The Leadership Habits That Changed My Career Forever | Jorge Velasco | S7 E2

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Business leadership isn’t just about making decisions—it’s about inspiring people, staying curious, and learning to remain calm when the pressure is at its highest.

In this episode of A Founder’s Life, Leo Gestetner sits down with Jorge Velasco, President and CEO of BR Printers, to explore a remarkable career spanning more than four decades in publishing, printing, and executive leadership.

From growing up in a family of publishers in Mexico to leading one of America’s largest book printers, Jorge shares how his passion for books evolved into a lifelong commitment to helping ideas reach millions of readers. His perspective on business leadership, mentorship, culture, and personal growth offers timeless lessons for entrepreneurs at every stage of their journey.

Throughout the conversation, Jorge explains why books remain more relevant than ever, how COVID unexpectedly reignited the publishing industry, and why leaders should focus less on controlling people and more on building teams that are empowered to succeed.

One of the most memorable lessons from this conversation is surprisingly simple: breathe. Jorge shares why one of the greatest pieces of leadership advice he ever received was to slow down, breathe deeply, and give your brain the oxygen it needs before making important decisions.

We also discuss entrepreneurship, family, health, travel, exercise, lifelong learning, and the importance of surrounding yourself with mentors who challenge you to become a better leader.

Whether you’re building your first company, leading a growing team, or looking to improve your own business leadership skills, this episode is filled with practical wisdom that can be applied immediately.

In this episode you’ll learn:

- Why business leadership begins with self-awareness
- How mentorship can completely change your career
- Why building the right team matters more than having all the answers
- The surprising comeback of printed books
- How exercise and routine improve executive performance
- Why travel creates better leaders
- The importance of paying knowledge forward
- How focus and presence build trust with your team
- Why entrepreneurs should learn to slow down before reacting

Jorge also shares how meeting his wife completely changed his perspective on life, why travel has become central to his family’s lifestyle, and how embracing different cultures has made him both a better person and a stronger leader.

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https://www.linkedin.com/company/br-printers/

