Desperate and broken ... Strange words to be starting with , right ?!
So that you can understand why I ’ ve decided to start like this , I need to tell a story . You see , these words describe how I felt in the summer of 2016 . To put it lightly , my life was shit . I was in a 9-5 that was quite literally killing me .
I ’ d get up every weekday , having barely slept because I was so anxious about going to the office ; I ’ d commute into London and be in tears for most of the journey [ people stared at me a lot and I didn ’ t care ]; I ’ d have been physically sick at least once before I got to the office ... but , I kept doing it – you see , I couldn ’ t fail and I was meant to be ‘ good ’ at this . I had an appointment with my doctor about something totally unrelated to any of this , and he happened to ask me how work was – I lost it ... I was sat in my doctor ’ s office breaking my heart . “ You can ’ t keep doing this Sian , you need to stop ”. What did I say ? “ Please just give me one more week and I ’ ll come back and see you ”.
Looking back now , I can say WTF did I think was going to change in a week ?! I ’ d been feeling like this for MONTHS !
I went back the following Monday , and was worse . By this point , even I knew that I couldn ’ t do this anymore . Right there and then my doctor just signed me off . The words on my “ sick note ” that I ’ d have to give to work ? Anxiety ... Depression ...
Stress ... There is still a stigma around mental health , so I was ashamed by these three little words ; especially as I ’ d been here before .
About ten days later , in my sleep deprived state , I remembered something that my Mum had shown me a few months earlier – an article about a woman who had become a VA [ Virtual Assistant ] so that she could work from home to be with her kids .
I dug it out and read it again . Could I do that ? Was I capable of starting AGAIN at nearly 35 ? I couldn ’ t face the idea of working in an office again with the commute on top , so what was I going to do if it didn ’ t work ?
I ’ m no stranger to adversity ... I ’ m no stranger to the dance of depression ... I ’ m no stranger to pulling myself back up from those seriously dark depths of despair ... I ’ m a FIGHTER ! Screw it , I ’ m going to try this anyway . No way can this be any worse than any of the shit that I ’ ve already faced , right ?!
Within a day , [ yes , a DAY ], I had a Facebook Biz Page and a basic website that I designed myself . I researched the that potential clients were looking for , then I signed up for as many free trials I could find and taught myself as much as I could absorb . I trawled Facebook Biz Groups . I signed up to different platforms to look for work .
It was WORKING , and I was getting clients ! WTF , I ’ m nobody , right ?! What did that make me realise ? I ’ d done all of this business work and forgot about the biggest thing I had to work on – ME .
Once I sorted through all of the negative shit I was holding mentally my biz EXPLODED ! OK , so maybe I was somebody now �
In early April of this year , I posted in a VA group that a new client had really loved my proposal .
There were a lot of comments asking if they could see my template . I created this tiny little opt-in so that they could go and grab it . In my head I thought , “ well , 20 of them might opt-in ”, then I went to sleep . I woke up to 327 opt-ins !
This got me thinking . I ’ ve faced this VA struggle : mindset , confidence , putting yourself out there , skill set , obtaining clients – maybe I could do more ... Without doubting it even once , I created my VA Group , Virtual Services Creative and sent out an email to each of the VAs that had opted-in to receive my proposal template . They ALL joined .
My brain was whirring again : “ I can still DO more ... I can GIVE back ... I can HELP ...” I launched my second business in 7 months , Virtual Creative Collab . This was the biz where I would coach and mentor VAs to become just as successful as I now was . I launched 1:1 sessions , group sessions and a course – I was SELL- ING OUT !
Then during a Badassery Revolution call that Kathy mentioned that conversion rates are
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