S2 E33 | Alex Delgado Beyond the Uniform: A Marine's Journey Through Entrepreneurship

What separates those who dream from those who do? Alex Delgado's remarkable journey from Marine Corps intelligence analyst to serial entrepreneur reveals that success isn't about avoiding failure—it's about learning from each experience to fuel your next venture.

The serial entrepreneur, Marine veteran, and author of "The Four Fs: Seeking Self-Mastery in Faith, Family, Fitness, and Finances" takes us through his fascinating career trajectory, beginning with a doomed hip-hop clothing store in Miami. Rather than being discouraged when competing with vendors selling stolen merchandise from car trunks, Delgado extracted a valuable insight about advertising from the experience that led to his next business: marine advertising with inflatable billboards towed along Miami's beaches. This venture flourished, attracting major clients including Miller Coors, Red Bull, and international DJs.

Throughout the conversation, Delgado reveals how military discipline shaped his approach to both business and life. While many might find balancing active Marine duty with entrepreneurship impossible, he simultaneously pursued multiple degrees—eventually earning his MBA—while launching businesses. This commitment to continuous growth reaches far beyond professional pursuits, as evidenced by his dedication to marathon running and community building through the newly-formed Oldsmar Running Club.

Perhaps most moving is Delgado's account of divine intervention that led him to Detroit after his military service, allowing him to reconcile with his estranged brother shortly before his brother's unexpected passing. This profound experience reinforced his faith and informed his philosophy on relationships, which he now incorporates into his motivational speaking.

Ready to break free from your comfort zone and pursue your own path to greatness? Delgado offers one piece of advice that trumps all others: seek a coach who can provide a tactical plan tailored to your specific goals. Connect with Alex on Instagram @AlexRDelgado to continue your journey toward self-mastery in faith, family, fitness, and finances.

Transcript

Meet Alex Delgado: Marine, Entrepreneur, Author

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 0:00

Welcome to Happy Hour Holidays, where we cheers to life, stories, entrepreneurship and business. I fucked up on that one, but anyways, I'm your host every single week. Manny Fresh, we got the resume, sean Fabre. And in studio today we got motivational speaker author, marine veteran. We got a man that does everything serial entrepreneur, alex Delgado. Thank you so much for coming in, man.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 0:27

Love the energy man, and you know, I could see that you're a guy that lifts people up, and that's what we need in this world, especially for people that are trying to maybe make that move to actually see the best of themselves, which is very tough, because you kind of get into a comfortable zone and you live life and then you forget man, I can actually do more than what I'm doing today. Yeah, not only that, but you also mentioned off air that you've started multiple businesses. Not all of them succeeded, and that's something that most people will get down on themselves and then quit trying. You know, yeah, absolutely, I mean what kept you going?

Alex Delgado 1:01

I think for me there's this element of really want to aspire to do more, and I feel like it's okay to ask for abundance if you have good intent right. And so for me, every time I've started it and had this wacky idea. If it didn't work out, the interesting part is that it always kind of opened the door to the next idea and it's kind of always built off of the previous one with lessons learned, so that you don't make the same mistake twice.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 1:26

I'm wondering what was your first business you ever started?

Alex Delgado 1:29

I mean I've done everything I had. I've done well. I started a hip hop clothing store down in Miami which was the worst idea ever.

Alex Delgado 1:37

But again, like everything, I look at it and I learn. And the funny thing is the main kind of catalyst for the location was it was the barbershop. It was next door to the barbershop where Pitbull takes his kids at the time, right, and I knew everybody from the neighborhood, everybody would go there. So I'm thinking, all right, yeah, we're going to sell hip hop clothes, sneakers. You know, we sold spray paint so we had all the graffiti artists in Miami coming and buying cans from us. And then, you know, go figure, I was competing with the guy who's also selling stolen clothes in the back of his trunk, so that that business was destined to fail. Um, but from that business, right, one of the ideas we had in there was having the TV screens with ads, and that was way before that was more common than what you see today, like in the back of the truck beds no like.

Alex Delgado 2:20

No in the no like the advertising on the screens of your TVs inside the store.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 2:24

Oh, inside the shop.

Alex Delgado 2:26

And so from that I said, look, I never want to be in retail because, you know, in clothing things go out of style. You need to figure out the right sizing. I mean, it was tricky, it was a very difficult business, great experience, but it was definitely hard to sustain. And I said I want to offer a service, because the service, you know there's some overhead up front, obviously, but you're not going to have that, that. You know constant revolving door. So I said I want to get into advertising, but I don't know exactly what form of advertising I'm running into.

Alex Delgado 2:53

And so at one point, when I was just really trying to like figure out what was next, I saw this this long, it was a 36 foot pontoon boat out in in Illinois, so to go in the river of Chicago. I was like, oh man, I live in Miami. And, mind you, I was an active duty Marine stationed in Miami trying to do a side hustle, right. So that's not very common, you don't hear that for a lot of military people. And so I got this idea of man, I live in Miami, we're the best beaches in the world. I got to do something advertising on the water. Then that led me to find these huge inflatable billboards that were a nightmare. But I got some huge clients. I mean, I had Miller Coors, I had Red Bull, I had Chase Bank. Where'd you put them? We had them out on the beach.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 3:37

We had these things that you would tow Not floating in the ocean yeah, floating in the ocean, towing it up and down in my dad's boat.

Alex Delgado 3:41

I mean it was a crazy shit. So, long story short is eventually that boat that inspired that idea. That guy who made that boat sold it to some guy here in Tampa. The guy in Tampa couldn't get the business to work and I bought that boat off him. So, full circle, I bought that boat and I had it going up and down Miami forever. It was a great business. We advertise all the nightclubs in Miamiami restaurants, you name it. You're the one driving the boat or no? My dad was a skipper. Yeah, yeah, my dad was a skipper and and we had um casinos from las vegas, I mean, you name it ultra music festival. We had everything going on during that time and eventually, like anything right, my business became obsolete when they had the digital boats going out and you see those even here in, like clearwater beach and stuff like that.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 4:22

So Are the single engine planes that are? You know that they fly with the banners. I mean, that was like my arch nemesis, that was your arch nemesis.

Alex Delgado 4:30

Yeah, so actually the funny thing is, like my, you still see those out. Oh yeah, I mean it's a good business you have, like it's an antiquated type of business, but you have eyeballs looking at your product but I feel like, visibility wise, the boat is definitely, you know yeah, you have definitely better line of sight and it's a little more modern and you know it looks cool right now.

Alex Delgado 4:50

I would, we would, we would get emails from people they'll be like oh you ruined our vacation with this eyesore. I'm like, oh sorry, I'm like, but you looked at it, you know like hot women on there just dancing?

Alex Delgado 5:01

nah, because it was far, you know, as far away, right, so you wouldn't be able to see the people per se. But it was a good business, man, I I enjoyed it because I, you know, I I made good money with it and I also got to include my dad, my, my mom would go out there, my wife would go out there, you know, to take pictures and all this kind of stuff and, um, it was a cool business how much would you like charge per ad?

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 5:23

yeah, so. I would charge, so it was just like one inflatable and it was just one ad on both sides. Were they the same ad on both sides? Yeah, typically, yeah, yeah. But eventually when I they pay for the day.

Alex Delgado 5:34

They would pay by day and I would charge depends. I would charge anywhere from like 600 bucks for the local nightclub, because I just needed to fill in some days to two to five grand a day.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 5:44

Holy cow club because I just needed to to fill in some days, to two to five grand a day. Holy cow, you're chasing all the bigger hitters.

Alex Delgado 5:47

There were two or five that I would charge, you know, up the ass. And ultra too, right? Oh yeah, definitely we. We had all the djs, all the international djs that would come around the for ultra. All of them were my clients because I, from the boat I evolved to, they'd say, hey, alex, uh, we are interested in doing the boat, but we're also interested in trucks. I'm like, oh yeah, I got trucks, I got this too, and I got. I mean, we did uh pressure cleaning the logos on the sidewalk, we did everything you can think of and I've presented uh advertising campaigns to the biggest DJs in the world David Guetta, afro Jack, uh, you know every single one of those people I've. I've either presented them or done marketing for them.

Alex Delgado 6:28

So what happened to the business? It was just very fickle, right, like I mean, it's, it's event driven. What was difficult? I would try to get like people, like most of your advertising agencies who are the ones that do this type of advertising for your big fortune 500 brands. They're all based out of new york, right? So think of the mad men right up in new york, and they couldn't conceptualize that miami is year-round right, year-round beach weather. So they should think about this as a strategy year-round. They view it in terms of like, hey, this is a summer marketing campaign and I I would try to convince them like, well, in the summer, yeah, it's great, but in the you guys come to Miami, so doesn't it make sense?

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 7:08

Like bring it down here, right.

