Mallory Rothstein is an Administrative Business Partner at Google, and previously was an Associate to the Chairman and CEO of Henry Schein, Stan Bergman.
Mallory talks about getting a TEDx speaking opportunity, tips for public speaking, landing an assistant role with Stan Bergman (CEO of Henry Schein), what it’s like to work as an administrative business partner at Google, and she also talks about her passion to help high schoolers with personal development.
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Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody’s going to know whether you did it or not.
– Oprah Winfrey
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ABOUT MALLORY
Mallory (Mal) Rothstein is an Administrative Business Partner in Search Ads at Google. Mal previously worked in People Development at Google and was an Associate to the Chairman and CEO of Henry Schein, Stan Bergman. Outside of the administrative professional world, Mal is the Founder of Learn What Matters which is about helping high schoolers invest in their personal development. Mal recently became a TEDx Speaker and is the host of a weekly Instagram Live Series called Peace Over Panic. She currently resides in the Bay Area where she enjoys cheering on the Golden State Warriors and hiking.
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Mallory Rothstein 0:00
I’m Mallory Rothstein. Today’s leadership quote comes from Oprah Winfrey, real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody’s going to know whether you did it or not.
Podcast Intro 0:13
The Leader Assistant Podcast exists to encourage and challenge assistants to become confident game changing leader assistants.
Podcast Outro 0:22
Thank you for listening to The Leader Assistant Podcast. Here’s your host, my dad. Hey,
Jeremy Burrows 0:29
friends, thanks for tuning in. I hope you’re having a good holiday season. I’m excited to share my interview today. But first, I wanted to let you know that my Amazon Kindle ebook version of the leader assistant, four pillars of a confident game changing assistant, my number one Amazon best selling book that released earlier this year, I’ve discounted the Kindle version of the book to $3.49. US D, it’s typically 6.99, I think is what it was for full price. So just wanted to put it for the whole month of December at this price so that you could get it as a digital stocking stuffer for your assistant friends and colleagues. Or if you already have the physical book, or the audio book, maybe you wanted to grab the Kindle version as well. So you can refer to it on your either Kindle device or your Kindle app, you don’t have to have a Kindle to access a Kindle book in case you didn’t know that. You can access it from your browser through your Amazon account or through the app on your device like your iPad or your Google Pixel phone or whatever you have. So go to Amazon.leaderassistant.com to get the book for half price for this month of December for the holiday season. And you can actually order multiple digital copies and they will send you a promo code to share with people to be able to download it for free. So yeah, you can just go in Amazon.leaderassistant.com select Add to cart or I think you have to select the quantity of the Kindle version that you would like and then you can go pretty high. I’m not sure what the max is I’ve known people who have bought 40 copies of the digital book and then they get 40 promo codes that they can send out for people to download the book. So check it out. Really appreciate all your support. I know several of you have bought the discounted Kindle version for your entire executive assistant, an admin team at your company. I really appreciate it. Hopefully it’s very helpful and valuable to you. But again, you can find that discount for just $3.49 you can get the digital Kindle version of the book at amazon.leaderassistant.com. So Happy Holidays, enjoy the discount and enjoy this interview. Hey everyone. Thanks for tuning into The Leader Assistant Podcast is your host Jeremy Burrows and today I’m speaking with Mallory Rothstein. Mallory is an administrative business partner at Google. And she’s also a TEDx speaker and host of a weekly Instagram Live series called peace over panic. Mallory, how’s it going?
Mallory Rothstein 3:27
It is good. I’m I’m definitely having a busy but good week.
Jeremy Burrows 3:32
Great. So we’re gonna jump right in. You’ve got a couple of interesting stories that you told me about that I’d love to have you share. One of them was you said you were speaking at a nonprofit Gala. And you essentially got an EA job because of that opportunity in that speaking gig. So can you tell us about that story?
