Annie:
Welcome to The Whole Assistant Podcast. I'm your host, Annie Croner. I'm a former assistant who's passionate about our profession, and I'm also a certified coach who's invested in your success. You've come to the right place if you want to know what it looks like to stand in your power and achieve success as an assistant from overwhelm and burnout. Now on to today's episode. Welcome to the first part in a three part series all on hacks. I'm doing three episodes back to back this week, next week, and the following week on hacks. So this week we're gonna be talking about some powerful brain hacks for you to implement in your life and world.
Annie:
Next week we're gonna talk about a few life hacks that I have implemented that have been revolutionary and how I show up in my day. And then the following week, we are gonna be talking about work hacks. My favorite work hacks. I also pulled LinkedIn and got some other great work hacks for you to share as well. So please join us for this hack series. It's gonna be a lot of fun. And I just want to note that if you are interested in joining The Leveled Up Assistant, which is my premier program, my group program that will help you embrace your badassery and level up as a truly strategic business partner, next month, in September of 2024, we are going to be opening the doors for a limited time, and if you're on my waitlist, you have the opportunity to attend a special event with me. So please get on the waitlist.
Annie:
I will send more details in the coming week. You definitely want to be on the waitlist though, because I'm also at this event that I'm going to be hosting just for my waitlist people only. I'm going to be giving away one free registration to The Leveled Up Assistant. I have never given away a free registration before, ever. So I'm excited to try this and I'm also going to give an exclusive discount to all other attendees. But you have to be on my waitlist. And so in order to get on the waitlist, go to wholeassistant.com/levelup. That's wholeassistant.com/levelup.
Annie:
All one word to get on my waitlist and be the first to know when the doors are open and also get a free discount or maybe even a free entry into the level up assistant. I'd be super excited to have you. Okay, so let's get down to business. We're talking powerful brain hacks that will change your life, and I will say that I know that they change your life. Like the brain hacks I'm going to share with you today, because I've seen it time and again with my clients, and I've also seen it with myself. I, too, have a brain, and often I use these hacks on myself as well. The first brain hack that we're going to talk about is around releasing control, right? Like oftentimes as executive assistants, we think that we can control so much when in actuality, we are actually fairly limited in our control. We can't control our executives, how they should choose to show up, we can't control our colleagues or coworkers.
Annie:
Now, what I love about this brain hack is that it kind of brings you back to yourself. So whenever we're feeling out of control or we're kind of giving away our power, in a way, returning to the question, what is mind to own? Is a great way to make sure that you're staying in your lane with what you can control. What is mind to own? And I actually put my hand over my heart for this one. Kind of like holding myself. Okay, what is mind to own here? What is not? I often tell this story when I'm on a call with my clients, or maybe even on this podcast, a time or two where I'll be experiencing some anxiety at my desk and back in the day, this would happen fairly frequently, where my executive would be having a terrible day, and I'd be clicking away at my computer, and I'd be like, what is this anxiety dawn on me? This anxiety isn't even my own. My executive is showing up a little anxious today, and therefore I'm experiencing that anxiety. I'm almost ingesting it. So in that space of what is mine to own, I can gently hand back the anxiety to my executive, hand back the anxiety to my colleagues and co workers, and make sure that I'm staying in my lane emotionally and staying in my power when it comes to what I can control.
Annie:
What is mine to own here? Sure, my executive's calendar is mine to own. Sure, all of that. But whether or not my executive shows up to his meetings, even though I've reminded him, and even though I've sent him a text and even though I confirmed the meeting, is that really yours to own? Then maybe, maybe not. Just something to consider. What is yours to own? That's my first powerful brain hack I'm sharing with you guys today. The second one is kind of fun, and this is just around how to deal with people being people. If somebody in your office space acts a certain way, if somebody is consistently getting under your skin, I like to refer to these people as your pickle people. If you have a pickle person at the office who is inevitably and invariably just going to show up in a certain way that gets under your skin.
Annie:
I like to grab the popcorn. It's like, let's see what Sally's going to do today. I'm going to grab the popcorn and enjoy the show. And what I love about this is that there, again is keeping you in your lane. You aren't having to control Sally. You aren't having to control what's going to happen. She's going to do her. She may impose herself on you, she may impose her thoughts or ideas on you.