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Transcript

0:00

Welcome to A Founder's Life. I'm your host, Leo Gestetna. On this show, we dove into the real stories behind the highs and lows of entrepreneurship and how we pursue a more integrated and meaningful life along the way. This podcast is sponsored by Thanks, helping founders like us scale with reliable remote talent. I'm excited today to be joined by Jorge Velasco. Jorge, thanks for joining us. Would you like to introduce yourself to the audience? Sure. Thank you for having me. Jorge Velasco, uh first of all, uh father of two and wife of Monica for 30 plus years. But on the on the work side, I'm CEO and president of VR Printers. We are. Yes. we can edit this if you want, but I don't know if you meant to say wife of. No, I did not. So why don't we why why don't we again and I'll let the team edit that one a bit. you caught me on that because I that one that was that was more an improvisation than anything. So a minute maybe you meant to say that but I thought I should probably check. Okay, kick it off. Uh thank you for having me. Uh I do appreciate it. I am Jorge Velasco. first and most importantly, I am the husband of Monica and the father of Ana Paula and Jorge. But I am also CEO and president of BR Printers. BR Printers is a printer and distributor of books, educational materials. as well as promotional and direct mail products in the US. We have six plants across the US, over four hundred employees. And uh basically uh I am in love with books and I've been doing this for over forty years now. So talk to us a little bit about that journey, what your workers look like up until now and then a little more about what you're doing within the current business and how you're helping your customers. Yes. So I come from a family of publishers. the accent might might tell you that I am not from the US. I'm originally from Mexico, born and raised in Mexico City. My father was a publisher and he was a publisher until the the day he died, uh almost eleven years ago. So my first memories as a as a child uh was to have a book in my hands. And that carried on into my education and my my uh university education, even though I went uh and decided to be uh an economics major, I was always thinking, how am I gonna get into the publishing or the or the book business, if you will. And uh my God, 40 years ago I uh started working for a printing company, a very large printing company based in the US, uh still in Mexico, and from there Um I've been doing a lot of things in in print and in distribution, uh sales, customer service, operations, et cetera, et cetera. And uh you know, I think it's it's a mission when you think about books and you think what books do uh for everyone. Um if you love books and if you can be part of that supply chain, it's uh it's a dream come true. And I think as my job is defined as that, is defined as something that I was able to capture that love for books uh into what I do on a on a daily basis. That's great. in today's world, know, obviously the world of publishing has changed a lot over the 40 years you've been doing it. What have you done to really uh keep up with the times, reinvent yourselves? How are you looking today that you might not have looked, say, a decade ago? Absolutely. So well first of all, I think the the there is a there is an interesting uh I I won't call it misconception because there is some true on it, that uh when the iPad came out, the whole book business started to have a decline, the print book book business that is. that was uh that was in fact correct for a while until COVID happened. So we had seen a decline in the last ten years. or ten years ago, we started to see a decline in the number of books that were printed and distributed. But then when COVID happened, there are two main events. uh One is the fact that of course uh kids were at home ah looking at screens all day long, uh taking classes, taking lessons, etc. And on the other side, that they discovered the printed product. They discovered the printed product through TikTok. And it was an incredible phenomenon where they started to read books. And when I say they, I'm talking eight to seventeen, eighteen years old. They started to read books among them as groups. And there were there is a a there are a lot of uh cases that have been written about this on why why was that? Why is that suddenly they wanted to have the touch and feel of a book rather than continue to read on a on a on the screen? And uh for us it was a big surprise. Uh I was working at a different company at the time that was specialized in in in trade books, in fiction, nonfiction, that kind of thing. And one day I get a phone call from one of the uh big publishers in the US, uh from Simon and Schuster, their production head, and they say uh we are going to need a reprint uh of several thousand books for an author called call Colin Hoover. And I'm just like, who in the world is Colin Hoover? Well, Colin Hoover was one of these TikTok uh authors, if you will, that became very popular out of nowhere. And now that her books are printed in in the hundreds of thousands, and there is even a movie uh or two movies from from one of her books. So what hap so the po the point is that when we thought the book business was in decline, the book printing business was in decline, COVID basically put us back on the map. Same happened with education. I think that's important to point out. Education is the same thing. At least in the US, the scores, the math, reading, social stories scores of the students that went through COVID looking at the screens and and not having the printed product went down and they've been going down. So school districts realized that education is better. in many cases when you have the printed product with you. And that's what we have seen in the last five years, uh an increase again in the number of books we print and that we distribute to school district. That's really interesting. I hadn't really thought about that. It's good to hear books are recovering. I don't read very much. I'm sorry