Karen, it feels like yesterday. Wow. We were at the Palmer House, that iconic, gorgeous property. And, um, that's when
I fell in love with Chicago and the people there. And Karen, you were one of the folks at the top of that list of people that I fell in love with. Um, and so- Oh, thank you. ... thank you for letting us do this making of a winner interview with you. Thank you for having me. Yeah. And
Karen also was one of our Imagine Admin speakers, which spoiler alert, we are gonna do Imagine Admin again, next
April. We're about to do a call for speaker submissions. But Karen's energy was so through the roof, she was so inspiring. She was one of the folks that people said, "Have her come back for another round." And I said to Karen, "We're gonna do a making of an interview with you."
This has been on my mind for years. And so, I'm super excited to introduce you. And
I'm not gonna give you Karen's bio 'cause we're gonna have her reveal that to us as we go. But what I would like to do is ask you to first tell us h- what inspired you to become an
EA?
Well, the very first introduction that I had to being a executive assistant, administrative assistant, and starting out as a secretary, was that my mom used to work f- part-time at home, like off-season, doing some seasonal work. And she had a typewriter. And I'll just always be amazed at how she could be doing her work, but she still was in tuned with my sister and I, what we were, what we were doing. And sometimes I would see her looking at us, but she still be typing. And I was like, "Well, now that's a skill." We liked that.
It was great. She just had it all together. She had all the plates spinning. Yes, as women do. Ah.
Most of the time. Yes. Yeah. And so, I asked for a typewriter. And when I got my typewriter for
Christmas, I would practice, practice, practice
'til the point that my family, my sister and I shared a room, but my mother and father would say,
"Karen, please go to bed." "I's trying to get my speed up and my accuracy." You just loved it. Yes,
I loved it. You just loved it. Yes. Ah. And then, um
... Well, well, so your mom was ultimately a secretary. Tell me
... Well, give everybody the CliffNotes version of your career path, just real quick. Okay. Well, she was a, she worked, uh, in finance but she did some typing, uh, part-time.
And my very first job, I worked in a typing pool.
And I was just intrigued by the fact that the more you typed, the more y- the more you got paid. So, I was always charting those, uh, paths for the increase to get all the bonuses that I was entitled t- to get. Uh, I had a lot of fun doing it. Sometimes I had clients who nobody else wanted and so they would always bring their work to me. For example, I had one guy who wanted to spend time with his children on the weekends, but when he was doing his reports, he would do 'em in crayon on big flip chart paper. And then he would fold 'em up and bring 'em to me and I would post 'em up on my cube and I'd type, type them. And people say, "I'm not gonna be bothered with that." But I thought it was so innovative and it was a challenge to me, so it was exciting to me that he found a way to be, spend time with his children and do his work. God, that's so cool.
So, uh, you won the Admin Awards while you were at United Entertainment Group. Yes. Tell everybody about that environment and what you, and what you did there. Well, uh, in
U- UEG is what we called it and it was a, uh, a subsidiary of Edelman which is a marketing
PR firm. And I was the executive assistant there. And they, you know, did commercials, worked with a lot of, uh, uh, celebrity talent in order to promote different products for different, different clients. And so, uh, being an executive assistant in any corporate environment, not just with UEG or Edelman, is always a- a opportunity where you're wearing lots of hats because you're there, uh, holding the fort down so that the staff, the managers, the directors, the VPs, whoever, can get their work done. And when I say holding the fort down, we're making sure that they eat, we're making sure that the copy machine is, is running properly, uh, supplies are in. Uh, we've even had a opportunity where I cleaned out a conference room to make it a safe place, I mean, a storage room, to make it a safe place for in case we had a on-site shooting. So, you- Oh, wow. ... you have to cover, cover the, the gambit as being an executive assistant. And you have to think quick on your feet. Yeah, it's range, isn't it? We,
I, um, did a keynote- Yeah. ... yesterday at FINRA and I did, um, a session on the what a, uh, what award-winning admins do different. And that idea of infinite range is something that executives, especially, really appreciate, um, and value. I was telling Karen before the call, she was one of the examples and she was an example under the attributes of edge and empathy. Because the thing that I have loved about Karen is she has never been afraid to ask for what she wants, which is gonna be the focus of today's conversation. And I think it's a really important timely one. As we all know, there's a lot going on out there, good and bad, in the profession. Um, so, you know, fear-... maybe not fearlessly, but being afraid and still asking I think is, is a, a gift that you've had throughout your career. Can you tell us about the first time, um, that you had to ask for something that you needed or wanted and what that experience was like for you? Tell us that, that story. Well, there, as you know, Sunny, there have been many opportunities, uh, where that has occurred. But sometimes it was, think an internal drive that was telling me that there was something more, that there was something more. And I wanted to get that something more and realizing that managers and executives, sometimes they're looking at their goals for their department or what they're doing for the company. And unless you voice what it is that you need, they won't know. They cannot read your mind.
So if you see an opportunity, it's really your job to let them know what it is that you need. But my, uh, focus has always been don't just bring the problem, bring the solution. And that's how I came up with my ask philosophy, okay? If
I'm not gonna get my feelings hurt if you say no, but what if I never asked, okay? Then I'm suffering in silence. All right? And I don't want to suffer in silence. It's hard enough going to work every day and then you're sitting there pout- pouting. Don't pout. Be powerful and just ask for what it is that you, that you want, okay? Because nine times out of 10, i- it went over their head, they weren't even thinking about it and one of the other keys is to know who you're, who you're working with. Are you working with a thinking person or are you working with a, uh, action-oriented, uh, right now type of, type of person, okay? A thinking person, you're gonna have to write it down. You're gonna have to let them take it home. They're gonna marinate on it. They're gonna get back to you with questions.
