welcome everyone to Behendigkeit podcast number five we are coming to you straight from Berlin my name is Gereon and I’m today with Pauline hello everyone it’s nice to be here thank you for inviting me all right everybody so today we’re gonna talk about um a book that I found very interesting it’s called power forward and it’s been written by Reggie love and the thing that I found to be really interesting is that he was the buddyman of President Obama so for those of you that don’t know a bodyman is kind of like a personal assistant somebody that takes care of basically everything it’s almost like a shadow to the politician to the top manager and that person just takes care of whatever comes up right and so it was very interesting to read this because first of all it’s Obama and while the book doesn’t reveal any juicy details that would be you know like compromising in any uh shape or form and it’s really interesting to see how Obama behaves when the cameras are not around right and there are no big surprises there because he seems to be really um stand-up guy but that’s interesting and also to see the role of thy buddyman and the role of the buddyman as it relates to the principle and so we’re gonna go through the book for a couple of minutes talk about some things that um were interesting in there and um hopefully this is going to be of interest to you as well so the first thing that I think is really relevant is that a body man or a buddy woman and but it tends to be usually men that do this I think some people think it’s a very simple position right it’s it’s like an assistant almost like a secretary somebody that it’s maybe not as educated and you couldn’t be further from the truth because a body man or an executive assistant to the CEO is often very highly trained is somebody that went to often an elite university has an advanced degree and then suddenly does this thing which is a little bit strange and that they you know they don’t go on to get a PhD for example they don’t start working in a management position immediately they start getting the coffee

which is possibly kind of a step down right because it’s it’s strange suddenly you know maybe you went to Harvard and then suddenly you’re getting coffee for somebody right and I see somebody looking at me from the side so I’m getting that as a signal that the mic is maybe a little bit off um and so I think this preconception that a lot of people have if you talk if you tell them well I’m working as a buddyman and what’s that if you tell them oh I’m an executive assistant they’ll think you actually are not progressing now I would say it’s actually exactly the opposite and in Germany and we are coming to you from Germany um there’s actually a whole culture on this thing and I found this to be reflected in um Reggie loves relationship to Obama and that is if you ever have the chance to be the buddyman to somebody and that person needs to be kind of like capable and interesting right but take it first of all it’s not gonna hurt you to get coffee or carry the bags for Obama right I mean what an order that would be but the thing is this is how you learn the most and this is why actually in Germany it’s kind of like a little secret for people that becoming an executive assistant to the CEO of a company is actually the biggest career booster that you can have because guess what you’re not going to be one of the regular employees that sees the boss on a video right that’s been prepared that’s been stylized and you don’t just see the boss when they’re up on stage and talking um like in a very refined way they have prepared the speech like 10 times before and they’ve rehearsed it you’re going to see that person in life you’re going to see how Obama is when he’s really hungry and really tired and not in a very good mood right and this is something that you cannot get anywhere else you cannot really read about it you cannot really um learn it you cannot study it in University this is something that is profound a profound experience and it’s not rare to see people go and become a CEO a couple years after they have been the assistant

so the first point I want to make is that if you ever get the chance to do this do it you know it’s not beneath you just just go for it and take that opportunity the second point that this book really brought out in me and it’s a very well written book it’s interesting to read um it helps if you like Obama um but the second book the second point is a lot of young people are kind of lost right they don’t know what to do and a minute ago I said well becoming an executive assistant is a great career chance but I would actually take it farther than that I would actually say if you have the chance as a young person to join somebody that is capable you know you you hopefully you know somebody that is somewhat capable right in your in your environment if not maybe you need to change your environment first but hopefully you you know somebody and if you don’t know what to do find somebody that is capable find somebody that takes you seriously and then do whatever they tell you might sound unintuitive I’m not saying do something and more but find somebody that you think is capable that will take you seriously and this last bit is very important and then join them and if it’s not your path you’re gonna find out real quick but that’s much better than just trying to chart your own way especially if you’re young you’re just out of University so Pauline does anything of that resonate with you have you seen something like this in your like in your circle of friends for example yeah of course I think first of all I think this position is such an honor and you learn like so many different things and especially on the emotional basis