Brooke Martin on the Importance of Work-Life Integration

Jeremy · 0:00

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Brooke · 0:46

Hi, I'm Brooke Martin, and today's leadership quote comes from Brene Brown. Trust is earned in all the smallest of moments. It is earned not through heroic deeds or even highly visible actions, but through paying attention, listening, and gestures of genuine care and connection.

Speaker 3 · 1:09

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

Jeremy · 1:26

Hey, friends, it's Jeremy again. Thanks again for listening. Just want to let you know, in case you didn't, that my best-selling book, The Leader Assistant, has a companion study and discussion guide to go along with it. It's called The Leader Assistant Workbook. Now, you can buy the Kindle ebook version of The Leader Assistant Workbook on Amazon, or you can go to leaderassistantbook.com and get a printable PDF version of the workbook. This version has all the space and margin in between the questions that you can write your own answers and take notes with, so it's a great way to print it out and keep track of your discussion and study guide notes. Again, go to leaderassistantbook.com and click on Workbook to check out The Leader Assistant Workbook. Hey friends, welcome to The Leader Assistant Podcast. It's your host, Jeremy Burrows, and this is Episode 310. You can check out the show notes for this conversation at leaderassistant.com/310, leaderassistant.com/310. Today, I am excited to be speaking with Brooke Martin. Brooke is the Executive Assistant to the co-founder at Triad Partners. Brooke, welcome to the show.

Brooke · 2:48

Thanks, Jeremy. I'm excited to be here today.

Jeremy · 2:51

Awesome. Tell us a little bit about yourself personally. Where do you live? What do you like to do when you're not working?

Brooke · 2:59

Yeah. I am a mom of three kids, so that definitely keeps me busy outside of being a full-time EA. My husband and I are currently in Georgia, and we love to get outside with the kids, do activities. My kids are big into sports and football, so we're a big football family. That's a little rundown of my family.

Jeremy · 3:24

Awesome. Are you from that area?

Brooke · 3:28

I grew up in North Carolina, but we are currently in Northeast Georgia full-time. I grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina, so Carolina girl.

Jeremy · 3:40

Nice, nice. And how long now have you been an assistant?

Brooke · 3:48

Yeah. So I started actually, I've been a full-time EA for over eight years, but started way back in college. That's kind of where my passion for admin, event planning, all that kind of stuff came about. I was kind of thrown into being an assistant for Mike, one of the faculty at the college that I worked for and kind of, she had twins at the time, so she kind of stepped back. So I kind of got to just kind of dive in headfirst to admin, event planning, all those kind of things and just really loved it. I had a huge passion for it. And then following college, really continued to do different courses for event planning and all that kind of stuff. And then I started working for a non-profit as an admin assistant and event planner, and then kind of transitioned into full-time EA slash office manager for a pretty large multi-site church in North Carolina. And so really did all the admin stuff, wore a lot of hats, oversaw an admin department kind of all that stuff for many years. And then that was kind of during the height of COVID. And so there was, as a mom, it was hard to kind of be in the office, wear all those hats when everything was going on. So actually, after many years of doing that, tried to look for something a little bit more flexible, got hooked up with Belay, which I think you're familiar with with Belay, but did contracting for them for about a year. And then, thankfully, really got blessed with my first engagement with Belay was with Triad. And so did that for a year and everything worked out really well. And so they hired me full time as a full time employee from Belay. And then been going on almost four years, next to the beginning of next year will be four years with Triad. So yeah, that's kind of a brief rundown of my history.

Jeremy · 5:43

But that's great. So what what does Triad do?

Brooke · 5:49

Yeah, so we're a field, so an FMO, but also a business development coach company. And so the marketing organization, but also do a lot of business development coach coaching to our clients as well. And so, yeah, it's it's based out of Lawrence, Kansas. And, you know, our whole mission is to do business and do life. And so that means is really helping our clients cultivate and create a business that enhances their life and doesn't consume it. And so we're really big on not just work life balance, but work life integration and how you really that's how you can really integrate both of those together, because, you know, a lot of times you can have all the success success in the world. But if you're if it comes at the cost of your family, you know, is that really success? And so just working with Tri, I just really began to, you know, really have a passion for as an EA, how can I help executives, you know, really integrate their family into their work and be the hero, you know, to both their business and their life, you know, into their family. And so just really through Tri, I really became passionate about that and just started trying to look for opportunities in ways that I can, you know, help EAs really integrate that into there and really add value in that area.

