The CEO's Journal- Entry 11: Where There's A Will There's A Way

Hi everyone!

We’re just over 2 months in and 2019 has been a truly amazing year so far. There’s been a lot of obstacles and yet I’m proud to say that things are still somehow moving in the right direction. I guess it’s true what they say;

where there’s a will there’s a way.

January

So let’s start off by speaking about some of the struggles we’ve been dealing with up until this point. The first is that January was by our standards a terribly slow month. But I anticipated that. In November and December we saw such a drastic increase in demand for our sweaters that we crawled into January with essentially zero inventory. You don’t have to be a business expert to realize that it’s tough to make money when you don’t have anything to sell. But rather than just throw my hands up and say “Oh well there’s nothing I can do”, I thought long and hard about how we could somehow salvage something productive out of January. Remember, where there’s a will, there’s a way. So from that deep thinking came the idea of releasing our next limited-edition tracksuit for PRE ORDERS ONLY. This allowed us to earn some revenue while not actually holding any inventory. It wasn’t a perfect solution as it is now taking time for the products to actually arrive at the customers’ doorsteps, but it was a great way of keeping the business moving along and also gave a lot of people the opportunity to get a very uniquely designed product.

By the end of January, we somehow managed to slightly exceed our January sales of last year. It’s something I’m really proud of because while we had every reason to accept our poor circumstances, we instead decided to fight through and figure out a way to make something out of nothing. Things won’t always be perfect but as long as you have that determination and resilience, you can make the best of your circumstances. But the thing in January that I’m MOST proud of was us donating food to a local food bank. I’m not going to go into a lot of detail about it because bragging about doing good deeds will never NOT feel weird to me. But ELEVATE is about uplifting others and it was truly an amazing feeling to be able to give 100 non-perishable items to the pleasantly surprised volunteers at Emmaus House. YOU all made that happen so thank you so much to each and every person who contributed to our food drive! It’s definitely something that we intend to do again.

February

While January was a fairly slow month, February was the opposite. In February we nearly achieved the same success that we did in December and I’m truly thankful for that. But the funny thing about this is that I would have never expected that considering how I was feeling the entire month. Talk about STRESS. A lot of entrepreneurs compare being a CEO to being a firefighter in a town full of arsonists. I can say first hands that this is the TRUTH! All month it felt like I was just running from problem to problem and once I managed to put out one fire, another one popped up immediately after. To be completely honest It felt like absolute chaos at times. But to look up at the end of the month and see that the world wasn’t actually crashing down was a relief to me. Managing a business is tough so I respect anyone doing it and doing it well.

So how was I able to handle those days, and weeks of chaos? Simple. I created some form of structure for myself. Allow me to explain: Each week I lay out my priorities. From there I structure a schedule for myself that I stick to no matter what. So each and every day I set aside a time to read (improve my mind), lift weights (improve my health/body) and box (a new hobby I enjoy). I also plan the times where I’m going to sit down and take care of the various tasks or “fires” that must be managed. Setting up that schedule allows me to experience order amongst the chaos. I can fully focus on my reading and workouts because I know that I already have the time set for when I will put out the “fires”. From that I have learned that not all issues are as urgent and destructive as they man initially seem. They say that we grow through our struggles and I definitely find that to be true. Sometimes during such moments of chaos I remind myself of that and of the fact that getting through this will make ELEVATE and myself better in the future. So thank you 2019 for the lessons you have taught me so far. I’m excited to see what the rest of the year has in store for us.

Peace! Austin Chambers, Founder & CEO