TBBVA 053: Staying Postitive In Your Virtual Assistant Business

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Tweetables:

Pull back on what you’re sharing if you’ve got negative folks around you.
#vatip Gotta Tweet!

There comes a time where you can no longer sit. You have to go.
#vatipGotta Tweet!

My lowest day in business does not compare to my best day in a corporate job. #vatip Gotta Tweet!

In Words:

Thank you so much for listening today, and we’re going to talk about how to stay positive in your VA business.  I am going through a special training for business and one of the questions is about how to stay positive.  That was a question that was posed for our homework this week.

It got me thinking about what is it that does keep me positive about my business?  It’s really simple for me and that’s because I reflect on what it was like before.  I remember not liking going to work.  I remember not liking sitting in a cubicle.  I remember not liking having a dress code.  I remember not liking having to ask permission to take vacation.

I remember feeling like when I was sick, I had to prove that I was sick.  I don’t mean where they require a doctor’s note after you’ve been out three days or so.  But I mean the first day you have to call in sick, I felt like I had to prove that I was sick.  Those are things that on my lowest day in business, I reflect on what it was like before.

My lowest day in business does not compare to my best day in a corporate job.  It does not compare.

What keeps me positive is the fact that what do I have to complain about?  Nothing.  Yes, people are going to be people.  There are going to be some great people.  There are going to be some not so great people.  There is going to be a busy time and a not so busy time.  There are going to be times where you’re stepping outside of your comfort zone or times where you’re in your comfort zone.

But the beauty of it all is that it’s yours.  It’s what you created.  It’s like when you move out into your first apartment and you realize this is mine.  I can put whatever furniture I want.  I can decorate it however I want.  It’s mine.  That’s how it is with your business.  It’s yours.

Every day is a positive day in your office.  Why?  It’s yours.  If it’s not a positive day, it’s yours.  It’s up to you to look to see, well, why am I being negative about something I created?  If you’re not being negative, woo hoo!  I’m so glad because you should always be positive about your thing.  It may not be where you want it to be.  But hey, it’s a work in progress and it’s moving, right, moving forward.

If you’ve got some negative folks around you that are causing you to doubt yourself or doubt your decisions or doubt your abilities, it’s time to change your environment.  You have control over that.  You have control over who you allow to speak into you, into your business.  You have control over who you share things with.

When you first get started and you’re all excited, you do what to share.  You want to share maybe with your family, maybe with friends.  But you quickly discover who can handle what you’re sharing.  It doesn’t take long to figure out who can handle it.  It’s not that they’re not being supportive.  They may just be scared, and not even scared for you but scared for themselves because they know it’s not something that they would do, so they could easily put off their fears on you.  But once you realize who’s who, pull back on what you’re sharing.  People can’t handle everything.

If you’re working full-time and starting your virtual assistant business and you’re sharing that and you get a sense that somebody can’t handle what you’re sharing, pull back.  You don’t have to share that with them.  You may have to just talk to yourself.  I know when you’re really excited about something, maybe you’ve just got to share.  There are some things I’ve just got to share.  I’m so excited.  So just talk out loud to you, to God.  You don’t have to tell it to another person if there is no one who can handle what you’re sharing, and that’s okay.  It doesn’t have to be someone.

You have the desire in you to get started or to grow or to go to the next level, whatever that next level is.  There are many businesses that started as service-based businesses and transitioned over to other things, to products, to training, and no longer providing a service.  It’s not even that you have to stay in the service side of it, whatever your dream is, whatever your vision is for your business.

That leads me to something else I wanted to talk about because when you’re talking about being positive in your business, you know, you can’t help it.  If you’re someone who dreams big, you have big ideas, vision for your business, being excited about that, for me, I like to ask other people like what is it that you want to do.  Not asking them so that I can share my stuff.  I don’t even share my stuff with most people.  Few people know what I do because I know everybody can’t handle it.  A lot of people are used to the whole 9:00 to 5:00 and the whole concept of having your own business is just beyond imaginable, so I don’t share it a whole lot.