Alex Delgado 7:09

So it was just a hard business to sustain, like full time. Again, I was a Marine full time. So you know, in my career I was moving around and it was easy to manage remotely the client interface and all that stuff. For the most part I'd never met any of my clients but it was still just, you know, not enough, not enough business to to keep it going full time.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 7:28

And Alex, backtracking a little bit, let's get into, like your childhood, like going into who made you know, what made you who you are today, you know. Let's just start, you know, pick up like maybe around I don't know high school or something like that, like what made you go into the Marines and then what, what kind of influenced your mom and your dad, you know coming I mean, I'm I'm assuming they came from Cuba, right, so coming from Cuba. And you know being immigrants and and you know, making a life for you and your brothers or sister, if you have any.

Alex Delgado 7:57

So I'm going to go back a little bit only just to say that my, my parents have such a unique story in that my father was part of Operation Peter Pan, which, if you know your Cuban history right, that was the mass exodus of the Cuban children that was sponsored by the Catholic Church. He had a very unique opportunity in that his aunt had already came forward. You know, she was already in Miami and she created a foster home and he was able to leave and go stay at her house, Whereas most of the kids they ended up all over the world in orphanages and places where they were strangers when Castro took over right.

Alex Delgado 8:31

Right, right, right when Castro took over, and then my mom's story as a young girl. She left they were both very young came to the United States, they made their living. So I wanted to be a Marine since I was eight years old. Wow, yeah, it was something I knew as a little kid. I was in church and there was a group called the Young Marines, which is like the Boy Scouts of the Marines, and they were there in their camouflage uniforms at the church, kind of doing like a little display to, you know, really just promote themselves. I was like man, I want to do that and I just became enamored with the Marine Corps lifestyle and everything about it. And I just became enamored with the Marine Corps lifestyle and everything about it and I just knew, like my path as a kid. I was a high school athlete, you know I. What did you play? I was a baseball player, you know, like every Cuban kid.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 9:13

Except we went soccer. My dad went soccer, oh, yeah yeah, because my parents, or our parents, went. Well, my mom came here to Miami, but my dad had to go to Spain because there was nobody to claim him here. So they went to Spain and that's where he found the love for football.

Alex Delgado 9:27

And then you know whenever.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 9:28

I'd play. Everybody would be like Oye, cuba, what are you doing out here, dude?

Alex Delgado 9:32

Go play baseball. Yeah, no, I never played soccer. And the funny thing is my son played a little bit of soccer, but so played baseball. I always saw this funny story Like and again I started working at 13, umpiring baseball games, and I've always had a job. I've always just been financially relying on my damn self. And so as I got through high school, I was at a girlfriend who's not my wife, right, so we're high school sweethearts. And I was working. Oh, you married. Your high school Married my high school sweetheart. Yeah, holy cow. And I was also the class clown and the coaches were not fans of my jokes, unfortunately. So that impacted my playing time and by my senior year I'm like, hey, you know what? It's not really working out. So I stopped playing my senior year and they won the state championship, oh my God. So I missed out on that. Were you like a pitcher?

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 10:18

No, I was an outfielder, outfielder a totally replaceable outfielder.

Alex Delgado 10:22

Yeah, so you know. But you know you look back in hindsight. You're like damn man, you know, like I'm going to work my whole life and I missed out on kind of putting the priority on that and I don't live with too many regrets, but I do kind of wish I would have focused a little more on baseball.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 10:35

Get that little ring right here. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Alex Delgado 10:47

You know I missed out on the champion. Yeah, I'm a champion. So, um, so you're a champion in my eyes, thanks, so, yeah, but but so you know, as I, as you know, as as a senior, does you start to say, hey, what's next? Because I know something is going to happen, whether it's go off to college or or join the military or just go down any kind of real career path. But I was. I was working at a grocery store, right, so it wasn't like I was continuing down the the grocery route and I knew that I was going to be a marine. I enlisted, october 14th of 1999, were you 17 or 18?

Alex Delgado 11:13

I was, I had just turned 18. Yeah, I just turned 18.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 11:17

Yeah, let me tell you something oh yeah, yeah, I was gonna actually you read my mind because I was gonna say I want to know what your mom and your dad said. Because my mom threw a fucking fit because I told her I'm going to be a Marine Because I played soccer. I was shredded, I was fit as things. So I was like Mom, I've been talking to the Marine at school. I'm going to be a Marine because I want to travel the world and I feel like this is what I want to do. You know what happened? They were all. You know what happened Te va a morir. Oh yeah, te va a morir, mio no way. Crying and all this shit. And I was literally. I had gone into the office.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 11:49

The next step was to take the test to see where you fit in on the Marine Corps and you know, I ended up not following what I wanted to do for my journey of life. I have some regrets on that, but maybe it worked out better. I don't know, but it was during the Iraq War. I graduated 06. Oh yeah, so it would have been like right in the heat of it. Yep, so maybe it was a blessing in disguise.

Alex Delgado 12:11

Yeah.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 12:11

Or maybe I mean I just have a little bit of resentment because it was my journey in life. It's all you know. All our journeys are yours in particular.

Alex Delgado 12:19

You get to choose what you want and I felt like when my kids get older, I'm not gonna tell them hey, you know I'm gonna give them advice, but I'm never gonna push them complete and be like no, you joined in 1999, yeah, which wasn't too far off, well, so I graduated in 2000, so I got, I signed, I enlisted, right like signed the paperwork, but while I was still, what I'm saying is that was before 9-11 happened oh yeah.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 12:42

So then, like you went through training and then all hell hit or all shit hit the fan, yeah, yeah, and you're like fuck. Well, that's it.

Alex Delgado 12:51

I'm going to Iraq now. Oh, yeah, yeah, or it was Afghanistan.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 12:54

Which one was it?

Alex Delgado 12:54

Afghanistan was where the military went first. So I went to Iraq first and then I went to Afghanistan. But you know, to your point, though, like our parents, we have to believe that one was best for us For sure, and we naturally believe them, right? I mean, we do believe them. And so I think for me to answer your question about how did my parents react. Well, my parents, of course, were concerned, but they were supportive. They knew that that's something I wanted to do, so they didn't really put any roadblocks in my way. They didn't put like any emotional obstacles in my way either. They were both very proud and very you know, just excited about my, my career in the Marine Corps, and and I had an incredible career- Just two separate, different countries?

Alex Delgado 13:35

Yeah, and and and so my parents were, were supportive, and you know they weren't. We were in peacetime at the time, so of, of course, they weren't super concerned. But I think just generally, like you think about, your parents had your best interests in mind, or so they thought, and we believe them. And that's where I think we as the next generation then say, well, how do I not repeat the same mistake or not use it as, hey, this was a mistake, but how can I just look at this a different way and react a different way? Because it's kind of like you know, I've been hearing a lot of people saying if I want to be a millionaire, my parents are not millionaires.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 14:10

I shouldn't be.

Alex Delgado 14:11

I shouldn't feel like I'm insulting them by not asking them for financial advice.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 14:15

They have never accomplished that. You know what?

Alex Delgado 14:16

I'm saying so like it's like hey, mom, I love you, but you're not. You've never done what I'm trying to accomplish. So I'm not coming to you for advice, I'm coming to you for love, for cariño you know all that other stuff. But for this specific topic. You have to almost like and I think this is mainly a Latin thing, maybe even more so a Cuban thing but like we feel, like we dishonor our parents if we don't go to them for everything. But there's some things they're just not qualified.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 14:40

I get to the point honestly, alex. I get to the point, alex, where I tell my dad you guys are done. I'm not in an insulting way, but you guys are done. I'm 37 years old or 36 years old, I know more than you. At this point it's done. You guys gave me everything you possibly could, but at this point I've surpassed you. Oh yeah, I know it's tough for them to hear, but at the same time it's like, like you said, you're not a millionaire. That's what I'm aspiring to be.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 15:10

I can't come to you and be like hey, how do I get financial literacy? Yeah, even though in school they didn't fucking teach you shit and teach us anything.

Alex Delgado 15:13

Well, the funny thing too. I always say too.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 15:14

That's cool.

Alex Delgado 15:14

If my, if my mother-in-law my, mother-in-law will give me a hard time about my kids or whatever, and I'll say I live with the, with your kid, so don't be so judgmental, because I live with your kid, is your wife also Cuban? No, she's actually a very unique mix. She's half Colombian, half Dutch.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 15:31

Oh, that is super bizarre. That's one of those very unique ones.

Alex Delgado 15:33

And even more unique is that her mom, the Dutch mom, was raised in the island of Grenada, really, which is a Caribbean country.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 15:42

I'm pretty sure she has a pretty unique story too.

Alex Delgado 15:46

She's got a really cool story.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 15:48

So then, all right. So now you're enlisted in the military, going through your life here, you are now deployed and then you decide you want to be an officer and you take a program right.

