It’s a little surreal to think about; 74 days from today, J3 Marine will be officially open. It almost feels like the pressure builds the closer we get to opening day. I never really thought there was so much work that needed to be done so far out from actually opening. A few things on my to do list, finish “finalizing” the products/services portion of the website, finish the business plan, fine tune the website, sign the contract/agreement for the health coverage and BoP insurance, payroll system…the list just keeps building. It does help to sit down and “vent” every so often and essentially write out what needs to get done. Looking at this list, I can certainly tell I am all over the place, it’s not even organized in little categories, it’s just a random list.
Overwhelmed would be an understatement, but I tend to feel like I work best when I am under pressure. When I’m in over my head I tend to drive harder and focus. When there is no pressure of “you can’t fail”, I just lose interest and then feel like there should be more. I bumped in to one of my old commanders in the Base Exchange the other day. It was good to see him and catch up, and in catching up I filled him in with all the on-going projects/events happening in my life. He said in jest ‘you sure know how to spread yourself too thin!’ to which I had an epiphany, and I shared the thought with him; I strive for the stress, the pressure, the “chaos” of trying to do way too many things at once and balance more than my mental capacity is probably capable of handling. If I am not over-tasked and burdened with trying to fit 20 hours of work into an 8 hour day, I feel like I am wasting space, like I’m not good enough, bored and disillusioned with my “productivity”.
I digress, though there are multiple stressors when it comes to starting a business and making sure your family is taken care of, there is a sense of gratification. Seeing everything come together, slowly but surely, definitely makes the drive that much more powerful. Recently, John and Jeremy and I were able to sit down and talk about the upcoming things needing to be done, go over some operational practices when it came to business email integration and just shoot the breeze in a relaxed setting. Of course, I had plenty of things on my list to get done, but it was a day to just relax and casually discuss the upcoming milestones. Afterwards, we grabbed some lunch and hit the disc golf course for a fun round poking fun and laughing amongst ourselves at Doc Cramer. In essence, it’s my happy place. Far from all the stress of life and business, being on the disc golf course just provides that serenity of peace and quiet, before hitting the first available tree on the fairway. Then it’s all curse words and how much we hate the sport haha!
With only 74 days left before opening, I think we’re on the right path. Only a few big items to check off the to-do list, but all-in-all, we’re pretty much ready to go. We’re slowly getting the word out there and will soon send out welcome and intro letters to the current client base of the former marina and cross our fingers for a positive response. I’ve learned a lot about business formation over the last six months, in the next few I’m hoping to learn more about operating a business. We’ve got plenty of brain power and experience to make this successful, so I’m confident in us as a whole.
I think now is the time to start steering this blog more in the direction of running a marine repair business rather than my ramblings of falling into something I’m passionate about.