Jeremy · 7:13

Nice. So, you know, I've talked about in the past work. There's no like work-life balance, there's just balance. And I have always supported the, well, most majority of my career, I've supported the CEO, founder, and I've supported them professionally and personally. And I know there's a lot of people, a lot of assistants that resist the personal side, the personal assistant support. And there are some corporate settings and some, you know, executive slash assistant relationships and partnerships that it's not appropriate, it's not part of your job. It's totally, just totally separate. But at the C-suite level, I've found that it's more common and it's more often than not, you do have to do some sort of personal assisting. So, how have you navigated that? Do you support your executive personally and professionally? And what do you recommend to assistants who maybe are a little resistant to that or have to try to balance both sides in both worlds?

Brooke · 8:26

Yeah, so I definitely support both my executive, both in business and in life. And the family that I work for, they definitely view me as both him and his wife's EA. And so that's kind of the partnership that we started. But I think one of the biggest things is, I know a lot of times when you're first starting out with an executive, you may meet with them on, hey, what are your business strategies? What are your goals? What are your, really setting up that strategic partnership kind of on the business side. But I think sometimes there's that missing piece of sitting down and saying, hey, what are your goals personally? What are your priorities of your family? And I started to find that when I did that with my executive, you know, things would come up where it's like, hey, it's really important to me that I have a weekly date night with my wife. It's really important to me that I have quarterly date days with my kids. You know, it's really important to me that I'm at all my kids' games. And I think if you don't know those priorities, it can be really hard when you're getting so many different, you know, as EAs, we're getting so many different, bombarded by so many different requests for time. And you're, you know, you're trying to navigate all the different requests. But when you know those priorities ahead of time, you know, I think it makes it so much easier because I'm able to guard the time to make sure, you know, that I'm working around the priorities that are important to my executive, you know, on the family side. And that way, that also helps because, you know, he's able to go home and his wife is happy because he's, you know, he's prioritizing, you know, the things that are important to her as well. So, yeah, there's definitely, you know, a lot of different best practices that I would recommend as far as kind of starting that relationship and building that foundation with, you know, the spouse or significant other. But, you know, I think it's important just to lay that foundation and say, hey, are you comfortable with this? What are your priorities? How can I help you, you know, really set you up for success at home as well?

Jeremy · 10:41

Yeah, I love that. It's always been such a crucial partnership and relationship with, you know, the partner, the spouse of my executive. And again, it's that it's like, listen, you don't have two lives. Like I even I even have a practical tactic, if you will, where I only have one calendar for my executive. Like I don't have a kid's calendar, a personal calendar, a family calendar, a work calendar or whatever. Like it's one calendar. You have one life. You have one calendar. And sure, you might have color-coordinated events and you might have different ways you title things and whatever. But, you know, I think that has helped us really just say, like, listen, this is not this is not something where you have so much time that you can overlay five calendars on top of it and expect the person to not burn out. So talking with the significant other, figuring out what the family rhythms are, making sure you stay in sync with vacation schedules and kids' schedules, like you mentioned. How about, like, systems? Like, do you have certain systems you use or workflows that you use to kind of keep in sync with the family commitments and on the personal side?

Brooke · 12:11

That's a great question. So I think definitely once you have that initial meeting with your executive and kind of get those priorities laid out from them. The next thing I did was meet with the spouse. I met with his wife and kind of ask her, hey, how do you like to be communicated to? Do you like text? Do you like email? Kind of got her priorities as well. So then I would be able to be in a proactive planning stage where I can proactively know what's her priorities as well. We do the same thing as far as we have one calendar. She sends all the kids things to his calendar, so that way I can see everything and again, proactively know what night's not to do things. But as far as systems we use, as far as traveling, we use Notion for all of our event briefs and travel for family and for business. I apply her to all of those, and so that way she can know even if it's a business travel, she knows where he is, what's going on. If there's something comes up with the family, she's able to look through that, hey, is he in a meeting right now? Is he on a flight? Those kind of things. I think it's really important to make sure you're just over-communicating as much as possible with a spouse if they're comfortable with that. The other thing, we do simple things like we have a group text with the three of us, so if something comes up, if there is something that's overlapping with the kids saying or something on the family front, we'll just shoot them a text and say, hey, what do you guys want to do about this? This is a conflict. Just keeping everybody in the loop, I think, is important if you're really wanting to set the spouse and really build that relationship with the spouse also.

