Jose, thank you and welcome to Resilient Entrepreneurs podcast. I love to start a podcast at the beginning. tell us a bit about your origin story. Where did life begin for you and how has that affected who you've become today?
Well, first of all, Laura and Vicki, thank you so much for having me in your show. It's great to be here. Happy to be here. Love the name, by the way, it fits the name of your podcast, The Resilient Entrepreneur. It fits like a glove. I think that part of my journey, part of my life, part of the purpose of my life was to come here and learn a little bit about resilience, learn a little bit about patience, struggle. I have had one of those very, very interesting, full yet rocky life that many of us have experienced. don't remember now that we're enjoying a new year, 2025. I don't remember a single year in my life where I thought it was just simple and nice and easy and breezy. For one reason or another, as far back as I can remember from the time I was a child, my life began with its complexities, with its challenges.
So I don't know how far back you would like me to go before we get into the entrepreneurship side of things. So as a child, I think my life began overnight and forced me to somewhat snap out of childhood and grow up.
At the age of four, I experienced a pretty devastating accident in Mexico where I grew up. A bus accident, an explosion, several cars exploded where I was burned 100% of my body. A lot of it, a good percentage in third degree burns where they, we won't get into that long story, but they didn't expect me to live. You know, because of the way it happened and we, the time that it took for me to actually get to some assistance, hours before I was able to get to a place. So they just gave me a few more hours to live and they informed my parents that, please get ready because I wouldn't make it for more than an hour or so. And, but one hour at a time and here I am.
This incident was a little over 50 years ago. So here I am having done many many things, some fun ones, some not so fun. Yeah, childhood was certainly a challenge, difficult was not a fun childhood. Most of us wish we could go back and enjoy those wonderful years. I particularly don't It was not that. They were an incredible learning experience that formed who I am. They carved those formative years, made me who I am today. But yeah, it wasn't an exciting and fun time for me at all. Grew out of it, was able to deal with all of those years of difficulties, personal, physical, emotional, the stress, the pressure, the ins and outs of hospital and recovery and the tons, you know, dozens and dozens of surgeries, reconstructive surgery and so on and so forth.
Getting back, from that age, I began to think of my future, to dream. I think part of some kids' traumatic experiences translate to becoming dreamers, becoming people that can survive based on hopes and dreams about what could happen or what will happen one day. And I think that's where my entrepreneur life began. You know, as just a young kid hoping to one day have my business, hoping to one day be important, hoping to one day be considered as one more, not just the victim, you know, not just the little guy who was in an accident, but someone who actually contributed and made a difference and did something with his or her life. It was important to me. And I focused on that and I began dabbling in business from a very young age. I often try to figure out if my circumstances turned me into an entrepreneur, if they gave me the will, the courage, the desire, the willingness to just start moving towards a business world or if I was born that way, I will never know. That's the question of all questions I ask myself and I think a lot of entrepreneurs ask themselves that same question. Were they born with those particular characteristics or that something in their lives triggered that desire at some point?
Jose, wow. Thank you for sharing that deeply personal story and I can't even imagine what that would have been like and I can really understand you saying childhood is not something you'd choose to go back to and you kind of answered my next question there too and that was you know that's more than resilience that's that's it gives me shivers to think that we're sitting here talking to you today. Knowing that you went through that at such a young age, probably not went through it. You conquered it and then went on to conquer so much more. And my question was really about, you know, what does it take? And I think you answered with the dreaming. So yeah, it does seem that entrepreneurs, we do dream and perhaps it takes that dream to get us going or to keep us going? What do you think?
