gratitude to receive it. Second thing is people are good everywhere, bro. There's so much love out there. There's so much respect.
That's true. And in the Middle East, in Africa, Iraq, Iran, Syria, you know, Yemen, Somalia was one of my favorite places. One thing I did learn as well, and this was just a reality. It's a truth.
It's unincredibly privileged. I'm a tall white man, you know. I'm coming from a loving middle-class family. I, not only that, I had a Canadian passport and an American passport, well, citizen.
So I could just walk into 180 countries without visa and someone from Iran, for example, just as much money, just as much education, just as much status, just as many family connections. They can only go to maybe 30, 30, 40 countries. Just talking about that, Mike, because, you know, I always like to ask this question, and it comes in all different shapes of form is luxury. What is really luxury to you?
Luxury is quality. I think quality and attention, attention to detail. That for me is luxury. It's a timeless piece of art, which is something you and future people, people the future can always experience and admire and enjoy.
That's great. The quality and attention to detail. So those are great answers. Now, Mike, I know you're having made your success.
You've been featured recently in Forbes as one of the top seven PR and branding firms for entrepreneurs in this 2021. So what are some of the projects that you're currently working on? We screen the people we work with. We only work with really high quality people.
So that makes it so much easier to get them pressed and to help tell their story. So we've gone to 200 clients quick. We're growing even faster. It's going exponential.
So I'm trying to now take on the challenges of leading a team, of keeping that personal touch. Like we said, luxury is attention to detail. So we need to get luxury quality service. And so we're working with wellness brands, tech companies, working with best-selling authors, a lot of big podcasts, a lot of coaches, people helping open up this conscious community.
And yeah, we're really helping people tell their story in an authentic way, which is hard because as you know, some of the most successful people, they're so humble. They don't like to talk about it. Yeah, it's not true. They don't like to talk about it.
But they're humble quality. Got them to where they are. But I know deep down, everyone has a story to tell and everyone wants to be heard. So we want to work with those people, the humble ones who are sitting in the back of the room.
We want them to talk and then to spread their story. It's so amazing what you're saying, Mike, because you are answering into questions that I wanted to ask you. You know, you're like, definitely go ahead through all those points. Because to be honest, I believe that everybody, as you said, happens the story is to tell.
Everybody has a unique story to tell. And there's so many successful people that have so much to share, but they don't know how to or they don't know how to articulate it. And you know, somebody like you that really knows how to reach out the max potential out of that story and reach out the masses that are going to see amazing value in it. Because I think that what you said is right, helping multiple communities by bringing value through the stories of others and making a more positive environment.
Because we already have too much bad negative media. We need more people like you that bring the right people out to the world to share their story and inspire others. So I really admire what you do. I'm impatient, I'm impulsive, and I'm extreme.
Like when I travel, I don't just go to one country, I go to every country in the world. You know, when I make money, I don't play small. If we go for tens of millions, like when I play, I play big. And so what I'm doing now is, you know, they're coming to me with an idea.
I'm like, okay, well, we're going to do it. Like, let's literally do it. Let's take you to the most maximum place you can go. And let's use press to get there.
There's a thing called leverage. OPM, other people's money, OPM, other people's networks. You're leveraging things to get to other things. You're using it to unlock self-fulfilling prophecy, your quarterback of your team, and you're creating a plan for everyone.
And it only works when you have that connector that come together. And people are starting to realize that and play with that. And I've seen with my own eyes, I've seen people 10x, I've even seen people 100x off of leverage, because it all comes down to the creativity of what's possible with the leverage of the media or other investments and stuff like that. So it's fun.
Sorry. Indeed. No, no, indeed, that's perfect. I think that you really touched on the right point right there.
Other people's networks or other people's stages. There's so much right now that you can use as leverage, not just the money itself, but who other people know or the places that they have access to. And it's all about connecting. You said that right there, connecting, connecting, connecting.
And right now with the press and the media, it's easier to share your story and connect with the right people. So if there's one takeaway, Mike, that you could give to everybody that is listening, either they're entrepreneurs or business owners that are trying to take their business to the next level, what will you tell them? Look, we're all back to square one. I don't care if you're a startup in a garage or you're a trillion-dollar company.
The whole world has just changed right in front of your eyes. COVID has changed everything. It's changed travel. It's changed the way we travel.
It's changed the way we speak to each other. It's changed the way we work. It's changed the way we connect. It's changed the way we interact.
It's changed everything. It really, really has. And it's every 10 years, every decade or so, the world gets shaken up by something. And it's back to square one.
And so I don't care who you are, it's back to the drawing board. And what an opportunity to develop your idea, to take your project to the next level, and to really go for it right now. Now is the time. Looking back on this moment, you'll realize these were the moments.
They were right in front of me. So just know that and have faith in that. Take those leaps. Take those leaps of faith.
Just give up on the scary ones. Yeah, the scary ones. Yes. Yeah, because I noticed, I'm starting to notice, you know, muscle memory, right?
What is that? That's, you're trying to finesse your muscle and it hurts. And but it's repetition and it's getting your reps in, you know? If you can take your reps in with taking the leaps of faith, then all of a sudden you're really evolving quickly.
So I know that next leap is scary. We all have something we're scared to jump, but take the leap, get those reps in and we'll have some fun. Amazing Mike. What an inspirational story.
What amazing points that people can start applying immediately. So thank you again for your time. I don't know if there's anything else that you would like to share before we wrap this up. I was like, come to Miami, brother.
We're going to take this conversation offline and I got some big ideas. But, uh, let's do it. I love your work. I love what you do.
You know, you just seem really genuine. I think that's why these people connect with you. And, uh, yeah, I'm excited to grow our relationship and have fun with all of our followers and all of our friends. So thank you.
Let's do it, Mike. Thank you again. I wish you a beautiful day. See you, Miami soon.
And let's crush it. Let's go. Ciao. Thank you, everybody.
Bye.