When 玛尼哈梅尔 talks about how much she gets done in a typical day, 你可能会认为她犯了一个数学错误. 哈默尔和她的妻子共同拥有两个D.C.-area offices of the home cleaning franchise Two Maids & 一个拖把, which keeps her busy at the office or on the computer from 7 a.m. 到晚上11点.m. But she also takes her twin six-year-olds to and from school, 找时间和他们一起玩, 和他们学校的志愿者. And she starts or ends most days with training for an Ironman, 她的第二个, squeezing a 40-mile bike ride or an 18-mile run into what already seems like an impossibly full day. (For the record, she claims to sleep six to seven hours a night.)
Call Hammel’s attention to her productivity, and she’ll shrug it off as normal lawyer behavior. 在私人执业中, 你接到电话那天就回电话,哈默尔说。, who worked in insurance law for 16 years before starting her own business. “That was something I was big on and I try to do that now, too.” She answers every email every day; her response rate on the business’s Yelp page is an eye-widening 96 percent. 她的秘密? “If I say I’m going to do something, I just do it,她说。, with the simplicity of a Zen master.
Being this productive obviously requires inordinate amounts of decisiveness and commitment. 你可能会认为这会让人变得死板. 但哈默尔远非如此. 事实上, 她说 that she never imagined herself running her own business; since the age of five, 她的梦想是当靠谱的滚球平台. As you might imagine, having made the decision, Hammel didn’t waste any time. After graduating from the University of Pittsburgh in 1996, 哈默尔最初在一家私人公司做诉讼靠谱的滚球平台, 然后是保险公司和经纪人. In 2011 she had twins, a boy and a girl, and she stayed home to care for them. In 2016 Hammel was preparing to go back to work when her wife, an entrepreneur who had helped launch several successful startups, 她说她想在当地买下“两个女佣”的特许经营权 & 一个拖把.
At first Hammel was adamant that she wanted to keep practicing law. But she also wanted to support her wife’s decision and make sure the business was a success. 最重要的是, 她喜欢这家公司不同寻常的付费模式, 哪个项目会奖励工作更出色的清洁工. So, in 2016 the couple took the leap and bought an office in Rockville, Maryland. 现在，哈默尔处理客户事务，管理员工, 而她的妻子负责会计, 工资, 以及企业的其他方面.
是什么让哈默尔感兴趣, 尽管她没有接受过这份工作的培训, 是强烈的目标感. She wanted to be a lawyer in the first place because “you can effectuate change and make a difference,她说。. “现在我只是用一种不同的方式来做.” She finds fulfillment in knowing she’s building a future for her children, helping families — many of them headed by professional women — have clean homes, 为清洁工提供更好的工作条件, 哪些人的工资通常非常低.
In 2017 the office began donating to Cleaning for a Reason, a nonprofit in the United States and Canada that matches women undergoing treatment for cancer with free house cleanings. 到目前为止，他们已经贡献了100多个小时.
After working with Cleaning for a Reason for six months, 这种使命感激励着哈默尔, 已经是一个狂热的铁人三项运动员了, 再一次勇敢的跳跃. Hammel had been wanting to run an Ironman for years, but the triathlon — a 2.游泳4英里，骑自行车112英里，还有26英里.2英里的长跑让她犹豫了一下. 她从来没有一起完成过这些距离. While one might think that starting her own business makes her a risk-taker, 哈梅尔显示, “我是那种不喜欢失败的人, so I’m not really good at trying things unless I know I can do it.”
But then she had the idea of using the event to raise money for Cleaning for a Reason, 这给了她所需要的推动力. 2017年10月, 筹集了2美元,000, she found herself crossing the finish line and hearing the words she’d dreamed of for a long time: “玛尼哈梅尔, 你是铁人.”
但这场竞选并非没有艰难的时刻. 她经营着一家小公司，忙碌的生活也不例外. But when Hammel begins to doubt herself, she remembers another important purpose — inspiring others. 在考虑是否要买“二女佣”的时候 & 拖把专营权, Hammel heard a few years ago at a conference that fewer than 3 percent of women-owned businesses earn $1 million in revenue. (While sources differ, one recent study puts that figure at 4.2%.“这让我很震惊，”她说. “Then, of course, my goal became, we’re going to be over a million dollars.” But this was not so much to prove something to herself, but to inspire others. “I’m trying to teach all the women I come across, ‘you can do whatever you want,’” Hammel says.
但要达到这些目标, it all comes down to making that deceptively simple decision in the moment to run the next mile or answer the next email, 无论如何. 哈默尔也这么说, 当焦虑进入, it’s better to focus on the part you’re on rather than the whole journey ahead. “如果你在自行车的60英里处, 你还得再跑52英里, 而且你还得跑一整个马拉松, 你只会把自己压垮,她说。. “这份工作也是如此.”
Hammel and her wife have since opened another office in Alexandria, 维吉尼亚州, and in 2018 they won the Fastest Growing Office 奖 at the Two Maids National Conference. 她的妻子想有一天再开四家办公室. But “if I think about that I’ll be under water,” Hammel says. “我必须一步一步来.” What she doesn’t lose sight of is the purpose of it all. 在她训练的无聊时刻, 她用咒语激励自己, “我要成为一名铁人. 我要成为一名铁人.”
尽管她最初有所保留, Hammel enjoyed her Ironman experience so much that she’s training for another in October 2018. Once again, she’s doing it as a fundraiser for Cleaning for a Reason. 她的声音里带着一丝调皮, 她说, “I feel like you can’t be a real Ironman unless you do more than one.”
