Flip the Mic - Maggie Olson Interviews Jeremy Burrows

Jeremy · 0:00

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Speaker 2 · 0:51

Thank you The Leader Assistant Podcast exists to encourage and challenge assistants to become confident, game-changing, leader assistants.

Jeremy · 1:07

Hey, friends, welcome to episode 276. You can check out the show notes for this episode at leaderassistant.com/276, leaderassistant.com/276. Today is a very special episode. I am actually sharing a recording from a webinar that I did with my friend, Maggie Olson, founder of Nova Chief of Staff. And she has the series, this webinar series, called Flip the Mic, which I think is a super fun series. Definitely check it out on her website. Again, all the links will be in the show notes. But for this webinar, she flipped the mic on me and asked me a bunch of questions about my story and about being an assistant and about being an author and being a dad and all the fun things. So Maggie did a great job facilitating this conversation. So I wanted to share it with you for this episode. So I hope you enjoy this recording from my conversation with Maggie Olson. Again, I'm the one being interviewed, so it's a little different. Hope you enjoy it. Hope you enjoy the tidbits and my story. And feel free to reach out if you have any questions or comments about anything that I shared. I would love to hear from you. All right, here we go. Here's Flip the Mic with Maggie Olson interviewing yours truly.

Maggie · 2:30

I'm really excited today to have a familiar face. So Jeremy and I have worked together a lot. Jeremy was one of the most welcoming people to me last year when we kicked off Nova Chief of Staff last summer. I think it was my first time ever being on a podcast with Jeremy Burrows. And today is really fun because we are flipping the mic. So normally, Jeremy interviews guests on his podcast, but today I am interviewing Jeremy. So what I'm going to do first is talk really quickly about our Nova Chat, what we do here, and then I'm going to introduce Jeremy and we're going to get into it. So the goal of these Nova Chats is to go deeper with industry expert guests. We want to talk about vulnerable moments, job transition do's and don'ts, career alignment, when to move on from a role, and all of the things that could align in that area. As I mentioned, Jeremy and I have been partnering together for, gosh, almost a year now on lots of different things. I'm a big fan of the work Jeremy does. And today we are flipping the mic. So Jeremy is a long-time executive assistant, international speaker, and founder of the leader assistant community, number one bestselling author on Amazon, The Leader Assistant book, Four Pillars of a Confident, Game-Changing Assistant, and host of the number one podcast for assistant, The Leader Assistant Podcast. So my guess is that you're all fairly familiar with Jeremy, but he's worked with CEOs, professional athletes, Fortune 100 board members, and billionaires spanning across the nonprofit and for-profit sectors. He's a public speaker. He's also currently the EA to the founder and CEO of Capacity. Which is a fast-growing startup with an AI-powered support automation platform. So Jeremy's passion, and this is a real passion, I live and breathe it with Jeremy every day, is to help you lead well, resist burnout, and automate before you're automated. Which is so funny and I love that. Jeremy lives nearby. I'm in Lincoln, Nebraska. He's in Kansas City, Missouri with his wife and two boys. And you can always connect with Jeremy and learn more about him and his resources for executives and executive assistants at leaderassistant.com. So welcome Jeremy.

Jeremy · 4:51

Thank you so much, Maggie. That was quite the intro. I appreciate it.

Maggie · 4:55

Yeah. I mean, it's fun to talk about all the things you're doing. And my guess is most people have seen you out there in the world, but maybe some haven't. So it's fun to go through all of the things. So I have a bunch of questions prepared for Jeremy. We also have some student questions from our Nova Chief of Staff Certification course that came in for Jeremy. I think what I want to start with is really just your background and what you believe were the key moments that got you to where you are today. So when did you become an EA? What was your background out of high school? What did you do? What were the things you're interested in? And what were the pivotal moments that kind of from a career progression moved you into where you are now?

Jeremy · 5:40

So, hey, everyone. Again, excited to be here today and happy Thursday again. And, you know, excited to jump in. So I wanted to be a musician. I had actually taught myself how to play guitar. I was doing a little bit of singing and I went to be an intern at a church to do music, church music. And long story short, as I pursued that career, I realized that there were things that I was really good at that other people around me were not good at. And that was details, organization, project management, showing up to meetings on time, replying to emails. What seemed like very basic things to me were very difficult for these artists and musicians that I was working with. And I remember reading an article. I didn't really think much of it other than, okay, you know, I can kind of make a little bit of money while I'm doing all these detail things, because the music side was really hard for me. When more our organization grew, more people came around me that had more musical talent and abilities than I did. And it came a lot easier to them. They didn't have to practice as much. They didn't have to, you know, do band rehearsals as much because it was just natural to them. They were just very, very talented. So again, on the flip side, it came natural to me for the details and organization. And so I started doing more and more of that. But then I didn't really see it as a career. I didn't really see it as something that I would, you know, shift from music to assistant world until I read an article called The Case for Executive Assistants by Melba Duncan. And it was in the Harvard Business Review. And it essentially went through data on, okay, you know, you should pay an executive, sorry, you should pay an executive assistant well because they save you X amount of dollars per hour. And some of the numbers that were in that article, I was kind of blown away at the time as far as, oh, okay, like if you pay an assistant X amount of money a year, there's a high ROI for the CEO. And also, I was working in a small nonprofit, so I wasn't making very much money. So I was like, wow, that looks like a lot of money. This could be a career. I could provide for a family doing this. And so that's how I kind of got that fire in me to say, okay, you know what, maybe this is a respectable profession. And so I allowed my mind and my heart to leave, leave aside the music dream and move towards something that came a little more naturally to me.

