p.s. Taking Risks (E: 112)

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Enjoy , hello everyone , and welcome to another PS episode . I am so excited to be in front of the microphone bringing an article on the Exceptional Admins website to life . Through this particular episode , we're talking about taking risks , smart risks , thinking about risk reward .

We're thinking about taking chances or being chance adverse , meaning you want to stay away from taking chances . I want to open up your thoughts and invite today into your suite of strengths some thoughts around how you want to address taking more chances .

I want to plug right here at the top this is an article inspired by an article on the website that also has an assessment . I believe it's 10 , if not definitely 12 , but no more than 12 questions that really let you know . Are you risk inclined or risk adverse , or , as we like to say , taking chances ?

We take chances when we're making decisions on a daily basis , and some are natural , some cause us to pause and some of the things we want to think about . Just leading into the top , here is what do you need to know ? And so an administrative professional right , taking chances , aka those risks they can be key factors in your success .

And totally tied to that is the quote , like headline , of you know , get out of your comfort zone . And I challenge and for my regular listeners this shouldn't be a surprise if you're a new listener , welcome . Thanks for hitting play Getting out of your comfort zone is an incomplete directive . Hear me out .

Once you get out of your comfort zone , even if it's like one leg out of the circle , now what I want to have you adopt into your vocabulary , which is a big thing here at the company to inspire so many of you embrace being uncomfortable .

That's ultimately what they're trying to promote with getting out of the comfort zone , and so I would rather all of you consider adding , I want to embrace being uncomfortable right now because it's a micro risk . It's a big risk , whatever that risk you're going to be facing to take and then segue into and still keeping on .

What do you need to know when you think about and I talk about this with my kids if you made that decision , what are one or two scenarios of outcome ? And as administrative individuals , you're making that decision without even really being conscious of it .

When you're putting stuff on the calendar , where does this apply within the day and the rhythm of my executive's energy and time ?

And if you're going to think about taking a risk of sandwiching a really important person between two other really important meetings , you know , hopefully , that the reward of that risk of scheduling has a positive return right , not a negative other than your executive now being completely depleted , depending on who's on the front and the back end of that appointment .

But you know the priorities , so you make those chances , you make decisions based on the chance of something great happening .

I know also many of you on the opposite again thinking about what do you need to know when you're making a decision and you're like that's not going to be a great thing , it's possibly because it's not a good risk to take , and so you're often in your job making decisions based on risks .

So I want to talk a little bit about the emotion and again , just as a quick reminder as we segue , we're going to embrace being uncomfortable as a way to step into taking chances . We're not talking about speeding or reckless decision making on chances . People make risky decisions when they do investments .

I mean , look at how your company makes decisions based on risk . That's attached to reward , and so if you added anything second into your vocabulary , I want you to be thinking about risk reward . If I take a risk right now , what is the reward ? And that , again , is where I was saying what are the two things that could happen ?

Maybe you already know three things . Both the two of the three are really bad and one is great . Is that worth it ? Right ? And it's those calculations . And so let's talk about some bias that settles in when we're thinking about taking risks .

Bias we all know this in the administrative profession and if you didn't know it , this point blank I'm going to spell it out . There's bias attached to the title Just assistant , right ? Just executive assistant . That's the bias . It's very detrimental to our psychology , our advancement potential , and that's from the outside .

But I will tell you , as I say often on the show and through the coaching and workshops that I run , it is on you to change their perception , be it recalculate , their bias of the profession , based on how you're engaging with people specific to your personal brand . So that bias , you know what is it ?

This refers to the unconscious mental shortcuts right that influence our decisions , often without us even realizing it . It's like a filter through which we see the world . The way that I see an instant or an incident happen . Two people next to me might see it just a little bit differently and that's because of how they see the world .

That's the bias we have to face . That because it's going to constantly be a part . It's been around for millions of , or should say thousands of years .

Okay , recognizing bias and decision making when we have an opportunity to assess the risk , as I was mentioning with that risk reward , it either confirms our bias or it sort of changes your bias , because you're taking in the information and deciding what's the risk reward .

The challenges that come with that are cloudy judgment If you're not fully , with a lot of context , and so we talk a lot about on the show and again in training . What's the context ?

Just the extra information , blind spots , maybe that someone's not sharing with you , which then totally puts you guys in a place of being exhausted because you have to come up with more questions to get in their head , which I realize that some of us like it . Some of us are tired , keep pushing through .

So , to overcome the bias , we need to be just aware of it . We need to know when we're making assumptions , when we're using bias based on our own view of the world , and that's where it's also really important . Much to smart risks is the mindful listening I like to talk about , which is my replacement term for active .

