Interview with Desi-Ann Gordon
In this episode, we will uncover 3 keys:
- Mindset Shifts in Entrepreneurship
- Self-Care and Boundaries in Entrepreneurship
- Financial Empowerment and Money Mindset
A Podcast Transcription
Episode 30: Empowering women to create work-life balance, when working from home. VA Coach~Desi-Ann Gordon
Intro
Odiva Vasell: (00:00)
Hello, my fabulous fempreneurs. I am so excited that I have here with me today Desi Anne Gordon, and she is a coach for virtual assistants. And we all know that if you’re going to take your business to the next level, you need to reach out and get the help that you need. Welcome, welcome, Desi.
Desi-Ann Gordon: (00:26)
Hi. How are you doing, Odiva?
Odiva Vasell: (00:28)
I am doing fabulous, and I’m really excited to have you here today, because this is something that’s near and dear to my heart. Like, how does the VA work, and how can I take my business to the next level? And I’m sure this is going to be really helpful to a lot of the women out there. Let’s start at the beginning. How did you start your business, and what motivated you to start it?
Mindset Shifts in Entrepreneurship
Desi-Ann Gordon: (00:56)
Oh, my. So I have somewhat of an interesting story. So, at the end of 2016, I was unemployed, and just trying to figure out life, what should be my next step. And in January, I was at home trying to figure out, okay, should I try a business? Should I try to find another job? Traditional sense, just to give you a bit of backstory. In 2008, when I was having my daughter, I said, I want to be home. I told my husband, this is it. I am no longer working for anybody. I am going to be home. But of course, I’m talking now about 2017, which means nine years have passed, and I’m still not working from home, and I’m unemployed, so what’s next? And my husband came home.
He said, “Listen, I have to go away to finish my last trimester at university. Can you please come with me?” The emphasis there is please. Because he knows I don’t like being on planes. I just have a serious fear of flying. And he did his first two terms on his own, but this was the final one.
And he said, “Please come with me.” So I did. We went to Israel, very far from the Caribbean, because I’m from Trinidad and Tobago. Here I am seeing, huh, two flights I have to go from Trinidad to the UK, UK to Israel. Like, all right, prepare yourself. Anyway, I said, when I go over there, spending four and a half months, I have to figure out something. I am going in a strange country, don’t know the language. Most of the people around me may not be speaking English, so I have to figure something out. So while I’m there in the apartment and he’s in school, I am online. Work from home online jobs. Trying to figure it out, and that’s when I found out about Upwork. So I immediately signed up on Upwork, and I worked with them for about four years. During that time, I met a Caribbean guy who wanted someone to write articles for his blog, which was specifically for persons in the Caribbean. So he reached out to me and he said, “Can you please share your experiences working from home?” And I said, “Yeah, why not?” And that’s when I started writing about Caribbean VA living. And while I was doing these writings and sharing with Said, you know, people in the Caribbean asked, “Well, what are you doing? Tell me more about this. I want to do this too, because who doesn’t want to work from home? Who doesn’t want that level of flexibility so they can do things with their family, they can have more time for themselves, etc.”
And I realized that the more persons coming to me with these questions, I needed to do something to help women in the Caribbean specifically. And so that’s where my business started. So I started doing this thing just on my own, trying to figure it out, because I knew no one in the Caribbean who was a virtual assistant at that time, so why not make it easier for those coming after me?
And that’s why I started Caribbean Virtual Assistant. So, Caribbean Virtual Assistant started off as a business that would offer general admin services to clients. But I also informally started the coaching part of it, training other persons to be VAs. And then I said, why not make this a bit more formal? And I now have the Training arm of my business, which is called the Successful VA Academy. So the academy is what I call the home for virtual assistants. That’s where you can come meet with me, who people call the VA mom, by the way. So come home to the VA mom. I am going to help you to take your virtual assistant business to that next stage. A lot of persons are coming totally new to this thing, trying to figure out what a VA is, what does a VA do? How do I charge? How do I find clients? And so on. And that’s where I come in. I would actually meet with persons. It could be one-on-one coaching, group coaching. I do workshops. I have a membership program and so on. So it is just so fascinating when I see women come from a state of feeling frustrated because they are doing the nine-to-five grind and having to come home to their family exhausted, thinking about going to cook, going to take care of the children, not time for themselves, and so on, and then going to that stage now where they feel like, yes, I have found the formula. I can now create that sort of work-life harmony me that I always wanted.
Odiva Vasell: (05:51)
That’s amazing, and it’s quite courageous when you think about it. Like, you were living in Israel, and you had this need. Yes. And you could have just stopped there. You found work and continued working, but instead of just stopping there, you realized that this was a need in the Caribbean. And, I mean, one of the benefits is being in the same time zone in Northern America. And you are finding these moms or women who want to be at home for their families and do all those things and still get the job done.
