Maggie Olson is the Founder of Nova Chief of Staff, the premier destination for Chief of Staff education and development.
This episode is a recording from a Nova Chat webinar where Maggie flipped the microphone in my direction and interviewed me about being an assistant, hosting a podcast, writing a book, and more!
I enjoyed being put on the spot and I hope you enjoy our conversation.
CONNECT WITH MAGGIE
ABOUT MAGGIE
Maggie Olson is the Founder of Nova Chief of Staff, the premier destination for Chief of Staff education and development. As the first Chief of Staff to a president at a Fortune 40 company — who led a multibillion-dollar business with 5,000+ employees — Maggie built the president’s Chief of Staff model from the ground up. Maggie has 20 years’ experience leading large teams and has spent her career focused on both customer and employee experience at companies including T-Mobile, Nordstrom, and Starbucks. In addition to operating the Nova Chief of Staff Certification course, Maggie is a fractional Chief of Staff focused on helping mission-driven, for-profit startup founders scale their businesses quickly. In her spare time, Maggie loves spending time outside with her husband, their animals, and their 1-year-old, Max!
CONNECT WITH JEREMY
ABOUT JEREMY
Jeremy Burrows is a longtime executive assistant, international speaker, founder of The Leader Assistant Community, author of the #1 Amazon Bestselling book, The Leader Assistant: Four Pillars of a Confident, Game-Changing Assistant, and host of the #1 podcast for assistants – The Leader Assistant Podcast.
He has worked with CEOs, professional athletes, Fortune 100 board members, and billionaires spanning across the nonprofit and for-profit sectors.
Jeremy has also had the opportunity to speak at administrative professional and executive assistant conferences all over the world, including Hong Kong, Thailand, and Germany.
He’s currently EA to the Founder and CEO of Capacity, a fast-growing startup with an AI-powered, support automation platform.
Jeremy’s passion is to help you lead well, resist burnout, and automate before you’re automated.
Jeremy lives in Kansas City, MO with his wife and 2 boys. To connect with Jeremy or learn more about his training resources for executives and assistants, visit LeaderAssistant.com.
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THE LEADER ASSISTANT PODCAST IS PRESENTED BY NOVA CHIEF OF STAFF
Calling all Executive Assistants: Are you looking for a way to elevate your skills or earn that promotion you’ve been eyeing? Nova Chief of Staff’s online certification course provides you with the knowledge and confidence you need to stand out on the job. Whether you want to land your dream position or level up in your current role, Nova’s self-paced course gives you hands-on practice doing what Chiefs of Staff do every day.
Visit leaderassistant.com/nova to learn more and secure your spot!
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THE LEADER ASSISTANT PREMIUM MEMBERSHIP
To learn more about how you can join growth-minded Leader Assistants, check out our Leader Assistant Premium Membership for ongoing training, coaching, and community.
THE LEADER ASSISTANT BOOK
Download the first 3 chapters of The Leader Assistant: Four Pillars of Game-Changing Assistant for FREE here or buy it on Amazon and listen to the audiobook on Audible. Also, check out the companion study guide, The Leader Assistant Workbook, to dig deeper.
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Check out our constantly updated schedule of events for admins and assistants at LeaderAssistantLive.com.
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Join the Leader Assistant Global Community for bonus content, job opportunities, and to network with other assistants who are committed to becoming leaders!
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00.000 –> 00:00:10.280
JEREMY: Everyone is talking about Nova Chief of Staff, and it’s no surprise when graduates walk away with huge benefits, like greater confidence and the validation that they can do the role.
00:00:10.860 –> 00:00:19.400
JEREMY: There are over 300 students in the Nova Chief of Staff certification course, many of which are growth-minded executive assistants like you.
00:00:19.920 –> 00:00:30.960
JEREMY: Many of the Leader Assistants taking the course aren’t necessarily looking for a promotion, they simply want to become more effective, strategic, and game-changing assistants.
00:00:31.620 –> 00:00:38.700
JEREMY: Over 18 countries around the globe are represented by students in Nova’s course, so I highly recommend you join the club.
00:00:39.160 –> 00:00:46.020
JEREMY: Visit leaderassistant.com/nova to learn more about this amazing professional development resource.
00:00:51.780 –> 00:00:59.259
<v SPEAKER_2>Thank you The Leader Assistant Podcast exists to encourage and challenge assistants to become confident, game-changing, leader assistants.
00:01:07.226 –> 00:01:09.886
JEREMY: Hey, friends, welcome to episode 276.
00:01:09.906 –> 00:01:20.246
JEREMY: You can check out the show notes for this episode at leaderassistant.com/276, leaderassistant.com/276.
00:01:20.726 –> 00:01:23.526
JEREMY: Today is a very special episode.
00:01:23.726 –> 00:01:31.446
JEREMY: I am actually sharing a recording from a webinar that I did with my friend, Maggie Olson, founder of Nova Chief of Staff.
00:01:32.146 –> 00:01:37.686
JEREMY: And she has the series, this webinar series, called Flip the Mic, which I think is a super fun series.
00:01:37.706 –> 00:01:39.786
JEREMY: Definitely check it out on her website.
00:01:39.806 –> 00:01:41.326
JEREMY: Again, all the links will be in the show notes.
00:01:41.946 –> 00:01:55.906
JEREMY: But for this webinar, she flipped the mic on me and asked me a bunch of questions about my story and about being an assistant and about being an author and being a dad and all the fun things.
00:01:55.926 –> 00:01:59.886
JEREMY: So Maggie did a great job facilitating this conversation.
00:02:00.126 –> 00:02:02.766
JEREMY: So I wanted to share it with you for this episode.
00:02:02.946 –> 00:02:08.246
JEREMY: So I hope you enjoy this recording from my conversation with Maggie Olson.
00:02:08.286 –> 00:02:11.386
JEREMY: Again, I’m the one being interviewed, so it’s a little different.
00:02:11.406 –> 00:02:12.206
JEREMY: Hope you enjoy it.
00:02:12.226 –> 00:02:14.926
JEREMY: Hope you enjoy the tidbits and my story.
00:02:15.086 –> 00:02:20.846
JEREMY: And feel free to reach out if you have any questions or comments about anything that I shared.
00:02:21.386 –> 00:02:22.686
JEREMY: I would love to hear from you.
00:02:23.126 –> 00:02:24.546
JEREMY: All right, here we go.
00:02:24.566 –> 00:02:28.646
JEREMY: Here’s Flip the Mic with Maggie Olson interviewing yours truly.
00:02:30.206 –> 00:02:34.026
MAGGIE: I’m really excited today to have a familiar face.
00:02:34.046 –> 00:02:36.886
MAGGIE: So Jeremy and I have worked together a lot.
00:02:36.886 –> 00:02:43.866
MAGGIE: Jeremy was one of the most welcoming people to me last year when we kicked off Nova Chief of Staff last summer.
00:02:43.886 –> 00:02:49.266
MAGGIE: I think it was my first time ever being on a podcast with Jeremy Burrows.
00:02:50.326 –> 00:02:54.606
MAGGIE: And today is really fun because we are flipping the mic.
00:02:54.766 –> 00:03:02.466
MAGGIE: So normally, Jeremy interviews guests on his podcast, but today I am interviewing Jeremy.
00:03:02.506 –> 00:03:10.266
MAGGIE: So what I’m going to do first is talk really quickly about our Nova Chat, what we do here, and then I’m going to introduce Jeremy and we’re going to get into it.
00:03:10.326 –> 00:03:14.566
MAGGIE: So the goal of these Nova Chats is to go deeper with industry expert guests.
00:03:14.666 –> 00:03:25.326
MAGGIE: We want to talk about vulnerable moments, job transition do’s and don’ts, career alignment, when to move on from a role, and all of the things that could align in that area.
00:03:26.146 –> 00:03:33.086
MAGGIE: As I mentioned, Jeremy and I have been partnering together for, gosh, almost a year now on lots of different things.
00:03:33.086 –> 00:03:35.046
MAGGIE: I’m a big fan of the work Jeremy does.
00:03:35.526 –> 00:03:37.926
MAGGIE: And today we are flipping the mic.
00:03:37.926 –> 00:03:56.046
MAGGIE: So Jeremy is a long-time executive assistant, international speaker, and founder of the leader assistant community, number one bestselling author on Amazon, The Leader Assistant book, Four Pillars of a Confident, Game-Changing Assistant, and host of the number one podcast for assistant, The Leader Assistant Podcast.
00:03:56.286 –> 00:04:08.066
MAGGIE: So my guess is that you’re all fairly familiar with Jeremy, but he’s worked with CEOs, professional athletes, Fortune 100 board members, and billionaires spanning across the nonprofit and for-profit sectors.
00:04:09.586 –> 00:04:10.946
MAGGIE: He’s a public speaker.
00:04:11.326 –> 00:04:16.106
MAGGIE: He’s also currently the EA to the founder and CEO of Capacity.
00:04:16.806 –> 00:04:21.146
MAGGIE: Which is a fast-growing startup with an AI-powered support automation platform.
00:04:21.446 –> 00:04:31.366
MAGGIE: So Jeremy’s passion, and this is a real passion, I live and breathe it with Jeremy every day, is to help you lead well, resist burnout, and automate before you’re automated.
00:04:31.566 –> 00:04:33.926
MAGGIE: Which is so funny and I love that.
00:04:33.986 –> 00:04:35.586
MAGGIE: Jeremy lives nearby.
00:04:35.626 –> 00:04:36.686
MAGGIE: I’m in Lincoln, Nebraska.
00:04:36.706 –> 00:04:39.866
MAGGIE: He’s in Kansas City, Missouri with his wife and two boys.
00:04:40.646 –> 00:04:49.606
MAGGIE: And you can always connect with Jeremy and learn more about him and his resources for executives and executive assistants at leaderassistant.com.
00:04:49.626 –> 00:04:50.986
MAGGIE: So welcome Jeremy.
00:04:51.006 –> 00:04:53.246
JEREMY: Thank you so much, Maggie.
00:04:53.266 –> 00:04:54.206
JEREMY: That was quite the intro.
00:04:54.226 –> 00:04:55.466
JEREMY: I appreciate it.
00:04:55.526 –> 00:04:55.946
MAGGIE: Yeah.
