Can professor X be my EA please?
Telepathy is the superpower that allows you to read a person’s thoughts. Professor X is a gifted fictional character in X-man and he has this superpower. He can read minds and in his story he can also manipulate minds. He’s someone I would definitely want on my bus, especially at the negotiating table.
Professor X also known as Xavier, is best known for the creation of a device called the Cerebro, a technology that serves to detect and track those individuals possessing the mutant or gifted gene, at the same time greatly expanding the gifts of those with existing psionic abilities through his schooling & mentorship.
I use this as an extreme relation to being an EA that is held to an impossible standard. We’re expected to create our version of a Cerebro and enhance the production & experience of those who need them. AKA we need to build something that sees all gaps and opportunities which in turn will enhance the support & experience for executives & the consumers of the businesses.
Being held to a standard as an EA is fine, Being held to an impossible standard isn’t always going to play out as one may dream.
Can we seem like we’re mind readers with incredible super powers? Sure. And to me how we “seem” goes hand in hand with the analogy of the swimming duck. Where the duck is kicking like Christano Ronaldo under the water and has their graceful sway above the water. Or that iceberg image that has all the positive enticing words like success, dreams, money, happiness, at the top of the iceberg and below it you see the not so woo hoo words like focus, work, discipline, missed events, tight budgets, etc.. Looks can be deceiving.
Because we work so closely with our executive as their EA we have a different relationship. We begin to move with the same tempo and beat. We nearly have silent communication after quite some time of working with this tempo or beat and we are able to sense the slight shifts of our each others tones, mannerisms, or facial expression And because of this silent communication we can mistakenly assume just that. We have heard silent communication. The executives move quickly and with this assumption of heard silent communication floating in the air they jump right onto the moving car and this is now the “how it is” The EA can now ANTICIPATE MY NEEDS and bam I can drop it and focus on that thing I know I want, need, desire, dream to have done.
As EA’s we have the ability to look at things at a much slower pace than that of our executives. We move behind the scenes & watch things evolve from a level executives just can’t or sometimes won’t. At this level, in our cheap seats, we have the ability to see patterns & habits, gaps & opportunities that can be undetected. We have the ability to see that one man way down the field who is wide open, ready for the quarterback to throw him the ball. We have an ability – Our ability is just that: an ability. Ability means “the power or capacity to do or ACT physically, mentally, legally, morally, financially, etc. We have the CAPABILITY and POWER to do something when we have the ability. So when we truly put in the exercise & discipline to work that ability we can see and begin to predict things to happen well before it even becomes a thought of a thought to our executives.
We can “seem” like we’re capable of being your professor X and the reality is we’re not quite THAT amazing AND when we put our learned & sharpened tools to work we can look pretty damn amazing.
This is all a lot of talking and the truth is you have to believe in your ability before you can begin to sharpen these tools and put them into action. You have to hear that the right EA has the desire to want this ability – we want to be ahead of you, we need to be ahead of you and in the beginning we need to learn HOW and as long as we know our why before we worry about the how the journey to development and growth because it’s way more exciting.
