I had such a great conversation with Gina Cotner, founder and CEO of Athena Executive Services, and I have a feeling this one is going to hit home for a lot of you.

If you have ever told yourself, it is just easier to do it myself, you are in good company. I have said that more times than I can count. But Gina made me see that the resistance we feel around delegation is not really about the task. It is about trust, and trust is built through relationship.

Gina started Athena Executive Services 10 years ago after a somewhat unexpected path that led her from being an executive assistant herself to building a firm that now pairs high-caliber, US-based virtual executive assistants with busy entrepreneurs and executives across the country. She now runs the whole operation in about 10 hours a week, and she is living proof that when you delegate well and lead with genuine care for the people around you, you get your life back.

What I loved most about this conversation was how Gina connected the dots between delegation and accountability. Most of us think of those as two separate challenges. Gina sees them as deeply linked, and the thread running through both is the quality of the relationship.

Key Takeaways

• Better done than perfect. The 80 percent rule is your friend. If someone can get a task 80 percent done while you focus on something else, that is a win worth taking.
• When you delegate, make it theirs. Gina's approach is to hand over the outcome, not the steps. Tell someone where you want to end up and then ask, what do you need from me? That simple shift puts the thinking where it belongs.
• Relationship is what makes accountability possible. The richer your background of connection with someone, the easier it is to hold them to their commitments without it feeling like an attack. Gina puts it simply: you are addressing their actions, not them as a person.
• Ask what, not anything. The word what opens a conversation. The word anything shuts it down. Swapping one for the other changes the quality of every check-in you have with your team.
• Start somewhere, even small. You do not need a full executive assistant to begin delegating. Make a list of the rote tasks you do every week and find one thing to hand off. Even one hour of relief matters.

You can find Gina at: athenaexecutiveservices.com or on LinkedIn at: www.linkedin.com/in/athenaea

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A LinkedIn Checklist for setting up your fully optimized Profile:

An opportunity to test drive the Follow Up system I recommend by checking this presentation page - you won’t regret it.

AND … Don’t forget to connect with me on LinkedIn and be eligible for my complimentary LinkedIn profile audit – I do one each month for a lucky listener!

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Hello, everyone, and welcome back to

Relationships Rule. If you've ever said to yourself, it's just

easier to do it myself, then this episode is going to

resonate with you. Because today I'm sitting down with Gina

Cotner, founder and CEO of Athena Executive Services, a

firm that pairs high-caliber US-based virtual executive

assistants with busy entrepreneurs and executives.