00:04:55.966 –> 00:04:58.346
MAGGIE: I mean, it’s fun to talk about all the things you’re doing.
00:04:58.366 –> 00:05:03.406
MAGGIE: And my guess is most people have seen you out there in the world, but maybe some haven’t.
00:05:03.426 –> 00:05:06.126
MAGGIE: So it’s fun to go through all of the things.
00:05:06.146 –> 00:05:09.886
MAGGIE: So I have a bunch of questions prepared for Jeremy.
00:05:10.006 –> 00:05:15.066
MAGGIE: We also have some student questions from our Nova Chief of Staff Certification course that came in for Jeremy.
00:05:16.166 –> 00:05:25.086
MAGGIE: I think what I want to start with is really just your background and what you believe were the key moments that got you to where you are today.
00:05:25.106 –> 00:05:27.726
MAGGIE: So when did you become an EA?
00:05:27.866 –> 00:05:30.646
MAGGIE: What was your background out of high school?
00:05:30.666 –> 00:05:31.246
MAGGIE: What did you do?
00:05:31.266 –> 00:05:32.546
MAGGIE: What were the things you’re interested in?
00:05:32.566 –> 00:05:39.926
MAGGIE: And what were the pivotal moments that kind of from a career progression moved you into where you are now?
00:05:40.046 –> 00:05:40.706
JEREMY: So, hey, everyone.
00:05:41.346 –> 00:05:45.366
JEREMY: Again, excited to be here today and happy Thursday again.
00:05:45.386 –> 00:05:48.706
JEREMY: And, you know, excited to jump in.
00:05:49.226 –> 00:05:51.986
JEREMY: So I wanted to be a musician.
00:05:52.006 –> 00:05:55.146
JEREMY: I had actually taught myself how to play guitar.
00:05:55.766 –> 00:06:03.106
JEREMY: I was doing a little bit of singing and I went to be an intern at a church to do music, church music.
00:06:05.146 –> 00:06:16.766
JEREMY: And long story short, as I pursued that career, I realized that there were things that I was really good at that other people around me were not good at.
00:06:17.206 –> 00:06:24.986
JEREMY: And that was details, organization, project management, showing up to meetings on time, replying to emails.
00:06:26.046 –> 00:06:34.826
JEREMY: What seemed like very basic things to me were very difficult for these artists and musicians that I was working with.
00:06:34.846 –> 00:06:37.266
JEREMY: And I remember reading an article.
00:06:37.286 –> 00:06:45.966
JEREMY: I didn’t really think much of it other than, okay, you know, I can kind of make a little bit of money while I’m doing all these detail things, because the music side was really hard for me.
00:06:47.006 –> 00:06:57.186
JEREMY: When more our organization grew, more people came around me that had more musical talent and abilities than I did.
00:06:58.426 –> 00:07:00.146
JEREMY: And it came a lot easier to them.
00:07:00.906 –> 00:07:02.386
JEREMY: They didn’t have to practice as much.
00:07:02.406 –> 00:07:08.446
JEREMY: They didn’t have to, you know, do band rehearsals as much because it was just natural to them.
00:07:08.466 –> 00:07:09.866
JEREMY: They were just very, very talented.
00:07:10.286 –> 00:07:15.186
JEREMY: So again, on the flip side, it came natural to me for the details and organization.
00:07:15.206 –> 00:07:16.786
JEREMY: And so I started doing more and more of that.
00:07:17.366 –> 00:07:19.346
JEREMY: But then I didn’t really see it as a career.
00:07:19.366 –> 00:07:32.806
JEREMY: I didn’t really see it as something that I would, you know, shift from music to assistant world until I read an article called The Case for Executive Assistants by Melba Duncan.
00:07:32.826 –> 00:07:35.786
JEREMY: And it was in the Harvard Business Review.
00:07:36.626 –> 00:07:50.906
JEREMY: And it essentially went through data on, okay, you know, you should pay an executive, sorry, you should pay an executive assistant well because they save you X amount of dollars per hour.
00:07:51.726 –> 00:08:05.566
JEREMY: And some of the numbers that were in that article, I was kind of blown away at the time as far as, oh, okay, like if you pay an assistant X amount of money a year, there’s a high ROI for the CEO.
00:08:06.366 –> 00:08:11.266
JEREMY: And also, I was working in a small nonprofit, so I wasn’t making very much money.
00:08:11.286 –> 00:08:12.666
JEREMY: So I was like, wow, that looks like a lot of money.
00:08:12.886 –> 00:08:14.126
JEREMY: This could be a career.
00:08:14.146 –> 00:08:16.266
JEREMY: I could provide for a family doing this.
00:08:16.286 –> 00:08:24.806
JEREMY: And so that’s how I kind of got that fire in me to say, okay, you know what, maybe this is a respectable profession.
00:08:25.286 –> 00:08:38.606
JEREMY: And so I allowed my mind and my heart to leave, leave aside the music dream and move towards something that came a little more naturally to me.
00:08:39.306 –> 00:08:42.066
MAGGIE: What was your musical instrument of choice?
00:08:43.186 –> 00:08:44.366
JEREMY: Guitar primarily.
00:08:44.386 –> 00:08:47.226
JEREMY: I did a little bit of piano, but mostly guitar.
00:08:47.886 –> 00:08:48.306
MAGGIE: Cool.
00:08:48.326 –> 00:08:52.126
MAGGIE: So does music still show up with today in your life and in other ways?
00:08:52.146 –> 00:09:05.966
JEREMY: I kept playing here and there, but as soon as I had kids, I kind of ran out of energy to do a lot of music, but I still have my guitar in my office behind me.
00:09:07.686 –> 00:09:10.566
JEREMY: But yeah, I don’t play as much as I would maybe like to.
00:09:10.586 –> 00:09:24.806
JEREMY: I kind of have this dream of someday building a recording studio in my backyard and just spending all day hanging out in there, producing music for other people that are more talented than me.
00:09:24.986 –> 00:09:27.506
JEREMY: And I kind of want to be Rick Rubin.
00:09:27.526 –> 00:09:32.226
JEREMY: That’s kind of my alternate reality dream.
00:09:32.746 –> 00:09:33.986
MAGGIE: Yeah, I love that.
00:09:34.006 –> 00:09:37.046
JEREMY: I’d love to just produce and sit there and be like, all right, this sounds good.
00:09:37.066 –> 00:09:38.006
JEREMY: This sounds like crap.
00:09:38.026 –> 00:09:38.666
JEREMY: Change this.
00:09:39.166 –> 00:09:44.706
JEREMY: You know, like I always thought like I had a decent ear for what sounds good and what doesn’t.
00:09:45.066 –> 00:09:47.286
MAGGIE: And you can do the business side of things too.
00:09:47.646 –> 00:09:47.946
JEREMY: Right.
00:09:47.986 –> 00:09:48.486
JEREMY: Exactly.
00:09:48.506 –> 00:09:48.806
MAGGIE: Yeah.
00:09:48.946 –> 00:09:49.486
MAGGIE: I love that.
00:09:49.506 –> 00:09:50.306
MAGGIE: So, okay.
00:09:50.366 –> 00:09:51.706
MAGGIE: How long were you?
00:09:51.726 –> 00:09:53.946
MAGGIE: I guess a couple of questions.
00:09:54.066 –> 00:10:07.766
MAGGIE: As an executive assistant, were you, did you find a role in the music industry to do executive assistant work or did you completely take a turn and go find an EA role or an admin role outside of music as your first admin job?
00:10:08.366 –> 00:10:27.266
JEREMY: No, I was actually in the nonprofit church organization and the founder was, I was kind of thinking, I was assistant to different people in the organization and then I was like a department assistant and I was like a project manager.
00:10:27.286 –> 00:10:41.426
JEREMY: And at one point, I remember after I got married and my wife and I were getting settled in after our honeymoon and I was just looking at it, I was a project manager at the time, project manager slash department assistant.
00:10:42.386 –> 00:10:46.626
JEREMY: And I remember telling her, I’m like, yeah, I don’t really, I’m kind of bored.
00:10:46.646 –> 00:10:54.486
JEREMY: I think maybe I should quit and start a business or maybe I should, you know, I’d like to be the founder’s assistant.
00:10:54.506 –> 00:10:58.126
JEREMY: I think that would be more challenging and more interesting and more exciting.
00:10:58.146 –> 00:11:05.326
JEREMY: And the EA, that EA to the founder role was appealing to me, but I was like, yeah, that’ll never happen.
00:11:05.346 –> 00:11:09.846
JEREMY: They always just hire part-time interns and, you know, it’s kind of a whatever.
00:11:10.606 –> 00:11:18.646
JEREMY: Well, the very next day, they kind of came up to me and said, hey, we’d like to talk to you about your role.
00:11:18.666 –> 00:11:20.346
JEREMY: And I’m like, all right, well, this happens every few months.
00:11:20.366 –> 00:11:21.606
JEREMY: It’s a small nonprofit.
00:11:21.826 –> 00:11:23.326
JEREMY: Everything changes all the time anyway.
00:11:23.346 –> 00:11:24.466
JEREMY: I’m like, didn’t think much of it.
00:11:25.246 –> 00:11:32.466
JEREMY: And they sat me down and they said, you know, Jeremy, we actually think that you should be the founder’s assistant.
00:11:32.726 –> 00:11:34.206
JEREMY: And I was like, really?
00:11:34.226 –> 00:11:38.786
JEREMY: I told my wife, I was like, I told my wife yesterday that I wanted to be the founder’s assistant.
00:11:38.806 –> 00:11:39.506
JEREMY: So let’s do it.
00:11:39.926 –> 00:11:45.066
JEREMY: So that’s kind of how I ended up in that CEO, founder, assistant role.
00:11:45.626 –> 00:11:58.666
JEREMY: And then fast forward six years from there, my executive got fired and I thought I was going to be there for 12 more years and then I didn’t know what I was going to be doing for 12 days.
00:11:59.686 –> 00:12:14.346
JEREMY: And so that was kind of my epiphany moment where I sold my house, gave away most of our belongings, took my wife and our two young boys across the country, literally to the mountaintop to figure out what we wanted to do with our lives.
00:12:15.966 –> 00:12:19.506
JEREMY: That’s kind of when I realized I had burned out, my executive had burned out.
