Balance...

Owning your own business isn't all fun and games. It's a whole lot of work, but oh so rewarding.

Our typical day starts at 6am, ending usually somewhere between 3pm and 7pm, depending on the day. Filled with mostly what you'd expect and a handful of things you wouldn't: staffing/scheduling, food orders, menu design, bills, event planning, marketing, growth projections, R&D, finding new local artists, taking inventory, ordering staff uniforms, meeting with staff... I could go on and on and on. The fact of the matter is, the to-do list never ends, and we wouldn't have it any other way. 

After our typical work day, you can find us in the gym, on the road bike or out on the trail for about 3 hours, after which we quickly make dinner, take the dogs to the park, and attempt to be in bed by 9 to do it all over again tomorrow. It's a challenge to fit it all in. Some weeks we're on point, while others, we are slammed with events at KickStand, and we're off the bike or out of the gym for 4 days in a row. Talk about disconcerting knowing your competitors are on their bike every day, doing intervals to exhaustion or logging those base miles... 

Racing bikes professionally while owning a business is hard. Really hard. We do it to ourselves, in some regard, but wouldn't have it any other way. Our lives are all about Balance. Balance may be defined as "an even distribution of weight enabling someone or something to remain upright and steady." Sounds good to me, however, easier said than done.

What I've learned, however, living the life of a small-business owner in the food industry is that life is about prioritizing and responsibility. There's want-to's and need-to's, both in business and racing. It's taught me that while I am a professional athlete, and want to attend every race possible, at the end of the day, I need to be responsible, and take care of my business, not only for my future, but that of my staff. That I need structure through planning ahead, to meet the demands of both my business and racing.  

While I had planned to attend the North American Enduro Cup this week, this weekend is a weekend where the needs of the business are greater than the that of racing. First world problems of blue collar business owner/racer -- Life is all about balance. Looks like I'll be adding a race to the schedule sometime this year!

​Kim Hardin
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