Gina has built a thriving company that she now runs in

about 10 hours a week. That's magic, and she's here to talk

about something most of us skip right over when it comes to

delegation. It's not just about handing over tasks, it's about

building the kind of trust and connection that makes your whole

team want to show up and deliver. This is a conversation

about relationships, accountability, and what it

really takes to lead well. So, welcome, welcome, welcome. Thank

you. Thanks for having me. My pleasure. I know, Gina, you

founded Athena Executive Services, 10 years ago, and now

you run it in about 10 hours a week, because as we were talking

before we went on air, you're too busy playing pickleball and

golf, so why not, right? That's right, someone else do it. I

love it. So, what made you realize that delegation was not

just helpful but essential

boy, you know, when I wasn't looking to be a founder

of this business, I simply was an executive assistant for a

CEO, and that's where this all started, and you know, one thing

led to another, as often happens, and somebody said,

'Hey, just find me somebody else like you, right? Then there were

two of us, and then there were three of us, and then I found

other clients that needed this kind of service, and it grew,

and it grew, and it grew. But if people didn't delegate, we

didn't have a business, right? People are unwilling to

delegate, or they don't delegate enough, or they're stingy in

their delegation, it's very hard for us to be great, you know, to

provide great executive assistant services. So that was

kind of the heartbeat of it in the beginning, and then I

started becoming a bit of an expert on delegation, and then

more recently just very fascinated by the whole world of

accountability, which is a lot spicier. Let's just say,

okay, so we'll get into that. I think, so I

know for me, and I had - I did say this to you when we first

spoke - I have a really hard time. I'm that person. It's just

easier to do it myself, because I'm not sure they can do it as

well as I can, or there's a lack of communication, you know, with

trying to explain stuff. It takes so long, whatever. I just

have never quite made that leap, really. Okay, so, and I think

there's a lot of people like me that tell themselves, well,

maybe when I slow down a little bit, I can write down the

processes and maybe I'll delegate it to someone, or I

gotta find that perfect person, but what's really going on for

me and those people underneath that resistance. I'm sure you

know

well. I don't know. I'll give you my theory. It's

definitely my theories. I, you know, I don't know who, where

this particular phrase came from, but one phrase that I

finally started adopting was better done than perfect.

Yes, yes,

and I got once I started venturing out into

delegating within my own business and experimenting, and

I was where you guys are too, in the beginning, like I don't know

if I can turn over invoicing, what if there's a mistake, and

now we have an upset client, and then I just, you know, but there

is.. I would have this thought, like, okay, but what if what if

this person even did it 80% great, or they even got it 80%

done while I was doing something else. Now, at the time, it

wasn't pickleball and golf, right? It was working on

weakness, right? Even that was very exciting. So, and I ran

this business for a couple years before I had my own EA, my own

executive

assistant.

I got my own executive assistant. I was like,

whoa, this really is a game changer. Holy cow. But I think

what I started getting excited about was, okay, right now I'm

talking to Janice, but my executive assistant is doing

something else at the same moment, so I feel like there's

two of me.

Yes,

so I started

doing he or she is doing something that you

don't like to do, probably.

There's that, that's a whole other element.

Okay, called, oh, the

things

you're not good at the things you resist, the

things you keep kicking the can down the road. Going, I'll get

to that, I'll get to that.

Yeah,

that is also very thrilling to be like, so my EA's

name is Corinne, so I may use her name and not be like, well,

let's have Corinne do that. And then sometimes people say to me,

oh, I don't even want to delegate that thing, because

that thing's so. Awful, like, who would even want to do that,

but lo and behold, you'd be amazed. Like, executive

assistants are like, 'Give me that, give me that, give me

that. So, yeah, definitely the things you're not good at, but

even the things you're great at, but you hate doing.

Yes, if

you don't have to do that, how much more energy

you have at the end of the day.

Okay, so it's not on my notes here, but it makes

me, makes me think of those who are, you know, born to know how

to do these things. Those who say, "Give me this, I'll, I'll

handle it. I know exactly what to do. Are those people? Because

I think we talked about this too, that I think I believe that

people have innate gifts, and there is a gift. There is a gift

that is that service to be of service that they can actually

do it better or do it smarter, or they're going to say, you

know, hand it back to you, and you say, I never even thought to

do it that way, that's amazing. So they take initiative, that's

a better, that's a skill that I don't see very often in, in

support.

Yeah, yeah, and you want to, you know, anybody who's

listening to this, who's shopping for support, you want

to vet that, you want to shop for that, and I would say, even

the next level, you know, I want critical thinkers, I want to be

surrounded by people who will take initiative, and I want

people to think I need more thinking power, right, or

collaborate with AI, or write all the different ways of doing

critical thinking and taking initiative. Yes, absolutely. You

want to vet and screen for that, you know? I mean, that's what we

do, right? So, as an agency, that's a big thing we're looking

for before we bring somebody on our team as an executive

assistant before we hand them over to somebody, is what is

your ability to be shoulder to shoulder with a leader or an

executive? Because that takes a certain amount of confidence.