00:12:20.906 –> 00:12:28.686
JEREMY: There were a lot of mistakes we made in that time, that six years of EA founder partnership.
00:12:29.686 –> 00:12:40.606
JEREMY: And I decided I don’t want to ever burn out again and I don’t want my executive to burn out either, but I also thought, you know, I don’t want other assistants in the world and other executives in the world to burn out either.
00:12:40.666 –> 00:12:49.266
JEREMY: And so that kind of when I started my blog and started reaching out and trying to network with other assistants in the world and trying to say, hey, you know what?
00:12:50.386 –> 00:12:52.926
JEREMY: I actually was writing to executives, which was kind of funny.
00:12:53.486 –> 00:12:57.086
JEREMY: I was writing to executives saying, don’t abuse your assistant.
00:12:57.226 –> 00:13:02.626
JEREMY: I was writing to executives saying, pay your assistant well, treat him as a business partner.
00:13:02.646 –> 00:13:12.806
JEREMY: And of course, the assistant started reading those articles and say, yes, I need to share this with my executive and I need to share it on LinkedIn and hope my executive sees it and those kinds of things.
00:13:13.326 –> 00:13:14.586
JEREMY: And that’s how I started.
00:13:16.306 –> 00:13:24.006
JEREMY: That was kind of the journey of the whole leader assistant slash gobros.com business.
00:13:25.126 –> 00:13:26.346
MAGGIE: OK, I want to dive into all that.
00:13:26.366 –> 00:13:34.066
MAGGIE: How many years ago was that when you took your family to the top of the mountain after you and your executive were burned out and you had to figure out what you were going to do?
00:13:34.926 –> 00:13:36.206
JEREMY: That was 2016.
00:13:36.446 –> 00:13:41.806
JEREMY: So that was April of 2016 is when he got fired.
00:13:41.826 –> 00:13:45.206
JEREMY: So really, I guess we’re on eight years now.
00:13:45.606 –> 00:13:46.206
MAGGIE: Eight years.
00:13:46.906 –> 00:13:47.306
MAGGIE: Wow.
00:13:47.646 –> 00:13:48.006
JEREMY: Yeah.
00:13:48.026 –> 00:13:52.606
JEREMY: We started my current job January of 2017.
00:13:52.626 –> 00:13:56.846
JEREMY: So because I told my told my wife and I committed to myself.
00:13:56.966 –> 00:13:58.926
JEREMY: I’m not going to get a real job until January.
00:13:58.946 –> 00:14:05.466
JEREMY: I basically said I want to take a good amount of time off because I had worked so much, so hard for so long.
00:14:07.726 –> 00:14:09.206
MAGGIE: I might be jumping ahead because I do.
00:14:09.226 –> 00:14:14.226
MAGGIE: I want to dive into a lot of the components of how you’ve built your business over the last eight years.
00:14:14.226 –> 00:14:16.626
MAGGIE: But why have you kept?
00:14:16.666 –> 00:14:26.106
MAGGIE: I’m sure there’s some really strong great reasons here, but why have you kept a day job, an EA job while running a super successful business?
00:14:31.610 –> 00:14:34.190
MAGGIE: Are you ready to elevate your career in 2024?
00:14:35.130 –> 00:14:42.810
MAGGIE: I’m Maggie Olson, founder of Nova Chief of Staff Certification, the first of its kind online course for aspiring and existing Chiefs of Staff.
00:14:43.430 –> 00:14:54.950
MAGGIE: With curriculum taken directly from on-the-job responsibilities, Nova’s self-paced learning modules provides you with hands-on experience so you can feel competent and confident moving into a Chief of Staff style role.
00:14:55.630 –> 00:14:58.030
MAGGIE: It’s the perfect next step for executive assistants.
00:14:58.590 –> 00:15:03.630
MAGGIE: Head to leaderassistant.com/nova to learn more, grab the syllabus and enroll today.
00:15:03.650 –> 00:15:08.990
JEREMY: Yeah, great question.
00:15:09.510 –> 00:15:10.650
JEREMY: Couple of main reasons.
00:15:11.190 –> 00:15:13.410
JEREMY: One is I really love being an assistant.
00:15:13.430 –> 00:15:29.450
JEREMY: I really love helping my executive execute his crazy ideas and raise money when no one else can raise money and close a deal when no one else can close a deal.
00:15:29.470 –> 00:15:31.130
JEREMY: I love being a part of that.
00:15:32.170 –> 00:15:37.710
JEREMY: It’s also an AI software space, so it’s like very, very, it’s not a fad.
00:15:37.730 –> 00:15:38.490
JEREMY: It’s a trend.
00:15:38.530 –> 00:15:47.410
JEREMY: And so it’s very rare for a Midwest assistant to be able to be higher number one at a software company.
00:15:48.030 –> 00:15:51.450
JEREMY: And my CEO also sold his last company for almost a billion dollars.
00:15:51.710 –> 00:15:55.770
JEREMY: And so it’s not some random guy that has a good idea that’s trying to do it.
00:15:55.790 –> 00:15:58.070
JEREMY: It’s somebody that knows what he’s doing, has done it before.
00:15:58.090 –> 00:16:00.970
JEREMY: And so it’s a really unique opportunity.
00:16:00.990 –> 00:16:21.630
JEREMY: And then kind of along those same lines, he’s very flexible and like leaves me alone on the weekends and lets me take an hour in the middle of my day to hop on a webinar, lets me go to Indianapolis last week and do some training for assistance.
00:16:21.650 –> 00:16:24.070
JEREMY: Like it’s very, very supportive.
00:16:24.730 –> 00:16:26.750
JEREMY: So that’s all good and great.
00:16:26.770 –> 00:16:34.790
JEREMY: But then the other reason is I’m a firm believer in multiple streams of income.
00:16:35.490 –> 00:16:39.370
JEREMY: And I’m a firm believer in not putting all your eggs in one basket.
00:16:39.390 –> 00:16:42.070
JEREMY: And that’s what I did last at my last role.
00:16:42.090 –> 00:16:43.910
JEREMY: Like I didn’t have any side hustles.
00:16:43.930 –> 00:16:48.750
JEREMY: I didn’t have any other streams of income.
00:16:48.790 –> 00:16:52.390
JEREMY: I was just making the nonprofit salary and that was it.
00:16:52.410 –> 00:17:01.490
JEREMY: And then when that all kind of fell apart, it was like, oh, I realized that I had put all my financial eggs in this basket and I needed to diversify my income streams.
00:17:01.510 –> 00:17:15.110
JEREMY: And so I think that the future with technology and remote work and all the opportunity that technology brings us and AI and the internet speeds and all that, I think the future is multiple streams of income.
00:17:15.130 –> 00:17:26.570
JEREMY: I don’t think it’s, I think we’ve gone way past the time where you work one job for 30, 40 years, and then you retire and everything’s great.
00:17:26.630 –> 00:17:38.390
JEREMY: Like I think that I’m a very firm believer in figuring out ways to set up multiple streams of income, passive income, investments, side hustles, all of the above.
00:17:40.390 –> 00:17:41.350
MAGGIE: This is fascinating.
00:17:41.370 –> 00:17:45.170
MAGGIE: I hope everybody listening is picking up some good nuggets here.
00:17:47.010 –> 00:17:51.770
MAGGIE: I want to go back to eight years ago when you were trying to figure out what to do.
00:17:51.810 –> 00:17:53.290
MAGGIE: What was your first step?
00:17:53.490 –> 00:18:03.850
MAGGIE: You decided that you, if I’m hearing you correctly, you decided that you wanted to be a resource for executives and executive assistants to help avoid burnout and have success in their roles.
00:18:03.870 –> 00:18:06.130
MAGGIE: So what was your first step to doing that?
00:18:06.150 –> 00:18:14.730
MAGGIE: And then how did you build kind of offer after offer to better the executive assistant community?
00:18:14.850 –> 00:18:16.870
MAGGIE: Like what were the key points along the way there?
00:18:18.210 –> 00:18:28.710
JEREMY: Yeah, I mean, I think the first step was I learned how to build a website and WordPress and built my own website, started blogging, started writing.
00:18:28.730 –> 00:18:34.790
JEREMY: That was kind of more blogs are not as cool these days.
00:18:35.230 –> 00:18:51.010
JEREMY: They’re still helpful and whatever, but there’s podcasts and LinkedIn and email lists and all these different things that have taken over for the medium of blogging for now.
00:18:51.830 –> 00:19:04.770
JEREMY: I don’t think blogs are dead, but anyway, at the time, it was like blog was like the thing and so I started blogging, it started writing, started reaching out and networking, and just tried to build a network.
00:19:06.310 –> 00:19:13.550
JEREMY: That was the only thing I knew is I got to figure out where assistants hang out, I got to figure out how to connect with assistants.
00:19:13.950 –> 00:19:27.830
JEREMY: I tried Twitter, it wasn’t really many assistants on Twitter, I tried Facebook, there was some assistants on Facebook, some of the Facebook groups I was able to connect with assistants, but then there’s also a lot of drama and stuff that I didn’t want to mess with.
00:19:27.850 –> 00:19:40.730
JEREMY: Then I realized I kind of fell into LinkedIn and realized, hey, wait, there’s a lot of assistants on LinkedIn, and they’re actually active, and I was not active on LinkedIn.
00:19:41.690 –> 00:19:45.770
JEREMY: So I started just going crazy, reaching out, networking.
00:19:47.550 –> 00:19:51.470
MAGGIE: Did you find LinkedIn pretty early in your journey eight years ago, or did it take some time?
00:19:52.150 –> 00:20:08.430
JEREMY: It was one of the first things, because when you’re in between jobs and you’re trying to figure out what you’re going to do, you hop on LinkedIn and update your profile, and as I was doing that, I realized, oh, hey, people are on here, but also assistants are on here.
00:20:08.550 –> 00:20:14.290
MAGGIE: So you’re starting to kind of establish yourself as a voice in the space, blogging, and then LinkedIn.
00:20:14.310 –> 00:20:34.610
MAGGIE: At what point did you decide, I guess, what were the other major kind of, I guess, products or offers, or I’m trying to learn and understand the sequence of, all right, when did you write your book and how did you decide to launch a podcast and when did you start speaking publicly?
00:20:34.730 –> 00:20:38.590
MAGGIE: If you could share a little bit about the journey along the way would be super helpful.
