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, May 16, 2019

An Exit Cue Ponder... Thursday, May 16

How badass awesome would it be if one day Empowered Clubhouse was ran by Lil' Sistas?!

For those of you who don't know, I started a company called Empowered Clubhouse -- it's the first and only female-only boxing clubhouse in the Philippines. Through Empowered, I launched an outreach program called the Lil' Sista Project where I coach and mentor now a total of 76 underprivileged girls -- 50 human trafficking survivors from the Center of Hope (Voice of the Free) and 26 orphans and runaways from Holy Family Home. 

Meeting them was such an incredible pivotal moment in my life and in my business. And just like that a passion to help empower these amazing girls was sparked and my focus took on a whole new direction.

I think about this a lot actually, perhaps more than I admit to it.  

I don't have children of my own, well, I have my dogs but let's be real here.  I can't exactly leave my company to them.  They'd just pee on it and chew on its corners.  But the Lil' Sistas, they're kind of like my kids in a way.  I mean, there are several that I feel I've connected with; select Lil' Sistas that I always have random chats with, who try extra hard for me or always offer to help me.  

In coaching them, the Lil' Sistas at both the Center of Hope and Holy Family Home, I continually finding myself pondering what more I can do for them.  These days I've been thinking a lot about their exit cue -- what they do when they've finished the program at the Center of Hope or are old enough to leave the Holy Family Home orphanage and start the next chapter in their life.  What will that next chapter be and wouldn't it be so cool if Empowered Clubhouse was one chapter they could start on.  God knows I now have this massive house, they could even live here... I'm serious.  I've got four floors, about 355 square meters, 7 bathrooms, and a couple of rooms I've yet to even step foot in since living here.  True fact, I haven't even gone on the fourth floor and I've been living here for two weeks now.

Am thinking about it, assisting them in some kind of exit cue, like an internship.  Because while so many other companies are able to financially assist and donate to them, I just don't have the money to even make a dent in the bills they encounter.  But to give them something that money can't buy, now that's the key to really helping to change their lives, helping them to really make a life.

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