But the action kind of feeling person, they can get it on the fly and make a decision and then you can move on to the next thing. But you got to know who you're working with. Great advice. That is great advice. Okay, t- so I want you to tell everybody the PC story. Okay. All right. I was working for information services which is a computer department, and we had the big mainframe computers, you know, a lot of programming. You had to l- know the language in order to get your things done. And they made a big department announcement that we would be getting desktop computers. Oh, I was so excited. I was so excited. I was planning where it was going to go on my desk and everything. And then I happened to mention it to my manager, John, and then he said,
"Oh no, Karen, that's not for you. That's not for the secretaries. That's for the managers." I said, "What do you mean it's not for the secretaries?" He was like, "No, we're not, we're not rolling that out to the secretaries." I was just deflated.
I was so disappointed, I was speechless, okay? Then it never left my mind, and lo and behold when they started rolling out the computers, there was, uh, five, four or five desks behind me, cubes behind me, just straight behind me and I happened to be delivering the mail and I looked and there was a computer sitting there.
Touched the computer, came alive. I started typing on it. I'm like, hm, no password, coming back to this. So I finished, okay, and I would wait until my department went to lunch, go back there and I start playing with the computer, start typing up things, i- ideas started coming. And so I decided that I was gonna show value of why I needed a computer.
Typed up a whole desk book with all the instructions on how to do my job in case I was out of the office on vacation or sick or something, put it together in a little binder and then I said, "Okay, that's good, but I got to go one step further." In that day, the secretaries, as we were called, we only typed documents that were three pages or less, maybe five, and everything else went to the typing pool. I started taking the work out of the typing pool box, destroying the ticket, typing up the work and returning it to the, to the manager who had asked for the work. Then I did this for three months. After three months, I called the f- uh, training department and said, "John needs to know what our expenses have been for the last three months in the type- typing pool for our department. Here's our code." And then they gave it to me.
And then I said, "Okay, and what was it for the fourth month?" So I compared the three months that I had been doing the work secretly to the month that before. And then I set up a meeting on John's calendar. He called me and he says, "Karen, I have a meeting with, with Karen. I don't know who that is. It doesn't say what it's for." I said, "Oh, that's me. I'll be right in." I went into his office with my desk book, with my, uh, stats from the accounting department. I showed it to him. He was really imp- he said, "This is really nice.
How did you do this?" And I said, "I do it o- did it on my computer." He said, "Karen, you got to stop talking about the computer. You're not on the computer, you just have a typewriter." I didn't do it on the typewriter because I had diagrams, pictures, I had all kind of things and it wasn't a cut and paste job. I mean, I did an excellent job with my desk book, all right? And so then he s- I told him, I said, "Well, I did it on the computer. The run does back there." And he was like, "Well, where did you do that?" Because mind you, I had 60 phone calls on my call director to ass- answer. So he knew that I wasn't missing any calls. I was still doing my work. But find a way, make a way. And then I hit him with the stats on how much money I had been saving and he just could not believe it. And then he picked up the phone and called the IT department and said, "Give Karen a computer." Now it's probably the computer that I already had broken in back there, but hey, I didn't care where it came from, right? And then he promoted me to be the first stop for any, uh, secretary that came into our department. They would spend two weeks with me on learning the ins and outs and probably how to be real bold about getting things done.
I freaking love this story so much for so many reasons. What year was that, would you say? Oh my gosh, it had to be back in the '80s.
And you know what I love about that? Let's stop pretending that strategic partners just arrived on the scene in, in, you know, 2023. It is such nonsense. And your title back then was secretary, right? Yes. So, like, this whole idea, and we're going off on a tangent 'cause Karen and I were like, "These are all the questions.
Okay, let's just talk and let people eavesdrop," um, this, this whole idea that, um, you know, modern day admins are strategic but admins back then just took orders. I don't think that is the truth, and the more I study the profession and the more
I talk with very tenured... What do you got, over 50 years of experience now under your belt? Yes, yes.
You've always been this.
You've always been this. Well, because if you, if you just took orders, then generally those were the admins that didn't last. They just took the job to have a job, they didn't really want to be an admin, and that still happens today, I'm sure, where people come in just to get their foot in the door because they're looking at the company but they don't really have the drive and the passion. And, I mean, and just think about it, can't be an admin. Some people want to have a nine-to-five, let's cut it off at that time, pack up your stuff and leave. In an admin, you have to be very fluid, you have to be flexible and you have to be able to, um... People often say, "Read between the lines," but I say read between the words because things are happening so quickly. Mm-hmm. Uh, just like my, my, uh, manager, Dan, who used to travel to
Disney all the time for... That was his client. And him and his clients had gotten to know me so well that they would say, "All right, who's, who's got the bet on what time Karen's gonna call to make sure that we're at the restaurant standing in line?" Because I knew that Disney only held your, uh, reservation for 10 minutes, it was hard to get those reservations, and if you missed it then I've gotta be, be ready to do something else. Well, I'm trying to save, save time. Just go to the restaurant where I already booked you, you know? Or, or learning to, when I book a limo or, or a car for my, my manager, to go ahead and pay for the whole thing and the tip so that he doesn't have to take his wallet out, leave it in the limo. Now I gotta chase down the limo because he lost his wallet and everything. No, just get in the car, go where you're going and g- and get out,
I took care of everything already. I love it.
