David Lechosa: Spice, Sauce, and Startup Adventures

Have you ever wondered what it takes to pick up your life, move across the ocean, and start anew? David Lechosa's entrepreneurial fire is a beacon to anyone seeking inspiration for such a formidable leap. His remarkable transformation from an immigrant grappling with cultural shocks and language barriers to the founder of Lechosa's Hot Sauce in Middle Tennessee is a testament to tenacity and vision. As your host, David A. Specht, I had the privilege of unraveling David's narrative, which is not just about starting a business but also about the profound personal growth that comes from chasing the American dream.

Navigating two worlds, David Lechosa offers an intimate view into the mindset shifts that accompany the transition from the job security and family values of Spain to the high-stakes entrepreneurial chase in the U.S. Our conversation takes you through the eye-opening juxtaposition of the traditional Spanish siesta and the unpredictability of the American work culture. You'll hear firsthand how David adapted his perspective, finding balance in the fluid dynamics of U.S. entrepreneurship, and learn why embracing uncertainty can lead to incredible rewards.

Wrapping up the episode, the spotlight shines on the Wealth on the Rocks podcast, David's latest venture where bourbon meets business. It's a venture that exemplifies his commitment to applied knowledge, connecting entrepreneurs and facilitating a community of growth. I invite you to join the dialogue, engage with us on social platforms, and discover how the transformative power of action can ignite your aspirations. Don't miss this episode where the spirit of entrepreneurship comes alive, and we share the crucial steps from acquiring knowledge to wielding it effectively in the pursuit of your own ventures.

Want a signed copy of my book? Get it here!

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:02

Hello there, I'm David A Specht and I want to be your coach. If there's anything that I've learned in my 30 plus years of leadership and coaching, I have learned that mindset is everything. Join me and my guests as we explore the positives and negatives of that thing between our ears. This is Keep this In Mind, all right, welcome to Keep this In Mind, brought to you by DavidASpechtcom. Of course. I am your host.

Speaker 1 0:33

David A Specht, today is going to be a real fun show because I would say new friend. We met about six months ago at a conference. We were both semi-interpreted, sitting at the same table, maybe said three sentences to one another. Then, through the power of follow-up, we got together and I've been on his podcast called Wealth on the Rocks. Then we're reciprocating by bringing him here. But it's not just a tip for cat things. I don't bring anybody on the show unless I see extreme value that they can offer you, the audience. David LaCosa is a unique individual. He has world views from across the pond. He has come here and established a business in the United States. He's got a family that he adores. He's navigated everything from COVID to maybe language barriers and other things. He's navigated people and calling him David all the time, because that's how it's spelled and we're in the South. That's so, david, welcome to the show. I think I'm so super pumped that you're here.

Speaker 2 1:45

I appreciate that and thank you for the kind words. It's been quite the journey. I'm super grateful to be here.

Speaker 1 1:54

Give us the background. I mean, you're from Spain, but yet you're in Middle Tennessee, that's right. How did you get from here to here Then? What does here to the future look like to you? Kind of break us down on that journey.

Speaker 2 2:09

Definitely Do you want the long story or the short one. Man Originally from Madrid, spain, so born and raised out there, I tell people I still have a little bit of an accent, but I feel like the more I am in the South I just have to say y'all every once in a while That'll keep me from the South, but I'm actually looking forward to having been here the same amount as I was when I left. You know that whenever that is. But yeah, I've been here for the last 10 years, moved straight to from Madrid to Tennessee kind of a random thing, but actually we. So I moved here. I had some friends through a church here in town and met some friends, ended up meeting my wife and sort of. The rest was kind of history and I ended up staying here.