it’s super interesting to be so close to somebody because like you said if you just see your boss like once in a while or like you don’t even know your boss it’s there’s such a big distance and it’s hard to learn directly from like big positions but if you have this position or like if you’re super close uh to your boss and like seeing him reacting behaving in difficult situations it’s like a life lesson in every kind of situation so I think you should take this opportunity seriously and like take it to your heart and reflect and also like yeah I think how like how to take this like for your for your career like your opportunities in the future you know so I really like that and for me it’s really a big honor and like I would really value this uh possibility yeah and I I think there is a certain kind of mindset that’s connected to that right you have to have some humility and can have your ego get too big oh I just finished my University degree degree um because suddenly you’re going to be getting coffee right or making sure that um Senator Obama is getting up on time um but this is actually why I like this book so much because a lot of us don’t have that opportunity to become like an executive assistant to an important person and by writing this book Reggie love has actually given us kind of like an insight into um how it was right specifically with Obama but in general if you’ve never had that experience you can actually kind of get like a little bit of that experience in this book one sec I think like to be honest this is not a position for everybody I think you have to be made for this because you have to lower your own ego and you have to be open to yeah accept different opinions and see people like making decisions in another way you would maybe not do but also you can question it and then you maybe see the consequences and know why those people behaved like that or reacted on specific kind of things like that you know and then you can learn I mean at the end maybe you would still like do it differently but maybe maybe you like in this moment maybe you see like how people in a higher position would like make decisions in this kind of situations and like I said I think it’s not for everybody because not everybody can or see himself like bringing coffee for a while because they really think it’s not a good position but you have to think further and you have to see all the possibilities you have afterwards like you said most of the people like become a CEO afterwards like in in their further career but some people like want to start with a high on a high level already after the uni because they think like they know everything but mostly it’s not so yeah it’s a big chance so this is really interesting that you’re seeing because what you were describing in describing the person that is willing to take such an executive assistant position was actually to me it was like as if you were talking about who’s going to be a good boss right who’s going to be the good boss is that the person that’s willing to get the coffee for someone else that’s humble that’s open to the experience that wants to learn at at all cost or is the person that thinks they have already arrived in there too good for whatever comes up right and so and this is I think partly why this is kind of a filter and um in in the end it’s actually nothing new or nothing special because this is just some form of apprenticeship right so what would happen I don’t know in the Middle Ages somewhere in France um you wanted to learn a trade you wanted to learn a craft well there was no school there was no formal system to get Apprentice so you found somebody that was capable in whatever trait you wanted to learn and you asked that person if they would train you and actually back then you would pay them to train you right and that’s what a lot of people forget now because now we’re paying our apprentices right but so like even you of course have to afford it but even if you have to do it for free to get into this kind of a position in a historical context you know still getting a bargain because it used to be that you actually had to pay for that that honor of that time and attention of um the Smith or the leader or whatever

and

what I really find interesting in what Reggie love describes in this book is that like how Obama actually executed on this mindset so I didn’t I never I in in grad school I actually did a psychological profile on Obama so I didn’t expect to be surprised as much as I was and one thing that really surprised me is how competitive he was or still is and so whenever the the campaign to get elected to become president of the United States didn’t go well what they did is they would tease him right they would ask him he was really tired he really had his fill of everything and they would tease him and say well sir do you want to win a tour do you just want to go home okay and he’s so competitive that he would then just jump up and do whatever was needed right and I think this is also a really important part because this is kind of the job of a good executive assistant to understand the boss and to know their triggers right because this is something you’re going to learn really quickly you’re going to learn that oh well if he didn’t have his coffee in the morning he’s gonna be unbearable right why are you smiling here but so you kind of over time you kind of learn like what makes them think and so then um I personally think it’s actually your job to find out the positive triggers right and then use them at a moment when you can actually have an impact and because you’re kind of like the the baggage carrier right you’re not in a position of real power you can actually get away with stuff that somebody else cannot do