345. Just get the task done now and don’t let it become bigger later

What happens when a seemingly routine contract dispute unravels the fabric of trust at a business? Join me as I recount the unexpected challenges of discovering altered contracts and missing keys, which raised doubts about my team’s integrity and our document management system. It all began with a member dispute that spiraled into finding redacted sections in our documents—a discovery that left me questioning both my team and the systems we rely on. As the pressure mounted, every step taken to resolve these issues revealed more layers of complexity and suspicion.

This episode offers a raw and candid look at the trials of business ownership, especially when a well-oiled machine unexpectedly grinds to a halt. From experiencing the chaos of misplaced trust to the exhausting task of digitizing an entire filing system overnight, I reflect on the burdens of leadership and the unforeseen hurdles that can arise. If you've ever found yourself questioning the reliability of your systems or the people around you, you'll find my journey both relatable and thought-provoking. Tune in to explore the intricacies of trust, leadership, and the resilience needed to navigate through unexpected business challenges.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:32

All right. Well, I am doing an impromptu drive to the studio. It's never straightforward, is it? But long story short, I went over the weekend and I was trying to. There's a member that has a certain like disagreement with their contract and so, excuse me, went into the studio, found their contract. Now, yes, it's paper, it's in a locked filing cabinet. Only two of the people have keys the gm and the assistant gm and I located one of the member contracts in question.

Speaker 1: 1:09

Um, and then today my gm was like hey, man, like just want to follow up, get closure. How do we proceed with this member disputing a contract verbiage? I'm like okay, yeah, well, let's proceed as this, proceed as that. He's like all right, may have some negative consequences, but you're cool with that. Yeah, that's fine, we're going to follow what we agreed to and this member is trying to. This member basically lied to us about some medical condition, said she. And this member basically lied to us about some medical condition, said she didn't have it, but then she reverted back to saying she has it so that she can get out of a one month Anyhow.

Speaker 1: 1:46

So today the GM is like hey, so like that section of the contract is redacted and the file is in a different part of the document. It's like well, what do you mean? Like it couldn't be redacted. And he's like well, no, like there's a section or like a paragraph that talks about a 60-day cancellation. So if you cancel and this is for you, the listeners if someone cancels their membership, we have a 60-day wrap-up policy. So like it's September right now, september 5. If you cancel, we're still going to process two more payments to close the month out, so you'll get all of september. You get all of october, kind of like when you give notice on your rent thing, it's basically we're mirroring how landlording works.

Speaker 1: 2:24

And he's like, yeah, man, like I know where that part of the contract is. It's, it's crossed out like with a sharpie. It's like it's like it wasn't there in the word document when we printed it. Or like someone took a marker and, like drew over it. It's like, no, like that one, like what the fbi does, like it was printed on the paper but someone has like redacted that so it's not even there. So we can't even prove if the member agreed to that and we agreed to that, or if someone came in in the past few days and started crossing it off. But like, yeah, dude, the first 30 contracts in this filing cabinet or whatever, whatever the number, he said, the first 30 all have that same thing crossed out. Like 30 in a row have that crossed out. It's like you're kidding.

Speaker 1: 3:06

He's like no, like something's going on and so it's either myself, the gm or the assistant GM, or I'd panic if all of a sudden now, like someone else was, like I don't know the, my GM made the key, got the key and the key locked. But like something like this is just driving me nuts and my GM has, he's misplaced some stuff. So part of me wonders like that he didn't. Did he do this? Did I? Is he just not like playing mind games with me? He's wanting me to not be trusting of the new manager I'm going to be bringing in, and so now he's trying to make me second guess and like resort back to him as my, my safety blanket that when I went in over the weekend to find the file that I organized I don't think I did I wouldn't have looked for redacted documents and put those at the front. But now I'm having to just go in and digitize everything in a night and stuff like this. That's just draining and I guess I wanted to complain out loud. But to realize, like buying a business, this was a fully staffed business, everyone knew what they were doing. Two years in seat for everybody like this is just ridiculous. And so we also had the meeting today where my GM announced he's wrapping things up, he's going to be here for two and a half more weeks and then I'm, um, I'm hiring one of my instructors to be the interim manager until I can find that permanent solution.

Speaker 1: 4:38

I'm I'm starting to think differently, though I had the thought over the weekend let's pretend that this business I was, I was the manager, I was the manager of the business for pretend sake and I was using investors money. Like one of my friends he's doing really well, um, he's now like, doesn't even know, like where his money goes, cause he's just having play money and he's just doing really's probably making 600 900 grand a year and he's just living it up, having a good life. If he invested in the business, I was the manager and and responsible for everything, would I be going to him asking hey, hey, friend, I know we lost money this month and the past nine months in a row. I need you to put in 10 more thousand so we can keep the doors open. He'd say why? What's around the corner, what's the upside, what's the potential? Where are things going to get better? And I don't have an answer for that. So he'd say, no, dog, we're wrapping this up, we're calling it good, we're going to start letting things slide, we're going to close the studio. And when the landlord in this and like we can't afford to keep this feeding this monster that is costing us money, we're not having made a dollar, we've lost 150 grand. How much more do we need to lose before we call it good? That's what the friend, that's what the friend rightly would say, right, rightly would say, and I would have no response other than like, yeah, you're right. So why would I treat the business any differently if it's my, if it's my funds and my stewardship, versus somebody else's funds and their and their thing that they own?

Speaker 1: 6:13

So, starting to view everything differently. I'm starting to view everything differently. I'm starting to realize the writing is probably on the wall and stuff like this. I just I need to focus on protecting the downside, reducing losses, reducing liabilities, just getting stuff under lock and key where only I have access to it, not even my staff, because stuff like this is just ridiculous. So calling it good, end the podcast there. So my takeaway, my learning, is if there's something that could be a headache or a hassle, just button it up. Just get it done out of the way. Don't try to fix it, don't or don't delay fixing it, just get it done. The term is eat that frog right now. I should have done this much earlier than today, and so, gosh, just looking forward to getting this all locked up and only under my access for editing purposes. That's where we're at, that's where we're going, that's where I can roll.