Active to me isn't really connecting and making that actionable step . Where you want to be mindful , I'm in the moment , my mind is present and I'm mindful in hearing what you have to say and so having diverse perspectives , getting other people's buy-in on information . We love surveys .

We want to see , we want to see goals on the LinkedIn business page , a lot Like what are people thinking ? How are they viewing stuff ? And so taking in an overcoming bias is really important when you're thinking about taking smart risks and chances and such . So easing into smart risks . Okay , let's shift our focus to the smart risk .

These aren't reckless , right ? They're calculated moves that have the potential for significant payoff . Okay , some of the wonderful admins I've been blessed to help in their career in place , they do have a space of comfort when they're talking to me on Hulani .

I really want the top end of the salary and I say let's talk about it so we can quantify right , so that we can have that Calculated move supported , versus just the feeling of I want more money , which a lot of money is driven by feeling and I don't challenge that to At all discredit that they're worth top comp .

But we need to have that conversation so that the move is calculated when we're moving to the point of compensation for an offer . There's also this dialogue that they have with me , which is obviously not the hiring company . That does give the space to take a smart risk on themselves , because the reward for that risk is , yes , the conversation .

I would love to see more people who I'm not able to totally help , but more people to really think about that Quantifiable information that backs . So it takes away the emotion which is the bias also in this profession , a very high emotional profession .

A group of professionals takes that away , and so Assessing of how to take a smart risk is what is some of the data that backs the decision to quote , take that chance or take that risk ? And and knowing where that's at is extremely important .

The second thing , which I had mentioned earlier , is , you know , before taking a risk is essential to assess the potential Outcomes . If I had said just moments ago there's three and two are not great , is one out of three worth it ? I don't know right .

And that's where leaning into buy-in and information from other people is extremely important gathering the information , quantifying the risks involved in the big thing .

A lot of my intellectually curious admins out there I think you're the majority you want to seek and look and find information Because you , as so many of you say , you write lifelong learner for us here we like to call it building your library of knowledge and so on .

And so that taking that starting point of a small risk , my biggest statement here Don't be afraid . Don't be afraid to start small . Taking manageable risks builds confidence and it sets the stage for larger .

One risk on a personal level might be , you know , choosing to not eat breakfast at 7 am Like you normally do and waiting till 8 o'clock so that you kind of go into the intermittent fasting , right , that's a good risk .

You're gonna be starving , could you be hangry , which is something I suffer from every now and then but just a small personal risk , starting with yourself versus in the business place , is going to build up the confidence that you know I like to take chances , chances that have good risk reward , and you're building out this bank of Instances that are the confidence

you need to do a risk at the office and I don't know all of your jobs , but I'm sure you can find , even in working with other departments or advisors On how to take a smart risk at the office . I just touched on this , and so let's just move through this next segment of information specific to the emotions , and a really big one .

I've conducted , conducted gosh 6000 calls in the last seven years . It's a lot of calls and it's amazing . We're in our eighth year now running the company and there's so much continuity in all the calls .

There's this little , little tiny of undertone of fear and I don't want to be judged , which goes into the bias right , I don't want to be judged , I want to remove the just from my identity and I really want this job we're on the phone talking about . So let's talk about emotions and fear , failure specifically to taking risks .

Failure is a natural part of any journey . I mean , especially when talking about risks and instead of fearing it , embrace the failure right . As we talked about a moment ago and I shared being uncomfortable , I mean there are times where I have to be really uncomfortable with new clients because they're oververbal processors .

We're running out of time , but I need to hear that information . So the reward is letting them talk , letting them carry on , which is also very telling how they are on the job and probably running meetings over and so on . But I digress , embracing that uncomfortable , that potential of failure , but thinking about it as a powerful learning opportunity .

I am absolutely so big about that and if I could just be with all of you and we're in a huge circle holding hands and we're saying brace , being uncomfortable , I would want you to feel the energy of the power that comes with . It's okay if I fail .

By the way , we should probably think which could be another episode , like different tiers of failure , failure I don't even know what those tiers are , but making it less universal , like everything's a failure versus that's a micro failure or that's a tiny failure , but failure is also not a great word .

So one of the things we've been doing a lot , especially in 2023 , is where's the opportunity in the moment ? Where's the opportunity in the moment as a replacement phrase ? Again here , more vocabulary for all of you . The replacement phrase for that didn't go the way I wanted it to .

That risk did not have a reward right , and so , thinking about the emotions , some most successful people face setbacks before really reaching their goals . I used to listen to a podcast called how I Built this and Rent the Runway the founder .

