What I Learned at a Virtual Assistant Conference: Day One at VA Fest Live
Updated: Aug 13
When I booked my ticket to VA Fest Live, I thought I was attending a virtual assistant conference to learn new strategies, connect with other women in business, and grow my network.
What I didn't expect was how much the experience would challenge the way I see myself as an entrepreneur.
Hi, I am Cora, and if you are new here I am your Bilingual Virtual Assistant. VA Fest Live brought together virtual assistants, service providers, and business owners at every stage of business. Some were just getting started. Others had built six- and seven-figure businesses. Some were scaling teams. Others were rebuilding after burnout.
And somewhere between the conversations, the networking, and the speakers, I realized something important: Growth looks different at every level, but the challenges are often more similar than we think.
Walking Into the Room
One of my favorite parts of the day happened before the sessions even began.
As I am part of the Virtual Assistant Leadership Academy (VALA), I already recognized many of the women attending. While we had only met through Zoom calls and online conversations, seeing them in person felt surprisingly natural.
I arrived excited, but also a little nervous.
Not because I didn't belong there, but because every virtual assistant conference comes with a certain level of uncertainty. You don't know who you'll meet, what conversations you'll have, or what lessons you'll walk away with.
What surprised me most was how quickly that feeling disappeared.
Instead of focusing on who was the most successful or who had the biggest business, I found myself simply connecting with people as people.
That ended up changing everything.
One of the things I loved most about VA Fest was the sense of community. This wasn't just a virtual assistant conference filled with business strategies. It was a space where women openly shared their experiences, challenges, and lessons learned. The virtual assistant community can often feel online and distant, so being able to connect face-to-face was incredibly valuable.
Identity, Leadership, and Owning Your Voice
The morning sessions focused heavily on identity, leadership, and visibility.
Breanna Cain opened the conference by reminding us that what we're building is bigger than a business.
Kate Dwinel challenged the idea of being "just support" and encouraged us to raise our standards as service providers. Her perspective on being reliable rather than simply available really made me reflect on how I show up for my clients and the kind of virtual assistant I want to become.
Samantha Warren spoke about visibility, expression, and being seen. Her message centered around embracing your authentic self and allowing your personality to be part of your business. As someone who is naturally expressive, that message resonated deeply with me.
While each speaker had a different perspective, I started noticing a pattern.
The women who were succeeding weren't necessarily experts when they started.
They weren't waiting until they felt completely ready.
They had simply learned to trust themselves enough to take the next step.
That realization stayed with me throughout the day.
Wealth, Receiving, and Expanding Capacity
Several speakers touched on topics around wealth, abundance, receiving, and capacity.
Jadie Dillard explored nervous system regulation, creating safety before scaling, and how listening to your intuition can create more clarity in your business.
Kiki Rae spoke about wealth identity and becoming the woman who creates abundance.
She shared three pillars: mindset, strategy, and fun. What stood out to me most was the reminder that without doing the mindset work first, it's difficult to fully implement the strategies needed for growth.
Brittany Heyboer focused on expanding our capacity to receive leadership, opportunities, and money. She guided us through a hypnosis experience that encouraged us to tap into our intuition and explore what expansion could look like in our lives. While I personally spent much of the experience observing, it was powerful to witness how deeply other women connected with the exercise.
April Roberts shared insights about creating unapologetic income without burning out.
She also provided a workbook with six steps designed to help entrepreneurs reflect on and realign with their business goals. I'm excited to continue learning from her and grateful for the opportunity to connect with her after the conference.
At first, these seemed like separate conversations.
By the end of the day, I realized they were all talking about the same thing:
Capacity and identity.
Not just the capacity to earn more money.
The capacity to hold more responsibility.
The capacity to trust ourselves.
The capacity to receive opportunities without immediately questioning whether we deserve them.
The capacity to grow without shrinking back into old versions of ourselves.
The Conversations Between Sessions
As valuable as the presentations were, some of my biggest takeaways came from conversations outside the conference room.
Those conversations reminded me why virtual assistant networking is so important. Some women were just beginning their business journey. Others were navigating growth, pricing, hiring, and expansion.
One conversation in particular reminded me that business growth is rarely a strategy problem.
More often, it's an identity problem.
As entrepreneurs, we often know what we need to do.
The challenge is becoming the person who feels comfortable doing it.
That lesson showed up repeatedly throughout the day and became one of my biggest takeaways from attending this virtual assistant conference. Day One reminded me that entrepreneurship isn't just about building a business.
It's about becoming the person capable of building it.
And that realization alone made the trip worth it.
In Part Two, I'll share the strategic side of VA Fest Live taught me and how I am starting to implement it into my business and clients,
Comments