Absolutely, and I think everybody reacts differently to different things. I know, some of us just try to hide away from problems. I think that I was born of a very strong person, a very positive person from, of course, a lot of that starts being taken away from you over the years. You know, your tolerance and patience starts, instead of improving, sometimes tends to go backwards as life as you face so much adversity over time. But I dealt with it quite well. I was always very hopeful for some reason I didn't let it get me down. Instead of that, I tried to use this. It developed my ability to solve problems, to build relationships, to understand people, to see life from a different perspective at a very young age. Instead of running away from my circumstances, I figured out how to combat, how to fight the issues that I was going through and how to get people to like me for who I was and what I represented rather than how I looked or what had happened to me. And that was a big part of this drive. I wanted to be liked by people. I wanted to be social. I wanted to get along with others. And it obviously took a little bit of extra effort because as you know, kids can be mean. And my entire childhood was dealing with the bullying and dealing with jokes, dealing with all kinds of tough things that I had to endure.
But I never let them get me down or affect me to a level where I just didn't want to deal with it. It only made me stronger and that some people turn problems into opportunities and some others just decide not to deal with them. So I think that was my 101 lesson to how to deal with problems and adversity and keep going.
And yes, it was years of treatment. It was 10 to 12 years of going in and out of the hospital. I think I lost count after 60 surgeries or something like that where they put me under fully just, you know, the skin grafts and reconstructive surgeries of all kinds. And a lot of people tell me how great I look now. And yeah, I look a lot better. Definitely, and they did great work.
But yeah, growing out of it is difficult because when these accidents happen as a child, your skin does not have the ability to expand. And it was very, very difficult. Anyway, at some point, I just kept going, snapped out of it and lived a relatively, I made it a point myself to live a relatively normal life and then some.
As a matter of fact, some days I blame myself for always wanting more as a businessman, as a human, because life has already given me plenty and I've already exceeded the expectations that I had as a child of ever becoming something. I never thought I would reach some of the things that I have already reached. Unfortunately, as humans, you know, we keep worrying, we keep stressing, we keep trying and we always want more.
And we keep dreaming.
Yeah, I don't see that as a bad thing at all. I see that as so inspirational. And I think I really do believe that going through things in our younger years and childhood just helps make us that much stronger to deal with and become resilient, especially when you're deciding to follow the entrepreneurial journey, which is full of challenges and difficulties and stress and ups and downs and a roller coaster of a ride.
When you've already developed some resilience within yourself to keep going through hard times, that's such a gift to give yourself in your later years. And I'd say probably has a lot to do with the success you can realize now, which is incredible. And I think it's inspiring. And I don't think you should ever feel like you can't be excited about that or can't want more for yourself because you help inspire others that, if I can do it, you can do it, right? It's just such a beautiful space to be in. So what was your first entrepreneurial endeavour? What was the first thing you started?
Well, you know, even as a child, which I never talk about, but I started like one of the some of those kids that just put a little tent and started selling lemonade and candy. And I was one of those that I had better opportunities. My dad at the time when I was a kid had a job and eventually a business that required traveling to the US. And back then, Mexico, where I grew up, lacked so many things from toys and candy and all the things that we see now, they didn't exist down there. So when I came here, I was mesmerized by the products, the stores that I saw. And I borrowed a little money to buy some things.
Here's a real, real fun story that my dad gave me some money to buy something for myself. For some reason, don't ask me why, that didn't go through my mind. Through my mind went, no, I'm gonna buy something to sell it. Most kids would say, what do I want? What do I want? I was thinking, what would sell? What would somebody want when I go back to Mexico that I can flip make a little money on? I don't know why that came to me, but I remember it vividly.