She was being interviewed by Guy Ra's , the podcast host , and she talked about how she had like 156 different meetings to launch Rent the Runway and she was starting to lose her energy and passion . Can you imagine like 150 ? I mean so many of you too who go through tons of interviews and then don't get the offer ? It's kind of the same thing .

She kept pushing through and she's describing this amazing moment .

She's in New York city in the back of a taxi , heading with all of her garments to Diane von Fossenberg's office to pitch it to her , but she got a call 10 minutes before the meeting from the executive assistant saying that the meeting is now canceled , diane doesn't have time to meet with you , and the founder was , excuse me , lying and saying , oh , can't hear

you , and she was trying to act like she was in a tunnel in the city and couldn't hear , so that she didn't hear that she's not allowed to have this meeting . She showed up and Diane invested in her . I mean amazing , right .

She took a huge , smart risk , one by lying , two , by faking it in the back of the cab and still pushing through , and so I share that story to think about the emotions that some of the most successful people face setbacks before reaching their goals . The next thing is that there's managing of the emotions managing .

I have an amazing episode with a wonderful guy named DB helping you win the day , and he talks about emotional intelligence and that . You're gonna wanna check that episode out . I'll have that in the show notes as well . But here , real quick . The emotional roller coaster comes with taking risks . It's absolutely normal .

I mentioned this actually many months ago on Instagram

. You are a business of one , and what that means is you have a proposition quote for a service . So I'm personally a business of two .

One and a half right , I've got two and a half , I've got Leah and a part-time communications assistant , and being a business of one as an executive assistant is you are propositioning out , proposing out use me for my services . Just like Starbucks wants to earn your business to buy their coffee .

They're unique , the style in which they have their drink order to the cup and logo and the drink names and then you just go to McDonald's . They're a business of one , right . What they offer their coffee is not unique .

So I want you to think about the emotions that are attached to being a business of one and that there's emotional roller coasters that come with a business owner who's got a company of 10,000 to you and me . So it's not about the fail , it's about how you get back up .

So if you took a small risk and you realized there was a reward , and now you're building out a library of instances of taking some risks , you're going to grow into a space of there's nothing really big to lose here . I'm going for it and I would really love that for everyone . So the fear of what others think can be paralyzing .

This could be a whole nother episode , so I won't park here for long at all . But here's the truth . Not everyone will understand your journey , and that's okay . Focus on your personal goals and let your success speak louder than any criticism .

And that's a big thing there , because if they don't quote , see you the way you want to be seen , which , by the way , I talk about this in my personal branding course .

It's 26 minutes , it's amazing , and it talks about the value of perception and not reputation and what the difference is between the two of those and giving people a place and opportunity to see you differently than the just that carries with this title , unfortunately . Okay , we're kind of coming to the end . Encouraging advice . I want to leave it with one .

You want to check out the article . You definitely want to check out the article . You totally want to take the assessment less than a minute of your time really enlightening . We had fun putting that together as well as the now . What do you do after you've completed the assessment ? And I want to emphasize the importance of embrace being uncomfortable .

I want to emphasize the coolness behind the risk and that potential reward I want to also talk about everyone's journey is absolutely unique to you , which is why I'm so big on pushing personal branding . You are a personal brand , as I was just mentioning . You are a business of one . You need to create a center of influence .

You need to earn agency , have a breath of command . There's an amazing book actually have it here on my desk Invisible influence . It's on our books page , so I'll have that in the show notes as well . The hidden forces that shape behavior . Jonah Berger amazing . I could not put this book down .

I just happened to have been delayed for a flight and walked into the bookstore which is not normally something I do and it just jumped out at me and I grabbed it . I started reading it on the flight home . I couldn't close it . It's a great book totally worth reading .

Invisible influence by Jonah Berger Remembering true , true learning happens when you step out of your comfort zone into embracing being what Uncomfortable ?

Right , there seems to be a lack of action after you quote leave the comfort zone , and so I want to then have the second part , which is the action is embraced , being uncomfortable , knowing also emotions to get high . How do you sort of regulate that ? Talk about that in the assessment based on where you're at . You've taken it and we give you results .

And building out your suite of strengths , growing your library of knowledge . These are key terms that we've been using for the last several years and I'm so excited that you hit play .

If you really enjoyed this episode , share it with someone that's just thinking about taking a step into being uncomfortable in 2024 . And I'm so excited that you all come back hit play Again . As I mentioned , if this is your first episode , welcome to the exceptional admins community and hitting play on the show .

Be sure to check out the show notes everyone and wishing everyone a great day . Thanks for hitting play and spending some time with me . If this episode inspired you or provided valuable insights , please share it with your network and consider leaving a review . Your career journey is elevated each time you absorb new information .

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