VA Success Spotlight: Meet Christine

 

Every week in the VA Success Spotlight, I introduce you to a graduate who is living her best life as a Virtual Assistant.

I love how different these stories are. They are a tribute to how, as a Virtual Assistant you get to design the life you want to live.

This week, meet Christine Thomas, Targeted Business Support.

Before Christine was a Virtual Assistant, she was homeschooling her daughter, who had a learning disability, and piecing together part-time work wherever she could find it. She did anything she could for the small business owners she knew. She even taught preschool at her church, because it was flexible.

When the homeschooling years came to an end, and she had more time to work, she started applying for jobs.

What she told me probably won't surprise you: "I felt like all the years I spent raising and educating my children didn't provide any real-world experience."

Please read that again, because so many women not only believe this, but allow it to limit them.

On top of that, Christine's husband has some health issues, and he worried about her. He worried that if something happened to him, she wouldn't be able to provide for herself.

That is an unspoken fear a lot of women live with and rarely say out loud. 

Then Christine found the program and our community. 

She almost didn't join. "I thought I could probably figure it out myself," she said, and she could have pieced it together on her own eventually, but it would have taken a lot longer. The program gave her direction and a community, and got her where she wanted to be much faster. 

She had no idea what any of it would look like. She had never imagined working with a lot of clients. She has now worked with more than 45 of them, and she's honestly lost count. 

Here's my favorite part of Christine's story: Christine is now a breadwinner for her family. 

"I know I'll be okay," she told me, "because I'm an actual breadwinner for the family now. I'm not just providing a little bit extra. I make actual good money." 

She contributes to their retirement now, something she was never able to do before. They take more trips. 

"We're able to not worry about where the next paycheck is coming from anymore," she said, "because we know we can create it ourselves." 

I asked her what she would say to a woman who thinks she has been out of the workforce too long. 

"They haven't. Plain and simple. You have your real-world experiences. It just may not be what someone else determines is a real-world experience. 

Start, learn how to build your business, and then you will be the predictor of your future, not somebody else who's looking at you at a job." 

If you've looked at the years you gave to your family and wondered whether any of it counts. If you've filled out an application and felt like you had nothing to put down. If someone in your life is counting on you, and you want to know you could carry the weight if you had to... 

Christine wants you to hear that your experience counts. And that you get to be the one who decides what comes next. 

If this is something you'd like to check out for yourself, registration for the next VA Business Launch Pad is officially open. 

Three free live sessions, July 9, 14, and 16 at noon ET, where I'll show you what a Virtual Assistant actually does, how to know if you have the right skills, how to find clients, and how to price your services. 

If this has been something you think about, come find out if it's real and if it's for you. 

Learn more and register here: https://www.thevaconnection.com/valaunchpad