HOUSTON, Texas – October 14, 2026 – From a turbulent childhood to decades of entrepreneurship marked by multimillion-dollar wins, devastating losses, reinvention and starting over, Berlanga shares what building—and rebuilding—businesses really taught him.
Entrepreneurship is often portrayed as a straightforward path from idea to success. The reality, says Houston entrepreneur Jose M. Berlanga, is far more complex and messy. In his new book, Grit Is Good: The Gritty Entrepreneur, released September 16, 2026, Berlanga offers an unvarnished account of what it takes to build a business when success, as it often does, doesn’t show up right away—and what it takes to keep going when everything feels like chaos.
Written for founders, business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs who are still in the fight, Grit Is Good challenges the polished success stories that can make entrepreneurship appear simpler than it truly is. Berlanga writes about the sacrifices, discipline, habits, failures and hard-earned lessons that can improve an entrepreneur’s chances of staying in the game long enough to succeed.
“If you happen to be one of those rare entrepreneurs who struck gold on the first try,” Berlanga writes in the author’s note, “then I’ll be honest: this book probably isn’t for you.”
Berlanga’s own journey was anything but easy.
At four years old, a bus accident left him with third-degree burns across most of his face and body. Years of hospital stays and reconstructive surgeries followed. Growing up with visible scars, he experienced judgment and underestimation and became determined to be known for what he accomplished rather than how he looked.
By the age of seven or eight, Berlanga was already learning how to negotiate deals. Lacking the confidence to put his own destiny in someone else’s hands and not wanting to waste any time, he started his first business by his late teens.
Over the decades that followed, Berlanga built companies and partnerships across a range of industries, including industrial valves and piping, oil and gas exports, hospitality, publishing, residential construction and many others. Along the way, he experienced the extremes of this career path: major successes, market crashes, changing economies, currency devaluations, financial setbacks and multiple occasions when he had to start again from scratch.
Those experiences form the backbone of Grit Is Good.
Berlanga recalls moments when he was “technically a multimillionaire… while teetering on the edge of bankruptcy,” using those experiences to explain lessons that are often overlooked in conventional business advice—including the critical difference between cash flow and profit.
The book also explores leadership, mental and physical preparation, business planning, hiring, financial architecture, scaling, sales, branding and economic timing. Drawing on decades of doing business in Mexico, the United States, Europe and Asia, Berlanga combines personal stories with practical frameworks entrepreneurs can apply to their own businesses.
One example is his “Reverse Pyramid Technique,” a planning framework he used to map out a residential homebuilding operation capable of producing 200 homes a year before the operation even existed.
Rather than promising easy freedom or overnight success, Grit Is Good presents entrepreneurship as a long game defined by resilience.
“People associate this path with freedom, flexibility, and wealth,” Berlanga writes. “In my experience, it’s closer to a series of failures interrupted by the occasional win, especially in the beginning.”
But the book is ultimately about more than surviving failure. It is about learning how to come back from it.
“A crash, no matter how total, is not permanent.”
Grit Is Good is written for first-time founders, small-business owners navigating their next stage of growth, entrepreneurs rebuilding after failure, and anyone seriously considering whether to take the leap into business ownership.
In the closing pages, Berlanga reflects on the journey that shaped the book:
About Jose M. Berlanga
Jose M. Berlanga is a serial entrepreneur based in Houston, Texas. Raised in Mexico City, he started his first business in his late teens and has spent decades as a founder, investor, operator and partner across industries ranging from industrial supply and oil and gas exports to publishing, hospitality and residential construction, where he became best known.
Berlanga has built wealth, lost it in market crashes and rebuilt it. His experiences across multiple business cycles, industries and countries have shaped his approach to entrepreneurship and form the foundation of Grit Is Good: The Gritty Entrepreneur.
He dedicates the book to “the modern sailors and pioneers: the entrepreneurs.”
Book Details
- Title: Grit Is Good: The Gritty Entrepreneur
- Author: Jose M. Berlanga
- Publisher: Writers of the West
- Release Date: September 16, 2026
- ASIN: B0HK13D53J
- Language: English
- Genre: Business / Entrepreneurship – Small Business, Leadership, Business Memoir, Personal Development
- Themes: Resilience, failure and comeback, cash flow vs. profit, leadership, team building, scaling, sales and branding, business timing
- Available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HK13D53J
Media Contact
Company Name: Writers of the West
Contact Person: Miles Alden
Email: Send Email
Phone: 8322782879
Address:700 Smith St
City: Houston
State: Texas
Country: United States
Website: www.writersofthewest.net