Are You Ready to Dare to Dream and Develop Your Virtual Career?

Are You Ready to Dare to Dream and Develop Your Virtual Career?

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I’ll never forget the moment I realized I needed to quit my job. I was doubled over in the front passenger seat of the car, throwing up into a trash can and heading for the emergency room because the migraine I had woken up with wouldn’t cease. My migraines had been coming way more frequently over the last few weeks as had bouts of anxiety and depression about heading to work each day. No longer were those feelings of misery reserved for Sunday afternoons and evenings as I watched the clock tick closer to Monday morning. 

When I arrived at the hospital, I couldn’t walk, so they had to put me on a gurney to bring me to a room. The fluorescent lights sent me into a fit of dry heaves over the side of the rolling bed. I wondered if anyone had ever died of a migraine because I was certain I would kick the bucket right then and there. My new husband, Tom, looked at me. "You have to quit, or you're not going to live another year," he said. 

Life is too short to work a job you hate and one that pretty much hates you, too. 

See, the job I had (for nearly 20 years) was one where I pushed numbers around on spreadsheets, created detailed reports, handed them off as assigned, and then never heard about them ever again. I never knew if they mattered or what they were used for. Everyday, I clocked in, took my seat in my standard office-issued cubicle, developed meaningless reports, and then clocked back out at the end of the day. 

Along the way, I had asked my boss what it would take to be promoted. I had been overlooked repeatedly regardless of my output or tenure. He told me I needed an M.B.A. So, I went and got one. But it didn’t matter. I was overlooked again for a younger woman with no M.B.A. and not nearly as many years of experience in the company. When that happened, I went back to my boss to ask him why I wasn’t selected. He said, “You want to know the real truth?” 

Of course, I was thinking, I wanted the real truth the first time. (You know, before I just spent all that time and money on a Master’s degree I apparently didn’t actually need.) I politely nodded and this was what he said:

"You laugh and smile too much. You're never going anywhere until you change that about yourself… No one takes you seriously. You're bubbly, silly. And if you don't like it, there's the door. Don't let it hit you on the way out."     

To summarize in one word, my job felt: insufferable

So, while I was being wheeled through the halls of the hospital, my husband’s words echoing in my ear, I knew I was at a crossroads. 

I decided right then and there I needed to find a career that wouldn’t kill me. 

Hell, I even dared to dream about a career that I might actually enjoy. A career where I felt valued. A career where I had more control over my success and advancement. A career where I could be myself. I dared to dream all the things because having a definition of what I desired allowed me to make actual plans to develop that very thing. 

I told myself, my husband, and my colleagues, I would stay another six months and then I was leaving. That gave me six months to figure out my next move and plan it all out. Tom knew I was serious, my colleagues thought I was crazy. “But you’re making a great income…,” “You have benefits…,” “You’ve got 18 years at this company…” they all reminded me. “

“Yeah, but it’s not worth my life,” I reminded them. 

Six months came and went. I did leave my job. I did prove I was serious. I did jump on the entrepreneurial path and got my start in Network Marketing, where I crushed sales goals and learned I was great at training others. I worked my own hours and was free to by myself. While I was happier and healthier, I still dreamed of something more. Eventually, I stumbled into virtual assistant (VA) life, becoming a VA for a real estate agent that helped Tom and me find a home.. 

And the rest is history. 

As in, that was the very first step in my “happily epic after” (to quote a brilliant and wonderful colleague of mine, Debbie Burns). Because it was in becoming a VA, and a successful one, that I actualized all my dreams of the job that I enjoyed: I felt valued, I had control over my own success and advancement, and I could be myself. I found my way over the rainbow to a land that “makes all your dreams come true.” (Yes, maybe I’m dating myself, but seriously, it was like traveling the brick road to Oz, meeting the wizard, and taking the Emerald City.)  

This ‘too good to be true’ career path DID exist. 

Of course, I needed to tell the world about it. Other women must be looking for what I was looking for. Other women must be feeling stuck and stifled and sick (literally) in their daily professional lives. Others must be suffering intolerable bosses and companies or simply not living out their best lives because they felt married to traditional ways of doing things. I needed to teach other women to build VA businesses for themselves so they could have the financial security, freedom, and flexibility they desired. 

And that is what I have been basing my business on for the last 17 years. I’ve trained over 200 women to build successful businesses from their homes, be incredible VAs, and create the lives and professions of their dreams. Some even make six-figures as VAs, completely crushing their annual salaries they were receiving at their prior traditional employment. 

This all began as a dream and now it’s an empire. 

Seventeen years ago when I was being wheeled into the ER the dream I had was, first, to live. To keep on going. The second, was to leave my job for something else. Almost anything else. 

Eventually the dream was to find something I loved. Each dream built on the other, because everytime I realized one, I knew another was possible. I kept pushing on my own comfort zone. Everytime I reached one horizon, I was able to see the next. Until all these years later I’m the proud and honored owner of an almost-seven-figure business training women to be VAs. It has become my empire and my legacy. 

The thing is, my greatest joy and blessing isn’t the amount of money that I make each year with my business. My greatest joy is empowering women to dare to dream and then showing them the way to actualize that dream by developing a virtual career they love. It’s not a scheme. It’s not an illusion. It’s real. I’ve done it. So have hundreds of others. 

Your dreams can come true. 

Are you ready to dare to dream? Are you ready to develop your virtual career? Or at least learn more about how to? 

Then, please, enroll in my 5-Session Training “Create a Virtual Career in the New Economy.” It’s binge-watchable (watch all 5 sessions straight through or do one at a time). This training teaches you how to Grow and Thrive in ANY Economy. The price is incredibly low at only $17! Find all the details and enroll here

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Kathy Goughenour is an experienced and savvy business coach and trainer. From corporate marketing to Virtual Assistant to business coach and trainer

Since 2008 she's been training and coaching women to build successful Virtual Assistant home-based businesses through her program Virtual Expert? Training. 

Fabio C.

Commercial Account Manager - Driving Revenue Growth | MBA in Branding

4 年

This is brilliant...

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