Mallory Rothstein 3:57
Yeah, so when I graduated college, and 2015 I, I was looking for social media jobs thinking that I was going to be a social media manager because I love social media. And I really at the end goal wanted to be a CEO. But I was like, I don’t have my big idea yet. And I was really involved with this nonprofit called Miracle corners of the world to ask me to give a five minute brief speech. And I ended up going up on stage making some stupid joke and totally thinking that I bombed this speaking engagement. I remember like getting off the stage and telling my partner at the time, like, I’m not even gonna go to the reception. Like I’m so embarrassed. And I ended up going to the reception, and I’m just like walking around and I see this guy, Stanley Bergman, who has seriously like, 50 people waiting to speak with him. And we make eye contact and I’m like, you know, just smiling and he comes running out Talk to me. And he’s like, Hey, I’m Stanley Bergman and I run this company. And I’m just thinking like, okay, like, what do you want to do with me? You have like, 50 people waiting for you. And he’s just like, I know, you know, my son. Like, I’ve heard great things about you. I loved your speech. Do you want to come work for me? And I was like, what? And he’s, he asked me, Do you have a passport? And what are you doing with your life? That was actually his first thing before he said, Will you come work for me? And I just told them, I was like, I’m getting rejected from jobs. And I do have a passport. And he just was like, come work for me. And then he said, I was like, I don’t really know. Like, I’m like, okay, and then he said, Send me your values and your resume by the end of tonight. And I didn’t know of him. I knew his son because his son ran this nonprofit. But yeah, like, I literally interviewed, or I got contacted by the recruiter, the next day, the following day, I went to the office to interview with the rest of the office. And then two weeks later, I was his, one of his, he calls it an associate. And I traveled all over with him as one of his EAS. So it was, I was not planning on being an assistant at all, which is, I think, a lot of people’s story. But that was kind of my starting in the EA world.
Jeremy Burrows 6:23
So how long have you been an assistant now?
Mallory Rothstein 6:28
So it has been five years. So I’m still leaving young in my career. But yeah, so it’s been five years.
Jeremy Burrows 6:39
Awesome. So did you like how did you get the speaking gig? And you’ve done? Apparently, you’ve done TEDx speaking? So how does that all come together? And just do you have any tips for people who want to do more speaking?
Mallory Rothstein 6:57
Yeah, of course. So I, when I was really young, in high school, I was very, very, like, I did not like to speak at all. And I was very nervous, I may still get nervous, but I was so against public speaking. And then in college, I basically told myself every single opportunity, you have to say yes, to get good at it. And so for this, like nonprofit, I had volunteered and they just asked me, and I just decided to say yes. And then for the TEDx talk, which I just gave this last year, I, I really just applied, like I looked online, how to give a TEDx talk, I went to like one webinar that gave some tips on it, I made a list of all the different TEDx events that were in the next year. And I decided to start applying to them, I applied to seven and I heard back from one and it’s crazy, because I heard back from one and it was the one that I did not think was my best application. And it was the one that was a month away. So it was but it ended up being fine. And I tell actually, a lot of other assistants that like speaking such a great opportunity to just, you know, establish your own personal brand to even build like, kind of like credibility within your own organization and with your executives. And for anyone that’s looking for speaking opportunities, I always tell them to just start small like to start something of your own like, my Instagram Live that I had started was really just for me to get comfortable being on a Live platform and to be okay with being on video. And so just start small start asking people if they know of any opportunities, and I would say the biggest thing to like for me like now, I kind of have like a pregame routine on what I do before each speaking engagement that kind of makes it easier for me going into going into them even like before, like, you know, us doing this podcast like I have a pregame routine now.
Jeremy Burrows 9:07
What’s part of your routine?
Mallory Rothstein 9:09
So I always tell myself, you got this. I always go to the bathroom. And I always drink just like one sip of water and I usually listen to a song. That’s like all part of it.
Jeremy Burrows 9:23
Yeah, so tell us about the kind of more of your side hustle if you will. called Learn what matters. And I guess you do professional development with high schoolers. Is that right?
Mallory Rothstein 9:40
Yeah, I do. I do a lot of personal development with with high schoolers and coaching and essentially what it is all about helping high school students understand the term self aware the term self awareness and personal development and kind of help them become really crystal clear on who they are. Aside of grades, standardized test scores, like really just who they are at the core, and then where did what are their goals? Where do they want to be? And how do they come up with a plan to help them get there. There’s so many different resources for students on SATs and, you know, study habits and things like that. But I really believe that all of those things are important. But if a student doesn’t know who they really are, and what their strengths are, they’re not going I believe, to do their best on the SATs to get into the best career to find the best partner. And so I really just tried to help teens and coach them through that and then help high schools build strong alumni programs. And then I started a alumni net alum a scholarship at my high school to help students invest in their personal development.