right so let’s say you’re you’re the executive assistant to CEO um the CFO can say some stuff and cannot say some stuff the executive assistant is kind of outside of that hierarchy and can get away with stuff that like the regular people on the hierarchy cannot get away with I think this depends on the personal level like if you have a good connection then like your boss or whoever values your opinion and take it for serious even if it’s not his own opinion and I think this is very important so if you really have a good connection on a personal basis you have a big input like a big impact you have a big influence so I think you both learn from each other it’s not only like the assistant learning stuff like for his future I think also that’s why this job is even there you know like that’s why everybody has to listen and even if it’s not the nicest thing and I think that’s the most important also like the competitive situation if you know know the trigger points that’s exactly like why do you know them because you know them like so well you spend so much time with them and like the coffee situation I think it sounds so yeah low rated but honestly you see the people in outside of the working situation you see them in their natural behavior and their habit and so I think this is the people when they are real and that’s how you get to know each other really well and that’s that’s the most important thing yeah and something that was really important to me from this book is so I I hold Obama in quite High esteem I think he’s a he’s a great man like a great person and it was fun to see how much he was struggling all the time right so if you remember back he had to fight for the nomination of the democratic party against Hillary Clinton who like everybody thought she would win it easily right he didn’t stand a chance but he kept on fighting he was uh strapping all the time he was like um um really making a go at it and over time he changed his fortune but that also means that a lot of things didn’t go well and he really did a lot of stuff to make this happen right so this this guy who not only went to Harvard who Not only was on a Harvard Law review he was actually the editor of the Harvard Law review which is extremely extremely difficult if you’re in the field of law and so this super smart guy um a U.S senator at a young age he had to like go to birthday parties in in Iowa um and Shake people’s hands like people would almost blackmail them and say well we’re not going to vote for you if you don’t come to the birthday party of my nephew right and he did everything I mean he was out there right he didn’t say well on I used to be the editor for Harvard Law review sorry but I’m I’m above it no he grounded out and I think it’s really important to see you know often you just have this this Persona in your head of this guy that’s already arrived he is the president of the United States of course then he wears the right clothes and the camera and the lighting everything is perfect and you see that person you say oh he was always like that no he wasn’t he was actually the guy that had to go to birthday parties and go to every single Cafe in every small town in Iowa just to get the nomination right and the hustle behind it the will to persevere is just so impressive and this is what you have to do people aren’t born winners people have to fight it even if they’re as capable as Obama for example so one passage I really liked and uh I’ve sent this to you know I want to read it is um so Reggie love is just at the beginning of his um buddyman career to Obama and he is complaining a little bit right he’s failing a little bit and so he’s saying what I didn’t have was a job description to this day I still haven’t been able to track it down because there never was one each bodyman job is as is unique to the principle every boss is peculiar like snowflakes and I’m not sure snowflake is the best word there but any um like snowflakes the bosses come with their own distinct characteristics and needs and more likely than not they don’t even know what those needs are until you don’t meet them right and this is really crazy because of course the bosses won’t be able to so first of all there is no job description right it’s do the job and then the bosses don’t even know what they need until you fail and then they’re gonna they’re going to let you know and I found this to be very profound and insightful and um he’s given advice to personal assistant candidates and he says nobody’s going to tell you what you’re supposed to do there’s no training there is no manual

and I actually think this so I’ve been um an executive assistant to two CEOs very different characters right after each other and it was a very very interesting experience

especially because they were so different um and one was the CEO of a stock quoted company here in Germany not a large company but um fairly big and the other one was um a COO and it was quite quite interesting and this is absolutely true no one ever told me what to do there wasn’t a drop description and the real job description is actually on the next page and you know what it is handle stuff and and that’s it right and again this is leadership right there’s this famous there’s this famous story of Steve Jobs who at some point of time said something along the lines of if the janitor doesn’t know where some tools are doesn’t know where the garbage bags are that’s a good excuse because he’s the genital if a manager comes to me and says I can’t do it because there are no garbage bags that’s not a good excuse because as the manager you have to handle it you have to handle your own [ __ ] you have to handle stuff and nobody is going to come and teach you how to do it nobody’s come is going to come and explain this stuff to you and just have to get it done

