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.

Friday, December 08, 2017

Testing Me, 1-2-3... Friday, December 8

Sometimes I think that God is constantly testing me, seeing just how far he can push my patience, stretch my perseverance, milk my dedication, and test to see if I really want what I want.

Feeling definitely tested today.

Tested with my motivation to go training.
Tested with my passion to continue fighting for Empowered.
Tested with my ability to continually crunch numbers and make my limited money go further.

In university I was homeless for a little over two months. 
In Korea I resorted to food handouts and washing my hair in the movie theatre sink.
In Mexico I begged for fruit. 

I feel like I've gone through some hard times.  I know hard times build hard people but how hard of a person does God seriously want me to be?!  I was homeless in university but continued to attend school and graduated.  When I was making Hulk's in Korea, I couldn't pay my electricity and I borrowed money off a "group of people" I can not say to finish making Hulk's but I did it.  I made it.  I had nothing to eat in Mexico and I didn't speak Spanish but I found a means plus I scored a huge Mexican fan following in the process. 

My latest challenge is food.  I don't have enough money for food.  In a week and a half I have to pay my monthly membership at the boxing club too, for my training, and I don't have money for that either.  And don't even get me started with it being Christmas.  Skittles' birthday is Christmas Eve.

Buying a Starbucks coffee is now a luxury I can't afford.  The price of that one coffee can buy me my next meal so I save my money for my meals.  And I've been trying to walk every where instead of taking an Uber.  People laughed and were shocked that I walked to BGC the other day and I joked about only have 5Php in my pocket but seriously that was all the money I had on me.  

"God doesn't challenge you to test your budget, he challenges you to test your faith", a friend told me.  Consider both my budget and faith tested though... and running very, very low.  I've been in the Philippines now for 8 months and the struggle has been real.  Continuous and real, but now it's a new real... really hard.

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