Alex Delgado 16:03

So here's the unique story there is as a Marine you go into boot camp, you go into training for whatever your job is going to be. I was an intelligence analyst, so I went to school in virginia beach. Yeah, yeah, well so the funny thing is that the recruiter tells my does my dad, have you seen the movie the enemy of the state? That's kind of what like he's going to be doing.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 16:23

I'm like, oh shit man, I'm ready and that was a great movie too.

Alex Delgado 16:26

Yeah, so I'm like, oh man, this is great. It's not like that. And and so I went from my training I my first like assignment, because you get stationed somewhere. You're typically there for about three, three plus years. My first duty station was hawaii. Oh, that's awesome. So I'm a Miami kid, off to Hawaii loving life.

Alex Delgado 16:46

Well, the reality is I was always gone, whether in training I went to Iraq, I went to Afghanistan, went to all these places, and then at a certain point I was like, eh, I'm just going to get out, right, I'm done, did my four or five years, whatever, I'm going to get out. And then I realized there was an opportunity to actually be stationed in Miami, which is very uncommon. There's not a lot of Marines there. I didn't even know there was a base in Miami. It's not like a real base, it's like a headquarters, so there's actually more federal contractors or federal employees and contractors than actual military personnel. But I was able to finagle myself an assignment to Miami. So now I'm a Miami guy stationed in Miami, which is dangerous right, because obviously we follow a different set of rules as Marines. So I got to balance being a Miami guy. I got to balance being back around all my family and friends, and still my military service and, of course, to make things complex, I'm a guy who's got yeah, a husband and a father too.

Alex Delgado 17:40

And then, yeah, all those things started to happen after that, the sequence of that started to happen there. And so then I got to Miami and they said, alex, you have two options. You can be part of the Columbia, and I was single at this time. Right, I was single at the time. So my wife and I we didn't stay together the whole time, we had some separation.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 17:56

And then we got back together.

Alex Delgado 17:59

So I get to Miami, I'm a bachelor, and I'm a bachelor, and they say you have two options. One is you can go be on the Columbia team, which means you're going to go to Bogota for 90 days and then come back for 90 days, just over and over. And I'm like, oh man, that sounds great. And then they said, well, the other alternative I ended up choosing is in the counterterrorism team. I said, well, tell me what that's like. He's like. Well, you're going to be here. I said, man, I gotta go to school, I have to get my education. I said so. I said fuck bogota, I'm going to school. And I still look back at that.

Alex Delgado 18:30

I'm like man, it probably would have been pretty cool but but who knows, you know, maybe I would have been married might have been walking away with something more than you bargained for so. So I went to school full-time man. I I worked from like 6 am to 2 pm because I worked. By the time I got out I would run to school. I would arrive at the Miami Dade College, I would work out, I would run, I would swim and then I'd go to class all night and you'd have to be in your fatigues right.

Alex Delgado 18:56

No, no, no. Once I'm off work and go to school, I'm like a regular person. But I'm like a regular person. But I was older is the point. I was an older guy who realized like, hey, it's never too late to get your education done, and for me especially, I'm taking advantage of the military educational benefits, so I'd go do that every night. I finished my associate so two-year degree at Miami Dade while I was stationed in Miami, so didn't get to enjoy Bogota.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 19:20

Got my schooling done.

Alex Delgado 19:21

And then I applied for a program where you know thousands of people apply for maybe a few hundred slots to get to go become an officer, which means they'll let you go finish school. So I was selected for that program and I went to Florida State, finished my two years of school, but again, like I was telling him earlier, I'm wondering why you didn't go to UM.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 19:40

I know it's a private, it's probably, but does the military program still cover to UM? I know it's a private, it's probably, but does the military program still cover the UM. I mean because I mean Well.

Alex Delgado 19:46

So the thing is, I had to go to a school that had a naval ROTC program Because yes, I know you were in the. Marines? Yeah Well, because they're the ones that facilitate the program and getting you to officer candidate school and all that kind of stuff. So that's like the one stipulation, but I like the one stipulation but I could have went to Harvard.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 20:08

I don't think I was going to get in, but I could have went to Harvard, like that was a program, that was a school that was in that program and military paid for all of it.

Alex Delgado 20:11

right, you didn't have to spend any money, man. No dollar, no books, no, nothing, nothing. Wow, I was a full-time.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 20:16

Marine. I mean, you did give years of your life away. I paid, yeah, I paid with.

Alex Delgado 20:20

I paid for that through my time and my sacrifice to going to these places. But you know, that was the. I mean, I took advantage of every single benefit that I could get out of the Marines, you know, and they took advantage of my ass too.

Alex Delgado 20:34

So we're even I walked out with an even, you know, with clean bill of health there. And so, yeah, man, I got to go to school and then, right after that, I got a master's degree in from fiu, which is in miami and then later on, and what may I ask, business?

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 20:50

so I got an mb. Oh yeah, business administration, you had to go. Did you have to go to florida state physically, or was it yeah?

Alex Delgado 20:54

I was there. Oh yeah, I lived in tallahassee. Oh, you live in tallahassee. Oh yeah, so you?

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 20:58

weren't the. So you got your bachelor's there and then you got your m in FIU. Yep, okay, gotcha. You went to three different schools.

Military Journey and Education Path

Alex Delgado 21:05

Yeah, and then again. So then you know, fast forward. So I did some time as an officer and they're deciding, hey, it's time for me to get out and move on and start up a real job, as they say. And I ended up in Detroit, which was incredible. And I think what I'll share with you about that story is I have a brother that passed away and he lived in Michigan and him and I had kind of an estranged relationship. Just you know, we kind of lifestyles were different and didn't see eye to eye on certain things. Well, I had these opportunities, post-military, to go all over. Most of these roles were like in New York, you know, finance roles in New York, I mean all these really cool companies, different locations. But I ended up with this health care company called davida dialysis company in detroit, and so, of all places I ended up in detroit, I got to go be with my brother, kind of patch things up with him, and then only a few months later he would pass away oh, but I look at that as like it's divine intervention, man so like

Alex Delgado 22:00

to your earlier point, there was a reason why you didn't go to the Marines. There's a reason for every step of our life man is every step, every hair on our head is counted and I'm a firm believer of that. That moment for me, I think, was and I've always had a strong faith. I think for me, religion is one of those things where I kind of go up and down on religion, but faith, my faith, has never been stronger than what was probably the biggest tragedy that I've ever experienced right, which is to lose my brother. And you know, I look at that and say, man, there still has to be a positive to that, and the positive, of course, was, after all the places I've lived and then all the places I could have ended up, I ended up there and we patched things up.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 22:41

That's a great story, you know like when it comes to the end of it and, like you said, you know divine intervention. You never know what the nobody can really write their destiny. They can only try to move. You know pieces, but great story. We got the Alex Delgado story fucking hitting hard and when we get back with happy hour holidays we'll continue the Alex Delgado story.

Alex Delgado 23:03

It's the Tito's. You know, we'll continue the Alex Delgado story.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 23:04

It's the Tito's. You know We'll be right back. All right guys, we're back with Happy Hour Holidays. Just appreciate everybody tuning in and listening to us. Make sure you like, comment and subscribe. We got Alex Delgado in the studio today. He's sharing an awesome story. We got the resume, sean Fabre, here. And so, alex, we left off right when you get to Detroit. Yeah, and so, alex, we left off right when you get to detroit yeah, we felt like divine intervention.

Alex Delgado 23:28

That's what you had said. Your brother had just passed.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 23:29

Yeah, yeah you got a good chance to make amends, which feels good you know, because I mean, you know, with family we're blood but at the same time, you know you want to make sure that I feel like it sucks to have a barrier between siblings yeah oh yeah, I mean, it's like, especially in a spanish family, I feel like it sucks to have a barrier in between siblings.

Alex Delgado 23:45

Yeah, yeah, oh yeah.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 23:46

I mean it's like, especially in a Spanish family, I feel like you know that when, when you're not getting along with a sibling, it kind of takes a little bit of a toll, especially if it's like a psychotic sister or something like that. You guys have one of those speaking from experience for, like her and I didn't speak for like a year and a half, oh yeah, that's tough, yeah, yeah, and then, uh, her kids would always where's uncle Sean, where's uncle Sean?

Alex Delgado 24:10

Yeah yeah, you know, I, I definitely I mean we're speaking now. Yeah, that's good that's it and that exists in every family. That exists in every family and that's, and and I think you go through these ebbs and flows of all that stuff. I think what I took away from that is like and you just never know when your day is my brother passed away when he was 36 years old. Was it what was? Was it natural cause?

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 24:31

yeah, yeah, I mean, you know uh yeah, something like that you know was.

Alex Delgado 24:35

it was just one of those scenarios, man you don't think it's going to happen to you. I don't think it's going to happen to you. Somebody you know and man, here today, gone tomorrow, right here today, gone tomorrow. So you, you, you have to like, if your relationship there's friction in it, find a way to come and create some kind of happy medium, because it's not worth it, right? It ain't worth it to to have that animosity linger and, and just you know, hold on to those grudges you think what is it?