Annie:
And we're just going to grab the popcorn. We're just going to see what happens today. We're just going to choose being amused instead of offended. I love grab the popcorn for this one because it keeps you in curiosity and fascination and out of overt judgment and frustration. Now, sure, we're still judging, but we're judging with Levity, right? We're grabbing the popcorn. We're watching. We're just going to see what's going to happen. The third powerful brain hack I'm going to share with you guys today is around setting up a boundary or you're trying to grow in any way or trying to level up.
Annie:
And it's using the phrase, this is the part where Dot, dot, dot. This one is not one that I have come up with. This one is one that I actually, I'm incorporating from another coach. And for the life of me, I cannot remember where I heard this the first time or who the coach was. So if you were the coach and you're listening to this podcast, it's kind of doubtful. But if you are, please know that I love this. I've actually used it with so many of my clients, and I use it on my own brain as well. So I have been on this health journey this year, especially in terms of really leveling up my strengths.
Annie:
I am working with a personal trainer one day a week just to ensure that my form is good, because the last thing I want is to lift weights and hurt myself, especially because I've got some deficiencies on the left side of my body due to my health. You can go back and listen to the third or fourth podcast episode if you want to know what happened, but I really want to be strong and I love this phrase. This is a part where like, this is a part where I am weak and I'm building muscle and I'm gaining my strength. This is the part where I actually have to drag my butt out of bed to go work out. Then other examples around this include things like, this is the part where my brain is just adjusting. This is the part where my brain is adjusting to being a healthy person and to embodying a healthy person. This is the journey that I'm on. This is the part where my coworkers test my boundaries.
Annie:
We often think so. Fascinating side note here. We often think that the boundary is set after we voice it. That's not actually true. The boundary is set when it's tested, and we have to get to the part where we have established a boundary, and that boundary has been tested and proved over time. And this is a part where my coworkers test the boundary. Totally true. And also, that's just your coworkers being human.
Annie:
This is the part where I experience the 50 50 of life. This is the part where I experience the 50% that's awesome in life. And this is the part where I experience the 50% that's challenging. I've also been trying to level up my food consumption and figuring out what works for me in terms of maximizing my muscle mass and also kind of what it looks like for me to rearrange my body composition in terms of fat to muscle ratio. And this is the part where I figure that out, and I'm still in process. Right. And it also reminds you that nothing has gone wrong. Okay, so here's a good brain hack for whenever you feel defensive.
Annie:
This is a good one, and this will probably land in my work hacks as well. But I do want to mention it here as a more powerful brain hack that has the potential to change your life, especially when you're feeling defensive about something. So instead of approaching the person from a place of defensiveness, I really want you to approach the person from a place of curiosity and just ask them to tell you more. I'm constantly having people tell me more. So if someone says something off color to me or like they were offended by something I said, I will say, tell me more. Can you tell me more about that? What did you mean by that? Now, there are certain situations where I'm completely dysregulated and I cannot hear the person, and I'll be like, I cannot have this conversation right now. And that is okay, too. If I get into that place and that headspace, I cannot ask the other person to tell me more.
Annie:
Because my brain has gone offline, and I need to wait till it gets back online before we have the follow up conversation where I actually ask the person to tell me more. But this particular strategy can come in real handy if you have been given a challenging review at work, if you've been told something you need to improve on, if you have been instructed to do something or do something a different way and you're feeling a little defensive about it, always ask them to tell you more, because that will give you some good intel and insight as to what's going on in their brain, and it also helps you stay in curiosity instead of getting in a full on defensive mode. Okay, the next brain hack we're going to talk about is when we're catastrophizing or experiencing anxiety. I've just noticed this a lot when people are growing, when people are in a growth phase of their life, that they tend to either catastrophize something, or they're experiencing extreme anxiety about showing up in a way that they aren't used to, but yet is propelling them forward. That discomfort, it's riding that edge of discomfort where we're pushing ourselves to grow, and yet we are still experiencing anxiety. We're still having our. Our own individual personal response. And it's the phrase nothing has gone wrong here.
Annie:
I love this phrase because it grounds me. It's like, oh, of course I'm experiencing anxiety. I'm trying a, b, and c differently. I'm trying these things differently. My brain is wanting to catastrophize the situation, and I don't know how this is gonna play out. So, of course, there are so many unknowns. It's totally natural and normal. Nothing has gone wrong here.
