I spent years leading operations before I knew the role had a name.

2008 · Started at 18

My online career started at 18.

In 2008, I began working online to put myself through nursing school. My days started with school or hospital duty at 5:00 a.m. and ended with online work at midnight. I was a working student in the most literal sense.

I started in a call centre, then taught English to Japanese students for six years. I reached the highest available hourly rate in the company and became the first tutor they sent to Japan as an ambassador.

I also became a Registered Nurse and placed Top 23 nationwide in the June 2012 Philippine Nurse Licensure Exam.

I had proved that I could work hard.

What I had not learned was how to stop proving it by carrying everything.

The pattern

Every role eventually led me back to operations.

Alongside teaching, I worked as a customer support VA. Later, a US events company hired me to support projects and operations. That work grew into coordinating freelancers and contractors across 23 countries, organizing international education expos, and travelling to roughly 20 countries.

I was no longer simply supporting a business. I was helping run it.

The pattern repeated with nearly every client I served. I entered through one role and eventually became the person organizing the operation, coordinating people, solving problems, and making sure the business moved forward.

For years, I did management-level work without knowing that Online Business Management was an established professional path.

Roughly 15 years

Being dependable became my identity.

For roughly 15 years, I worked 14 to 18 hour days and often carried multiple clients. I said yes because being useful felt safer than setting a boundary.

I attended meetings I did not need to attend. I took tasks that were not mine. I made myself available for everything because I believed that was what a good service provider did. At one point I calculated that I was spending 35 hours a week in meetings alone.

I was doing operations management work, but I was still thinking, positioning, and pricing myself like a VA.

The turning point

The work was not new. The language was.

After more than 15 years of leading operations, someone finally gave the work a name: Online Business Management.

I researched the profession, invested roughly US$7,000 in intensive international training through OBM School, and began correcting the gap between the responsibility I carried and the way I positioned it. I am completing the OBM School Accreditation now.

At the same time, I raised my rate with a US client from US$18 to US$28 an hour.

The client accepted without negotiating.

That moment did not erase years of underpricing. It showed me how much fear had been making decisions on my behalf.

I am still doing the work of strengthening my own standards. I teach from active practice, not from a perfect summit.