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 25:02

would you put that same thing with friends too, or would you say it's just? Like friends you get rid of pretty easily.

Alex Delgado 25:08

Yeah I think, friends especially if they're toxic if they're good friends and of, and the relationship is worth repairing. Yes, I do think one of the things that I stress a lot is there's people in your life you have to do like I've heard somebody say I love the term, it's a friendventory. A friendventory. At a certain point you have to start saying is this a person that I need in my life? And sometimes, unfortunately, you got to kind of like move on from certain people and that's not like hey, does this person add value to my life? Like I need something from him. But is this person bringing me down? Is this person putting me at risk? Is this person you know only good to be around to do things that I shouldn't be doing or shouldn't be around? Or perhaps is just going to get me in trouble, right? So at a certain point you do have to be very strategic with who you spend your time with.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 25:54

I agree with that. I mean, I got rid of a shit ton of friends when we started this company and I mean honestly I don't speak to anybody, but like more than this many people a handful of friends.

Alex Delgado 26:06

Yeah, yeah, I think you have to keep your circle close, you know. That's not to say that you don't want to make acquaintances.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 26:13

Yeah, you want to meet people.

Alex Delgado 26:16

You want to have associates, you want to have a good time. You know, let's get a beer with this person, go hang out with that person, whatever. But like the the people that you're going to go to for advice or that you're going to talk to about your you know areas where you're struggling. You can't open that up to a committee, right like you can't have a ton of people that that are involved because you're going to start to. You know you're going to get. You're going to get to. You know you're going to get bad advice. Yeah, you know you're going to get bad advice.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 26:37

I feel like you always need to get advice from people who've either been through it or where you want to be. Yeah, it's really good too. So then you're in Chicago.

Alex Delgado 26:46

No, detroit, detroit, yeah, yeah, I'm sorry.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 26:49

You're in Detroit. What are you doing in Detroit again?

Alex Delgado 26:52

So I worked for a healthcare company called DaVita and I was oh, so you're out of the Marines? Yeah, I'm out of Marines. Oh, I was still in the reserves. So I did finish up my time there in the reserves and I was supporting the Marine Corps recruiting district in the Detroit area as a reservist. And now I'm working in healthcare and of course people are like I don't get it. How are you in healthcare? Did you do healthcare stuff in the Marines?

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 27:13

I'm like no, I was. I was a leader. I lead people, I lead process, I lead and.

Alex Delgado 27:20

I, and I'm an action oriented person who gets results. What's that? No, no, no, I'm general manager over like a bunch of different healthcare clinics, oh yeah, so my responsibility again is full PNL, like profit and loss, responsibility over these clinics, business development, hr. You know, there's just an element of all the you know all of general management responsibilities in this role. And then I've done that in different settings throughout the country.

Alex Delgado 27:46

And again, well, people say well, how does this make sense if you were a Marine for so long? Like, because I've had to lead people, I have to. At the end of the day, I'm not a nurse, I'm not a doctor, I'm not. I'm not a nurse, I'm not a doctor, I'm not any of these things. But you have an MBA.

Alex Delgado 27:58

I have an MBA, but what I have is the ability to sit down and say we need to get to this end, state All right, and the way that in which we're trying to get there now is not working. What's a better way? Well, usually it's a very obvious answer, but a lot of times people just don't want to. They don't want to go that way. Maybe it deviates from the status quo and that's a little bit harder. So my job is to figure out.

Alex Delgado 28:21

Okay, so how do I create the least amount of friction to get to the end state, or at least get as close to that end state as possible? And that's that's been my kind of my life's work really. I mean, just get, get people to do something they probably know they need to do, but they won't do it unless somebody's holding them accountable to it or showing them the best way to get there. And you did that for nine years, right, I've been doing that. Well, I'd say I would say I'd been doing that for 25 years because I had to do that as a Marine too, yeah.

Alex Delgado 28:48

Now now, in terms of just my, my role now healthcare executive. Yeah, it's been about nine years that I've been in that type of role and you're still in it, right, still in it. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yep, yep, still still I'm so. So I'm a healthcare executive who was an entrepreneur, who was an author trying to get into motivational speaking.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 29:07

I'm a runner.

Alex Delgado 29:08

I'm a fitness enthusiast. I mean, I got a million different hats.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 29:11

Yeah, let's talk about the cause. I've authored a book. I have it out on Kindle and Audible. What made you want to do that? What made you want cause? I'm pretty sure this was all fair, that you were talking about this, right? Yeah?

Alex Delgado 29:29

What made you want to do that? Because I wanted to live a lifestyle that is a little bit different and a little bit more grand than what the Marine Corps lifestyle provides. So I've always wanted to kind of exceed that in that realm. And so as I've progressed through life, I've said man, I've always got to have something else to help supplement my income, supplement my lifestyle. And at one point I was again listening to this guy talk who's really, really bright, and he said man, myron Golden, I think he's a Tampa guy. Myron Golden, yeah, he's a Tampa guy.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 30:03

He lives in.

Alex Delgado 30:03

Tampa yeah.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 30:04

We need to get him on Myron, if you look at this.

Alex Delgado 30:06

He's got his own platform. He's doing great things and listening to him talk to me, I was really inspired and in and he and in one I was in the gym listening to him talk and he says you have to find ways to make, to create revenue streams that are that are creating income in your sleep passive, passive income. Picks up a book, he goes I make about thirty thousand dollars off this book, he goes, which is peanuts. This guy's a multi-millionaire, he says, but what this book has created is other opportunities such as speaking engagements, content creation, all all these different things that just continue to drive revenue for him. And I'm like I'm going to write a book. And that was it. So I attribute the idea solely to him and I said I'm going to do this book. And so I again started the process of figuring out what does it take to write a book? Right, and I also viewed it as a challenge for myself. Like people, look, it's a very elementary style self-help book.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 31:03

Yeah, what's it called?

Alex Delgado 31:04

It's called the Four Fs. Yeah, so I should say the Four Fs Seeking Self-Mastery in Faith, family, fitness and Finances. And when I thought about, oh, I'm going to write a book, what should I write about? Like it just became very natural to me because I enjoy self-help books and I was like these are if somebody applies some intention to these four areas, they'll live a good, balanced life, successful life. I believe strongly. So go through that process and, um, you know, what I never knew about was obviously the marketing of it and how do you really get this thing off the ground and how do you really promote this thing. But the idea for the book was to help me get to a point where it then turns into speaking opportunities, and so that's where I'm kind of at right now. It's like the book is out. It's on Amazon.

Alex Delgado 31:45

you know, all my friends and family have bought it which is you know now that was the peak of the sales right, and now it's trying to figure out like how do we now leverage this book to create content? Get out there. Did you do an Audible for it? I haven't.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 31:56

I need to, I need to. Yeah, yeah, and Audible has a lot of facilitators that will. How long is the book? How many words?

Alex Delgado 32:04

Oh gosh, I don't know exactly how many words, but it's like about 200 pages, maybe a little bit less, so around like 40,000 words, maybe something like that.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 32:12

They'll charge you around like $600 to do that.

Alex Delgado 32:15

And what is that? So somebody else will read it.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 32:17

Yeah, somebody else will read it. I mean, $600 is a small price to pay. My book was 50,000 words, it was a science fiction novel and I paid $600 and they read the entire thing, provided the audio files in accordance with Audible. And the contractors are actually listed on the acxcom website nice, and people actually bid on it. So they bid to be able to record. Yes, yes, and they'll record a five minute sample, 15 minute sample, and, uh, send it to you. You listen to them and whenever you want the one that you like, you say okay, then you start negotiating, then they send a request for an invoice, you pay it. Two weeks later you got an audio book and then it's. Yeah, I need to do that yeah, it's cheap, man.

Alex Delgado 33:03

The funny thing is, I thought I'm like I should probably, I should probably read it. That's what I would think too, man.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 33:07

I thought the same shit, but then mine's, mine's, you know, mine's fiction, my science. I think for him he definitely you probably as motivational on the, but you want to sit there and because you wrote the book, you're gonna read your book and you'll probably tear it apart. I mean, you're not. You're not a professional reader like these guys are.

Alex Delgado 33:25

These guys are voice actors, right, right, right yeah, because I've I've tried to even look like everybody, right, you try to create a little bit of content at home and you could hear, like the you know the gasp, gasp and the you know like. So yeah, that makes sense. I mean, and that's, and that's. So. That's one thing I'll say too, like the, the guy Myron Golden. What he talks about too is like don't think you have to do everything yourself, pay people to do it, so so look, I've had that book out since September and I'm slipping Cause.

Alex Delgado 33:51

Yeah, I wish I would have thought of that. So thank you for the tip, because I'll go on. I'll go home and do that today and think about it.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 33:57

Do you listen to books when you're working out?

Alex Delgado 33:59

not, really no, I like to actually read physical books oh, but you said you were working out listening to.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 34:03

Well, I was listening to like a podcast oh yeah, he's got like a podcast so then, all the books that you have read, you've actually bought the physical book well, I stopped buying books and I just go to the library.

