Focus on One Thing... Monday, August 26

I always find it as amusing as I do annoying, when people assume because I run my own business that I must make crazy money.  These same people clearly have never started their business and I take it they also don't have a house.  Because that's what I have -- a business in a house, a physical location.  

I make good money, that is if I took the money that was owed to me.  But I don't.  All the money I make goes back into building up my business and expanding upon what I've already started.  

My Slay boxing gear line, yeah, between paying for samples from Pakistan, exploring potential (but failed) manufacturers in the Philippines, and then getting taxed at customs for such samples because they're from Pakistan, it cost me close to 80,000Php in production-related costs.  

Empowered Clubhouse, that cost 400,000Php before I even step foot into the place and I dropped over 120,000Php in renovations so far.  My first batch of renovations, before I even had a client, 67,000Php.  The mirror wall on the second floor, in the boxing studio, that cost 25,000Php.  And of course that's not the only room and only equipment or added fixture I needed to invest in.  It is a four story house.  

Baa Baa Black Sheep, my newest project I've started, so far it has only cost me transportation fees and only minor amount for sample materials and trial samples I've made.  But this week I'll be forking out legal fess for the NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement) I'm finalising with the manufacturing company I just recently hired to produce my designs.  

So yeah... life as an entrepreneur, expensive as hell.  

So when I joke and say that my running shoes are my pay checks, I'm not really joking.  Those three pairs of shoes are knock-offs too, because why the heck would I fork out so much cash when I rather put that money where it's needed more, into my business.  

I don't spend a lot of money on personal things because the plan was never to come to the Philippines for fun, sun, shopping and sand.  Instead, initially, it was to train and to fight.  But once I decided to make the move here and stay permanently, the focus was always my business and it still very much is.