Introduce yourself, please. Yeah. My name is
Alexander Concepcion. I live in Austin, Texas.
I run a real estate company called Taco Street
Locating, where I help people move to Texas.
And last year, I published a book called Survival
First, The Rebel Entrepreneur's Guide to Risk,
Riches, and Immortality, which is a Dante's Inferno,
like Odyssey through darkness and light. for
the small, independent, rebellious entrepreneur.
Oh, my goodness. Was that really fun to write?
Yeah. It was more like, it was spiritual. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, I could see how that would be. Like,
I've written books. I know it's like, what was
your experience? Was it kind of like you get
like this download, like, all right, here's the
whole thing. Now go write it. Was it like that
for you? No, not at all. It began with a question.
which is why do businesses die? Because the pandemic
began and I went from, I've lost all of my clients,
everything is over and this is going to be awful
to my business is exploding and I've doubled
my revenue from last year. But at the same time,
I'm watching so many businesses around, just
around me. like my friends and local businesses
just collapse everywhere and it just made me
ask like why me why am i okay why am i not just
doing okay but thriving and that question was
the first domino that became a four -year book
journey to understand risk and survival for small
entrepreneurs wow that's amazing I mean, that
is a labor of love then, you know, like that's
like you had to go deep and it was dark. And,
you know, this was like an existential exercise,
really. Yeah. It led me into therapy midway through.
I bet. Yeah. As any sufficient journey through
darkness might do. What is your vision for the
people that you're serving? So. The first three
words of the book answer that, and it's through
darkness, light. And what that is, is an invitation
for entrepreneurs to look at risk and darkness
and the reality that most of us don't make it.
And if you don't survive, nothing else matters.
So that's why the book is called Survival First.
And the whole world of entrepreneurship discussions
are usually successful people talking to other
successful people about how they became successful.
And they will brush over the turbulence and the
times things got dark if they talk about it.
And the people that just crashed and failed and
burned. most of the time you will never hear
their stories. And I think that is a tragedy
because there's a lot of lessons and wisdom that
can and should be learned from people who did
not make it. Amazing. I mean, yeah, that's what
the failure rate is, what, 96 % over some period
of time? I don't think anyone actually knows
the number. but everyone knows that it's really
high and it's it's kind of like it's really annoying
when you go through all these podcast feeds and
all these gurus and all these people everyone's
talking about like their success and which is
great like there's a lot you can learn from other
people's success but it creates a massive survivor's
bias Because nobody is going on a podcast tour
to talk about how they blew up their businesses.
And there's a lot of stories that are hidden
by trauma and humiliation and non -disclosure
agreements. So there's this entire infinite graveyard
that no one looks at. And I wanted to look at
that. and see what lessons can we learn from
this. That's so great. Yeah, it is like there's
this dark underbelly of sentiment that, oh, everybody's
just, you know, like you said, it's the survivor's
bias. So we figure, oh, and how does it, like,
what is the ripple effect? Do you think of that?
You have a lot of people making the same mistakes
as other people do. Because they don't know those
are common mistakes. And what I discover in this
book writing process, and just by looking at
all these failures and collapses and stories
of darkness, is there's just a pattern. There's
a lot of ways to look at why businesses die.
There's so many different layers to this. Because
it's rarely one reason. It's usually a collection
of reasons. And the way I break it down is there's
the stuff you don't control, like your external
risks, where I argue that you don't control the
world around you, but you do control how you
adapt. And then there's the internal risks inside
your business that you do control, like your
business model, your marketing, your operations,
your so many different things. once we once we're
done looking at your business it's looking at
you the entrepreneur because you are the biggest
risk to your business so then it's looking at
the mirror me like oh i'm the problem slash solution
of course because you always invert things yeah
um but yeah that's the the general breakdown
but i spend a lot of time effectively rebuilding
the entire ecosystem of thought around risk.
Because I think that the language we use with
risk is not useful and often counterproductive.
