Your Ultimate Business Partnership | Monique Helstorm

Episode Topics:

• Discover why most executives fail to maximize their EA relationships and how to fix it.
• Learn from Simon Sinek’s former right-hand woman about building a high-performance partnership.
• Understand how AI can enhance (not replace) the executive-assistant dynamic.
• Get practical advice on finding and developing your ideal executive support structure.
• Hear unfiltered insights about the mistakes both executives and EAs make that kill productivity.

 

Rick Jordan  

What’s shaking? Hey, I’m Rick Jordan. Today we’re going all in. It’s kind of cool, because I’m going to get to you. My team will send you all the raw assets when we’re done, too. It’s just a gift, because you don’t have to rebrand at anything. Content Creation, it can be a full time job. So here have some. You’re going to have some great things that you say, reuse them. You bet you.

 

Monique Helstorm  

Despise content creation. That’s why I hire. Despise

 

Rick Jordan  

I despise the process of it, but I like the activities of it. I like speaking on stages. I like talking to my coaching clients. I like building a public company, but then all of it after that. It’s like, if you can just capture me doing that all day long, I say a lot of good shit, like, every minute of the day.

 

Monique Helstorm  

And same thing to my CMO, my talking. Just going to just let me talk, and take all the things I’d say and make it beautiful and into social media posts.

 

Rick Jordan  

I like that. I like that a lot. Yep, so it’s kind of kind of cool here, because I’m looking at, you know, my team’s nice, and they come up with this nice little sheet for me, you know, and I looked at your website a couple of weeks ago too. So selfishly, I’m probably gonna start asking about, like an assistant, because you do assistant recruiting, is that, like a core part of your business? It is my business. Is your bit that is the business, okay.

 

Monique Helstorm  

 Specialized recruiter and coach. So I was in that relationship between an executive and their assistant. I do quite a lot of recruiting, and I do coaching on both sides. I help school be the best versions of themselves, and I help the executives know what to do with this beautiful piece of technology, executive assistant.

 

Rick Jordan  

A beautiful piece. You mean human tech, biotech, yeah, when technology, I like that. That’s kind of fun. That’s sort of like which, by the way, we’re recording, we’re talking, right? No, I know, yeah. But it’s, uh, it’s intriguing, because I think that might be some branding there for you biotech. And EA really is like biotech for you.

 

Monique Helstorm  

Humans. Yes, we always are scared robots are going to take over our job and it’s just never going to happen.

 

Rick Jordan  

Yeah, I’m with you. That’s a huge All right, so here’s a great question for you going into this now, I’ve got an event I’m speaking at this week in creative con, and I’m doing two sessions. One is about, it’s my main stage keynote, which is around using your personal brand to monetize everything else, right? And the other one is about monetizing AI, yeah. And it’s, I mean, AI is used everywhere. I mean, even within a cyber security company, obviously people like, Oh, that makes sense. And I’m like, No, I don’t think you get it. We’re not out there with, like, large language model modules like our models like going through how to talk to people, right? You know, we’re actually analyzing data with it, you know, to help more efficiently solve trouble tickets and reduce the time we spend on them by like 35% Yeah. But to your points, and I want to hear about this, like, specifically from the executive assistant side, because there’s a lot that, I even think that a lot of lawyers can be replaced eventually, you know, with AI seriously, yeah, and even my, my general counsel says the same thing, and he’s been, he’s been a litigator for 45 years, like a strategist, you know. So in my industry, it’s like, no, we’re trying to do this. We’re not trying to eliminate people. We want to grow, which this makes us more scalable, absolutely, you know. So from an executive assistant perspective, it’s like, where do you see are? Are are CEOs just not getting it that AI is meant to help do more? Are they thinking, Oh, I can replace my EA, or I don’t have to hire an EA because of AI? Yeah.

 

Monique Helstorm  

I mean, I think there’s fear on all sides, I think the executive assistants, or the assistant community themselves, are fearful that this new and weird technology is going to take over their jobs, which I personally do not believe that it will. This is about the most human type of job there possibly can be, and there’s certain aspects of an administrative staff or administrative partner. Sorry that. I’m sorry. Do we want to do that again?