Alex Delgado 34:14

Oh, go to the library. Yeah, yeah, I like, I like to have the hard book in my hand.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 34:16

So like when we were, uh, when we started this company, we were reading a lot of books, but we weren't reading the books, we were buying them on audible and listening to them on the car drives. So I mean, if you're in a car, say, 16 hours, it's only going to take you four days to consume all that knowledge while you're driving? Yeah, because most people they'll listen to podcasts or they'll listen to which always listen to podcasts, especially happy hour holidays yeah, that's right, especially this episode, um, but I mean, you don't really have time to read outside of driving.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 34:49

So audiobooks, in my opinion, is the best and most efficient way to consume. Knowledge depends how you learn yeah, I like I like to read.

Brotherly Reconciliation and Life Lessons

Alex Delgado 34:56

Some people aren't audio like, even when I'm like on, like if I have like a big project, I like to print stuff out, pencil it, you know, like really like see it and touch it. But reading for me is also leisure, so I'm I'm usually reading about two books at a time. One will be for like, like, uh, like a self-help, true self-help, and then another will be like a notable memoir, like a biography or something like that. Like, I like to read about very important people, successful people. I like to hear their stories, right what's your favorite one so far?

Alex Delgado 35:31

um gosh, that's a good question, one that is john d rockefeller. They're andrew carnegie those are good.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 35:35

I have not read those.

Alex Delgado 35:35

Uh, there's a good question, one that is john d rockefeller. There's a recording. Those are good. I have not read those. Uh, there's a guy named rich roll which has podcasters. You guys should check him out. Rich roll, he wrote a book called finding ultra and he was a successful, uh, swimmer successful parents, goes off to college, becomes an, an alcoholic and then he realizes he's you know, struggles with addiction, struggles with alcoholism, and he turns his life around and becomes this ultra marathon runner. He did a race that was like a triathlon and all five of the islands of Hawaii in five days and the guy's a total beast and so his story was pretty incredible and he's got a really good podcast. I would definitely check his podcast out. Really good stuff. He's got like really good guests on there, so his book was really good and I mean every one of these books you pull something out of it.

Alex Delgado 36:26

You know, that's the one thing too. Like one thing, if anything. One thing Usually it's one thing per book it's the one thing that you can pull out of that book. That's the one thing that you can pull out of that book. And again, like I read a book recently. It was called oh God, what was it called? How to Invest, and I would recommend everybody to read that book. Who's the author? Rubenstein, david Rubenstein. And the funny thing is, this is genius. The whole book is the transcript of podcast interviews. No way the best podcast interviews that he's done, depending on what that type of investment is. So, for example, he's got a real estate guy, he's got a crypto guy, he's got every form of investment that you can think of. He took the champion of that and basically transcribed the interview and turned it into a book.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 37:14

That's fucking genius.

Alex Delgado 37:15

And yeah, and so by reading that book, so he didn't actually have to write anything, no, no, basically, and it's an amazing book and, again, depending on what your financial literacy level is, it still just opens up a new idea, right, it makes you think of investing differently and I think that's one of the areas where I don't talk so much about the investing part. So when I talk about and all the content I create, talk about the four Fs, I think I hone in a lot on the fitness piece. What are the four Fs? Faith, family, fitness and finances.

Alex Delgado 37:44

And it's in that sequence on purpose, right, you got to get your faith on point first. So God first. That's how I believe. Like I've even gotten to the point where my habit in the morning is I pray. The minute I open my eyes and I get, and the first thing I listen to is like a prayer, right. So I and I don't check my social media and I and I could be like man, I'm waiting for this guy to write back to me and I will not look at it until I listen to that prayer. And that's a way for me to just be grateful and say God, I'm going to give you my attention first, and then there's moments where I'm like man, I want to spread it over man, I want to read that email, you know, but I got to give, I got to give it to God. First, right, and then family. Of course, you have to get your family on point, and you know, you, you, you will struggle in the other areas if you can't get your family life right. Fitness, I think, then, is that's that's on you, right, like it's up to you to determine what your fitness levels are going to be and your health and all that stuff.

Alex Delgado 38:37

And then the finance piece. What I'm trying to really promote is finance and financial literacy, and investing is not exclusive to people who are already financially literate and investing Anybody can do it. And in this day and age, the technology exists, the apps exist, the literature exists To go out and do something. That's really what I'm trying to promote. I'm not trying to promote this bizarre idea. I don't get on here and talk about these crazy money-making schemes or anything like that. It's like just do something and find what works for you, find the advice, find the person who can coach you. You just gave me a hell of a tip. Pay somebody to do that If you don't know how to do something, pay somebody. You can pay somebody $100 an hour to teach you. Hey, what should I invest my money in? So you know it's out there. So for all the people, that want to see self-improvement, seek self-mastery.

Alex Delgado 39:31

like I say, it's out there and they can find it in the 4F.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 39:33

They can find it in the 4Fs. Did you use your full name as the author? How can they find it on? Is it on Kindle? It's, it is if it's on, if it's on Amazon, it's on Kindle.

Alex Delgado 39:44

Yeah, I had to think about that because it's, it's not, it's only on. Can they order a?

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 39:48

paperback Yep, yeah, they can also, and it's been published since September 27th, 28th, yeah, 28th whenever it is, it came out just a little after that, but yeah. As the journey goes on. Alex, you made this another business, the laser hair removal, which is huge, I mean, especially for us guys over here that look like gorillas. I could probably grow fucking hair all the way around my damn eyes, but I already do.

Alex Delgado 40:24

How did you end fucking hair all the way?

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 40:25

around my damn eyes, but I already do. How, how, how did you end up getting into the laser hair removal business or the industry?

Alex Delgado 40:30

Yeah, so. So again, my my nine to five professional job has been healthcare and managing healthcare locations all over the country, and so I've obviously seen that that's an extremely lucrative business. But of course, I'm not a doctor, right, I'm part of the business side of medicine and I knew that, as I wanted to continue down this entrepreneurial path, that I've also matured right. So I wanted to go down a more viable business and I realized, when I started looking into perhaps purchasing like healthcare practices and trying to roll them up, I was like that's something that was outside of what I could truly afford on my own, like franchises and stuff Like you do physical therapy, you'd be surprised.

Alex Delgado 41:15

There are doctors in any setting that are selling their practices right. So what I envisioned was find these practices, roll them up, and now you've got multiple practices rolled under one umbrella, very expensive, very complicated, and so I said, well gosh, how can I do something that's similar but a lot more kind of like cost effective?

Alex Delgado 41:38

Something that's within the ballpark for what I can afford and my wife had a passion for laser hair removal because she had done. She had started doing that in Michigan when we lived up there and she's been up. You know what is it like? The I'm not only a president, but I'm a client. She's one of those, and so we said, man, this, she was so passionate about the device. The laser that we use is called the Alma Alma Soprano, is called the alma alma soprano, and she's like this, is it like?

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 42:08

this machine is like the golden goose, right. Well, it's got soprano. It's the gold standard.

Alex Delgado 42:10

Yeah, the gold standard I said all right, well, let's, let's figure this whole thing out.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 42:14

So did you buy a franchise, or just no, no we bought the machine.

Alex Delgado 42:17

We started our own business within like a week. We were like, let's go, like we just freaking move forward to also rent a space, I'm assuming. So we rented a space. It's in Oldsmore, right, it's in Oldsmore.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 42:28

What's it called?

Alex Delgado 42:29

It's called Soft Touch Laser Hair Removal. It's inside of Salon Lofts, which is right on Tampa Road, and we have our little spot there and we're basically open six days a week, you know, mostly by appointment only, and we've done great. We're just about to hit the one year mark with the business. Again, she's the face of the company. She's kicking ass. If you see her social media, she's, you know, doing some really, really funny, inspiring things and just really created this awesome network.

Alex Delgado 42:59

I'm so proud of her because my wife has always been always a very personable person, of course, but a little bit bit introverted, and this has totally taken her out of her shell. She's networking with other entrepreneurs. She's networking with other business owners a lot of just female business owners and a lot in the kind of the beauty and the aesthetics industry and people are coming from all over the place to come see her, you know. So it's. It's really been a neat opportunity to watch her really blossom and grow, and the cool thing is like this business is all about her. Most of the things that we've done in the past has been centered around me my crazy ideas or whatever and this is like. This is like her baby.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 43:31

So what would you attribute the majority of her? The success for that laser hair removal business.

Alex Delgado 43:37

I think it's her outreach. You know she's-.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 43:40

Is she in like BNI groups and stuff like that? No, she's like. She says she's networking a lot, she's going to a lot of these female networking events, not like a BNI.

Alex Delgado 43:50

I'm familiar with BNI, but nothing like that, which I don't like BNI, by the way.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 43:54

No, I mean, I think there's some value to that.