00:20:39.490 –> 00:20:39.910
JEREMY: Yeah.
00:20:39.930 –> 00:20:46.430
JEREMY: So basically I started blogging and then that started building the network.
00:20:46.450 –> 00:20:47.430
JEREMY: It’s all about the network.
00:20:47.430 –> 00:20:50.230
JEREMY: So if you don’t know where to start, just start networking with people.
00:20:51.170 –> 00:21:08.910
JEREMY: And then to start, well, the two things I would say, start networking with people and start building an email list and trying to write helpful things and share helpful ideas and be valuable to the people you’re writing to and build an email list and write helpful emails to them.
00:21:09.950 –> 00:21:10.790
JEREMY: So that’s what I did.
00:21:10.870 –> 00:21:25.290
JEREMY: And then it just kind of morphed into, I got this random LinkedIn note from someone in Thailand and I thought it was spam, but I replied to it just to see, you know, what was the deal?
00:21:25.330 –> 00:21:35.590
JEREMY: And long story short, he flew me out, flew me and my wife out to Chiang Mai, Thailand and Hong Kong to lead a two-day workshop for assistance at universities there.
00:21:36.290 –> 00:21:38.950
JEREMY: And it was like, that was pretty crazy.
00:21:38.990 –> 00:21:50.910
JEREMY: And actually before that was another kind of assistant reached out from the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, Germany and was like, hey, we want you to speak at our conference for assistance.
00:21:50.930 –> 00:21:51.790
JEREMY: And I’m like, okay, sure.
00:21:52.850 –> 00:21:56.990
JEREMY: And that was actually my first in-person training speaking event.
00:21:57.010 –> 00:22:01.450
JEREMY: But after I got done with my session, my wife, I got to bring my wife there too.
00:22:01.470 –> 00:22:05.130
JEREMY: And my wife said, you know, this is his first speaking gig.
00:22:05.150 –> 00:22:06.790
JEREMY: And I was like, I know you’re not supposed to say that.
00:22:06.810 –> 00:22:09.250
MAGGIE: I love that.
00:22:09.650 –> 00:22:14.210
JEREMY: So they just kind of like just putting yourself out there trying to help others.
00:22:14.790 –> 00:22:20.750
JEREMY: I think that growing that network, people just started finding me and reaching out and saying, hey, can you do this?
00:22:20.850 –> 00:22:22.110
JEREMY: Hey, can you coach me?
00:22:22.130 –> 00:22:25.750
JEREMY: Can you speak at my corporate event or whatever?
00:22:25.770 –> 00:22:28.410
JEREMY: And so I just kind of trial and error.
00:22:28.430 –> 00:22:34.770
JEREMY: You know, I remember early on, I would speak free, and then I’d start speaking for $500 for a session.
00:22:34.790 –> 00:22:37.470
JEREMY: And then I’d just be happy if they paid my flights.
00:22:37.670 –> 00:22:43.130
JEREMY: And as the demand came, more demand, I’d raise my prices and people kept saying yes.
00:22:43.150 –> 00:22:45.470
JEREMY: So I’d raise my prices more and people kept saying yes.
00:22:45.490 –> 00:22:48.310
JEREMY: And just kind of go like that with the steamroll.
00:22:49.070 –> 00:22:51.270
JEREMY: But then I started the podcast in 2019.
00:22:52.630 –> 00:22:58.170
JEREMY: Actually, so it was the very end of March, was the first episode in 2019.
00:22:58.190 –> 00:23:02.490
JEREMY: So about to hit my five years, I guess, if my math is right.
00:23:03.090 –> 00:23:14.170
JEREMY: And then I wrote the book at the end of 2019 and published it in June of 2020.
00:23:15.030 –> 00:23:24.490
JEREMY: And so those were the reason I did the podcast was I actually had audio experience from my music career and editing experience.
00:23:24.510 –> 00:23:29.770
JEREMY: So that was fun, kind of doing that producing and be able to have creative control over what I published.
00:23:30.430 –> 00:23:35.230
JEREMY: And it was easy for me to, and I still do my own editing for my podcast.
00:23:36.510 –> 00:23:39.050
JEREMY: I record the interviews and then I edit them myself.
00:23:39.110 –> 00:23:44.350
JEREMY: And but then so I did that and I was like, oh, I’ve got experience, I can do this.
00:23:44.410 –> 00:23:48.710
JEREMY: And I had enough content where I was like, I think I can publish an episode every week.
00:23:49.170 –> 00:23:56.170
JEREMY: And I will say one thing too is when I set out to do things, I don’t, there’s two things that I think of.
00:23:56.190 –> 00:23:58.970
JEREMY: I think, can I do this well?
00:24:00.190 –> 00:24:01.770
JEREMY: And can I do it consistently?
00:24:02.610 –> 00:24:09.690
JEREMY: So when I thought about the podcast, I had had the idea for a year or so, but I just didn’t think I could do it consistently.
00:24:10.350 –> 00:24:13.110
JEREMY: And then I also was like, could I do it well, whatever.
00:24:13.870 –> 00:24:19.050
JEREMY: So when I launched my podcast, my goal was to do it every week consistently.
00:24:19.770 –> 00:24:26.630
JEREMY: And five years later, I’ve only missed two weeks, and that was a couple of holidays that I had early on.
00:24:28.410 –> 00:24:35.290
JEREMY: So 200, I think I just recorded episode 275, which will publish in June.
00:24:36.170 –> 00:24:37.870
JEREMY: And so that was kind of that.
00:24:37.890 –> 00:24:38.910
JEREMY: And then I wanted to do it well.
00:24:38.930 –> 00:24:43.750
JEREMY: I was like, I was looking at the other assistant podcasts and like, some of them are good, some of them are not good.
00:24:44.170 –> 00:24:48.750
JEREMY: Some of them, most of them hadn’t published a new episode in months, you know.
00:24:48.770 –> 00:24:51.910
JEREMY: And so it’s like, there’s a hole here that I can fill.
00:24:52.830 –> 00:24:56.710
JEREMY: And then with the book, I thought, OK, you know what?
00:24:56.890 –> 00:25:07.170
JEREMY: I’ve written a bunch over the last few years, and I’m having the same conversations with assistants all over the world, and it’s resonating and it’s helping them.
00:25:07.930 –> 00:25:28.550
JEREMY: How can I package that in a way that would be, you know, tangible for assistants all over and scalable so that instead of hopping on a phone call with a thousand assistants every year, like maybe I could sell a thousand books every year, you know?
00:25:28.550 –> 00:25:30.990
JEREMY: And so that’s kind of why I did the book.
00:25:31.010 –> 00:25:34.890
JEREMY: But I also was like, I want to do this well, and I invested a lot of money.
00:25:35.690 –> 00:25:36.930
JEREMY: It was a big investment up front.
00:25:36.950 –> 00:25:48.830
JEREMY: It was like $20,000 to hire a graphic designer, hire a couple of editors, work with a partner to help me self-publish, all of that work.
00:25:48.890 –> 00:25:57.290
JEREMY: And so I, but I also had experience project managing three book launches for my prior executives.
00:25:57.310 –> 00:26:07.010
JEREMY: So, you know, it’s funny how all that work I was doing as an assistant, you know, came in handy when I was trying to do my own stuff too.
00:26:07.090 –> 00:26:08.710
MAGGIE: So, yeah.
00:26:08.830 –> 00:26:10.330
MAGGIE: Well, I’m just soaking it all in.
00:26:10.350 –> 00:26:11.690
MAGGIE: I’m guessing everybody else’s too.
00:26:11.690 –> 00:26:14.950
MAGGIE: It’s super, super cool to hear your story, Jeremy.
00:26:15.570 –> 00:26:18.810
MAGGIE: I’m inspired by it for sure.
00:26:18.830 –> 00:26:20.250
JEREMY: I saw a couple questions in here.
00:26:20.250 –> 00:26:22.350
JEREMY: Actually, if that’s okay, I was going to hop in and…
00:26:22.630 –> 00:26:23.170
MAGGIE: Go for it.
00:26:23.390 –> 00:26:28.990
JEREMY: Tomiko said, you have a successful podcast and author of a great book.
00:26:29.670 –> 00:26:34.950
JEREMY: But do you also do day-to-day EA responsibilities, such as calendaring, expenses, or has your role morphed into it?
00:26:34.970 –> 00:26:40.730
JEREMY: Yes, I am full-time EA, calendaring, expenses, etc.
00:26:40.750 –> 00:26:41.670
JEREMY: for my CEO.
00:26:41.690 –> 00:26:42.670
JEREMY: That’s my day job.
00:26:43.450 –> 00:26:46.970
JEREMY: So I am full-on, 100% EA.
00:26:46.990 –> 00:26:54.570
JEREMY: As soon as I get done with this call, I’m looking over at my day job computer and I’m seeing a bunch of emails coming through that I’ve got to clean out of my CEO’s inbox.
00:26:58.610 –> 00:27:00.990
JEREMY: So, yeah, this is my life during the day.
00:27:00.990 –> 00:27:06.910
JEREMY: And the whole mentoring, coach, speaker, podcast host, and all that is my side gig.
00:27:08.610 –> 00:27:09.590
MAGGIE: Awesome.
00:27:10.070 –> 00:27:15.470
MAGGIE: So what I want to hear about is this, and I think I might know the answer to this, but the structure of your team.
00:27:15.550 –> 00:27:16.290
MAGGIE: You do a lot.
00:27:16.330 –> 00:27:17.650
MAGGIE: You’re an EA during the day.
00:27:17.670 –> 00:27:18.950
MAGGIE: You’re doing podcasts.
00:27:18.970 –> 00:27:20.750
MAGGIE: You have published a book.
00:27:20.770 –> 00:27:21.690
MAGGIE: You’re traveling.
00:27:22.110 –> 00:27:23.230
MAGGIE: Do you have support?
00:27:23.250 –> 00:27:25.050
MAGGIE: Do you have a team to help you with any of this?
00:27:26.150 –> 00:27:34.490
JEREMY: My biggest support is my wife, and she is my bookkeeper, essentially.
00:27:36.550 –> 00:27:43.110
JEREMY: And I hire a CPA to do my do our taxes, but I she’s kind of keeps track of everything throughout the year.
00:27:43.650 –> 00:27:45.610
JEREMY: So huge, huge help.
