Samantha Martin

I'm stubborn, I have a sense of humor, and I'm very curious. Frankly, my curiosity is the backbone of pretty much every part of me that's done anything. Whether it's curiosity if I can do it, so that pushes me. Whether it's curiosity about the world around me, that makes me want to ask questions. Whether it's curiosity about the human experience, which makes me ask other people things, which makes me empathetic to the situation, because I took the time to listen and find out that, oh my goodness, their cousin died, or their uncle died, or they're dealing with something terrible, and that's why they're having a day. And that comes from curiosity.

The first real advice or encouragement I ever got was from school, when I had an ethics professor early on who said, oh my god, please get a doctorate in ethics. And I was like, why? What do you do with that? He's like, well, jobs aren't real common, but you have a real knack for ethics, and we need it. That was the first time someone called me out and was like, wow, your brain is - you've got interesting ideas. And then my first IO psychology professor said something similar: please, please, please, you have a voice, you should contribute it. And it's the first time anyone ever said I had a voice. Like, I'd always been just told I was furniture. So, it wasn't necessarily advice, but it was the first encouragement I received, but I didn't receive it until I got into school.

Knuckle up, Buttercup. It's an old movie quote - it's gonna be a bumpy ride. It's a thankless job, but it's also a fantastic job. It's changing. People coming in now, it's much more tech-based. People think that you can do it with automation or AI. And the younger kids, I don't know if my job will exist the same way. The thing about what I do is that, at the end of the day, it's very hard to be a high-level CEO and trust AI to manage the finessing. People need to still put up with what I put up with and get the job done to make companies run and make executives run. It's worth it. I mean, it's a fantastic job. It's an interesting job. You see things that no one else sees because you're in the room with the people making the decisions.

In the field itself, technology is the biggest thing. How much it's changing what EAs are expected to know and do - I think it's a blessing and a curse. It can help in so many ways, but it can also hinder. For example, my company recently instituted using Copilot for email responses. If somebody's lacking finesse or skills, it can help. That said, in my role, if you're assisting a CEO and you're lacking finesse, and now you're relying on Copilot, you've got a bigger problem, because one of those same people that you sent the co-pilot response to show up in the building, and you need to know how to shake hands, serve properly, take notes, or sit quietly in a room, or pay attention to the room and notice when somebody needs something. If that's your role at that moment, you don't have it if you're just relying on your responses from AI.

They're the same. Honesty, and kindness, empathy and kindness. You know, kindness is hard - it's hard to be nice to yourself, it's hard to be nice to others, the world is on fire, everybody's grumpy, I'm grumpy, and we're human, and it's hard. Making sure you own your actions is important too. I'm quick to say I'm sorry. I'm quick to say that was on me, in my personal life, and it works. Because if I can't do that, then who am I? I want to go to bed and not be worried about, I stepped on somebody, I hurt somebody, I wasn't kind. And I'm not talking about being nice, because nice is a lie. Nice is, oh, how are you? Oh, you look great! Sure, I want to see your baby pictures. No, I do not. I don't care. Kind is, your dress is caught in your shorts, I've got your back, we're gonna go to the lady's room. Kind is, those pants don't look good on you, go wear the blue ones. Being present is really important, and most of us have our heads down and we don't look up. We aren't present, and we aren't empathetic. We just don't know what somebody else is going through, and we don't even take the time to consider it.