I Almost Quit... Many Times!

We ordered our first 1500 units and waited months… yes months… before they got here. Originally, I was told 3 -4 months, and it ended up being 6 ½ months. I remember it like yesterday, the truck showed up in my driveway, dropped off all the boxes and then drove off. I have never been more excited in my life, I had been working on this “idea” for a year, spent over $20k dollars (just to start) and finally… I had a real product to sell. I couldn’t believe it… I had done it! All that hard work was finally going to pay off… excitement factor… 10+! I had fought through so many sleepless nights worrying and all my fears and worries were all ending because they were finally here… woohoo!

No one was home except my son Jackson (my lax player) and I. I took photos and video of the delivery and before I even went inside I was already posting on my social media. Travel Lax season was half way over and I had already missed a few selling opportunities, but I had one coming up the next weekend so ALL WAS RIGHT IN THE WORLD!

My stars were aligning… or so I thought.

I brought one box inside and screamed for Jackson. I wanted to open it up with him… together… I wanted to enjoy this moment with someone and who better to enjoy it with then the whole reason my invention actually exists! I got a pair of scissors and cut open the box. I slowly opened the carton and pulled out a package of Stix, I looked at them and squealed with joy!

Jackson and I jumped around the kitchen and all I kept saying was, “OMG… WE DID IT BUDDY… WE DID IT!”

When I settled down a little I decided to actually open the package of Stix. A very important part I was forgetting, lol. Smiling from ear to ear, I unlocked the zip lock and pulled out the Stix and the next thing I hear from Jackson is… “Mom... why don’t they smell?”

GULP!

I paused and sniffed… he sniffs… I sniff again… NOTHING! My hands started shaking a little (I was trying to play it calm, cool and collected) but was starting to freak out on the inside. I opened the end cap and pulled out the inserts…. they were wrong. Like so wrong and NOT what I tested or approved and definitely NOT what I ordered.

Tears welled up in my eyes and every doubt I had the past 6 months about why I shouldn’t be doing this came crashing in and my son was just staring at me. I thought to myself, “OMG I KNEW IT, I knew I shouldn’t have done this, what the heck was I thinking?!” but I looked at his baby blues staring back at me and said, “don’t worry son, I will figure it out!” In my heart I didn’t think it, I was actually cursing myself, but out came, “I GOT THIS!” As parents, I know many of you have been there. We show strength on the outside even though we are crumbling on the inside. It always my go to reaction and I think it’s like a “Momma Bear Protection Mode”. Well… whatever it is… I know you all get it and I was definitely there.

I stepped in the other room and instantly called my contacts that I had hired that were working with my factory. I started off pretty calm, I think, and then I am pretty sure my head spun around a few times like in the movie Exorcist and barf came out because I don’t even know what happened next. All I know is that the owner of the company called me back within 3 min and soon after that, my correct inserts were being air shipped to my door.

The correct insert ingredients did show up just in time for our first tournament, like no joke, the day before we were supposed to leave. I had boxes full of it and since we only had a day to do it, and I worked another full-time job, we made a family plan. We would all help that night since we didn’t have to leave until the next morning. That night we sat at the kitchen table and literally one by one opened up every package, perforated a wrapper, put the new ingredients in a wrapper, then heat sealed the wrapper, removed the bad insert and put in the correct one then closed up the package and wallah…. complete GloveStix! Easy enough right?! It did not require much skill… only time… and I knew I didn’t have to do all 1500 that night, I could just do a couple of hundred or enough to sell as many as I could that weekend. With all 5 of us… it should have only taken a few hours!

 Easy peasy, phew, crisis averted… UNTIL….

We get about 20 done and you won’t believe it but a thunderstorm rolls through and within seconds, my power went out. Now mind you, we have lived here 10 years and I can count on one hand how many times that I have lost power. Before that night it may have been only once in 7 years.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME????

Everyone sat in silence, you could have heard a pin drop. They knew that mom was ready to lose it as it is, and I am sure they contemplated every which way they could escape what was about to be one of my worst psycho moments of all time! And, OOOPS, here she blows…

“That’s it… I FREAKIN QUIT!!”

Yes it came out of my mouth and still… silence… no one moved! My husband quietly gets up from his chair, lights a candle and opens up a beer, puts it in front of me and says, “No, you got this!” … “We got this!” I responded in a louder and much more irritated tone then normal, “Really?! How do we got this when we need a heat sealer to GOT THIS and we have no electricity?” He disappears for a few minutes and comes back with several more candles and a small battery-operated generator to plug in the heat sealer. He sits back down at the table, one of my kids starts playing some music on their speaker phone and within moments they were all back to work. I still couldn’t believe it, it took me a little longer to shake it off and as I sat there in disbelief many times I looked up to Heaven and said, “Really funny God, really freakin funny!” and then I actually started laughing.