to say. I do listen to a lot of books. I'm a big audible. I go through a lot of books, but I like to listen. And part of that is I'm a big runner. So I can go for a two hour run and listen to a book or three hour run. you know, so I quite enjoy that. And to me, I can switch my brain off listening, although I'm sure it would be better for my brain if I actually read. Well, y you know, I'm a I'm a f I'm a firm believer that any way you uh consume the ideas and and the books that authors put put together, uh it really doesn't matter. At the end of the day, uh the whole concept of books and and what they do for us uh is not limited to the printed product. The concept is that ideas are shared and any idea is shared. Um we are here at at the company and personally we are a uh big believers that we are uh part of a big supply chain that is part of the uh we are stewards of the First Amendment in the United States, uh freedom of speech. Um because we print and we distribute any book. we are really not into deciding You know, if this book is the right book, if it has the right ideology of the CEO or the ownership of the company. Every book that we print, every book that we distribute, has several idea many ideas that might differ differ for what I like. Um so that is a very big part of what we do, is that we are protecting or we're part of the uh protection of of of of the First Amendment in the United States. Which now more than ever uh is is critical, in my opinion. Make sense. I like that. You can have a little taster on what family looks like for you. Talk to us little bit more about that. Yeah, so I'm very fortunate because I have been uh married to to Monica for uh thirty-three years. Uh we met in Mexico at uh in college. in my case it was uh love at first sight. Uh in her case she didn't see me for like six months. Um And we've been moving aro around, we moved in Mexico several times, then we moved to the States for the first time in nineteen ninety-nine. That's where our daughter, Ana Paula, was born. Then we moved back to Mexico and then we moved back permanently to the US in two thousand and three, where my son uh Jorge Alexander was born. Uh both of the of the kids, they are not kids anymore, they are young adults. they have uh they have great careers. Uh my my daughter is presently uh working for a large consulting firm uh on the political side. Uh and at the same time she's doing a master's degree in Columbia University in New York City. And my son, one year removed from uh from college, he's been working at a at a PR company, uh a large PR company for the past uh basically two years. So We are empty nesters, which uh allows us to travel a lot. That's a passion of ours. Monica is a she's been a traveled agent and she's got a travel agency that uh she's been uh running for twenty years. She's celebrating her twentieth year this year. So it's a great it's a good match. No kids at home and uh and a tr and a wife that is a travel agent and uh what you do, right? That we can do we can work from anywhere in the world and uh and spend time abroad as as needed, no? So so we're very I'm very fortunate uh to of of having the family that I have. I like it, love that. And I've got to say I love the travel agent side. I've got to pay for my own travel. I don't get so lucky. And how does health look for you? And I always love with health to be whatever aspect, whether that be food, fitness, sleep, mental health, how does that look for you? So uh if if if we had met, I would say, before COVID, uh you you would have seen a totally different person, physically and probably mentally. physically before COVID I was uh very much uh sitting down most of the day and doing some exercise, but not much. I was doing tennis, which I played during high school and before, but that was that. Then COVID happens and and you realize uh a lot of things in life. right, you realize more t you you start to think about mortality and you start thinking about health in a different way. So the best decision I made during COVID, a little bit before COVID actually, was to buy a Peloton bike. And uh I've been a a crazy Peloton rider for the past, you know, seven years. Um crazy to uh meaning that I I do it five or six times a week. uh 35, 45, 60 minutes. Um I have been at the Peloton Studios in New York and I have been at the Peloton Studios in London, uh taking live classes, which is kind of a batch of honor if you're a Peloton crazy like I am. So that was part one. Part one is is to to create a habit of waking up early, which I always did, but now I wake up early so I can I can do my routine, which includes weights and some other things. And and the second part is um you know uh I took care of of my body in a better way. I was eating a lot of things that uh eating and drinking a lot of things that I shouldn't, uh or that I shouldn't in excess, if you will. and that that changed during COVID and then I was able to just keep going and I'm very happy to where I am right now. I feel healthy. I know I'm healthy because the doctor says I'm healthy, uh, but it's more how you feel. at the end of the day. No. But the the exercise I think is critical. I I when I travel and I travel a lot for work and as I said for for pleasure. Uh I always try to find a hotel where I can either do it inside or that I can do it outside. Um I cannot run like you do. my my knees would not allow it. But uh in uh as you know I I have a a home in Portugal and uh when I go to to the uh when I go there I have a bike and I take long bike rides in the Algarve, uh which is a beautiful region in the south of of that country. And uh and that helps me also to clear my mind, you know, to be outside, uh to just just go wherever wherever the road takes you. Um so I'm very, very fortunate that I was able to that I'm able to do that too to keep my my regime. That's great. And what do you like to do for fun, except for bike rides in the Elgarve? So I'm I'm I'm so that that's a you know a great question in the sense that I'm a very simple guy. Uh for for the in that in that in that matter. I think exercising is