Jeremy · 14:06

Yeah. Has there ever been times when there's a little bit of a conflict on both sides, and where your executives wants to do this, their partner wants to do this, or you need information from one side to complete something and it's just not, you're not, you're kind of feel like you're nagging them. Like what, is there, has there been any conflicts that you've had to work through that you can talk us through?

Brooke · 14:33

Yeah. So I don't know if there's necessarily conflicts, but you know, there's always with busy, busy executives, there's always going to be last minute things that come up that you kind of have to work around. But how I do it, I just make sure to over-communicate, bring it to both of them, and then let them kind of decide what they want to do about it. And nine times out of ten, my executive is really good about trying to prioritize a family as much as possible, but I just kind of let them decide. But yeah, as far as conflicts, I would say, you know, just again, just really making sure that you're over communicating everything and yeah, so there's the more you communicate, the less there are less, you know, conflicts there will be arise.

Jeremy · 15:25

Yeah. And then over, so over communicating. And then what about the talk a little bit more about the work-life integration versus work-life balance. So you mentioned that's something that Triad helps people with, but what is your role in helping that? And what are assistants supposed to do to help executives really figure out that work-life integration versus that work-life balance? And what's the difference?

Brooke · 16:03

Yeah, so I think, you know, definitely when you hear balance, it feels more separate, you know, because you're like, OK, this is my personal life, this is my work life. But, you know, obviously, integration means you're trying your best to overlap both of them. And so I think, you know, if you if you have an NEA and, you know, maybe you're an executive and you have an EA, but you're not utilizing them, you know, on that, on the personal side, I think there is, you know, there can be gaps, you know, and there is room for you on your personal life, you know, to really, it can cause frustration and different things on your home life. And so again, going back to what is true success, you know, if you're, you can have, you know, the best business in the world, you know, the fastest growing, or if you come home and you've missed your kids' games and you've, you know, you haven't shown up for the things that are really important, you know, what was that, was all that worth it, you know? And so a reason, just a personal story that I wanted to share on why, you know, I think it's really important, you know, to really integrate your EA in your personal life also is because I think, you know, one of the most meaningful compliments that I've received as an EA, and this is something, you know, I've had nice things said about me, but recently, over the summer, my husband and I had flown to Lawrence, and we had, you know, had dinner with the family that I worked for. And after that, the family got in the car, and their youngest daughter, who's nine, she said something to the effect to her parents, like, if we didn't have Brooke, we would be lost and all over the place. And I think what was so meaningful to, you know, for me about that is because in her, you know, nine-year-old mind, she was understanding that, you know, Brooke helps our family stay connected and show up where we're supposed to be, and, you know, support each other and be at each other's stuff. And so I think it's so important because, you know, what we do as EAs and assistants, you know, can really make a difference for the entire family. If, if, if that's something that they want, you know, it can really make a difference for the kids because, you know, they're able to really understand that, like, hey, my parents are showing up for me and they're prioritizing me. And so I think that was so meaningful because a lot of times we're doing all these things behind the scenes and, you know, I'm guarding time and moving things and protecting. But all of that is worth it if it's making a difference for the whole family and for the kids. And so that's another reason I'm really passionate about it, because I think it can really make a difference for the whole family.