So, you know, I bought a few random things when I came back to Mexico, sold them to my friends. Now every time I had a chance to travel with my dad, I would do so. And then, you know, that was obviously not a formal business, but that's how it all started. I had that itch and the first opportunity I had when I was in college, I started a business that was in the exporting of machinery for the oil and gas because I had some contacts through my family that allowed me to get into that business. And that went well. One business led to another and I was involved. I always had the itch. I was always looking at other opportunities. I never seemed to just focus only on whatever it is that I was doing. That can be positive and negative. You can easily lose focus if you start dabbling in multiple businesses before you have established yourself well and built some capital where you can actually deploy it and invest it in other things. Sometimes I would get ahead of myself, which is why I attribute some of my failures, my lack of experience in some of my first experiences where I did not know how to, from capital reserves and I didn't understand about devaluations and currency exchanges and market fluctuations and economic changes and crisis and competition and all those things gradually came to me. The difference between profit and cash flow and you started learning a little bit at a time and I started doing so well so quickly, very young in my first business that I didn't plan for all those things because when you're young and you start a business and it happens to go well, you start thinking that you're invincible and that it's going to keep doing well forever. You don't think that things are gonna come to a complete stop overnight and that you better plan for those changes and be able to pivot and make some adjustments. So I've had to start all over several times in different industries as a result.
That's got to be tough when you're really on a high, you're building, you feel you have the success under you. You're seeing the results and you're seeing the profitability and then having to start again. I guess the dream is that you would exit a business by selling it or handing it over to, you know, through a sale and acquisition. Yet what you're saying is that you lost it.
Yes, yes, yes, absolutely. And what we all aspire to do is to start a business, build a business and either grow it to a level where it runs by itself, where you are no longer required to be on the day-to-day activities so that you can start improving your lifestyle and having some fun, or as you said, sell it or pass it on or something of that nature.
It was not my case. In my first case, eventually the lack of payment from my clients put me out of business. They slowed down the way that they were paying their bills. So I started having trouble paying my vendors. Before you know it, they put me out of business and the industry changed and it became obsolete at some point and I had to move on to something else.
But starting from scratch is terrifying. Once you're on top and you start doing well, you feel like this is the end of your life and you don't know how you're ever going to recover. Getting back to the resilience part, one of the frequent questions I get asked is, where did I find the strength? How did I get back? How did I start again? And it was a process. It was not an overnight, it was not quickly. I was not someone who immediately just figured things out or that I'm not going to say that I was so positive and so ready to jump on the next opportunity. It took a while, you know, a couple of years while you adapt, while you go through this transition, your new reality that you lost your business, you lost your savings, you have to figure out where to go from there. It is depressing. Something I tell entrepreneurs that go through this, it's okay to feel horrible. It's okay to be in pain, to feel some remorse about whatever it is that you didn't do right or you could have done better. Just like a failed relationship almost, just like a failed relationship that went on for years. And there is a process, there's a period of time for you to eventually come to terms with where you are and begin again. So thankfully, I had other opportunities and through my first business, I had made contacts and I had built some credibility. And I was known as someone who knew how to start and build a business. And before you know it, I began again.
It never happens so quickly and it is painful. So whoever tells you any different, I'm so strong and I can just, can now we, a lot of entrepreneurs just talk about how success comes to them and how they are great and powerful and make it seem so easy, but it's not. It is rarely, I always talk about entrepreneurship being a very, very difficult choice, a very uncertain path. And you have to have a certain personality, the tolerance to pain, to stress, to having to do hundreds of things a day and not have the luxury of leaving things for tomorrow. And in having that famous resilience that we're talking about, that if it's not in you, if you're not able to manage the pressure that it comes with, it's not for everyone. Entrepreneurship is certainly not for everyone.
Thank you, we agree, we talk about this quite a lot. It is not for everyone and I like to position it as a calling. You know, I think we're called to be entrepreneurs, it's not something we just wake up one morning and say, you know what, I think I'm just going to start my own business. Like, what is it that, well, maybe we do wake up, but there's a calling behind it. There's a reason we're trying to solve a problem in the world. We're trying to fill a gap, we're going to try to bring something into the world that we needed. There's a reason every entrepreneur jumps into this amazing party that we're having. thank you for speaking so frankly about the times when it didn't work. And I think this is so key for our listeners who, you know, we're somewhere into the first quarter of the year here and they may be thinking, yeah I tried business, it wasn't for me, but there's still a whisper in their heart that says, I wish I could. And I think your story really helps with that, that notion of if, if you're still wishing you could, you can, you know, you, you talk about not being the victim, you talk about taking the time you need to grieve whatever's happened and learn from it. So I'm curious from you, did you learn? Did you do things differently the next time? What did you do differently the next time?