and frankly I think this has become the job description of most jobs nowadays right if you well if you work in a factory they’re going to tell you exactly okay pull this lever and then this is going to happen that’s gonna happen right and then with knowledge work um these things have changed but they’re often still like constructed these jobs are still constructed in like an industrial mindset but I think this is becoming less and less so and most people now have to figure out their own jobs and find where they can add some value

all right so the other thing that I think is really important here is that if you are in this position you have to understand that this is a position of Maximum trust right because at some point of time you’re going to be alone with that person when they’re really tired they’re going to say some stuff that they don’t want to be publicly known they’re going to vent right they’re going to complain about their Partners maybe even their life Partners right and so they they are going to decompress and so trust is of the utmost isn’t and I would actually go so far to say that if you don’t if you don’t feel it with your principal or the principal of course if you don’t feel it with your assistant you should just move on because it won’t make any sense because like you were saying right here like in very vulnerable moments and then that trust needs to be there exactly and I think the trust is just giving also like your the relationship grows because you trust each other and you get along even if you do your work really well if there’s no like emotional basis I think he will never come to the point where you totally trust each other you know so this is really important absolutely so um I was talking about Iowa before in the context of the uh the primaries to become the candidate for U.S president but I actually was an exchange student to Iowa and so when I went there at age 17 18 there was a really strange thing that I noticed when I got there so everything was really strange it wasn’t the internet wasn’t around yet right so Iowa was as far away as you can imagine and so when I arrived there something curious happened and so keep in mind that I’m German and Germans think that they are like very hard workers and very focused on on being productive and so on which they are but um you’re gonna be surprised I think when I tell you um what I noticed there so you know when you’re a teenager in the United States somewhere in the middle of nowhere usually people would go cruising that means somebody had already had a car right and then a couple of people would pile into the car and they would cover it on the city Circle so it’s really old school but it was really cool because frankly there was nothing to do right and so you would have the car stereo on and then everybody would go cruising and then you would hop out of cars not into other ones and so on and so pretty quickly I noticed something there that was really weird and that is when teenagers were talking about other teenagers they would always ask two questions and so let’s imagine a teenager from neighboring Town came into our town center and so they would say okay who’s that right and then another person would say well that’s Pauline and the second question would always be is she a hard worker and the first time I heard I was like what what are you talking about who cares I I don’t know any German teen at that time that would have asked this question right and they would have asked is she cool is she nice or something like that and and at first I was like okay this is a fluke and then it happened again and again and again and again right and so this was normal because most kids had like a part-time job they would work at Safeway which was a supermarket chain for example or some fast food store and kids would actually like rate each other not on their social media profile not if they’re nice but if they are hard workers and I think this is just the culture that was prevailing there at least at the time it’s probably still like that and I really sense that here in the book because you know it’s if you’re a hard worker if you’ve been raised to see work as normal you already have a like up you have an advantage that others don’t right and I think it’s often undervalued right people always look at oh is that person beautiful is that person smart are they good at academics right at memorizing stuff for example but in the end if you ask Elite athletes who’s gonna be on the top um they always say one thing it’s not The Talented guys it’s the guys that are disciplined and that work a lot because The Talented guys they’re gonna run into some problems at some point of time and they’re going to give up right and so the work ethic is so important and I really love how ready love he talks about his education and this work ethic is what saves him again and again and which makes the relationship to Obama possible and I I marked something here and I actually wrote the name of my son next to it because I’m going to talk to him about it and and he was told the following Reggie you got to do the work sports or school it doesn’t matter the work won’t do itself and if you choose not to do the work then you should never be surprised about the outcome because you chose to leave it up to chance and this might be obvious to a lot of people but I think at the same time A lot of people are underestimating it because especially in a world that is as chaotic as Alice is right now you cannot control a lot of things however there’s one thing you can control your input right I disciplined are you a hard worker do you actually do the work or do you just leave everything up to chance stay