And you... So you're saving them, uh, the, the time of having to worry about that, but you're also ta- saving yourself time in the long run. 'Cause you know what's coming. Yeah, you know what's coming so get in front of it. Get in front of it. Right? And everybody doesn't, doesn't want to have to think that. Some people I have... I've heard admins who didn't really want to be an admin. "Well, why do I have to do that for him? He's a grown man." Mm-mm. Okay, well, it's not that you have to do it for him. Think about you're doing it for yourself. If that's what you- Yeah. If that's what you need to think, you know? So that's, that's how it is, and then they... You do become their partner because they understand that you've got their back. I'm watching the weather. I know if your flight is gonna be able to take off or not. So I'm not gonna just leave you at the airport. If it's gonna be closed, I've already found you another hotel room. Go back to the hotel. Golly.
Such a... It is an art. It is an art. It is. Um, okay, now you gotta tell everybody the laptop story.
Oh, okay. So I'm in Chicago, in case anybody didn't know, and we have the craziest weather that can just come in at any, at any time, okay? I'm, uh, working with Jill. Jill was new to Chicago, had come here from Se- Seattle, right? So a warning goes out. Like the
Downtown Chicago buildings, they all talk to each other and so they plan for if there has to be a mass exodus, let the people that take the train first leave, and all of that.
So they just made an announcement in our department that we could work from home because it was gonna be a bad snow storm. So Jill walks around and says, "Hey, don't forget to take your, your equipment with you, uh, get your chargers and everything because you're gonna work from home."
And so I said, um, "Okay," and so she said, "Why'd you say okay like that?" I'm like, "Well, I can't work from home, I don't have a laptop." She said, "What do you mean you don't have a laptop?"
I said, "I don't have..." She said, "Where's your laptop?" I said, "I never had one." She says, "What?" And she comes around my desk and she's looking, she's like, "Oh my goodness, you have a desktop computer." I'm like,
"Y-..." And she says, "Why don't you have a laptop?" I'm like, "Admins don't have laptops, we only have desktops."
And she was like, "Who started that foolishness?" I said, "Well, I don't, I don't know, it's just always been that way." And so Jill said,
"Well, we gotta change that," so she picks up the phone and calls IT and says, "Get Karen a laptop so she can work from home tomorrow," and he says, "Oh, no, no.
Admins don't have laptops," and she says, "She works for me, this is my department, I want a laptop." He says, "Well, you're gonna have to talk to the president." She said, "I'll talk to whoever I need to talk to. Just make sure she has a laptop by the end of the day so she can get a laptop."
And so then when she tells the president and he comes and looks and he says, "Oh my gosh! She has a desktop!" Everybody is just so surprised that we have... That's right. And then when they do the research, they find out the desktops cost more money than the laptops.
Gosh.
So I get a laptop, she gets a laptop, everybody gets a laptop. Freaki- And everybody's happy. And tha- and then you're like, "Well, shit, now I am gonna work from home more than I am already working when I'm just at the office." So it's like... It's so interesting how these companies can be so shortsighted and just, "This is the way we've always done it," and I love people that change the game and the rules of the game like you. And we work with so many bold admins and it's just such a pleasure, and people are loving these stories and I am too. So I'm gonna ask you to tell another one. Tell everybody about the time...You had a really... Y- I think you've had your share of difficult leaders. You've had some amazing ones that have advocated for you, and I want you to tell another story in, in that spirit as well. But tell everybody the really difficult meeting you had with somebody that, on a scale of one to 10, didn't give you th- the score that you felt like you- Oh. ... deserve. Tell them that story. Okay. So in, in most corporate environments, you have a performance review, annually, sometimes quarterly. Sometimes you have, um, monthly check-ins, all right? But when it's time for your annual review, you do a self-assessment of yourself as to where you are on the goals that you set for the, for the year, uh, things that you've done that you, you know, it's time for you to pat yourself on the back, things of that nature, okay? Well, in our, uh, department at that time, the scale was a one to, one to 10. And proud of the work that I do, proud of the effort that I, that I make, and I'm honest with myself in what, what I've done and what I've accomplished, okay?
So I rate myself. I turn it, turn it in. It's time for my r- my review.
I have a new supervisor. This is my first time that she's been e- evaluating me. All right? I go into the meeting and she opens up the meeting and she says, "Well, Karen, I got your, uh, assessment, and I mean, I think you got yourself a, a 10, but I'm here to tell you that you're really only a three." And I said, "No. A 10? You want me to think that I'm a three." And when I said that, I mean, it was like I had stabbed her in her chest or something. She was just like...
You know, uh, we're truth-telling. You're telling your truth, I'm telling my, my truth. And she says, "Well, no. That's not... That's not how it goes." I'm like, "Yeah, that's, that's how it goes. I've been doing this for a, for a long time." And I said, "And besides that, haven't you ever heard of the sandwich approach to a in- to a review?"
You just schooled her on how to critique you.
And, and I was like, I mean, really? 'Cause you didn't even start off with anything good. I mean, like, hey, you come to work every day.
Uh, you know, you have a good time. Something. And you just hit me with this, this negative, not even true.
