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Episode Transcription

Welcome to the Road of Life podcast, the show for married entrepreneurs who want to build a thriving marriage and a thriving business. We're your hosts, Meredith and Craig, relationship experts and entrepreneurs ourselves. We know firsthand that your business will only grow as strong as your marriage does.

On this podcast, we share real stories, practical tools, and honest conversations to help you strengthen your relationship, fuel your business, and build a life you love together. Let's dive in.

Meredith & Craig (00:33)

Jose Escobar built a seven-figure business in 15 months organically. No tech, no website, no paid ads, no automations, no emails. It was all done by organic word of mouth growth. He's also a 21-time, about to be 22 times, published author. Jose has two businesses, 12 streams of income, six kids, an amazing wife, and a partridge in a tree, and a strong faith.

And he shared with us the strategy he uses to prioritize all of those important pieces, minus the patridge in a pear tree including how he leverages the nooks and crannies to win each day.

Meredith & Craig (01:12)

Welcome Jose Escobar to the Road of Life podcast. We're super excited to have you Jose.

Jose Escobar (01:18)

I am thrilled to be here. Meredith and Craig, thank you so much for the opportunity to be on your show.

Meredith & Craig (01:22)

Our pleasure, for sure. Absolutely, an honor. So, Jose, tell us a little bit about what you do and also how you got here. What's been your origin story in entrepreneurship?

Jose Escobar (01:32)

Yeah, so Jose Escobar, founder and CEO of the Connected Leaders Academy, as well as the Entrepreneurs Bookshelf. I own two different businesses with a couple different legs under them. My core product, I guess you could say, is the Connected Leaders Academy, which is a global networking organization of some of the most successful entrepreneurs around the world. As of today, we have 562 members. We're in all 50 states across the US, and we're in 36 international countries, growing every day.

I normally say growing at the pace of one new member a day, but this week it's been about two new members a day, which is pretty nice. ⁓ And then of course under the umbrella of that, spokes off the wheel, I guess you could say I'm also a coach. I do one-on-one high ticket consulting by way of my Diamond Club, more high ticket. And then I also do the one-to-many with courses and programs. I'm a 21-time published author. I would say one of those books is my best-selling book, Winning the Day.

Meredith & Craig (02:06)

place.

Jose Escobar (02:29)

an entrepreneur's guide to morning, evening routine mastery. And then the other 20 books are co-authored books that I've done with many different influencers to expand my reach and things of that nature. And then I also am a professional speaker. So I traveled the world and the country quite a bit to speak on stages and really just create impact in the entrepreneurial world. Let's see, I have events. I'm an events host. So I host live events and virtual events as well.

quite a bit. I'd say 15 in-person events a year around the country. I collaborate with a lot of other entrepreneurs as well to kind of do things on a bigger level with, you know, multi-brand events. And then lastly, I have branded merchandise that I sell like hotcakes everywhere I go, as well as my own anthologies where people now pay to get into my books as well. And I took that same model for myself. And that's kind of everything I do in business today. I've been in business for about...

going on four years, January 15th of 2026, it'll officially be four years since I've been in business. And my claim to fame was within 15 months of coming out the gates in business, I built a seven figure business organically, right? And keep in mind, I had a full-time job at the time. I had four kids, married. I did it on my spare time and I did it with no money. And that's kind of my secret sauce. So reverse engineering that, I'll make the other half shorter.

in terms of how I got there, right? I was first of all, a corporate guy for many years. I was in the banking world with Capital One and PNC Bank and management. And then from banking, I went into life insurance. I sold life insurance for a national life group out of Vermont for a number of years. And then from there, I was on the corporate side of Liberty Mutual and State Farm doing some cool work there. And the interesting thing is, I don't know, that was maybe 17, 18 years suit and tie down to five, four walls. I'm very much the kind of guy who likes to bring my own creativity and secret sauce to everything that I do.

But in the corporate arena, there's a lot of red tape, right? So they tied my hands and, you can't do that, you can't do this, whatever. So eventually I moved the cheese. I got into the martial arts world. I was a sales director for a global martial arts company here in Maryland. And I was overseeing the US territory for everything sales. I was making a lot of people wealthy in the martial arts world. And that's when this nudge, and I've had this nudge since I was a kid. Like one day wanna have this big business. I wanna be a millionaire. I wanna change lives. I wanna impact the world.