I am curious about what other people’s dreams are and it’s simply because I am watching my dream come true.  I dreamed I wanted to work from home.  I didn’t know what kind of business.  I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I wanted to work from home.  I’ve wanted to work from home since I graduated college, but I was told, “Well, you haven’t done your time yet.  You have to get you a job.”  You know, all the have to’s that I’m sure you’ve probably heard as well.

I’m curious to know what other people’s dreams are because the majority of people aren’t going to turn in their notice to their job and leave on something that’s not guaranteed.  Most people wouldn’t do that, but when you are in a position where you feel like whatever I jump out towards is better than this – not talking about being irresponsible, especially if you have a family and obligations and things like that.

There comes a time where you can no longer sit.  You have to go. 

I’m curious about what other people’s desires in life are because time goes by so fast.  Sometimes time is going by so fast you don’t have time to think, and sometimes we think too long about things.  If it’s already in your head, you’ve been thinking about it.  You’ve been thinking about it.

I’m always curious to know what is that people want to do, because most people sit in an office.  That’s not what they dreamed about doing.  When they were in the third grade that is not what they dreamed to be sitting in a cube answering somebody’s phone.  That’s not what they dreamed, or to be working at the bank as a teller.  That’s not what they dreamed, or to be a manager at their job.  That’s not what they dreamed.

Just because someone is in what we consider – and I’m going to say “we” because in the corporate world if you have a title, that’s a great thing.  What we, general public “we” deems a good place to be may not be what the person dreamed of or where they want to be.

It’s always interesting to find out, you know, what is it.  The scariest thing is when the person says, “I don’t know.”  I recently asked someone about that.  It was over the weekend.  We were talking about work.  They were talking about their work and what they had to do and all this stuff.  Me, being the curious one, I wanted to know what is it that you really want to do?  There was a pause and then “I don’t know.”  That’s a scary answer to me because the clock is ticking, and that’s not a true answer.  But if you haven’t been thinking about what it is that you really want to do in such a long time, it’s easy to suppress it.  It’s easy to forget it if you haven’t thought about it in 20 years.

When I was a kid, I used to line up all my dolls and stuffed animals and I would teach the class.  Everybody had a name and I pretty much would use the names of kids at school.  I loved writing on the chalkboard and teaching them.  As I got older, you know, when you get to junior high it’s not so cool to be teaching bears and stuff like that, but I was studying in the same way.  My studying would be like I was teaching the class and that would help me to remember what I’d learned because I was teaching it to my imaginary class.

To this day, I’m still doing that because I get to share with you every week here on the podcast.  I do different training classes for virtual assistants.  I am watching my dream come true, and my imaginary students are still there.  Like I don’t see you, but you’re there.  I’ve been doing this for a long time.

What did you play as a kid?  I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before on the podcast.  I can’t remember.  It’s always funny.  One of the things, my best friend growing up, we would always play is office, and her mom would let us use old checkbooks and we would have the manila folders and papers and, oh, just being able to neaten the papers.  You know how you straighten up your papers by hitting them on the table?  Oh, that was just so exciting to me.  Then pretending to write out checks and all that stuff.  Of course, we didn’t know how to write checks, but we were going by what we had seen our parents do.  It looked like they were just scribbling or whatever, so that’s what we would do in our play and it was fun.

Guess what, I never liked playing house.  That was not fun to me, but playing office, playing school.  I never played school with anyone else because that way you don’t have to worry about who’s going to be the teacher because I was the teacher.  At my school, I was the only teacher.

If it’s been a long time since you’ve thought what is it that I want to do, it’s time to start thinking about that stuff.  Pull out some paper.  Write it down.

Whatever your mode is for thinking, sometimes thinking is just not in your head.  It’s getting it down on paper and writing it down and having fun with it because there’s no right or wrong, and going as big as you want to in that.

When I was thinking about where my virtual assistant business could go, I remember writing in my journal.  I had started.  I didn’t really fully understand the whole thing, so in my mind I was like, oh, I could have virtual assistants in different areas of town and we do this and that.  You know, dreaming, getting it down on paper.  The things that you write, it’s not a contract.  It’s not something that can’t be changed.

