Hard Workers Stand Out

They have a vibe to them.

Visualize this. You walk into your regular coffee shop or the neighborhood supermarket that you go to three, four times a week. You observe all the employees working there. Can you tell which of the employees are hard working? Can you pick out the ones who stand out? Can you tell which of them might enjoy working there?

Or think about this. Have you ever been to a restaurant where your experience there makes you want to come back or makes you want to write a positive 5-star Yelp review?

The happy, positive coffee shop employee who knows your name and your drink, the supermarket employee who always seems eager to help you out or walks around smiling, the server who made your experience feel memorable… these people all have a vibe to them.

They all make you feel a certain way without them even trying, and they are genuine about it.

They enjoy the work and are happy to go the extra mile, so working hard comes naturally.

Are you that kind of EA for someone?

If you are an Executive Assistant, and you are simply in the role to make a paycheck, and you just “do”, then that energy is going to show. People will be able to see it from a mile away. Sure, you can do the job, but there won’t be anything that separates you from the next “do-er”. And if you think about it, AI can always be trained to “do”, too, right?

But as with all hard workers who stand out no matter what industry we look at, if you’re an EA who truly enjoys the work, and genuinely loves to help people/your exec, you’ll naturally want to work hard to do the best you can to make their lives easier.

You’re probably the type to thrive in challenging environments where you have to problem solve, read minds, be three steps ahead of people, and shield, protect, and know your exec(s) better than anyone else in the company.

You’re probably also the type who can be “done” at 5pm, but you choose to have work email on your phone and would prefer to check it throughout the evening, and you sometimes hop online after your kids go to bed because you wanted to get some work done, in order to get ahead of the next day. I’m not talking about work abuse here where you’re working for an exec who expects you to be available and at their beck and call 24/7 (hopefully, none of us have a Miranda from The Devil Wears Prada as our boss, oof). Instead, these are decisions that you have chosen to make in order to be prepared and a step ahead of other EAs.

You’re the type who also has a great reputation, people speak highly of you and trust you, and you genuinely love what you do.

Of course there is more to being a successful EA and standing out than simply hard work. You have to work smart, be strategic, communicate well, produce great work, build relationships, be adaptable, etc. But all of that slowly and naturally becomes a part of you, and becomes easier to do, if you have “hard work” as the baseline, as part of your foundation as an EA.

If you don’t work hard, it will be difficult to build relationships and communicate with others because you haven’t earned people’s trust. If you don’t work hard, I’m not sure you’d be able to work smart, either. If you don’t work hard, you wouldn’t be the type to want to spend the time and energy to try to be adaptable to people, situations, projects, shifting strategies, etc. If you don’t work hard, could you produce great work?

That’s what I mean by having “hard work” as your foundation. Build your reputation as an EA from that. And then, naturally, the promos, the pay raises, the opportunities will start coming.

Let people be able to see from afar that you have a vibe to you that’s different and that makes you shine.