I always was a big thinker and a visionary. And I just never did it because I was the guy who's always learning, learning, learning, growing, growing, growing, planning, planning, planning, but never executing anything. Right. So I was a, what I would consider to be a 20 year personal development junkie, you know, and it finally got to the point where my wife had a conversation with me and that was the catalyst and January 1st of 2022 where she had a hard conversation and that hard conversation led to me finally

pursuing my businesses and that was a wrap and then here we are, almost four years later, here we are.

Meredith & Craig (05:20)

I love this. We'll have to unpack there. By the way, what do you do? like, I mean, it sounds like you don't have much going on in the way of businesses. So like, what do do in your spare time? You don't seem very busy at all. ⁓ You didn't listen.

Jose Escobar (05:32)

Yeah, I'm a dad.

I'm a dad. I'm a father. I'm a father. I'm a husband. ⁓ You know all the things right? So I'm married. I have six kids so there's a lot you know on the personal side as well.

Meredith & Craig (05:42)

I was about to make that call that you said I'm a dad and I was like you're not just a dad you're a dad of six kids like that that's a whole other side but my my favorite part besides you know all the businesses and all the things you're doing and the journey you've been on my favorite part of that whole story was that your wife sat you down and had a hard conversation with you and

Hard conversations are things that none of us really enjoy. None of us want to lean in and smile and jump for joy when we have to have a hard conversation. But what comes out of those hard, like look at all you've created coming out of a hard conversation you had with your wife. And so thank God she had the courage to lean in and see your greatness before you did. And I don't know the content of that hard conversation, but I know it took her a lot of courage because hard conversations are.

are not easy, that's why we call them hard. And thankfully she had enough love and could see your greatness before you did to lean into you to have that conversation because look what you've created from all of that.

Jose Escobar (06:41)

Yeah, you're spot on. mean, was tough. It was a bitter pill to swallow. I wasn't thrilled. I was receptive. Yeah, I mean, I can give you like a little 30 second snippet of what she told me. She basically said to me, she sat me down and said, Jose, we need to talk. And I was like, dear. So I started to get concerned. I'm thinking that I not take out the trash. Was there an issue that I, know, something I said, whatever. And she sat me down and she gave me the sandwich method, right? Compliment, message, compliment.

And she said all these wonderful things. know, amazing husband, great father, you're always looking to improve yourself and add value to others and invest in yourself. You're so inspirational, so positive, all these nice things. And I was like, well, this is actually kind of nice, right? And then she said, but. And I said, okay. So she said, but you're spending all this money on one coach after another coach, and then you go to another event, and then you go to another seminar, then you sign up for that next course.

And then there's an Amazon box on the front doorstep of another book you ordered every other day. And you're doing all these things to improve yourself and to one day have a business and that's awesome. And I know technically you have a business at the bank and an LLC, but you're not making any money. And you're throwing out all this money to these things, tens of thousands of dollars. And that could be money that we could be getting out of debt with. That could be money that we could be traveling the Disney world with the family with. It could be things that we could be doing in different ways.

and you're just not making it happen. So I don't mean to be mean or rude or whatever, but at some point you gotta start making money. And if you're not gonna make money in the business, just forget about it and commit to being the best employee you can be. And I know you would be great at that. But if you commit to pursuing the business, just do it. And I know, I believe in you, I know you're gonna crush it if you do it, but you just gotta do it. And if you're not, then don't. And that was her conversation. And I walked away that day, I had a cigar in my...

neighborhood I had a coffee and I was walking my neighborhood for quite a bit and I prayed I Meditated I journaled I thought and I and I started putting ideas on a whiteboard and that conversation Was the catalyst that made me move really?

Meredith & Craig (08:45)

the courage to have that and the love that she had to have that conversation. It's powerful. And it's so cool that having that conversation not only changed your relationship in your family's life, but the legacy of all the lives that you've impacted now, like 500 members plus in CLA and all the entrepreneurs that now have a place to go and connect and...

build their businesses with and collaborate because of that conversation. The legacy behind that is incredible when you really think

Jose Escobar (09:18)

Yeah, I appreciate it now. Trust me.

Meredith & Craig (09:20)

What

was the story that you had in your mind up until that point? How did the story shift for you after that? Because you walked the block, you the coffee in the cigar, you journaled and all the things. What was the story up until that conversation with her? And then how did the story shift so that you did finally like, okay, I'm going to lean in and actually take action on this?