So then she says, "Well, maybe we can review this again." And she says, "But, you know, you need to sign this." And I'm like,
"I'm not signing that." I said, "Signing for what?" And she said, "To say that we've, we've had it." I said, "Well, I'm not signing it to say that. You're gonna, you're gonna have to do something else. I'm not signing it." And I didn't sign it, and that was the end of that meeting.
Karen, how long had you been working with her up to that point? Oh, maybe about, I think it must have been eight, eight months because if it was less than that, then she would not have been the one to review me.
Can I ask you... Yeah. So I think it was, I think it was eight months as a, uh, as her, her being my direct supervisor. But I had worked with her because she was one of the admins that got, uh, promoted to our manager.
And I was really excited about her being promoted because I thought that it was a, sending a message that you can work hard and that there is a career path for, uh, for admins to move up the, the corporate ladder. But then she, she was just a nightmare. She, she w- she... It was like she was a person who had always wanted to be a supervisor. And she- Oh. ... had in her mind these things that she was gonna, gonna do and it really didn't matter who it was. We started out with 47 admins, and in the first, I think, year and a half, we were down to 24 because they had either been, uh, let go by her or they left on their own.
I mean, that speaks loud and clear. Like, just like you said, some people are kind of waiting their whole lives to get into that position of power. Not to develop people and show them that they're capable of more, but, um, to, in all the wrong ways, uh, you know, uh- Exactly. ... limit them and keep them in their place. Did you... 'Cause listen, we all need income. We all need our jobs. Were you the sole breadwinner at that time when you had this conversation with her? Yes.
Were you not afraid of losing your job? I, I don't think I even thought of that. Uh, I mean, my, my way of working was always to pray first before I went into a meeting and ask God to give me the right words to say. And having put that message out to, to God,
I just thought it was gonna be okay. You, you never win by being silent, especially if you're being mis- mistreat- treated, all right? And so, and I'm not, you know, thinking about oh, I'm gonna sue, or, or anything like that. I just think that there's no way that you can continue to come to work and you're un- unhappy. I mean, they have all those, uh, sayings about bring your whole self to work and do this and do that. But sometimes they're just, you know, good billboard messages, but they're not really embraced on the job. And sometimes you just can't... Like, I don't wanna be a person who lives in, in fear all the time, that, that every day that I'm just, uh,
"Oh, and I can't say anything because I'm gonna, I'm gonna lose my job." Uh, one of my good friends, she always has a saying that, uh, "Before I knew you, I never knew you." So that means that, hey, you know, okay- ... you have one job, you can, you can always get another one. And not s- And
I'm not being cocky or arrogant or anything, but when you know that you have something to offer, then it's, it's like maybe this relationship, if it's over, it's, it's over. You, you know what I'm saying? I mean, it even makes me think about when, um, when my manager, John, when he promoted me, you know, to start, uh, working on the, uh, with the other admins.... it came time for my review and he was reviewing everybody and he kept changing my appointment on his calendar. And finally I just said, "John, what's up? When am I else
gonna get my review?" And I've always been excited about review time. It's, it's time to, to shine, it's time to make plans for other things. And he said, "Karen, I keep moving it because I don't have anything, uh, to, to say." "So what do you mean you don't have anything to say?" He said, "I don't have anything about the sandwich type, type of thing." He said, "I don't have any, uh, anything to write down for your improvement," because at that time you could only get promoted based on who you reported to. So I was already at the top with, with him, because he had just become supervisor. And so then he said, "Just give me a few more days. I promise I'll get it done." And then when a few more days came, um, his manager called, called me in and we had the review together, the three of us. And he said, "What we've decided is that we can't have you continue to work here and not get any promotions or any increase or anything. So what we've decided is that we've created a new position for you, and that's what you're gonna do." And he explained it to me and everything. And then I said, "Oh. Okay.
Can I think about it?" So he said, "Sure, you can think about it, but when you come in tomorrow, you'll be sitting in your new position."
That's what you're supposed to say, "Can I think about it?" He said, "But no, it's do- it's done." I love that story so much, especially on the heels of the one that came before it. My God, isn't that just life, right? It's full of things you never in your wildest imagination anticipated, and then, and, and then, you know, uh, I just, I love it. It's gotta be full of both the good and the bad, doesn't it, right? So you really appreciate- Exactly. ... these moments on the heels of the knucklehead moment- Right. ... telling you with Bree. And you can draw on those things. And
I think that that's what happened. John was back in the '80s. And we're talking about, you know, 20, 2019, because that was right on the heels of me meeting you for the, uh, Admin Awards, right? Remember, that company didn't even support me in being part of the Admin Awards. Yeah, I know. You know? I know. So when you're able to draw upon successes that you've, that you've had, then that's the catalyst that tells you, hey, if you done it once, you can do it, you can do it again, right? And that that is not the end all. That person is not in control of your life. It's a moment in time, okay? And that we can all grow. You could even say that you've grown out of that position when these things just keep coming at you, then maybe it's time for you to, you to go. And I think that that's what happens, that sometimes we stay too long at the party. If the party's no more fun, if they've run out of food, there's no more drinks and everything, then why are you still at the party hoping that the party's gonna get better?
Right? I love that analogy. Uh, I love it. God, it's so true though. The sense of- But we're hard-headed.
We're hard-headed. And so that's why when that job, when they took their job back, I was, I was fine.
It was, it was a peace that came over me that I had never experienced before.
