Meet Zackary Mannino

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Zackary Mannino. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Zackary below.

Zackary, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

Growing up I saw resilience all around me but didn’t know it until I looked back as an adult. I saw my parents work hard and constantly moving to better our lives. My mom worked full time while taking on 15-18 hours in college credits a semester. My dad is really good at running restaurants and watching him take a restaurant that’s in the red and turning it around to be in the black is a real hard task. My maternal grandparents were in the ministry and seeing them constantly trust in God in all decisions and hearing the stories on how God has always provided for their needs. I believe that’s where I had my first introduction into resiliency. Also playing sports taught me how to fail consistently and strive to be better. Lastly my biggest teacher of resilience was when I joined the military. I spent 12 years as an active duty Air Force member. There were many times in my career before music where I had to be resilient because I didn’t have a choice.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

I can now proudly say I’m a full time country singer/songwriter. I love to be able to say that as my career. I grew up in Independence Louisiana, a small town about 65 miles north of New Orleans. We had roughly 1500 people in our town. After graduating high school I went and spent a year in college, realizing that wasn’t for me. I then joined the Air Force where I spent 12 years going all around the world as a dental assistant. I thrived in that kind of environment. Around 2019 I decided I wanted to learn guitar so I got one and started teaching myself how to play. After meeting some people and them helping me I started to do gigs. My first gig was in Oct of 2020. In 2021 the military moved us to North Dakota where I decided to take music seriously. I met some amazing musicians and singers there who helped me get where I am today. I decided that this is what I wanted to do with my life. In 2023 I separated from the military and started doing music full time. It’s not the easiest career path but I am home more often with my family and I love what I’m doing.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

In music I will say the top three things that is important is one, not getting stagnant. If you get complacent and play the same songs over and over never changing your setlist or reaching out of your genre here and there you’ll never grow. I constantly change my set and learn new songs weekly that is relevant in today’s music. Secondly, I think having thick skin is a must. You can’t always take things personally. You’ll be told “no” more times than you can count but you have to keep your head up and take it with a smile, shake their hand, and hope they’ll think of you in the future. Thirdly making good relationships. I have learned that you’ll get so much further if you actually care about others and not always thinking about the money. Don’t consistently cancel shows because a higher paying one comes along on the same day. Stay loyal to your locations and they’ll be that way to you. If you only chase the money you’ll never make true relationships and they’ll know.

Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?

My biggest obstacle I’m facing right now is being consistent on social media. I’m not the greatest at making/posting content. It’s something I definitely struggle with because I want things to be perfect and that takes a ton of time. I wish I was better at it but I am starting to work with someone that will help me in that area in a huge way. So I am definitely looking forward to learning for this person on how to do social media properly.

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