Absolutely, every experience was different. Of course, there was a new learning curve. It was a new industry. Subsequently, I started investing and, well, first I went on to the restaurant business, through some of the friends that I had made and little by little, I started making some money to be able to start a new business and so on and so forth. And I was a little more cautious. Every experience made me a little more skeptical. Now I knew that failure was possible and that is a very powerful tool. It's sort of like telling my kids not to fall off the bike and to do a certain thing and don't ride when the road is wet. And they don't believe me. They don't believe me. But after they fall and hurt themselves, all of a sudden, next time around, you start taking some precautions. And in business, it's a little bit like that. It's hard to learn these lessons through somebody else, through advice, the recommendations. Yeah, they're good tools, but until you start facing some of these problems yourself and start suffering from some real losses, you start adjusting the way that you do things.
So the subsequent times I gradually got better at understanding the business, the pros, the cons, the competition, doing more research, understanding how it worked, creating manuals of operation, identifying what I was good at, the parts that I could handle, understanding that it wasn't enough just for me to get into a business because I liked it. I needed to bring something to the table and understand the niche market and understand what I was going to provide that was different than the rest of the competitors. So on and so forth, doing more analysis, always being ahead of things, always forecasting, always thinking, months and perhaps years ahead of what's happening, understanding the process of growing, selecting the right people to surround yourself with, so on and so forth. And I think entrepreneurs over the years start improving their ability to lead, to operate the different areas, understand what are the areas that need more time than others and so on and so forth. Then you start developing a sixth sense. But I was a slow learner incidentally as I lost several businesses before I actually... And by the way, I think that sometimes it's destiny, luck, circumstances, but I happened to be in businesses that were either very cyclical, like the exporting of different industries that I was involved, including real estate, the housing market, the land development market, where overnight it stops. And if you're not prepared for your carrying costs for your employees, if you don't have reserves and if you don't have your act together, it can destroy your business. And particularly when you're still a relatively small business, that you don't have access to institutional capital or things like that. And you're not a public company that can carry you through those difficult years. You have to plan for them. So I did develop more of an ability to prepare myself for these things. Every cycle, unfortunately, every bad cycle comes with different characteristics. So even if you learn some things, you cannot always apply them to the new problem or to the new industry or to your new business. So I did that. And one of the big, big lessons, although there were thousands of lessons from little, medium and large ones, was to really create a mission that was greater than myself, greater than just making some money. Because I noticed that every time that I just simply focused on the profit and making a quick dollar, I ended up with a lot of problems and no dollar. But the times when you focused on the purpose, on the objective, on the mission, on the vision of your strategy, what are you trying to do and why are you doing it and where is it taking you. You tend to do a little better and the money happens to just be a consequence of those actions. So that was one of the big lessons too. Just to find that purpose.
Well, so tell us what mission are you on? I love that.
Well, I certainly have a new one. Part of, of course, we all have to find something before you get to that, achieving that mission is understanding your limitations. What do you like about any given business before you can contribute to it? What do you like about it? Why are you getting in it? What are you good at? Because it's not enough to jump into a business or an industry because you like it. You have to actually be good at something before you invest some quality time in it. And incidentally, I became pretty good, this is a reality for many of us, I became very good at doing some things that I don't like doing. I think this is a reality for a lot of executives, a lot of entrepreneurs. I came from a different school of responsibility, accountability, punctuality. You have to do what you have to do when you have to do it, whether you like it or not. That was my, the origin, my background. And I was one of those entrepreneurs who was very, very hands-on, very involved in every aspect of my organisation and it wears you out over the years. It makes you overwork at times.