Speaker 2 3:06

As far as the journey, I mean it's, it's not an easy one, right, like for anybody that's an immigrant out there. Coming here, I spoke English a little bit, but definitely not as maybe well, if I do speak any well today, maybe not as well as today, but coming here, you know, one of the first challenges I feel like people struggle with is obviously like you know where to live, how to figure things out, how to navigate your work situation, your visa situation. I mean, sometimes, like it was funny when I, when I got here and you know I was going through the all the visa, the immigration status with with my wife and everything else it was like, oh, so you're now a citizen, right? And people kept telling me this. I was like no, it doesn't work like that. Like whenever you move here from a different country, you have to go through very rigorous process and fees and I mean it's cost us several thousand dollars over you know a period of time. But it took about four years for me to actually become a resident, so a permanent resident, and so that's what I am right now. But I'm in the process of applying for citizenship, which I'm super excited about, and that'll, that'll be officially. I'd be like a dual, dual citizen here. So so, yeah, and then we move here.

Speaker 2 4:26

And as far as the journey, when it comes to business, I mean I remember I was where I don't don't tell this to Uncle Sam, but I was doing a lot of the under the table, you know, work that a lot of people you know, do you have to do what you do to survive, right? So I've done just about everything you can think of I've done, from electrician to construction, to building fences on a hot summer day to painting the outside of a house and a big ladder in like a negative degree in the winter time. Yeah, so funny story on that too. I remember it was so cold one of the days that I used the. You know the. What do you call this Like? What you put down is like the little drapes or whatever that you put down so that the pain doesn't get in the floor. I took them out, I took my wrapped in myself like a blanket because it was so cold.

Speaker 2 5:24

So, yeah, so been through a lot of struggle on that and then, sort of, by the grace of God and different friends and things, I ended up getting up on my feet and then sort of after that, I've always had this entrepreneurial spirit in me. I've always wanted to do something. I've always felt some sort of calling and I didn't know what that was. So I tried a couple different side hustles and business ventures. I'm sure people are in the same spot, right, like when you have that sort of entrepreneurial bug, but I ended up starting a hot sauce company was the first one that actually stuck and did a little bit well and so we started Lechosa's hot sauce and this was a side hustle.

Speaker 2 6:10

At the beginning, obviously, I still was doing other stuff in software, so my background is in software and as I was doing that, I was also selling hot sauces on the side and going to events and doing things and we end up growing that quite a bit. It was super fun. We ended up partnering with a distributor out of Canada super random. I saw our thing in a website or something and they reached out and we ended up partnering with them, was able to travel all over Canada and doing things and selling sauces out there, and it was super fun. But then we ended up sort of it ended up being a lot of financial investment, more than we could afford at the time.

Speaker 2 6:57

For those that may not know, I mean, if you have a product that you're selling on the shelves, it's tough to like, you have to pay for stocking fees and you know the final money that people see at the end is not as much as you think and you have to pour sometimes millions of dollars in cash to get some of that stuff. You know, like the product that you see, like the final product on the shelf right Like that's the end product that goes through a lot. So I ended up learning quite a bit through that as far as the supply chain and all the process and everything else. But long story short. After that, then you stop me. Feel free to stop me whenever, but there's after that.

Speaker 2 7:45

I still was involved in the software world and did that as like my full-time thing for a while. But then one of my best friends, my best friend, nick. He's the executive vice chairman of the company that we work with right now and I saw him grow in the financial world from zero to hero, if you will. I saw him grow from not doing much to doing okay, to doing really, really well, and through the journey he tried to convince me to do this as a career and to work with him. For you know, he said hey, you'll be good, the finance is a great feel. I mean, it's the highest paid industry and I don't know.

Speaker 2 8:25

I've always saw that there's sort of this ceiling within the software ecosystem and how far I could potentially go. And you always had this looming thing of like working in IT. I'm sure people can relate to this. You always or maybe this is how I felt. There's always sort of this looming feeling of you can get cut at any time, right, you're so indispensable, you know. And so I always felt like there is no, I didn't really have that, that control over my family's livelihood and my, my, my, future career.

Speaker 2 9:02

And so, while it was a good opportunity to learn a lot, I always wanted to do something different, and so I started working part-time in the financial services industry I'm sure there's probably some people out there listening that are in the similar spot started working part-time and did, did okay, part-time wasn't really doing too much and then started putting more hours into it. And then I closed a couple of big clients one of the months and it clicked for me when part-time I made more money than my wife's entire salary on her full-time career, which wasn't a lot. It was about, you know, 24 grand, which is the pretty average minimal salary for the year. But I was like, well, if I can do this part-time, then I can put all my efforts into doing this full-time and and do really well. So so that's sort of the transition that that we went through and just growing, growing a team and surrounding ourselves with good people. So yeah.