Jose Escobar (09:39)

Yeah, so as I said, I thought, I prayed, I meditated, I journaled, and then I, after, this was like literally hours. So it was probably like 10, 10, 11 at night or something like that where I actually got the whiteboard. It's this big, massive whiteboard that fills up a whole wall here where I started just brain dumping. And I started saying, okay, well gotta start a real business because my business at the time was Escobar Enterprises, LLC.

in the bank and I started with $25 in there and it eventually was negative because I never added to it, right? So, and I was never selling anything and I said, I gotta sell something, what can I sell? So the first two products and services that I sold was the morning, evening routine mastery program because it's something that I did in my own life. I applied the principles of how you start your day and end your day. And I said, I could teach what I did in a year in eight weeks and start a course. And then I said, well,

I've been in the relationship space building all these relationships for 20 years, going to all these events. I lost count that I met so many successful people. They all know me, but they don't know each other. So I said, if I can just charge a small fee to bring all these people together that already know I can trust me, I think I could build something pretty substantial and it could be a win-win-win, right? A win across the board. So that was the idea. And I can tell you what allowed me to create that idea is I said, okay, what am I good at already?

In terms of like, you know skill set what am I passionate about and what is missing in the marketplace that could improve right a need that I can fill So I said well, there's a lot of communities out there that is just way too pitchy Everybody's just trying to sell everybody and I said there's ⁓ a lot of communities out there. They're very niched It's just a bunch of authors or just a bunch of speakers or just a bunch of coaches or just about the real estate people So I said I want to create a different culture in this group

I want to bring the best of the best of all backgrounds under one roof." And I started looking at that aspect and I said, what am I good at? I'm good at galvanizing. I love bringing people together. I'm good at sales. I'm good at talking and networking and building relationships. I know I'm good at that. I've been doing that since elementary school. And then I said, I'm also passionate about people and serving and helping and changing lives. And I'm passionate about teaching people things. So I said,

I should start a community. So that's where the idea came. I had all these ideas and it all kind of narrowed down to membership community, right, and recurring revenue. that's, within two weeks, so I started mapping all these ideas out. I created a logo, I had the name, I had the features and benefits, the price points, all the moving parts that led to this one page of what it is today. And that was all done within two weeks time. And within two weeks, I went on social media, on Facebook. I get no money, I had no money to start it.

And I said, hey, I'm open for business. I'm launching this community. Are you a business owner? Are you an entrepreneur? And I'm just a guy who painted a vision. I said, we're gonna be this and we're gonna be that and this is where we're going and this is who I'm looking for. Is that you? You need to check us out. And little by little, sure enough, people started saying, what is this? What is this? Tell us more. And I started reaching out proactively to people that I already knew that had that know, like and trust. And one by one, one by one, they started joining. And within 30 days from launching, I had 100 paid members.

Meredith & Craig (12:44)

Wow. That's incredible. That's an amazing story. And I agree with you, such a need. I would say we learned two major lessons from our journey from corporate to entrepreneur. And the first one, which you already touched on, is that we could be successful in our corporate lives and climb that corporate ladder and have success in that world doing zero work on ourselves. Like letting the perfectionism, people pleasing run rampant and never actually digging in and doing any personal growth.

That was the first big lesson was, Oh, our business will only go as far as grow as far as we do. So we need to dig into ourselves. The second big lesson we learned was that entrepreneurship can be really lonely. Like it can be really isolating. It sometimes feels like you're standing on a cliff mountain to the abyss. Like is, anybody out there? Especially if you're a family, if you don't come from a family of entrepreneurs, like if you grew up believing because the people around you were espousing that it's like, no, you go to school, you get good grades.

You go to more school, get more good grades, and then graduate and climb the corporate ladder. That's all you know, then that's what you hear even when you jump into entrepreneurship and it becomes very lonely because they don't understand the world you've now decided to delve into. They just they don't get it and it's lonely. It's super lonely. So having a community of people.

who aren't necessarily to your point doing the exact same thing that you're doing, like the exact same business model, but the exact same way, like doesn't have to be that. They just have to be trying to accomplish something similar and understand the path that you're on so that you feel less alone because you've got someone cheering you on and holding you accountable, supporting you, understanding you and what you're trying to accomplish is a game changer.

compared to trying to just push that rope uphill all by yourself. So one, thank you for creating the space. And two, I agree it was such a need because entrepreneurship and business ownership can be such a lonely battle.

Jose Escobar (14:35)

Yeah, no, that's another byproduct of what I create. Because when you add value to the marketplace, everybody else wins. And then you win by default. At least you should. I think making money is a direct correlation to the impact that you're creating. Not always, but for me, that's what it's about. It's about changing lives, creating that environment. And it's cool. It's just awesome to see a bunch of amazing people like you two coming together with all these other people in CLA.

