We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Alex Ornelas a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Alex, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?
Our mission is to make an indirect or direct impact in people’s lives. Through education and community engagement we can help with supplemental support to any healthy lifestyle or help kickstart new healthy lifestyle habits. We are in the business of promoting a healthy healing part of life. ARO Holistics believes the ultimate level of human needs in life is contributing to this world & make life’s journey easier for others.
Ever since I was in college at the University of Texas at San Antonio, and I was working as a personal trainer, I noticed something very important in my clients. With so much going on in the world now a days, we tend to get to distracted and end up going down a slippery slope of bad decisions and habits. When it comes down to our health, if we are not taking in everything holistically (everything as a whole), we can leave the door wide open for disease and illness.With my company, I wanted our products and services to be of meaning and purpose to the community. Our juices are very holistic, as I combined my knowledge and experience in clinical nutrition, exercise science and the world of herbalism, I strive to make a healthy change more convenient and readily available.
Alex, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I started my entrepreneurial journey when I left for college and decided to become a personal trainer/nutritionist. I had to grow my clientele organically and put in the hours not only in the gym but mentally I had to be creative in selling myself, marketing myself to the community. After graduating college with my BA in Kinesiology I decided to go after my Masters in Clinical Nutrtion from a naturopathic university. While pursuing my masters I decided to pursue sales and I can tell you I tried to sell everything under the sun from falling into a pyramid scheme, to selling phone plans, meal prepping, contracting/selling products for other companies, to selling solar door to door. I learned the most of my sales experience on the ground, face to face, door to door. I sold solar in Colorado, Texas & Florida. I was challenged by knocking door to door, it wasn’t easy but looking back now I wouldn’t have had the courage or tenacity that I portray now. Long days waking up early and going home late, in the hot and humid environment in the streets of Texas, I pushed myself to learn something I never thought I would be doing.
I have always kept a business mindset in everything I have done, including music. I have been DJing and performing musically for 14 years and producing for the last 5 years. That dream turned into reality quickly and I have been all over the United States to perform. As I learned more about sales, I used those valuable lessons to grow my music brand as well.
Though this journey has been worth while, and has been very opportunistic, I have to thank GOD for allowing me to get through the tough times. Anyone that decides to be an outlier and go against the grain, knows that trying to grow any brand or business can get rough and lonely a lot of the times. I lost my father to a heart attack in 2018, struggled through depression and addiction, changed my perspective in life and became sober, was in many unstable homes far away from loved ones. Through all the hardships I still maintained diligence and motivation to grow something and to give back to this world. Now with ARO Holistics, I have used all the good, the bad, and the ugly to grow an ethical business that can impact the community, in a consistently positive way.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
The art of selling. I have studied many millionaires, read their books, gone to conventions, watched hours of youtube, tried so many routines, studied different religions, but there was ultimately one thing that truly made sense. I always grew up getting told to fake it till you make it, and I know, that there was more I needed to do. Staying prepared is key. In today’s world you cannot fake it till you make, you must be on the ground for many reasons. You will learn the most by putting the work in, there really are no shortcuts in this game. You have to rub shoulders and shake hands in order to grow organically. The world we live in is very fast, and information travels fast, so you have to get your hands dirty because obstacles will come, questions on your work ethic will arise, but if your real with yourself, people will notice when your real with them.
Have you ever had to pivot?
Life has a funny way of leading you down a path you never knew you would be in. I thought as a kid I was going to be a physical therapist or sport medicine trainer. Instead GOD, Life, the Universe whatever you believe in had other plans for me. The road to success is never straight. So you have to have faith, and keep that faith strong. You have to reset everyday and leave the failure of yesterday in the past. I tried all sorts of careers and I ultimately ended up doing what I love most. If your not where you want to be, most likely your gut is right, but do not beat yourself up and give yourself grace instead. Take notes of everything because one day that knowledge will be valuable and you’ll realize it was never a coincidence all along. Have patience in the process and put the work in daily.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @aro_holistics
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alexornelas2019/
- Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/djaroofficial
- Other: @followthearo__