00:27:45.650 –> 00:27:46.910
JEREMY: Otherwise, I don’t have a team.
00:27:47.050 –> 00:27:49.030
JEREMY: I have a lot of automations in place.
00:27:49.210 –> 00:28:05.150
JEREMY: I try to set up Zapier automations, or I use my email service provider ConvertKit has a lot of automation set up so that when somebody registers for an event, it’ll tag them and then it’ll send them an email with details for that event.
00:28:05.830 –> 00:28:23.550
JEREMY: And when somebody pays for an event, then it will do the same, but it’ll also add that transaction to a Google spreadsheet automatically so that I can keep track of my costs for credit card fees and my event expenses and all that.
00:28:23.570 –> 00:28:29.190
JEREMY: So it’s, yeah, we’re kind of, it’s mostly a solo endeavor.
00:28:29.250 –> 00:28:34.230
JEREMY: And then my wife does a ton of help with keeping track of that, the bookkeeping and spreadsheets.
00:28:34.250 –> 00:28:42.310
JEREMY: And, you know, we have fun conversations of, I just want to know the bottom line, like how much are we spending?
00:28:42.330 –> 00:28:43.110
JEREMY: How much are we making?
00:28:43.770 –> 00:28:45.850
JEREMY: And, yeah, yeah.
00:28:45.870 –> 00:28:47.230
JEREMY: So she’s been super helpful.
00:28:47.870 –> 00:28:48.410
MAGGIE: That’s great.
00:28:49.570 –> 00:28:49.990
MAGGIE: Okay.
00:28:50.010 –> 00:28:55.590
MAGGIE: So a few questions that are going to be a little bit more kind of all over the place now that we’ve heard your story here.
00:28:55.610 –> 00:29:04.110
MAGGIE: I know that you are, you coach people every day and that you yourself is, you know, a high level executive assistant, strategic minded.
00:29:05.450 –> 00:29:14.970
MAGGIE: As you and I have talked about a lot, there’s a ton of overlap at times between that high level strategic EA and maybe that chief of staff spectrum.
00:29:14.990 –> 00:29:18.950
MAGGIE: I think it’s like a half circle and there’s a spectrum and there’s a lot of variance in the middle.
00:29:19.590 –> 00:29:27.790
MAGGIE: When you think about the work you do as an executive assistant, I know that we talk a lot about how do we define EA versus chief of staff.
00:29:27.890 –> 00:29:32.230
MAGGIE: And you do have, like you just mentioned, the travel, expenses, calendaring.
00:29:32.270 –> 00:29:34.770
MAGGIE: Those are core executive assistant functions.
00:29:35.930 –> 00:29:42.810
MAGGIE: What I guess, like, can you share a little bit about what you do in your job that could be chief of staff work?
00:29:42.830 –> 00:29:46.210
MAGGIE: Do you consider yourself as a hybrid chief of staff at all?
00:29:46.730 –> 00:29:51.730
MAGGIE: Where are your thoughts on where you land on that spectrum?
00:29:53.010 –> 00:29:57.830
JEREMY: I would say, so just make sure I heard right, because I got a text from my CEO.
00:29:58.010 –> 00:30:00.730
JEREMY: I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing anything.
00:30:02.170 –> 00:30:10.110
JEREMY: So chief of staff, how much of my role, my day job, fits in that chief of staff slash EA hybrid?
00:30:10.930 –> 00:30:12.930
MAGGIE: Yeah, where do you consider yourself landing there?
00:30:13.730 –> 00:30:18.470
JEREMY: I mean, I would say there’s a lot of what I do that could fall into the chief of staff bucket.
00:30:19.330 –> 00:30:28.690
JEREMY: I personally, in this season of my life, I don’t have the aspirations, if you will, to be a full on chief of staff.
00:30:30.010 –> 00:30:48.870
JEREMY: I kind of like the sitting in a dark closet, getting emails and scheduling and working on spreadsheet lists with, you know, like, kind of like that side, more than the people forward parts of the chief of staff role.
00:30:49.110 –> 00:30:50.210
MAGGIE: Yeah, it’s a good way to put it.
00:30:51.090 –> 00:31:00.830
JEREMY: And so I do, yes, I do coordinate things for the board and, you know, interact with the leadership team and do a lot of those kinds of things.
00:31:00.990 –> 00:31:12.650
JEREMY: But if you were to shadow me day in and day out, I would say you would say probably more the traditional executive assistant to CEO versus the chief of staff.
00:31:12.810 –> 00:31:20.850
JEREMY: However, I am the only assistant in the company and we have 105 employees and I do some of that chief of staff stuff.
00:31:21.350 –> 00:31:39.790
JEREMY: I, like I said, I think that there’s probably a season where I will transition into more as we grow and maybe hire some more assistants and all that, that I might move into more of a chief of staff role where I’m supervising our assistant team, but for now I’m enjoying the season that we’re in.
00:31:41.890 –> 00:31:47.390
MAGGIE: Okay, so I know that many, many, many of us struggle with imposter syndrome.
00:31:47.870 –> 00:32:02.490
MAGGIE: Did you have moments and do you still have moments throughout your career and building this business that you’ve built where you’ve struggled with imposter syndrome and the thoughts within that tell you you just can’t do it, but you’ve clearly done it anyway?
00:32:03.650 –> 00:32:14.550
JEREMY: Yeah, anytime I read a negative review, anytime I read a review on the podcast, it says, oh, the guests are great, but the host is just, what was the word?
00:32:14.570 –> 00:32:20.070
JEREMY: It’s a very, very, very aggressive word that described the host.
00:32:20.090 –> 00:32:24.670
JEREMY: And I just kind of want to be like, well, you try publishing a podcast every week for five years.
00:32:26.210 –> 00:32:27.510
JEREMY: See how, see how engaging you are.
00:32:27.590 –> 00:32:27.830
JEREMY: No.
00:32:29.570 –> 00:32:33.130
JEREMY: But then the biggest time was really when I was writing my book.
00:32:33.330 –> 00:32:44.630
JEREMY: Like, that’s really when it all like, and I talk about it a little bit in the intro of the book, like just the emotional, emotional back and forth journey of, do people really care about this?
00:32:45.170 –> 00:32:47.010
JEREMY: Is this actually helpful?
00:32:49.690 –> 00:33:12.590
JEREMY: And, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s one of the things that, one of the marketer gurus, Seth Godin, talks about how, like, you know, if you read a bad review of your book, then the, really, the only response to that is, he basically says, try not to read the bad reviews.
00:33:12.610 –> 00:33:16.550
JEREMY: But if you do, the only response to that is just, oh, it’s not for them.
00:33:16.970 –> 00:33:17.630
JEREMY: It wasn’t for them.
00:33:17.710 –> 00:33:18.550
JEREMY: The book isn’t for them.
00:33:19.350 –> 00:33:22.590
JEREMY: And so that’s really helped me kind of push through that.
00:33:22.610 –> 00:33:23.690
JEREMY: It’s like, okay, you know what?
00:33:24.190 –> 00:33:34.670
JEREMY: If this obviously has helped people because they’ve told me and they’ve shown me, assistants and executives both, have shown me like, hey, this is very helpful.
00:33:34.690 –> 00:33:39.790
JEREMY: This part of your book changed our strategic partnership for the better, et cetera.
00:33:40.350 –> 00:33:46.310
JEREMY: So if it hasn’t, if there are people that don’t like it or that didn’t find value in it, it just wasn’t for them.
00:33:47.070 –> 00:33:49.270
MAGGIE: Yeah, that’s a great, I mean, that’s a great lesson.
00:33:49.290 –> 00:33:52.730
MAGGIE: And it’s I think it’s totally normal for us to struggle with those things.
00:33:52.730 –> 00:33:56.130
MAGGIE: But in Jeremy’s case, you can tell that he just kept going.
00:33:56.990 –> 00:33:58.030
MAGGIE: And I think that’s great.
00:33:58.590 –> 00:34:07.170
MAGGIE: So one thing that I’m super curious to hear you talk about is being a male leader in a female dominated field.
00:34:07.770 –> 00:34:19.930
MAGGIE: And what kind of what how you approach the responsibility on your shoulders with that and how you’ve navigated through through this over the last eight years.
00:34:21.690 –> 00:34:25.630
JEREMY: Yeah, I mean, honestly, I get this question a lot, which is it’s a fair question.
00:34:25.650 –> 00:34:27.050
JEREMY: And I get why people ask it.
00:34:27.090 –> 00:34:35.150
JEREMY: I don’t really have an amazing answer because, to be honest, I’m a white male in America and I’m privileged in every setting that I’m in.
00:34:36.690 –> 00:34:53.490
JEREMY: And so when I go to a room like last week when I was in Indianapolis and I was one of two men in the room full of 100 assistants, you know, the other the other man was like the emcee for the event.
00:34:53.510 –> 00:34:54.570
JEREMY: He wasn’t even an assistant.
00:34:54.610 –> 00:34:57.710
JEREMY: Like I don’t it doesn’t bother me.
00:34:57.730 –> 00:35:02.350
JEREMY: I don’t really like I’ve been blessed in so many different ways.
00:35:02.550 –> 00:35:16.050
JEREMY: And if somebody this has happened a handful of times where my CEO will say, Oh, my assistant will reach out and then they’ll reply to the email or the LinkedIn node and say, OK, I’ll look forward to hearing from her, for example.
00:35:16.390 –> 00:35:22.010
JEREMY: And I’m just like, if that’s if that’s all I’m dealing with, then I don’t have anything to complain about.
00:35:22.410 –> 00:35:22.670
MAGGIE: Yeah.
00:35:23.050 –> 00:35:27.150
JEREMY: So I think that’s that’s my right.
00:35:27.150 –> 00:35:27.490
MAGGIE: Yeah.
00:35:27.550 –> 00:35:40.070
MAGGIE: Well, and I think, you know, I’ll add just having known you for the last year that I think that, the way that you just your natural demeanor, the way that you interact with people, you’re you’re really good listener, you’re calm, you’re gentle in your approach.
00:35:40.090 –> 00:35:46.770
MAGGIE: And I think you elevate and give others a platform to amplify them, which is probably the best thing that you can do anyway.
00:35:47.650 –> 00:35:49.910
MAGGIE: So it’s interesting to hear your thoughts on it.