Desi-Ann Gordon: (06:32)
Yes.
Odiva Vasell: (06:32)
Work-life balance. So now you’re in the training coaching section. If let’s start at the beginning. Now, if a woman just comes to you and she has no idea how to be a VA, all she knows is that she wants to have more time for her family and those responsibilities. Where do you start her? What do you teach first?
Desi-Ann Gordon: (07:01)
So I don’t actually teach her first. What I will do is have a conversation because I find that a lot of times people are just excited. “I want to work from home. I want to from home.” But they don’t fully understand what that entails. It sounds glamorous. Owning a business sounds like, “I want to do this too.” But when you actually start a business and you are operating a business and you see those days when your income is going like this and you have those days where clients are taking long to pay you or you have no clients, then you ask yourself, “Should I have done this in the first place?” So I love to start by really getting deep and understanding what is the root cause. Yes, you say you want to start a business. Yes, you say you want to be more available to your family. But let’s understand a bit why what this is about. What is this going to mean for you? There are a lot of mindset. You are surrounding being an entrepreneur. And what I’ve found is that most times persons are coming from an employee mindset trying to get into business and they are struggling because they still have that thinking that I need to do this or I need to do that. Not recognizing that they are the boss. You are now the boss. You are the one who sets the parameters. You have to understand boundaries and all of these things that come into play. So I like to start with these conversations, explaining to somebody who is totally new to this what it is to be in business, what it is really like. Don’t put wink yourself and say, “Yes, I see all these people on social media saying I have a six-figure income and I’m this and I’m that.” It sounds good, but it takes work, it takes.
Odiva Vasell: (08:55)
I like what you said right there. It takes work. When you watch social media and these people who are holding up this six-figure income, they didn’t get that overnight. Selling it to you is like, “Hey, I know the system. This one little thing is going to help you get there overnight so I can keep my six figures.” Yeah. I like the part that you said about having the conversation and really getting into their why. Because as an entrepreneur myself and the other entrepreneurs I work with, the why is what carries you through the ups and downs, whether it be financially or emotionally, physically as well. Because now you’re your own boss. So if that job does not get done at a certain time frame, you’re going to be working overtime.
Desi-Ann Gordon: (09:51)
Exactly.
Odiva Vasell: (09:52)
There’s no, “Hey, I finished my job from I’m going home, I’m having my lunch.” And integrating that balance with your family. Because if a mom has small children and we learned all this when the pandemic hit and the kids were at home and they see you home and you’re in a room or you’re at the computer not talking to them and they don’t quite understand what’s happening.
Desi-Ann Gordon: (10:25)
Exactly.
Odiva Vasell: (10:27)
And a lot of something now.
Desi-Ann Gordon: (10:28)
Yeah, that is such a reality. Because I could tell you, for me, sometimes I close my door; my door is closed for a reason. But knock, knock, knock, “Mommy!”. Somebody is calling you for something. And then there’s the other piece of when you work as a virtual assistant, you are working most times from your home, and you may be the only person in your home. So not everybody is cut out to be a VA because they don’t feel comfortable with the isolation of being alone. And there needs to be that understanding as well. You’re not going to be sitting in a cubicle with other employees around you. Yes, right. And some people don’t understand that. So I love to share that.
Odiva Vasell: (11:16)
Yes. And the whole being able to switch gears because under that, I don’t know whether it’s unfortunately or not, but when they see you, any family member, you go outside, you get a drink, and you’re in work mode, and you’re like, okay, I’ve got these four or five things lined up in my head that I’m going to tackle next, and I’m thinking ideas of how to go about it. And then they say, you know what? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then you’re like, oh, yes, I have to go and address this problem. And this whole thing. What were those four ideas I had?
Desi-Ann Gordon: (11:55)
Exactly. You get so distracted. It happens. Honestly, I think those are some of the realities that established business owners do not share enough because you have all these upcoming business persons thinking that, yeah, let me just jump into this thing. It’s going to be fine. But no, you have to understand, there will be those tough days. There will be those lonely days. There will be those days when you feel like just pulling out your hair, so somebody has to tell you about these things before you just dive head first. And that’s what I love to talk about.
Odiva Vasell: (12:36)
From what I understand with your coaching, that’s ongoing, like supporting the mental part, the mindset, the reality part. I’ve also interviewed VAS, and the kids walk in, the dog walks in. Somebody’s at the door; it’s unavoidable sometimes, but other times you’re like, you know, you could turn that phone off or something like that. And dedicate this time because my time is quite worthy as well. Well, yeah. Learning that balance and learning to set boundaries. Tell me more about setting boundaries.