 

Rick Jordan  

No, you’re fine. I mean, that that’s just a ding, ding, right? That’s like a dog barking in the background. Hey, Joe Rogan has his dog in on the show. So, I mean, I think we’re okay.

 

Monique Helstorm  

Rookie mistake.

 

Rick Jordan  

Welcome to humans.

 

Monique Helstorm  

So again, there’s fear on both sides that it was going to take over our job. And then from the executives point of view, you know, the executives that have assistants that only do calendar, only do travel, that they’re they’re not being utilized to their full extent, sure, you could maybe put a robot in there and get, get the same input that you’re putting in the output, sure, but at the end of the day, again, this is the most human position, that there’s forethought, and I have to understand you as a human being before I can anticipate your needs. And there’s just no robot that’s ever going to be able to do that. But again, it’ll help us. I’m doing an AI session next weekend. Matter of fact, for executive assistance completely, just to take off the stain, like, let’s move with it. Let’s learn about help our jobs. Let’s not run away from it. Because, yeah.

 

Rick Jordan  

Yep, there’s so many. Everyone thinks, AI too, and they think chat GPT, right? Which is a, you know, that’s the big one that’s known. I mean, I use it. Everybody use it. I also use Claude, and we use a couple other llms. Now you’re doing this class on AI for EAS, so many, like, two letter acronyms going on now that you got AI for EAS, yeah. So have you seen or played around with yet the new operator functionality with chat GPT? I have not. All right, so look into this before the thing, because this is intriguing. And I love this, because this is like in my niche too, right? It’s, uh, if you everybody listening, if you haven’t seen this yet, the operator is only available on the $200 a month plan from open AI. And the whole thing is just like you’re talking about Monique is, you know, a lot of VAs are being used just to, like, book travel and do all these things. The operator does that like you, give it access, and it can go out and find open restaurants in a specific cuisine, and it integrates and can log in as you to open table and make that reservation for you within a specific time window, or it can go out and scrape data off of lots of different sites and and do research for you if you give it specific parameters, like it is truly autonomous. I mean, that’s why they called it operator, you know, to go out and do a lot of those low level functions. And I’m saying it this way, because I’m actually complimenting EAS in this process, like the low level functions that CEOs will typically minimize their EA to doing, you know, rather than actually being like, like a right arm, truly a right arm. Yeah. So imagine that. I mean, I think from a CEOs perspective, like if I had somebody who was an EA that truly knew the power and fully utilized the power of AI, I would think they’re the best thing ever. Yeah,

 

Monique Helstorm  

I mean their jobs easier. I mean it also shows that they’re in growth mode, that they like to learn new things, that they’re not in their ways, that they have an open mindset. There’s, there’s a lot that goes on with it, not just the the raw AI uses for it. Yeah,

 

Rick Jordan  

I’ll be, I’ll be vulnerable here too. I don’t know how to fully and best use an EA although what I’ve learned so far over the last year, and going public in the last 15 months, is that there’s less and less of, like, the menial tasks that I should be doing. Yes, you know, and there’s so many of them. When I become aware of it’s like, there’s so many of these things. It’s like, well, I should have this only takes five minutes. But five minutes, but I should have somebody else do this, yeah, this only takes eight minutes, but I seriously should have somebody else do this, yeah, so I can stay focused on my lane and what’s right in front of me.

 

Monique Helstorm  

Well, I mean, this is, this is the big issue that we have on both sides. Executive assistants and assistants don’t necessarily know how to talk about our value and how to really because we don’t work in tangible you know, we don’t have a percentage or amount of money that we can make the company at the end of the month. It’s very hard to put our job into tangible, reportable statistics. However, the job that we do is completely essential, and I feel terrible for the executives, because y’all were never taught how to have an assistant. You know, it’s like, as a CEO just becomes really successful one day, and either they get a promotion at their job or they start their own gig, and they’re getting more and more and more successful. Somebody goes, here’s Linda, she’s your EA. And they’re like, What? What do I we’re

 

Rick Jordan  

just Monique.