Alex Delgado 43:55

But I think, yeah, at a certain point you kind of you get diminishing returns on that, but she's just meeting people of all walks of life she's got. You know she created a partnership with the Bucks cheerleaders USF dance team, usf cheerleaders softball teams, I mean you name it.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 44:14

So is she like targeting mainly women?

Alex Delgado 44:16

Oh, yeah, basically, oh okay, yeah, basically. I mean, you know, if you looked at like the patient or client breakdown is like 99 to 1 women to to to males, really females.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 44:26

Yeah, yeah, really, there's a guy out there with the back hair and all that shit, but so that's where she's this.

Alex Delgado 44:31

She's smart, so she's now creating almost like this new brand that's just going towards men, because you know, men, I mean, look at our less inclined yeah, we, we need it, but we're like less inclined to do self-care and our you know, our, our, you know. Routines are a little bit differently, but I mean there is, there are men coming in. I mean we're shooting content to attract male clients. Um, and we've got, you know, we got male clients coming in all the time I am one.

Alex Delgado 44:57

Yeah, oh yeah I've done my back I've done my neck, yeah, so.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 45:00

So basically, could you do a permanent edge? Yeah? So like, like the way I'm edged up right now everything else and then I never have to get an edge ever again. Yes, and how many treatments?

Alex Delgado 45:13

Everybody's different. Okay, every body part is different. How thick your follicles are. Yeah, it's like six to eight treatments typically, but you're going to definitely see results after the first one.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 45:23

And I'm sure prices vary. But what is the range? It's probably dependent on area, right?

Alex Delgado 45:29

yeah, depending on area, so anywhere from like 100 to like 600, yeah, per session. Per session, yeah. And then you know you there's packages and you know stuff like that.

Authoring The Four Fs Book

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 45:38

But right now. I gotta you know and I gotta tell my barber hey, listen, I don't need a haircut, no more. Yeah no well, maybe a haircut, but not an edge yeah, yeah, I mean, it's it.

Alex Delgado 45:49

There are, like I said, I've done the this part of my neck that I haven't shaved in. I can't even remember when the last time I shaved and if not, I'm prone to like yeah, I get the rash and razor burn and all that stuff.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 46:04

Yeah, no, that's the way. I am too man With the Spanish part of it. That was one thing that I was always self-conscious about. I was like when I got a high score, I was like, man, I really want to get the laser hair removal so I don't have to deal with any of the hair. But I think I was self inflicted because my mom was like you know it was bodybuilding, so it's like I'll shave whatever half and then, all of a sudden, you start learning that women actually don't mind hair.

Alex Delgado 46:28

Yeah, yeah, you know what it's like, everything right, it's like everybody's got their own preferences, it's all different. It's all different I don't think anybody likes back hair. No, I can't say that. No, I can't say any woman goes, damn, I like that guy's back.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 46:40

No, no, that's 100 all right, when we get back with Happy Hour Holidays, we'll continue with Alex Delgado. Man Really appreciate him coming on and sharing his story. We'll be right back. Make sure you like, comment and subscribe on Facebook, instagram and everything else we got. We appreciate all our fans and all our people out there. We'll be right back, all right guys, and we're back with Happy Hour Holidays here with alex delgado. You know, one of the biggest things of the four f's was fitness and obviously you're a very fit guy, you know and, uh, what got you? Obviously the marine corps is something that you have to be fit for. There's no, there's no nfs about it. You got to be able to be, uh, carrying some heavy ass book bags. I know that for sure you know, like 80 pounds.

Alex Delgado 47:21

Yeah, it could be pretty heavy yeah so what got you?

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 47:23

what what like oriented you from the beginning into fitness.

Alex Delgado 47:28

So I've always been an active kid, right. My whole life I was an active kid. And then, of course, the Marine Corps demands it of you, right? So that's not something you do for leisure, it's demanded of you, it's part of the job description is you can't be in this club unless you're into fitness and you maintain a certain level of fitness. And then after getting out of the Marine Corps, of course I was always a pretty active person, still worked out, maybe ran a little bit here and there, but I really started to take it serious within the last few years, like really really just being more disciplined about my runs and my workouts and then also my nutrition, right, because that's where the most important, especially at my age, it's your nutrition. Now, I still love pizza, I love burgers, I love beer, right, but I gotta be like everything in moderation, right. So that's something that is important to me and I really.

Alex Delgado 48:19

The way I started getting into running all these races that I run was with a big group of Marine buddies of mine that we were all friends.

Alex Delgado 48:24

We're all hispanic from that. We were all stationed in hawaii together and um said hey, we're gonna have a reunion, but it's gonna be in our, we're gonna do a race as well. And so I did my first half marathon in nashville with these guys and I had only once ran any. You know that, that length of distance which is 13, 13.1 miles, and I was like you know what, if that length of distance which is 13, 13.1 miles, and I was like you know what, if I can run a half marathon, I'm just going to keep training and I'm going to run a full marathon. And so my first full marathon was the Clearwater marathon. It was hard as hell, hardest thing I've ever done. And then I've just gotten into running all these different races and I just finished my third marathon. Uh, about two or three weeks ago, it was the Coast Guard Marathon. So I've done the Marine Corps Marathon, now the Coast Guard Marathon. A lot of swimming on that one.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 49:08

Huh, no, no swimming, no, swimming, no, no, it's all right. That's an Ironman. Yeah, you're thinking of an Ironman.

Alex Delgado 49:15

So I'm trying to complete this. It's called the Armed Forces Series Challenge, which is Marine Corps Marathon, Coast Guard Marathon, the Air Force Marathon, which I'm going to run in September, and then there's the Army 10 miler is in Washington DC, and then the Space Force 10 miler. If you complete all those, you're like oh, you did all the military races. So I don't know why the Navy doesn't have one.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 49:35

So you're training through like in different, or what's your training regimen Like? Are you running like five miles a day?

Alex Delgado 49:47

So every day is different, right? I work out probably about four to five days a week and I run probably about three to four maybe, sometimes five days.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 49:50

Are you doing that on like the treadmill, or are?

Alex Delgado 49:51

you actually going out? I just go out and I run outside in my neighborhood. So cool thing is, and I'll segue into I'm trying to start a running club by my house. It's the Oldsmar Running Club. I I, you know running club.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 50:05

I I, you know I think what is the first step to?

Alex Delgado 50:06

starting a business is go get the logo done. So I got the logo, got the Instagram page and now I need to find the actual runners and uh, so trying to figure out ways to make it. You know a neat way for people to socialize come and do something healthy and then, of course, you know, you crack a beer after and, uh, you know, just just network and mingle right.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 50:22

Are you ultimately trying to make money from that?

Alex Delgado 50:24

No, not at all, no. So what I want to do with the Oldsmar Running Club is use this as a way to raise money for my local charity, which is Oldsmar Cares. Right, and so I don't have any direct connection to them at all, but I view it as an easy way to say hey, let's get together, we'll do something fun. We, let's get together, we'll do something fun, we'll do something healthy, and there's some charity involved.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 50:44

And it would make sense to like, maybe partner with, say, a brewery.

Alex Delgado 50:51

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to figure out, you know, different, different kind of sponsors, partners. We're in conversation with Tampa Bay Brewing Company, which you know very early stages, right, there's no, no real commitment there, but that's something that I envision Like, like. So what I tell you about my runs is those give me the time to come up with my best ideas and you're just out there, you're by yourself, you're thinking, you're I pray, I sometimes cry. Man, I'll sometimes be out there crying while I'm running, right, cause I think of you know the things with my brother or just life in general. Man, that's, that's my outlet, right, and uh, so I've got this vision. If you're familiar with the Oldsmar area, right, this is a beautiful trail and I run that trail every week, right?

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 51:28

I'm on there, philippe Park.

Alex Delgado 51:29

No, no, it's just the old, it's called the Oldsmar Trail and it's where the Microlumen headquarters is. That's a medical tubing company based out of Oldsmar, and so I'm trying to kind of partner with them and their employees and say this is like a fit, you know, like a fitness activity, wellness activity for their employees to come out one night a week, come out, run a couple of miles and then socialize after and um. So yeah, the vision was to try to like create something with the Tampa Bay Brewing Company, cause they're right around the corner. So, yeah, try to figure it all out. You know, like anything right, it's, it's, you know, like anything right. I don't have a ton of hobbies other than running, being a dad, an entrepreneur, you know, an author, all that stuff, a husband, and I view this as like this would be a cool hobby and I think it could have a good purpose, right, it could have a good mission and help people and I think just get people out.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 52:18

So that, like essentially, what you're describing is something that you can organize on meetupcom.

Alex Delgado 52:28

Have you heard of meetupcom? I have.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 52:29

I haven't used it in a long time, but yeah, it sounds like I could probably definitely use. So I was uh out in uh new tampa uh probably while I live out there. But I was at p bodies and I'm shooting pool with a buddy of mine and all these people come up and they're all wearing a name tag with their name on it. I'm like what the is this?