Yes,

and like chutzpah to say, Janice, if you ask me to

move that appointment one more time, we're going to have to

talk. Let's just tell the truth, you actually don't want that

appointment. You're actually not going to Pilates, or you're

actually not going to call the Johnsons, or right, that's a

little different than like overseas, quote unquote VA

support, what I would call. So, when you have a, when you have a

real executive assistant, I don't know, for me Corinne is

like, I don't know, sometimes she's like my boss, sometimes

she's like my mom, sometimes she's, you know, sometimes she's

just that other voice that goes, Gina,

three options,

yeah,

she knows that I'll be like, well, let's go with the

cheaper one, but she knows to be like, Gina, come on, buy that

one, you're going to be happier, yes, Corine, that's right,

yeah, okay, that, yeah, and those people are hard

to come by, I believe, but maybe you don't think so, because

you've found so many,

exactly, I mean, we, I mean, we have a whole

process, obviously, of vetting and screening them, and frankly,

with a lot of the layoffs and all the tech layoffs, the amount

of high-caliber applicants is insane, and the amount of people

who want to work from home, right? They want to really

partner with a great executive, a great leader, be at home, pick

up the kids after school, and they're very, very smart, and so

they, they are out there, but it's a matter of, you know,

expect looking for that, if you look for that, we'll find them,

but when you say that, are these people that

you're talking about, are they people that have to take a step

down to do that job because they've lost their job? Are they

people that you wouldn't normally find in that work, you

know, group?

No, I wouldn't say so. I mean, just, it's a great

question, though, because a lot of people are like, ah, I can't

have this great job, I'll just go be somebody's executive

assistant,

yeah,

on our firm, I mean, I will just say these are

this is what these people love to do and what they're good at,

so that's another great thing to, you know, if people are out

there shopping for somebody, is to look and see what to your

point, is this somebody's temporary job because they

really want to become a marketing director, but they

think this is their foot in the door, or is this person actually

loves to be an executive assistant and they're really

good at

it? I think I mentioned to you, and some of my

listeners are local people that live here and would know this,

this gentleman, Jimmy Patterson, he's like one of the, you know,

he's won the Order of Canada, he's been a businessman for, you

know, 70 years in this country, and done, you know, lots of

different things, actually, he just got some ink, his company

just got some ink, he's like 90 something now, and I don't think

he does. A lot of day to day, but he's still pretty active,

but and he was just got some ink in the US recently, because

somebody, they were talking about one of his facilities

being bought for an ice detention center, but they

stopped that as soon as that happened, but yeah, it was kind

of funny, anyway, not funny, but you know what I mean, but

anyway, he's he had the same executive assistant his entire

career, Maureen, her name was, and is, I don't know if she's

still alive either, but, but because that was her calling,

that was her calling, and when you get a good one, you right,

okay, so you recently you made a shift from talking purely about

delegation to talking about accountability. Can you talk,

can you speak to that? What prompted that, and why does it

matter so much?

Yeah, I used to talk a lot about delegation, and

I'd even go and look and see what all's out there. So,

there's a million books and a million podcasts about how do

you delegate effectively. Here are the five steps, here are the

10 steps, here are the seven steps, whatever, and I just

looked at, like, okay, what had me as a human, and some of the

other high-performing humans that run my company, what had us

be some people committed to high performance and excellence, and

particularly like when nobody's watching, you know, we've always

been people that have always worked from home. We've never

been down the hallway for years and years and years from

somebody watching us, and I realized it's because of the

different places we had been in our past where we had been held

to account and for high performance. Now I have been in

places in my life where I was held to account for high

performance, and I did not like it. They did not enjoy it. It

was not nice. Now it worked, but I'm not a fan of that. I'm like,

well, I think we can have high-performance people being

held to account, which even the phrase sounds sort of gnarly.

That's like kind of a gnarly, mean, sort of sounding phrase,

but we can expect people to do what they said they do, and we

don't have to be jerks about it. We can actually have both, you

know, because a lot of people are like, well, I'm either going

to be really nice with people or I got to get kind of tough with

people, and I got to really hold them to account, like somebody

said to me once, like, "Oh, you're a toughy, and I'm like,

"See, that's the thing, we give up holding people to account

because we think, oh, now we're going to be tough, they're going

to go home to their spouse and say Janice threw me under the

bus today, or I got called out in the meeting today. I don't

know that you call, got called out, somebody asked you why the

thing didn't get done, that was supposed to be done on time.

This isn't like a personal attack, a personal affront. So I

just kind of realized, boy, let's start delving into that,

because it's just a little more interesting. None of us really

liked, I don't think, love being held to account, and I don't

know many people who love doing the holding to account,

right?