 

Monique Helstorm  

There’s no understanding of there’s no concrete description of what an EA does, that they do different things for every Yeah, well, executive out there, so I feel for both sides. So that’s why I do the coaching. That’s why I sit with my executives before I recruit their clients and say, you know, tell me what your problem, your pain points, are, tell me what’s going on. Here’s how you delegate, here’s how you communicate. Here are some of the low hanging fruit that you can give off. Here’s how you give feedback to an EA. Here’s how you do performance reviews. You know, it’s an instruction manual that’s not hard to learn, but you’ve never been given the instruction manual.

 

Rick Jordan  

Yeah, I’m with you. Here’s a question then, right? Because this is coming from a very, very uh, ignorant CEO. I’m saying me, you know, when it when it comes to something like this, it’s so crazy though, right? Because I’m the CEO of a public company, and I’m, like, totally vulnerable and humble that way, right? I’m ignorant when it comes to fully being able to utilize an EA. I’ve had them. Have not had them right now, I have three people in what I call my executive office, but they function in different areas. I have a PA, a personal assistant. I have someone who kind of functions and does some things for me, but like it like an EA would do at least what I would think. EA would do. And then I also have somebody who just is, like, on projects, they kind of, like, dive into different areas of my company, because I know that I can just give them something, they can go figure it out, like, if there’s a problem in a specific area, but it’s more operations related totally. I had almost envisioned, like, maybe I’m wrong on this, because it’s the ignorance a true EA being almost like, I know Chief of Staff is used too, but almost like that executives, person, like, for, for everything, you know, to where it’s like, even like, they’ll arrange to have water for me before I go on stage. Whether they execute, I actually do the action or not, they’ll make sure that it’s there, yeah, you know, all the way to handling a complex draft of a legal document, to read through it first before they send it to me and mark up some things that I need to especially pay some attention.

 

Monique Helstorm  

when it works, when it’s successful, when this partnership is The best version of itself, the assistant and the executive have exactly the same goals. They are going in the exact same direction. They know exactly what is going to change the business, change the the environment. Do do what it is that it needs to do. They just have different skills to get there. You know, your skills are your skills, but you need someone to and when I worked with Simon, as you probably saw on my Yeah, on my website, when I worked with Simon, yes, that. I mean, we both had the same goal. He needed to get on stage and inspire hundreds of 1000s of people. I did everything that was in my power to get him there and make sure it was successful. You have the same goal. We were on the same team. You know, he shared his vulnerabilities in his life and his needs with me, and I did everything I can to fulfill all of it. So that’s what a true executive assistant can do. It’s not so way beyond calendar email. I mean, it is that, but it’s the foresight that goes along with it. What’s the good calendar thing that needs to get on your calendar? That’s something a robot will never be. Hey, you know what? You pushed me off six times now, and she knows Jim, and Jim knows Bob, so we should really be make sure that Mary gets the call. You’re never going to get that from Ai. It’s the foresight to take care of the human so that you can be the best version of yourself.

 

Rick Jordan  

I love that seriously, yeah. And I did read that you worked with Simon, and it’s like those high profile individuals. It’s really more high performance individuals. Yeah, you know that need to have somebody that really understands every single aspect of them. 

 

Monique Helstorm  

we were equally high performance. You know, he used to stay all the time. You know, it’s not, he never referred to me as his assistant. I was chief of Simon, you know, he, in fact, referred to me as his boss because, you know, I got him to where he needed to be. But it was, it was truly a partnership, and it was, that’s what it needs to be, community, open communication, open talking. You know, I always say to my executives are like, I don’t know what to give my assistant. I was like, you know the best person to ask that question, your assistant.

 

Rick Jordan  

your assistant.

