Barbara Munshaw

Barbara Munshaw is a gentle, yet fierce, woman. Having been raised in an alcoholic home, leaving at the age of 19 to start her life with her first husband, who left her with two young boys, to losing some very important people in her life most recently, Barbara does not let it take her down. She is compassionate, caring, loyal and is always willing to guide, support and mentor others who need to move forward. Her kindness and her beautiful spirit shine through and she is definitely a woman living fully.

Tell us a little about yourself.

I was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario and at 19 I moved to Thunder Bay where I married and raised my two boys. I moved to Ottawa 9 years ago to be with a man I had met while I was living in Thunder Bay after my husband left. I was excited to start a new life in a new city with a new person in my life. The family that lives with us is our dog named Cookie and our cat named Sootie. I have two boys that are all grown up now and one moved to Ottawa with his wife and my eldest still lives in Thunder Bay with his wife and my two grandsons. I can’t believe that I have two grand babies. Time has flown by so fast. In my head I feel as though I’m still in my thirties which is a good way to feel.

Shortly after I moved to Ottawa I started a Digital Marketing company that specialized in Social Media. Facebook had just opened their doors for businesses to use to market their business. Most companies were shying away from social media as a way to connect with their customers, but I knew this would be the next big thing. It took a few years to get businesses on board, but once they did they understood that their target market lived on these social platforms.

I did not have an easy childhood. There was alcohol and abuse. I didn’t run away from home as some do in this type of household. I left after high school and started a new life of my own with my own choices of how I am going to treat my family once I had kids. I knew that once I left home that I could shape my own life and my own self worth. That was the tough part and I continue to prove my self worth to myself each and every day, even now. I look in the mirror and see the person I am now and not the person I was as a child. This is how I keep moving forward whenever doubt creeps its ugly head.

I love to swim, being in the water free’s me. I used to fly airplanes which gave me that same feeling and hope to do that again. It’s on my bucket list for sure.

Who inspires you in your life? Who do you look up to? And why?

My kids are my biggest inspiration. They have big goals and they go after them until they get what they want and I want them to have a mother that is just as strong and can go after the goals I have in my head. My Mom and my mother-in-law inspire me too although they have both passed. They both had such hardships during WW2 and their strength to continue on after that experience inspires me. If these two women can stand proud after their experience and go on then there is nothing that I can’t stand tall about either.

What have been some of the biggest challenges you have had to overcome in your life? What did you do to move through them? What did you learn? What do you wish to share with others?

One of my first biggest challenges was owning and running a concrete company in a blue collar town. The first year was a year of proving a woman can do this and I did. I had sold the company years later and then my husband who I had been with since I was 14, which meant we were together for 32 years of my life, left and started a new life of his own. We were all in shock. It was a very dark time for me and my kids, but I did the best I could to keep the 3 of us happy. I wasn’t always successful in doing that, but I did the best I could at the time. A few years after that is when I moved to Ottawa.

A couple of years ago my Mom passed away after her battle with cancer, shortly before she passed away my brother was fighting for his life from cancer (he won his battle) and then a few months after that my heart brother was diagnosed with cancer and passed away within months. At the same time, I was going through two hip replacements within months of each other. What I did to cope with all of this was think about what would make all of these people proud of me.

I had been thinking of a new division for my company, but didn’t pursue it. I kept putting it off.
So, I took a look at what had happened in the those previous six months and how two important people in my life didn’t get to finish or start what they had dreamed of. That’s when while I was recuperating from my surgeries I started a new company called Virtual Assist Girl and shortly afterwards it took off. I had been asked if I knew someone that would do the social media marketing, blogging, e-mail marketing for them and I didn’t at the time. I had thought about starting this division of my company for a while, but just didn’t get around to it. I knew that this was the right time. That no matter what has happened, life was just too short and there wasn’t a really good reason for me not to. I didn’t want to ever say I could have and didn’t. Even if I fail (not every good idea pans out) at least I had tried it and it either worked or it didn’t, but I don’t have any regrets because I tried.

What are you most proud of?

I am proud that no matter what happened to me growing up, I am not an angry person and am very open and honest. I treat everyone as if I were standing there facing myself and what would I want that person to say to me. What and how you say something to someone does matter and shapes who they are and will become.

What do you want your older self to know?

If I could go back and tell myself anything that I’ve learned over the years that would be don’t second guess your intuition. Trust it, it usually never lies.