So I invested many, many years, perhaps decades, just working on things as an obligation, as a responsibility because they needed to get done because they were part of my duties. And to answer your question, part of my mission now, and after so many years in multiple attempts to gradually begin to not only provide a service and do some good for society and the community, but to also start enjoying it more, to find the positive angle of the different activities. I don't suggest that we should do this early on because now we have a new generation of all pleasure, immediate gratification, and if I'm not passionate, I won't do it.
I'm somewhere in the middle like, we have to pay our dues. You cannot, we have this new generation where if it's not perfect, I won't do it. If it doesn't make me fully happy. Well, guess what? Every activity comes with some homework and some things that are not pleasurable or exciting, but you work towards that dream and those goals. Little by little, you start passing on those responsibilities and eliminating some of the things that you're not too thrilled about doing within your business. And I've gotten gradually better at it, where I've gotten better at delegating, better at finding the team that can help me with the activities that I'm not so good at. But it takes time. We shouldn't expect it overnight. We should understand that, yeah, at first I have to pay my dues and be Mr. or Mrs. Everything. And I need to be the accountant, the bookkeeper, the sales, the purchasing, the numbers, the marketing, the IT and the negotiator and so on and so forth. And eventually you start focusing more on the side of the business that you enjoy a little more. So now I'm liking more, little by little, to begin to influence others to perhaps have a better experience in what I had in my business career and perhaps understand the process of reaching success without not necessarily faster, because there are no shortcuts, but perhaps with less expectations with more realistic understanding of what it takes, how long it takes and what exactly it takes to succeed in business and to take your business from A to Z and enjoy the process. So that's why I'm writing books now and I'm enjoying it.
This is wonderful. And it really brings us full circle, Jose, to where you started, what the journey was like, the roller coaster ride of entrepreneurship in its truest form. And now to how you're serving the entrepreneurial community and the world with the lessons that you bring forth. And so these books are key. And let's talk a bit about this book writing process. You're about to release your third book.
The second book, I'm in the middle of writing the third book, but I'm about to release my second book, yes.
Yeah. And so tell us what drives the book writing and what is that process like for someone who is thinking that they have a book or two in them because they also have shared experiences that they want the world to know about.
Yes, yes, thank you for that because it's becoming more popular, by the way. More and more people are understanding that it's not as difficult as it appears. It just requires time. And that is the toughest part, finding the time. I tell people around me that if this was the only thing that I was doing, man, it would be a picnic. It would be fun and so much, it's so easy. But when you're writing and you do it on your spare time, it becomes very difficult because just getting back where you left off and remembering what you said and what you didn't say and how you said it and regrouping and reorganizing your thoughts is the challenging part. But this is something that I'm not a writer in the literary aspects of by any means, by any stretch of the imagination. As a matter of fact, English is my second language and I struggle with grammar, spelling and everything else. But I'm a storyteller, I like explaining, teaching, training, informing, that is my forte and what I do, of course. For those out there who want to write a book, there are different levels in which you can get help. From a full blown a company that can help you write the whole thing based on your story, which is not what I wanted because I wanted it to sound like me. I wanted to be part of this writing process, but I'm also not a writer. So there are different levels of ghost writing out there that can help you from little to as much as you want. Or you can write the whole thing and just have it edited. I participate a lot, but I definitely need my writing edited because I'm not grammatically accurate in any way, or form. But my stories are what I'm enjoying putting down on paper, the business side, I started writing about business, which is probably what I'm more interested in. Eventually I want to write more about adversity, about life, about setbacks, about dealing with the different aspects of what any human being needs to deal with in order to become successful or live a better life. Because I think that I've been through enough. I do believe that in order to earn the right to write a book, you have to live enough and have some sort of experience. But people who want to do it, the first step is to understand what do you want to talk about? Here we go back to the combination of things. It's not just one thing. First of all, what is your message? What do you want to talk about? What are you good at? What do you understand? Because you can, you may want to talk about something, but you don't understand the subject or vice versa. You may understand the subject, but you really don't know how to organize your thoughts. And when you put those together and begin to understand the sequence of events in which you want to tell your story, you start getting some practice. And now after a couple of books, I'm getting the hang of it, where I have so much that I want to write about and hopefully I will continue to do this for a few years.