And we're there to learn, to grow, add value to each other, to serve each other, to lift each other up when we're down. some people you're gonna lift up, some other people are gonna lift you up, and we can all just kind of live life in the entrepreneurial world together, right? And like you said, community is so important.

Meredith & Craig (15:15)

Yeah. And it's more fun. Like, fun's a nice byproduct. We need to be having fun in all areas of our lives. It's a necessity. the life is short and there's a lot of stuff going on that makes it serious. It's so nice to be able to do it with people that you like and be able to have a good time while you're building legacy and businesses and making an impact in the world. That's what it's all about.

Jose Escobar (15:18)

Yes, yes.

Meredith & Craig (15:38)

Go ahead. Talk to us a little bit about, because you've got six kids and a family, your wife at home, and you're balancing all of these businesses. Like, help us understand how you're able to do all of that and maintain that life at home.

Jose Escobar (15:55)

So it goes back to the secret sauce of my book, right? I wrote this book called Winning the Day, An Entrepreneur's Guide to Morning, Evening Routine Mastery, which is all about the bookends of your day. How do you start your day? How do you end your day? What are all the moving parts to high performance and maximum productivity? So that's what I teach. I've learned a lot from Robin Sharma, Hal Elra, Tony Robbins, Mel Robbins, John Maxwell, you name it. I've done tons of research on YouTube and podcasts and read all the books on this subject. I just love the idea of

how you start your day and end your day, right? There isn't enough content out there about ending your day. It's a lot about starting your day, right? So that's where I came in. I said, oh, there's a missing link there. I should focus more on the end of the day, but also touch on my version of the beginning of the day, right? Based on everything I've learned and everything I've applied to my life. So what I had done is in 2019, I committed to a morning routine and an evening routine for a whole year. I lost 36 pounds.

I started a business at the time. By the way, a lot of people don't know this, so I'm dropping this on your podcast. My first business actually was the, what was it called? Fat Class Marketing. So I learned from a guy named Ty Lopez, and he's had this program called the ⁓ SMMA, Social Media Marketing Agency, and he taught you how to launch a social media agency from zero to hero and launch it.

I said, I'm just gonna learn from this guy. I paid for his course and his program. I started doing all that stuff. And that was my first kind of stint. But then there was a massive break in between when it all shut down, right? Between COVID, between 2020 and 2022 is when I didn't have anything going on, just kind of like trying to re-figure it out because I was teaching restaurants and bars how to bring revenue by helping them with their social media. That's where I started, right? So anyway, but again, within that morning routine, evening routine, I launched a business, I got out of debt.

I got a raise at my job. I became a better father, a better husband. I started reading a book a week. I got in better shape, intellectually I was stimulated. My spiritual life went up to an all-time high. I mean, you name it, my whole life changed in one year. So I said, my gosh, I should teach other people how to do this. So that's where that came from. But to answer your question, my secret sauce is my first thing on my calendar is my faith. Second thing on my calendar is my wife. Third thing on my calendar are my children. Fourth on my calendar is my health.

Fifth on my calendar is my business, right? That's my order of operations. Too many people ask me, Jose, how in the world do you find time for your wife and kids when you're doing all these businesses and all these things? I'm like, well, first of all, that's not my priority. That's my fifth priority, right? There is no business if I'm not healthy. And there is no home if my wife is unhappy.

There is no home if my kids are all over the place and causing chaos and causing trouble and not feeling loved and all that kind of stuff, right? And above all of that, there is no me and any of that if there isn't my faith. So it all goes in chronological order, right? So on my calendar, you're gonna find those things in that order based on time. People think Jose, you have two companies with 12 different income streams that are all these, I'm a professional plate spinner.

That is true. I spin all these plates and I keep them in the air. Once one starts to slow down, I come back and do this again, right? So I do that really well. I'm good at doing all these things. But I also understand in order for me to perform at my best, I have to start my day and end my day right, right? So I'm really, really good at just good discipline, at strong habits that are high performance habits, right? Monitoring your numbers, knowing your metrics, ⁓ managing your time.

Right, people say it's time management, I say it's me management, right? I have to manage myself, right? Because I don't manage my calendar, I manage me, and I'm the one who manages the calendar, right? So at the end of the day, it comes down to discipline, it comes down to consistency, it comes down to having a proper schedule and making sure that you're on top of it consistently, that you have your priorities in order, right? You're not easily distracted.

So a lot of these, there's a lot of factors to it, right? I'm just giving you like a snippet of what I do, but for me, it's automaticity, right? I live my life in automaticity.