Maggie · 8:39

What was your musical instrument of choice?

Jeremy · 8:43

Guitar primarily. I did a little bit of piano, but mostly guitar.

Maggie · 8:47

Cool. So does music still show up with today in your life and in other ways?

Jeremy · 8:52

I kept playing here and there, but as soon as I had kids, I kind of ran out of energy to do a lot of music, but I still have my guitar in my office behind me. But yeah, I don't play as much as I would maybe like to. I kind of have this dream of someday building a recording studio in my backyard and just spending all day hanging out in there, producing music for other people that are more talented than me. And I kind of want to be Rick Rubin. That's kind of my alternate reality dream.

Maggie · 9:32

Yeah, I love that.

Jeremy · 9:34

I'd love to just produce and sit there and be like, all right, this sounds good. This sounds like crap. Change this. You know, like I always thought like I had a decent ear for what sounds good and what doesn't.

Maggie · 9:45

And you can do the business side of things too.

Jeremy · 9:47

Right. Exactly.

Maggie · 9:48

Yeah. I love that. So, okay. How long were you? I guess a couple of questions. As an executive assistant, were you, did you find a role in the music industry to do executive assistant work or did you completely take a turn and go find an EA role or an admin role outside of music as your first admin job?

Jeremy · 10:08

No, I was actually in the nonprofit church organization and the founder was, I was kind of thinking, I was assistant to different people in the organization and then I was like a department assistant and I was like a project manager. And at one point, I remember after I got married and my wife and I were getting settled in after our honeymoon and I was just looking at it, I was a project manager at the time, project manager slash department assistant. And I remember telling her, I'm like, yeah, I don't really, I'm kind of bored. I think maybe I should quit and start a business or maybe I should, you know, I'd like to be the founder's assistant. I think that would be more challenging and more interesting and more exciting. And the EA, that EA to the founder role was appealing to me, but I was like, yeah, that'll never happen. They always just hire part-time interns and, you know, it's kind of a whatever. Well, the very next day, they kind of came up to me and said, hey, we'd like to talk to you about your role. And I'm like, all right, well, this happens every few months. It's a small nonprofit. Everything changes all the time anyway. I'm like, didn't think much of it. And they sat me down and they said, you know, Jeremy, we actually think that you should be the founder's assistant. And I was like, really? I told my wife, I was like, I told my wife yesterday that I wanted to be the founder's assistant. So let's do it. So that's kind of how I ended up in that CEO, founder, assistant role. And then fast forward six years from there, my executive got fired and I thought I was going to be there for 12 more years and then I didn't know what I was going to be doing for 12 days. And so that was kind of my epiphany moment where I sold my house, gave away most of our belongings, took my wife and our two young boys across the country, literally to the mountaintop to figure out what we wanted to do with our lives. That's kind of when I realized I had burned out, my executive had burned out. There were a lot of mistakes we made in that time, that six years of EA founder partnership. And I decided I don't want to ever burn out again and I don't want my executive to burn out either, but I also thought, you know, I don't want other assistants in the world and other executives in the world to burn out either. And so that kind of when I started my blog and started reaching out and trying to network with other assistants in the world and trying to say, hey, you know what? I actually was writing to executives, which was kind of funny. I was writing to executives saying, don't abuse your assistant. I was writing to executives saying, pay your assistant well, treat him as a business partner. And of course, the assistant started reading those articles and say, yes, I need to share this with my executive and I need to share it on LinkedIn and hope my executive sees it and those kinds of things. And that's how I started. That was kind of the journey of the whole leader assistant slash gobros.com business.

Maggie · 13:25

OK, I want to dive into all that. How many years ago was that when you took your family to the top of the mountain after you and your executive were burned out and you had to figure out what you were going to do?

Jeremy · 13:34

That was 2016. So that was April of 2016 is when he got fired. So really, I guess we're on eight years now.

Maggie · 13:45

Eight years. Wow.

Jeremy · 13:47

Yeah. We started my current job January of 2017. So because I told my told my wife and I committed to myself. I'm not going to get a real job until January. I basically said I want to take a good amount of time off because I had worked so much, so hard for so long.

