Meet Felix Montano | Entertainer, Dancer, Model, Actor, Fitness

We had the good fortune of connecting with Felix Montano and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Felix, have you ever found yourself in a spot where you had to decide whether to give up or keep going? How did you make the choice?
Hm…well, I have always prided myself in not being delusional. I think I have a pretty good radar and intuitively know when I’m right for something or when I am not. I usually follow that instinct and it’s been right. I think? Well, no. I know, because I believe what’s meant for us will come to us, and if we listen to the soul we will know. When I was younger, my answer to this question was, I’ll never know, because you don’t really ever get ‘there’, do you? When anything stops making you happy, that’s when you ‘give’ up, or really just ‘choose’ something different. I think that’s what ‘give up’ really means.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I’ve never really believed in competition. Never really felt I was competing with anyone else other than just trying to be better for myself and building that character, skill or image for my World. I’ve always had a sense that our path is our path, and it’s only about every choice that we make every moment, which creates us and our lives and stories.
I think that set me apart, because that’s one way to last and survive in a business where there is SO much ‘competition’ or as I believe so many ‘choices’ for others and for us to be presented with and to make. Does that make sense? As long as you feel that you did all you could in any given situation, you walk away with your head up and knowing it was or wasn’t for you. Move on. Does all that make sense? I’ve always told other creatives, actors, dancers, models, but really this goes for anything…You’re going to walk into rooms in your career or life, and you’ll be God’s gift to their project, and sometimes you’ll walk in and it’s like you were never there. I promise.
Also in whatever you do in work, if you love it, then just work. Do everything that comes your way, big or small. The dots will connect as life progresses and you’ll start to see how there were NO coincidences.
My Story? Hm, in the end none of it really matters. Life will never present you with something you cannot handle. Just put one foot in front of the other and soon you find you’re through anything. Nothing stays the same. It will change, whatever it is, just let it. Listen to your soul/gut always, not even your heart, but the bigger thing than that, your soul. We know what that is. And even though experiences and events look similar in life, and often repeat, it is what we bring to each one, and not reacting the same as before, but seeing it as a knew opportunity to react differently, and allow a new outcome and understanding. It’s quite surprising when I apply this in my life.
My brand and story? Hm, if I never hear the word ‘brand’ again it would be great! Brand to me says inauthentic immediately! It means something manufactured, something manipulative. I just live my truth. If that attracts or repels? So be it. Maybe from growing up bullied, I learned early that trying to adjust and adapt to what we THINK others want or will respond to, is such a waste of life.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
In Miami? I’m assuming you mean Miami. Well there is so much and choices are SO varied!!
Ugh, it’s difficult to plan, but….
There really is a ‘magic’ to this City as they say.
I would plan days at the beach, or maybe get a yacht for an afternoon, then walking off the beach/yacht and stopping for late afternoon cocktails at a great restaurant or bar, then naps would be in order, before regrouping and heading out to one of many incredible restaurants, like Mila or Carbone. Then of course late night entertainment, like Liv or Eleven, or catching the show at Faena Hotel, or a little spot I love for cabaret entertainment called La Poubelle in Normandy Isle in North Miami Beach. Total old school Parisian vibes, in a speak easy behind another great restaurant called Silverlake.
Then of course there’s so much art and culture. Little Havana, Wynwood, Museums, golfing etc, but for me it’s a little of the beach/night life combination, which captures what people really come to Miami Beach for. There’s a little hedonistic feeling in it all that stirs the soul a bit. That’s what a trip to Miami is about for me. I always say its a little Vegas without the gambling. And there’s a lot that happens in Miami that stays in Miami!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
First and foremost, I think it’s a belief in something greater. Something that is guiding each of us, whatever you’d like to call it. I call it the life process which to me is, God in action as our lives. There is a series of books that showed up in my life about 25 years ago, called “Conversations with God” by Neale Donald Walsch, that changed my life as far as the ‘something greater’ in my life.
And of course my father and mother who risked their lives and fled Cuba and Communism in 1960, and taught me I could be and do anything I wanted, if I was a good person and worked hard, and that this success in this country was based on character and merit period. Not your feelings or color or sexuality. I have found that to be 100% true.
My bullies growing up. Who I knew I would prove wrong and were just a passing inconvenience when I was growing up.
Then a quote I love by Yeats I read when I was in my teens…. “When you are old and grey and full of sleep, and nodding by the fire, take down this book and slowly read and dream of the soft look your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep.”
At that moment I knew I had to make exciting choices and create wonderful stories with my life for looking back on at the end.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/felixmontano/

Youtube: @felixmontanojr

Image Credits
Noemi Rojas, James Reese, Tommy+Alan Photograhy