Meredith & Craig (20:04)

I love so many things that you just said. And what came out loud and clear to me was your intentionality. You're very intentional about how you structure your day, the priorities you set, and how everything unfolds. everything is strategic and intentional, and I love that. And my favorite thing that you said was your priorities. Because when we talk about it in our...

shameless plug forthcoming book, The 200 % Marriage, we talk about making your wife, your spouse, your partner, your teammate, your priority. And a lot of people get, I love that you put wife, Sarah, your wife's name is Sarah,

Jose Escobar (20:40)

Hey,

Katie.

Meredith & Craig (20:41)

Katie, sorry, Katie. Katie and then the kids. Like so many people flip that priority and put the kids above the teammate and I think it's been a bit controversial and we've said it a few times, but no, you've got to flip that. Like your teammate, your life partner, the person you've chosen to be, you know, side to side, shoulder to shoulder with through all the things in life has to come above, the kids, you do it right,

They're going to eventually launch and go create their own partnership and live their own lives and you're still going to be here with this person. And so they need to be your priority. I, one, love that you've got your priorities in order and your wife comes above your kids and the business and all the other things. And the other thing that came out to me loud and clear is it sounds like you don't find time for things. You create the time for what's important and the rest falls into place. Like you prioritize what's important. You create the time that you need to maintain the most important things in your life and the rest

takes care of itself when you maintain the important things.

Jose Escobar (21:39)

Yeah. No, I

was just going to say to what you just said, the best thing I could teach my kids outside of, you know, hard work and faith and all the other fundamental things is to show them the example of what it is to honor your wife. Right. And for, for them, for her to show them how to honor her husband. Right. ⁓ if we can show them how to love each other in marriage,

Meredith & Craig (21:52)

Yes.

Jose Escobar (22:04)

I think that's the foundation that's gonna help them have a healthy marriage because as they get older they're gonna understand, they were a priority for each other and then they could give us the best of what we needed. But a lot of times we are depleting ourselves with everybody else around us and you can't give out of an empty cup as you know.

Meredith & Craig (22:15)

Yeah.

Yeah, and it's such a good point because kids will go out and find the relationship that they had, they experienced at home. And so you're setting them up for huge success down the line by showing up in that way for your kids. The question I had for you, because back a few minutes ago, you talked about

You know, there's a lot of stuff on morning routine and you've talked a little bit about it here, but you also said there's not a lot about the nighttime routine. Talk to us a little bit about what you do in the nighttime to kind of set up for the next day or, or whatever you do.

Jose Escobar (22:57)

Yeah, so evening routine is the bookend of the day, right? So it's the other bookend, it's the back end, right? And they say the best morning routine begins when? The night before, right? So the first thought that comes into your mind is the last thought you had before you went to bed. Not literally, but generally. So what I do in the evening as I end my night with, of course, prayer, I end my night with ⁓ more journaling. I journal in the front and the back end.

There's things that I do on the front end and the back end and things that I do only on the front end, only on the back end, right? So I also do reading. You know, people always say, my gosh, you know, I don't have time to read. Jose, you know, you obviously are a reader, so you have time. I'm like, no, no, no, not true. you're probably a fast reader. That's probably a read a book a week. Nope, not true either. I'm a very slow reader. And the only reason why I make time to read is because reading to me is a priority.

If it's not a priority, you're just not gonna have the time and you're gonna say, I just don't have time to read. Well, you don't consider it to be a priority. So we find and we create the time to do the things that matter to us. So I read on the front end and the back end of my day. And then I read throughout the nooks and crannies of my day. If I'm waiting for my son at a baseball game, which I've done for years because he was a travel baseball player, I'm in a parking lot, I am at a doctor's office, I am a whatever, all kinds of examples, my book, not a book, is a daily carry for me.

Right. It's a daily carry just like my wallet just like my cell phone I always have a book in my hand for the most part, right? So you will find time to crack it open and read so that being the case I read I journal I do Affirmations because I and you have to brainwash yourself every single day, right? The whole thought of Jose you're a winner. I Was saying that to myself before I was a winner. All right, Jose. You're in great shape I was saying that before to myself before I was in good shape

Jose, you're a millionaire. You know how long I said that before I had the annual revenue of a millionaire? I said that way when I was dead broke. I've been saying that for years, right? I can tell you, I have like a stack of affirmations that I say to myself in the morning and in the evening of my days, and at least a quarter of those have come true because I speak it into reality, right? Everything in life is created twice, right? First in the mind's eye, then in the physical world. So I am constantly envisioning these things and brainwashing myself, and you start to show up differently when...