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 52:46

oh yeah, we organized this for, uh, people that want to meet up and talk about. It was like I don't know, I think dungeons and dragons or something like that but there was like a good 60 people there and they were just meeting up to talk about dungeons and dragons or whatever game it was.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 53:00

I mean, this is a good avenue. I know, I thought that website was dead but apparently people still use it. It could be a good avenue, uh, for you to organize runners in that area. Now, being from tampa, I know oldsmart is kind of a place para los viejitos yeah, it's a little sleepy town. Yeah, a little sleepy town I mean like yeah, I mean getting fit runners to run. How long is the Old Smart?

Alex Delgado 53:23

Trail Depends right, but it's not that long. It just depends, where your starting point is, but I envision a three-mile run.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 53:33

Oh, that's not bad. Here's what I'll say. Is that a 2K?

Alex Delgado 53:36

That's like a 5K.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 53:37

A 5K. Yeah, yeah, that's it, huh.

Alex Delgado 53:39

Yeah, it's a short run. I mean that. That, I think, is what most people, a lot of people in this day and age, that's about. That's about their max.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 53:47

Because they'll do a 5k, like I don't know if you remember like they had a 5k for the old Gandy bridge before they tore it down and or the new bridge that they no, it was the Crosstown and they had a 5k run there. Like, when you're entering these competitions, are you trying to like place first or what are? You typically placing.

Alex Delgado 54:09

So I'm typically trying to place this is how funny right. I'm typically trying to place in the top 10% of my age group. So I know I'm not going to the marathon and winning it. That is not happening. And in marathons I'm not placing even in my age group, because that's a hard race and you have that. Like, my age is one of the fastest ages at this point for runners.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 54:32

What is your age? Because you have a much. I'm 43.

Alex Delgado 54:34

Yeah, I'm 43. So the 40 to 44, a lot of times those are the winners of the races. That's when these people have reached their peak, yeah. So in those marathons, like what's their time looking like? I mean they're doing it in like two hours, two, and some change hours. What are you doing? I'm doing it like four hours.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 54:50

Holy fuck. Four and some change hours. Yeah, there's a huge difference. You're telling me like these people are twice as fast.

Alex Delgado 54:55

Yes, 100%. And I'm not even like ashamed of it. I'm league. I don't I don't aspire to. Of course I always want to improve on my runtime or anything like that, but for the most part it's like I'm competing as myself. Yeah, you know I'm competing as myself. Nobody knows me, nobody. You know you get to these races and you know you might run into people that you've oh, I ran this race, I saw you last time, or whatever, but it's, nobody gives a shit. Nobody cares what your fucking runtime is. They, they, they. They go there like we all do.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 55:23

We can get the picture, get the t-shirt walk away with a medal and you get one free beer at every race.

Alex Delgado 55:29

That's what it's all about. For me, it's a fun atmosphere. If you've never been to the Gasparilla races, I've done those now three years in a row. Man, it's a party vibe. It's a party vibe, yeah.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 55:40

It's a party vibe, yeah, yeah, so it's really fun. A lot of people I'm always trying to drag my A lot of chit-chat, you know people are throwing no, not that type of Gasparilla.

Alex Delgado 55:47

The Gasparilla race is separate from all that stuff.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 55:49

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was joking, yeah, yeah.

Soft Touch Laser Hair Removal Business

Alex Delgado 55:52

But it's a fun atmosphere and again so for me, what I'm trying to create in to Osmo is bring people together. You know, of course you're going to run into scenarios where is there ways to promote your business, like maybe we can promote our laser hair removal? Yeah, sure, of course. Is that the main goal? Nah, yeah.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 56:13

Well, it's networking. I mean networking is fun.

Alex Delgado 56:16

It's you know it'll be. It'll be interesting to see that I bet you I'm going to struggle with. On the first run the only person who's to be there is my wife, and then maybe on the next time it'll be somebody else and hopefully it'll grow. But like these running clubs have grown, I mean, and you're seeing, look, diplo's got one Noriega, you know the drink champ himself is. You know they're doing run clubs and and it's drawing people in that wouldn't have done it otherwise. I mean, I took my son to a running club race not a race, but a run at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers training facility. They brought a football player, one of the football players I don't remember who it was, but there was. There was easily a few hundred people there.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 56:56

Oh shit, I mean I seen them at Hyde Park Cafe. I mean I saw a whole, a whole group of people just finished running and go to either Maloney's, I think, right there on the corner and they all had a beer afterwards and you're talking about, I mean that's, I mean for tampa bay brewing. I mean the bigger it gets, I mean that's a lot of good business there no, it's a high park.

Alex Delgado 57:14

Oh, high park.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 57:14

I was like yeah running from the casino all the way.

Alex Delgado 57:17

Yeah, so it's. I just view it as like a neat way to connect to the community, to to get people out. You know, like I think what we're and this is where it's it's interesting to try to to create like a like a persona on social media, which is what I'm trying to do to to grow my impact and influence on the world and while still telling people, like, get off your fucking phone, right, but you use that. So there are some advantages and positive, you know, obviously advantages to social media and the phones Like man, people are spending so much time on that they're not getting outside and actually being connected, right, so like we're in a connected world but we're super disconnected.

Alex Delgado 58:01

We're on social media but we're antisocial. Like we just I want to use this as a way to like bring people together in person so they can interact. Now, of course, they're going to take pictures, selfies, post-it, whatever, and the way you get the word out is through social media, but I think this is just another way to like try to get people out of the house, man.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 58:20

And I think one of the biggest things that you said, alex, is like fitness. When it comes to it, I mean, when I'm sitting in the sauna I get up four, 15 in the morning, I go. Obviously the biggest problem with me is beer, so I'm not like really on the diet part. I got to get, get on that. But, um, you know, I get in the in the gym four times a week and I wake up at four, 15. I sit in the sauna when I get there at five and it's a time for me to really brainstorm about and it's it's not only about business, it's also a reflection on yourself.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 58:48

Yeah, what are you doing? What are you doing wrong? You know it's, it's, it's big, you know that that part of it and I mean, if you're not out there doing some kind of fitness, I think you're missing out on self-reflection, because there isn't really a lot of time, like you said, with your phones I mean literally any, any little time that you have to. You're on your phone and you're not really reflecting on who you are and what you're doing wrong in life and what you're doing right and what you could be doing. And that's another thing that brings me back to the motivational videos is that you see so many different opinions on how somebody should be and you start analyzing what you're doing on a day-to-day basis and now you're like, okay, well, this is where I can improve, this is my personality traits, where I'm seeing okay, I saw something pointed out there that I am doing, that I can do better and it's it's really good.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 59:40

I mean, that's why for fitness, you know and I played soccer my entire life and I blew out my knee twice maybe a little bit of the reason for the weight gain, but I'm not going to make that excuse because I could have done better. But either way, I mean I still go out there lift weights. You know I want to do something active, I want to do something competitive, and that's why I went into golf too. Golf is out there, you're, you're in the middle of nature, you have birds chirping and it's just a very serene moment for yourself. And I, you know, I feel like if you're not doing something that's active, even walking around your neighborhood, that time of reflection is huge and I feel like it improves me as a person every single day A hundred percent. Yeah.

Alex Delgado 1:00:18

And the, the noticeable, like if you're having a bad day, you go for a walk, you go for a run, you are going to feel better. You may be not a hundred percent better and maybe you didn't solve whatever the issue that was, but you're going to come back with like, almost like a fresh perspective on it.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 1:00:34

I love it man, I do too. I feel like every time I leave the gym and it's seven o'clock, I'm like everybody's still sleeping, doing whatever they're doing or getting ready for work. I'm like I already accomplished this part of the day. I already accomplished this part of the day, and I feel like a whole new person has grown to start the day, yeah, you know.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 1:00:50

So it's something that I feel like for all you listeners out there, people watching the podcast, is you know, just do something active because it'll if you can make it a hobby it's going to be very impactful on your personal self growth.

Alex Delgado 1:01:02

Yeah, yeah, I don't do anything physical.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 1:01:05

You need to, bro. No I golf, but I wouldn't consider that too physical. But I mean, being outside is nice. I mean I just got a dog and I take it for a run. I don't run, I sit in the golf cart and I hold a leash and let the bitch run. Yeah, yeah, you know what's working out this foot right here.

Alex Delgado 1:01:26

You know the gas pedal? Nah, it's. You know, and this is the thing too like there's a million different things that people can do, you got to find what works for you. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's crazy how many people play pickleball.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 1:01:37

Oh, I know.

Alex Delgado 1:01:38

Man, that game is no joke.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 1:01:39

Talk about a big game that has you know just like the fastest growing game in America yeah. Oh, growing game in america? Oh yeah, because I mean you're talking about how this growing game, but it's also, uh, you know, a lot of people play force. You know you have like each in each quadrant, but it's not too, too impactful.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 1:01:58

Or like tennis, where you it's one. You know it's a lot of running there, but this could be manageable because it's with a wiffle ball, so the ball's not going too far, but at the same time you're moving.

