Manifesting Success: Lessons in Leadership and Life with Josh Conner!

🎙️ This week we sit down with Josh Conner as he shares his experiences building successful businesses, cultivating leadership skills, and creating systems that thrive under pressure. From pivoting in challenging industries to ensuring his team is aligned with a strong culture, Josh offers practical insights for entrepreneurs and business leaders looking to grow with purpose. 

We also touch on how faith and family influence decision-making, resilience, and finding peace amid life’s storms. Discover how gratitude, intentional parenting, and a clear vision can transform your business and your entire outlook on success. 
If you’re a business professional or someone striving to balance ambition and personal growth, this episode is packed with actionable strategies and thoughtful lessons. Join us as we explore what it takes to manifest true success and fulfillment, featuring Josh Conner.

📌 Key Topics:  
✅ Building systems for business success 
✅ Cultivating a strong workplace culture 
✅ Balancing faith, family, and business 
✅ Navigating industry challenges 
✅ The power of gratitude and intentional living 
✅ Manifesting success through vision 
✅ Content consumption and mindset 
✅ The role of competition and resilience 
✅ Faith and personal growth 

🎬 Chapters:
00:00 Introduction and Background
05:12 Life Lessons Through Leadership and Entrepreneurship
11:14 The Value of Systems and Processes in Business Success
16:56 Adapting to Industry Changes and Overcoming Challenges
23:05 Gratitude and the Role of Vision in Business
36:38 Defining Success Beyond Finances
42:59 Transitioning from Employment to Ownership
48:22 Balancing Ambition with Faith and Family
59:27 The Power of a Competitive Mindset
01:15:29 Faith’s Role in Navigating Struggles
01:20:54 Building a Strong Workplace Culture
01:29:50 Faith and Parenting: Creating Intentional Practices
01:38:14 Content Consumption and Its Impact on Productivity
01:51:56 Music’s Role in Motivation and Focus
01:57:37 Understanding Challenges and Growing Spiritually
02:03:00 Discernment in Leadership and Spirituality
02:09:18 Navigating Good, Evil, and Manifesting Success
02:25:39 Proactive Planning and Pursuing Growth in Business

Transcript

You know, but there, there was this plan all along and man, it humbled, humbled the heck out of me, you know, and made me a better husband, a better father, a better son, a better brother. And, know, most importantly, that's when I was like, you know what, as we talk about owning our own business and it ain't It's God's dude. We're just a shepherd to it. You know what I mean? In all

Josh, welcome. Appreciate you coming in. Thank you. Thank you. You're Saturday with us. Yeah, man. Talk a little business politics, conspiracy theories. This is the whole thing. You know, let's make this interesting. We just had a 15, 30 minute of good content that was wasted and undocumented me.

You don't mind just starting off, kind of give a little bit of background on. Yeah, absolutely, man. Gosh, we do have time, right? So now, so I mean, I'm originally from South Texas, man, was born and raised as born in San Antonio, raised down in the valley, know, Brownsville next to Mexico, much like home is the Council Bluffs, right? And, you know, raised by a single mom, you know, she was an immigrant from Mexico City and, you know, raising me and my sister just on her own. And she found this opportunity.

For us to move to Nebraska of all places dude, which is a huge culture shock for me because any you see me and you talk to me like down there and Brown Yeah, you know what I mean? So then we moved to like Lexington, Nebraska of all places but the reason we moved there is my mom was working, you know in Dillard's like for 13 years and down in South Texas and No, she was getting a lot of business from people from Mexico crossing over and buying electronics

And then when the Mexican peso like just took a decline, like a total nosedive, like 2008 USA, Mexico still trying to struggle back from it. Like when that took a huge dive, money just went out like the out the door to like mom got no more commissions or anything else. So we were, I was raised by the Lutheran church. Lets pause it right there. You know what I mean? And then, she did a mission and we moved to Lexington for a few years. And I will be, I will say that was probably the most miserable years of my life.

Lutheran Church your mom is an ordained. Yeah an ordained Lutheran pastor She was she was a Lutheran pastor at this church and after Lexington moved to Omaha and she was a Lutheran pastor for 13 years in the church called a grace of Christ the ray and it was off of 24th and J No longer there they lost funding the Lutheran Church when they When they did have that that split up up to different synods

They're like that funding cut off. know, mom, my mom did her best to try to get funding as much as she could for the church, you know? And so, after that, pretty much those doors closed, you know, my mom just was like, went on to live her life and as far as for me goes though, too, like, man, man, just speed up to now where I'm at, you know, I'm a husband, father of three, you know, life doesn't suck. So you growing up in Brownsville for those that aren't familiar with that, that's literally.

a border like you you spent your life going back and forth. Oh, absolutely, man. Before. Yeah, before 9-11 and all this other stuff where you had to get passports and crossover. Like I would cross over by saying American citizen in the back seat and like, all right, come on through. You know what I mean? was stationed in Tucson, Arizona. Oh, really? when I got there in 2020 or 2000. And yes, I remember crossing the border. Just just easy. Yeah, it was easy.

