374. Bankruptcy hearing scheduled, still working on refunds, met another entrepreneur

Chapters

• 1:03 Studio closure and refund process
• 3:51 Bankruptcy hearing confirmation
• 5:19 Personal life and hunting weekend
• 6:52 Meeting another struggling entrepreneur
• 9:15 Member reactions and moving forward

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:32

Good morning, happy Tuesday. So we're about eight days past the closing of the studio and right now we're working. I'm working with corporate on the refunds process. So it was a little strange At first. They were like hey, you got, just wire us everything that you've got. I said cool, what's the wiring info? I went you know, please write down that these are are gonna be used exclusively for refunds and no other purpose. That way, if someone asked me like, hey, can you confirm one way or the other, I said well, I have been writing that. That's the sole reason they're going to do so. Just wanting to to cover myself in case that's an additional question that happens in the future. What else, what else? Oh yeah, I got a text from one of the franchise support people yesterday.

Speaker 1: 1:21

That's how we often communicate. He said they were telling up the total dues that they need to have refunded and they'll send that over to me. I said, all right, well, that's fine, I can just wire you everything that I've got, because I can't do anything more than that. Say oh, it's all good, you know, let's just do the see the total refunds amount and then we'll send that over. So I don't know. My hunch is corporate is going to say like, hey, here's how I imagine it playing out. I think corporate's going $15,000 of services that were paid for that are not being delivered on, or something, something like that, and I can respond back all right, I don't have $15,000. I have 3,800 or 4,000 or something. It's like right around three. It's like right around that. And so I'll say, all right, sounds good. Here is every dollar I have in the business account for that purpose wire and we'll say, all right, cool, where's the remaining 12,000 or 10,000 or whatever it is the remaining amount? So I don't know, I don't have that.

Speaker 1: 2:32

I've paid my staff, I've paid my vendors. I have not paid myself in five months. I finally figured it out Um, the last time I paid myself was, um, when I fired that that one toxic employee months ago. So it was about five months ago. Um, I haven't paid myself since then, and before then I cut my salary, and so I'm sorry, well, where's the money? I don't know.

Speaker 1: 2:57

I've paid everybody besides myself for 5 months. This is what I can do. And I'll say, alright, well, this amount is due. And they'll say, ok, I don't have it, sorry, sorry. And then they'll either say okay, fine, and then walk away. Or they'll say, okay, we're going to come after you for the remaining funds and I'll say, okay, bankruptcy protection, I have no funds to send you. And then that'll be it. And then either corporate will end up making the difference or members will just not get reimbursed on that amount, or, I don't know, maybe someone will come in and buy the studio and they'll cover the difference. I doubt that they would, but there'll be an impasse, is my point and so there's someone's going to be left being feeling shorted on the amounts owed to everybody, and I don't know what's going to happen there. I can do my best, I can give 100, but I can't know what's going to happen there. I can do my best, I can give 100%, but I can't give 150%. That is inherently not doable, excuse me. So that's where that is in progress.

Speaker 1: 4:10

What else? We got our confirmation from the courts, so we know our day and time for our official hearing. It sounds like the way this proceeds is we have our initial hearing and that's where all the creditors, us and the judge meet and we state our case, and then the judge does follow-up or a future determination or something, and then it'll still be another month and a half, maybe two months, before we get our official bankruptcy discharge or something. So it's not like a one and done. It sounds like there's a follow up there. What else Corporate did? Ask for admin access to the Facebook groups. So that's promising. I sent them, or invited them, as an admin of the groups that we've got. So it appears they may open it up again or they're just using it for easier communications with people. But either way, handing that asset over to corporate, happy to it, no problems there.

Speaker 1: 5:08

And then over the weekend went deer hunting and trying to be a rounded human being and to not just be obsessed with one thing the fact that we haven't taken a vacation for seven years. We've had maybe like four date nights in the past two years, three years, like that's only when there's family in town. Like we haven't done a good job building up our network of babysitters or community to like do kid swaps or day swaps and so like all of our date nights have been like 8 pm to to 10 pm when the kids are in bed. And so when we hear all the couples say, oh, we're going to go on a date night, we're going to go on a couples only vacation, like cool. That sounds really nice. My wife and I will have to get creative on how to do that because we're living on a couple dollars right now, so there's not a whole lot of wiggle room to go do things. So not stressed about it, not anxious.

Speaker 1: 6:14

Over the weekend I did meet a, a new friend, I suppose, deer hunting that long story short. They did fine in their career and then in a couple bad deals lost everything and had to move back to Minnesota, like middle of nowhere Minnesota. And now they're starting up a business and that's they're putting everything they have into it. They've sold their house, they're driving a 300,000 mile truck, their car credit cards are getting maxed out right now and their vehicle could die any day trying to get this business up and going. And so I guess we're lucky in the sense that I didn't max out and have $80,000 of credit card debt and my vehicle has a hundred, or one vehicle is one 70, 170, the other one has like 120s, but like it's like we're in a pretty cushy spot comparatively.

Speaker 1: 7:13

But just to see someone else's perspective on like how deep you can go trying to get something to work, and he's got the conviction it's going to be a billion dollar business, which is great, um, that's awesome. And so just to see an entrepreneur who is willing to go all in and like borrow from friends and family and like lever everything up across the board cause they're that confident in it and I guess I wasn't that confident the studio could be a billion dollar studio and I believed that borrowing to keep the studio float would just leave friends and family hanging because I borrowed from myself, I borrowed from I could, just I could see where it was at and I couldn't see how to turn it around. After pulling every lever, was not able to turn around. So, anyhow, it was refreshing to see someone who has that vigor, that optimism, that ability to handle stress and recover from hiccups along the way. So that's some unrelated to studio. It's more so like life outlook. I think right now I'm in the life recovery phase of heartbreak, life reset, living paycheck to paycheck again, and how do we recover and get a new normal back up and going? So keep you in the loop.

Speaker 1: 8:47

In regards to bankruptcy follow-ups, I can't control what members decide to do or react. I've got a couple more kind messages from people that realize that we're going through a real hard time and that's not easy, and they're at least expressing sympathy, empathy I don't know what it is, but they're acknowledging that it's not easy and they're at least expressing, like sympathy, empathy. I don't know what it is, but they're acknowledging that it's not easy. And it's not like we're just running away with a pile of gold. We're basically having to leave empty-handed and with scars from all this. So the total of kindness to kindness to toxicness is probably like a seven to one ratio right now. Um, and so it's nice that it's panned out that way so far. So I'm going to call it good, keep in the loop as to where things go from here. That's where we're at, that's where we're going. Let's rock and roll.