Speaker 1 10:03

So, as, as I look at the, the journey story, the timeline, yeah, there's never a moment that you're not hustling right. As soon as you hit the ground in the US, you're, you're. You're doing what it takes. You know, whatever it takes to to to make ends meet. You, you have this mindset of I can try something different. I mean, you were not you know, we're not a hot sauce aficionado when you started your hot sauce company. So tell me, what is it about your mindset that tells you it's okay to try? I mean it's okay to try something different because, yeah, it seems to me each one of those steps could have been very, very scary, I mean, were they to you or?

Cultural Differences in Work Mindset

Speaker 2 10:51

Yeah, absolutely no, and I feel like one of the my background from Spain I feel like gave me the work ethic because I feel like so. Some of the people may may or may not understand this, but Spain in particular, and some of the other countries, right, they have. I came from a very not I want to say poor family but we had what we needed but we were always struggling right, Very lower sort of end of the spectrum and I saw the struggle always around me. That was the mindset that was around me. However, I did have family members. Except for some of the people in my mom's side, a lot of the other people were entrepreneurs as well. So my uncle has his own pub sort of restaurant thing in Spain. I have my other cousins and uncles. They have a trucking, very successful trucking business. So I saw some of the surrounding family members also had their own entrepreneurial adventures.

Speaker 2 11:56

But in my immediate family we had the typical nine to five and it was always a struggle to do ends meet. I mean one vacation every couple of years, kind of thing Like. So it was one of those things that like when I came here the having a job and having like working for somebody or something. I always saw that as a privilege, right. I always saw that as, like man, if I can work for somebody, that's amazing. I'll clean the toilets, which, by the way, I've also done. I'll clean the toilets, I'll do whatever it takes and I'll make some money and I'll take care of my family.

Speaker 2 12:35

And that's the mentality that I had coming in here and that's why, like, while I was doing some of those jobs that maybe some people maybe think are not right, like it's very noble work and a lot of people struggle with, maybe entitlement, right, some of the new generation is like, wow, I would never do that, right, but I saw that as a privilege and I was so happy to be able to have a job and get paid for doing something, for you know, I was. It was a super exciting time and even though it was really really hard work, you know, but yeah, I definitely need to wrap, but I wanna.

Speaker 1 13:15

You keyed on something in that when you were, you said entitlement and sometimes you know that gets a huge bad rap, and for obvious reasons. But you come from Spain and then you're here in the US. You've experienced workforce, you've experienced mindset in both countries. What are some of the things you've noticed? And they can be positive or negative, but what are some of the things that you have noticed about American culture with regard to work mindset? What are some of the differences that you've seen?

Speaker 2 13:52

Well, I will ask you have you ever heard of a siesta? So the US, the American population, have not heard of a siesta, right? So siesta is for people that we don't know this.

Speaker 2 14:05

I'm pretty comfortable with it. But in the middle of the summer in Spain, or in the third the work year as well, but mostly in the summer when it's hot, there's a lot of the businesses that close from like one or two PM until five PM. So literally retail businesses, everything will be closed. It's like the hottest part of the day and then people go home and have meals with the families and have a little nap in the middle of the day and then open the retail business back again after five or whatever. So the reason I say that is because the culture in Spain is very and you have to understand too it's very different as far as work wise, because people are there more of a. They go to work, they do their thing and then there's like time outside of work with their families. Like it's work is just exclusively to provide income and you can be working at a 40 year career that you hate as long as you're providing income for your family and putting food in the table.

Speaker 2 15:10

And I feel like it comes to from the obviously the depression that Spain went through in the civil war back in the day, you know, on the tail end of World War II, and all those things like Spain, went through his own civil war and depression and that's where, like our great, my great grandparents specifically, I mean, they grew up in that time and having your job, that you had a fixed income that you knew was coming like, that was security and that was peace of mind.