 

Monique Helstorm  

bring them into your office and go, I don’t know what I’m doing. Here’s what’s keeping me up at night. And like, the person on the other side of the table with her pen and pad is going to come up with a 10 point plan to make your needs happen? Yeah? It’s a way that we think we’re in it, tinkering, where you can have the vision. So I think it’s essential on both sides. I’ve known parents that don’t have the, you know, architects without the builders. Yeah, no joke, just drawing pretty pictures, you know?

 

Rick Jordan  

Yep, that’s, that’s a great analogy. I love that. You know, as you’re talking, I’m starting to think of there, there’s some CEO, some executives that, have you seen ego get in the way, because you’re like, Hey, bring your assistant in. Like, dump on it. Like, if they’re saying, I don’t know how to do this. Can you just figure this out for me? It’s like, I do that with two people in my quote, unquote, executive office right now, it’s like, I don’t have the time for this. I really don’t know what the problem is or how to fix it. Can you just go figure it out?

 

Monique Helstorm  

Yeah, yeah. So the question was, does ego get in the way? Yeah,

 

Rick Jordan  

yeah. From from this, from the executive to the EA, yeah.

 

Monique Helstorm  

I would say more than half of the relationships that I’ve seen not work is because of the is solely because of the ego of the exact if they don’t understand that this is a partnership, that this takes two to 10, that you actually have to spend more than three minutes a month with your with your assistant in order for them to Understand your world. And then, you know, it’s like, if you’re not using this person correctly, what do you want me to what do you want to tell you? So I would say, ego is huge. They don’t want to be vulnerable. They don’t want to talk about their weaknesses, they don’t want to share confidential information just because you know you. If somebody takes something away from me, what does that make for me? You know, I’ve always done it this way. I’ve always done my calendar. I’ve always done myself. No, you always used to do a lot of things. Yeah, think about 20 years ago, you always used to do a lot of things. You still always do those things.

 

Rick Jordan  

That’s funny. No, I absolutely love, like, if it like, I I saw it. One of the best examples I ever saw was, uh, Gabriel Iglesias, the the comedian, right? And he was all excited about eating, eating, meeting Arnold Schwarzenegger, you know. And he was like, in this line, you know. And he saw, it’s like, not really an EA, but somewhat of a function, like somebody to keep him on schedule, you know, so as he’s meeting and greeting people, he’d have a handler, in essence, which I suppose would be a role that an EA would play, right?

 

Monique Helstorm  

Oh, yeah, that was, that was a big part of my role when I worked with Simon,

 

Rick Jordan  

I bet, yeah. I mean, this guy, controller, sure, yeah. But I would love that. It’s like, hey, you’ve got five minutes before this next meeting. You really need to wrap it up. Like, okay, because I go long. I just do, like, in the middle of meetings and everything, yeah, this handler would be like, Arnold, you’re like, Hey, nice to meet you. But then he’d like, same thing. But then the guy would, like, squeeze him on his shoulder twice, and then he would go to the next person, yeah, just to make sure he kept in line with it.

 

Monique Helstorm  

I love that piece of that. I mean, think about, think about what that’s doing. Think about the end result. And this is why I say a lot of what we do isn’t tangible. But think about the end result of that. You have someone now that’s going to keep you on time, whether they’re sitting outside your office, you know, giving you the old thing, whether they’re texting you, you’ve got to leave in three minutes. The car is sitting out front from you, the guy driving. But think about what that does. That means your clients are going to be happier with you because you’re responding to things and you’re showing up on time, and you know what’s happening in the meeting, and you you know you’re not late and you’re not you’re not giving excuses as to why you’re not there, why you’re late, or why you didn’t get back to someone that brings that’s business development, that’s client relations, that’s sales. You know, it might seem like it’s just details.

 

Rick Jordan  

But look so much more. 

 

Monique Helstorm  

What would it mean to you that if you were on time for every meeting for the rest of the year?

 

Rick Jordan  

It’d be incredible. You know, if, if there was the impression of me that I had from people that I communicated with that I was always on top of my communications. That would be incredible. Because, I mean, that’s reputation management. 

 

Monique Helstorm  

That’s another function management. Absolutely, yep. So yeah.