So I just started kind of breaking down, well, how

could people do that in a way that's just simple, like why

can't it just be talking about the weather, like what's the

weather like where you are. Here's what the weather's like

where I am. Hey, that thing was due yesterday, is it

done? Yeah, why

does it have such weighty significance? So then I

started breaking that down, and we started talking about that.

Yeah, so and so, and there's so much I think

behind that for people too, it's like you know they're in a role

that they're too, they're too high up the pole, they can't

handle it, and so they take it out on somebody else, the person

below them, or they look for excuses, or they, they're

uncomfortable, you know, and it's never really just the

thing, there's always, and I would imagine, I don't know this

for sure, but I know that you were involved for many years

with the company called Landmark, and I never took the

Landmark training, but I've taken similar personal

development things, and I've been around a lot of people who

have taken Landmark training, and I know that, especially when

you've been there as you were for many years and involved in

the course, were you involved in the course development stuff? I

just

kinds of stuff,

you did a lot of different things, I know that's

right, but there's a whole level of understanding people, and so

forth that you have that a lot of people don't have, and I

think that that probably gave you a real heads up when you're

building your company as well.

Yeah, I would absolutely agree, and the woman

who really runs the day-to-day operations in my company, her

name. Dorian, she's been with me pretty much since day one. She

had a similar background, and she's an incredible people

developer. She's the director of people, and a lot of it is

because of what you've said, you know. We got our own, I don't

know, we got our own MBA, so to say, in the design of humans.

Like, how, how are humans wired, and why are we so, you know, why

is that, you know, being held to account such an affront, and

talking about the weather isn't, I mean, you know, like why are

certain things so meaningful? So, yes, we had a deep

background in personal development, which completely

helped, I mean, was a major factor, I think, in what got us

off the ground.

Yeah, it has to be. I mean, I think so. When I'm

doing training with my clients on LinkedIn, for example, this

happened to me this morning. Actually, an example of this. So

it's not as complicated as hiring somebody. It's like,

okay, you got to meet new people, and you're going to do

it through LinkedIn. And so, how are you going to do it? You

know, there's different strategies that you can use, but

they all actually come down to you want people to, you want to

meet new people, or you want to re-engage with people you

already know, and you want to find out what's going on in

their life. You want to have a conversation, you want to bring

it to the present, you want to see if you can be of service,

all of these things that are all about getting, getting you more

business or moving you into their, their connection base,

and seeing if you can get introduced to someone that

might, you know, all of that stuff, but it all comes down to

conversation and knowing how to talk to people, and knowing what

kind of questions to ask, and I'm just.. I'm actually floored

with how often people don't know how to do that. They don't know

how to have a proper conversation, and this girl

today was showing me a conversation in, in messaging,

and it started off okay, and then I could tell that this

person wasn't answering the question, she wasn't, she wasn't

getting hooked into what this person wanted her to, and then

she kind of gave up at the end because she said something like,

okay, well, have a great day, but she didn't ask her, she, she

ended it without realizing she was ending it, because she

didn't ask another question. You have to be curious, you have to

keep things moving, but not so much for you, but to draw them

in, and to build some trust, which is what I think you were

talking, what you were talking about too, or we should talk

about with the trust factor, so yeah, it's just.. it's

fascinating to me how people don't see the relevance of

communication being so key, so

yeah, and curiosity is such a key, and so that's

sometimes what slows me down, like Gina, slow your roll,

yeah,

get curious,

right? Because

it's, I mean, I think another way of saying some

of the things you were saying is like I'm always looking at,

okay, what's of interest and importance to this person,

because it's not me and it's not my business, and it's not what

my business is trying to sell, so what, but what is like, I

gotta get curious, what's of interest or importance to this,

but what are they dealing with? What are they, ha ha ha, you

know, and that requires asking questions, and I'm always trying

to lead from asking. I know one person in my life who can

literally have an entire conversation with me purely by

asking questions, and it, it takes so much discipline and

thought, like it's thoughtful, not thoughtful, like kind, but

it is a thinking thought-heavy conversation to actually have

yourself keep asking questions and keep generating your own

curiosity, because the brain is not really interested in that,

the brain's like it just wants simplicity, comfort,

familiarity, like, oh, we're not, this isn't going to go

anywhere. Okay, have a good day. Bye bye. It's not like, oh well,

let's just go, let's go be a little vulnerable, like the

brain has no interest in, like, let's be a little vulnerable,

let's go ask some questions, let's go be curious about

something we don't know

well, that brings me. Actually, I'm going to throw

this in the middle of the conversation, which I don't

normally do. But do you think curiosity is innate or learned?

