Virtual Assistance and You

This blog has a modest readership, and I gather that most of you are fellow virtual assistants.  If you’re not a VA, you probably work with VAs or you’re looking into working with one. Whichever of these categories defines you, it’s likely that you’re a solopreneur, or at least an entrepreneur, working your buns off to realize a dream.

Most of my clients are people involved in work that is close to their heart. They may have had previous employment in corporate circles or other organizations, but now they are committed to realizing the best expression of themselves, the best gifts they can make to life.

Usually people don’t work up the gumption to go into business for themselves until later in life, if at all. But since our economy is so fragile, more peeps nowadays are leaving the corporations to venture out on the high wire of their native proclivities, presuming to make a living through in-depth experience of whatever thing(s) they are passionate about. The risk involves blood, sweat, and tears; and then the simple heaven of knowing you gave it your best shot. You might succeed and you might not, but you will not wonder what if.

Most VAs will know what I mean, because we are business owners who usually start out as solo efforts, whether we stay there or not. We know what it is to depend on your own belief in yourself.

There are so many others, as well, who will relate to the compelling drive to find their best expression, who do not want to settle for what others want them to be. It takes a lot of courage to stop working a safe job in favor of doing something that comes more naturally to you. A barrage of ancient rules and taboos gets in the way, not to mention the paralyzing fear of loss.

Being who you most profoundly are, submitting to the vision quest in search of how your core self can be most useful to both your self and your fellow human beings, requires huge strength and ongoing faith. It’s certainly not the easy way out.

The current limelight on branding as a concern of every individual shows that the trend towards increased self-employment is not just a blip on the radar. Personal branding is about taking responsibility for the chain of events that is your career, both where you plan to end up, and every step on the way. It’s your life, not your boss’ or your father’s or some other leader’s. You are the center of your universe. Because of this, strengthening your core skills is always in your best interest.

Many don’t recognize a core skill apart from their daily work as it is. But for those who feel a disconnect between their occupation and their compassionate pre-occupation, proceeding to your own business or practice is inevitable.

And if you’re on that road, it’s my advice to do all you can to find company. Seek out places where you can find others similarly realizing their dreams, who can support and sustain you. It could make all the difference.

A few recent observations:

• I feel a strong urge to share with you this article by David Castro, an Ashoka Fellow, on the subject of social entrepreneurship, because it really took my breath away;
• I’ve been offended, lately, by the aggressive presence of political and religious representatives in business networking meetings, and feel like ranting on the trend;
• I remember that profound old maxim of creative production: weed out those parts you love the best, and then you begin to approach a worthy work of art.

These thought threads intertwine; and in describing how they do so, maybe some usefulness can be extracted.

•  Castro’s article is compelling and challenging. Social entrepreneurship is defined as establishing repeatable systems that create value, where value is defined as receiving more than you put in.

How is it possible to harvest more than you plant? The metaphor proves the point: what actual harvest is inferior to the lowly seeds that started the whole thing? The harvest is blessing beyond any discernable effort.

Even though expressly for-profit, as opposed to Castro’s focus on non-profit entrepreneurship, any business may benefit from understanding this natural law. What kinds of inputs will yield returns far richer than their sources? How can you organize in ways that realize surplus, and therefore ensure experimentation and growth?

•  My particular geographical region tends to be somewhat parochial, if not downright backwoods, when it comes to religion and politics. You have to expect a dominant contingent of redneck mentalities wherever groups are gathered here. I know this and generally manage it tolerably, but lately, it’s gotten out of hand. Preachers rail at us in their 30-second elevator speeches; Tea Party cavalry keep us hostage in their 10-minute presentations.

Certainly I will defend to the death your right to whatever convictions you choose. But this is a country where we agree that separation of Church and State is ideal; and where respect for trade supposedly levels all playing fields.  I come to these meetings for commerce, not to be sermonized.

•  An insidious force working against your forward progress may be your own sentimentality. Consider this scenario: you make something, anything, a creation that involves (and is intended to communicate) your imagination, self-expression, and choice-making. Included is a part of it – perhaps the original whim that gave you inspiration, or some other small piece that fell miraculously into place just when you needed it – there’s a part of your creation that you love especially, more than the rest.

When you come the point that you know that that very piece is the one that must be deleted, when you see that without that one beloved bit your creation will finally communicate with the greatest clarity, then and only then do you approach true completion of your project.

So there’s the pattern:

1. Surplus for survival.
2. Separation of trade and opinion.
3. Exile sentimentality.

• I like Castro’s article because it suggests answers can be found in working smarter, more holistically and more realistically.
• I dislike proselytizing in business networking meetings because it suggests answers can be found in what someone else tells you to believe.
• I use the teaching about throwing out the part you love the best because it suggests answers can be found when I get out of my own way.

Yes, just a few musings on business life. A motley crew of perceptions. But the whole is far more glorious than the parts; the harvest is far richer than the tiny seed.

How about you? What has possessed/obsessed your thought recently?