What does wellness mean to you? To the Leadership Team at Athena Executive Services, Wellness is more than one’s physical fitness or simply not being sick. WELLNESS is a core value of our company, with a laser focus on both health and personal happiness.
Recently, our CEO and Managers came together to discuss the value of WELLNESS and how prioritizing the quickest path to being 100% well is critical to high performance.
Athena CEO Gina Cotner does a household purge pretty regularly, going through closets and adding things to the giveaway pile. Recently she noticed that a lot of what she was sorting through represented who she was five years ago. Some of this had to do with the pandemic, but she is also evolving as a person. The Pickleball clothing and gear has definitely grown substantially, and now needs more space!
This process of going through, getting rid of, and refreshing your space is not only therapeutic but also enlivening. While there were times that she felt like she was giving away memories as she was purging, she also could see the freedom and power that came with creating space. Perhaps space for something new and for growth. It’s nice to have a lot of options for outfits or several Pickleball skirts, but being able to easily find just what you need and what you enjoy wearing is an even better feeling.
This purging process can also be stressful. So, Gina turned to someone who is an expert in the field of organization to give this exercise some structure. Enter, Shantaeize Your Space!
Shantae’s philosophy is, “Illuminate light into your space and life”, and she certainly is good at just that. Receiving quality help from an expert in their field or delegating a project to someone equipped to handle it is empowering!
We will always take the opportunity to sing the praises of our high-caliber Executive Assistants. The role of an EA is so much more complex than many people realize!
This article gives some great examples of the types of things an EA actually does – and the perception vs. reality problem many EAs face in today’s workplace.
“In today’s global world, EAs who work for C-suite executives are referred to as the right arms to leaders, the backbone to companies, and the face of the company culture.”
Read the entire article at Harvard Business Review.
There is something special about coming together with people in your community, and I’ve discovered it’s even more rewarding to meet your neighbors on a sport court for some friendly and fierce competition. I’ve written about my recent Pickleball obsession, but I’d like to dig a little deeper on the power of learning something new alongside your community.
Because it is a community sport, you never know who you’ll meet up with on the Pickleball court. You may play a match against a six-figure CEO, or partner up with an amazing tradesperson, teacher, or bartender. You really have no idea who has accomplished what in their lives – you are all just there to play the great equalizing game of Pickleball!
It’s no secret that learning something new is good for your brain. Adding a new skill to your “arsenal of knowledge” is a powerful mind/body benefit. I’ve reached a level of success in my professional life that I’m proud of. It has been humbling to start learning a sport as a complete novice and have to push myself in new ways to grow as a Pickleball player.
As I’ve improved, I’ve had to ask myself…am I just here to have fun? Or do I really want to improve? The way I am wired, I want to keep getting better. There certainly are some days that are frustrating! But I have decided that it is more than just a cardio workout so that I can have cookies and milk at the end of the day (which I love). It is something I want to learn to do at a high level and be successful at.
This particular new hobby has also forced me to tend to my body like I haven’t before. I’ve played for almost a year but have just started being more mindful of taking care of my body. There is the warm-up and a cool-down, which need to be tailored to different climates. I have invested in purposeful stretching, recovery creams, and a massage gun. I am investing in my health so I can play again tomorrow! All of this has come along with the challenge of learning something new.
For the first few years of owning and operating this business I didn’t have an assistant. I was running a firm centered around the great benefits of having an Executive Assistant, but I had never had an Executive Assistant myself. It wasn’t really a problem, because I knew how to be a great Executive Assistant and I knew how to train others to be great in that role. However, the tailor had no clothes; the cobbler had no shoes.
A few years into the business, we had enough money that we could afford for me to utilize the services of one of our executive assistants. “After all,” I said to myself, “you could have one at wholesale pricing!” In the beginning it felt a little bit like stealing from the company, like I was taking office equipment back to my home to use it for myself.
I started slowly, delegating a little here and a little there. Soon I was hooked.
Now that I was no longer just the receiver of what others were delegating, and I was now the delegator, I got all new perspectives on the world of delegation! I understood the hesitance and the reticence of delegating. Should I? Shouldn’t I? Should I pay for somebody else to do this, or just do it myself? Should I take the time to explain this to my assistant? Will my assistant be able to figure this out? Will she hate doing this?