And again, I had asked for the right words to say, so when they said that, "Today is your last day," which I knew because the, uh, HR manager was in Chicago from New York, okay? That's the only time she comes in is to let somebody go. So when the, uh, message popped up on my calendar, told the guy behind me and I said, "Today is gonna be my last day." And I gave him some of my electronic equipment and said, "Hey, you want these headphones?"
Oh my God. I mean, and you're the sole bread winner. Like, you're... And that str- the sense of self that you have, and it seems like you've got this deep-seated belief that everything is always gonna be okay. Does that come from your faith?
Comes from your faith, from my faith, but also you just have to think about your, your life, your history.
There have been lots of things that you have gone through at any point in time. And the thing about it is, is that you went through it. It wasn't the end all. So if you survived before, then you're gonna survive again, all right? God never said that life was gonna be, gonna be easy. But it won't be successful for you if you give in to the pain and the, and the misery. So what, what good would
I do, be for my family... I mean, my children were grown at that point. They were all out of the h- out of the house. But in other, uh, moments in time, what good are you gonna be? I always pray for a strong mind. If you can't get it together and, and bounce back, you gotta have that bounce back ability.
So when they said that they were taking their job back, that this was gonna be my last day, said,
"Oh, great!" Right? "Is there some paperwork we have to sign or something?" And the room was silent. There were four managers there, three managers and the HR manager, and they, like, looked at each other. Nobody knew what to say. And I'm waiting, like, "Where's the paperwork?" You know, "Hey, I'm out of here." Right? "I don't have to listen to these lies. I don't have to watch this person steal from the company." Uh, you know, and with so much going on. And so I was just excited. I was excited. I wrote my own exit letter to
H- to the IT department that I always did for everybody else. I went and turned in my laptop and everything. Uh, I was good. I was good. Uh, the chat is blowing up. I don't know if you can see it, but people are really loving you and your spirit and exactly what, what Theresa said, a really good story for the times we're in. Um,
I do wanna now shift gears, because what you did after you left UEG was you went out on your own-Before we talk about that leap, 'cause I think people are going to be fascinated by it, and I think we've got some, um, fractional EAs on the call. Um, y- you talked about things you didn't know about yourself throughout your career because you were in these environments where you weren't being developed, people weren't paying attention to your gifts and skills. You didn't have opportunities to, at times, stretch beyond traditional admin, uh, type work. Talk about what those gifts that you uncovered as you did go out onto your own as an entrepreneur starting VA for You.
One of the biggest things that I used to always feel in being in corporate was that I was not developing, learning anything new.
I would, I would learn how to work the system, work the software, do the program to get the job done, but I was so entrenched o- in the day-to-day that there really was no self-development. Now, they have it built in, in most corporations, that you're supposed to get X number of hours of training a year, but a lot of times, I would sign up for my classes and then they would come and pull me out of the class and say, "We have an emergency. We need this, we need, we need that," so you weren't able to fulfill your obligation. Well, what we found out in being on my own was how confused I was about what being creative was. I had, um, kind of set my mind to think that I was not a creative person and that creative person, people were those that drew or- Art. ... that maybe they were, you know, the art, painting or, uh, develop things, you know, or something.
But I didn't know that you're creative when you are solving problems, when you're creating solutions. Uh, you're, you're creating when you're creating a spreadsheet that allows you to track, track things, when you come up with best practices and develop systems and everything, that's being creative. But when I was working in corporate, I was so bogged down with pleasing everybody, making sure everybody had what they need, what, uh, Dan used to call me the babysitter because I would look at your calendar and I'd see you had meetings back to back and I'm like, adult
"Oh, he's gonna need some food." So I would say, "Hey, pick something." Y- y- you, you know, see what I'm saying? But when you're working for yourself, then you want to create best practices, systems that work for you and your clients, all right? And then that was when I really, really realized what a, a creative person I was in solving problems, in, in fixing things. I never knew that I was creative.
What a- I never knew- I mean- ... I was creative. ... what a miss for all these companies that you worked for, right? A- like, and you were clearly effective in your service to your execs and your organizations, but how much did they leave on the table with you by not taking the time to reveal, for you and for themselves, the gifts that you had that coulda brought their leadership, their mission to even higher levels? And that's what drives me nuts about the lack of development. They're sitting on- But that's- ... gold that they don't even know they have.
What's interesting is sometimes you still have friends at companies that you've left and they're like,
"Girl, they had hired two people for your desk," or, "They had to do this." I mean, I, and I've had other admins say, "Girl, they gonna miss you 'cause I'm not gonna do what they, what you do." Y- you know? But when you have certain, uh, skills and abilities, what's, what's easy for you might look difficult for somebody else, but it's just the fact that you've been doing it for so long that it, you know, it just becomes a routine whereas somebody else might have to learn how to do it and make it their own, all right? And that's the, and I think that's a skill that I have in learning how to make things my, my own. And I'm telling you, that ask, sometimes I call customer service for different, uh, vendors that I work for and they're like, "Hey y'all, it's Karen," you know, because they know that I'm going to call. I've been on a first name basis, you know, with a, with a lot of people, right, you know, because I wanna know not only how to do it, but I wanna know the behind the scenes. What happens after I do this?
How long does it, does it take, you know, for it to really flush out and, uh, and become complete?
Can you talk a bit about what it was like to spend your whole life working for other people, to making that leap, working for yourself, the financial pressure, the, oh my gosh, how do you r- start a business?