Maggie · 14:07

I might be jumping ahead because I do. I want to dive into a lot of the components of how you've built your business over the last eight years. But why have you kept? I'm sure there's some really strong great reasons here, but why have you kept a day job, an EA job while running a super successful business? Are you ready to elevate your career in 2024? I'm Maggie Olson, founder of Nova Chief of Staff Certification, the first of its kind online course for aspiring and existing Chiefs of Staff. With curriculum taken directly from on-the-job responsibilities, Nova's self-paced learning modules provides you with hands-on experience so you can feel competent and confident moving into a Chief of Staff style role. It's the perfect next step for executive assistants. Head to leaderassistant.com/nova to learn more, grab the syllabus and enroll today.

Jeremy · 15:03

Yeah, great question. Couple of main reasons. One is I really love being an assistant. I really love helping my executive execute his crazy ideas and raise money when no one else can raise money and close a deal when no one else can close a deal. I love being a part of that. It's also an AI software space, so it's like very, very, it's not a fad. It's a trend. And so it's very rare for a Midwest assistant to be able to be higher number one at a software company. And my CEO also sold his last company for almost a billion dollars. And so it's not some random guy that has a good idea that's trying to do it. It's somebody that knows what he's doing, has done it before. And so it's a really unique opportunity. And then kind of along those same lines, he's very flexible and like leaves me alone on the weekends and lets me take an hour in the middle of my day to hop on a webinar, lets me go to Indianapolis last week and do some training for assistance. Like it's very, very supportive. So that's all good and great. But then the other reason is I'm a firm believer in multiple streams of income. And I'm a firm believer in not putting all your eggs in one basket. And that's what I did last at my last role. Like I didn't have any side hustles. I didn't have any other streams of income. I was just making the nonprofit salary and that was it. And then when that all kind of fell apart, it was like, oh, I realized that I had put all my financial eggs in this basket and I needed to diversify my income streams. And so I think that the future with technology and remote work and all the opportunity that technology brings us and AI and the internet speeds and all that, I think the future is multiple streams of income. I don't think it's, I think we've gone way past the time where you work one job for 30, 40 years, and then you retire and everything's great. Like I think that I'm a very firm believer in figuring out ways to set up multiple streams of income, passive income, investments, side hustles, all of the above.

Maggie · 17:40

This is fascinating. I hope everybody listening is picking up some good nuggets here. I want to go back to eight years ago when you were trying to figure out what to do. What was your first step? You decided that you, if I'm hearing you correctly, you decided that you wanted to be a resource for executives and executive assistants to help avoid burnout and have success in their roles. So what was your first step to doing that? And then how did you build kind of offer after offer to better the executive assistant community? Like what were the key points along the way there?

Jeremy · 18:18

Yeah, I mean, I think the first step was I learned how to build a website and WordPress and built my own website, started blogging, started writing. That was kind of more blogs are not as cool these days. They're still helpful and whatever, but there's podcasts and LinkedIn and email lists and all these different things that have taken over for the medium of blogging for now. I don't think blogs are dead, but anyway, at the time, it was like blog was like the thing and so I started blogging, it started writing, started reaching out and networking, and just tried to build a network. That was the only thing I knew is I got to figure out where assistants hang out, I got to figure out how to connect with assistants. I tried Twitter, it wasn't really many assistants on Twitter, I tried Facebook, there was some assistants on Facebook, some of the Facebook groups I was able to connect with assistants, but then there's also a lot of drama and stuff that I didn't want to mess with. Then I realized I kind of fell into LinkedIn and realized, hey, wait, there's a lot of assistants on LinkedIn, and they're actually active, and I was not active on LinkedIn. So I started just going crazy, reaching out, networking.

Maggie · 19:47

Did you find LinkedIn pretty early in your journey eight years ago, or did it take some time?

Jeremy · 19:52

It was one of the first things, because when you're in between jobs and you're trying to figure out what you're going to do, you hop on LinkedIn and update your profile, and as I was doing that, I realized, oh, hey, people are on here, but also assistants are on here.

Maggie · 20:08

So you're starting to kind of establish yourself as a voice in the space, blogging, and then LinkedIn. At what point did you decide, I guess, what were the other major kind of, I guess, products or offers, or I'm trying to learn and understand the sequence of, all right, when did you write your book and how did you decide to launch a podcast and when did you start speaking publicly? If you could share a little bit about the journey along the way would be super helpful.

Jeremy · 20:39

Yeah. So basically I started blogging and then that started building the network. It's all about the network. So if you don't know where to start, just start networking with people. And then to start, well, the two things I would say, start networking with people and start building an email list and trying to write helpful things and share helpful ideas and be valuable to the people you're writing to and build an email list and write helpful emails to them. So that's what I did. And then it just kind of morphed into, I got this random LinkedIn note from someone in Thailand and I thought it was spam, but I replied to it just to see, you know, what was the deal? And long story short, he flew me out, flew me and my wife out to Chiang Mai, Thailand and Hong Kong to lead a two-day workshop for assistance at universities there. And it was like, that was pretty crazy. And actually before that was another kind of assistant reached out from the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, Germany and was like, hey, we want you to speak at our conference for assistance. And I'm like, okay, sure. And that was actually my first in-person training speaking event. But after I got done with my session, my wife, I got to bring my wife there too. And my wife said, you know, this is his first speaking gig. And I was like, I know you're not supposed to say that.

