As the story has it, one day I headed to the opposite side of the globe – the Flipside. I arrived in Korea February 16th, 2005 and thought I’d do a year, then leave. I was wrong. I stayed, launched my first company, Flipside Fitness, and then opened Korea's largest boxing club, Hulk's Boxing (now called Hulk's Club).

After 11.5yrs in Korea, I then picked up one day and returned to Toronto, Canada. But then I left again.

Now I live in the Philippines where I am the CEO and head coach of Empowered Clubhouse, the Philippines' first and only boxing clubhouse exclusively just for women. I also am the founder of the Lil' Sistas Project, CEO and designer of Slay Gear and Baa Baa Black Sheep .Ph.

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

S.E.R.I.O.U.S.L.Y Awesome!!!... Wednesday, March 27

Despite pulling a 19 hour day today on only three measly hours of sleep, today may very well be the be one of the best days of my life… s.e.r.i.o.u.s.l.y!!!

Why, you ask, well here’s why… 


Scored the Cover Shot for 10 Magazine!!! 

In the May issue of 10 Magazine they’re publishing a feature article on Flipside Fitness and our boxing club, written by me. In addition to this amazing opportunity, the production editor emailed me the other day, asking me if I was also interested in being featured on the cover. I can’t even begin to tell you how excited I was! She had noted that it wasn’t a definitely go yet, she had to pass it over her boss, but it was definitely up for discussion and a potential. Well, today she informed me that yes, both Snickers and I will be featured on the cover shot – how awesome is that?! Photo shoot expected to be scheduled for next week. 


Business Relations Thicken 

In starting our own boxing club, I can’t tell you how much support and positive feedback we’ve been getting from people, even people we don’t even know. We met with the manager of BEAT Boxing today – he’s become a good friend of ours now. Together we went over some equipment details, specifically their boxing ring measurements. I was impressed at what he shared with us – what he’d suggest for a suitable ring and various modifications he’d make on his. Our once formal business meetings have become very informal, with us being able to drop by whenever we like and jokingly upper cut each other while we discuss business. 

Later in the evening, while I was out for ROBO Time, Snickers met up with Junior Mint. He confronted him about the cold shoulder scene at this past weekend’s tournament and reassured him yet again we don’t plan to be competition. Honestly, he’s been acting like a mix between cornered cat lashing out and someone drowning, trying desperately to grab onto something. I still feel heartbroken over what’s become of our relationship – what he’s made our relationship to be, something that’s nonexistent. I love him like a family member, obviously someone so much closer to me than just the label “coach” he sported in my life. 

When I woke up super late and noted that Snickers had not returned home, I started texting his friends. It was almost 3:30 in the morning. One of them noted the last word they heard was he was with Junior Mint, that was the last word I got from him too. I held off on texting Junior Mint but then I decided to. A text message at 4am was followed through with a phone call conversation between us. He seemed honestly concerned for me and that was somewhat of a relief. 

Apparently what had happened was Snickers had fallen asleep at a friend’s house and his cell battery died. I wasn’t impressed to say the least but was glad none of my worst case scenarios were ever the reality. 


Monkey Bars!!! 

Headed out of town today to meet with our custom equipment supplier to go over the design details and our order and in discussing them we decided to go with our initial thought – get monkey bars put in for our crossfit circuits. It was an idea we were pondering but now it’s being put into physical form. Our supplier almost dropped his jaw when he heard just how high the ceiling of our building is but I knew he’d appreciate the challenge. We noted to him that we’ve been approached about possibly branching out our boxing club to other locations in other cities and we assured him that we’d keep him as our main supplier. I’m all about the “little guy”, especially now that I too am an entrepreneur. 

He was overly grateful at our news and I think we just made his week. He joked about having to get a bigger shop. As you can tell by the above pic of his shop, it’s a maze of machines, nuts and bolts. You definitely have to enter it at your own risk. It’s located in the basement of a large building and it doesn’t even have a company name on the door. Months after doing business with this guy and I still don’t know his company name but I love his ideas. He can basically make any fitness equipment machine you want but with custom details. You should see the massive Smith machine he made… woozers. And with a monkey bar design mapped out and agreed upon, our equipment supplier is now preparing monkey bars for our boxing club – wicked!!! 


Unexpected "Mini Spon" from Dunkin Donuts 

We had showed up early for our meeting with our equipment supplier so we sat in a neighboring Dunkin Donuts shop and sipped on coffee waiting. Snickers had forgotten his wallet in our van and, when he ran back to get it, I got into a conversation with a Korean man in the store. It started over a set of coffee tumblers on display. There was a hot pink one in the picture but when I noted to the cashier that it wasn’t on display, the Korean man sitting behind me stood up and starting talking to me. He introduced himself as the owner and told me that it’d be coming in next week. When I told him I lived over an hour away he asked me what I was doing there, adding that he’s seen me here in the past. Apparently he had seen me arrive for previous meetings with our supplier, waiting in the cold hallway. Ten minutes later, after I had told him that I was starting my own boxing club – I am an entrepreneur – he congratulated me and told me briefly about his entrepreneur story. Our conversation ended with him asking for my address and him shaking my hand. He’s sending me a hot pink tumbler free of charge – very cool!!! 


We Got Our Building!!! 

At 5pm we headed to the main headquarters for Leechard Hair – it’s located here in Cheonan. 

A little history lesson on Leechard Hair here… Leechard Hair originally started in Cheonan but it’s since grown to 42 locations all over Korea. The building location where we want to situate our boxing club is actually the site of their first ever hair shop. 

Anyways… after an hour long meeting in their penthouse board room with their lawyer, papers were being passed across the table to us and then we signed to them, giving us responsibility and legal control over the site. We then headed over to the Realtors 


A Solid Crew for ROBO Time – Short Run!!! 

Later in the evening Flipside Fitness hosted it’s weekly ROBO Time – Short Run. Five us met downtown, stretched and then headed out towards Dankook, for our usual route. Two of tonight’s runners had never joined our ROBO Time before so that was cool to have them come out but what was ultra cool was being pleasantly surprised by two guys who joined us. We were almost at Dankook University when I looked up and there in front of us, waiting for us, was none other than two workers from WOW Motors – our proud sponsor! And it wasn’t just “two workers”, one of them was the head manager – the man who just yesterday had handed over a healthy plump sum of money for our boxing club. I joked with the Flipside ladies and told them, “Ok, now be on your best behavior”… hahaha. It was such a great run and I was so grateful for the manager of WOW Motors showing up to cheer us on and run with us.

No comments: