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Hi and welcome to The Business of Being a Virtual Assistant. I’m your host Tiffany Parson, and you’re watching and listening to episode number 161.
As I was preparing for this week’s episode I usually jot down different topics to discuss and the thing that stood out the most to me was to talk to you about the courage of being different.
You see, starting your own business requires you to step outside of the crowd to be different from the norm. And the fact that you’re watching and listening to this episode says that you fit into that category of being difference.
Let’s talk about courage.
Courage is the ability to do something that frightens you. It’s frightening to decide to step out on your own and say to the world, I am providing this service and this is the cost or to say I want to help people, and I want to be in charge of who the people are that I help. What it costs, how it’s marketed, I wanna be in charge of the whole shebang and how to put it all out there. That takes courage and it’s frightening.
Destiny.
Being a business owner means you’re taking control of your destiny and destiny are the events that will happen to a particular person or thing in the future.
You’re taking charge of that thing. Your destiny. By being your own business owner by saying you want to be a business owner.
Now here’s the kicker: It requires us to step out and do it.
Courage includes doing something, right? Regardless of our fear. Yes, it is frightening that people could reject us or say no. But guess what?
Even in a safe and secure situation. Something that we think is safe, we think is secure, we think has a guarantee, we can still be told “No”. We can still be rejected.
If you’ve ever been laid off or fired, then you’ve been told “No”, you’ve been rejected.
If you’ve ever interviewed for a job and you just knew you had it and you were told “No”, that is being rejected.
There are no more guarantees in the workforce. There haven’t been any guarantees in the workforce for a long time.
I think it was like 2008 when layoffs became a regular thing that we were here about on the news or just with the people that we know day after day after day.
So there are no more guarantees, no more security. So the thing that you may be still holding on to, the guarantee of your job, a regular paycheck, stability, health care, those things are changing every single day.
If it’s burning in your heart to start something or to continue it, and I get it. If you’re already in your business, there’s gonna be days where you’re gonna be like, you know what, I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t wanna work with people. I don’t want to work with clients. I’m just gonna go back to a regular job.
I did that. It happens to all of us. However, it does not change the burning desire within to want to build your own thing. A true business owner, that does not go away. Even when you’ve been told “No”. Even when you want to give up. Even when you’re frustrated.
But you’re different!
You’re not meant to be in the box. If you know that you like to express yourself with lots of colors, but you’ve been sticking to muted tones, neutral tones, and being really conservative, but you know that’s not you, I would encourage you to be different.
The more you embrace yourself, the more you’ll be able to embrace what your goals are, what your desires are.
We have to embrace who we are first, before we can go and accomplish the goals.
See, we could get mixed up and think we’re accomplishing our goals and realize in the midst of that, we’re not accomplishing our goals at all. Those goals belong to someone else. They might belong to your parents, or your peers or society, because you left yourself behind somewhere.
Think about your creative self.
And you might think, well, Tiffany, I’m not really creative, but I believe in some way all of us are creative.
And I don’t mean, you know, back in the day, creative meant you could draw or sing. You were in the arts or drama. No, you may be a creative thinker or writer, or how you put pieces together, how you solve problems. That’s still in you.
If you know you’ve been inside of the box and the reason why, you know, you listen to this podcast or watch the videos week after week, and maybe you binge watch them. But yet you haven’t done anything is because you haven’t embraced who you are, and that requires us to have the courage to be different.
If I didn’t have the courage to be different, I wouldn’t even be recording this right now. I would be working at a bank because banking is the biggest thing in my city. I’d be working at a bank, miserable and wondering…Is there more?
I’m here tell you that there’s more!
The beauty about having the courage to be different is that it doesn’t matter what people think. It doesn’t matter what people say because you already know, you’re different.
I have known since I was a little girl that I was different from everyone else. I went to catholic elementary school and you know, when you go to private school, you have to wear uniform and stuff, but they still let us express ourselves in some way.
Me, I would wear colorful leggings that were not the colors of the uniform, and sometimes I would get in trouble for that. I would wear mismatched earrings. I never got in trouble for that, but I got a funny looks. But I loved it. I loved what I was doing. I loved creating and doing different things, and that was back in elementary school.
Somewhere along the way, she got lost and I started doing things the regular way. And I could probably pinpoint that it started back when you’re learning about interviewing and what to do for your job. And it totally killed my creativity and expressing myself outwardly, uh, not as far as my personality, but as far as my look.
And as a result, it costs me to, you know, kind of act like everybody else.
And this is how I know I’d be in banking. My internship was in banking, and I hated it. It was awful, but I didn’t know anything else.
And if you’re like me, you have boomer parents who grew up during a time where safety, security, education was the number one thing. Then that’s also what they pushed on you and what you believed because that’s what you saw around you. Thankfully, those days are over.
It’s over. The safety and security, those jobs, people get have been getting laid off, left and right. And they’ll even lay you off and rehire you. I mean it’s just crazy.
And I am talking to you the one listening to this podcast as a business owner because surely you wouldn’t be listening and watching this and you don’t want to own your own business.
It doesn’t make sense. Why would you listen to it? So I already know that you’re different. Now we gotta tap into that courage.
Courage doesn’t mean you’re no longer frightened. It just means you’re doing it anyway.
What’s holding you back? Do it anyway. Take control over your destiny.
There’s no security. There’s no guarantee. There’s no safety net.
You are your safety net.
You are because no one can take away your creativity.
No one can take away your knowledge.
No one can take away who you are and the resilience to continue to get up. To continue to push forward, and to change things if you need to.
Because you may have fallen into traps like I did. Way back when being a part of the normal thing and what people usually do. Go to college, get a job, you know all these secure, safe things. That when it’s time to go out and you want to start your own business. You have that desire in you. You found this podcast. But you’re looking for how? Because nobody taught you how?
Nobody taught me how either. I just looked for the tools and decided to show up as myself and say here, here I am. Here’s what I have and keep moving that way.
People will love it. People won’t love it. Either way, you will find those that gravitate towards you. You will find the right clients but the only way to do that is to step out and have that courage to be different.
And I know they’re gonna be people, family, friends, that don’t understand. It’s not for them to understand.
They don’t need to know. Oh, are you? Do you have enough saved up? What about your health care? How can you guarantee you’re gonna get paid?
It’s none of their business. If they’ve never been a business owner, I love you, it’s none of your business.
And so once you know that, you probably know who you can talk to you about these things and who you can’t talk to about these things. Don’t try to make them be someone that they’re not, just like you don’t want someone to continue trying to make you into someone you’re not.
You’re ready to burst out of your shell. You are. And you can. Take a step forward.
For those of you that have been doing your business for a while, what is it that you’ve been holding on to you as a safety?
Is it a service you’ve been doing for a long time and you have the desire to add something else. Maybe have a desire to now bring on a team. Maybe you want to service a different niche.
Courage. Step out and do it. Make the change. Just because you’re known for transcriptions, known for Pinterest, doesn’t mean you can’t switch to bookkeeping.
It’s your business. It’s your life. You do it the way you see fit. This is your push to have the courage to be different.
You have a wonderful and fantastic day!
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