Business And Life Lessons From Entrepreneur Miguel Leal

What I like most about Miguel Leal’s memoir, aside from its overall compelling and inspiring information, are the business and life lessons he shares. 

Those lessons are found throughout his recently released memoir, The House That Cheese Built. The book is a quintessential American dream story from a Mexican entrepreneur who shares the tale of building a multi-million-dollar business from scratch, complete with both success and failure, and always a vision of hope. 

Leal came to the U.S. penniless as a teenager, speaking almost no English; he literally slept in the boiler room of a Wisconsin cheese factory for months before he was caught. Through hard work, grit, and ingenuity Leal would go on to launch his own business. He is widely credited with introducing Mexican cheeses to the U.S. market and grew his company to a multimillion-dollar success story that defined an industry. Yet, like many successful entrepreneurs, Leal’s great successes were matched by a variety of gripping and heartbreaking personal failures. 

Here are his business and life lessons: 

• Passion can find you when you least expect it.
• Desire more. Desire better.
• Create your opportunity.
• Be flexible, but ruthless with your time and energy.
• Adopt a mindset of making it happen no matter what.
• Push to be better at what you do every day – even 1% better.
• Our most important lessons can come from unexpected teachers.
• Find ways to better yourself through new education and skills.
• To achieve success, focus on one goal at a time.
• Know when to let go.
• Humbling failure can be an opportunity to pay attention and start again. Let failure inspire you.
• Be honest and people will believe in you.
• Belong to a group but keep your own counsel. 

Read Leal’s absorbing book to learn how he has applied these lessons during his business and life journey. You will find inspiration in his determination and refusal to give up on his dream; see how he persevered in the face of obstacles and setbacks in his personal life; and follow along as he ultimately finds peace, purpose, and grace―and realizes that money isn’t everything. 

Miguel Leal

Today, Miguel is a successful real estate developer with a deep investment in his new passion project: supporting Mexico’s growing organic foods movement with a farm of his own, where he demonstrates sustainable organic farming methods to communities in his native country while supporting local charitable efforts. 

Thank you to the book’s publisher for sending me an advance copy of the book.