You are citizens. I go for a dude, 19 year old drug dude crossing the border. Dude, that's funny. And so yeah, we would, yeah, we would cross over to Mexico. It was cheaper for pharmaceuticals, like food, all that stuff. My doctors and dentists were like in Mexico because at one they got better care. Let's not dive into that. Right into this episode. You know what I mean? You got better care. It was affordable. Just overall just better treatment. And the only time we ever had.

You know, we had to go to the hospital in Brownsville. was like, well, dude, I was young and ambitious and I was wild and I got hurt a lot. So, you know, those, those medical bills, I'm sure, I'm sure there's a stack that my mom still has saying, these are yours still, you know, but now just, you know, coming up from South Texas, you know, but I've been living in Nebraska now, gosh, the majority of my life. You know, I went to Omaha central graduate from one central and that was.

moons ago. I'm 40 now. So that was 18 2002 when I graduated, but now it's in here and here I am, you know, and it's at the end of the day, dude, it's all, it's all glory to God. Really. I can't take credit for it. You know, I can, he guided me to this point, you know, and just pretty much allowed me to have a free will. And when he gave me too much, too much rain on that free will is where I made some of the biggest mistakes, but the most humbling opportunities, you know, at the same time too. So

You know, normally people don't think I wouldn't say wouldn't thank God or other people like, Hey, thanks for putting me through this, you know, through the crap, you know, so thank you for putting me through hell, you know, but I can absolutely say, you know, Hey, thank you, God for, for allowing me to make these series of mistakes that have made me who I am today. You know, so it's funny you mentioned that I wasn't going to talk about this, but I started at work first real Saturday of the year, just to timestamp this. And I,

New year, like, I'm gonna start new. I used to do it and I hadn't done it in like three months, but basically prayer journaling. And so I started that again this week and yesterday I wrote in there like for 2025, I want to be a better leader, better communicators. So that was my prayer yesterday, basically was, give me whatever to be a better leader. We had something personal happen or whatever yesterday and I'm you know, kind of down in the dumps about it and then smart.

up, was like five o'clock, I just couldn't sleep and I'm sitting there laying in bed and I just started laughing to myself. I'm like, huh, yesterday I asked for leadership and did you throw me a leadership challenge last night? So I just kind of sat there and laughed and I was just like, well, okay, I asked for this, so let's get to work. It goes to the whole thing of, you you pray for patience and God gives you opportunities to be patient. Like, pray for strength gives you opportunities to be strong.

And people think it's some prayer is a magical pill. just make me strong. Nope. I'm going to knock you down. so you can, yeah, I watched a Tony, Tony Robbins episode and he was talking about that exact thing. know, diamonds are formed under pressure. think, I mean, that's one of the biggest reasons why we wanted to start this podcast is just all the business and personal and work life balance, whatever that means, you know, to get to the point where you're at now. So when you,

graduated high school, did you go to business school? mean, how did you get into this? Yeah, after high school did all those things that you were supposed to do, like go to college and all this other stuff. And my mom, here's the thing, I'm gonna give my mom some shout outs and it's also one those things that too, like my mom was so adept into her work, being a single mom and trying to make sure this church is flourishing. And there's a lot of like,

to say Mexican culture, but Hispanic culture, though, too. You know, when you were done with school or if you're done with sports or whatever, you went to your parents place of work sometimes to go help them out. It wasn't one of those things where, know, my mama was like, Hey, you know, like, did get your homework done and stuff like that? Like, Hey, help me with this thing. Put this upstairs, you know, and I would be at the church almost every day after school. I like help my mom do something along those lines. And at that age, I don't hold me account.

You know, I made the last thing at the age like 17, 18. I'm not going to hold myself accountable. I'm not one of those kids. And so but now then went to college and I, Bellevue University had that thing at that time. I don't think I still do where like if you're Latino, they'll do your whole scholarship and knowing what I know now because I went back to school and got my degree. But when I went there, man, I dropped out a free ride, doing a full ride just because I was Mexican. You know what mean? A full ride and.

Me and my best friend, like we just ended up just dropping out. You know, that's why I my best friend. And so we ended up just dropping out. We both had free rides. so great friends. Yeah, no, know. I remember. Like, dude, there were some times with you, man, where him and I would party the day before. I'm like, dude, we got English class and I would show up to his house and get in ready. And then we would go to class and sucker would have better grades than I would.