Have you ever been so stressed that you just stop being stressed and you actually just laugh? That is exactly what happened that night. All the stress came to a hault and the giggles, the music and the laughter showed up. Here we were… all sitting in our kitchen, in the pitch dark with just a few candles to light the room, my husband and I having a beer and the kids blaring their God-awful music. We still had to pack to leave early AM for our first ever sales opportunity and we still had to stuff at least a couple hundred GloveStix to bring with us but at that one moment… none of us worried anymore. We all switched to a “It is what it is” attitude (a common phrase my dad used to say when I was growing up) and now we all say it all the time. Basically, its short for… We can’t change it and we can’t go backwards, so we mine as well put our big girl panties on and just deal with it! But… we can have fun while we do it! Needless to say, the music got louder, the beers tasted better and a full-on family dance party quickly ensued. Music, dancing, and all our kids… its sure was a night to remember.

We obviously got through that evening and somehow managed to get everything done. The lights came back on in the middle of the night so when we woke up we had power and could shower and pack up with electricity. Our first ever event we sold out, I told that story in my last blog but what no one has ever known… is what we had to do to get there. The end of the event was so worth it because we were successful, but the stress, sacrifices, hard work, and highs and lows are what actually go on behind the scenes that no one else sees. You all would not believe how many times I have wanted to quit, felt completely overwhelmed, or how many events turned out to be a nightmare, especially in the beginning when we were learning. Most people have no clue the many huge defeats that people have to overcome just to get where they are.

I know what people think and I hear it all the time from friends, they say “You’re so lucky”.

Most of the time I just laugh and smile back and say thank you. If I have made it seem like it’s that easy and that I am just “so lucky” then kudos to me I guess, ha-ha, but that is the farthest thing from the truth. Does “luck” have something to do with it… sure, but it’s mostly hard work, persistence, late nights, rejections, sacrifices, doubts, failure, risks, and LOTS OF FAITH!

The first year we had many disaster moments and if I didn’t learn “It is what it is” I would have never kept going. Not only did we have to spend hours upon hours, 4-5 nights a week… for months, sitting on our family room floor replacing every insert that came with our first order of GloveStix, but my husband and I used all our vacation time from our other jobs for GloveStix events and some of them were disastrous. I remember a few months into this business we drove 14 hours to Florida for a Lax event. Yes let me repeat that for you... I was in a car... for 14 hours straight, omg... that is a victory in itself! LOL. But the day we got there we got a text from the event coordinator that the event was completely rained out for the whole weekend. Seriously?! Our first major event and it was like a monsoon in Florida and it wasn’t even rainy season! The next month we drove 15 hours to work a weekend Hockey event in Minnesota… that ended AMAZING. A lot of hard work and exhausting but it was an awesome event! We sold a bunch and made some pretty awesome relationships with new customers. The following month we spent a big budget to work LAXCON in Baltimore, not only spent tons of money on the event but even more money making sure our booth was all ready and guess what… there was a historical BLIZZARD that weekend and we had to leave after only 3 hours and couldn’t even set up or stay for the main event. More money, time and hard work… for nothing! That was another all-time low with GloveStix and I had a hard time shaking off that one and was really doubting the future of this company. It just seemed impossible to keep investing so much time and money into something that we were consistently having so much trouble just trying to move the needle. It was exhausting and terrifying. But guess what… I kept going… and shortly after that is when I applied to be on The Today Show and just 2 months later I was presenting GloveStix live to America and I happened to win the “Next Big Thing” contest then went to QVC and sold out in 7 ½ min! :)

Talk about highs and Lows… wow… I’ve had so many!

I have learned a lot starting this company but the most valuable has been that strength, courage, and overcoming the negative thoughts in our head about why we can’t do something takes persistent practice. We have to step out on a limb and challenge ourselves, so we truly know what we are capable of and WE MUST believe that we can do it and NEVER EVER QUIT.  If you don’t try, you’ll never win, if you don’t fail, you’ll never learn but YOU HAVE TO ACT! True failure is not falling and getting back up, true failure is simply… NOT TRYING!

I have gotten much better at managing the highs and the lows and I look back now and giggle and think how small those problems now seem in comparison. The larger you get, the bigger and more expensive the problems. I wish I was only dealing with stuffing GloveStix, rain outs and blizzards, ha-ha! I have learned that the problems don’t ever go away, as a matter of fact they just get harder but guess what… we get stronger and more capable too! When you start to learn to maneuver through your problems and actually find solutions for them you build more confidence in yourself. The more confidence you have, the more you try and the more you try, the more you win!

My husband was right all along… “WE GOT THIS” and you know what… you do too!

I am lucky about one thing… I have a strong faith and honestly feel and know in my heart that there are even bigger things headed my way. This has been an incredible journey the last 3 years and I have to admit that when bad stuff happens now and things don’t go my way, I don’t lose any sleep or worry like I used to. I now laugh, look up to Heaven and say…

“BRING IT… BECAUSE I GOT THIS!”