Speaker 2 15:42

And they actually have a thing that is very different from the US where, whenever you work at a certain job for a while, they have these things that are like fixed contracts, where you, for example, like in Tennessee, you can get fired at will, no problem. There's no questions asked, right? Maybe different states have different regulations, but in Spain, after you work there for a while at a job, they can offer you a fixed contract, contrato fijo which is essentially guaranteeing that you're gonna have that job forever unless you do something crazy. So it's almost like a guarantee that you're gonna have the security and the you know, whatever you wanna call it.

Speaker 1 16:27

I think you're for a professor that they reach the point where yeah.

Speaker 2 16:32

So I feel like that's a big difference from here, because I feel like Americans have you know I say Americans in the US specifically it's very much of there's a more entrepreneurial culture, which I really love, and a lot more of, you know, there's always people hustling, there's always people doing stuff on the side, there's always entrepreneurial vision and I think that comes with again the background of the country right and going and exploring this whole new land, and you know everybody, you know. So I think that's one of the biggest, biggest difference, on that for sure.

Speaker 1 17:12

So and this is eye opening for me so you have entrepreneurs in your family, yet you come out of a culture that's not necessarily entrepreneurial. In fact, the goal is security, not building something beautiful and great and impactful. But yeah, you have this entrepreneurial bug. You have again those in your family that have this. I say entrepreneurial is either a blessing or it's a mental health condition. I'm not sure which, but you come to the US, where it's kind of flipped right there's a lot of entrepreneurs but there's very little security. That's true, yep. And so, as you've navigated your own journey, what are some of the pivots you've had to make in your mindset to help you? I don't wanna say overcome your upbringing, but certainly deal with some of the mindsets that you did grow up with.

Speaker 2 18:18

Yeah, I think that's a great question and I do think that faith has a lot to do with it. Growing up in a household that was Christian and I know this is business, not faith but faith plays a big part of our lives and I feel like it is a scary thing to jump through and go full entrepreneurship right, like regardless of your culture, I think, getting into something where you're having to fight for yourself and provide for your family and things like that on your own. I feel like it's always a scary thing. As far as overcoming the mindset, I almost felt like I always had a desire of doing something bigger and better, and maybe that was seeing the struggle in my family, maybe was the catalyst of me having to sort of have a different mindset about it and not wanting to provide the same future for my family. But I will say that this is not something that I came to the realization on my own per se. I feel like I, after surrounding myself with other visionaries and entrepreneurial minded people. That's when my mindset started to shift, because before I felt like I was almost when I came here, I always had that in me, but it was kind of buried deep down. You know it was always more of like, all right, let's do something that can provide a good future, something that has security, and obviously software is a good career to get into. There's a lot of opportunity there to grow.

Speaker 2 20:04

But again, there's always kind of a ceiling to things, right, there's always so much you can do for another company and work for another company, and I saw that too, like the people that I was surrounded with that were I was, this was about five years ago, but I was in my mid-20s and I saw people in their mid-50s making the same income, you know. And then I looked around and I was like, well, if you look at just simple math, right. If you look at inflation and you look at the state of the market and whatever else, if you're making the same income or you're having a two or 3% raise every year, like it's not gonna be enough 20 years from now, right, it's not gonna cut it. And if you move companies and you go and grow and different opportunities, there's always so much you can do. And, yes, you can have a great not everybody's an entrepreneur, so not everybody, you know having a job like that it's okay too, right. But I feel like I saw with my background and the struggles, and I always thought, like man, god has a purpose for me and I feel like moving thousands of miles away from my home to find something different, to do something better, was able to get married, be here, build a family right and God has taken care of us tremendously over this time and I do think that there's a higher purpose, right. It's such an interesting road to lead us here to where, like, I think that definitely there's a lot of goodness in store and my hope as far as like in the future and what that looks like.

Speaker 2 21:53

I'm hoping that I can bring some of that entrepreneurial mindset back to Spain.

Speaker 2 21:59

I'm hoping I'll tell you some of the big plans I have, but through the financial services agency and just a little bit on that, I mean we have a full service financial firm that right now we have about 43 licensed agents working with us all over the country.

