My pleasure my business and my business is my pleasure. I love it and I wouldn't have it any other way.
Love is doing a job you're passionate about,
work is stressing that it covers your bills.
I posted the above line as my Facebook status update close to closing time, after a long day of worrying if this month's apartment rent would be covered or if I'd have to try to dodge my landlord in the hall. Business is good but business is hard and it's so very unpredictable. Take for example today. We started the day off with five dollars in our club purse and ended it with rent money for our house, plus the club's water bill for the month covered. We had five new members join, one of which purchased a three month membership, another added a locker rental to her membership, and two bought protein shakes after training.
You just never know what the day will bring to a business; everyday is just as unpredictable as it is interesting.
I don't envy my salary-working friends but I do envy their reliable monthly paycheck that gets deposited into their bank every month like clockwork. Oh to have a real paycheck again, something dependable instead of wondering if I'll have grocery money or not.
Yesterday while Snickers and I were sitting by the coal thingy-a-ma-jiggy, we heard a little pop. Instantly we looked up and noticed that all the smoke from the coal heater was being pumped back into the club instead of going out the wall via the pipe. The pipes had separated. It'd be one thing if this happened on a weekday but Sunday is the only day of the week the street lined to the max with home hardware shops are closed and this Sunday happened to be the bi-weekly Sunday when all the main department stores are closed. So with no hardware shop open and no Emart open, we were faced with quite the problem.
Back when we first started working on making Hulk's, we picked our companies wisely and by companies I mean our suppliers and service workers. One of the small companies we've leaned on is a father and son home hardware shop down the street. They've been incredibly helpful with us -- delivering us tools we need and opening up the random Sunday so we can get supplies. Today was one of those days we needed their help so we called them up. The father was eating lunch when we called but he came right away to his shop to let in Snickers and we were so grateful because honestly we had no other means of supplies. My job was to stand there watching and waiting -- watching the smoke from the pipe fill up the corner of the club and possibly waiting for a potential fire to break loose. It was so very nerve racking. I don't know what I would have done if a fire would have broken out -- I would have thrown my body over it if I thought it'd save our club. And then of course there was the nerve-racking wait while I listened to Snickers work behind the wall, inhaling all the fumes from the burning coals while struggling to fix the metal piping. I am very much attached to our club and am as protective of it as I am proud and in love with it but at the price of our nerves constantly being tested and stretched. I should note here that not too long ago one of Snickers' uncles committed suicide via inhaling the fumes of such coals, so yesterday's situation hit a very sensitive spot and left me feeling a bit sick to my stomach with worry.
Today was a very successful day, especially from a financial view point. New members joined, bills got covered, and we were visited by a former member who has since quit his job to return home and go back to school. We even had a chicken party and were visited by many friends and the friends of many members. The day definitely didn't start this way however but that's the beauty of being a small business owner, an entrepreneur. It's very challenging, nerve racking and filled with lots of ups and downs. There's some months where bills are definitely prioritised and money is stretched and then there are months when we're able to put money towards paying back WOW and sleep easier. I try not to let it stress me because the more I stress about it the more it eats at my energy. I can't afford to work with a low tank of energy, gosh the mini-Koreans I train at Hulk's would eat me alive if I trained them with energy in the minus numbers. All I can do is do my best and stay positive.
I'm doing what I love and if one day I wake up and hate doing what I'm doing, then I'll stop like I've done before. But I'll be damn if money stops me from doing what it is I am passionate about. I definitely didn't have the money to afford to launch Hulk's in the first place but what I lacked in money I made up for in drive, determination, hard work, and passion. There will always be people that will support you if you're positive and surround yourself with the right people. We happened to be blessed with WOW and several other sponsors, both public and private ones. They saw that our passion was alive and strong, so they invested in us. Money will always come and go, and I've never been one to let money determine my life so I'm not about to let it now. The goal of Hulk's was never to make crazy money and, if anything, there are days when I definitely am paying to work here. The goal of Hulk's was to do what I love and to share it with others. My energy has always been directed towards health and fitness, and that includes my boxing, running and clean eating. Energy is contagious, both good energy and bad energy, so the question here is how can I "infect" others. I used this analogy when speaking to Snickers tonight, he didn't quite get it and I knew so when he answered "just sneeze on people". Thanks baby boy.
[Note here, Snickers just learnt the word 'sneeze' and up until learning it a sneeze was a "cough's cousin".]
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