A week in Kauai and so much has happened! Sandra and I just had our first vacation since opening the Float Shoppe in December 2011! It was beautiful celebration of our love for each other as well as how far our business has come. 10 days away and our baby ran on it's own without any guidance from us. It was incredible. Getting back into town I found so much had changed. We are now listed on the float conference website as potential speakers, a personal float tank business had been kickstarted online, and while we were gone the Float Shoppe grew up without us!

We Need Your Vote!

Floating for the Athlete in Training When I got back into town I saw that one of our awesome team members at the Float Shoppe, Jennifer Love was listed as a potential speaker at the 2014 float conference! I am super excited to hear her talk about athletes floating and potentially having another ultra-marathon runner talk as well (she's an ultra-girl herself!)   13 Tips to Successfully Start and Run Your Own Float Center! I also want to give a presentation with my buddy and blog guru Brian Van Peski. He is behind the scenes on every blog post and it would be a blast to give a presentation on stage with him. We want to cover the top 13 things we have learned about how to successfully start and run a float center. We will be drawing on my experience starting a center and the 2 1/2 years it has been in operation as well as the knowledge we have gained while working with float centers around the world since starting the blog. Brian also draws on his experience as "employee zero", as the guy who helped build all of our backend infrastructure and organization. We are going to have a lot of fun on stage while giving the best information we have gathered. If you’d like to place a vote for us, you can do so on the speaker section of the Float Conference website.

Kickstarter

It's been difficult knowing this was coming and not being able to talk about it, but Shane finally launched his very exciting project on Kickstarter while we were away. Not only that, but it was funded before I got back from vacation! Check out the future of personal floatation and visit his Zen Float Tent project on Kickstarter. Please contribute and help Shane start off with as much success as possible!

Are We Helicopter Parents?

There are a few instances that have occurred at the Float Shoppe recently that feel very analogous to parenting. We put everything we have into our business and do everything we can to ensure its success, but then something happens where we have to loosen the reins for a bit and we are always surprised by the result. The first time was when we decided to open our Yoga center. We knew that we were going to have to put a lot of our attention on the new business and didn't feel the shoppe was running in a fashion that we could walk away from and trust all would be well. The second time was just last week as Sandra and I were on vacation. These were instances in which we both completely let go of the reigns and were really proud of the results. Both times the same thing happened, everyone at the shoppe elevated their game. More ownership was taken on by our employees and they made the shoppe even more their own. It's an incredible sight to look at our employees and see so much power and responsibility in their eyes. Just like a parent who wants to take care of their child, yet allow them room to grow into their own, I think the trick is going to be figuring out when and how we should loosen the reigns in the future to allow growth to happen.