24 Nov 2025 · 3 min
John Jonas uses his Filipino team member Julia learning to drive as a metaphor for overcoming the fear of hiring online Filipino specialists. He shares his own repeated failures across US hires, Upwork, Fiverr, and Onlinejobs.ph before finding success, and argues that delegating is how you actually grow your business.
Welcome to the Secret Sauce of outsourcing podcast that's dedicated to making you better at working with OFS online Filipino specialists. This is episode 242, facing your fear of hiring an OFS. So one of my OFS, Julia, who you may hear from often, she helps me write my newsletter, she helps write my social media. She's really amazing. She is in the process of getting her driver's license, which she's in her 40s, and so I was surprised to learn that she's only just started learning to drive. And I hope you can see the picture here because her and her husband, who her husband also works for us, just bought a car and that's a big deal in the Philippines. So Julia actually tried learning to drive when she was younger, but she crashed and that scared her and she refused to drive for many, many, many years and then didn't really have opportunity and now she has the chance to look to drive again. So it was so daunting for her that she actually asked me for a week off so she could learn to drive all at once rather than learning to drive in little bits and pieces here and there. And of course I gave her the week off and she just spends a ton of time driving, which is really great for her. Now she gets to be the driver, not just be a passenger. The family also has a car to drive their daughter to school, who goes to kind of a high end school in the Philippines, and it's quite a ways away. And so I know that her husband drives their daughter there, drops her off at school, sets up his mobile data and works there, and then picks her up and drives back home so that he's not driving twice. This hour long drive or whatever that drive distance is, It's a long ways. I know that. So Julia's driving a car is actually a really great analogy for getting over your fear of hiring an ofs. So if you tried to hire someone before, whether it was in the US or overseas or on upwork or whatever and it didn't work out, I get it. I did it, I've done it. I've done it a lot of times. I mean, I hired four times in the US when I first started hiring and not one of them worked out. I hired in India, I hired on upwork. I don't even know how many times I've hired on upwork and sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't. I've hired on fiverr and it hasn't worked. I've hired on onlinejobs, ph and hasn't worked, although that's way more rare for me that it doesn't work out from online jobs. But the point is, I got scared and I got my butt back up again and I hired again. And just like Julia, she had to get up and drive again. And for you, you have to drive your business. If you're not willing to drive the business, you're just only willing to be a passenger. Whatever happens in the business is whatever's going to happen because you're too busy answering emails, you're too busy talking to customers on the phone to work on your business and make a change that's actually going to push the business forward. If you're not willing to drive the business forward, then you're just a passenger and you have to take whatever comes. And if growth comes, cool. If stagnation comes, fine. That's what you got for not driving. And part of driving is having the right help for your business. Onlinejobs ph is where you find the people. 1vaoa.com is where I will walk you through the process of finding that amazing person that will fit in your business, that fits your personality, that will be loyal to you, that'll be honest, and you can trust them.1vaoa.com.
