Doors Open & Another Closes

Well, it's been an eventful few weeks to say the very least. As I posted before, the first of three fitness clubs is now open for business and that's consumed a lot of my time as of late. Thankfully, Leigh has been amazing during this time and supporting this experiment 100%. I know it's put a burden on her having to take care of Riley by herself a lot lately, but she rarely complains, and I couldn't even come close to doing this without her.

Another part of all this that has been difficult has been maintaining my consulting job. In the planning stages, I was able to do all the paperwork and communications in the evening...rarely taking me away from my day job. However, once the club opened, I felt a little overwhelmed. Luckily I had vacation scheduled for a few weeks to help get things up and running.

Unfortunatley, a couple weeks ago we got word that Capital H Group had decided to close down the Houston office. We're based out of Chicago with office is NY, LA, Boston, Millwaukee, London, and a few more across the globe. Capital H has been fortunate to have over $75 million in venture capital, but that also puts certain pressures on companies. We've grown at least 20% in each of the last few years, but the rate of growth hasn't been quite where they'd like to see it. We purchased a leadership development company out of London last year for a large sum of money which helps us from a growth perspective, but it also eats up a lot of capital. So anyway, it appears that they are trying to position the company to be sold, and to do that have trimmed up by reducing a lot of the consulting offerings we currently help clients with. In doing so, it really eliminated a lot of what we do in LA, Boston, and unfortunately Houston. So as of now, I'm not a full time employee, but I am finishing a couple things on a contract basis...which isn't a bad deal.

I really do have mixed emotions about it. On one hand, it's a good salary that was taken away, but on the other hand, it gives me an opportunity to focus on making the gym successful....which is what I want to do. The hard part is the financial aspects of it. Because I'm opening 3, I wasn't planning on taking a salary for quite a while...keeping the money in the business.

With that said, I'm in a decent spot right now. Two of my co-workers at Capital H Group already hooked up with a new company and are responsible for making a presence and building up a business in Houston. It's same type of work we do now, but with a slightly different business model creating a great opportunity to get the business going in Houston...in a hurry. While they do that, I'm going to help out on a contract basis which will allow me to continue to focus on the gym, but have some income coming in...which is fine with me because there's some good money in contract work. If they are able to get things going in Houston, there's a chance I could join them full-time if it makes sense on both sides. That would be down the road a ways so I'm not thinking too much about it right now. Either way, I feel pretty good with where I am at the moment. A little nervous for sure, but confident and excited at the same time.

It's weird how the doors in life open and close. You just have to hope the timing is right, and believe me, that's what I'm praying for right now. Thanks for all the support I've already gotten from a lot of you already!