Today we’d like to introduce you to Mia Rio.
Mia, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I moved to America in 2007 from Brazil and realized early I had a lot of adapting to do, especially after spending my first three months of America living in an Amish county in Pennsylvania. The Entertainment industry was never on my mind. I loved the world of television, mainly because of how cool it was to create new realities. My dream was to be an award-winning Advertising professional creating awesome commercials. I went to school for that, and before that, I had pursued Journalism with the goal of becoming a news reporter or anchor.
Singing had always been my favorite creative outlet though, and I did quite a bit of acting too, mainly street theater as well as school and church musicals and plays, but making a career out of these things was never in my plans. I wanted to go safe with a salaried job that guaranteed me a solid financial future.
And indeed I was headed in that safe direction. Started my first job in Telemarketing in Virginia, paving the way to hone my skills and work in Experiential Marketing. Traveled to 30 states in the country touring marketing campaigns and then saw myself working at the Porsche headquarters by the Atlanta Airport. It so happens that Captain America: Civil War was filming in our building for about two months, and I would always sneak around to see how it works in the behind the scenes. I made industry friends there, met some of the actors, and completely fell in love with it all. But I stayed in my safe route. Fear is truly a suppressor in life.
I moved on to working for Google Fiber, kinda awesome opportunity, great work environment, nice coworkers. I was doing well, but at that point, pursuing the arts was screaming inside of me and waking up on Mondays was still painful. I finally said something is missing. Is there something wrong with me? I did some soul searching, and I realized that I had this sense of not living out my purpose, which brought this certain emptiness. I’ve always kinda had it when working corporate jobs, but I used to think it was because it was time to get a better job. What I really needed was to be defined by more than just someone with an awesome career. Marketing is fun, and I’m good at it, but it was time to face that I needed to stop being afraid to risk and pursue what I believed to be called to do, music, acting, teaching, and entrepreneurship. I said it’s now or never! The timing was perfect because my entire department was pretty much dissolved due to some restructuring. I decided to start working as a songwriter for recording artists, which then led to writing music for television. I have a couple of songs in the show Vida on STARZ and the reality show Vanderpump Rules on Bravo. Since then, I’ve also had the opportunity to sing the National Anthem at a WNBA game here in Atlanta, perform my music for Floyd Mayweather Sr. and act in network shows, even though I’m not yet able to announce what shows or episodes, the release dates have not been officially announced yet. More importantly, I believe to be in the path I was meant to be all along, but I appreciate my journey as it gives me the skills to go through this next step in my life.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Yes and no. Adapting to a new country is something that takes time, and you make a lot of mistakes before you get it right, even with prior preparation. It can be a painful process, really tough on you emotionally, especially when you have no family with you, which was my case. I got a lot of people offended along the way too with how I used to say things, even though I meant no harm. I’ve gotten fired from a job once because of communication barriers that got me in trouble. But hey, today I write music and play roles in English, Portuguese and Spanish. I always say that believing you can do something is not a guarantee of success, but not believing you can do something is already a guarantee of defeat.
PURE by Mia Rio – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Other than being a singer, songwriter, and actress, I created a brand of T-shirts called PURE by Mia Rio, just cool tees with empowering and kind of spunky messages, stuff that brings out the pure and inner beauty of a woman. I’m all about promoting women as dignified beings, classy and fun with a lot of value to offer the world in our feminine ways. I don’t find vulgarity beautiful and I can’t stand this idea of women trying to prove the world (and ultimately ourselves) that we are better or as good as men. Confident women don’t need to prove a thing. We just ooze out our value, whether people see it or not. We are as equally important as men but in different capacities, and the beauty of it is in that we complement each other in those differences. Men’s weaknesses are women’s strengths and vice-versa. There’s so much power in that when balanced right. My t-shirts remind us all of the value of women without taking away the value of men and hopefully encourages all of us to see the world and ourselves differently. All designs have been created by me so far, which is my favorite part of it all because I get to keep my Advertiser finger in it.
What is “success” or “successful” for you?
Success in this life is living out your purpose with the goal of building up others even more than yourself, period. Nothing else is more satisfying in life. Also, building and maintaining a healthy family, healthy mind, healthy body, and managing well our time to enjoy all those things.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.miarioonline.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/miarioonline
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/rioonlinepage
- Other: www.purebymiario.com
Image Credit:
Charles Smallwood @cwoodwork_ – personal photo
Jesse Steele @artifact.photo – photos with black shirt and skirt
Sarah Jessica Dunn @sarahshootspeople – singing photo
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