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, September 27, 2019

Visiting An Old Home... Friday, September 27

It's a funny feeling, to be a foreigner in a foreign country and yet feel like you have these "home places", like a boxing club.  For me, Elorde Boxing out in the Eastwood area and Elite Boxing out in Makati, are very much home places for me. I spent many, many days there, much of which was not only training but bouncing business ideas back and forth with my fighters friends and also my coaches.  

To go back, to visit them and tell them that I finally did it, I finally made a physical training facility for my company, that's pretty cool.  I haven't been back to either of these two home clubs of mine since I launched the Empowered Clubhouse but today I went back and visited Elite.

Coach Bogs was all questions about Empowered and it was cute to catch him bragging about it to one of the other club workers.  If only I hired male coaches, honestly, Coach Bogs and Coach Marcelo (at Team Insider) would be the first I'd pluck from their clubs.  I asked if Coach Bogs was still working crazy hours, he said yes, and then I asked if they've given the coaches an increase in pay since they increased the club memberships, he said no.  Of course they haven't.  I swear, if I ever hit it rich or a random boxing club falls into my lap, I swear I'll give it to him and let him do with it what he pleases.  I'm not going to go into the detail of their crazy work hours or the closet-of-a-bedroom and the long line of bunkbeds they're forced to call home, but I know they're so deserving of so much more.  It's incredibly frustrating.  

I may not have any staff as of yet but I promise you this, when I do, they will be treated more than fairly.  I'm going to treat them so good they're going to fall in love with their job and treat it with respect because that's exactly how they'll be treated if they work for me.  Non of this borderline in-human treatment and slave labour treatment.  If your staff is happy, then the workplace is happy, and if the workplace is happy, then your clients are going to be happy.  It's all relative and it's all connected and dependent on each other.

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