You program your subconscious mind in a particular way to show up the way you want to show up, the way you need to show up, right? And then I do other things like plan my schedule for the next day. My schedule, I don't wake up and plan my day. My day is planned out the night before. I already know what I'm doing. I know who I'm talking to. I know when my appointments are. I know what my top three priorities are. I know all these things, right? So there's more. There's other things that I might do like ⁓ personal project time.

In my evening routine, I have 20 minutes every night where I'm working on a particular project. Right? Too many of us are trying to, I don't have the time to work on this thing. I'm working on this book and I never seem to have time. You have to create the time. So personal project time is something that is a part of a staple of my evening routine. How do you think I launch courses and programs and write up talks and prepare for podcasts and prepare for this or that or write a book or, you know, you know, plan things in business, the next thing.

Right? The event. How do I plan events? Because I have personal project time. That is a huge thing in the evening routine. And then there's more. And a lot of that is in my book as well. So there's that.

Meredith & Craig (26:21)

That's

awesome. Okay. I've got a few things I want to underline in what you just said. First of all, I've never heard anyone refer to the nooks and crannies of their life and I freaking love that. Reading in the nooks and crannies of your life, I love that concept. think that I'm going to start using nooks and crannies of my life in different ways. I think it's a great saying. What I loved is, I heard you say a couple of times, you have to create the time.

I don't have time is such a cop out. And we've said it to people before, I don't have time. It's like, okay, let's replace those four words, I don't have time with it's not my priority. And let's see how that changes how you feel about what you, yeah, it changes everything when you say that. And.

Jose Escobar (26:56)

That's that through.

Meredith & Craig (27:02)

The other part I loved about what you said is the personal projects time. To me, I heard, what came through for me on that was that that's how you take care of that. That's your self-care. That's your recharge. That fills your cup so that you can show up as the best version of you because you're doing things that you care about. You're making the time. You're prioritizing the time to do things that you enjoy that fill you up, that make you feel fulfilled, like you're contributing and doing something that you actually want to be doing and that you care about. And that leaves you

You know, you're cut more full so you can show up as the best version of yourself in your faith, with your wife, in your business, with your kids, and all the places that you want to be.

Jose Escobar (27:38)

very true.

Meredith & Craig (27:39)

Yeah. The other thing I heard that I love is that you became it first. it, you know, the be, have concept of, I'm just going to become that person in my mind right now. And I'm going to do the things that that person that I see in the future, what do they do? How did they get to that point? I'm going to do those things now. And before you knew it, 15 months, you've built the successful business and have the seven figure, you know, income and all the, all the things. So,

I just really love that you embodied it before it actually happened. Jose, from the outside looking in, it seems like discipline comes easy to you. And I know that's not necessarily the case for most people.

Discipline is a skill they've refined. Does discipline in fact come easy to you or is that something that you've had to work at and how did you really refine that skill of discipline?

Jose Escobar (28:36)

100 % not easy for me and people assume that they assume all it's easy for you or it's natural to you No, it's not at all. As a matter of fact, I am one of the most undisciplined people by nature naturally, right? I naturally first of all am scattered naturally and lazy naturally and introverted naturally and very I I'm subject to shiny object syndrome where I just see the next best thing. I want to go there I want to go there I'll do that, you know, so I naturally am that way

Right, so I had to train myself to become a disciplined person. And discipline, all it is that I tell people and I tell clients all the time is it's doing the thing that you know you need to do when you need to do it, whether you feel like it or not. Right, that's all it is. And you just have to do it. So, just like Nike, right, just do it. So, but it also requires commitment. Because too many of us are making decisions, but we're not making commitments. I can decide today I'm gonna do something and decide tomorrow, change my mind.

I have to be fully committed. have to be all in like the pig and the chicken, right? One was committed, one was not. One was involved, the other one was fully committed because you were eating bacon, right? Versus the laying the egg and you're still, and the hen's still alive running around. So it's that whole concept. So as far as I'm concerned, habits, we all have habits. Too many of us, and I include myself, we're never gonna get, not have bad habits. We're always gonna have bad habits, right? But some have too many, right? So we wanna minimize the bad habits, right?

Meredith & Craig (29:40)

Thank

Jose Escobar (29:59)

Bad habits are just habits that are not serving us. It's behaviors that you're doing over and over and over that eventually become a habit. And you don't break bad habits, you just replace poor behaviors with positive behaviors. It's a behavior shift. And when you replace a negative behavior with a positive behavior, if you do it long enough, it becomes installed in terms of how you show up in the world. And that is where all of a sudden new habits are created.