I think, well, at this point in my life, it's

definitely learned. Now, I bet you I was not born that way. I

bet you I was born. I bet you we're all born curious, right? I

mean, you just think of like a toddler or an infant, you know,

what's this and what's this and what's this and what's this, and

everything is just fascinating, and don't make me leave and

don't make me go somewhere else, because and. Everything right

here is just fascinating, but then the older we get, and again

the brain is like just constantly wanting to keep us

safe, like we're so like, no, I've got it all figured out, I

know.

Well, yeah, and and there's no right or wrong

answer, because I hear it from, I hear that both sides, I hear

that's both, I hear it all, but when I like, when we got on on

this call today, I told you I was trying to come down from

this boot camp that I'm taking around AI, and, and most people,

some of my friends, I, you know, if I mention it to somebody,

they'll go, oh, I like that's too much. They don't want to

know, they're not curious enough, they've got enough in

their brains, they're past it, whatever. Just, you know, where

are we going for dinner? And you know, that's it. And I just,

that's not who I am. I'm curious about everything, so I can't

relate to that. I want them to, you know, to, I want to share

it, but not with them, because they're not interested. So I

find it just, it is very individual, and that whether you

still have, whether you have the gene, or whether it's learned,

or whatever, right. So anyway, okay, what does it have? Okay,

so how would you describe what would it actually look like with

a new? Okay, we've decided we're going to, I'm going to bring it

on an executive assistant, and I get you to help me find the

right mix, the right fit for me, because I guess that's what you,

what you're going to do, you're going to help me find the right

fit, so and we do. So, what's your advice to help build that

relatedness with that person to make it work like both ways?

Like, what's the advice that you tell your new client? You know,

we'll try working with this person, or let me know what you

think, or whatever. I don't know how you would do it, but

yeah, well, how we do it is we, we literally

determine this is your person.

Okay? Yeah, million questions been asked

before that.

Yes, we have vetted and screened this person, we

vetted and screened you. Yeah, and then we go and we make this

partnership, so. and this partnership, if we've done our

job, which we're like 95% great at, you will write off into the

sunset with this one human,

okay?

No, so what's.. you know, what's your role as the

executive or the leader or the boss, you know? Again, if you've

hired what I would call a high-caliber EA, you could,

would, should, in my book, be free to be however the heck you

want to be.

Now be you,

you know, like I literally just talked. We just

talked to, I just talked to a brand new client of ours. Now

it's partly because I'm a client of hers, she's a doctor, and I'm

like one of her, she's one of my doctors. Yeah, she just got a

brand new EA from our crew today this week, and I said to her, I

said, Jessica, I'm just going to tell you some unsolicited

advice. You should start throwing the house and the

kitchen sink at Nathan. I said, Nathan can handle it, just

start, just give way more than you think that guy can handle,

because then you're going to find out what he's capable of.

Okay,

so that's one approach. Now, that might just

make people crazy, but that is to the degree that you can. If

you think you're going to give somebody three things, give them

six.

Yeah, because then they're left, well, I'm

done now. What do I do? And you got to find things for them to

do, and that's not the right way to go.