one, but I discovered uh building Lego models about three years ago as a stress reliever, uh three or four years ago. uh I was I was under a lot of stress at work and the weekends were not doing what the weekends should do. uh so I wasn't able to get my mind off the things you you have when you reach certain levels in in in management. And one day I was walking through a mall, I saw the Lego store, and they had this model of the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium, that's where Real Madrid plays, and four thousand pieces. So I thought, well that's you know, it's a Lego, right? Any kids can do Legos. So uh I took this box and my god, it took me like I'm gonna say like three months worth of weekends to to get through it. And I realized how fun it was. Also how it would just take my mind completely out of work and out of everything else. And since then I've done I'm gonna say eight or nine projects uh that uh you know one of them is sitting uh on my over my right shoulder it's Notre Dame Cathedral in in in Paris um and the big project that I have in front of me in November uh Lego is releasing their biggest model yet which is the La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona you know in in in commemorating the almost the end of of the construction and it's gonna be twelve thousand five hundred pieces. Um I think that's when it's gonna bring me to my knees. Uh so but I'm very much looking forward to that. So I do that for fun. Uh I read a lot uh and I travel a lot. Travel is where most of the fun happens. Um anywhere in the world and uh you know it's it's it's a a great way to get your mind off a lot of things when you are not sitting in your office like I am right now. Nice, now you're building a 12,500 piece Lego set, do you like glue it or anything at some point so that it doesn't get damaged? Because that seems like a lot of work and then it just takes somebody to knock it off a desk or, you know, some little kid to run through and, you know, that works. So so if you're a purist and you're gonna keep it forever, uh the answer is yes. I mean, you have to at some point after you're done, never before you're done. Uh, you know, there are ways to glue it and to keep the pieces together, like a varnish, that kind of thing. Uh I haven't done it. I don't know why. uh what I will tell you is outside of my office, I have the the rest of the stuff I I have built. And uh they are a place that people cannot just come and and knock them down. No. But you know, uh the other thing I will tell you is that there is a there there is uh a possibility that once you are done and you have them for a while, and these are expensive sets, I mean these are not uh they are not cheap by any stretch of imagination. So someone told me the other day, why don't you just when you're ready, take it all apart and then give it uh to uh you know donate it so to a school or to uh someone so they can redo it themselves. And I was thinking I don't know if I want to do that, but that's a that's an option. Um but no um it is scary, I'll tell you when when you're moving it then from one p pa place to another, you're like, I I wanna I I need to be very careful. I don't want this to drop. So And so how does an integrated life look for you across your different aspects? Integrated? you know, being being very honest with you, as I should, uh I think as I have become older, uh I have become more I have to s I have started to balance my life a little more. And I I said little more because I would be guilty if I say, My God, I'm totally balanced, I'm not, especially because of of the job that I have and and whatnot. Uh but what what has balanced us and as a family in in in my case now my my my my wife is and I go back to travel. I think travel is what is balancing and integrating everything to it puts everything together because again, I'm very lucky that I can that I can work from wherever I I I want to. Uh so I can spend one or two weeks somewhere else, not in this office. And still be able to actively work and manage the the business I manage. Uh I have a great team, uh which is also part of the deal and and part of the balance is that if you have a great team that uh that is well uh aligned with what the company wants to do and whatnot, then you have a way to do that. So my integ my my balance it comes from you know, spending time with my family, spending time abroad with with Monica, traveling, meeting new places, eating in new new new foods, uh, integrating into new cultures. I think uh if if you are moving around and uh and you decide to stay uh for a period of time in certain countries or towns or whatnot, the best you can do is to try to fully integrate into the culture. rather than look for diasporas of Mexicans or diasporas of Americans or English or whatnot. No. If you find, you know, the the the right people in in in the places you go that are natives, that integration is so important and and so so much part of this whole concept of of life that uh we are building for ourselves. That's great. What's been a pivotal moment in your life? it's gonna sound corny but but it is not. I would say meeting Monica and getting married uh at the at the early age of uh twenty twenty-five and she was uh twenty-two, that was pivotal for us. That centered me and grounded me. Uh Monica is a multilingual, multicultural uh woman that she was born in Trinidad and Tobago, grew up in Brazil. moved to Venezuela, then moved to the the States, and then moved to Mexico. Her father was a hotel manager in the days of hotel managers living in s on site. So she lived in a hotel until she married me, which is a story for another day. ah So so I was just a good old Mexican kid with a great bra background from a family perspective, but I didn't have the perspective. of living abroad and speaking other languages. My my dear wife speaks fluently five four languages plus German. her father was German and but her German is she says this and she will she will kill me if I say that she speaks uh fluent German, but that she speaks good German. But when you meet someone like