So they say it used to be 21 days to create a habit. That is apparently fake news based on a lot of the things that are said in Jim Quick's book and ⁓ in High Performance Habits by Brendan Burchard and Robin Sharma's books. You read any of these books and the new data, their new research says it takes 66 days on average to install a new habit, especially if it's a performance habit.

Meaning something that you have to do over and over and over, like a daily thing that you're trying to do. If it's an achievement habit, that's different. You just do it and you're done. But if it's like a performance habit to where you're trying to acquire like, I'm gonna start walking every single day, or I'm gonna start drinking eight cups of water a day, and the level of intensity of that habit, it might be 150 days that it's gonna take. But it's an average of 66 days to install an average habit. So again, when it comes to discipline,

Discipline is not my strong suit. It is not my forte. It is something I had to flex over time like you develop muscles in the gym you develop the mindset with books and and stimulating your mind intellectually and you got to Strengthen the the habit muscle and the discipline muscle by positioning yourself to make hard decisions every single day

Meredith & Craig (31:41)

Yeah. You've talked about books a lot and I see your bookshelf behind you is full and you're always reading all the nooks and crannies. Where did that love of books come from? Is that like from a young age or like where did that come from?

Jose Escobar (31:54)

So initially my passion was writing. Since I was a little kid in like first grade, whenever we learned to write, I used to get little stickers. They used to give us stickers at book fairs and different things like that. I used to love going to the book fairs and I'd have my parents stock me up on books all the time. So I guess I always had a desire and an interest in books, but it was more the writing side. And I would put a sticker on a piece of paper and then I'd write a random story about that sticker. So there'd be a snowman sticker, there'd be an elf sticker, there'd be a carrot sticker, there'd be...

So I would just write random stories and I still have a big, huge, massive, a few binders of kid stories that I wrote as I was a kid. And naturally, I was reading a lot because I liked to write and that was that. Don't ask me to do any math, because math, I can't stand math. But when it comes to spelling and punctuation and those types of things, I'm pretty good at that. And then all of a sudden I had a desire to read and I started reading, reading, reading. I was big into goosebumps when I was a kid and I had all the collection of goosebumps. And then from there I was...

reading more and more and I love personal development. I'm not into classics and fiction very much even though I do enjoy that from time to time if I'm at the beach or like a getaway, but I'm usually like a nuts and bolts reader. I read books on faith, relationships, health and wellness, motivation, business development, those types of things. So yeah, I'm a huge reader and I read about one to two books a week and every book I read, I dissect it thoroughly. There's a difference between like for example, this one right here, I'm just.

I have another one here somewhere that I just over here.

Jose Escobar (33:16)

Sorry, can you hear me all the books that I'm reading are? Full of a little like sticky notes dog ears. I create my own index in the books They're just full of all kinds of things that I do to the books because it's not about how books you get through It's about how many books get through to you Right and and that's really the thing. So I read books really well versus just reading a whole bunch of random books

Meredith & Craig (33:33)

Yeah.

I was a big reader as a kid too. I actually owned pretty much every Nancy Drew book that ever existed. We had like over a hundred of them. It was wild. And then I kind of got out of reading for a while when I became an adult. When I was a kid, we'd be at a...

you know, we'd have friends over a birthday party or something. I'd be the kid in the corner in her Nancy Drew book while all the other kids were like outside playing. And then as a grownup, I kind of got out of the reading habit and going back to the discipline conversation, we were also not very good at discipline for a while. And when we became entrepreneurs, you kind of have to create discipline for yourself because you no longer have that structure in your life. And we did 75 hard kind of as a baptism by fire to do discipline. And that started us reading

What is it? 10 minutes a day, think is 10 pages a day. Right. That's right. And that got me back into the habit of reading. And I also don't read a lot of fiction anymore. I do enjoy a little bit of it in the summertime. It's kind of a nighttime break for my brain, but I

Jose Escobar (34:26)

in Satan's jail.

Meredith & Craig (34:38)

sidebar. Also think it helps build empathy when you read books about other people because you learn about other people's experiences. But I also enjoy reading like the business books, the relationship books. And I can't wait actually for you to read ours and dissect it let us know what you think of that because I think that's going to be super interesting. 200%.

Jose Escobar (34:52)

100%.

That's a good one. Look at that timing too. That was good.