on Tick Tock stay on the couch don’t do anything to influence the results maybe you’re given a a bad deck of court right maybe you’re not the most beautiful maybe you’re not the smartest maybe you have some other impairments but there’s one thing that you can usually still control and that is how hard you work I think this is the big game changer that a lot of people aren’t seeing and I really love how it comes through here how Reggie love has been educated like this been trained by his parents to pay attention to this and how this works out for him yeah I think this is even if you’re super talented in some in something if if it’s bored if it’s a musician whatever you still have to practice you know you still have to work on it like get better do your stuff and there’s always somebody outside who’s probably better than you but if you keep on doing it if you keep on practicing like focus on your on your goals on your future I think then it will work no matter how but like at least you do something for it and if you just like wait for something to happen even even if you’re a big talent but if you’re just like sitting around and waiting for it to come true nothing will happen and I think like lots of people will like get better than you even if they’re less talented so you really have to to work for for your goals and for whatever makes you happy yeah the other thing and this kind of connects to that is that it’s really interesting how he deals with criticism right because he is messing up a couple of times so he talks about his Sports career he was a basketball player and then went on to get that job as buddyman and he got that job as buddyman because guess what somebody on the political campaign of Obama called the coach his basketball coach and asked about him and so because he was so disciplined because he was a good team player he actually got on the sports team he actually got into the political campaign right and then he was Obama’s buddyman right for I don’t know six years eight years right and so of course now he’s made but it came to that because he was on that basketball team and how he behaved on that and so the interesting thing is how he deals with criticism and he actually you know the book is about his um his life right it’s a biography so he doesn’t start out in the perfect state but um you can really see how his parents taught him well and so what he’s saying is Well if you’re Superior if your boss if your coach is not happy with you and he criticizes you and he holds you to a higher standard that hurts but that’s actually a good thing because somebody cares enough to get into the conflict with you because they could just not say anything right gets into the conflict with you thinks you can do more and holds you to that higher standard that then you have a chance to achieve and this resonated so strongly with me especially from the position of a boss because um quite frankly if I criticize somebody that usually means that I I hold them in high regard because you know you only have that much time in the day especially if you have like many employees many responsibilities and at some point of time if somebody just keeps messing up all the time or doesn’t even try you’re gonna you’re gonna reduce your investment as far as time and emotions go into that person right and so the best thing you can actually do is well the criticism isn’t always going to be fair but like think about it right and think about if there isn’t something to it and if the boss or the coach or whoever isn’t actually right that you could hold yourself that you can be held to a higher standard and get to the next level right because and I think something that connects to that is that as you grow older you know when you’re a student in high school you know everybody’s criticizing you all the time the teacher is always complaining right and your parents oh you have to get better grades and so on and it’s super normal and you are so annoyed by it right but what happens over time is that at some point at some point of time nobody’s gonna care anymore nobody is going to give you that especially you know if you work in a job where nobody is taking interest in you maybe you’re in a big faceless Corporation right and you don’t have a sports coach the brutal reality is you’re not going to have anybody tell you anything anymore and I think people go into that and they don’t realize it right for in the beginning they realize that they say oh now I’m at University and people don’t criticize me as much which is good right but at some point of time you’re not getting any feedback nobody’s taking an interest in you and of course as you get older the generations that are ahead of you they’re going to start dying out or they’re going to exit the workforce and right and you’re going to get better and then if you have it achieved a high level in your field there’s just going to be less people that give you feedback and so you know I understand that people often want to get out of the criticism yeah it sucks feedback hurts but it’s so valuable and if you don’t have it you’re going to have a hard time figuring out where to go and so if you have somebody ideally like Obama of course who can tell you what you’re missing um what you’re lacking in or where you’re messing up then that’s super helpful yeah especially I think it’s first of all you have to see the criticism as You Like A Life Lesson something where you can learn out of it and on top of that you see that the the person like cares about you and once and and sees like I think you just criticize somebody if uh you see he could do better and that’s why like there’s there is the possibility to do something better so you really should be thankful about all the criticism you