I think when we grow up and get responsibilities and all this stuff, it’s like all of a sudden the rug of fun and creativity and play, it’s like it’s yanked out from under us.  We forget that we still have that same imagination.  We still have that same fun outlook.  It’s just buried beneath all these things and other people’s ideas and other people’s fears.  Just like the play and fun and creativity was ripped out from under you, we have to rip away other people’s fears, ideas, and what they expect from us, and go back to who we are.

Something got posted on social media recently and it was something about bring out your inner Beyoncé.  I didn’t like that.  I don’t have an inner Beyoncé.  That’s ridiculous.  I am who God created me to be and he created me to be me.  If you’re reading stuff like that wanting to bring out your inner whoever, that’s not you.  No, don’t accept that.  Don’t accept that.

The whole point of this and the positive attitude is really getting you back to the root of who you are, who God created you to be, and what he created you to do.  What did he create you to do?  How will you make a difference in somebody else’s life?  How will you share your life and your experience with other people?  It could start out with your virtual assistant business and then grow, expand to other things.  We don’t know.

It goes back to pulling out that paper and writing down the dreams and ideas of what you want your life to be.  If that’s just too grand, start small.  Okay, what do I want my business to look like?  What do I want a day to look like when I’m not working?  What do I want my workday to look like when I am working?  Those are not to make a list of your goals, because we’ve really made that kind of starchy and stale as well, you know.

I challenge you to get positive about your life and who you are and your business.  I challenge you to dream again and to write those things down.

For those of you that are like, “Look, Tiffany, I know what I want to do.  I’ve got my dreams.  I know where I’m going,” this and that, that’s awesome.  I’m excited for you because you’re over a big hump that a lot of people aren’t.  The next thing for you is what are you doing to get there?  I can have all these things written down on notebook paper, journals, books, whatever, with ideas, but if that’s all they are and they just sit and nothing happens with them, then guess what?  Nothing is doing to happen with them.

If you’ve got it all written down, what are you doing to get it moving?  What are you doing to get it moving?  What steps are you taking beyond where you are right now to get you to where you want to go?  That is a daily thing, doing something every single day to get you closer to where you want to be.  It’s a daily thing.  Some days it will be an external thing that has to happen and some days it will be an internal thing that has to happen.  It’s going to be different for everybody.

I know today’s episode was a little different, but it’s almost like I feel like we need to just pause and do some reflection and get excited about the endless possibilities that are in front of us, and not allow anyone to get in our way of accomplishing what we want to accomplish.

If I had to list out action steps for you, it would be:

1) Get positive about your business.  Got positive about your life.  Both of those things, you’ve created.  You’ve created your business.  You’ve created your life.  If there’s something you don’t like about it, change it.

2) Get to writing down your dreams.  Write a vision.  Not a vision statement.  Not a mission statement.  I’m talking about dreams, fun.  Write it down.  Write down what the possibilities could be for what you want out of your life.  If you’re creative and you draw pictures of things, draw in a picture.  It doesn’t matter.  It’s for you.  It’s not to go on your website.  It’s not to go on social media.  It’s not so you can share it with anybody.  It is for you.  It’s for you.

3) Make the decision to do something every single day to get you closer to the thing that you wrote down.  Know that whatever you wrote down, it’s flexible.  Just because you write it doesn’t mean it has to be, or it can’t be more.  You’re not limited.  That’s just to get you started.  I’m going to guess that once you get started and write this stuff down, you’ll be so excited about doing that you’ll start doing it on a regular basis.  Once you accomplish something on that paper, there’s going to be more and more and more, so it doesn’t stop.  It doesn’t stop, so just continue that.  Those are the three action steps.

If this is your first time listening to the podcast, you found me through a Google search or a friend shared it or however you found me, I’m just so excited that you’re here.  If you’re a regular listener, I appreciate you listening every single week.  Thank you so much.  Come holler at me.  You know where to find me.

If you have any other questions, come on over to my Facebook page. You know where to find me.
Thanks so much for tuning in. If you like what you heard, stay tuned. We’ll be back. Tell me what’s going on with you. Come on over the Facebook page: facebook.com/tiffanyparsonbiz, or if you prefer a little shorter message, come on over to Twitter: @tiffanydparson.

See you next time!