EP2: How To Be A Virtual Assistant With The Digital Wanderlust

Owner a business while traveling Australia

I said something on a recent podcast episode that I keep coming back to. If you already work for someone right now, you are probably worthy of being a business owner. Chances are you can do it.

The episode was about how to become a virtual assistant, and Bell spoke so well about taking opportunities and focusing on your transferable skills. That is the part most people miss. They look at the gap between where they are and running their own thing and assume there is some qualification, some permission, some version of themselves they have to become first. But the skills you are already using for someone else's business are the same skills you would use for your own. The capability is usually already there. What is missing is the decision to point it at something that is actually yours.

I always say do what you want, not what you don't. It sounds simple, but so often people spend their time doing the work they would never choose. The truth about starting a business is that you can be anywhere, head deep in the laptop, not looking at the views as much as you thought you would, but working away on something that genuinely interests you. That trade is worth it when the work is yours. It is a lot harder to justify when the work was never something you wanted in the first place.

Here is where it gets real though. Being capable of running a business and actually being visible as one are two different problems. To be a business owner now, you have to market yourself with your face, your voice and your knowledge. You are the thing people decide to trust. And that is exactly where a lot of genuinely skilled people stall, because turning up as the face of your own business every day, on top of doing the actual work, is a fast way to burn out.

That is the reason I built CULO inside Canva. I wanted founders to be able to take their raw thoughts and footage and turn them into a range of social media ready content, without becoming a full-time editor and copywriter on top of everything else they are already doing. The transferable skills get you to the starting line. Marketing yourself without running yourself into the ground is what keeps you there.

So if you are sitting in a job right now wondering whether you have what it takes, you probably already do. The question is less about whether you are capable, and more about whether you are willing to do what you want instead of what you don't, and then find a sustainable way to let people see it.