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.

Thursday, September 12, 2013

It's All a Matter of Perspective... Thursday, September 12

This time a year ago a special delivery had arrived for me; it was a book and this book was called "Mind Gym -- An Athlete's Guide to Inner Excellence", by Gary Mack.  A friend of mine had recommended after I had spilled my beans about struggling with being able to wrap my mind around my fights and get fully into it. 

The book changed everything for me and made me a whole new boxer and I still very much carry the lessons I learned from it with me today.  

In this particular book, the Pittsburgh Steelers coach Chuck Noll was quoted defining pressure as “something you feel only when you don’t know what you’re doing” and I couldn’t agree more.  So often friends who visit me or call me up, ask me how is business and they usually comment about the idea that I must be so stressed.  I'm not stressed.  I think feeling pressured and being stressed is very connected and I feel neither because though a lot of my business is done in Korean and I am still very new to it, the underlying fact is that I do know what I'm doing.  I'm building my dream and that's really what everything else in my life is revolving around -- it's the foundation of everything else for me. 

Gary Mack, the author, noted, “Learn to view pressure as a challenge to meet rather than a threat to defeat” and this has really stuck with me.  I try to keep my head focused, I've got my list of affirmations keeping me positive and I remind myself everyday that I am living the dream, but yes, sometimes the pressure to keep up with the demands of business are hard.  They're hard but not impossible.  I mean, I'm not exactly the first foreigner to have started a business in Korea or any other foreign country for that matter and I'm not alone.  I've got the best business partner I could ever possibly ask for -- my husband.  

I'm all about challenges... so bring it!!!

My most recent challenge has been trying to make a come back from being sick last week.  I had lost 3.4kgs in three days -- dropped 3kgs in muscle and gained 2kgs in body fat.  I was so upset stepping up on the scale and seeing these results flash before me but instead of letting it me down I told myself that this would mean next week's weigh-in would be fabulous... and it was.  Yesterday I had weigh-in, am almost back down to my normal weight, I packed on 2kgs of muscle and am down 1kg in body fat.  In one week of still recovery mode, I managed to kick my own butt at training, keep my eating clean, and get back almost to par with where I was before I was sick. 

As for business challenges, the following are on my list of attack:
1.  Pick out new flooring and arrange for it to be professionally installed.
2.  Getting a new club vehicle.
3.  Me getting my driver's license.
4.  Planning a special Thanksgiving dinner for our Hulk family.
5.  Getting back to studying Korea via a tutor.
6.  Enrolling and setting up course for my personal training license.
7.  Figuring out Snickers' course of study for university.

Snickers is very much interested in attending university and I want to get back to my studies too, both my Korean language studies and studying so I can get my personal training license.  Me enrolling to get my personal training license would mean setting a specific date for me to be back in Canada so that I can do the final test at that time and arrange my course studies accordingly.  I'm not interested in getting my driver's license but with WOW offering to take me to Japan to hand pick a truck with me, well the offer is pretty sweet and super enticing.  

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