Annie:
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Annie:
No matter the circumstances. Whether you're booking in town or across the globe, the service is always consistent, meaning peace of mind and less stress, which we all know I'm a fan of. Mention me to the sales rep or click the link in the show notes for 20% off your first three trips. 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 free from overwhelm and burnout. Now onto today's episode.
Annie:
Hello you guys. It is basically fall. I know it's not exactly fall yet, but it is basically fall. I am loving the weather here in Denver. I don't know about you, where you are in the world, but I'm loving it. It's so great. And the light is beginning to turn and the leaves are just on the verge. You can tell they're just about to turn.
Annie:
These beautiful, radiant colors that we get here in Denver for a week and I'm super excited and I'm really excited to be here with you today. I hope your day is going well. I hope your week is going well. And I also just want to share about something that is now available to you all. So the leveled up assistant, which is my group training, coaching and collaboration program. It's 16 weeks long. I love it. It's my favorite baby.
Annie:
I have literally taken all the feedback I've gotten from the last four rounds of tlua. I'm implementing them. I'm really excited about this round. I've actually created a syllabus for this round and I'm ready to get started. And if you'd like to join me inside of that program, please go to wholeassistant.com levelup. You're going to learn how to make a bigger impact in your executive assistant role. I think it's just time to stop playing small. I think it's time to embrace your badassery and take your career to the next level.
Annie:
And I have been working with assistants for a long time helping them do this exact thing, and I have really fine tuned my process and I'm really excited to walk you through it. You're going to learn to maximize your influence. You're going to garner the respect of your executives. We're going to work on streamlining your processes and strategically aligning with your executive. And we're also going to say goodbye to some outdated strategies and some outdated ways of thinking about the executive assistant role. So I hope you will join us. If you want to learn more and register, you can go to wholeassistant.com/levelup. And there is also a button underneath where you pay for the leveled up assistant that will give you access to a template to request professional development funds.
Annie:
And so you can copy that template. You can use it in an email to send to your executive or to whoever you need to send it to. And I'm also offering a free career mapping session for the first five who register. So go over to wholeassistant.com/levelup to register for TLUA and I look forward to seeing you there. Okay, on to the topic for today. And that topic is the power of boring magic. So I want to kind of share what I mean by boring magic. I have been doing a lot of work on my health and I know I've shared in past episodes that I have hired a personal trainer.
Annie:
He's at my house one day a week, and I have to say that I don't like working out. It's hard to stretch myself in that way. I do like the accountability of having a personal trainer one day at my house. I really wanted somebody to be able to guide me to make sure I wasn't going to hurt myself. I've got some deficiencies on my left side due to a former injury and I just wanted to make sure that I was going to hurt myself. And every time he comes over, he'll say something like, last week we were working on single leg squats and he told me, well, you just don't want to do two rounds for the rest of your life. And I looked him square in the end, I'm like, what are you talking about? Of course I only want to do two rounds of single leg squats for the rest of my life. Why would I want to do any more than that? And I think that there's something really profound about doing the boring thing that will create the end result that you want.
Annie:
And so boring magic is that it's doing the boring, mundane thing now in order to create what. What feels like magic for yourself later. So I have been working with my personal trainer for the last six months, at least at this point now, and I'm beginning to see some shifts in my. In my body composition. I feel really strong. I have my left foot turned in due to that muscle deficiency, and now it's straighter because I've literally been working those muscles consistently. And there's just something really beautiful about that and really beautiful about investing in your future self now to reap the reward. And there have been so many seemingly inconsequential steps to kind of get here, and I'm still in process, guys, I was telling my mom, my mom's in town for the weekend, and I was telling her that I still have some weight I'd like to use lose.
Annie:
Even though I'm building all this muscle, I really haven't lost any weight. And I feel like I'm trading maybe some fat for some muscle, and that feels really good. But I also know that there are some things I can do to kind of optimize my health. And I'm a sugar addict. Not a sugar addict, but I definitely have a sweet tooth. And so I've really done a lot to unravel that. So I'm going to be even cutting back on sweets even more. And so just talking about my plan of action moving forward to take this health journey to the next level, now that I have kind of built up some strength and now it's time to kick it up a notch, I think that it's also good to know in terms of boring magic, the little steps that I've taken in order to get here and things like getting up out of my bed at 05:00 a.m.
Annie:
to go for a walk, or getting up really early to work out in my basement, or not eating the donut, or not eating the sugar, or not having the glass of wine by myself in the evenings. Right? And the thing is that those things seem inconsequential in the moment. They seem like they aren't going to impact anything in the moment. And so what we do is we give in to the instant gratification instead of delaying our gratification and investing in our future self. I also understand that this can be incredibly boring. It's incredibly boring to get up and work out every single day. Not every single day. I try and aim for five days a week.
Annie:
It's really boring to get up and do the work. And I'm beginning to reap the benefits. I'm beginning to see the fruit of that labor. And I often see this with executive assistants when it comes to things like creating systems. But here's the deal. The little things are what build trusts with your executive. They truly are. When you think your executive isn't looking, that's when you should be showing up for yourself from a place of integrity and also holding to what you said you would do.
Annie:
So doing what you say you're going to do when you say you're going to do it. Creating those systems for your long term success. Showing up on time, taking accountability for your actions. All good things that will develop trust with your executive. Yet as we're walking through life and as we are confronted with these things in the moment, they seem boring, they seem dull. But the boring things are where the magic happens, actually creating systems for yourself so that you're creating that dependability for your brain. You're also like, optimized everything. You're optimizing your time management.