Jeremy Burrows 10:55
How did you end up kind of getting into that into something that you’ve always been passionate about? Is there something that kind of triggered that?
Mallory Rothstein 11:06
So when I joined Google, which is now four years ago, I, I was after my job working for Henry Schein with Stanley Bergman, that Job was really crazy. Like, I tell him all the time, I’m like, he knows I’m like, That job took a lot out of me, I moved to California. And I was just saying to myself, like, I’m just going to kind of take it easy, I’m going to have one job, I’m going to just have fun outside of work and not think of 1000 other things to do. And then of course, like seven months later, I I just had something happened into my life where I had to, like cut someone off. And I thought that my purpose was very much with them. And I was like, Wait, when this person isn’t in my life, what do I do, and I saw it in a conference room, and I put away my phone, my laptop, and I just started asking myself, like, what makes me happy. And as I started writing all these things down, it was like coaching youth development. Like the people that I was writing down were like people that were like team coaches, and everything I did was like traveling and all this kind of stuff. And I said to myself, Man, I want I really want to work with young people, too. I wonder if high school students knew to like ask themselves these types of questions. And then came up with the idea from learn what matters. Like really right in that moment, and a lot of it is really inspired also, just by my experience in high school and middle school and, and how I got through, you know, certain struggles and things that I was going through and really wanting to provide something that I wish I had in high school. And so yeah, so that’s kind of more of the background of that.
Jeremy Burrows 12:57
So you had this passion to help high schoolers with personal development. You do speaking. But you’re also a full time administrative business partner at Google. How do you balance your side hustle with your day job? And is your Google executive and team? Okay with you having a side hustle?
Mallory Rothstein 13:19
Yeah. So when I take it back, when I first started working with Stan, I told him and his office straight up, I will not be an assistant forever. Like, if you’re looking for someone who wants to be a career admin, until they retire, it’s not going to be me. And I’m definitely not staying at this company more than probably five years, the max. And I’ve always been really honest with every single executive that I’ve worked with, during the interview process to set the expectations that I’m not a career admin forever. I want to start my own business and like, I’m here to learn from you. And so all of my executives, all of my teams, they know, they know my projects, like, and they know what I’m what I’m doing. There’s no again, there’s no secret. And when people ask me like, Well, what did they say? Like, what is their like? Like? Are they shocked? Or like, why did they hire you? Because my thing with them is I always tell them, I will be the best admin and they’ve ever had an experience and I will make sure that my side hustles never affect like them. And it will only contribute and make me as a as an assistant better and make them better through my network through things that I learned doing a side hustle. So I’ve never personally had any issues from it. In terms of balancing, I try to tell people like I don’t have a partner at all kids. I also now live away from my family, which cuts out a lot of things that a lot of other people deal with. So I think it makes things a little bit easier to balance. I like to put that out there but Anytime that I do, like I did a podcast today earlier, and I know, okay, if I’m taking an hour out of my day one, I usually let my executives know, like, if you need me for the next hour, if you’re basically not going to be able to reach me, and then I also will, I’ll either sometimes work later, or I will just make sure that I am like hustling through the rest of the day, again, so that they don’t see any negative business impact. And they I just think that like I focus my execs, has always not judge me by the amount of like, hours I work, they always just judge me by what is the impact. So again, there have been there have been times where like, I’ve done a speaking engagement, and I’ve missed a really important like message or email. And I’ve had to, like live with that. And I’m at peace with it. And if they’re upset, like, that’s okay, because again, I just know that for the rest of the day, or the next week, like, I’m going to make sure that my work is like amazing. So that’s how I view it. And that’s how I’ve been able to kind of do all that I’ve been able to do in the admin role.
Jeremy Burrows 16:11
Yeah, I love what you said about you just make that clear up front in the interview process. So you’re not trying to like hide it or anything. You’re just like, Listen, this is what I do. I’m passionate about these things. And I actually literally, I said that pretty much the same thing to my executive, my current executive, because I had already started my blog and kind of side stuff before he hired me. And I said, Listen, I’m going to be the best assistant you’ve ever had. But I’m also going to be passionate about kind of building this side project, and, but I won’t let it affect, you know, my day job. And he’s like, alright, let’s, let’s do this. So, yeah, definitely important to communicate. If you’re already in the role, I know there’s a lot of assistants that are already enrolled in that they’re wanting to start a new one. Just be aware of your company’s policies, beware of your executives expectations. Before you go full on.