 

Rick Jordan  

That’s amazing. All right, I’ve got two questions here, right? They’re an inverse of each other. I’m sure you’re gonna see where this is going. The one thing that comes top of mind that you wish that CEOs knew about EAS. 

 

Monique Helstorm  

Okay, the one thing that I wish CEOs knew about EAS. How do I put this into one sentence? You know, it’s it’s a little bit like respect the skill set. I wish they understood how important this skill set is, for a visionary, for a CEO, for an entrepreneur, for an executive with ideas, having someone who can break apart the machine and make it work again again, having that builder, if you’re an architect and you don’t have a builder, you’re missing out on the product being built. So I wish more executives knew how important the builder is. 

 

Rick Jordan  

That’s solid and concrete. I love that. Now lighten it up a little. What’s one quirky thing you wish the EOS knew about EAS?

 

Monique Helstorm  

One quirky thing? Yeah, you know what, if you, if you need sort of a bodyguard, like, don’t mess with your EA, like, Hey, if you get someone who you treat like, like the the wonderful human they are, and they treat you like wonderful human being that they are. I mean, seriously, like, I would have jumped in front of a bullet for Simon, you know, because we just had such a great partnership. And you know, we’re, we’re the ones that can say, I’m really sorry. I have to cancel this meeting again. I’m so sorry. Well, you know, we can be that line of defense. And you know, we can, we can help you be mean, to be both. You need us to be.

 

Rick Jordan  

Like that, before we go into the inverse of these, you’re awesome. Before we go into the inverse of these, you know, I maybe that’s a tip for some EAS out there. Maybe they’re just not right for the role. Because I have, I’ve experienced this personally with a couple of EAs that I’ve had, and then I’ve also talked with a couple other executives that have gone through similar things. You know, maybe it’s just not the right person for the job, you know, wrong person, wrong seat, that could be. But I have seen some emotional attachment. Like, what you’re saying, like, it’s like, the person to cancel the meeting for the third time. It’s like, all of a sudden they take it upon themselves, which is ego as well. Like, as an EA to be like, Oh no, I’m gonna look bad. Yeah. How does some. And get over that. Or is that? Is that truly just like the wrong person for the wrong seat?

 

Monique Helstorm  

Are you talking about the EA not? Yeah, you give the bad news. Yep. I mean, that’s part of the job. If you truly don’t like doing it, you’re gonna have a really hard time in this role. It is. I mean, we’re constantly moving things around, moving schedules, moving people. New ideas come up, new priorities show up in executive gets a new idea. It’s not coming from us. You know, we’re sort of that middle, that middle man. It is tough. Yeah, it is really hard, especially when you know someone’s been waiting. You know what they need. You know that they’re worth it. And you know the executive just keeps telling you to blow them off. It’s, it’s painful. It is a painful seat to be in. Yeah, recognize that, too, executives out there. There you go.

 

Rick Jordan  

It’s, I’m sure, no doubt. Now the flip side, what is the one top of mind thing that you have that you wish EAS knew about CEOs,

 

Monique Helstorm  

I wish they knew that when they do something wrong, it’s probably not because they mean to it’s because of ignorance. Just like I said, I think I think assistance sometimes incorrectly, go into relationships thinking that their executives know what to do with them, that they’ve been given that instruction manual, that they’ve been told how to use this person, and nine times out of 10 they haven’t. So, you know, they sit in these positions and they go, Oh, it doesn’t talk to me, and it doesn’t communicate to me, and it doesn’t, he doesn’t. He doesn’t. It’s probably because he just doesn’t know, like we need to be the ones to go, Hey, these are, these are my magic tricks. These are things I can do and sort of take them away. So, yeah, I wish, I wish assistants knew that sometimes a lot of this is teaching, teaching and training. 

 

Rick Jordan  

Yeah, that’s brilliant. I mean, truly coming from this side of things, it’s like I’m still learning too how to best utilize team. And I’m sure I always will learn. I get better and better, but I will always will, all right, quirky thing this way. What’s one thing you wish EAS knew about CEOs? It’s kind of like, what?

