Execute. Assist.

Being an executive assistant has high expectations – you can’t make mistakes, you can’t turn up mediocre work, and you can’t possibly be startled by any glitch or miscommunication along the way. In other words, you always have to put your best foot forward; otherwise, don’t put anything on the line at all. It’s a high-profile, high-pressure, high-standards and well, relatively high-paying job.

You have to be flexible;

You have to be mindful;

You have to think on your feet;

You have to remember stuff (or at least figure out a way to not forget stuff);

You have to adapt;

You have to always have the answer to any possible question;

You have to be resourceful, creative, and witty all at the same time;

You have to be one step ahead of everybody, and that particular step should be your best foot forward – always.

You can’t afford to panic at any situation;

You can’t make mistakes;

You can’t be unprepared;

You can’t ask too many questions or too many directions;

You can’t stick your nose on stuff;

You can’t make it about yourself – it’s never personal;

Basically, you can’t screw things up because your job is to make their life easier and not make it any worse than it already is.

But I knew that! I knew that it would be stressful and high-pressure and high expectations. I was scared to take on this job. I rarely use that term, but it was the truth. It was the fear of the unknown – venturing into a new horizon that deals with the top executives, arriving at a particular place that has a different set of language and culture, and being the rookie with close to none in terms of experience.

What do I have to loose anyway? I have little to no experience, I was unemployed for the past six or so months before this, and I really don’t have much going for me. So I grabbed it – despite the hesitations, the uncertainties, and the phobia of high expectations – I accepted the job. There are always two ways to look at any situation: positive and negative. And when you weigh in how many positives there are compared to the negatives, and you find out that there are more negatives than there are positives, you go ahead anyway.

Be a sifter.

I was supposed to write something about my previous job – the daily struggle to come in on time, the last few episodes of not-so-nice-treatment, and basically, the truth about the rabbit inside the magician’s hat. But for the past six months, I still haven’t written anything about it. Not because I was afraid that someone from “the company” would find out about it, but because I simply don’t think it would change anything that has happened. To me, ranting about the company won’t make much difference, and it didn’t seem like I owe anyone an explanation of my decision to resign. So I chose to forgive and forget, to move on and not look back, and to be comfortable and at peace with my life choices. But the unwanted memories came back to bite me in the ass. Apparently, I was traumatized with how the whole thing went down; and apparently, I was affected more than I thought I was. The culprit: the whole litany about my job performance and the personal tirade that he (my previous boss/owner of the company) gave to me on my unexpected last day of work.

They say words are extremely powerful. You say something to someone and it means the world to them; then you say something else to someone and it crashed them to pieces. Words can be weapons yet they can also be powerful medicines; they can be taken back but there’s no guarantee that they can be forgotten; and they can be your best friend if your careful and wise enough to use them appropriately, or your worst enemy if your reckless and stupid.

As a sender, you never know the depth of your words to someone, or how far it would go to affect them, or how long it would take for them to grasp the meaning of it, but you say it anyway – sometimes with innocent intentions, sometimes with clear black and white reasons, but some other times, with just no meaning at all. As a receiver, you hear but you don’t listen; you hear what you want to hear; and you interpret things based on what you already know regardless of what you just heard.

So be a sifter. As a sender, choose your words wisely and appropriately to send the message; and as a receiver, filter through the message and save the good ones and leave out the harmful ones behind. Sift through your memories, experiences, and lessons in life – keep the good ones and let go of the bad ones. You can’t exactly control what’s going to happen to you, but you can control how you will feel about it and you can choose what to do or not to do about it.

So I choose to see the good things that I learned from that company and use it to my advantage in my new job; and I choose to let go of the pain that I incurred just from hearing (not listening to) “the speech” that was given to me on that day. And so I choose, from now on, to be a sifter rather than a traumatized residue of the past.

What we think and believe, we become.

"You become what you believe. You are where you are today in your life based on everything you have believed." --Oprah Winfrey

I read this quote early Monday and it kind of lingered on me as if to tell me that I am exactly where I am today because I believed that I can do this. I don’t know much about admin stuff, let alone reporting directly to the president and coordinating with top-management officials of a company, but hey, here I am setting my roots in a new company, making my desk a homier version of an office, and learning new things one day at a time. I remember telling my parents and some of my friends that taking this job is scary – it is an unfamiliar territory that I have yet to explore. I did wish and prayed to land this job; I did imagine myself doing it; but more than anything, I did believe that despite the unfamiliarity and the uncertainty, I could do it.

There are so many great things that have happened in my life that I owe to the power of the human mind. One day an idea crosses my mind, the next night I set it as a goal and imagine myself doing it (or seeing the results of it), and then the following days and nights (sometimes months or years), I would see myself getting closer and closer to that goal. And before I knew it, it is right in front of me, ready for the taking. Some would say it is fate or chance or luck that makes dreams come true, but the very fact that your mind was able to dream about it already pushes the notion that you can make it happen.

It is not enough to just believe in something, or think that that something will come true on its own. It is, however, the crucial first step into achieving whatever it is that you want in life. You have to believe in yourself, in your own capabilities, talents, and strengths, and you have to be able to fight for it – to be able to commit yourself to it. You have to put in the hard work, dedication and perseverance that it entails, and most importantly, you have to keep the faith that this thing (whatever it is that you believe in) can and will happen. Keeping the faith is another story altogether – worthy of another entry for another day. But the point is plain simple: to be successful in whatever you do; to get what you want when you want it; or to be happy, for that matter – it all starts in you and you alone holds the power.

It is not going to be easy – making a deliberate choice on what to do and what not to do is in itself a struggle. For the most part, it is a struggle because it takes time and effort and continuous evaluation of what you really believe in. Some people would tend to settle with the easy way out, the short-cut, the obvious answer for the sake of making a decision – and that’s their choice, not necessarily in line of what they believe in, but nevertheless, it’s their choice; while others would go through the hassle of weighing in on things, thinking through each angle, considering different possibilities before making an informed decision.

You choose to believe in something, you make your decisions and choices in life based on that belief, and if in the end, you made it (whatever it is that you believe in) happen, then good for you – you have arrived at your preferred destination simply by believing that you can ignite the fire within you. But if not, then at least you made decisions and choices that you are comfortable with and still got pretty close to making it happen – you had a wonderful and fruitful journey in life, nonetheless.

So believe that life is worth living; believe that you possess love and that you are worthy of love; believe that you can be healthy and fit; believe that you will be able to do the things that you have always wanted to do; and believe that you are destined for greatness. Believe that you can top that board/bar exam; believe that you can close the deal with that big client; believe that you can lose that few extra pounds; believe that you can get over this heartbreak; believe that you are stronger than you think; or simply believe that you are wonderfully and uniquely created by God for a purpose.

Choose wisely; make informed decisions; take control of your life – because no one else can do a better job at it than you. Always be reminded that, as Ralph Waldo Emerson puts it, “Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.” So what have you got to lose?

I would like to end this thought with yet another quote – this one is the compiled version of all the closing narration of the characters from the series finale of One Tree Hill:
“Make a wish and place it in your heart – anything you want, everything you want. Do you have it? Good. Now believe it can come true. You never know where the next miracle’s gonna come from; the next memory; the next smile; the next wish come true. But if you believe that it’s right around the corner, and you open your heart and mind to the possibility of it – to the certainty of it – you might just get the thing you’re wishing for. The world is full of magic; you just have to believe in it. So make your wish. Do you have it? Good. Now believe in it, with all your heart.”