Jeremy · 18:56

Yeah, that's awesome. And I think that it brings some steadiness to the chaos for sure. And I think I want to say one note to those assistants listening who maybe they're in a large corporate setting and they don't have any interaction with their executives personal life or very minimal. I think even if you don't have that type of CEO, co-founder assistant that does personal stuff as well, just being aware of family priorities, personal calendar, just being aware of those things. Even if you don't have meetings with their partner or you don't ever meet their kids, just being aware of that and making sure that you are checking in with your executive and asking them, hey, is there any family stuff coming up? Is there any conflicts? How is the schedule that I'm putting in front of you every day? Manageable and allowing for you to make those doctor's appointments or make those kids games or whatever. And so there's no harm even if you don't have that relationship directly, there's no harm in my opinion in asking those executives and staying in tune with their personal schedule as well and making sure that you're at least aware of it and proactive in that sense.

Brooke · 20:19

Yeah, and it could be something simple as it's just a yearly strategic meeting where maybe the spouse is there, maybe they're not, but you just look at the calendar for the year, you set those what we call big rocks, which are like the big things that you want to put on the calendar. Maybe that's family vacations, maybe that's priorities with the kids, different things like that. Even if it's a yearly strategic meeting where you just get the priorities out so that you know what to work around as far as the business. I think is something that could be really beneficial, even if you're not like you're saying, not communicating this about daily or weekly or anything like that. But even just like a yearly quarterly huddle, just get those big rocks, family things on the calendar, I think could be really valuable to any executives.

Jeremy · 21:10

Yeah, and I love the, my executive has always really kind of communicated to me like, hey, you know what, my three goals are to stay healthy, stay married, and stay in business. And he's like, your job is to help me stay healthy, stay married, and stay in business. And so that obviously not if you're at a company, you know, a huge global company supporting a VP at, you know, seven levels down from the CEO, you may not be as directly integrated with their stay healthy, stay married portion of their personal goals. But that said, that doesn't mean that they're a robot, that you can just run into the ground and overbook and double book and not give them time for lunches and time for working out and all those things. So just being aware of that is helpful as you try to really level up and take it to the next level. Because I think the part of it too is, you know, with all the AI tools and all of the automation that's already in our workflows, honestly taking a lot of the tasks away or handling many of the tasks that assistants have traditionally done, I think that it's, you can also add value from a strategic standpoint, obviously on the business side, but also on the personal side. And I think that there's definitely opportunity to show that like, listen, yeah, you can get that AI bot to automate this process, but are they really going to understand that your kid is sick, and your wife's out of town, and you really need to reschedule this meeting?

Brooke · 23:09

Yeah. And I think back to automations and things, I think being proactive is really important, because as EAs, we're looking ahead, what's the next thing? We're trying to be steps ahead of our executives, but I think even small things, you're able to look ahead and say, hey, this is coming up, holidays, birthdays, all those kind of things. But yeah, just really being in a proactive state where you're able to look ahead, you're able, because even my executive says, hey, it's not, he mentioned one time he had to leave his wife's birthday to go get her present, and it wasn't for lack of intention or love or anything like that. It was just he had 15 million things going on. I think just ahead of the little things is super help.

Jeremy · 23:58

Yeah. Awesome. Well, Brooke, thank you so much for being on the show and sharing your tips and tricks and a little bit of wisdom. I love the work-life integration concept. Is there any final words that you want to share with EAs or their executives?

Brooke · 24:15

Yeah. So I would just encourage, like you said, this may not be something for everyone, but I think this is a topic that I think can add value to different busy executives. And so I think if you're in a position where you may see a need for this, sit down with your executive and just ask, is this something you would be interested in? You know, how can I add value in this? And really, I think if you come to them, you know, with a heart to serve them in all areas of their life and add value, I think, you know, you may be surprised that there may be a need. And so, yeah, I would just encourage, hey, if this is something you think might be helpful, just sit down with your executive and see where it goes.

Jeremy · 25:02

Love it. Well said. Great tips. And where's the best place? I'll put your links in the show notes at leaderassistant.com/310. But where's the best place for people to reach out and say hi if they want to connect?

Brooke · 25:18

Definitely LinkedIn is fine. That works.

Jeremy · 25:21

Awesome. Love it. Well, thanks again, Brooke. I really appreciate it and congrats on a great career and hope we get to connect again soon. And I hope you enjoyed being on the show.

Brooke · 25:34

Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Speaker 3 · 25:45

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