00:35:49.930 –> 00:35:52.350
MAGGIE: And I appreciate appreciate the discussion for sure.
00:35:53.230 –> 00:35:53.590
MAGGIE: OK.
00:35:54.190 –> 00:35:56.670
JEREMY: So I think I will say there’s one there’s one time.
00:35:57.810 –> 00:36:00.730
JEREMY: Well, there’s been a handful of times, but there’s one thing where it’s like.
00:36:01.630 –> 00:36:04.150
JEREMY: And again, I’m not I don’t complain about I don’t dwell on it.
00:36:04.170 –> 00:36:16.750
JEREMY: But there are have been a handful of times where I don’t get a speaking gig, for example, at an assistant event or assistant training at a corporate company or at a conference or whatever, because I’m a I’m a man.
00:36:17.170 –> 00:36:23.590
JEREMY: And they don’t think that I’m going to be able to relate to the assistance as well.
00:36:23.590 –> 00:36:27.710
JEREMY: So that’s that’s the only time I’ve ever been like, oh, OK, I can I can see why.
00:36:27.730 –> 00:36:28.430
JEREMY: And I understand.
00:36:28.750 –> 00:36:29.010
MAGGIE: Yeah.
00:36:29.070 –> 00:36:31.370
JEREMY: And, you know, no harm, no foul.
00:36:31.710 –> 00:36:32.030
MAGGIE: Yeah.
00:36:32.090 –> 00:36:35.030
MAGGIE: And you’re you’ve built so many other ways to connect with people.
00:36:35.630 –> 00:36:37.670
MAGGIE: So, OK, I get that.
00:36:38.950 –> 00:36:39.330
MAGGIE: All right.
00:36:39.350 –> 00:36:59.930
MAGGIE: So when it comes to, you know, I talk to assistants and chiefs of staff every day with, you know, within Nova Chief of Staff, you talk to assistants every day within the Leader Assistant community, what are the common, like maybe the top one or two things that you hear from assistants and what do you tell them and how do you help them?
00:36:59.930 –> 00:37:03.550
MAGGIE: So the common issues, problems and what advice do you do you give?
00:37:03.570 –> 00:37:05.830
JEREMY: Oh, great question.
00:37:06.770 –> 00:37:33.310
JEREMY: Number one, by far most common thing that I hear from assistants, and this could be an assistant from Russia that I had on my podcast, an assistant from Iowa that I had a coaching call with, an assistant in San Francisco, like they want more confidence and they lack that confidence.
00:37:33.370 –> 00:37:45.390
JEREMY: They lack that self-assuredness or, you know, so they’re, you know, maybe they’re insecure.
00:37:45.410 –> 00:37:50.130
JEREMY: And so that’s the number one thing by far in a way.
00:37:50.130 –> 00:37:55.650
JEREMY: And that’s why, you know, the subtitle of my book says confident game-changing assistant.
00:37:58.330 –> 00:38:06.070
JEREMY: And I think the way, the number one way, the shortest way I’ll be able to answer it today, because I do whole sessions on the topic of confidence.
00:38:06.910 –> 00:38:14.990
JEREMY: But kind of the number one thing I’ll say is, you know, the best way to grow your confidence.
00:38:15.070 –> 00:38:17.250
JEREMY: Yeah, you can grow your confidence through experience.
00:38:17.390 –> 00:38:22.630
JEREMY: Yeah, you can grow your confidence through coaching and training and courses and reading books and whatever.
00:38:23.510 –> 00:38:28.370
JEREMY: But the best way is to detach your worth as a human being from your work as an assistant.
00:38:28.850 –> 00:38:42.610
JEREMY: And when you detach your worth as a human being from your work as an assistant, all of a sudden, you’re free to lead and have that confidence and exhibit that confidence that you never had.
00:38:42.650 –> 00:38:42.950
JEREMY: Why?
00:38:42.970 –> 00:38:46.710
JEREMY: Because you don’t care about the approval of your executive as much anymore.
00:38:47.090 –> 00:38:50.770
JEREMY: You don’t care about losing control of a project.
00:38:51.190 –> 00:38:54.250
JEREMY: You don’t care about being uncomfortable in the situation.
00:38:54.270 –> 00:39:06.450
JEREMY: You’re more willing to take a risk because you know that even if you fall flat on your face in that risk at work, you’re still a valuable human being and it doesn’t have anything to do with your worth as a person.
00:39:06.950 –> 00:39:19.010
JEREMY: And so that’s my number one really deep-rooted confidence tip is to detach your worth from your work.
00:39:20.970 –> 00:39:32.290
MAGGIE: I smiled when you said confidence because it’s 100% how I would also answer that question based on the work I do with aspiring, existing Chiefs of Staff and strategic high-level executive assistants too.
00:39:32.890 –> 00:39:37.170
MAGGIE: So, yep, 100% correct on that from my end as well.
00:39:38.050 –> 00:39:38.430
MAGGIE: Okay.
00:39:38.450 –> 00:39:40.650
MAGGIE: So I’m going to ask just a couple more questions of Jeremy.
00:39:40.710 –> 00:39:49.730
MAGGIE: If you are live with us, feel free to use the Q&A function of this webinar to enter some questions in, and we’ll get to those here in a minute.
00:39:49.750 –> 00:39:56.790
MAGGIE: So Q&A option here, the box in the Zoom webinar would be great for your questions, and I will get to those here in just a few minutes.
00:39:56.810 –> 00:40:11.230
MAGGIE: So, you know, I think, Jeremy, what’s really fun about what you do is that you are kind of, you’re in a lot of different places.
00:40:11.250 –> 00:40:20.830
MAGGIE: So you’re speaking, you have your book, you have your podcast, you’re really active on LinkedIn, and you’re a living, breathing executive assistant every day.
00:40:23.070 –> 00:40:34.050
MAGGIE: So I know you mentioned a little bit earlier around, you know, you’re going to get back to your day job after this, but if you could give us a typical maybe week in the life instead of a day in the life, how, what does it look like?
00:40:34.090 –> 00:40:39.090
MAGGIE: When are you fitting in the other things, the side gig, the side hustle, and when are you doing the day job?
00:40:39.110 –> 00:40:42.670
MAGGIE: And like, just kind of illustrate your week in the life for us.
00:40:43.610 –> 00:40:47.550
JEREMY: Yeah, well, I can look at, I’ll look at my calendar real quick and look at this week.
00:40:47.570 –> 00:41:07.510
JEREMY: So, you know, normal day job schedule, you know, 8.30 ish to 5.30 ish with a few, you know, late night check in and sign a document or send an invite to someone that finally replied to the options that I sent.
00:41:08.910 –> 00:41:15.790
JEREMY: And then I had a podcast interview on Monday night and then Tuesday, normal kind of day job schedule.
00:41:16.030 –> 00:41:20.650
JEREMY: And then I was taking my boys to soccer and baseball practice on Tuesday night.
00:41:21.630 –> 00:41:32.890
JEREMY: Wednesday, I had normal day job, like scheduling meetings and working on a list for potential partners and all the day job stuff.
00:41:32.930 –> 00:41:35.530
JEREMY: And then I had a four o’clock EA Zoom chat.
00:41:35.550 –> 00:41:41.910
JEREMY: I do a weekly Zoom chat with my community, recorded a podcast with you, 4.30.
00:41:42.450 –> 00:41:44.070
JEREMY: And then I had a podcast interview.
00:41:44.090 –> 00:41:45.810
JEREMY: I had quick dinner with my family.
00:41:45.830 –> 00:41:51.430
JEREMY: I did a podcast interview at six o’clock last night, and then another one at 7.30 last night.
00:41:51.430 –> 00:41:57.510
JEREMY: And so there are weeks where I have like four or five podcasts that I’m recording.
00:41:57.530 –> 00:42:01.230
JEREMY: And then there are a month maybe where I don’t have any.
00:42:01.670 –> 00:42:08.270
JEREMY: And so what I try to do is I batch them in to a couple of evenings over a few weeks, and then I schedule them out.
00:42:08.290 –> 00:42:12.410
JEREMY: So the one I recorded last night at 7.30 is not publishing until June 9th.
00:42:13.030 –> 00:42:21.690
JEREMY: So it’s nice to be able to do them in waves and get scheduled out so that I’m not having to actually work on the podcast every week.
00:42:21.990 –> 00:42:22.670
JEREMY: That makes sense.
00:42:23.270 –> 00:42:23.450
JEREMY: Yeah.
00:42:23.470 –> 00:42:28.310
JEREMY: And then today, yeah, hopping on for this lunch Zoom chat webinar with you.
00:42:28.370 –> 00:42:32.810
JEREMY: And then I’ve got to take my boys to practices, and then I do one more podcast interview tonight.
00:42:34.370 –> 00:42:35.330
JEREMY: But I don’t know.
00:42:35.350 –> 00:42:36.750
JEREMY: Hopefully that answers your question.
00:42:36.770 –> 00:42:37.950
MAGGIE: Yeah, I think it’s great.
00:42:37.970 –> 00:42:38.410
MAGGIE: It’s a little peak.
00:42:38.990 –> 00:42:44.630
MAGGIE: Okay, for another theme of a little peak, describe your office setup right now.
00:42:44.650 –> 00:42:45.790
MAGGIE: What are the screens?
00:42:46.030 –> 00:42:47.110
MAGGIE: Where are they?
00:42:47.130 –> 00:42:48.790
MAGGIE: What do you have that we can’t see?
00:42:49.030 –> 00:42:50.870
MAGGIE: You have an audio background, a music background.
00:42:50.890 –> 00:42:52.410
MAGGIE: I’m sure there’s some cool techie stuff.
00:42:52.510 –> 00:42:54.070
MAGGIE: Tell us what’s going on over there.
00:42:54.790 –> 00:43:01.630
JEREMY: Yeah, so I’ve got my microphone here hanging on my wall so I can kind of move it in and out of the way really easily.
00:43:02.670 –> 00:43:10.810
JEREMY: I’ve got my main monitor here with my web camera, HD Logitech webcam.
00:43:11.290 –> 00:43:20.490
JEREMY: And then I have another monitor here that is kind of my side hustle, like email and podcast project management spreadsheet.