Alex Delgado 1:02:06

Yeah, you're, you're getting out there I went to. It was like the first time I went to. This is a new pickleball place in in in Oldsmar. It's in right, right behind the flea market.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 1:02:17

I love that flea market. It's like an open warehouse like a.

Alex Delgado 1:02:19

You know, I'm sorry. Like a they they transitioned this warehouse.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 1:02:22

On racetrack.

Alex Delgado 1:02:30

Mm track, yeah, and it's got like 10 courts inside, super nice, and I'm always been an athletic guy, cocky. I'm like, oh, I can play pickleball. I played racquetball as a kid.

Alex Delgado 1:02:34

I played wall ball as a kid I'm gonna show up and and let these people know what time it is right, and I go and I sign up because these people take their scores seriously and they're ranking all this shit and I don't really know the rules. But I'm like I'll figure it out and I show up and I'm like I signed up to play in the advanced and I'm like, watch, I'm gonna show these guys the time. It's man. So you then get paired. Like there's people that show up in pairs so they play together. But then you know you might play with people you never met.

Alex Delgado 1:03:02

So I pair up with this one guy, guy and we lost as fast as you could lose. And they all three looked at me like get the fuck out of here, go to the beginners. Like you ruined our game. You know, I'm like, oh man, sorry, I didn't mean to blow it, but like I just I wasn't as good as them. Yeah, they were awesome and I. So I took my ass over to the beginners and played with the beginners and I whooped all their asses so you're right there in the middle man, I'm in the middle, but I need to figure out the rules.

Alex Delgado 1:03:27

That's the bottom line.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 1:03:28

What's like the score too? I don't know, I figured it out I don't know. I gotta read or watch a YouTube video isn't it just where you stand in a square and you hit it to the other side?

Alex Delgado 1:03:39

yeah it ain't rocket science, but it's. There's still like a scoring system. And again, these people, they have like there's an app and they upload every match they play. And let's say, you and I play against each other and your score is a 4.5 and I'm a 4.5 and I beat you. So I put that in the app and now my rank goes up.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 1:04:01

That's how we do it with golf too. It's a gin, yeah, with the gin. Every time I'm a pretty, I'm into golf, so I mean every score that I do, I put into my gin. There you go and I have my. You know what my handicap is? And it's big because if you're playing with people and you're like I could beat your ass and it's like, all right, how many strokes am I going to get? Because this is my handicap, this is your handicap. But that time I was just like all right, well, what can I do? Doc, he's like I hope you like playing golf because after you fucked up your knee lab bad. He's like you're gonna be uh doing that. Even that is, it's tough on my, on my uh leg, but I enjoy. I just want to be competitive, I want to keep getting and that's, I think, the biggest thing we're working out. It's not so much as like, hey, I'm doing it to be fit, I want to be fit, but at the same time it's just to keep that competing against yourself.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 1:04:45

Yeah, competing against myself, but also to get that confidence, Because you know what Working out and playing sports and being competitive that's what keeps your confidence up and it's good, you know, because it takes it to the bedroom. Oh yeah, I already saw that one coming. There's no Jen for that. Let me answer my score 20 seconds 20 seconds, one minute, the two minute caliber.

Alex Delgado 1:05:14

Do you golf at all or no? So I'm not. I'm not much of a golfer, but I would like. Yeah, I'm not a golfer, but I would like to. I would like to get more serious about golf.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 1:05:24

I went to Valspar, the other day, for the first time, it feels like everybody in Tampa went to Valspar and it was one of the best ones too.

Alex Delgado 1:05:30

First time ever. What day did you go? Super fun, it was Sunday, Saturday. I think it was Saturday yeah.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 1:05:36

Saturday, it must have been packed.

Alex Delgado 1:05:45

And it was great. Who did you follow? I don't, probably. I probably saw about two minutes worth of golf.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 1:05:50

Yeah, yeah. That's why, like we've been the past four years and this year I was just like man I don't want to fucking go. Yeah, because you realize it's more walking than watching. Yeah, unless you're strategically placed. Which shout out to Victor Hovland for winning. I mean, fuck man, he shouldn't have won JT. You failed your fans again. You failed your fans again, bro, you always lose. So, what's next for Alex Delgado? Now we're talking about the book. We're talking about the businesses that you've created. What's next in your story?

Alex Delgado 1:06:25

I would say I want to see our small business continue to grow, right. So multiple locations is the end state for me. Um, continuing to progress in my fitness and continue to run these races. I want to get more intentional with the public speaking right and using the book as a way to promote that. And then I want to, I really want to take the, the run club and just kind of see that thing take off.

Running Marathons and Building Community

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 1:06:48

Yeah, no 100, that's a. That's good. And then, obviously, the motivational speaking that one we definitely want to see, that's exciting. So for, for everybody out there, we always like to finish off with final words. What do you have to tell the audience? You know somebody who's in between, maybe comfortable with the, with their maybe nine to five, and they're really wanting to break free and show their full potential. What do you have to say to these people that are teetering on greatness but they're just scared to make that first step?

Alex Delgado 1:07:16

I would say seek a coach, right. If you were a golfer or a pickleball aspiring pickleball player like myself, right, and you wanted to get better, go find a coach, and there's no shortage of people right now that can sit down and give you a very tactical plan. I think very often, you know, I might speak and talk about things in general terms, but what people need today is a very specific plan, right.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 1:07:38

Do you have a?

Alex Delgado 1:07:38

coach? I don't have a coach.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 1:07:41

I need to take my own advice. He is the coach I need to take my own advice.

Alex Delgado 1:07:43

He is the coach I mean, I'm seeking opportunities to help, mentor and coach people. But you're right, yeah, that's the way to put me on the spot, man because I should take my own advice. I need a coach if I want to take myself to the next level. But that's what I would start with, right, because I feel like I've paved a pretty decent trail on my own. But, yeah, I might have plateaued too right. It's time for me to now take take the my, my own self to the next level.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 1:08:08

So I didn't mean to put you on up, but you're right though you're right so, so don't edit that out, because you're right, you know.

Alex Delgado 1:08:15

Take your own fucking advice, you know like, like, but, but I think, for for me, I'm very decisive. Sometimes, though, it's a it's a decision that's been brewing for a long time, and now is I needed some certain things to happen in order to take that next step. I think a lot of people stay stuck because they think they need to go from here to here, and the reality is that you just need to get to here, and if you need to know how to get there, a coach is a good way to help you get to that spot. So I would say it's not a lot of money. A lot of times when people say, oh, you spent all this money on this, that or the other, I always go back to drinking. How much money did you waste on alcohol this month? Right, I bet you one round of drinks, depending on where you go right, is enough to get your foot in the door with that coach and get that process, get that conversation started. So a coach is where I would start.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 1:09:04

Yeah and Alex, how can people find you? Like, I know you started doing social media. What's your social media handle? What's the laser hair removal? What is that handle? Let's you know. I want to get all your businesses out there so people can contact and websites or anything.

Alex Delgado 1:09:17

My. My Instagram for all my fitness content and and the coaching content is at Alex R Delgado. That's D, e, l, g, a, d O. The Oldsmar Running Club is at Oldsmar Running Club Very, very new. Oh yeah, yeah, we got that. And then for the laser hair removal, it's at soft this is a long one, so make sure I say this right it's at Soft Touch Laser Hair Removal.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 1:09:42

That's fantastic.

Alex Delgado 1:09:43

So pretty simple.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 1:09:44

And they got. And Hair Removal has a website, right.

Alex Delgado 1:09:48

Correct SoftTouchLaserHairRemovalcom.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 1:09:50

And they can book directly through the website.

Alex Delgado 1:09:52

Book through the website. You can book through Instagram.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 1:09:55

Pay on the website.

Alex Delgado 1:09:56

You can pay on the website. Yep, we take cash, we take Bitcoin. We take whatever, we'll take whatever, but yeah, so yeah, you can find me. The book is available on amazon, so so go check it out. And uh, what's the name of the book? The four f's seeking self-mastery and faith, family, fitness and finances. I love it man.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 1:10:14

Thank you so much, alex, for coming in and uh for happy hour holidays and sharing your story and you know, motivating everybody out there as well. You know you can. You can do anything you want, as long as you got a good coach and you got the want to.

Alex Delgado 1:10:27

Yes If you don't have the want to get up off for your ass and find it, you know so that's the biggest thing, man.

Sean Febre & Manny Febre 1:10:34

But you know all the audience out there, man really appreciate everybody tuning in to happy hour holidays. We're going to continue to bring great guests like Alex Delgado here that are really shaping our industry and also shaping the way we think about life and how we want to continue to do self growth to get better. So thank you guys out there and you know, keep tuning in, we're going to keep bringing that great content. Peace out, man.