Self-Care and Boundaries in Entrepreneurship
Desi-Ann Gordon: (13:16)
Oh, I could say so much about that. So, one of the things I encourage my VAs who are in my program, make sure that when you do your contract, your welcome packet with your clients, you state your work hours. Now, situations will come up. Sometimes a client has a rush job that may require you to work outside of your work time, but you need to set those parameters. So if you say, for this particular client, I’m working with you Tuesdays and Thursdays, ten to 12, 10 to twelve, right? Yes. As I said, there will be the occasional outside of those hours. Also, you need to let them know what forms of communication you are going to work with because you will find sometimes a client will just message you on Facebook Messenger. Oh, you could do this or you could do that. That can throw you off. If you are custom getting messages by email or the work assignments or if, let’s say, they’re using Asana or project management tool, keep everything in there, not all over the place because that could really throw you off. And this is not just for a virtual assistant; this is for anybody. Because even if you are working in a regular, traditional sense and your boss calls you, yeah, it can throw you off. And, you know, sometimes you can miss messages; you miss something, and it had a particular deadline or whatever. So I encourage them to set those parameters from upfront. Right? I also encourage them with the boundaries. Make sure and factor in time for yourself. A lot of times we get so caught up working in our businesses and working with our clients, and we forget us. And I can tell you as a mother, it happens. It happens. But I have to intentionally go on my calendar and say, okay, Friday from two to four, that’s my time, right? If I have to put up a sign somewhere in the house, Friday, two to four is Mommy’s time. That is what I’m going to do, right?
Odiva Vasell: (15:24)
I like this. And it’s so hard being in your calendar. I can sometimes say, okay, this is a certain day that I’m going to have off, find myself once I pick up the phone, hey, I got to send this message or I got to send this here. But I like what you said about a specific block of time. It doesn’t have to be a long block of time, but a block of time where not only you, but the family is aware. Hey, don’t hit me with any hard stuff that you need me to do at this period of time. This is me time.
Desi-Ann Gordon: (15:58)
Exactly. And to take it a step further, I would put a notification 1 hour before and 15 minutes before. So I’m preparing my mind an hour before. That me time.
Odiva Vasell: (16:11)
You could even send that notification to clients.
Desi-Ann Gordon: (16:19)
Do not disturb. Yes.
Odiva Vasell: (16:24)
This brings up something that I’ve been thinking about even more recently. Paying yourself.
Desi-Ann Gordon: (16:31)
Oh, boy.
Financial Empowerment and Money Mindset
Odiva Vasell: (16:32)
And yeah, I’ve been realizing not just putting money into the account that is needed for whatever comes up in the household or whatever. Maybe you have self-care needs, is fine, but more of paying yourself money to do something that’s not needed.
Desi-Ann Gordon: (16:55)
Whatever you want.
Odiva Vasell: (16:56)
Whatever you want. That’s a new concept that I’m sure the money mastermind know about this but for the average or everyday woman because we’re not average, we’re above average and extraordinary.
Desi-Ann Gordon: (17:11)
Exactly.
Odiva Vasell: (17:13)
For everyday woman, we’re always thinking about the household and putting that money not aside. Because I know Caribbean mindset is save for that rainy day. Let something rain on you.
Desi-Ann Gordon: (17:31)
Yeah, that is so true and interestingly. I have a colleague; she says every Friday, she puts aside money for her, just for her to do what she wants. So she makes sure she pays herself first. And that is a concept that we really don’t understand fully. And we don’t practice enough. I know I have been guilty of it, too, because just as you said, the minute the money comes, oh, we need to get this in the grocery. We need to buy this; the children need this. And then when you check, you probably have a dollar left, nothing left. And you sit back and say, I really needed a new pair of shoes, or I needed to do my nails.
Odiva Vasell: (18:16)
Or I just needed a little walk-around shopping spree. It doesn’t have to be thousands. We’re just talking a little spending cash for yourself in that self-care. And the reason I’m bringing this up is that as I am researching money blocks and money flow, it just occurred to me part of the flow is putting money out, letting it go out so that it can come back in. That’s part of abundance, having that open hand instead of clenching onto it. Because if you have come from a background that did not have money to spend frivolously, there’s a tendency to kind of hold on when it finally comes.
Desi-Ann Gordon: (19:02)
Yes, that is so true. That is so true. And as you said in the Caribbean, that is relevant. You think that you need to always save because you hear it when you’re growing up, and that is one of the topics that I touch on. I would love to go deeper, but I do touch on that inside of the whole mindset discussion because. That whole area of money and how you view money. Because when you grow up in a household hearing, “money doesn’t grow on trees,” you are telling yourself, well, hey, this is how my life is going to be until I die. So it’s really trying to get that shift. And it takes time. Just as you said, when you’re doing the coaching, you have to constantly talk about mindset issues, constantly talk about limiting beliefs. And I can talk from experience because, as I mentioned, I thought of having a business in 2008, did not start until 2017. So that nine-year span, right? I mean, there were several reasons, but for me, I sum it up to mindset issues. I had that limiting belief that I can’t be a business owner. This is not for me.