Annie:
You're optimizing how you show up. You are systematically showing up in a way that will serve you and serve your executive. What is good for your executive and what is good for that relationship is often good for you, too. But we often downplay and minimize that. And we often minimize creating the systems because we're so busy playing whack a mole that to slow down long enough to create the systems seems boring. It seems trite, it seems inconsequential. But I am telling you, as someone who actually took the time to build out her systems, took the time to really make sure that she was showing up strategically, in every sense of the word. Your systems are really, really, really key to developing that trust with your executive.
Annie:
And so I think that we need to pay attention to what can create boring magic for ourselves. And I think that by doing the boring thing, it's often the thing that will create the most magic down the road for us. I'm looking back now over these last few months, and I'm looking at pictures prior to when I started this journey of working out and building muscle and everything, and I am kind of in awe at how strong I am. Now I really feel like I could go skiing. Whereas before I felt like my left foot would turn in and it would be a disaster and I would fall. I'm really feeling like I could probably go for a run now and not hurt myself. The way I was able to create that for myself was by doing the boring magic. And I think that there are oftentimes some things that get in the way of the boring magic, right? Like we just want that instant gratification.
Annie:
But if you're actually able to delay that gratification, there are so many amazing benefits. And the byproducts of creating your boring magic are self trust. I mean, my self trust has grown exponentially since I started. Like making sure that I was getting up to work out. I now trust that I'm just going to do it. It's not even a question in my brain whether or not I'm going to get up and work out. It's just a knowing. But that took several months to develop.
Annie:
But I kept trying and I kept failing. I'm not saying I didn't fail. I'm not saying I didn't sleep in when I meant to get up. I'm not saying that that never happened. But what I am saying is that by getting up and having an imperfect workout and maybe doing one or two rounds and not all three, or whatever the case may be, I may have set out to do a certain amount and not miss, not hit that mark. But that self trust will be begin to develop in you like it did in me. And this is true in our work lives as well. By building trust with your executive, you also build trust with yourself.
Annie:
Yourself. Because you know that you've got your own back regardless of the outcome. You know that you've got your own back regardless of whether or not the system works, that you're going to go back and iterate, you are creating baselines for yourself and building up from there. And you do what you say you're going to do when you say you're going to do it, instead of being all wishy washy about it. And so really showing up for yourself in that way, imperfectly at first, and then getting better and better and better at it, is a great way to foster self trust. It's an excellent byproduct of creating boring magic for yourself. Another byproduct of creating your own boring magic is that your confidence will grow and you'll begin to see yourself grow in ways that you hadn't considered or anticipated. I often like to think about confidence as an interesting byproduct of working with someone one on one or even in my group programs.
Annie:
It's really fascinating to watch because I'll be working with someone and their confidence will be really low and they'll fill out the effect of their circumstances and we start working together. And the confidence is an excellent byproduct of what we work on, which is showing up more strategically for yourself, showing up more strategically for your executive, building the mindset that you need to give you long term success and confidence kind of comes along for the journey. It's so fun to see. It's one of my favorite things about doing what I do. Another byproduct of creating your own magic is that you will begin to see yourself as someone who doesn't quit. You will begin to trust and rely on your ability to never quit until you get the result that you want. And as someone who has done a lot of personal growth work over the last six years and who has relentlessly pursued coaching executive assistants, growing my business and that sort of thing, there was a time where I'm like, oh my gosh, I don't know if I can do this. And now I can't see myself doing anything else.
Annie:
I really, really can't. I love what I do. I love pouring into executive assistants. I love pouring into you all. I love recording these podcasts. I love hearing your transformation from this podcast alone, let alone my pay programs. It is so much fun to see just all the growth that has come from not quitting. And so now I see myself as someone who will never quit anything that I ever set my mind to because I haven't given up.
Annie:
Now, I'm not going to say that I never wanted to give up. There have been days where I've laid on my couch and my husband's like, where are you? I'm like, I'm on the couch. He's like, what's the matter? I'm like, I quit. And he's like, you can't quit. I'm like, I know I'm just having a down day. But that's the beauty of really tapping into the boring magic, showing up consistently again and again and again and showing up in integrity again and again and again and doing the boring things that we don't want to do. To create and foster trust with our executives and to create and foster trust with ourselves. Whether it's working out, whether it's your eating habits, whether it's creating systems at work, whether it's showing up on time to work, whatever it is you say you're going to do, man, there are some amazing, amazing benefits for creating boring magic.
Annie:
And I would encourage you if you're feeling down about a goal that you may have had in in the past, if you're feeling down about maybe something that you've tried in the past and failed miserably at, don't give up. Create some boring magic for yourself. Start small and see if that doesn't take you far. And don't downplay the small decisions you make every day because they create who you are long term. They really, really do. So that is what I have for you guys today. And if you want to create boring magic with a group of people, please join us. Join us in the level up assistant.
Annie:
I'd love to have you go to wholeassistant.com/levelup. Again, that's wholeassistant.com/levelup. There's a payment plan if you want to pay in increments or there's also like pay in full. But I would love to see you inside of tlu way. You're just gonna have so much fun. And I think it's a great way to receive specialized training and industry leading coaching and hang out with some really cool, badass assistants. Okay, guys, that's what I have for you today. Be intentional.
Annie:
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.
