Monique Helstrom

🚨 JOB ALERT 🚨
I'm currently hiring for TWO roles for the Office of the Chancellor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN ⬇️

✅ EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
This is the senior operational leader who will oversee the broader structure, priorities, information flow, and administrative operation surrounding the Chancellor.

✅ SENIOR EXECUTIVE COORDINATOR
This person will manage the detailed daily ex*****on behind the Chancellor’s calendar, travel, meetings, correspondence, and logistics.

Two different roles. One highly visible office. Both require exceptional judgment, confidence, discretion, and the ability to operate at a very high level.

Both are full-time, onsite, with competitive compensation commensurate with the scope and seniority of the role.

Want to learn more? You can view the full job descriptions and apply online here: https://www.moniquehelstrom.com/executive-assistant-jobs

"Deanna Danger, 43, has worked in an administrative role since 2003. She says adapting and staying ahead of the curve is a key part of her constantly-changing role, and AI is no exception.

'All you do is have to evolve,' she says."

Hell yeah, Deanna 💪

EA's—AI isn't going to take your job unless you let it. So... don't let it.



https://apnews.com/article/ai-chatgpt-secretaries-administrative-assistants-jobs-c5988294ce6a2828e83ef7fe42706c48

Everyone keeps talking about how much time AI saves.
Fewer people are talking about the time it creates.

There’s actually a term for it: AI Admin Debt.
It’s the hidden “interest payment” that comes with adopting AI: the hours spent fixing outputs, checking facts, rewriting responses, learning new tools, and figuring out how to fit AI into your existing workflow.

One study found that employees save roughly 12 hours per week using AI but spend 6.4 hours per week managing it.
(That’s a pretty expensive interest rate. 😬)

This isn’t a reason to avoid AI. Quite the opposite!
It’s a reason to learn how to use it strategically.

That’s exactly why Tal and I built the AI-Powered Assistant Course.
We wanted to help assistants move past the trial-and-error phase and start using AI in practical, repeatable ways that actually reduce workload instead of shifting it around.

Because the goal isn’t to spend your day managing AI.
It's to have AI help you manage everything else!

Have you experienced AI Admin Debt in your role? What’s the most frustrating part?

Find out more about the course: https://www.moniquehelstrom.com/ai-powered-assistant

Truth: This month’s article was hard for me to write. Not because I don’t believe every word of it — I do — but because for a long time, I was the biggest perpetrator of treating feedback like a death sentence.

I could turn one hard comment, one correction, one uncomfortable conversation into a full-blown identity crisis.

So trust me when I say I wrote this from both sides: having been there, and having fought my way out. Over the last 10 or 15 years, I’ve learned how to hear feedback without letting it destroy me, define me, or derail me. And that shift has been one of the most powerful changes of my career and my life. I hope it will be for you too!

Strong Careers Are Built on Uncomfortable Conversations | Monique Helstrom One thing I’ve noticed after working with executives, assistants, chiefs of staff, office managers, recruiters, leaders, and every kind of workplace personality you can imagine: The highest performers are not the people who never make mistakes. They are the people who can make a mistake, feel the ...

One of the biggest mindset shifts I ever made was realizing that my weaknesses weren’t a character flaw...
They were just information.

For years, I thought every area where I struggled was something I needed to “fix” about myself. If I was slower at a task, less energized by certain work, or needed more structure than someone else, I assumed I just wasn’t trying hard enough.

But that’s not how great careers are built.

Your greatest value comes from your strengths—the work that energizes you, comes naturally to you, and produces your best results.

Your weaknesses simply tell you where you need support.

That support might look like a process, a checklist, a template, a tool, a trusted colleague, or even AI.

The goal isn’t to become equally excellent at everything.
The goal is to know yourself well enough to build systems that help you perform consistently.

What’s one weakness you’ve learned to manage with a great system?

The highest performers are not the people who never make mistakes.

They are the people who can make a mistake, feel the sting of it, get the information, and then do something useful with it.