00:43:20.890 –> 00:43:27.670
JEREMY: And I also have my Slack open so that if my CEO texts me or slacks me, I can see that.
00:43:28.230 –> 00:43:35.770
JEREMY: And then up here I have another monitor that is more like notes for the podcast that I’m currently recording.
00:43:35.790 –> 00:43:38.670
JEREMY: This is my Zoom window here to my main Zoom videos.
00:43:38.690 –> 00:43:41.290
JEREMY: Like when I look at you, it’s sort of looking at the camera.
00:43:42.450 –> 00:43:46.110
JEREMY: I’ve got the chat pulled up in Zoom here.
00:43:46.170 –> 00:43:52.630
JEREMY: But then, yeah, if I’m recording a podcast, I’ll have the podcast schedule here with all the dates and episode numbers.
00:43:52.650 –> 00:43:57.390
JEREMY: And then I’ll have the notes, the Google Doc here, with all the notes about the guests that I’m talking to.
00:43:57.410 –> 00:43:59.730
JEREMY: And then their LinkedIn profile as well.
00:43:59.950 –> 00:44:01.410
JEREMY: And then this is kind of my side hustle desk.
00:44:03.830 –> 00:44:05.910
JEREMY: So I don’t have my work email on here.
00:44:05.970 –> 00:44:10.290
JEREMY: I have my work Slack, because sometimes there’s quick things and I need to say, hey, I’m on a call.
00:44:10.310 –> 00:44:11.210
JEREMY: I’ll get right back to it.
00:44:12.770 –> 00:44:21.230
JEREMY: And then, but then over on this side over here, I actually have a standing desk with two monitors for my day job.
00:44:21.930 –> 00:44:26.410
JEREMY: And so I have like my boss’s email pulled up on one.
00:44:26.430 –> 00:44:31.530
JEREMY: I have his calendar always open on one and then my email on one.
00:44:31.770 –> 00:44:36.210
JEREMY: And then that’s kind of my my day job station.
00:44:36.230 –> 00:44:43.630
JEREMY: So I like to separate those because it helps me get in the mindset of like, okay, I’m in assistant, leader assistant world right now.
00:44:43.990 –> 00:44:47.570
JEREMY: I’m talking with assistants, put my game hat on.
00:44:48.110 –> 00:44:53.730
JEREMY: But then when I go over there, it’s like, all right, I am an executive assistant to the CEO of a software company.
00:44:53.790 –> 00:44:55.150
JEREMY: And that’s my hat that I’m wearing.
00:44:55.170 –> 00:45:04.750
MAGGIE: Okay, that is brilliant to me that you have two separate places for your environment and your body and your mind to realize what space that you are in from a business perspective.
00:45:04.770 –> 00:45:05.370
MAGGIE: I think that’s cool.
00:45:05.390 –> 00:45:08.590
MAGGIE: So I lost count, but is that like six monitors over there?
00:45:08.610 –> 00:45:10.230
JEREMY: So it’s five monitors.
00:45:10.250 –> 00:45:15.710
JEREMY: But then I also got a bigger TV as well so that if I’m working on a…
00:45:16.010 –> 00:45:21.990
JEREMY: Sometimes I have to work on these spreadsheet lists for my CEO that are like life draining.
00:45:22.430 –> 00:45:23.630
JEREMY: They’re just like the most…
00:45:23.970 –> 00:45:26.710
JEREMY: You just sit there and you’re just like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom all day.
00:45:27.230 –> 00:45:28.510
JEREMY: And so I will…
00:45:28.550 –> 00:45:34.790
JEREMY: Sometimes I’ll put like his calendar up on the big TV and just leave his calendar up there depending on what’s going on.
00:45:35.350 –> 00:45:46.670
JEREMY: But there are times honestly where I just need like to put a like Netflix show or something on because I’m literally just dying trying to do the spreadsheet and I need something to keep me going and survive the day.
00:45:50.390 –> 00:45:51.130
JEREMY: So anyway.
00:45:51.430 –> 00:46:00.010
MAGGIE: Well, we’ll move on from the monitor question, but I’m going to just guess that you are the winner on the call for the most monitors out of the 50 or so people we have listening in.
00:46:00.030 –> 00:46:01.170
MAGGIE: So maybe you never know.
00:46:01.230 –> 00:46:01.770
JEREMY: You never know.
00:46:01.790 –> 00:46:02.270
MAGGIE: Maybe everyone.
00:46:02.290 –> 00:46:04.690
MAGGIE: But please let us know if someone has more than Jeremy.
00:46:05.030 –> 00:46:07.650
MAGGIE: OK, so I love this question from Christina.
00:46:07.830 –> 00:46:12.950
MAGGIE: So for your personal business, let’s like focus on the podcast, for example.
00:46:13.370 –> 00:46:15.030
MAGGIE: How much analytics are you doing?
00:46:15.710 –> 00:46:19.290
MAGGIE: And I know that podcast analytics are sometimes a little tough to to really dive into.
00:46:19.310 –> 00:46:30.510
MAGGIE: But how much how much are you like measuring performance, analytics, hard size, hard sided data versus kind of topics that are just interesting to you and guests that you find that you want to share with people?
00:46:30.710 –> 00:46:32.810
MAGGIE: Where do you decide to dive in?
00:46:34.390 –> 00:46:41.290
JEREMY: Yeah, I mean, specifically for the podcast or for for all of us, let’s talk about the podcast just to keep it.
00:46:41.310 –> 00:46:45.870
JEREMY: Yeah, the podcast, I’ll talk to anybody that wants to talk to me that has anything related to Assistant World.
00:46:47.170 –> 00:46:48.250
JEREMY: I’m not super picky.
00:46:48.550 –> 00:46:51.730
JEREMY: There have been people that have reached out and said, I can’t believe you had so-and-so on the show.
00:46:51.810 –> 00:46:54.310
JEREMY: I used to work with them and this and this.
00:46:54.330 –> 00:46:55.410
JEREMY: And I’m like, well, I don’t know that.
00:46:55.430 –> 00:46:58.550
JEREMY: I don’t know the backstory, but I know that they have a story to share.
00:46:58.570 –> 00:47:05.370
JEREMY: And, you know, I know they’re not a wanted criminal, so I’ll have them on the show and hear their story.
00:47:07.250 –> 00:47:14.790
JEREMY: So the big thing, and I get a lot of people every week, I get e-mails saying, hey, you should have so-and-so on the show.
00:47:14.810 –> 00:47:25.490
JEREMY: And like, you know, kind of like the whole e-mail spam messages of like, hey, so-and-so wrote this book about medicine in the 21st century or whatever.
00:47:25.510 –> 00:47:26.430
JEREMY: You should have them on the show.
00:47:26.610 –> 00:47:29.930
JEREMY: So there’s a lot of people that I just ignore and I don’t have them on.
00:47:30.430 –> 00:47:34.810
JEREMY: And when they do reach out and I think they’re somewhat interesting, I’ll say, OK, well, do they have an assistant?
00:47:35.170 –> 00:47:36.530
JEREMY: Have they worked with an assistant before?
00:47:36.730 –> 00:47:43.370
JEREMY: OK, then if they’re willing to come on the show and talk about working with an assistant, then I’ll have them on the show.
00:47:43.370 –> 00:47:44.930
JEREMY: So that’s kind of how I filter that out.
00:47:45.130 –> 00:47:52.890
JEREMY: But most of the time, it’s if I get a lull where I don’t really have a lot scheduled, I’ll just post on LinkedIn and say, hey, every assistant has a story to share.
00:47:52.910 –> 00:47:55.950
JEREMY: Send me a note if you want to be on the show.
00:47:55.990 –> 00:48:02.090
JEREMY: And then I get a wave of assistants reaching out and say, hey, I’m a little nervous, but I think I want to be on the show.
00:48:02.290 –> 00:48:08.690
MAGGIE: And yeah, do you use analytics in other areas of your business to determine kind of where to go and what to dive into?
00:48:09.610 –> 00:48:10.210
JEREMY: Yeah, yeah.
00:48:10.230 –> 00:48:13.310
JEREMY: And for analytics, my goal is just to get to for now.
00:48:13.330 –> 00:48:23.890
JEREMY: My goal is to get to one million downloads on the podcast and that I should be able to hit that in later this year, like the end of this year.
00:48:25.970 –> 00:48:31.950
JEREMY: But then otherwise, yeah, I look at my book sales, you know, just to kind of I like to have an idea.
00:48:31.970 –> 00:48:41.230
JEREMY: I don’t I don’t do a lot of necessarily I don’t necessarily make a lot of decisions based on the analytics like day in and day out.
00:48:42.050 –> 00:48:52.750
JEREMY: However, I’ll look and I’ll say I’ll notice that, oh, you know, for some, you know, April, I sell more books because of the Administrative Professionals Week, you know, for example.
00:48:52.770 –> 00:49:05.810
JEREMY: And so maybe I’ll do more promotions or whatever, or I’ll see random things like, you know, the other day I was I was looking and I sold 138 books on March 16th randomly.
00:49:06.030 –> 00:49:08.110
JEREMY: And I was like, what happened on March 16th?
00:49:08.130 –> 00:49:09.110
JEREMY: Did I do something?
00:49:09.110 –> 00:49:15.890
JEREMY: And I’ll be like, OK, was it just random or did I have a webinar and, you know, those kinds of things?
00:49:17.790 –> 00:49:20.470
JEREMY: So otherwise, yeah, I don’t I probably should.
00:49:20.490 –> 00:49:28.450
JEREMY: There’s a lot of people that are super into analytics and Google, you know, making sure, you know, like how many people are on your are on your website and all that.
00:49:28.450 –> 00:49:29.890
JEREMY: But I got a day job.
00:49:29.910 –> 00:49:30.870
JEREMY: I don’t have time for all that.
00:49:31.370 –> 00:49:35.170
MAGGIE: Yeah, you lean into what what you want to, not what you should.
00:49:36.330 –> 00:49:40.930
MAGGIE: OK, so we talked a little bit about how you make decisions.
00:49:41.330 –> 00:49:49.410
MAGGIE: You want to make sure you’re doing something really well and you want to make sure you can do it consistently, especially when we were talking about the podcast business kind of choice to dive in.
00:49:50.230 –> 00:49:59.710
MAGGIE: What else do you think from a skill set, knowledge, emotional intelligence perspective sets you apart for success from others?