 

Monique Helstorm  

Well, you know, they’re just that. They’re goofy human beings. You know that there, there is no more powerful person than another person. You know, I, I had, they’re still human. Meeting so many wonderful people when I worked with Simon, and everyone’s like, Oh, my God, Simon. He was, he’s truly, like, one of my favorite people in the world. He’s human person. And I think often times, especially big organizations, big corporations, or, you know, if they tend to be famous or or even if they just hold themselves in that commanding manner, that that they’re somehow above, that they don’t make mistakes, that, you know, that they’re, you know, they’re just goofy, weird humans. I think that’s rookie thing that I want to.

 

Rick Jordan  

I like that you’re humans, or that they don’t have a weird morning ritual. Would like to express those

 

Monique Helstorm  

No, we’re just messy, weird, smelly kids, you know, we’re all Sure, or just bumbling around this earth trying to figure it all out. Yep. 

 

Rick Jordan  

totally with you. That’s awesome. Monique, you’re incredible. Seriously, because it’s even through the ringer and a lot of things I’m telling you, anybody who’s listening that’s in this in either side. I think they should be coached by you. Thank you. Seriously, because it’s uh, yeah, it’s uh, it’s hard, you know, and I’m still trying to find the right person at the right time myself for something like this. I have filled every other role in my executive support office, but this,

 

Monique Helstorm  

yeah, and this is one of the reasons that I love this recruiting part of what I do so much is because this is a hard match. This is not like hiring any other person in your organization. This isn’t, you know, you you hire someone with someone for marketing, and you look at the resume and they’ve done great things. So you know, you can, sort of, for lack of a better word, plug and play them into your world. You can say, hey, marketing person, you do great stuff. Here’s our colors and our brand, our thing and our whatever. You know, the recruiting part of it for an assistant is very different because it is based more on values and personality and humanity than it is skill set. Because at the end of the day, you need to like this person enough that you want to call them and go, Hey, what’s on my calendar next? Yeah. So I do a lot of fit for personality, for strengths, for skills, for, again, values, habits and traits. So it is a really hard position to fill for. So I understand why it’s why it’s been so difficult for everyone you know, and you’re hiring your opposite so, yeah, an executive won’t tell me. He’s like, I need an assistant to hire my assistant, because I have no idea how to hire an assistant. Yeah, I love that.

 

Rick Jordan  

That’s awesome. Monique, you are a talented individual. I love where you’ve come from and where you’re going. Thank you. Appreciate your insights. I mean, some of this, some of my questions, were definitely a bit selfish. Yeah. Know, I

 

Monique Helstorm  

love it. I love it. And I love your insights. I was listening to some of your podcasts. I love the one on accountability, on accountability all the time, and you were, like, so forceful in that podcast. I loved it, you know, oh my gosh. Take responsibility seriously.

 

Rick Jordan  

Yes. Well, this is like, coming from a CEO in the context of our conversation too. It’s like, that’s it. It’s like, when you fuck up, you fuck up, you know, but it’s like, the only way to have it be done is to just say I did it. Here’s how I’m going to try to fix it. That’s owning up to it, that’s accountability.

 

Monique Helstorm  

right? Amen. And that fits in this position, you know, sure, on both sides, you know. Hey, you know the executive. You know what? I know how I’m doing in this relationship. I don’t know what we’re doing. Can we hit the reset button? Just be open. Just be vulnerable. But take responsibility for sure. I love it. I love that podcast.

 

Rick Jordan  

That’s awesome. Thank you. Thank you. We’ll put that in the show notes. Thanks for the plug for my own show. Yeah. This. Everybody needs to go to Monique health store is, oh, geez, I got two different spellings, hell strum. Hell strum, yeah, I have your name. Okay, it’s hell strum, yes. Monique Hellstrom, yes, S, T, R, O, M, Monique hellstrom.com and at Monique J Hellstrom on Instagram. She’s incredible. She can just provide the person that’s going to support you. She can support the person that supports you. Love that. All right. Thank you, Monique.

 

Monique Helstorm  

Thank you so much.