Maggie · 22:06

I love that.

Jeremy · 22:09

So they just kind of like just putting yourself out there trying to help others. I think that growing that network, people just started finding me and reaching out and saying, hey, can you do this? Hey, can you coach me? Can you speak at my corporate event or whatever? And so I just kind of trial and error. You know, I remember early on, I would speak free, and then I'd start speaking for $500 for a session. And then I'd just be happy if they paid my flights. And as the demand came, more demand, I'd raise my prices and people kept saying yes. So I'd raise my prices more and people kept saying yes. And just kind of go like that with the steamroll. But then I started the podcast in 2019. Actually, so it was the very end of March, was the first episode in 2019. So about to hit my five years, I guess, if my math is right. And then I wrote the book at the end of 2019 and published it in June of 2020. And so those were the reason I did the podcast was I actually had audio experience from my music career and editing experience. So that was fun, kind of doing that producing and be able to have creative control over what I published. And it was easy for me to, and I still do my own editing for my podcast. I record the interviews and then I edit them myself. And but then so I did that and I was like, oh, I've got experience, I can do this. And I had enough content where I was like, I think I can publish an episode every week. And I will say one thing too is when I set out to do things, I don't, there's two things that I think of. I think, can I do this well? And can I do it consistently? So when I thought about the podcast, I had had the idea for a year or so, but I just didn't think I could do it consistently. And then I also was like, could I do it well, whatever. So when I launched my podcast, my goal was to do it every week consistently. And five years later, I've only missed two weeks, and that was a couple of holidays that I had early on. So 200, I think I just recorded episode 275, which will publish in June. And so that was kind of that. And then I wanted to do it well. I was like, I was looking at the other assistant podcasts and like, some of them are good, some of them are not good. Some of them, most of them hadn't published a new episode in months, you know. And so it's like, there's a hole here that I can fill. And then with the book, I thought, OK, you know what? I've written a bunch over the last few years, and I'm having the same conversations with assistants all over the world, and it's resonating and it's helping them. How can I package that in a way that would be, you know, tangible for assistants all over and scalable so that instead of hopping on a phone call with a thousand assistants every year, like maybe I could sell a thousand books every year, you know? And so that's kind of why I did the book. But I also was like, I want to do this well, and I invested a lot of money. It was a big investment up front. It was like $20,000 to hire a graphic designer, hire a couple of editors, work with a partner to help me self-publish, all of that work. And so I, but I also had experience project managing three book launches for my prior executives. So, you know, it's funny how all that work I was doing as an assistant, you know, came in handy when I was trying to do my own stuff too.

Maggie · 26:07

So, yeah. Well, I'm just soaking it all in. I'm guessing everybody else's too. It's super, super cool to hear your story, Jeremy. I'm inspired by it for sure.

Jeremy · 26:18

I saw a couple questions in here. Actually, if that's okay, I was going to hop in and...

Maggie · 26:22

Go for it.

Jeremy · 26:23

Tomiko said, you have a successful podcast and author of a great book. But do you also do day-to-day EA responsibilities, such as calendaring, expenses, or has your role morphed into it? Yes, I am full-time EA, calendaring, expenses, etc. for my CEO. That's my day job. So I am full-on, 100% EA. As soon as I get done with this call, I'm looking over at my day job computer and I'm seeing a bunch of emails coming through that I've got to clean out of my CEO's inbox. So, yeah, this is my life during the day. And the whole mentoring, coach, speaker, podcast host, and all that is my side gig.

Maggie · 27:08

Awesome. So what I want to hear about is this, and I think I might know the answer to this, but the structure of your team. You do a lot. You're an EA during the day. You're doing podcasts. You have published a book. You're traveling. Do you have support? Do you have a team to help you with any of this?

Jeremy · 27:26

My biggest support is my wife, and she is my bookkeeper, essentially. And I hire a CPA to do my do our taxes, but I she's kind of keeps track of everything throughout the year. So huge, huge help. Otherwise, I don't have a team. I have a lot of automations in place. I try to set up Zapier automations, or I use my email service provider ConvertKit has a lot of automation set up so that when somebody registers for an event, it'll tag them and then it'll send them an email with details for that event. And when somebody pays for an event, then it will do the same, but it'll also add that transaction to a Google spreadsheet automatically so that I can keep track of my costs for credit card fees and my event expenses and all that. So it's, yeah, we're kind of, it's mostly a solo endeavor. And then my wife does a ton of help with keeping track of that, the bookkeeping and spreadsheets. And, you know, we have fun conversations of, I just want to know the bottom line, like how much are we spending? How much are we making? And, yeah, yeah. So she's been super helpful.

