Failure is a prerequisite to success

The U.S. Marines taught Miguel Crespo to improvise, adapt, and overcome.

American Dreams are not just for immigrants. Sometimes they are for children of immigrants. Miguel Crespo, like me, is the son of Cuban immigrants. I first met him at Admiral Cigar Club in my Orlando neighborhood of Baldwin Park.

In fact, Miguel is the co-founder of Admiral Cigar Club in Orlando, where I have been frequenting since they opened in 2016. I still have a membership box there.

But Admiral Cigar Club is not Miguel’s primary business. In 1997, after serving in the Marines and finishing a degree at the University of Central Florida, Miguel and his business partner Ed Mejias established Professional Imaging Centers in Orlando. With locations in East Orlando and Kissimmee, and a mobile ultrasound presence that spans from Tampa to Ocala. 

“We go on-site and bring ultrasound imaging services to physicians in their office,” he said. 

Miguel noticed that Baldwin Park had the right demographic to support a cigar lounge. He and his business partner were already doing a lot of entertaining for clients and thought it would be a great opportunity for them to own their own lounge and be able to open it to family, friends, and business associates for an upscale, controlled environment anytime they wanted. 

“The genesis for [Admiral Cigar Club] was as a marketing extension of our primary business,” said Miguel.

Professional Imaging is an outpatient radiology practice. For the first five years of their existence, they were a mobile ultrasound service. After graduating from UCF, Miguel got a job at Orlando Regional (which is now Orlando Health). He gained experience as an inpatient and later transitioned to outpatient services. He then worked for a mobile imaging service locally. They had a relationship with a staple of private physicians – customers for them – that they were just going to let go.

“That’s the moment when hard work, dedication, and you hear the knock of opportunity coming, and the physician that says, ‘hey Miguel, why don’t you buy a machine, you could continue to do this yourself,’ he recounted. 

He then went to his brother-in-law and his business partner Ed Mejias, and borrowed $50,000. “We started in his garage and the rest is the American Dream.” 

Today, they have 85 employees.

In a health care industry that is constantly evolving and bringing new challenges, his lessons from the Marine Corps taught him “to improvise, to adapt, to overcome is the goal.”

His advice for aspiring entrepreneurs: “Find something that you’re good at, that there’s a demand for, and that you’re willing to do the work for. You can almost apply that matrix to anything for success,” said Miguel. 

“Hard work and dedication create some luck. And there was some luck along the way. And surround yourself with good people,” he said. “Identify talent and put them around you. It raises your game.” 

He also urges others not to be afraid to fail. 

“Failure is a prerequisite for success. You have to taste the vinegar of failure in order to enjoy the sugar of success.” 

Today, Miguel is enjoying that sugar of success. Sugar and tobacco. Those are tastes of his parent’s homeland of Cuba. And for Miguel Crespo, it’s the love of the leaf that embodies his sanctuary of freedom at Admiral Cigar Club. And around his lounge, freedom has a sanctuary that always tastes sweet and smells delicious – for cigar aficionados, anyway.

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Hard work, dedication, and a little bit of a luck. Those are the ingredients that have been part of Miguel Crespo’s success. But he also mentioned something else: surround yourself with good people.

That’s WHY I started the Fearless Journeys community. I have been blessed to have been surrounded by good people and over 100 of them are now part of this community, including about 50 Featured Innovators, people who have charted their course and are now serving as mentors to others — maybe you?

Join the Fearless Journeys community today and gain access to this incredible network. We are waiting to welcome you in.