Meredith & Craig (35:00)

But that's what we're working on. But what are you working on? Like, what are you excited about now? Like, what is the thing that gets you excited? Like, what are you working on right

Jose Escobar (35:09)

Well, I just hired a new coach. So there's that. I think every coach in any capacity needs a coach, right? So I always have a coach or a mentor and sometimes I have both because I'm usually a mentor of somebody who's way down the line from you that is just going to do it for free. They're just kind of pouring into you and mentorship, right? Then you have the coach, somebody you're paying for a tangible result that's actually ahead of you too. So different levels, but I hired a new coach.

Officially, so I'm excited about that journey because we just literally I did this whole intake form which took me a long time to fill out of all these different things and you know where I'm at right now and where I want to go and I just got the email back of hey, this is gonna be our 90-day roadmap and then we're gonna meet in person So I'm gonna travel to go meet my coach in per. I haven't formally announced this publicly So it will come out this week of who I'm who's coaching me, but this person is

10 times ahead of me in terms of what I've achieved in business. And I'm just like, that's what I need. I need somebody who's gonna push me, who's gonna nudge me, who's gonna inspire me, who's gonna give me tools and things that I don't know. Because a lot of us don't know that we don't know certain things, right? And the only way to know is to get it from somebody who's willing to give it to you. And sometimes you gotta pay to play. Sometimes you gotta pay to get to the next level. So I hired a coach. That's what I'm really excited about is going from where I am now, I wanna 3X what I'm doing right now in the next 12 months.

Right. And, ⁓ and that's kind of what I'm working on. That's the biggest thing. And in terms of like tangibly, what I'm actively excited about is getting to a thousand members in the CLA. ⁓ we're at five 62 as of today. the goal right before that was off at these States would just happen. So that was nice. and then of course, I have an event around the corner this weekend with, ⁓ with branding adores the omnibet for Springs. I'm excited about.

Delivering for everybody's gonna be a part of that event. We have an event in December. So I'm excited about that We're building towards our event next October, which is gonna be massive. I mean just so many exciting things I have never doll I am never on the couch on the sidelines, you know doing nothing. I'm always working towards the next thing That's kind of my secret sauce

Meredith & Craig (37:10)

And except maybe during a commander's game, maybe, maybe during. And you have a book launch coming out next week. You've got a book launching next week from the last event. We, that's right. We have a book launching next week.

Jose Escobar (37:13)

Yes. ⁓

Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, you mean we we have a book launch coming out next week Yeah awaken

on Tuesday and I suspect it'll go international bestseller just like the seven or the five six before that So I'm excited and it's gonna be awesome. That's that's another big thing

Meredith & Craig (37:32)

That's awesome. Nice. So Jose, how can people get a hold of you? People are like, they've heard they're like, the CLA thing sounds like it's right up my street. how do I do?

Jose Escobar (37:42)

Yeah,

so www.connectedleadersacademy.com. So connectedleadersacademy.com. If you go there, you'll see a little seven, eight minute video, basic overview, some content of what we're about. You'll see some testimonials, some cool visuals, and you can actually schedule a call with me. If somebody wants to meet with me on a virtual coffee, specifically around CLA, you can book that call directly from my website. You can find me on Facebook.

LinkedIn and Instagram in that order. That's kind of how I hang out in that order. My main hub is Facebook That's where 99 % of my time is spent on social media and I kind of poke the other two with a stick but I'm there too and Of course you can always email me. That's all you know available online and yeah I'd love to connect with anybody who who feels they want to get some value or just connect on any level and of course CLA I'm open to it. I like meeting people and building relationships

Meredith & Craig (38:35)

Nice, well we'll make sure we include all those in the show notes. We'll make it real easy for people to get there. Jose, thank you so much. It was such a pleasure hearing some of the behind the scenes of what's going on with you and how you got where you are and all the gold nuggets you dropped for everyone. Thank you. Thank you so much. We really appreciate you spending the time with us.

Jose Escobar (38:54)

My pleasure. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to hear the episode when it drops. I can't wait for 200 % your book. And I'm sure I'll be tuning into this podcast quite a bit because you have some awesome people lined up, I'm sure.

Meredith & Craig (39:07)

We do. do. Thanks so much, Jose. Thanks, Jose.

Meredith & Craig (39:11)

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Road of Life podcast. Remember, your business will only grow as strong as your marriage does.

So it's one action you're gonna take this week to put something you learned in this episode into practice. Because we love a good chit chat as much as the next person does. But without action, stay where you are.

If you want to turn your marriage into the engine that drives your business forward instead of the brakes keeping it stuck, book a free marriage and business strategy session with us at 200percentmarriage.com/strategycall. We'll see you next week.