Views Professional Development

A post for the bookworms! 🐛 I’m out of series in my book shelf, and need recommendations.

So far, my favourite books all have the same underlying thing going on:

Robert Galbraith (aka JK Rowling): brilliant character psychology and trying to solve humans like puzzles.

Douglas Adams: complete absurdity with uncomfortably insightful truths about humanity and office politics. More, please 😅

Tolkien: entire worlds that give instant escape into a place where things like honour still matter.

Narnia and Harry Potter basically raised me, (yeah, that explains a lot 😂)

I love stories where characters feel painfully real and the plot can emotionally clothesline you without warning. 🤷‍♀️

So your turn…

What’s the next series I should disappear into? 📚

Kicking off the week looking at the speaker roster… and woohoo we have some incredible sessions coming your way! Everything from AI adoption in admin roles, strategic partnership, executive presence, how to come back after redundancy… big topics, and we aren’t pulling any punches 👊
Keep your eye on your inbox, you’ll want to join me for these 🤩
Oh, and if you aren’t on the email list (I get it, my inbox is swamped too), check out my bio for the details, there’s a direct link to the events 💕

You know it’s going to be a good session when even the prep meeting has you taking notes. ✍️ Just finalised the fireside chat questions with Anu Lamba and let me tell you, this one is going to have energy! ✨

Anu is bubbly, sharp, generous with insight, and has built her EA career across IBM, Microsoft and Amazon... so we are absolutely not doing vague career wallpaper here.

One thing she said has already got me thinking: How do we apply the principle of “invent and simplify” when AI is moving into more and more of our daily tasks?

Because that is exactly where the EA role is heading.

In our fireside chat, we'll be talking about:

⚡ AI, the future of the EA role, and what skills are critical to be developing right now

⚡ Personal brand, visibility, and overcoming fear of judgement

⚡ Building trust with your executive and becoming a true partner

Meetings without agendas, you’re looking nervous. 😅

This is going to be such a fun, practical and thought-provoking session.

Inside the Role: Supporting Leaders in High-Pressure Tech Environments

EA How To

Tuesday 28 July

1:30pm AWST / 3:30pm AEST

Don’t miss this one. Link in bio!

I posted a long LinkedIn article this week and the comments have made me laugh.

One lovely human pulled out this line:

“You’re not failing at your career. You’re trying to build one while carrying a ridiculous amount of life.”

Which is exactly what I was trying to say.

And someone else commented:

“ ”

Also correct.

It is not a short article.

It is a sit-down article.

Bring coffee. Maybe a pastry. Hydrate first.

But I think it’s landing because so many people are trying to make big career decisions while their actual life is standing in the doorway wearing odd socks, holding a school form, asking what’s for dinner, and quietly setting fire to the calendar.

And honestly, that’s been me too.

Some mornings I start the day already feeling like my inbox has kicked the door in before I’ve even had coffee.

🌊Today I got in the ocean instead.

Freezing. Rude. Highly effective.

And it reminded me that sometimes clarity doesn’t arrive because you forced yourself harder.

Sometimes you need to get out of your own head long enough to hear yourself think.

Which is basically the whole point of the article.

Your resume might need work.

Your LinkedIn might need work.

Your interview answers might need work.

But sometimes the first problem is that you’re tired down to your bones and trying to build a future from inside a washing machine on spin cycle.

That’s why I wrote it.

For the people who aren’t lazy.

They’re overloaded.

For the people who don’t need another generic career tip thrown at them like a damp tea towel.

They need space to think.

They need someone to help them sort through the noise, untangle what they actually want, and make a plan that fits their real life, not their imaginary Pinterest life with labelled containers and calm mornings.

That’s what I do in my 6-week career coaching plan.

So if you’re at the “I cannot keep doing this but also have no idea what I’m doing next” stage, come and have the conversation with me.

☕️Book a career strategy session through the link in my bio. I’d love to hear from you!

If saving files to SharePoint feels like tossing them through a wardrobe to Narnia... keep reading 👇

Today was Session 2 in our Microsoft 365 workshop series with Marianne Tansley. The topic was MS Teams, and it was brilliant! Practical, smart, and full of those little fixes that save hours of frustration later.

And building on this, there is one topic causing widespread workplace emotional damage:

Where should files actually live?

🤷‍♀️ OneDrive?

🤷‍♀️ Teams?

🤷‍♀️ SharePoint?

🤷‍♀️ The desktop?

🤯 An email from 2022?

So next up in the series:

📁 Where Should This Live?

Understanding OneDrive, SharePoint & Teams

This session is for anyone tired of guessing, searching, re-saving, duplicating, or whispering “for the love of God” at their screen.

Still to come:

🤖 Automation and AI in Microsoft 365

✨ Microsoft Copilot for Executive Assistants

You can join individual sessions or grab the full bundle. EA How To Plus members receive discounted access. I'll pop the link in the comments for details!

Today’s EA How To session on the top AI platforms confirmed something I think a lot of people are feeling right now...
We are over it. 🤯
Over being told we need 27 new apps, three paid subscriptions, a robot assistant named Trevor, and a side hustle in prompt engineering just to keep up.