get I mean of course it’s nobody likes to be criticized and like in this in the actual moment I think everybody’s pissed and like not amused but like when you look back in the past everything you got criticized even if something was not fair whatever was there for a reason and most of like if you do better in the future yeah yeah you learn for life so I think that’s important it doesn’t matter if it’s job-wise or in personal relationships so I think if somebody stops criticizing you he’s losing interest so and something I’m going to read a sentence and it actually connects quite well to a situation we had today at the company and it goes as follows so somebody’s telling somebody’s really unhappy with Reggie’s performance and he’s saying the following what I’m trying to figure out is how you don’t see just how lucky you are to be on this team and we’ve had a conversation about a team member today where I’ve been saying I don’t understand how he how it doesn’t realize how lucky he is and I think this I mean this is a really blunt criticism I don’t wouldn’t like to be on the receiving end of that but I think this is about as valuable as you as you can get because sometimes you are on a team or in a company or a on a sports team or in a friendship group right and you can be you should be really lucky to be there and sometimes you don’t realize it right you don’t realize the the value of the France that you have um and somebody telling you that yeah it’s like a slap in the face but I think sometimes it’s very important to hear like some hard words like that it’s like a wake-up call you know like especially if you everybody need like yeah receives to have a second chance or whatever so sometimes it needs to be hard to really wake up and to do things better and to realize like if you don’t get up you’re gonna lose this chance or you’re gonna lose your job or whatever so it’s hard but most of the time it’s necessary that another thing that I really like and that I sometimes struggle with is there’s a whole chapter and it and it’s called you’re never not representing right and so um when I first became the CEO of a company I was fairly young I did one-on-ones with all the employees and what I like to do in interviews or in one-on-ones is to not in every instance but Barry was very um it was a very good fit I let them do a case study um and the case study was designed to measure ethical responses to a problem right so I would confront them with a problem to see how they solved an ethical dilemma and so I had this session with an apprentice and she was kind of struggling right she had failed her apprenticeship at another company and we’re like her second chance and she wasn’t doing great and I presented her the problem and asked her what she would do next and she said something that it’s going to be obvious to a lot of people but it wasn’t to me back then she said the following so first of all I’m going to get a Cherry Coke and bring it to you because I know you’re going to be angry and I think this will help to soothe you and at that time I was drinking a lot of coke and actually Cherry Coke but nobody had ever like mentioned it to me I didn’t even realize that all that much that Cherry Coke was my favorite right and I didn’t have that much to do with her she wasn’t you know the best performing Apprentice right but of course she watched what I was doing I was the new boss right and she noticed oh he seems to like to drink Cherry Coke and that really struck me hard and the what’s what’s behind it is that I didn’t realize at that point of time that asked the boss you’re already always on stage you’re always being watched every little thing you do or don’t do is being watched and interpreted sometimes Rob sometimes right but you’re always on stage you’re always representing and so of course if you walk work on a presidential campaign you’re never you’re never off camera yeah and it’s not only Obama it’s also everyone on staff and we had a situation with a what was he the candidate for to become the chancellor of Germany and he was visiting an area that has recently had recently been flooded experienced politician like has have been in the business for dozens of years and as they were like being led around they made a stop somewhere he was kind of like inside the building but the camera stood could still catch him and he was joking around with some of his employees buddies whatever and that Glimpse was enough to cost him uh the chancellery because he was seen as joking around in a situation where people had lost their home right and so you’re always representing and so this is very important to keep in mind that um it sucks right but this is normal you do the same thing to others right you always watch how they behave and so it’s very important in my mind to realize that you’re always on stage and um everybody’s always viewing you watching you interpreting whatever you’re doing and the way he answered he says so when things go awry when things aren’t working the way you want them you at least look like you have your stuff together right and this is really important right we always want to have these Great Moments where we win the wrestling match where we score uh in soccer right and then we want to look good and of course freshly cut hair and the cameras are zooming in on you but it’s actually just as important if not more important to be professional when you’re losing right when your project ends don’t throw his effect you know I was on a project a couple of years ago and it ended through no fault of our hours right somebody came in from the top management said oh this is the cost but we’re just going to stop it right and one of the more senior Consultants he came over to me and said Gary on you