Maggie · 28:47

That's great. Okay. So a few questions that are going to be a little bit more kind of all over the place now that we've heard your story here. I know that you are, you coach people every day and that you yourself is, you know, a high level executive assistant, strategic minded. As you and I have talked about a lot, there's a ton of overlap at times between that high level strategic EA and maybe that chief of staff spectrum. I think it's like a half circle and there's a spectrum and there's a lot of variance in the middle. When you think about the work you do as an executive assistant, I know that we talk a lot about how do we define EA versus chief of staff. And you do have, like you just mentioned, the travel, expenses, calendaring. Those are core executive assistant functions. What I guess, like, can you share a little bit about what you do in your job that could be chief of staff work? Do you consider yourself as a hybrid chief of staff at all? Where are your thoughts on where you land on that spectrum?

Jeremy · 29:53

I would say, so just make sure I heard right, because I got a text from my CEO. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything. So chief of staff, how much of my role, my day job, fits in that chief of staff slash EA hybrid?

Maggie · 30:10

Yeah, where do you consider yourself landing there?

Jeremy · 30:13

I mean, I would say there's a lot of what I do that could fall into the chief of staff bucket. I personally, in this season of my life, I don't have the aspirations, if you will, to be a full on chief of staff. I kind of like the sitting in a dark closet, getting emails and scheduling and working on spreadsheet lists with, you know, like, kind of like that side, more than the people forward parts of the chief of staff role.

Maggie · 30:49

Yeah, it's a good way to put it.

Jeremy · 30:51

And so I do, yes, I do coordinate things for the board and, you know, interact with the leadership team and do a lot of those kinds of things. But if you were to shadow me day in and day out, I would say you would say probably more the traditional executive assistant to CEO versus the chief of staff. However, I am the only assistant in the company and we have 105 employees and I do some of that chief of staff stuff. I, like I said, I think that there's probably a season where I will transition into more as we grow and maybe hire some more assistants and all that, that I might move into more of a chief of staff role where I'm supervising our assistant team, but for now I'm enjoying the season that we're in.

Maggie · 31:41

Okay, so I know that many, many, many of us struggle with imposter syndrome. Did you have moments and do you still have moments throughout your career and building this business that you've built where you've struggled with imposter syndrome and the thoughts within that tell you you just can't do it, but you've clearly done it anyway?

Jeremy · 32:03

Yeah, anytime I read a negative review, anytime I read a review on the podcast, it says, oh, the guests are great, but the host is just, what was the word? It's a very, very, very aggressive word that described the host. And I just kind of want to be like, well, you try publishing a podcast every week for five years. See how, see how engaging you are. No. But then the biggest time was really when I was writing my book. Like, that's really when it all like, and I talk about it a little bit in the intro of the book, like just the emotional, emotional back and forth journey of, do people really care about this? Is this actually helpful? And, you know, it's, it's, it's one of the things that, one of the marketer gurus, Seth Godin, talks about how, like, you know, if you read a bad review of your book, then the, really, the only response to that is, he basically says, try not to read the bad reviews. But if you do, the only response to that is just, oh, it's not for them. It wasn't for them. The book isn't for them. And so that's really helped me kind of push through that. It's like, okay, you know what? If this obviously has helped people because they've told me and they've shown me, assistants and executives both, have shown me like, hey, this is very helpful. This part of your book changed our strategic partnership for the better, et cetera. So if it hasn't, if there are people that don't like it or that didn't find value in it, it just wasn't for them.

Maggie · 33:47

Yeah, that's a great, I mean, that's a great lesson. And it's I think it's totally normal for us to struggle with those things. But in Jeremy's case, you can tell that he just kept going. And I think that's great. So one thing that I'm super curious to hear you talk about is being a male leader in a female dominated field. And what kind of what how you approach the responsibility on your shoulders with that and how you've navigated through through this over the last eight years.

Jeremy · 34:21

Yeah, I mean, honestly, I get this question a lot, which is it's a fair question. And I get why people ask it. I don't really have an amazing answer because, to be honest, I'm a white male in America and I'm privileged in every setting that I'm in. And so when I go to a room like last week when I was in Indianapolis and I was one of two men in the room full of 100 assistants, you know, the other the other man was like the emcee for the event. He wasn't even an assistant. Like I don't it doesn't bother me. I don't really like I've been blessed in so many different ways. And if somebody this has happened a handful of times where my CEO will say, Oh, my assistant will reach out and then they'll reply to the email or the LinkedIn node and say, OK, I'll look forward to hearing from her, for example. And I'm just like, if that's if that's all I'm dealing with, then I don't have anything to complain about.

Maggie · 35:22

Yeah.

Jeremy · 35:23

So I think that's that's my right.

Maggie · 35:27

Yeah. Well, and I think, you know, I'll add just having known you for the last year that I think that, the way that you just your natural demeanor, the way that you interact with people, you're you're really good listener, you're calm, you're gentle in your approach. And I think you elevate and give others a platform to amplify them, which is probably the best thing that you can do anyway. So it's interesting to hear your thoughts on it. And I appreciate appreciate the discussion for sure. OK.

