Annie Croner [00:00:01]:
Welcome to the Whole Assistant Podcast, where assistants come to embrace their badassery and discover how to show up more strategically for their careers, their executives, and most importantly, themselves. I'm your coach, Annie Kroner. Join us as we dive into the skills, strategies, and mindset that will help you unleash your full potential. Let's go. Welcome back to the Whole Assistant Podcast. You guys, I am so excited. I actually now have a launch date for my book, The Strategic Business Partner. It is going to launch on November 5th.
Annie Croner [00:00:37]:
And there are a few things I want to highlight for you before I launch into today's topic. The first thing is that there are a couple special things I'm going to be doing up until the launch. So I've got book bundles available up till the launch that include a signed copy of the book that I'm going to be mailing out personally. You can't order these signed copies on Amazon, so you have to order them through my website. I'm going to put the link down below to these bundles. There is the Strategic Partner Bundle, which is the book plus a membership and the course, the Strategic Partnership Course. Then there's a VIP bundle that also includes one-on-one coaching. There's also just a signed copy of the book, so you don't even have to purchase the bundles.
Annie Croner [00:01:19]:
You can just purchase a signed copy of the book. Go to wholeassistant.com/book-bundles. There again, I'm going to link to this below, but it's wholeassistant.com/book-bundles. And also I want to invite you to the launch party that I'm going to be hosting here on November 5th at the Clayton Club in Cherry Creek, Denver. It's going to be from 5 to 8 on November 5th, and it's totally free. Please come. There are going to be drinks. There are going to be hors d'oeuvres.
Annie Croner [00:01:50]:
And you can go to wholeassistant.com/rsvp to RSVP for that event. Space is limited, so there are only going to be 75 people allowed in. So you want to be sure to RSVP now rather than later if you are interested in coming. If you are local to Denver, so please, please come celebrate with me. Or even if you're not local to Denver and you just want to come for a visit to Denver, the launch party is going to be so much fun. I'm going to be signing copies. There's going to be games. I'm going to do giveaways.
Annie Croner [00:02:17]:
There's going to be a step and repeat to take pictures in front of. I'm going to have a photographer there. So please, please come. It's going to be a huge bash. I would love to see you there. And up until that point, up until November 5th, on the podcast, I'm going to share a nugget from the book. And today I'm going to talk about the power of borrowed identity, right? And how borrowing someone else's identity can really be core to steering your career. So right out of college, I landed a job as a receptionist at a consulting firm in Boston.
Annie Croner [00:02:51]:
My boss was the executive assistant to the CEO. Her name was Marianne, and Marianne was a rock star. She ran the administrative function of our office. She could keep the CEO in line. On a few occasions, I noticed her crack the whip and just put down her foot, and she had the total respect of the CEO. And I saw that, and I knew that I wanted to steer my career toward that type of partnership. And at the time, I didn't have that self-concept. I was a receptionist, I was fresh outta college.
Annie Croner [00:03:25]:
And so I actually had to borrow Marianne's identity, and her self-concept became the benchmark for my success. So throughout my career, I made choices That would steer me towards that strategic partnership and ultimately landed working for high net worth people and supporting them on a personal level as well as a professional level in both venture capital and family office spaces. And I wouldn't be where I am today without Marianne's example. I seriously am convinced that I would not be where I am today coaching and training executive support professionals had Marianne not opened up my eyes to All the possibilities of this profession, of these roles. So I would have you consider, if you are new to this profession and you are just starting out, and maybe you are unsure of where you want to steer your career, networking, going to the event like this party I'm going to be hosting, going to other events, connecting with your community locally to really get in a room full of executive assistants, or look at other people in your company and Look at someone you admire and then borrow their identity, borrow their frame of reference for who they are in their work, and look at their self-concept. And how can you adopt some of those nuances, some of the, some of the finer points that they already possess, that confidence, the knowledge, the intuition, all of those things? How can you borrow from that? And incorporate those things into your own personal identity and into your own self-concept? And how can you leverage those things to propel your career forward? Now, it doesn't have to look exactly like this person's career. My career obviously looks very different than Marianne's. I will say though that it was really key for me early on to actually look at Marianne, and I would actually ask myself sometimes, like, how would Marianne handle the situation? If somebody's asking me to do something and I don't have the bandwidth for it, what would that look like? And I will also not forget how she actually backed me a few times when somebody would come bring something to me and I said I didn't have the bandwidth for it.
Annie Croner [00:05:38]:
Then they would circumvent me and go to her, and then she'd touch— she'd ring me. She'd be like, Amy, do you have the bandwidth for this? And I didn't. She actually backed me in a really cool way and was just a really great mentor, friend, leader, and someone that I have looked up to and admire to this day. So really looking at What can be borrowed from anyone's experience? There was also this executive that I worked for early on when I was in the high net worth VC space, and I so admired her. She was this investor and my executive, and we had this conversation that I will never forget where she shared that as much as she enjoys doing what she does, the real crux or the real thing that she is the most proud of was how she raised her kids. And she has 3 kids. They're all contributing members of society. She, she was very intentional with how she raised them, and she raised them to know how to invest.
Annie Croner [00:06:35]:
She also raised them to have good heads on their shoulders. They are very giving and thoughtful people. And she said that that was her greatest accomplishment. And I think probably those 2 people I have looked up to and admired Along with my executive in my last role and VC, those 3 people have been really key to who I am today. And I have leveraged certain parts of who they are, and I borrowed certain parts of their self-concepts to construct my own. And that's not to say that I've done it in their way. I've obviously done it in my own way, and I've taken certain aspects and certain pieces and made them my own. And I have to say that that has made me who I am today.
Annie Croner [00:07:18]:
So really think about who you can lean into, who you can rely on, conversations you can have, mentors you can onboard, even taking somebody out to coffee and asking to pick their brain so that you can get really clear on who you want to show up as at the office, who you want to show up as in your life. What self-concept do you want to have around work, what aligns with your values in terms of what you integrate and what you let go of, and really leverage that in a really cool way to really propel yourself forward and your career forward. So this week's power move is going to be very simple. If you are newer in your career, I encourage you to go find a Marianne. Find somebody that you really admire and look up to and ask yourself what pieces Of their self-concept can you look to and build your own self-concept around or similar to? And then if you are seasoned professional, be aware of who's watching you. You are being watched more than likely. People look up to you. They respect you, especially if you've been in your current position for any amount of time.
Annie Croner [00:08:29]:
You're often the go-to for the administrative team. How can you build up the next generation of leaders in our industry? How can you pour into them in a way that will help them create a solid, healthy self-concept that will carry them now and well into the future of their career? So that is what I have for you guys today. My first lesson from The Strategic Business Partner, I talk about this early in the book, is really developing a mindset for success. And a key to doing that is actually upgrading our identity, and sometimes we need an example of what's possible so that we can actually do that. We need to be able to leverage an example of what's possible in order to see what is possible for us. So that is what I have for you guys today. I hope you found this episode helpful. Be intentional.
Annie Croner [00:09:20]:
Be whole. That is all for now. If today's episode gave you language clarity or just a quiet, oh, it's not just me, I am so thrilled you're here. If this podcast has been helpful for you, the easiest way you can support the show is by taking 30 seconds to rate and review it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. This helps more assistants find this work. And if you're ready for ongoing support, guidance, community, and growth that actually fits into your life, Empowered Seat is where we continue this work together. It's affordable, flexible, and designed for assistants who are done white-knuckling their careers in isolation. You can learn more and join at wholeassistant.com/empoweredseat or click the link in the show notes below.
Annie Croner [00:10:05]:
And until next time, go embrace your badassery.