We're asking:
How do I actually use this in real life?
What’s worth paying for?
What saves me time this week?
What works inside a normal job with real pressure and limited time?

That’s why I loved today’s session with Dante St James.

It was practical. Clear. Lots of screensharing where he walked us through real examples. Just smart ways to use AI properly.

Some of the biggest takeaways for me:
✨ You probably need one solid main tool, not every tool on earth
✨ Add specialist tools only if there’s a real gap
✨ Good prompting is usually just being clear about what you need and defining the steps to get there

And the questions today were so good. It’s clear there’s real appetite for ongoing, practical AI training that helps people in their actual roles.

So I’d love to know...
If we ran regular AI sessions, what would you want help with most?

Some ideas:
• Inbox and calendar support
• Presentations, decks and documents faster
• Better prompts without sounding like a lunatic
• Meeting notes and follow-up actions
• LinkedIn and personal brand support
• Copilot explained in plain English
• AI for job search and career growth
• Building smarter systems and automations
• Which tools are genuinely worth it

Drop your thoughts below or send me a message!

The shiny-object phase is dying.

Useful is back 🔥

PS a very big thank you to GroupTogether for sponsoring today's session and the hugely generous free coffee's you provided for Admin Professionals Day! We appreciate you 🫶 Ali Linz Jessica-Jane (J-J) Yung

Tomorrow is one of my favourite events of the month, and sometimes the most valuable hour in your calendar is the one you keep for your own development. 🙌 Our monthly EA How To Group Coaching session is on!

And this month's topic is From Reactive to Strategic: How EAs Actually Get Ahead

This one is for the EAs who are:
✔ solving problems before anyone notices
✔ managing impossible diaries with the reflexes of a ninja
✔ answering everyone’s “quick question”
✔ carrying far more than their title suggests
✔ somehow still being seen as “support”
A corporate classic.

Many brilliant EAs are operating at a high level… while being branded as the person who books rooms and arranges catering.

We need to discuss it.

Tomorrow we’re unpacking how to shift from:
👉 chief firefighter
to
👉 trusted operator

👉 keeper of chaos
to
👉 strategic partner

👉 helpful human octopus
to
👉 respected voice in the room

We’ll cover:
🔥 why being busy is not a promotion strategy
🔥 how to show judgement without becoming unbearable
🔥 what actually changes how people perceive you

These sessions are always full of smart, funny, switched-on people who get it.
No corporate-robot speech (can I say that on here?). Just practical career growth with excellent humans who are doing the work.

If you’re already an EA How To member, I’d love to see you there.

If you’re not yet a member, this is your sign. Join us! Your future self is tired of being undervalued.

Comment and I’ll send you the details 👇

Being great at your job does not automatically lead to better title, better pay, or better opportunities.

You can be trusted, reliable, high performing, the person everyone leans on.

And still be overlooked.

Why?

Because if nobody understands the level you operate at, your value gets filed under “helpful” instead of strategic.

Doing great work matters.

Being able to articulate great work matters too.

Which is why I'm super excited for a big week ahead for our EA How To community. If you’re ready to work smarter, grow your profile, or level up strategically, we’ve got you covered.

This week inside EA How To APAC:
📌 Fireside Chat with Candice Burningham
From Executive Assistant to Executive Business Partner.
A straight-talking session on titles, positioning, and commercial value.

📌 Microsoft 365 Training with Marianne Tansley
For EAs who know there must be a better way than hunting through tabs and reinventing systems daily.

📌 Group Coaching with yours truly! (exclusive to our EA How To Plus community)
Practical support, career growth, and real conversations with EAs who want more than survival mode.
These sessions are focussed on enabling EAs to become more strategic, more visible, and more valued.

Comment INFO and I’ll send you details on whichever one suits you best!

Things I hear from EAs all the time… I speak to a lot of people who are carrying serious responsibility while being labelled and paid like they’re there to book meetings and order biscuits.
They’re managing priorities, reading personalities, solving problems early, keeping leaders effective, protecting time, smoothing politics, and consistently preventing expensive mistakes.

But on paper?
Still undersold.
Still under-scoped.
Still underpaid.

That’s why next week’s fireside chat with the amazing Candice Burningham will be worth your time.

Here’s the details:
From Executive Assistant to Executive Business Partner
Redefining Your Role, Your Title, and Your Commercial Value
📅 Tuesday 21 April
⏰ 10am AWST
⚡ Actual useful conversation with someone who gets it!

Candice and I will be discussing:
✔ how the role has changed and why many organisations are behind
✔ when your title no longer reflects reality
✔ how to show commercial value properly
✔ how to raise scope, title and salary conversations like a professional
✔ why documenting these conversations matters

If you’ve ever thought, “I know I’m operating at a higher level than this,” this one is for you! Link to register is in my bio (it’s free!)

PS - Yes, I have a LOTR notebook. No, I don’t regret being a nerd 🧝‍♀️ 😅