So whenever I hear other women speak that way, I jump in one time and I start to encourage them, you can do it. And I tell them my story, right? I actually want to write a book called Ditch the Fads. And Fad stands for fear, anxiety, doubt. So ditch the fads.
Odiva Vasell: (20:33)
Fear, anxiety, doubt.
Desi-Ann Gordon: (20:36)
Yes, you can get over your fears, your anxieties, and your doubts when it comes to business, being a woman in business, being the CEO of your business. I remember for a while, I did not want to even use the title CEO just like you. It’s like you didn’t feel deserving of such a title. You would just say, I’m the founder of the business, or started the business, but not say CEO. And I had to do some mindset shifts as well. And so, as I said. Love to talk to women about that. I had a student when I did my program the first time. So I have this, what I call the twelve-step roadmap to starting your virtual assistant business. And I did this live so we would meet once a week for twelve weeks. And the first session was on Mindset. And I asked the group, I said, take a few minutes and write some of those limiting beliefs you have. There was a lady in the group in her early sixties, and she said, I am too old to start a business.
I said, okay, pause, you are never too old to start a business. You are never too old to try something new. You are never too old for anything. I saw a shift in that lady after that discussion on that first day of the class. She was just so fired up after That session that she went on with her business. She went and learned different software. She started getting more clients. Her whole outlook online had changed. Yes. And I even have an article on her story on my website because I featured her. It was a case study where it says I think age is just a number or something like that. I can’t remember the exact title, but she told her story. How she shifted from this thinking to being successful in business,
Odiva Vasell: (22:32)
I love that. And one of the key things, it sounds like she had to give herself permission. So there’s a lot of us out there saying we want to be successful, we want to run a business, we want to make more money and have more freedom and more abundance. But giving yourself permission, like you said, for the salary. Give yourself permission to have me time. Give yourself permission to say whatever it is I think that is holding me back, the way I look or my family situation or my physical situation, just letting that go. Because entrepreneurship is like looking in a mirror daily. You are working for the boss. You did not have to look at, say, oh, maybe I’m a little lazy, or maybe I’m a workaholic. You didn’t have to face that. You just have to do your nine to five. But now as an entrepreneur, you’ve got to face all them demons.
Desi-Ann Gordon: (23:33)
Exactly. You know, as you just mentioned, looking in the mirror, I was watching, is it Jenna and Hoda on? Forget which station that.
Odiva Vasell: (23:44)
I don’t remember the name.
Desi-Ann Gordon: (23:45)
One of those morning programs in the US. And they had a guest. She’s a motivational speaker. She focuses on mindset. And she was saying, “Give yourself a high five. Look in the mirror and give yourself a high five.” She said, “When we see someone and that person has accomplished something, we would give that person a high five. It’s another way of saying, ‘Great job,’ so why don’t you do it to yourself?” I said, “This is an excellent point, so I’m going to start doing that.” She does it every single morning. She just stands in the mirror, looks at herself, and gives herself…
Odiva Vasell: (24:18)
I like that because it’s gentle. I’ve tried this whole “you’re great, you’re fabulous,” all kinds of looks in the mirror. But a high-five is something I can do. Of course, the mirror is going to have to be cleaned afterwards. But I can do that little step toward just self-love. And that’s where you’re moving toward when you become an entrepreneur.
Desi-Ann Gordon: (24:38)
Of course.
Odiva Vasell: (24:41)
I just want to thank you so much for bringing this new piece, because I thought we were just going to talk about the technical part of being a VA, but we are talking about people who help people learn how to help, appreciate, and love themselves. That’s a beautiful thing. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Desi-Ann Gordon: (25:05)
I really appreciate.
Odiva Vasell: (25:08)
Yeah, I’m glad we connected.
Desi-Ann Gordon: (25:09)
Yeah.
Odiva Vasell: (25:14)
All right. Thanks again.
Desi-Ann Gordon: (25:15)
Bye.
[music]
Conclusion
In conclusion, Desi-Ann Gordon’s journey from traditional employment to the realm of online freelancing is a testament to the possibility of redefining one’s career and achieving a fulfilling work-life balance. Her resilience and determination paved the way for not only personal success but also for inspiring and guiding other women through ‘The Successful Virtual Assistant Academy.’ Desi-Ann’s story highlights the transformative power of embracing new opportunities, even in unconventional spaces, and serves as a beacon of hope for those seeking harmony between work, family, and personal fulfillment. As she continues to train and empower women, her legacy echoes the belief that there is indeed a better way to live and work.