Jeremy · 35:54

So I think I will say there's one there's one time. Well, there's been a handful of times, but there's one thing where it's like. And again, I'm not I don't complain about I don't dwell on it. But there are have been a handful of times where I don't get a speaking gig, for example, at an assistant event or assistant training at a corporate company or at a conference or whatever, because I'm a I'm a man. And they don't think that I'm going to be able to relate to the assistance as well. So that's that's the only time I've ever been like, oh, OK, I can I can see why. And I understand.

Maggie · 36:28

Yeah.

Jeremy · 36:29

And, you know, no harm, no foul.

Maggie · 36:31

Yeah. And you're you've built so many other ways to connect with people. So, OK, I get that. All right. So when it comes to, you know, I talk to assistants and chiefs of staff every day with, you know, within Nova Chief of Staff, you talk to assistants every day within the Leader Assistant community, what are the common, like maybe the top one or two things that you hear from assistants and what do you tell them and how do you help them? So the common issues, problems and what advice do you do you give?

Jeremy · 37:03

Oh, great question. Number one, by far most common thing that I hear from assistants, and this could be an assistant from Russia that I had on my podcast, an assistant from Iowa that I had a coaching call with, an assistant in San Francisco, like they want more confidence and they lack that confidence. They lack that self-assuredness or, you know, so they're, you know, maybe they're insecure. And so that's the number one thing by far in a way. And that's why, you know, the subtitle of my book says confident game-changing assistant. And I think the way, the number one way, the shortest way I'll be able to answer it today, because I do whole sessions on the topic of confidence. But kind of the number one thing I'll say is, you know, the best way to grow your confidence. Yeah, you can grow your confidence through experience. Yeah, you can grow your confidence through coaching and training and courses and reading books and whatever. But the best way is to detach your worth as a human being from your work as an assistant. And when you detach your worth as a human being from your work as an assistant, all of a sudden, you're free to lead and have that confidence and exhibit that confidence that you never had. Why? Because you don't care about the approval of your executive as much anymore. You don't care about losing control of a project. You don't care about being uncomfortable in the situation. You're more willing to take a risk because you know that even if you fall flat on your face in that risk at work, you're still a valuable human being and it doesn't have anything to do with your worth as a person. And so that's my number one really deep-rooted confidence tip is to detach your worth from your work.

Maggie · 39:20

I smiled when you said confidence because it's 100% how I would also answer that question based on the work I do with aspiring, existing Chiefs of Staff and strategic high-level executive assistants too. So, yep, 100% correct on that from my end as well. Okay. So I'm going to ask just a couple more questions of Jeremy. If you are live with us, feel free to use the Q&A function of this webinar to enter some questions in, and we'll get to those here in a minute. So Q&A option here, the box in the Zoom webinar would be great for your questions, and I will get to those here in just a few minutes. So, you know, I think, Jeremy, what's really fun about what you do is that you are kind of, you're in a lot of different places. So you're speaking, you have your book, you have your podcast, you're really active on LinkedIn, and you're a living, breathing executive assistant every day. So I know you mentioned a little bit earlier around, you know, you're going to get back to your day job after this, but if you could give us a typical maybe week in the life instead of a day in the life, how, what does it look like? When are you fitting in the other things, the side gig, the side hustle, and when are you doing the day job? And like, just kind of illustrate your week in the life for us.

Jeremy · 40:43

Yeah, well, I can look at, I'll look at my calendar real quick and look at this week. So, you know, normal day job schedule, you know, 8.30 ish to 5.30 ish with a few, you know, late night check in and sign a document or send an invite to someone that finally replied to the options that I sent. And then I had a podcast interview on Monday night and then Tuesday, normal kind of day job schedule. And then I was taking my boys to soccer and baseball practice on Tuesday night. Wednesday, I had normal day job, like scheduling meetings and working on a list for potential partners and all the day job stuff. And then I had a four o'clock EA Zoom chat. I do a weekly Zoom chat with my community, recorded a podcast with you, 4.30. And then I had a podcast interview. I had quick dinner with my family. I did a podcast interview at six o'clock last night, and then another one at 7.30 last night. And so there are weeks where I have like four or five podcasts that I'm recording. And then there are a month maybe where I don't have any. And so what I try to do is I batch them in to a couple of evenings over a few weeks, and then I schedule them out. So the one I recorded last night at 7.30 is not publishing until June 9th. So it's nice to be able to do them in waves and get scheduled out so that I'm not having to actually work on the podcast every week. That makes sense. Yeah. And then today, yeah, hopping on for this lunch Zoom chat webinar with you. And then I've got to take my boys to practices, and then I do one more podcast interview tonight. But I don't know. Hopefully that answers your question.

Maggie · 42:36

Yeah, I think it's great. It's a little peak. Okay, for another theme of a little peak, describe your office setup right now. What are the screens? Where are they? What do you have that we can't see? You have an audio background, a music background. I'm sure there's some cool techie stuff. Tell us what's going on over there.