How do you run it? How do you get it off the ground? C- could we get a peek into what that entrepreneurial journey has been like for you? 'Cause I think a lot of folks are thinking that could be their n- what's next as well. Well, first of all, it's not as scary as you think, all right? A lot of things, the ideas and thoughts that we have in our head are not the truth, all right? So you have to lean into knowing that what you think is not what you know, all right?
What you know is what you're actually doing, okay? Because in our mind, we can think anything, we can make it be whatever we think it should be. We can hear the voices from other people's experience. Okay, well just 'cause that happened to you doesn't mean that's gonna happen to me. And what was so unique about my journey is that they took their job back, all right? They knew that they were wrong because they gave me my insurance for a little while longer, they gave me unemployment, and then, bam, COVID hit. Okay? So then, I had financial support from, from that, all right? And then trying to figure out what I was going to do, okay? I was
63, 62 or 63 at the time.
So I was too young to, uh, to, to stop.... working, but yet I was feeling like, "Okay, but how do I start over?"
Don't... I've been working since six days after I turned 18, okay? All right. So I said, "Well, I gotta figure out what I'm gonna do," so I decided I was gonna, um, reach out to some organizations and maybe they had job boards or insights or something. Well, when I reached out to this one organization, the
League of Black Women, uh, on LinkedIn, and I gave her my number, when she put my number in her phone, my number was already in her phone. And she wanted to know, "Well, why is your number already in my phone?" She didn't remember that I had called her in for, uh, for an event and she was a speaker, speaker and then she had to cancel so she sent somebody else to replace her.
So she didn't remember me, but I remembered, I remembered her.
So I started volunteering with her, just helping her make phone calls and such, and then she said, "You know, you wanna make your next move your best move, and I think that this could be something that you can do." She said, "I never thought about a virtual assistant before, but that's the times that we're in." And so she happened to be meeting with somebody and said, "Well, have your assistant call me and I'll set this up."
And she says, "Well, I don't have an assistant." She said, "Well, you need an assistant." And then she referred me to her.
And it's just been referrals, it's been word of mouth, it's been where your gifts will make room for you.
My daughter and I say that all the time. Your gifts will make room for you. I sent a email to, to a, a la- uh, uh, a, a guest for a client that I was working for doing some temporary work and the guest called her and said, "Girl, who is this Karen that's sending me messages and calling me?" She said, "Ooh, your stuff ain't never looked as good before." And so she said
, she said,
"Girl, I got an assistant." She said, "You got an assistant?" She said, "Well, I need an assistant." And so then she hired me. So I was in Atlanta, I was in Detroit, I was in Chicago, I was in the suburbs and it was just, it was just unfolding. It was just unfolding. And you asked about the money?
My money was, was flowing, I guess because I'm not just waiting on the 1st and the 15th or the
15th and the end of the month. You know, I'm on their schedule, you know, like, well, I get paid on the 15th. Okay, the 15th work for me. Oh, well I'ma pay as I go. Uh, we're doing hourly.
You were just... You could just map it out however you wanted to because you were in control. You could try it. You could figure it out. You could work it out. That's how it, how it's been going. Uh, this is so inspiring. Um, so the Mary Kay piece, the niche that you discovered supporting Mary Kay directors, can you talk a little bit more about that for folks? And your background with Mary Kay, that you're passionate about it, you were selling it, right? Right, I'm selling it. I used the, I used the products. The advantage, the niche that, that I've developed with that is that if somebody has a, has a business, whatever your business is, marketing, sales, insurance or whatever, it's always gonna be an advantage of the person that's supporting you to know as much about the business as they possibly can. For, for example, if, if I'm... Now I'm, I'm in
Mary Kay so I'm have this access to the same website, to the same information that comes out, then you're coming down the learning curve of if you just hired, um, I'ma call it a Kelly girl because that was like the first, uh, you know, uh, opportunity to hire bad mans, okay? Uh, so instead of you having a Kelly girl that you gotta tell her, "Oh, okay, well you gotta look at the website every day, you gotta look for the sales, you gotta look for the different promotions and everything," she handled that for you, all right? And I have a C personality which means to get my information firsthand, okay? I don't wanna get the information for Sunny from Sunny and Sunny is just, uh, excited about the people when what I really need is the brass tacks, I need the detail, okay? Sunny might tell me, "Yeah, they got some new products coming out." "Okay, Sunny, what are the products?" "Well, I don't know. They're fall products." No, I need to know. How many lipsticks? How many... You know? And so if I can, um, develop that for you and take that off of your plate, then I'm a asset for you. Huge. Huge. I'm a asset for you because you might have your, uh, every Monday meeting, but I was up at, at 8:01 when the, when the n- the new products dropped. And so when you get out of your meeting then I've already got them listed out, I know what the prices are, I know there's limited edition, special edition or whatever, okay? So you find your niche and you, and you fill it. You find your person who doesn't like the, the details and you just tell, tell it for them. If you have a person that is into the details then you're still a asset to them because now they didn't have to explain it to you. That's it. Uh, and, and there's so much data that supports as scary as it might feel like to double down on a niche, it results in e- in every instance going farther faster than you ever could if you didn't have a niche. So
I, I love this. I know there are a lot of admins that have been in certain industries for years.
Man, if you're about to leave your company, either your choice or all the craziness going out, on out there, being able to say, you know, "I've been in healthcare for decades." Or, "I've been in oil and gas for decades," and really targeting executives that might be running small businesses that don't think they can afford a full time EA yet and going, "I'm your person in this sector, you don't need to teach it to me." I think what you've done is just brilliant. Um-
Thank you. ... hopefully we can talk about that for hours. I do want to get you, um, to maybe inspire anybody on this call that might feel...... undervalued, stuck, a little fearful to ask for things that they need, much less things that they want. What advice would you have for them? We got, you know, n- just a little over 10 minutes left.
