From cashier to VA trainer.
Here’s how I got here: where I started, what I learned, and how I came to build The Uplevel and VA Career Explorer. Genuine and grounded. No varnish.
I didn’t plan any of this. It just unfolded.
My first job was at 17, bagging and cashiering at Sprouts. From there I somehow made my way into administration, found I was actually good at organizing other people’s chaos, and quietly built that into a career across a few different fields. I didn’t have a master plan. I had a knack for the work, and I kept getting offered more of it.
In 2021 I took on my first VA client on the side. By 2023 I’d quit my day job and gone full-time. From VA to online business manager. Then I started building my own team and managing operations across multiple clients at once.
What I didn’t know going into entrepreneurship: it’s a job in itself. You’re not just working with clients. You’re your own business, your own marketing, your own bookkeeping, your own everything. Nobody told me that. I figured it out the hard way. That’s why the VA Career Explorer exists. I built it to give people considering this path the actual picture before they invest time and money into something they may or may not even want.
The other thing I kept seeing across years of client work: there’s a real gap between VAs who show up consistently and the rare ones who become true strategic partners. Not because the second group is smarter. Because they’ve been trained on the foundational skills the first group never got: communication, prioritization, problem solving. That’s why The Uplevel exists. It’s the program I wish someone had built for me when I was starting out, and the one I now put my own VAs through.
My passion is walking alongside VAs through that uplevel. Helping them grow in their work, their identity, the way they show up. Helping them produce solid work that becomes second nature. We all have gaps. Mine, yours, everyone’s. Bridging them and still producing excellent work, that’s the whole job. I love it.
I’ve trained VAs from the ground up before. One of my earliest hires came to me with no formal experience and a lot of self-doubt. What she had was years of being a mother, which it turns out maps directly onto operations work: anticipating needs, juggling priorities, holding the standard, no loose ends. Today she’s still on my team, two years in. The skills weren’t missing. She just hadn’t been shown the framework. That’s the work.
Chaska · Team Manager
I don’t run this alone. Chaska runs delivery.
Chaska joined the team at the start of 2026. She came in as a temporary, project-based VA. Within weeks, I could see her skill set was deeper than the role she’d been hired for. By the time her project wrapped, I knew I wanted her in a bigger seat. Today she’s my team manager. She runs client delivery: meetings, execution, the day-to-day.
What landed for me with Chaska from the start was how seasoned she is. As a mother of her own family. As an operator. The instinct for what comes next, the ability to handle multiple inputs without dropping anything, the quiet bias toward doing the work rather than talking about it. Those are the marks of someone you can hand the standard to. She has them.
That’s why services lives on this site as “managed by Chaska, trained by me.” Because that’s exactly what it is. She runs it. I trained her. I draw the line clearly because I want both sides to be honest about what they are. The training side is for people who want to grow. The services side is for owners who need execution. Two different jobs.
When I’m not working.
San Diego
Born and raised. Not leaving.
Married 2019
Snuck in pre-pandemic.
Two small dogs
A Maltipoo and a schnoodle. They run the house.
Homebody
A true homebody no one understands.
I’m a San Diego native, born and raised, never had the urge to leave and probably never will. I got married in 2019, narrowly avoiding pandemic-wedding territory. We share our home with two small dogs, something my husband never saw coming, and they are adorable free-loaders.
Here’s a fact most people get wrong about me: I’m a homebody. My husband loves to travel. I’d happily stay home every time. Vacation, for me, can absolutely look like two weeks at home with the dogs at my feet, and I’d be 100% content. We’ve learned to balance it.
I’m also a woman of faith. The growth, the pivots, the courage it took to leave a stable job and build this, the lessons that came out of every season, I credit God with all of it. I share that here because it’s part of who I am, not a footnote.
Where do you want to go from here?
Five quick paths, depending on what brought you here. Pick the one that fits.