know what it wasn’t your fault it wasn’t my fault this is just how it is say goodbyes be professional about it you know don’t start complaining don’t start crying about it and we’re gonna see each other on the next project just be a pro about it right and it was the best advice he could have given me and I think this really plays into that you’re always representing whether you’re winning or losing and just be a pro man all right so one more thing that I really liked is how disciplined Obama is like in his Sports and his nutrition and I’m really a big believer in setting the foundation for your success in these two arenas because I think if if you’re not fit and you’re not eating right you’re gonna get run into trouble sooner or later especially if you have the right um kind of metabolism in your young years you can get away with everything and I certainly I’ve talked about the Cherry Coke I’ve certainly done that in Red Bulls and everything right but at some point of time you can have the best jeans it’s gonna catch up with you and what I found really interesting is that first of all he lifts weight or trains every single morning like and if you’re on the road this is really difficult if you’re on in a different town every day of the week right and then suddenly you’re not in the five-star hotel where they have this nice gym and personal trainer but there’s like some broken weight somewhere in the corner and or you don’t have anything at all but they would train like every day no matter what and he would always get like healthy food um to fuel this engine which was a little bit surprising but I’m I think this is this is really a smart move and I think a lot of people aren’t aware of how important it is to get your nutrition right and to get your exercise right yeah it’s very important for your mindset I guess like if your personal life is like a little bit messy how should you perform professional like at work I mean of course it’s different and of course you have to separate that completely but if you’re well structured and have like your routines at home you’re even more likely to keep this up at work you know it’s not that hard like it’s easier for you if you stretch it at home also so to keep that structure up at work too yeah I’m waiting for you to say something about like you’re looking at me like I’m supposed to disagree but I actually think this is the way this is the way how you become successful right people always want to know like where should I invest what should I do like should I do crypto or should I get into Ai and so on and I think well basically you should train and eat right because it’s gonna be the foundation how are you going to build Business Systems if you can’t even build the system for your apartment to keep it clean to go to the gym for example I think um so I really like this conception of like different sports and nutrition as the grind right so when I was in Iowa I was on the wrestling team and you know if teenagers already have this mindset about work right you can imagine what the wrestling team and for those who don’t know wrestling is like one of the most brutal Sports there is right they say um if you’re not wrestling fit you’re not fit right wrestlingfit is like a whole different category and um so this grind of doing sports every day getting up early in the morning and then eating right it’s really wearing you down it’s not fun but what people don’t often don’t realize is if you master this the rest will be easy because you have mastered the discipline of getting up early of like running stairs for example lifting weights and so on you have massive the discipline of not just eating donuts and drinking Coke all day long even though they’re everywhere right I know the colleagues are being nice and bring donuts to the company great thank you for the diabetes and well it’s true though and if you’ve mastered this then you know mastering business stuff becomes easy like building a career building a skill is easy because you you’ve already done it and I think everybody who does Sports know like it’s such a good feeling when you’re done I mean of course like when you’re running like it’s hard to get out every morning or especially in Germany when the weather sucks it’s raining it’s cold but once you’re out there and then you come home it’s like it’s crazy you feel so different and you have an open mindset afterwards you go to work with like a completely different mind and I think this is all like of course it’s hard but once you get it done it’s done also like personally or work-wise so couldn’t agree more and to things that you just brought up for me is um it’s not knowing that you’re done you have the first one of the day right so like I like to get up early and like before other people get up I’m already winning whatever comes after that you know even if I lose all day long I still have that win and nobody can take it away from you and you do something for yourself that’s also a big part because if you eat healthy if you if you do some sports you feel fit and this is the biggest gift in your life being healthy living like do something for your own good you know your own health and that’s the start if you do that right everything will be easier good all right guys thank you for joining us this was our bandikai podcast about the book Power Forward by Reggie love it’s a really good book especially if you really want to get the insights on what it’s like to be an executive assistant and it’s really interesting because it’s Obama right and so thank you guys for listening in this is Pauline and Garian coming to you from Berlin if you like this please follow us on any of the platforms that you get your podcast from and hope to see you around bye bye see you soon