My first advice is to do a self-assessment and really talk to yourself and say what it is that you know that you bring to the table, okay? Like for example, I had one manager where they were trying to get rid of the admins and he wanted me to document everything that
I was, that I was doing. Okay, so I did that the- the first year and then by, didn't they come around the next year and asked us the same thing? And I was like, "I'm not doing that. They're either gonna keep us or they're, or they're not." And he was like, "Come on, Karen. Just do it." I'm like, "Just change the date on the report," and gave it back to him. Right? Then when he asked me for the third time and I said, "Jerry, I'm telling you, I'm not doing that." I said, "So you have two options. You can either follow me around with the camera," "or- or film and- and figure out what it is I do or let me off for a week. Whatever don't get done, that's what I do, okay?" So that's- that's what you have to do. You have to put your foot down sometimes because sometimes people are, just don't really realize how ridiculous it- it is. You know? It's just, it's just stupid sometimes. So you just have to, you just have to say, "Hey." So once you really, really evaluate do you like what you're doing or is it time for a change, okay? Do you have a skill set that you haven't been, uh, utilizing but it's a, but it's a dream of yours? It's a, it's a passion, okay?
So you have to have that self-evaluation of yourself and then... What are you laughing at? And then you just decide, hey, I'm either gonna take this on the road or I'm just gonna stay- stay here, okay?
I didn't want to suffer in silence. Life is too short. Yeah. If you wanna be happy, I mean, they used to tell me at work, "You're too happy, okay? We- we don't need all that here." I'm like, "Well, last week you said bring your whole self to work.
So now you're telling me I can't bring my whole happiness t- to work." You know? So that was a pain point, but I was staying too long at the party. So God just said He was gonna pull the rug out from under me. They gonna take they job back, just like they gave it to me, they took it back. And then it was sink or swim and I just like, "Oh, I'm free. Free to do this.
I'm free to talk to this person." You have so many resources. You can just call a lot of the vendors that you're using and ask them, do they need some, do they need some help? And my little ad when I got started was, "Do you have any projects that you have been putting to- to the side that you don't have time to do? I can help you, all right? Do you want to hire somebody but you don't wanna have a full-time person on your payroll? I can help you. Can you not afford benefits? I can help you." Okay? So you're letting them know that there is a place for me and all they have to do is just open up their thinking because they're probably thinking that they wanna hire a full-time employee, okay? We've had consultants in this world for forever.
So be a consultant.
Right? Okay? Yeah. Be a consultant and you can help somebody. I have plenty of, uh, opportunities where it's just a- a one-off. They might have a- a convention that they're working on.
They might have some paperwork that they need type- typed up. They might need some organization. You can figure out so many different, uh, businesses that you can start based on your love of yourself, of the things that you like to do, of your skillsets, and most of all, your experience. Take your experience and repackage it and put a bow on it, make it real pretty, make it high energy and just go for it. And remember, no it doesn't mean anything to you. It just bounces off you like Teflon. No just means it's on. It's on. It means not now, it means it's on. Go for it. Just go for it. Don't be unhappy. Be powerful. Don't be pitiful and just go for it. Ah. I love that you've never taken in no as anything related to your own self-worth. It's always been just not yet and, "Oh, I just haven't got to yes yet," and it's becomes a challenge to you to get to yes. Have you always been like that? Just think about it. You heard no all growing up from your, from your parents and stuff. It doesn't mean that they don't love you, you know? Most of the time in a, in a job when they say no, sometimes they just say no before you even, if you think about it, before you even finish your ask, they're telling you no because it's based on that it, that's never happened before, nobody ever asked anything before. That's not what we do around here. You know? Maybe you're not talking to the right person.
That could, that could be the issue. Maybe they really can't make any decisions just because, uh, uh, I had a- a- a manager stay and he said, "She lets me sit in the corner office but really she's running the department." Okay? Yeah. Because, so maybe they don't even know what the answer is and they don't wanna say, "I don't know." So you gotta just start talking to people.
You can make it happen. You can make it happen. Oh, my gosh. Life is, life is just so good.
It's- it's- it's to be lived. It's exciting. It's not that it doesn't, you don't have hard times but when you have hard times or if I have a client that's not working out, then they wasn't the client for me.
And you just say, "Okay, thanks." You don't have to beg to work with anybody when you're working for yourself. You just say, "Okay, thanks." So that which is for you can never be taken from you. Is that, is that what you think? Is that your philosophy? If it's meant for you, it'll be?
... big world out here. It's a lot of people. We are limiting ourselves a lot of times by just doing the same thing over and over, okay. Uh, when you work for, as an admin, and our hours are just so crazy. You know, we're on call, we're booking flights, we're making changes. There's a lot of s- job security in being an admin because you're doing things that other people don't want to do or don't have the skill to do. But just think about how closed off you are a lot of times, just working, working, working.
You don't get to do a lot of things because by the time you get home, who wants to be on the phone? Call anybody? I don't want to talk to anybody. You can't stay out late 'cause you gotta get up early, you know.
N- now, I mean, like this was my birthday month. I mean, I had so many shenanigans going on this month and it's not over yet. It's gonna continue because I can make my own schedule. I will be out of the office, right?