Mallory Rothstein 17:15
Yeah, though, I’m actually like trying to launch something more for assistance. And I actually had to speak to different people, because the thing we’ll learn what matters, which was easy is like, it’s not really, it’s not geared towards assistants. So it doesn’t affect my actual role. It’s not like I’m talking about, you know, Google’s admin policies or anything. But I want to create something for admins and any kind of forum, whether it’s a podcast, a book coaching, or anything, I was like, Alright, I need to make sure with my manager and like the appropriate people in HR, like it’s okay to actually start something like this. So that’s what I’ve been kind of working on. It’s just making sure that it’s again, yeah, per your company policy. Definitely want to say, stay within that.
Jeremy Burrows 18:04
Yeah. So you said you don’t want to be you don’t see yourself as a, you know, retiring as a admin in your career, but what do you what do you love about the role? While you’re while you’re still doing it?
Mallory Rothstein 18:22
Yeah. So I mean, I tell anyone, if I wanted to quit tomorrow, or like, last year, I could have, and I just don’t, because I actually do enjoy the role and what I get out of it, and what I can leverage. And the biggest thing for me is really like learning from these executives and observing from them, like how to build great, great teams, what do people that are at low levels, have issues with higher leadership for me, like all of those, like lessons through leadership and teamwork, and all that kind of stuff, I’m like taking and soaking in and then like, when I’m building my side, hustles I’m making sure that I hopefully, you know, can, can be my own type of leader but not maybe make some of the same mistakes that I’ve seen some of my leaders make, or other leaders that I’ve just seen from a distance make. So for me, it’s just all about what I’m learning and observing. And I also just love all the people that I get to me and some people love that they get to meet like celebrities and high up executives. And for me, it’s it’s actually the opposite. Like I love meeting all the drivers and like the people I’ve met at restaurants and the vendors and actually the people that are not in high positions, I’ve really made some amazing relationships and learned a lot through them. And so just just again, like the people that I get to meet through through this role, I really I’m very grateful for what I’ve been able to do and who I’ve been able to meet
Jeremy Burrows 20:01
What’s it like working at one of the biggest companies in the world?
Unknown Speaker 20:06
You know, I,
Mallory Rothstein 20:10
I always say to people that there’s pros and cons to everything. Because if I were to say to you, it’s the most amazing place ever, I would really be leaving out some of the things you know that like, some days are not as great. And if I were to be like, Oh, well, Google doesn’t have this policy, or doesn’t do this, like my sister will be like, but you work for Google, like, stop complaining. So I try to tell people, there are days where I absolutely love it. And then there are days where it makes me absolutely crazy. It’s really, but again, I’ve stayed and I would have left if I really didn’t like it i There’s way more good days than bad is I say the hardest part that I think some people don’t realize is just the scale. A lot of times when I’m hiring assistants, I try to just tell them the scale and the pace is going to be something that you’ve probably never experienced before or just at a different level. And sometimes the mistakes you make are going to be a lot more visible to the world than you might think. And you just have to be ready for that. And just a quick example is my team and ads. When I was on the team, three years ago, we were worried there was some kind of major project that was going on with Apple. And I had to schedule meetings and like these people on the team would be like this meeting could like if you don’t schedule this meeting, they’d be like, you can lose Google like $2 billion. Like what? And some people like to me, I’m just like, Okay, great. But some other people, really, I’ve seen like fold under that pressure of potentially, like, if you just miss an email, or like you put one wrong person. Some people like don’t want to deal with that. It gives them too much anxiety. And that’s totally fine. But I’d say that’s an aspect of sometimes working at Google that people don’t realize they think it’s like, oh, but you still get all of the perks and you still get all these things. And like yes, and I’m incredibly grateful for those. But sometimes, the pace and scale are a lot to handle. If you’re if you’re not ready for it.
Jeremy Burrows 22:28
Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. That’s, I’ve heard that from other assistants I’ve interviewed and, you know, Amazon, or LinkedIn or whatever, just like those large scale companies. Definitely move, especially the tech companies move at a different pace than a lot of other companies.
Mallory Rothstein 22:50
Yeah, for sure.