Jeremy · 42:54

Yeah, so I've got my microphone here hanging on my wall so I can kind of move it in and out of the way really easily. I've got my main monitor here with my web camera, HD Logitech webcam. And then I have another monitor here that is kind of my side hustle, like email and podcast project management spreadsheet. And I also have my Slack open so that if my CEO texts me or slacks me, I can see that. And then up here I have another monitor that is more like notes for the podcast that I'm currently recording. This is my Zoom window here to my main Zoom videos. Like when I look at you, it's sort of looking at the camera. I've got the chat pulled up in Zoom here. But then, yeah, if I'm recording a podcast, I'll have the podcast schedule here with all the dates and episode numbers. And then I'll have the notes, the Google Doc here, with all the notes about the guests that I'm talking to. And then their LinkedIn profile as well. And then this is kind of my side hustle desk. So I don't have my work email on here. I have my work Slack, because sometimes there's quick things and I need to say, hey, I'm on a call. I'll get right back to it. And then, but then over on this side over here, I actually have a standing desk with two monitors for my day job. And so I have like my boss's email pulled up on one. I have his calendar always open on one and then my email on one. And then that's kind of my my day job station. So I like to separate those because it helps me get in the mindset of like, okay, I'm in assistant, leader assistant world right now. I'm talking with assistants, put my game hat on. But then when I go over there, it's like, all right, I am an executive assistant to the CEO of a software company. And that's my hat that I'm wearing.

Maggie · 44:55

Okay, that is brilliant to me that you have two separate places for your environment and your body and your mind to realize what space that you are in from a business perspective. I think that's cool. So I lost count, but is that like six monitors over there?

Jeremy · 45:08

So it's five monitors. But then I also got a bigger TV as well so that if I'm working on a... Sometimes I have to work on these spreadsheet lists for my CEO that are like life draining. They're just like the most... You just sit there and you're just like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom all day. And so I will... Sometimes I'll put like his calendar up on the big TV and just leave his calendar up there depending on what's going on. But there are times honestly where I just need like to put a like Netflix show or something on because I'm literally just dying trying to do the spreadsheet and I need something to keep me going and survive the day. So anyway.

Maggie · 45:51

Well, we'll move on from the monitor question, but I'm going to just guess that you are the winner on the call for the most monitors out of the 50 or so people we have listening in. So maybe you never know.

Jeremy · 46:01

You never know.

Maggie · 46:01

Maybe everyone. But please let us know if someone has more than Jeremy. OK, so I love this question from Christina. So for your personal business, let's like focus on the podcast, for example. How much analytics are you doing? And I know that podcast analytics are sometimes a little tough to to really dive into. But how much how much are you like measuring performance, analytics, hard size, hard sided data versus kind of topics that are just interesting to you and guests that you find that you want to share with people? Where do you decide to dive in?

Jeremy · 46:34

Yeah, I mean, specifically for the podcast or for for all of us, let's talk about the podcast just to keep it. Yeah, the podcast, I'll talk to anybody that wants to talk to me that has anything related to Assistant World. I'm not super picky. There have been people that have reached out and said, I can't believe you had so-and-so on the show. I used to work with them and this and this. And I'm like, well, I don't know that. I don't know the backstory, but I know that they have a story to share. And, you know, I know they're not a wanted criminal, so I'll have them on the show and hear their story. So the big thing, and I get a lot of people every week, I get e-mails saying, hey, you should have so-and-so on the show. And like, you know, kind of like the whole e-mail spam messages of like, hey, so-and-so wrote this book about medicine in the 21st century or whatever. You should have them on the show. So there's a lot of people that I just ignore and I don't have them on. And when they do reach out and I think they're somewhat interesting, I'll say, OK, well, do they have an assistant? Have they worked with an assistant before? OK, then if they're willing to come on the show and talk about working with an assistant, then I'll have them on the show. So that's kind of how I filter that out. But most of the time, it's if I get a lull where I don't really have a lot scheduled, I'll just post on LinkedIn and say, hey, every assistant has a story to share. Send me a note if you want to be on the show. And then I get a wave of assistants reaching out and say, hey, I'm a little nervous, but I think I want to be on the show.

Maggie · 48:02

And yeah, do you use analytics in other areas of your business to determine kind of where to go and what to dive into?

Jeremy · 48:09

Yeah, yeah. And for analytics, my goal is just to get to for now. My goal is to get to one million downloads on the podcast and that I should be able to hit that in later this year, like the end of this year. But then otherwise, yeah, I look at my book sales, you know, just to kind of I like to have an idea. I don't I don't do a lot of necessarily I don't necessarily make a lot of decisions based on the analytics like day in and day out. However, I'll look and I'll say I'll notice that, oh, you know, for some, you know, April, I sell more books because of the Administrative Professionals Week, you know, for example. And so maybe I'll do more promotions or whatever, or I'll see random things like, you know, the other day I was I was looking and I sold 138 books on March 16th randomly. And I was like, what happened on March 16th? Did I do something? And I'll be like, OK, was it just random or did I have a webinar and, you know, those kinds of things? So otherwise, yeah, I don't I probably should. There's a lot of people that are super into analytics and Google, you know, making sure, you know, like how many people are on your are on your website and all that. But I got a day job. I don't have time for all that.