her a at an early age, uh it changes your world. It it completely changed my world. She changed my world. So that was a pivotal moment. uh in my personal life that drove us to where we are today, right? Not to be afraid of moving not only city to city, but moving from country to country. Um it wasn't as hard as it is right now, uh the whole immigration concept, for the reasons that I'm sure all your your listeners understand. Yet it was still very hard for us to just as as they say in in Mexico, burn the ships and move to the US. So without her, and again go back to the pivotal moment, I don't think I would be where I am today. Uh the second one I would say was at work. Uh I would say the pivotal moment at work has was when I found the right mentor that believed in me. Uh I I am completely blessed to have uh at least three mentors that I remember very well and they still remember me that uh changed my perspective of business. They changed the way I was working and the way I was looking at customers and the way I was looking at uh performance and uh discipline. So it's it it and and again I can I can I know exactly who they are and they know who they are. And and probably they are gonna see this, one or two of them gonna see this and they are gonna say, Yeah, that's me. Uh which drives me to the next point, which is we all have an opportunity to mentor someone. And I think it's a extraordinary opportunity to to give and and to give back, especially if you have had the gift of of a good mentor. That's so very true and that does lead me to my next question. But before I ask that, I'm going to say a quick request. If you're enjoying these conversations, please click subscribe. And now on to the next question for you, which is what's one piece of advice that you would give to an aspiring entrepreneur? Yeah. So interestingly enough, I was at a conference uh last Friday, uh leadership conference, and I I was in a panel, and I I got the d that same question and the answer was first of all, breathe. Take a deep breath. Uh many of us go through our our lives and our moments of truth and there are many, many moments of truth for an entrepreneur. And we forget to breathe. We just we just keep going and and get all the stress and and suddenly we take this deep breath and it's like, okay, I'm feeling better now. Of course you do. Your brain is getting all this oxygen that you didn't get. And by the way, this is not a thing that I learned. one of my mentors who's the CEO of of a large, very large company, he gave me that advice many years ago, when I became COO of uh of my my past company. The second thing I would say is find the right team. Now, of course, entrepreneurs, we are we are individuals, right? We like individuality. We like to move by ourselves and and to push our ideas and whatnot. I'm considered I consider myself an entrepreneur. And the companies I have worked for allowed me to think and act as an entrepreneur. But the supporting cast that you put together for your for your endeavors has to also be and you know uh you know they have to share the entrepreneurship that you are that that you believe in. Um so finding a good team is is absolutely necessary and be aligned with them. Right that's that's another part that I I said last week when I was participating here is that you need to find a way that you're not only aligned with them, but also when you start running bigger companies or your company becomes bigger, you have to make sure that even if you're the CEO or the COO or whatever the your job title is, is that the people that are doing the work still look at you. And when you look at them, they feel that they are the only person in the room. Many times, especially now with Teams and this type of video calls and working from home and whatnot. You will lose sight of the human side, that it's very easy for the other party to know that you're not paying attention. It's very simple. I mean, you start looking at another screen, or you're still looking down, or you take this thing and you start doing this thing. I I think that's that's key that you focus. If it's 30 seconds or one minute on your response to that person, if that person, if feels that you are connected, then he or she are gonna go through walls for you, which is what we entrepreneurs like love to do. We we don't see the wall as an obstacle, we just see it as a little bump on the road. So those are the three things that come to mind, Leo, when when we think about what advice for entrepreneurs listening to this call. It's great advice. think, you know, focus, think breathing, breathing is an interesting one. I've done a lot of breathing exercises I've learned over the last 10, 15 years and meditation, things like that. And it's true. mean, you know, we don't breathe enough and we certainly don't breathe deep enough. And, you know, there was a great exercise I was taught a few years ago by a monk in India. to like reset the system and like, you know, she was like before a phone call, you should always do this before a conversation, which I'm not saying I do always, but she was like just three breaths. It's a slow breath in, a slow breath out at half the speed that you breathed in. You do that three times and it is remarkably effective. I'm particularly stressed that that does do a great job of like resetting the nervous system. I concur. Totally concur. And how can people find you? Uh Jorge at brprinters dot com. um that's my my my uh email at work. Uh I I'm very good at responding to emails and so if you if you do please do so. I will be uh very happy to respond. As I mentioned, I think you have to pay forward what you have received. And uh if any of your of your followers uh want to want to have a chat about everything we discussed today or other things about entrepreneurship and business or personal life or they want to know where my wife is so so they can you know they can buy a trip from her. I can also provide that later on. So but yeah, that's that that's where I I can be found. Well thank you, it really lovely to chat. It is the same. Thank you very much indeed.