It's a fascinating journey. It's like you said, something that's very much more popular now as a very effective marketing tool. Because I believe the real value in writing the book is the clarity that comes in the process for the writer. Has that been your experience?
Absolutely. Absolutely. have to have credibility. First of all, incidentally, the reason why I wrote about not only entrepreneurship, but the home building business. And by the way, my book is not about how to build homes. It's about how to build a business that builds homes or that builds any product or service. It helps you organize your thoughts as to how to put your business together.
But after speaking to the experts, because I did some research as to how to go about it and how to put this thing together. Incidentally, I wanted to write about other things, I wasn't thrilled about writing about this subject, but I was recommended that since I wanted to do this for the long run and I wanted to grow within the process of writing, that it would make sense for me to start with exactly what you said, having that clarity and that credibility in writing about something that you are known for, that you are good at, and that you understand. And that's where you start.
Eventually, there is a syndrome in the world that we live in. Let's call it the billionaires of today, the Mark Zuckerbergs, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musks, and all of those wonderful billionaires, that once they reach success in one thing, the world begins to believe that they're good at everything and they begin to ask their opinion about everything. But they had to start somewhere with one product, with one subject and become good at it. So all of us, as our responsibility before we can contribute, we have to show that we have the ability to succeed and become good at something before we earn the right to give our opinion.
And that is how this whole thing works. That is a famous syndrome. Once you become successful people tend to believe that you're smarter than you really are. And it's just the way this, that's just the way the world is.
Yeah, it's so true. And so much of what you've talked about has really been building upon that theme of putting in the work, becoming resilient, learning, growing, failing, bouncing back from failure into success. And I think you're going to write more and more about your story is the gut feeling I'm getting. Like more of your story is gonna weave into what you share. And like you said, you like storytelling. That's definitely come through today. And stories are the best way to share anything. If you go back to oral history, know, so much of what we've learned through the millennia has been through stories, storytelling is so important. We lost that a bit. Now stories are 15 seconds on TikTok, but they’re still stories and people still want to share stories and hear stories and learn from stories. So yeah, keep telling stories. That's great.
You are so right. I recently started reading the Harry Potter books with my son. I, you know, I'm ADD, by the way, one more issue that I have. I'm dyslexic and I have a level of ADD where it's hard for me. Thankfully, it's manageable, but it's hard for me to read long books.
It's to what you are saying, you are so right how people love the details of the story. And they submerge themselves into things that I never thought you could write about with so much of an explanation and transporting you to places that readers love. And eventually I want to do more of that. It's fascinating to tell a story and to eventually learn how to tell a story. And you're so right. Eventually my plan is to talk a little more about life itself, not only mine, but other interesting lives that I've been around, that I think readers would find fascinating.
Exactly. Exactly. Exactly right. It's just all communication, isn't it? And it's so valuable and important. And when we share our stories, I think we really open up for other people to get vulnerable enough to share theirs. And it's through the sharing of those experiences that we learn and grow and release when we need to as well, especially things that were traumatic and you were able to overcome them. That's so inspiring to others. So I just want to say, you know, very personally thank you so much for sharing your story with us today because it's just beautiful that you were able to open up and it's beautiful that we have this platform and I'm so grateful for it and for you for joining us today. I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for coming on and sharing so openly with us and giving so much good advice to all those young, aspiring, learning, growing, failing entrepreneurs out there. That it's all just part of the journey and every one of us has a story to tell.
Thank you so, so much. I really appreciate you having me in your show. And yes, it's about the journey. It's about always just keep going. Just keep going and tomorrow's another day.
Exactly. Exactly. Thank you so much. Appreciate you.