Speaker 2 22:17

We're helping families save money, build wells and prepare for retirement, protect their assets, which is a very noble thing to do and I love it. It's such a passion. But one of the biggest things I love about what we do is the leadership, development of others right and the developing people, seeing other people win and that's almost addicting, like as soon as you start helping other people, they start to be successful. That's where my mindset is at today, and then going forward. The goal is to be able to bring some of that back to Spain, and my hope is to create some sort of foundation here for entrepreneurs that are coming and for people that are coming into the States, but then take some of that back and maybe have like a VC fund that pulls people's money together and we can fund other people's visions in Spain. So there's a lot of stuff in the works, but I'm grateful to be where I am right now, that's for sure.

Speaker 1 23:19

So and that's an awesome future working toward goal. One of the things that you said through the process was you got around other high performers, professionals, entrepreneurs what tell me, just some of the rooms you've been in, or maybe some of the people you've been exposed to that really have had an impact on taking you from where you were to where you are and that you believe will take you forward? I mean, obviously there's famous people that have probably influenced you, both through in person and through podcasts, et cetera, but what are some of the key ones that you said? Man, this is what has affected me the most.

Speaker 2 24:10

That's a great question and I was actually kind of thinking about this the other day too, talking about personal development Really before. So while I was in the journey of the hot sauces and all that stuff, I started getting connected with several individuals here locally, friends that had a big vision. I mean the distributor the company in Canada was a great visionary as well Started to look at other people that have a bigger picture things and a bigger mindset of like, hey, this is where things can go, and yeah. So it started to open my eyes to some of those things. I will say a lot of the people that I've met through the financial services industry and executive leadership in our company. I can give you some names. I know Rob and Nick and Kevin McGinnis. I mean there's there's several individuals here locally that, yeah, executive leaders in our company that have opened my eyes to more personal development, more growth internally.

Speaker 2 25:19

And I actually started, like last year, I started reading. It's been so busy, but I want to get back to doing a little bit more of this, but I was reading a book a day, or, sorry, a book a week. I was trying to read 52 books in a year I did 37, but it was like it got so busy that I couldn't keep up with it, but still, 37 books in a year. It's pretty decent from not reading a single book in a year.

Speaker 1 25:45

I'm having enough challenges getting through my one year Bible. It's like every time you turn around, either you're distracted or somebody's trying to distract you. Yep.

Speaker 2 25:58

So through that, I feel like you know the Edmite Letts of the world and the. You know all these other Gary Vee and some of these other personalities right, tony Robbins and all these guys but started reading all you know all of some of these books that I've read and just opening up the mind to grow and I feel like, as an entrepreneur, one of the biggest things that I've learned is always working on growth and that it is okay to work on yourself and grow yourself, and you're investing time to develop your own skill sets and your own. You know, and the other side of the coin, too, is that not everything that you read is great. Right, there's a lot of fluff in different books. I'm sure you've read a ton of personal development books too. You're a great, accomplished author yourself. So having having books like that, that's no fluff and you actually get to the point of things and learn some key, key things. That's what's been carrying me through.

Speaker 2 27:03

And yeah, it's been amazing so.

Speaker 1 27:05

Well, as we kind of wrap things up. I love the journey, okay, because you've gone from this mindset over here with a dream to what I would call the messy middle. You get here, you got to do what it takes, you know, to put food on the table. You're trying businesses, you're doing that. Now you're kind of like in your lane. I found my purpose. Here it is, and I see the potential, I see the progress, I see the future, and it's a very strong future, both from a yes, it's benefiting me and my family, but I'm also helping others in a great, mighty way, which obviously your purpose is to help others. But now you've started a podcast called Wealth on the Rocks. I want you to tell the audience a little bit about that. By the way, folks, I was his first guest. I'm just going to put it out there. But talk about the concept of Wealth on the Rocks and how you brought it. What was the catalyst? What was the thing? That's like, dude, I need to do a podcast and this is how I need to do it.

Speaker 2 28:15

You know that's. It's a great, great thing and I'm excited. Yeah, you were the first guest. That's awesome. It's very. It's been a really recent thing.

