Your Influence Changes Everything

What you do matters.

We honor the everyday impact of executive assistants.

One Reminder of Your Impact.

This series reflects a truth you already live.
It may be invisible.
But it changes everything.

Stay Sharp - Stay Intentional - Stay Indispensable.

In The Wild

Real-World Find

This piece by Hallie Warner reminded me that neutrality is only half the equation the other half is being someone your executive can actually trust completely. She breaks down Brené Brown's BRAVING framework for trust, and the part that I see as most important was "Vault": the idea that you hold what's confidential, full stop, even when a colleague tries to use you as a back door to your exec. That's the other side of Switzerland staying even keeled with everyone, while being unmistakably the vault for the one relationship that matters most.

→ Read the piece here: Building trust between Executive Assistant and CEO.

From One EA to Another

A Podcast

Diana Brandl sat down with Paula Moio and her executive, Louis, for a rare conversation about both sides of the desk, talking openly about a working relationship built over four years. I don't come across many recordings where you get the executive's perspective right alongside the EAs, and it's worth hearing what loyalty and trust actually sound like from both chairs, not just one.

→ Listen to the podcast here: Interview with EA Paula Moio and her executive Louis

Worth Watching

How To Build (and rebuild) trust

15 Minutes

Frances Frei spent her career studying trust and then got a crash course in rebuilding it during her time fixing culture at Uber. In "How to Build (and Rebuild) Trust," she breaks trust down into three parts: authenticity, empathy, and logic. If you've ever wondered why, you trust some people instantly and others you never really do, this is fifteen minutes well spent. It's a good companion to this week's theme trust isn't one thing, and neither is loyalty.

→ Watch it Here: 

What all this says about the EA Effect

Adelina's evenness with the three houses and her firmness with the people inside her own walls came from the same place: she never lost track of whose interests she was actually there to protect. The neutrality was the method. The loyalty was the point.

Fairness outward is how you protect loyalty inward. Staying even-handed with other departments, stakeholders, or other leaders isn't the absence of an allegiance — it's what keeps your executive's position from being picked apart through you.

Know whose compass you're using. When you're pulled in conflicting directions, the question isn't "what's fair to everyone asking." It's "what would my exec actually want done here." That question is the whole job in a single sentence.

Loyalty gets tested from inside the walls too. It's rarely a rival company or a competitor who tries to recruit your allegiance. It's the well-liked peer, the impatient colleague, the person one level removed who's sure they'd handle it better. The answer holds regardless of how reasonable the ask sounds.

Why The EA Effect Matters

The value of your discretion comes from people believing it can't be redirected not by charm, not by convenience, not by whoever's standing in front of you asking. The moment that belief cracks, with one department or one overeager colleague, it doesn't stay contained. Everyone starts wondering what else moves through you that shouldn't.

Staying Switzerland was never about having no side. It's about being unmistakably clear, to everyone who tests it, exactly whose side you're on and letting that clarity be the reason you can be trusted by everyone else, too.

This Week's EA Effect in Action

Next time a request pulls you toward a decision that isn't yours to make, a peer angling for advocacy, a colleague asking you to act ahead of your executive's say-so pause and ask the one question that actually settles it: what would my executive want done with what's theirs? Answer from there, not from who asked.

That's not staying out of it. That's the Keeper at work.

That's The EA Effect.

Now on to other stuff

Bookmarks

Not everything that is bookmarked is groundbreaking but it's always worth your time. This is my collection of links, reads, products, podcasts, videos, and rabbit holes that caught my attention. If it made it here, it means I found it interesting enough to share.

Some weeks this section is packed, other weeks it's quiet. It all depends on what I’m interested in this week. No affiliations, no sponsorships. Just good stuff I want to share.

If you've come across something worth sharing, reply to this email with it. I'd love to see what's on your radar. I may feature it in a future issue.

• Six-Word Memoir: A six-word memoir distills a whole story, idea, or just one chapter of it into exactly six words, no more, no less.

  This is one I found I like: Secretly a superhero. Nobody has noticed. I think this sums up the EA life.

  → Visit The Site Here:  

• The Moth Podcast: The Moth is true stories, five minutes, no notes, told live by regular people in front of a room that's holding its breath. Some are funny, some will wreck you a little. Either way, it's a masterclass into human nature. Worth a listen on your commute.

  → Listen to an episode here: 

The Dream Desk

This week, we're setting up shop in the Tuscan countryside — a stone farmhouse with vineyard rows stretching past your laptop screen, the kind of view that makes even your 8am call feel like it's happening in slow motion. Pour something warm, look out the windows, and let the hills do the rest.

Where's your dream office this week?

Reply to this email with your idea or your own image.

Ambient Luxuries

Your desk might be covered in to-dos, but your mind? That deserves a view. Each week, we’ll drop a dreamy background and soundtrack to help you through the day like the behind-the-scenes wizard you are. Headphones in, magic on.
Note: These links are publicly available and not affiliated with us just something we love and want to share.

The EA Effect is not just a newsletter.
It's a weekly reminder of your influence.

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TheEAEffect.com  ·  See you next week.