Indeed, happy b- when was your birthday, Karen? 14th. 14th. Happy, happy birthday month. I love that your still celebrating
10 days later and you will be until November 1st I bet. Yeah, because it, well, actually to November 2nd.
It's, uh, so many hours in a day but you got so many people that you want to see, so many things that you want to do and it's just opportunities, opportunities, opportunities. And I'm glad you said that 'cause as you're talking, I'm thinking, "My god, she is such an abundance mindset compared to a scarcity mindset." It's like-
Been there, done that. Yeah. Been there, done that. Thinking that you, that you can't have, that, uh, early on
I used to think that, "Well, if they asked you to do it, then they mustn- feel that you can do it," all right. And so you try, you try to do everything that's been asked of you but then that's where you start losing yourself. Yeah, that's true. You know, that's why I like, I don't like the term boss. You're not the boss, boss of me. You are my director, you are my manager, okay? But you're not the boss of me. It's different, isn't it? It's, it's different and when you start thinking different, things come to you differently. Oh, I love that. They really do. I love what you said earlier about like the message was don't believe everything you think. That's so powerful. Yeah.
You know, they used to say, "Don't go, uh, get outta your mind. Don't go in there by yourself. It's a dangerous place to be." So that means that you need to talk, you need to share things. You know,
I grew up where you didn't share everything that you were thinking and, and feeling but then that's really not a good thing. You need to talk to other people in order to, to work out the details of what the experience really was and really can be.
I love- You need to talk to people. And it's not that you're dumping or complaining, you're just sharing as an opportunity to get clarity and to learn. To work through it. Yeah. And to learn. Get all the peer, yeah. And to learn. You can't be stuck in the, in the past. What worked in the past, man, just think about it. You know,
I mean, I grew up where they didn't even have remote controls. Like, you know, we were the remote control.
Our parents would tell us to get up and turn the TV. So what if I didn't, um, cycle through all the changes in life, you know, from a typewriter, which I loved my typewriter. But to typewriter to a mainframe, I mean, I was afraid to get rid of my main f- frame. When I f- got my desktop computer, I, I kept it for like six months until they like snatched it outta my office, me kicking and screaming. They're like, "No, Karen, you've got to trust it. You've got to trust it." And so everything gets better. It's just like, you know, you learn how to take care of the second child better than you did the first child. I want to say- Because now you have that experience. I want to say something. We're all, you know, a- admins on this call, right? I can't imagine if you are an admin or an exec eavesdropping on this call thinking that your age is anything but an asset in this profession.
Never been this age before so I don't know. I just do what, do what I do. It doesn't hold you back. You've never felt like, "Oh, I'm not gonna be able to get more clients or more business because of my age." Never occurred to you. It's never been your experience.
What
I, I, I, I would say, what does that have to do with anything?
If I go to, if I go to Macy's, I'm not worried about how, how, the age of the clerk at the, at the desk that's gonna help me figure out what dress I'm gonna get. What, I just don't, it doesn't compute at all. I love it. I love it.
Okay, will you do me a favor and I don't even think there's a lesson here. It was just the big giggle I had when you told me that story when you were on the phone with somebody and somebody was eavesdropping. I want to just end with a funny Friday giggle 'cause you've been so inspiring. You know what I'm talking about? No. You were asking somebody for help, the CEO of the company, to do something very mundane. Oh, okay. Okay. As a, as a, a admin, you know, you want to keep the department running and that, that includes, you know, the bathrooms, keeping the kitchen stocked and everything. All right, so I was calling the, uh, office services and I was talking to Jay. And I was letting Jay know that we needed paper towels or something in the bathroom.
So one of the young men next to me and he says,
"Karen, I, I just have to say something." And I said, "What?" And he said, um,
"That you keep things running and that you'll talk to anybody." And he says, "But I'm just, just floored by the fact that you would ask Jay, that you would tell Jay that there were paper towels needed in the bathroom." And
I'm like, "Well, why wouldn't I tell her?" And he said, "Her?" And I said, "Well, who are you talking about?" President of the company's name was Jay and Jay sat behind me and he thought that I was calling
Jay to tell him that we needed paper towels in the, in the bathroom. Like, no. I was calling Jaquissa. Yells her. But we-
I thought she would freaking do that. If something needed to be done, she would call the president of the company to tell him, "Go get those paper towels replenished." But I told Jay but then Jay said, "Well, you know, Karen, if I had access and if, and if you asked me to do it," even though this woman was doing something else and I would go and get the paper towels at the same time. It's like but I mean-
She would do exactly what you said, right? Oh my god, Karen, this was, I think this is the boost we all needed, um, today. I think even though it's taking us a little while to make this happen. Yeah, yeah. Thank you for inspiring us all and I think we're gonna need to get you back because I know I need more Karen
Brown and I think more people need more Karen Brown. So thank you for just inspiring us, for your openness, for making us giggle. You have such a gift at storytelling. I know you're creative.
You also need to be a keynote speaker, let me tell ya. Oh. Um, because you are just- Thank you, thank you. ... inspiring people in such a unique way. So thank you. We love you. Thank you for being such a great- I love you. ... example of what it means to be an admin in the work place.
Thank you so much. I really appreciate you having me. Oh my god. All right, all right, everybody. Happy Friday, happy weekend. Happy Friday. Happy birthday month, Karen, and we can't wait- Thank you. ... to see you all on our next session. Thanks everyone. Thank you everyone.