Networking Mistakes You Might Be Making
Posted on March 13, 2024
Unexamined beliefs can be a sneaky squatter, hanging out rent-free in our heads, and driving the car of our lives without a license.
We think it’s high time to evict a particularly insidious imposter relating to business that derails many of us. Perhaps it’s undermining your current conception of your business. For many, this one belief keeps them from ever embarking on the great journey of entrepreneurship.
We are passionate about shining the light in the attic and properly charging this dream-stealer the rent that’s due in today’s Dawson Download.
The worst advice can sometimes be cloaked inside of well-meaning seeming platitudes like “you are right where you are supposed to be” or “life is what you make it.” One of the messages I find derails and demotivates more people than it helps is this idea that our destiny awaits us in an enigmatic calling buried within our “passions”. We often hear from people who feel a real desire to step out of the 9-5 world of job descriptions and performance reviews. They would, if only they could find this elusive, magical something they are passionate about so they can monetize it and live happily ever after.
A great starting point is an exploration of the very word passion. We use it to describe a steamy attraction, the kind of romance most of us will only ever read about. Someone who is unhinged and murderous commits a crime of passion. The Passion of Christ is used to describe the ultimate sacrifice ever made on behalf of mankind. In the English language, passion is a loaded word. Success is boring; it rides in on consistent effort made over time while opting out of energy depleting distractions.
When we really break it down, our regular degular lives just don’t make way for experiences of passion and excitement very often. Most people who create success in business, did not usually start with what they would describe as passion. They suited up with a skill and crazy determination, picked a jumping-off spot (industry), and dove in. Often because the pier they were standing on was on fire.
For example, when I started my virtual assistant business in 2016, I never would have thought that I would one day see it as the fully value-aligned passion project that it has become. Necessity was the mother of invention, and at the time I dove in, I was a freshly divorced mother with three kids under 7, one in diapers, and no support network. On a wing and a prayer, I cast a net into the sea of entrepreneurship because I had to. I enjoyed business, research & continuous education, detailed administration work, and needed to work from home, so I picked a spot (Virtual Administration) and dove in.
I did it scared, I did it tired, and the pier I was standing on was on fire. My career had taken a back seat to starting a family, and I had become the statistic that pays the highest motherhood penalty. I took a risk and lost the bet on motherhood & marriage twice during my most crucial career-building years (statistically speaking). I had to rebuild from the ashes during a low point in my life, arguably the lowest. I needed a new skill, I needed it fast, and I needed it to be flexible – so I guess you could say I was passionate. But not the kind of feet-skipping, joy-filled, sun-streaming, arms-outstretched image the word generally suggests.
Over the years along this path, I have gotten to support high level launches, meet hundreds of business owners, travel the world, and learn every area of business. I’m now able to teach my children how to take an idea and turn it into a business and create the systems and backend to successfully monetize and deliver a product. As we grow and become healthier on every level, our business both supports a healthy lifestyle and grows from it. I recently realized that every area of my life is fully aligned. My passions are spirituality, health, and family, and sovereignty (to pursue those values). Our business supports those values in our lives and our clients’ lives through the work we do as virtual assistants. Full and total alignment is definitely something I am super passionate about.
Next time someone shares that they just wish they could find what they are passionate about before starting their business, consider telling them the unglamorous truth: entrepreneurship is about monetizing what you are good at and there’s a market need for. Who you will become and the life you will create through the ensuing trials, tribulations, and joys of that process – that person can create a whole entire life you are passionate about. But you probably haven’t met them yet, you must create them – and there is no faster path to do that than starting a business.
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We are Dawson Virtual, LLC, a mother-daughter duo.
We solve one big problem for our solo and small business clients: Keeping their businesses running smoothly.
When you work on your own, it’s all up to you. Our role is to handle all the details and all the minutiae – the things you hate doing – so that you can get back to doing what you really love, and focusing on what’s important.
When you hire us, you work with us – we are your Virtual Assistants, we are U.S. based, Florida locals.