Yeah, it could be that, but it also could be that

they can't actually do the six, but they do five. Yeah, and

you're like, oh, okay, or you've one big project, and you're

trying to just give them all the little steps. Don't give them

the little steps. I want to get, you know, I want to get from

Vancouver to Calgary, like, just give them the where we want to

get to. This is the end game, I think. One of the biggest things

I would say in effective delegation is then make sure

they know this project is now theirs, this is now yours. I now

work for you. You don't work for me now. I should be. I'm in the

business of ensuring you win. I am on your side. I'll get you

what you need, but I am in service of you winning now. A

lot of times you've delegated something they have never done

before, so I'll say to Cory, Cory, and I know you've never

done this before. How do I know I've never done this before? But

this is your baby now. I need you to drive me and tell me what

you need. So, step one for me is always this is yours. And then I

literally say, what do you need from me, or what question?

Questions, do you have for me the word what is so important,

because then somebody has to look in their head and go, well,

what questions do I have? Do I have access to the software? How

much is the budget? When do you need this thing done by? Blah

blah blah. Now you, as the boss, are in the position of just

answering questions, which is so much more lovely and frankly

relaxing than having to be the one that has thought through the

20 step process from how to get from here to Calgary.

If

I have to do that, I might as well do it myself. I

figure I'm paying you to think. So, Corine, this is this is the

project. Okay, what do you need from me? And then I just sit

back and I just answer questions, and I keep saying,

what else do you need? What other questions do you have?

What else? I just keep saying, what else, what else, what else,

until they go nothing else. I say, okay, great. Now that, why

do I harp on the word what? Because a lot of times people

will say things like, so anything else? Do you need

anything? The word any really shuts things down in a

conversation. Anything else about that?

You don't want to say there is something. Yeah,

no, I'm good.

Yeah, my

people always go, no, I'm good. Okay, so we'll

talk about that next Monday. Yeah, yeah. Now you haven't

caused anybody to do any thinking.

Yeah,

that's always my concern. Are you just yesing me,

or is there thinking having gone on over there? So those are a

couple of the keys I would say that I start with.

So I have a, I have a comment here, a question

here that we've sort of talked around, but let's take it from

this angle, too. A lot of people worry that being warm and caring

with their team, with their assistant, means that they can't

also be direct or hold a high standard. So you did talk about

this a little bit, but

yeah,

you want to, right? Yeah, I do. Well, one makes the

other possible. So, the more of a rich relationship I have, what

I would call a background of relationship that I have with

somebody, the longer that is, the more authentic that is, the

more real that is, gives me way more platform. platform or

bandwidth to hold them to account. Why? Because they know

what I'm dealing with is their performance, their actions. I'm

not poking at them, the human, them, the human I love, I care

about. Why? Because I've been demonstrating that for weeks or

months or years, so my staff cannot, with any integrity, go

back to their spouse and be like Gina, just really ram ram rash,

she was all of their husbands and wives and partners would be

like I doubt, I doubt that. No, I can be really straight and

really firm with people about their performance, about their

actions, about the things they did, not them. I always assert

the human is fine. We're just dealing with the steps, the

projects that takes me like I have a six year

old granddaughter, and it's like looking at children again and

saying, you know, like you're not a bad child, you did a bad

thing, or you did something that wasn't, you know, appropriate,

but that doesn't mean you're a bad person, that's when they

have to learn that back, but it's the same thing,

it totally is the same thing,

yeah, the other thing that comes up for me is

you keep saying this, and it's so funny, because again, back to

this course that I'm taking, you keep calling these people the

humans, and in this course I'm taking, she keeps saying the

person leading it is saying that the humans, she keeps referring

to the humans versus the AI employees that she's creating,

and she's showing us how to create. It's mind-blowing.

However, I want to know how that's fitting into your

industry right now too, so because it's everywhere, so we

have to, you know, it's not like the elephant in the room, it's

kind of out there overtly, so it's got to affect your

business, I would think. So, has it yet, or how is it affecting

your business?

Yeah, to be determined.

Still, yeah,

it, you know, when, when everybody started getting

calendar links,

yes,

you know, nobody, everybody stopped the back and

forth of the emails to schedule something, which their EAS used

to do.

Yes,

and then there was this similar question, like,

well, what will EAS do now?

Oh, yeah,

and the EAs were like, hallelujah, like,

yes, I'm not implying that it's going to do

them out of a job, but it's going to change what they do.

