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Laura Nicole: 00:02

Welcome to Your Virtual Assistant Coach, the podcast for moms who want to make money from home on their own terms. I'm your host, Laura Nicole, a successful six-figure earning VA and coach who replaced my college professor salary in just five months back in 2020 after my daughter was born, and I have never looked back. I'm here to help you build a profitable, flexible VA business that fits into your family's lives so you no longer feel like you're living just to work. Let's dive in. 

Laura Nicole: 00:33

So I know I haven't really shared a lot of my own story and my own VA journey on the podcast recently, but there's one specific moment that kind of spurred all of this that I've been thinking about that I don't know if I've told in specific detail before. But Little Miss was only five months old, and I was back at work teaching, so I was on campus, had meetings and classes and things that I had to be on campus for at certain days at certain times. And my husband happened to be traveling for work. It was the first time he was traveling since she was born. So I was solo with her, and she, of course, managed to get sick for the very first time in her little life while he was gone. It ended up being one of those moments that seems relatively small when you tell the story years later, right? Like almost seven years later. But at the time, it absolutely gutted me. And honestly, it became one of the moments that made me realize probably the biggest moment that made me realize I need to find another way to make money. So little Miss was five. My husband is traveling. Little Miss is sick. Cough, cold, face is stuffy, eyes are red. A couple of times she was having like some breathing things that were freaking me out. I ended up having my mom go with us to the emergency room at one point. And she was sick, but I couldn't decide just to not go to work because I had classes. 

Laura Nicole: 02:10

I was responsible for teaching. My students were expecting me, they were relying on me. And as much as I wanted to be with her, I knew I couldn't just cancel my job, my life, my responsibilities because she was sick. And my mom was able to watch her. So I knew that she was completely safe and loved and taken care of. And that if anything changed, my mom could reach me. And yet I didn't want someone else taking care of my sick baby. I wanted to be able to be home and be her mom when she needed me. It was physically painful to have to leave her when every instinct in my body was telling me that I needed to be with my sick baby. But I went to work, I left her with grandma, and I did my damnedest to get through that day. I'm sure my students could tell something was off. I probably told them exactly what was off because that's just how I am. But I went to work, I did my classes, I had my office hours, but my brain the entire time, my brain and my heart, they were not at work. They were back home with a little miss, wondering how she was feeling, checking my phone constantly, just tapping the screen to make sure I didn't miss anything from my mom, wanting updates, texting her probably a very annoying amount of times to see how things were going, thinking about if she needed me. Was she hungry? Was the bottle actually working? 

Laura Nicole: 03:43

And just trying to stand in front of a classroom of students and teach while mentally being somewhere completely different. Yes, I showed up to work, right? But I couldn't give my full attention because I was not where my child needed me to be. I felt like I was failing both places at the exact same time. And now this experience was not like an oh my God, I'm quitting tomorrow. Like my daughter needs me. I'm quitting my job. I'm just gonna stay home. That was not an option. It simply was not an option. We needed my income. We had bills. Our lifestyle was built off of the two of us having a combined income. So there was a 0.0% chance that I could just walk away from my career. But it did really for the first time ever spur this feeling in me of like, there has to be another way to make money. There has to be a way that I can make money and contribute financially and help support my family without somebody else, my job, my boss, my class schedule, having complete control over when I'm allowed to be her mom. That experience of leaving her super sicky and sad at home with my mom while I went to work and did my best to get through the day really became the fuel that I needed to figure out what that other way, that other option to make money could actually be, what that could look like. 

Laura Nicole: 05:26

And actually, pretty quickly thereafter is when I found virtual assistant work, when my friend told me, hey, have you heard of this as an option? And learning about VA work completely changed the equation. It completely changed the picture. It actually gave me another way. And now it's so wild to think back to that time because I have been a virtual assistant for six years at this point, six plus years. And I have been out of the classroom for five plus years. I have been home with little miss. I have been available to be mom anytime. And in that time, and now, if little miss wakes up sick, I don't have to worry about rescheduling that class or sending an email to the department chair or stressing about trying to call the doctor to fit in a time for an appointment that's between my classes that'll work for the schedule and I can drive from here to there and not be late and all the things. 

Laura Nicole: 06:28

I don't have to try to justify if she's quote unquote sick enough for me to actually miss a class. I don't have to sit somewhere else wishing that I was home with her. I simply rearrange what needs rearranging in my day. I communicate with my clients when necessary, and I get to be her mom first and foremost. And that's the kind of freedom that I was really truly searching for. Yes, the income mattered. Yes, it's incredible that I doubled my salary and then tripled my salary. It's amazing that I've been able to create and sustain substantial income as a virtual assistant for six years. That matters, but the control over my own life and the control over my own motherhood and therefore what my daughter's childhood looked like mattered just as much, if not more. 

Laura Nicole: 07:26

And that's my story. Maybe your story isn't a sick five-month-old. Maybe it's having to miss the classroom party, or your kid asking why you can't come on the field trip, or having to use your last PTO day with way too long to go before they refill because daycare called again. Maybe it's crying in the car after drop-off because you just missed your kid, or realizing at the end of the night on Sunday that you pretty much spent your entire day just dreading Monday. Maybe you've been finding yourself looking at your life recently and thinking, I don't want to keep doing this this way. Don't dismiss those moments. Sometimes that discomfort, y'all, is telling you something. And it doesn't mean you need to quit your job tomorrow. It doesn't mean you need to blow up your entire life, but maybe it is time to start building another option. I couldn't quit my job that day, but I could decide that I wasn't willing to accept that this was simply what working motherhood had to feel like forever. And if you're in that place right now, I want you to know that you don't have to have the entire escape plan figured out today. You just have to be willing to start looking for and working toward another way. Because the version of your life that you're living right now doesn't automatically have to be the version that you're still living a year from now. 

Laura Nicole: 08:52

And if you want to start taking some of those steps, I would absolutely love for you to get a head start in the VA starter sprint that we're hosting the 22nd through the 25th of September. It is just the perfect way to step into this. It's not super time consuming. You're gonna spend about an hour a day because it's truly the perfect way to start taking action toward the other way so that hopefully in the near future, you will have the option and you will be the one in control of getting to choose where your income is coming from. The starter sprint is only $7 to register, and seats are limited because you do get actively coached by me throughout the entirety of the starter sprint. So if that sounds like a good first step to you, or even if you just want to read some more info about it, there's a link down in the show notes. So you can get all the details and you can register if you're feeling like this is the first step that you want to be taking. And I cannot wait to help you get started. 

Laura Nicole: 10:00

Thanks for hanging out with me today on your virtual assistant coach. If you loved this episode, be sure to share it with your best friend, your sister, or even your favorite coworker who you know wants to start making a flexible income. I'll see you all next time.