So the reason this took four years is I had to
break down all of these ideas to the fundamental
base forms and rebuild an entire ecosystem of
thought with new forms. That could take some
doing. Yeah. It took a long time. So this is
kind of also a philosophy book. Yeah. And one
radical shift I make to like make that less vague
is when I think about risk, it's not just the
money and time. that you lose when things go
wrong it's the energy that it costs you specifically
the emotional energy because energy is the main
variable that we have that makes everything run
because you can have money and time but if you
don't have the energy then nothing happens so
businesses die because Mostly because people
just choose to stop putting energy into it. And
there's a lot of people who may have profitable
businesses, but it costs them so much in terms
of stress, anxiety, their personal relationships,
where on paper everything is fine, but in reality,
the holistic reality, it's a disaster. So my
fundamental reframe is about looking at risk
and survival through a primarily human lens.
That's amazing. So you have this book. Are you
doing is there a follow on like somebody reads
this book and they're like, oh, my gosh, you
know, can they hire you as a coach? Is that a
part of it or is this just like, nope, just wrote
the book? yeah i mean if someone reads the book
and they're like this is awesome like i want
a guide um i prefer the the role of guide rather
than coach i like that um because the the idea
of a coach is usually telling someone what to
do which is what i want when like i'm working
out i'm at the gym i want someone to tell me
what to do yeah but a guide is someone who can
help someone navigate their own journey It's
more about empowering someone that they have
the resources, more like the mental resources
and the ability to think about complex problems
with more practical frames. Because everything
we're doing is just a network of decisions. So
this entire book is at its core about how to
make better decisions. And better decisions involve...
understanding risk and downside at the same time
looking at opportunity and upside and how do
you make decisions under unknown circumstances
and being able to rationally and energetically
understand both it's like what is your vision
for like what you want to happen next with your
business with my business what I've been doing
actively is I wish I thought of this idea when
I was writing the book. But what I'm doing is
I'm building a sharper business. So what most
people try to do is grow. And growing is great
if you grow the good stuff. But a lot of people
grow the bad stuff more than they grow the good
stuff and call that success. And I don't call
that success. For me, I want to grow the good
stuff and shrink the bad stuff. So taking arbitrary
numbers, say I make $200 ,000 in revenue working
20 hours a week. Can I do the same thing, make
$200 ,000 in revenue working 10 hours a week?
So both are valid. Like, yeah, I could try to
double my revenue to like 400 ,000 working the
same hours. Ideally, I would like increase the
revenue while decreasing my input. So it's looking
at both sides of the equation. And that idea
is mostly in service for me to like my business
more. I think one of the most radical frames
and questions an entrepreneur can ask is. Not
necessarily how can I grow my business, but how
can I like my business more? Because it puts
you, the human, at the center of the decision
making. Because I think a lot of people sacrifice
themselves for the business. And personally,
that's not how I want to engage as an entrepreneur.
And I think a lot of people don't want to do
that either, but they need a better frame of
how to make decisions. Yeah. What would happen
if, you know, like best case scenario, like your
wildest dream for this book, right? Is there
a number, like, is it, are you trying to have
like a hundred million people, a million people,
a hundred people, like, do you have anything
like that? And what would happen if you hit that?
I don't have numbers in mind. What I have is
relationships in mind. I want this book to be
a key to interesting doors. So I don't need a
lot of people to read it. I just need the right
people. Because core to my life is the quality
of my life is the quality of my experiences and
the quality of my relationships. If someone reads
my book and believes that I can add a lot of
value to their life and to their businesses,
and I can build a strong quality relationship
with someone doing amazing things, then yeah,
there's business upside to that. But just in
a holistic life, having more awesome relationships
is kind of, it's very simple, but it's very ambitious
in its own way. Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision
Pros Live. I'm looking forward to seeing your
reactions as these episodes continue to move
forward. This is going to get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show.
And thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision
and becoming a vision pro yourself.