Speaker 2 28:26

I struggled with this for the last probably year and a half Cause I thought about man, there's so many podcasts out there, why do we need another podcast? We don't need another podcast, right? And as I was thinking through that, I was like, well, a lot of the sort of wealth you know, personal development, I mean, you have like the big like we talked, like Edmai Letts and all these other personal, big, personal brands that talk about wealth and investments and all these other things, right. But I almost I didn't really, and I still I don't see the podcast as like, hey, I hope millions of people listen to this. If they do, then that's awesome.

Speaker 2 29:10

But my goal with the podcast is to connect with local entrepreneurs. That's the whole point of starting the podcast. And what better way to talk about business and drink bourbon, right, I like bourbon, I like to hang out with friends and entrepreneurs, talk business, learn from each other, learn a great deal from you and other people that have been in the podcast, just from like a couple hours of conversation. So it's almost a self, not a selfish thing, but it's like, hey, if we can have a good time, I can learn from you, you can learn from me. We can help each other in business. And we're doing it, having fun, drinking some bourbon, it's a great time. And then if people listen, then that's amazing too, you know yeah well, you never know who's going to.

Speaker 1 29:59

You know be doing a search and they may come across it. Yeah, I think about people who enjoy bourbon. You know we're in middle Tennessee. I mean, you know bourbon and whiskey. It's like you know water around here. But the thing is it's like who gets exposed to that conversation? Because they were joining to watch. Two guys you know have a conversation. It's like hot ones, right, you watch hot ones and you're really watching it to see how the guy reacts, from eating to progressively hotter things. But you get so much out of it, out of the conversation, and I think that's kind of what your concept is is somebody may show up for bourbon, but they may walk out with personal development and a connection and something. So kudos to you for a fabulous podcast concept.

Speaker 2 30:43

Thank you.

Speaker 1 30:44

How can people get in touch with you? Obviously, look up Wealth on the Rocks. It's on YouTube, it's on the other platforms. Where are some other ways that people can follow you?

Speaker 2 30:53

Yeah, I think you know your typical Facebook Instagram, all of that, david Lachosa, that's pretty. I don't think there's anybody else in the US that's called the same, so easy to find. And then, yeah, feel free to send me a message. Happy to answer any questions, happy to help anybody right? I know a big part of what we do, especially, I started a new thing I don't know if you saw that was specifically geared to the Hispanic audience and so I started. It's called Maestro de las Finanzas and so starting to help, sort of giving back to the community, trying to help provide more financial education to the masses. So, yeah, happy to help in any way I can. If you wanna talk entrepreneurship, business, finance, happy to help. So Awesome.

Speaker 1 31:41

So, as a recap, and it kind of leads us right into the to the uh, what I always call the tagline for every show. But look, folks, not only has David talk to talk, he's walk to walk, he's learned the lesson, he's he's. He's not only learning things, he's applying them, those in his life. And that has taken him, through this journey of various occupations, into into what I call a vocation. Occupation is something where you trade time for money. A vocation is when you step into your calling and do what you're supposed to do, and he has done that now, um, at the end of the day, you know, obviously God has a hand on his life.

Speaker 1 32:22

We, we, we talk spiritual things here a lot of times. You know, and I do believe in Romans 8, 28, that all things work together for good, that are for those who love the Lord and are called to a corner of his purpose and his journey. While it had, it certainly had its ups and downs and we, we, we didn't, you know, go that deep on it, but it's all worked together. Everything that has happened up to this point has prepared David for where he's at now and where he's moving forward, and I want to encourage you, as a listener, to take those words, to take those lessons, to take the, the getting back ups and the and the continuing to move forward and the, the willingness to try something that may scare you.

Speaker 1 33:01

Because here, here is it in a nutshell Knowledge is not power. Applied knowledge is power. Davi, thank you so much for being on the show today. God bless you. My friend, absolutely Thank you. That is going to do it for this episode of. Keep this in Mind For more. Visit davidaspectcom. Like, follow and subscribe. Thank you for listening and remember applied knowledge is power. God bless.