One of the many wonderful aspects of my work is meeting all kinds of incredible executive assistants and administrative professionals.
I was fortunate to meet Darlene Mahon when I spoke at an administrative event at her company last April. Since then, her employer brought in the Star Achievement Series® curriculum for administrative professionals and Darlene is a Certified Trainer along with Peggy Vasquez, Executive Assistant to Lab Director.
Darlene and I were recently talking on the telephone and she grabbed my attention when she said, "I believe you can bloom where you are planted." So here is what we discussed. You definitely can be inspired by her words of wisdom.
Darlene: "I always wanted to be an actor; it was my lifelong dream. However I'm very practical and my career path is that I'm an administrator. I have always believed that you can bloom where you are planted. So I've learned to integrate my skills and passion around acting with my current career path, and then training was a natural fit."
Other examples of how Darlene integrated her acting passion and integrating them into her daily work are:
- Participated in corporate videos
- Played a role in training videos at work
- Leading a large group of administrators in her department
- Participating in training outside of work
- Hosting an Administrative Quarterly Forum and presenting on a specific topic
- Involved in their internal annual Office Professionals Seminar and presented a concurrent session
I asked Darlene what she suggests administrative professionals ask themselves to determine how to integrate their passions into their work. Ask yourself. . .
- What am I passionate about? What do I love?
- What do I do well? That is your greatest gift to the world. That is where your best 'stuff' comes from. When you embrace that and own it, then you will begin to see the opportunities around you to put it into play.
"Once you look for where to put yourself out in the world, the opportunities will present themselves. People will say to you, 'You do this really well. I have this (thing) I want you to do.' You just have to say, "Yes!"
Darlene is absolutely right because we are working on a creative project with Darlene because she let her talents shine, we asked for her involvement, and she said YES!
Darlene's final thought: "Once you accept opportunities that stir your passion, the feedback you get from the world will encourage you to do more . . . successes beget success."
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