Annie:
And reminding yourself that nothing has gone wrong, this is a part of the process where we grow. This is a piece of that. Whenever we experience anxiety. Okay, the next brain hack we're gonna talk about today is typically when I think things won't work out for me, though they may for others. Right? Like when my brain comes up against a roadblock. And I would love to either make more money in my business or think I can show up in a different way. This came up for me. Oddly enough, when it came to closing out of my inbox back in the day, when I was really trying to maximize my time management and really trying to maximize every minute of my day, I would be offered these thoughts, this is impossible for me.
Annie:
This won't work for me. And I would list all the reasons why it may work for someone else. But it won't. Wouldn't for me. I heard this brain hack from my coach, and I love it. And she said, okay, but if this were possible for you, what would it look like? And I feel like that's just a great little workaround for our brains. I use this a lot with clients, too, whenever we come up against a roadblock, and they're like, it just won't work for me, Annie. It's not possible.
Annie:
Ah, okay. But if it were possible, what would be some potential solutions that you would want to come up with for this situation? And it's just a little brain hack that I like to use whenever we have bought into a belief so much that we are now kind of blocking ourselves from our own potential. Ingenious. If this were possible for me, what would it look like? I realize it's not possible, but if it were, what would that look like? And then my last and final powerful brain hack for today is when things don't meet our expectations or go according to plan, which, honestly, frankly, for most of us, is a lot of the time. Especially when you're working off of someone else's priorities, especially when things don't play out the way you want them to. Especially when your executive misses flight or you missed a mark on something that you expected to go differently, and it went one way and you expected it to go another way. I like the thought. It was always going to be this way.
Annie:
It was always going to be this way. And I came up against this one really early on in my entrepreneurial journey where I'm like, I'm going to sell, like, ten entries into blah blah blah. And I may have sold one, and I'm like, oh, dang, that really stinks. And it's super frustrating. And, oh, man. But you know what? It was always going to be this way. It was always going to be this way. And that's okay.
Annie:
Now I've got a benchmark that I can carry forward now. I can improve from here. It's my first time trying something. That's another great strategy for when you're just new at something and you don't have a whole lot of history doing something, and you think that it's going to go one way and it doesn't go according to plan. It was always going to be this way. How can you take the data from that situation and carry it forward and improve it for next time? And also, how is it true that it was always gonna be this way? I love this one because often my clients will fight me on this one, they'll be like, but, no, but it wasn't. It wasn't supposed to be this way. I'd be like, no, but it was, because that's how it played out.
Annie:
Like, it literally, that's the way it was. So it was always gonna be this way as a way to kind of calm our brains down and to return to ourselves and to parse out the data from the drama. There again, we always want to take the data points and carry them forward and leave the drama by the wayside. And I thinking that it was always going to be this way is a great strategy to do that. Now, I'm not at all saying that you shouldn't give it your best or that you shouldn't put it all on the line or that you shouldn't put your full effort into anything. That's not what I'm saying here. But occasionally we are going to fail. And that is okay.
Annie:
I'm an honest believer that my superpower is failure, and that's why I'm so successful now, because I failed over and over and over and over again till I found the thing that worked for me. But it was always going to be this way also. What I love about this, too, is if you can imagine yourself on the other side of your current challenge, it makes the thought it was always going to be this way so much more satisfying. It makes it much more lush for us. When I think about starting whole assistant and just having something to say and just starting a blog and then creating a time management course and then becoming a coach and that path, I always knew that I was playing the long game and I'm like, yeah, but ten years from now, this problem that I'm having right now isn't going to be an issue. I will have figured it out by then. It was always going to be this way. This is just where I'm at my journey.
Annie:
And, yeah, I biffed it this time. Yeah, I've completely failed this time. But I know that in several years from now, I'm going to thank myself. I'm going to thank this myself today for taking the chance, for taking the risk, and for. And for putting myself out there and for just giving it a go. Right? Such a powerful phrase to utilize and to use. Okay, guys, that is what I have for you guys today. Please show up next week where I'm going to be sharing powerful hacks for your life.
Annie:
Powerful life hacks. And then the following week where I'm going to share some hacks for work and work life. I hope you found this episode helpful. Be intentional. Be whole. That is all for now. I help assistants apply the concepts I share on this podcast. If you're ready to take your growth deeper and you're curious whether working with me in a coaching capacity is right for you, please email me at [email protected] to schedule your complimentary discovery call.
