Meet Alyssa Westlake | Entrepreneur

We had the good fortune of connecting with Alyssa Westlake and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Alyssa, how has your work-life balance changed over time?
Life is too precious to not protect! The most influential revelation I have had when it comes to the tightrope of work-life balance is this: time is a currency.

My time is valuable. My husband and I are both owners of multiple businesses, and we have young children (3 kids under 7 years old). Every year, time seems to move a little faster. After a few seasons of serving our never ending to do list, I started to realize we were chasing our tails a bit. Understanding our purpose, values and priorities is key to maintaining our work life balance. One wise advisor shared the picture of a jar, rocks and gravel. Our time is the jar, our priorities are the rocks and anything else is gravel. When we start filling our jar with the gravel first, the rocks won’t fit. But if you place the rocks first, the gravel will then fit. Through counseling, mentorship and prayer, our family agreed on 7 priorities and this is how we make decisions to spend our time! Upon protecting what is important to us, our capacity for creativity and our energy to grow our businesses has increased.

There is a time for everything. Just years ago, my perspective was that everything needed to be equally split all of the time in order to maintain perfect balance. As I have grown, I have come to realize that balance is fluid. One season I may spend more time on a project than at home. Another season, I may need to pour into myself or my family more than my business. If you stay committed to your priorities and don’t let outside circumstances dictate how you spend your time, it will all equal out in the end.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
My husband Sam Westlake and I co-own The Arcade in Waxahachie. We were inspired by a new wave of free play arcades popping up in major cities, and we wanted to bring something like that to our area. Families are flooding to Ellis County and having a family of our own made us want to create a space where families and young adults can have a good time! 2018 was a year of planning and preparing-Sam made connections and started collecting Arcade games, we sold our first house and decided to invest what we had made from the sale into starting The Arcade.

While we both were operating other businesses at the time (Sam was running a landscaping business and I was teaching music classes), we had no idea what we were doing. We experienced several challenges such as finding the right space, moving and servicing the games, not considering some major expenses… but, we made it through thanks to our awesome property managers, and our support system. By the time of our grand opening in October of 2019, we had amassed several thousand social media followers which encouraged us. It confirmed we were meeting a need.

The Arcade is still experiencing the challenges that 2020 and 2021 brought to the world. However, even in the struggle, our vision and creativity has been refined. This year, we are excited to take The Arcade to the next level! It was our original plan to add food and beer/wine in 2020, but we had no idea how we were going to do it. I am happy to announce that I’m officially food manager certified and we are working on developing a menu with a culinary student who has been attending our tournaments. Once we obtain the necessary permits and create a physical kitchen within our space, we will be able to officially open the restaurant portion of The Arcade.

Our focus at The Arcade is connecting generations through the art of play. We want to inspire adults and kids alike to get in on the fun of gaming, and hopefully strengthen relationships through doing so. In an age of disconnection, we want to use the nostalgia of old school gaming and the attraction of new-school gaming to foster connection. Our heart is that The Arcade would be a place where people forget about their stress and focus on what matters in their life, and we’re using games/entertainment to do it.

Reflecting on our history and the challenges we have overcome, I can see how there were times we thought our plans were being thwarted. The truth is all of those hurdles were being transformed into steps that would lead us right where we need to be. All of the pressure that those obstacles brought, produced a clear vision in us and really showed Sam and I the purpose of The Arcade. Now, we have valuable experience and priceless perspective that will continue to guide us as we build on The Arcade and our other businesses.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Aw, how fun! Given that we’re in Waxahachie, we would probably stay local.

Waxahachie has some unique and delicious restaurants such as The Vault, College St. Pub, The Dove’s Nest, Farmluck and Two Amigos Taqueria. We would have to go to my favorite coffee shop-Three Rivers Coffee Company. I love the variety of drinks and snacks they offer! Shopping would be a must with places like SMD Boutique, Dazzling Divas, and Vaqueras. Some of my favorite hangout spots include Big Al’s Down the Hatch (Karaoke!) and Railport Brewing Company (SJ kitchen food truck and Latitude Cigars are often there)! And for when the sweet craving hits, I would take my friend to The Dessert Spot. Those cookies don’t play!

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I love this series! I’m going to take this opportunity to shoutout our support system! That would be Jesus, family, friends, our employees, our property managers, our church-Freedom Fellowship International and business coach Ellie Gates.

Jesus gave us the dream and the grace to achieve it. Our family has sown into us in countless ways whether watching the kids, offering wisdom or even investing in our businesses. We have a great group of friends that are our biggest fans. We are so grateful for all of their prayers and help spreading the word. The Arcade employees, both past and present have blown Sam and I away. It’s hard to trust a business to other people and for the most part, we have been so blessed to have passionate and dedicated employees! We know it is rare and we are so grateful. Moreno-Lake Property management has been so supportive of us and they have done everything they can to encourage our success. Freedom Fellowship has mentored us and provided a lot of opportunities for growth.

Lastly, Ellie Gates with Leadership Techne is a wonderful resource, we are forever grateful for the knowledge she has shared with us!

Website: www.thearcadetx.com

Instagram: @thearcadetx

Facebook: www.facebook.com/thearcadetx

Image Credits
Andrew Branca Joshua Fread Micheal Lopez