Over time, I began to delegate more and more, from all different areas of my life, and particularly from the key areas that I most recommended to the Executives we work with:
1. Things that you dislike doing
2. Things that are not in your zone of genius, not one of your superpowers
3. Things that, while they may be fun and enjoyable to do, are not the highest or best use of you
4. Things that you know in reality are going to take more than the 10-minutes you think it’s going to take
Here are some things that I’ve delegated to my EA that fall into those categories.
• Researching and ordering gifts for clients and staff
• Sending cards, emails, or gifts (birthdays, condolences, new baby, anniversary)
• Updates to the website
• Booking an airline ticket
• Going to Amazon to buy those “one or two” things
• Social media posts
• Invoicing clients and running credit cards
• Parts of onboarding a client
• Parts of onboarding a new contractor
• Researching vacation elements (hotel, airline, excursions, rental cars, where will you be able to play pickleball while you are there?)
• Ordering flowers for mom; Easter baskets for grandkids
• Getting off of company mailing lists
I often say to myself, “Don’t go there Gina; delegate it.”
That means don’t go to Amazon to buy one or two things, because before I know it, I’ll be there shopping around for something else that I just thought of, and something else. It’s better to have my EA shop for me, and then send me two or three options of what to choose from. Similarly with shopping for airline tickets. She does the research, then texts me “Gina would you like this option or that option?”. Then I pick and don’t get mired in “shopping around”.
~ Gina Cotner, CEO
******
Looking for an engaging guest for your next podcast? Gina enjoys being a podcast guest and discussing items such as:
Click here to learn more about having Athena CEO Gina Cotner on your podcast or inviting her to present at your next virtual meeting, workshop or event.
If you’ve listened to any of the podcasts where I’m interviewed about our company and the VA industry at large, you’ve likely heard me answer the question, “So, how did Athena come to be?” And then I tell the tale. In the tale you learn that the first two people on payroll once we were officially incorporated were Dorian and Alison.
A couple years ago, Dorian was hired away by a client of ours and now the same ending has happened for Alison. In our client Master Service Agreement there is a Conversion Clause, which explains how a client can hire their contract EA as a full-time employee of their own company if they like (and if the EA would like). This has happened four times so far.
As I share here about Alison, you will learn new facets about our firm and the way we work. Meanwhile I couldn’t acknowledge and appreciate her enough!
Over the last almost-six years, Alison has served
over 10 clients. They have included an attorney, a sales manager, a business coach, a website and brand designer, a CPA firm, a financial advisor, a couple of CEOs of small companies, a couple of executive directors of non-profits, and some others that I’m sure I can’t recall.
Sometimes prospective clients come to us simply looking for a Virtual Assistant (VA). They are shopping the VA industry. Some business owners come to us specifically because they have heard about the caliber of our services, and they are now in search of that (usually after another VA hasn’t worked out for them). Often times an executive comes to us because they have been interacting with one of our EAs who works for someone they do business with. They see this other professional and how they have an executive assistant making their business really hum. So, they come to us and say, “I need one of those!”
Finally, other people come to us and say, “I love what Alison provides for Matthew. Could she come work for me also?” They want that exact person. We usually have to say no, and then they say, “Do you have someone like her?” And why yes, we do!
And . . . that is our business for the last nearly-six years . . . finding another Alison and another Alison.
I’m proud of what people get to accomplish in their personal life and in other areas of life that are important to them while they are a part of our team. We know that if people are thriving in their personal life, then they will be a much stronger support for a swamped and successful executive.
Some fun facts about Ali’s life in her time with us:
• She continued to be a successful photographer while working with us. Over the years she raised her rates and started taking only the specific jobs she wanted. She started making more money for less work.
• Her son just turned 8. He was 2 when she started with us! So hard to believe! She was thrilled to be able to afford private school for him ever since pre-kindergarten.
• She separated from her son’s father and went on to create a really great co-parenting relationship with him. They are inspiring co-parents.
• She bought her first ever “brand new” car.
• She took nicer and longer vacations and went to a lot of great concerts.
Ali told me recently, “G, what I got was to be able to live a comfortable lifestyle on a single income.”
Needless to say I’ve been honored and privileged to have Ali on this team and to be someone whose performance as an EA was so strong that it was a large contribution to building the size and reputation of our firm.