You, oh, for sure, yeah, but it's, it's having us

do that same thing, like, okay, what, what now do they do? Okay,

so now, obviously, you would expect any strong EA to be

utilizing AI, the quality of the work that I'm getting back now

from my EA, I'm like, oh, Mama, like, you, you are brilliant,

that's brilliant, and then you know, I know what she's working

with, so every now and then I'll be like, "Oh, give it this one

other tweak, let's just try this one other angle, like I'm now in

the game with her about it, so yes. Now, and then there will be

people who will, you know, they won't need us because they will,

you know, they will put together an AI employee, then there will

be people, less there are with every technological change, who

want nothing to do with it, and will be like no, who are still

wondering why they don't have a secretary down the hallway,

right, exactly

right,

and and then there'll be those EAs who glom onto it and those

who don't, so there'll be different audiences for them as

well, right?

Exactly, exactly.

Yeah, I was just thinking there was something.. I

can't remember who it was now. I'm going to have to go back and

look at it, because I remember interviewing this person a

couple of years, few years ago, and what she, she used to work

for this guy in California who put on these huge events at his

house, like huge, and she organized them all. I'm, I can't

even remember. Oh, I know, she, she was an EA person too. I have

to tell you later, I'll find it, because it was a good story, and

it was her that did it all, but yeah, it's just changed. It will

change the game as to what people do and how efficient it

can be, for you know, there'll be specific circumstances per

person, right? That's the kind of thing, so I Okay, this is an

interesting question. You work with executive assistants who

are, as we both have said, wired to serve. How does understanding

what someone is genuinely good at and energized by change the

whole dynamic of the working relationship?

Yeah, you you, you will discover their superpowers,

and it continues to kind of surprise me. A, their

superpowers might be like, wow, you did that very differently

than how I would do it. Sometimes it looks like that,

but sometimes it's just simply in the early days, you know.

Again, social media is so different now than it was even

five years ago, let alone 10 years ago.

Yeah,

and you know, I quickly learned that my EA loved

social media, and I hated it. And I, and back, and that was

back in the day, when you had to go find the art, you had to find

the pix, they had to be the right size pixels, and it needed

to be, you know, non-copyrighted art, and I would just be like,

you have got to be kidding me.

Yeah, she

freaking loved

it.

So, I, you know, it's so easy to give work to

people when they love it, when they're excited about

it,

you know, when they're not excited about it. I

just am simply empathetic. I'm like, and I always ask them, are

you willing? I would say, are you will. Here's, here's what's

wanted and needed. Are you willing to do this? Because I

want to know. I just did it today with somebody else on our

team. I said, I have this kind of odd project. Are you willing

to do this? Because I want them to own it, or say they're not

going to. It's not like I didn't survive without support staff

all my life, right? That's what I always tell people, like we,

we owners, founders, we, we, we were fine before everybody

around us. It's not like we can't figure out what to do, we

just would prefer you do

it, right. So, okay, so then it comes down to

the trust and the relationships that you have with your team

that they are able to say, yeah, I don't know if that's something

I want to take on,

yeah, yeah,

and if you, it's rare that anybody would say, you

know, they'll often say no if they're like I'm swamped,

yeah,

or I can get to it, but it's going to be three

weeks, or you know, that's not really my wheelhouse, but I'll

give it a try.

Yeah,

you know, you can hear it, and sometimes I'm like,

okay, that's good enough. And then other days I'm like, now

let me not know, I'll bring that back on my plate, I'll go find

somebody else to do that.

And the difference, too, is we're not

all in the same office anymore, right? You're all, yeah, so that

makes a difference too, right? Okay, for someone listening

right now who knows they need help, but keep putting it off.

What's the one thing that you would want them to walk away and

do differently, starting tomorrow?

Well, start delegating. Figure out something

to delegate to somebody, and you really can start by just making

a list, like what are the rote things. Things I do every week,

every week, or every time I do x, you know, for you it's like

every time you interview somebody on a podcast, these 20

things have to happen, you know,

that process. Yes,

exactly.