Jeremy Burrows 22:53
So tell us about the book you’re working on. You mentioned a little bit about working on project for Adnan’s and assistance. What’s Yeah, where’s the? Where’s that ad? And what are you excited about?
Mallory Rothstein 23:07
Yeah, so I not too long ago moved to this like place in the mountains in the Bay Area. And I was like, I’m gonna write my, like, learn what matters book like it’s going to be, I’m gonna write this book, it’s going to be about that. And then when I came here, I just had this like moment where I’m like, okay, that that books still happening, but I feel a greater purpose right now to write a book for admins. And I’ve like, is, I like, had this initiative that I wanted to start at Google. And then there was the book, it was like two different things. And then when I started speaking to people, they’re like, you gotta morph it into both like it’s got to be, this should not be just a Google thing. It should be a like, you know, a global thing. And then the book should be part of it, and not gonna give away the title or anything just yet, because it has already changed once. But the idea is about how like, first just kind of like my story on being an admin and how I have not let the admin role kind of define me, and how other admins kind of discover and leverage and celebrate who they are outside of being an admin, and assistant, whatever you want to call it, EA, VA, PA, all of the all of the A’s and really trying to help people again, establish kind of who they are outside of just the role. And how do they leverage the role to really kind of fulfill their purpose and where they want to be in life, whether that’s being an EA forever, or whether that is at some point transitioning into another role or another. Yeah, another role and other company, whatever that is for them.
Jeremy Burrows 24:55
Well, I definitely look forward to you know, finding out what the title is As and in checking the book out what’s something that you would suggest to assistants listening now? When it comes to how they can anticipate their executives needs.
Mallory Rothstein 25:19
So something that I do a lot of is documenting. Like, as soon as I start working with the exec, I started documenting as much as I can. Like, when like, literally like, when do I think that they wake up? What do I think that like, they actually sign on? One? Do they send me their last emails, and I just try to make a ton of notes, whether it’s mental notes, I try to write them down and have them somewhere. And I try to see what they are normally asking me questions on what they’re asking the teams. I also, I also meet with all of my executives, I support three executives right now. I mean, with all their leads on I would say at least a quarterly basis, if not more, to ask them like, what is my executive asking a lot of you? What do you think I could help with? And then I also just ask them, like, what do you if you could have me have any superpower to like, read your mind? Or, like, anticipate something like, what would it be? And through all of that, like just, again, documenting, speaking with other people, and just directly asking my exec, I feel that that has really helped me be able to, um, you know, anticipate needs better along my journey?
Jeremy Burrows 26:37
Yeah, that’s great. I think I talked about that a lot about asking the right questions and asking your executives, what’s on their mind? Because if you want to read their mind, you have to ask them what’s on it. So that’s great. So all right. So it’s been great interview. My favorite question to ask I’m gonna wrap it up with is what makes an assistant a leader?
Mallory Rothstein 27:01
Yes. So I would say not being defined by your job title as an assistant, and having the mindset that you’re really more than an assistant and moving in, and then then moving and acting like one. Like, I can’t tell you how many times I speak to an assistant and they will say, like, something along the lines of like, this is maybe like, you know, but I’m just an assistant or they don’t really have like the competence to be able, they don’t feel like very self confident, to move like a leader. And so I tried to tell them all the time, like doesn’t matter if you have the title as CEO, or assistant like, to me, it’s really the mindset and not allowing your title to define you.
Jeremy Burrows 27:50
Love it. Well, Mallory, thanks so much for taking time out of your day to chat with us. Where can we find you online? And then I’ll put these links in the show notes as well. But how can we support what you’re up to? And where can people find you?
Mallory Rothstein 28:06
Cool. So I’m on LinkedIn and Facebook, just by my name Mallory Rothstein and then on Twitter or Instagram, it’s at iLearn with now happy to connect with anyone that they think that they want to connect more. I’m always, always open, always open to having those conversations that other assistants.
Jeremy Burrows 28:27
Perfect. Well, thanks again. And yeah, we’ll talk soon.
Mallory Rothstein 28:31
Yes, thank you so much for having me. I really, really appreciate it.
Jeremy Burrows 28:35
Thanks for listening and I hope you enjoyed our conversation and you can check out the show notes at leaderassistant.com/92.
Podcast Outro 28:53
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