Maggie · 49:31

Yeah, you lean into what what you want to, not what you should. OK, so we talked a little bit about how you make decisions. You want to make sure you're doing something really well and you want to make sure you can do it consistently, especially when we were talking about the podcast business kind of choice to dive in. What else do you think from a skill set, knowledge, emotional intelligence perspective sets you apart for success from others? Or what can you what would you attribute to your success in terms of just who you are personally?

Jeremy · 50:06

I think I think maybe two things. One is just being having a day job gives me a lot of like I can fall back on it, if you will. So it allows me to be risky and spend $20,000 to publish a book and maybe not sell any.

Maggie · 50:28

Yeah.

Jeremy · 50:28

You know what I mean? Like I couldn't take that risk if I didn't have a day job. And so that really helps give me, I think, a competitive advantage, if you will. And then on the other side, I think that I've always been a hard worker. And I just you can get bogged down by all the details. Should I do this? Should I do that? Should I post on Instagram? Should I post on Facebook? Should I do this? I'm not, you know, like I'll post on Instagram maybe once a month. Like I'm very bad at Instagram, but I know like I'm pretty active on LinkedIn because it's worked well and I can handle that right now. And then I publish a podcast every week. And so like, if I can stay consistent in what I can do, what works for me. Some people, some people posting a quick video on Instagram every day is natural to them and it works for them and that's their medium of choice. Other people, they can't stand taking videos of themselves. Like, I don't do very many videos of myself and they just like to write little quick posts on LinkedIn. So whatever, whatever works for you. And like, I could do a video podcast. That would take me a lot more work, a lot more, you know, a lot larger files to upload all the things. So I just do an audio podcast because it works for me.

Maggie · 51:48

Yeah, I love that. All right. I think what I'd like to end on here, you spoke earlier around your belief in multiple income streams and diversifying what you're doing. And you did mention that you suggest people just, you know, start writing as a possible place to start and to start networking. What other advice do you have for people who are trying to figure out, like, what it is that they could go into? What would they write about? Who do they network with? Like, how does somebody get started diversifying a bit and thinking about what they should be doing as a side hustle?

Jeremy · 52:28

I think the number one thing is, what do people ask you for help with? You know, like, if people are always asking you to help them plan an event, okay, maybe you could be an event planner on the side. I talked to an assistant that does that on the side on the weekends and has people pay her to manage events and decorate the event venue and all that. That's one way to think about it. Another would be like, what are you already doing for people? And can you start charging them for it? Or can you ask them for a testimonial so that you can, you know, get more people to do those things? But really, some people, they overthink it. And it could be as simple as, you know, you could Google this term dollar cost averaging. It could be as simple as buying a little bit, investing a little bit in the stock market every month and just letting it, just holding it for five, 10 plus years and letting it grow. That could be a side, that could be an income stream for you. So, yeah, that'd be kind of my quick answer to that. I could talk a lot about other different ways and whatever, but it's a whole other webinar. I know there's a couple other questions on here too that I'd love to do a rapid fire.

Maggie · 53:59

Go for it. Yeah.

Jeremy · 54:00

If you want me to. Tackle them. So, let's see. There's somebody about, oh, somebody's asking about managing your inbox. I do talk about that on the podcast off the top of my head. I don't know what the episode numbers are. But if you go to my book, Chapter 12, Chapter 12 in my book is called Email. And I talk all about managing CEO's inbox. And then somebody else was asking about if I work remotely. Yes, I work remote. I did work in person for the first few years with my current CEO. But then when COVID hit, we were working remote. It was working well. And I used that as an excuse to move back to Kansas City closer to family. And so I go back in town to St. Louis, where my company's headquartered once or twice a quarter for board meetings and company all hands on site meetings. But yes, I work remote. And let's see, there was one. No, I think that might have been it. I feel like there was one more I was missing.

Maggie · 55:13

There was a question around how do you think it was around the chief of staff role. And do you see that role as managing other admin executive assistants versus managing leadership who's in the VP manager and director roles?

Jeremy · 55:26

Yeah, great question. I think it's it really depends on the organization, depends on the structure. So for me, if we grow to 200, 300 employees and we have four or five assistants in my organization structure, I would probably manage those assistants. And that would be how it works. However, there might be large companies where you don't manage the assistants because there's an actual assistant, you know, head of head of assistance or whatever manager that does that. And the chief of staff is more working with like managing the VPs and directors and kind of orchestrating all that. So it really depends. But happy to if you guys want to reach out, you know, ping me on LinkedIn or go to my website, fill out the contact form. I'm happy to answer questions offline as well.

Maggie · 56:12

Awesome. Well, we're going to end it here. Thanks, everybody, for joining. This was an amazing chat with Mr. Jeremy Burrows. I'm Maggie Olson, founder of Nova Chief of Staff, and reach out to either of us if you need anything at all and have an awesome Thursday. Thanks, everyone.

Jeremy · 56:27

Thanks, everyone.

Speaker 2 · 56:38

Please review on Apple Podcasts. goburrows.com.