00:49:59.710 –> 00:50:06.490
MAGGIE: Or what can you what would you attribute to your success in terms of just who you are personally?
00:50:06.510 –> 00:50:09.710
JEREMY: I think I think maybe two things.
00:50:10.350 –> 00:50:21.870
JEREMY: One is just being having a day job gives me a lot of like I can fall back on it, if you will.
00:50:21.890 –> 00:50:27.710
JEREMY: So it allows me to be risky and spend $20,000 to publish a book and maybe not sell any.
00:50:28.150 –> 00:50:28.370
MAGGIE: Yeah.
00:50:28.390 –> 00:50:28.950
JEREMY: You know what I mean?
00:50:28.970 –> 00:50:31.630
JEREMY: Like I couldn’t take that risk if I didn’t have a day job.
00:50:33.190 –> 00:50:37.990
JEREMY: And so that really helps give me, I think, a competitive advantage, if you will.
00:50:40.210 –> 00:50:43.030
JEREMY: And then on the other side, I think that I’ve always been a hard worker.
00:50:44.730 –> 00:50:49.630
JEREMY: And I just you can get bogged down by all the details.
00:50:49.770 –> 00:50:50.510
JEREMY: Should I do this?
00:50:50.530 –> 00:50:51.150
JEREMY: Should I do that?
00:50:51.670 –> 00:50:53.030
JEREMY: Should I post on Instagram?
00:50:53.050 –> 00:50:54.230
JEREMY: Should I post on Facebook?
00:50:54.250 –> 00:50:54.790
JEREMY: Should I do this?
00:50:54.810 –> 00:50:57.730
JEREMY: I’m not, you know, like I’ll post on Instagram maybe once a month.
00:50:57.910 –> 00:51:06.170
JEREMY: Like I’m very bad at Instagram, but I know like I’m pretty active on LinkedIn because it’s worked well and I can handle that right now.
00:51:06.930 –> 00:51:09.250
JEREMY: And then I publish a podcast every week.
00:51:09.450 –> 00:51:14.410
JEREMY: And so like, if I can stay consistent in what I can do, what works for me.
00:51:14.510 –> 00:51:23.230
JEREMY: Some people, some people posting a quick video on Instagram every day is natural to them and it works for them and that’s their medium of choice.
00:51:25.210 –> 00:51:29.110
JEREMY: Other people, they can’t stand taking videos of themselves.
00:51:29.130 –> 00:51:33.290
JEREMY: Like, I don’t do very many videos of myself and they just like to write little quick posts on LinkedIn.
00:51:34.370 –> 00:51:36.090
JEREMY: So whatever, whatever works for you.
00:51:36.110 –> 00:51:38.070
JEREMY: And like, I could do a video podcast.
00:51:38.290 –> 00:51:44.950
JEREMY: That would take me a lot more work, a lot more, you know, a lot larger files to upload all the things.
00:51:45.290 –> 00:51:48.290
JEREMY: So I just do an audio podcast because it works for me.
00:51:48.790 –> 00:51:50.310
MAGGIE: Yeah, I love that.
00:51:51.490 –> 00:51:51.910
MAGGIE: All right.
00:51:51.930 –> 00:52:01.330
MAGGIE: I think what I’d like to end on here, you spoke earlier around your belief in multiple income streams and diversifying what you’re doing.
00:52:02.690 –> 00:52:12.170
MAGGIE: And you did mention that you suggest people just, you know, start writing as a possible place to start and to start networking.
00:52:12.690 –> 00:52:17.990
MAGGIE: What other advice do you have for people who are trying to figure out, like, what it is that they could go into?
00:52:18.770 –> 00:52:19.850
MAGGIE: What would they write about?
00:52:19.870 –> 00:52:21.010
MAGGIE: Who do they network with?
00:52:21.030 –> 00:52:27.790
MAGGIE: Like, how does somebody get started diversifying a bit and thinking about what they should be doing as a side hustle?
00:52:28.910 –> 00:52:36.050
JEREMY: I think the number one thing is, what do people ask you for help with?
00:52:37.090 –> 00:52:44.430
JEREMY: You know, like, if people are always asking you to help them plan an event, okay, maybe you could be an event planner on the side.
00:52:44.470 –> 00:52:54.970
JEREMY: I talked to an assistant that does that on the side on the weekends and has people pay her to manage events and decorate the event venue and all that.
00:52:56.510 –> 00:52:57.830
JEREMY: That’s one way to think about it.
00:52:57.970 –> 00:53:04.710
JEREMY: Another would be like, what are you already doing for people?
00:53:05.730 –> 00:53:08.510
JEREMY: And can you start charging them for it?
00:53:08.830 –> 00:53:14.750
JEREMY: Or can you ask them for a testimonial so that you can, you know, get more people to do those things?
00:53:16.690 –> 00:53:18.790
JEREMY: But really, some people, they overthink it.
00:53:18.890 –> 00:53:25.630
JEREMY: And it could be as simple as, you know, you could Google this term dollar cost averaging.
00:53:25.650 –> 00:53:38.930
JEREMY: It could be as simple as buying a little bit, investing a little bit in the stock market every month and just letting it, just holding it for five, 10 plus years and letting it grow.
00:53:40.190 –> 00:53:42.930
JEREMY: That could be a side, that could be an income stream for you.
00:53:44.350 –> 00:53:47.710
JEREMY: So, yeah, that’d be kind of my quick answer to that.
00:53:47.910 –> 00:53:55.430
JEREMY: I could talk a lot about other different ways and whatever, but it’s a whole other webinar.
00:53:55.450 –> 00:53:58.890
JEREMY: I know there’s a couple other questions on here too that I’d love to do a rapid fire.
00:53:59.090 –> 00:53:59.790
MAGGIE: Go for it.
00:53:59.810 –> 00:54:00.030
MAGGIE: Yeah.
00:54:00.050 –> 00:54:00.730
JEREMY: If you want me to.
00:54:00.750 –> 00:54:02.570
JEREMY: Tackle them.
00:54:03.010 –> 00:54:04.950
JEREMY: So, let’s see.
00:54:04.970 –> 00:54:09.310
JEREMY: There’s somebody about, oh, somebody’s asking about managing your inbox.
00:54:09.890 –> 00:54:12.930
JEREMY: I do talk about that on the podcast off the top of my head.
00:54:12.950 –> 00:54:15.570
JEREMY: I don’t know what the episode numbers are.
00:54:16.610 –> 00:54:23.970
JEREMY: But if you go to my book, Chapter 12, Chapter 12 in my book is called Email.
00:54:24.550 –> 00:54:27.650
JEREMY: And I talk all about managing CEO’s inbox.
00:54:29.690 –> 00:54:32.990
JEREMY: And then somebody else was asking about if I work remotely.
00:54:33.010 –> 00:54:34.330
JEREMY: Yes, I work remote.
00:54:34.410 –> 00:54:38.530
JEREMY: I did work in person for the first few years with my current CEO.
00:54:38.550 –> 00:54:41.150
JEREMY: But then when COVID hit, we were working remote.
00:54:41.170 –> 00:54:41.970
JEREMY: It was working well.
00:54:41.990 –> 00:54:45.330
JEREMY: And I used that as an excuse to move back to Kansas City closer to family.
00:54:45.810 –> 00:54:47.950
JEREMY: And so I go back in town to St.
00:54:47.970 –> 00:54:58.170
JEREMY: Louis, where my company’s headquartered once or twice a quarter for board meetings and company all hands on site meetings.
00:54:58.550 –> 00:54:59.630
JEREMY: But yes, I work remote.
00:55:01.090 –> 00:55:02.290
JEREMY: And let’s see, there was one.
00:55:10.270 –> 00:55:11.350
JEREMY: No, I think that might have been it.
00:55:11.370 –> 00:55:13.130
JEREMY: I feel like there was one more I was missing.
00:55:13.150 –> 00:55:18.050
MAGGIE: There was a question around how do you think it was around the chief of staff role.
00:55:18.430 –> 00:55:26.210
MAGGIE: And do you see that role as managing other admin executive assistants versus managing leadership who’s in the VP manager and director roles?
00:55:26.770 –> 00:55:27.790
JEREMY: Yeah, great question.
00:55:27.810 –> 00:55:31.370
JEREMY: I think it’s it really depends on the organization, depends on the structure.
00:55:31.510 –> 00:55:41.730
JEREMY: So for me, if we grow to 200, 300 employees and we have four or five assistants in my organization structure, I would probably manage those assistants.
00:55:43.010 –> 00:55:44.150
JEREMY: And that would be how it works.
00:55:44.170 –> 00:55:53.770
JEREMY: However, there might be large companies where you don’t manage the assistants because there’s an actual assistant, you know, head of head of assistance or whatever manager that does that.
00:55:54.430 –> 00:56:01.390
JEREMY: And the chief of staff is more working with like managing the VPs and directors and kind of orchestrating all that.
00:56:01.410 –> 00:56:03.010
JEREMY: So it really depends.
00:56:04.110 –> 00:56:09.790
JEREMY: But happy to if you guys want to reach out, you know, ping me on LinkedIn or go to my website, fill out the contact form.
00:56:10.270 –> 00:56:11.970
JEREMY: I’m happy to answer questions offline as well.
00:56:12.930 –> 00:56:13.290
MAGGIE: Awesome.
00:56:13.310 –> 00:56:14.330
MAGGIE: Well, we’re going to end it here.
00:56:14.710 –> 00:56:16.230
MAGGIE: Thanks, everybody, for joining.
00:56:16.250 –> 00:56:18.010
MAGGIE: This was an amazing chat with Mr.
00:56:18.030 –> 00:56:18.930
MAGGIE: Jeremy Burrows.
00:56:19.130 –> 00:56:25.750
MAGGIE: I’m Maggie Olson, founder of Nova Chief of Staff, and reach out to either of us if you need anything at all and have an awesome Thursday.
00:56:26.550 –> 00:56:27.490
MAGGIE: Thanks, everyone.
00:56:27.650 –> 00:56:28.270
JEREMY: Thanks, everyone.
00:56:38.260 –> 00:56:40.780
<v SPEAKER_2>Please review on Apple Podcasts.
00:56:47.362 –> 00:56:49.162
<v SPEAKER_2>goburrows.com.