Yeah,

so just start writing down the things you do

every week, and then look to see where can I delegate that, you

know, do you want a full-on executive assistant? You might

not. You might not. You might want your niece to come over

every Friday and check off three things off your to-do list, but

great, that's three things you're not doing

right.

And maybe all that buys you is one hour, fine, but

that's one hour that you're free to do something else. So you

just start, even if you go to Upwork or Fiverr, or however,

figure out how to delegate, and certainly some people listening

probably need a little bit of training in saying no, that will

also help, right? So, when you're the person who's always

getting asked to do everything, you could say no, or you could

say yes, I'll help somebody do that. Right, another way of

unburdening yourself is to not burden yourself in the first

place.

Yeah, that's good advice. So, I think, are you in

the process of writing a book?

I'm not, and I should be.

No, there's no shoulds. No shoulds. People say

that to me too, and I didn't mean to put you on the spot.

No, it's

fine. I did put into AI. I gave them every blog

I've ever written, every newsletter I've ever written for

10 years, and said, "Give me the outline of my book. It was

pretty darn good. It was pretty good.

Yeah, it's amazing, right? And did you also

just out of curiosity, could you say, or would you ever say, I,

you know, I'd love to write in the same style as so and so, or

so and so, and then get it from that perspective, if you ever,

you know, sometimes, you know, it just, it's fascinating to see

how much it can do, but yeah, no, I've never wanted to write a

book. I've been in a couple of compilation books, but I'd

rather talk on a podcast, actually, than write,

yeah,

but yeah, there's no shoulds, Gina, no shoulds. So last couple

of just quick fires, and then we're going to wrap it up. Do

you put.. how do you like to get your information these days? Do

you read hardcover books still? Do you read on a Kindle? Do you

video do videos? Do you do audio books? What do you do?

You play golf.

I know.

Yeah, I know. I play golf. No, truthfully, I..

they're just.. this might just sound so old school, but there

just are some newsletters I really like, and I never get to

read them all. There's some people's Substacks that I like.

I, of course, I don't nearly get to read nearly as many as I

would like, but when I'm kind of just waking up in the morning,

that's.. I usually absorb a couple.

Yeah, that

couple good high-quality newsletters,

that's that's perfect. I love it, because

people are doing that a lot these days, since there's so

many of them out there, right? I asked you my curiosity question,

and what's what's the one thing that you see changing for you, I

don't know, in the next couple of years, less, but then 10

hours a week, or opening up

a

category of something, or

yeah, I tell you, every six months I have a

different answer to that question, you know what? What?

Where are we in two years? And part of me says, you know what,

it ain't broken. Let's not fix it, right? I think, oh, I've

gotta, because I've just been such an achiever for so many

years, that it's like, well, now what? And it's like, well, but

wait, this was my dream, like my dream came true.

Yeah, you're living by the ocean, you're

doing what you want to do, it's amazing,

exactly, and we're so quick to be like, well, so

now what, and I was like, well, maybe you should just like live

your dream for a little while,

yeah,

and then we'll, we'll see, I got another 50

years to go, so

there you go, yeah, to be

determined,

well, this has been amazing, thank you so much,

I loved talking with you, and it kind of reminds us, speaking to

my listeners and viewers now, it reminds us that the way we treat

the people around us at work, it's not separate from our

results, it's the reason for them. So, when we slow down long

enough to invest in real connection, delegation stops

feeling like a risk and starts feeling like relief, and I have

to internalize that a little bit more, but I get it. I think it's

the way I want to go. So, if you want to learn more about Gina

and the work that she does at Athena Executive Services, I

will put the links in the show notes below. Is there anything

specific that you would want Gina like to point? Them to or

on our website, you'll see something. If you

want to talk with somebody, chat with somebody for 1520 minutes

about your specific situation, you'll see buttons on the

website to get to that. And then, if you want to find me,

I'm really easily findable out on LinkedIn, and I respond to

everything.

Perfect. So, if this episode spoke to you, I

would love it if you would share it with someone in your world

who needs to hear it, and so until next time, remember it

really is all about relationships. Thank you again,

Gina.

Thank you.

Bye.