#376: Diana Brandl Interviews Brian Daniel - Founder of The Celebrity Personal Assistant Network

In this candid interview, Diana Brandl welcomes Brian Daniel, founder of The Celebrity Personal Assistant Network, to pull back the curtain on the world of private service for celebrities, high-net-worth families, and billionaires. 

Brian, a former Personal Assistant and Chief of Staff for royal families and A-list stars, shares his firsthand expertise on the ups and downs of the industry. He reveals the true salary realities (including the controversial Anna Wintour assistant salary) and the immense patience required to find the right match. 

Learn why professionalism, "thick skin," and maintaining discretion are non-negotiable, and discover why moving away from major cities like L.A. might open the door to world-class, once-in-a-lifetime career opportunities.

Show notes -> leaderassistant.com/376 

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Transcript

00:00:00 JEREMY
Hey friends, thanks for tuning in to the Leader Assistant Podcast. I'm excited to share another spotlight episode of my friend Diana Brandl's show, Executive Office Insights. Be sure to check out the show notes for more information about her show and today's featured guest. But in the meantime, enjoy this conversation and keep leading well.

00:00:28 SPEAKER_00
The Leader Assistant podcast exists to encourage and challenge assistants to become confident, game-changing leader assistants.

00:00:41 JEREMY
Check out the show notes for this episode at leaderassistant.com/376.

00:00:47 DIANA
I always love to introduce experts around the table. And today I'm introducing Brian Daniel, the founder of the Celebrity Personal Assistant Network.

00:00:56 DIANA
We had so much to exchange, for example, like how it is leading a headhunting firm for celebrities, high net worth families and billionaires.

00:01:05 DIANA
As a former personal assistant chief of staff and confident to some of the world's wealthiest families, Brian knows for sure firsthand what it takes to make it in the private service industry. We also talk very openly about the ups and the downs and what it takes to find the right match. And sometimes it is wise to really ask for your own motivation in order to get into the private service industry. There's so much more we're going to bring to you in this episode. So jump right in.

00:01:38 DIANA
Hey, everybody, it's Diana from the Future Assistant podcast, and it's always a joy talking to my guests and especially bringing some new faces to my European community. And today for sure is a very interesting talk waiting for us. I've been waiting for this talk for quite a while and we've been in touch a few times. I've been following him on social media because what a career Brian has. It's absolutely amazing. So I can't wait to introduce Brian Daniel to all of you and to hear a little bit from his life. And he's actually joining us from the U.S. And I need to say good morning because it's morning hours in the U.S. And it's actually Father's Day. So welcome, Brian. And what time is it and where actually are you at the moment?

00:02:22 BRIAN
So it's just a few minutes after 10. And right now I'm in my secret lair in the Midwest. I don't spend too much time in L.A. now. They're going through some growing pains. So, you know, I have a daughter and I spend a lot of time in the Midwest.

00:02:40 DIANA
Perfect. So which is the next big city close to you, Midwest?

00:02:45 BRIAN
So I'm pretty close. I'm kind of halfway in between Chicago and Detroit. I do a lot of business in both those cities. So it was a pretty good spot to be in.

00:02:57 DIANA
Wonderful. So how are you at the moment? You say not too much time in L.A. at the moment. Actually, I have a question for you later on about L.A.,

00:03:06 DIANA
But how's life? I mean, jumping into the summertime, is there something where you say it's getting a little bit more relaxed with the business in your agency? Or would you say it's never relaxed? It's always a lot to do.

00:03:20 BRIAN
You got it. It's there's always a lot to do. You know, certain industries follow certain patterns, especially with hiring. But. in private service you know everything's always at level 10 because uh the lives of the super wealthy they're always quite busy as you know and there's always going to be personal and professional emergencies so my phone rings at all times of the year uh there's a famous story about on new year's eve i had a a famous pop star contact me because

00:04:01 BRIAN
it was almost before midnight and she really needed somebody. And I got her someone on New Year's Eve. So that happens.

00:04:12 DIANA
Even on New Year's Eve, 24-7. Wow.

00:04:17 DIANA
Speaking of ringing phones, but also traveling, you're currently in the Midwest. And when I look back at your career, you've been traveling a lot with your clients. So how about right now? I mean, do you hop on a plane every week or how is it at the moment?

00:04:33 BRIAN
That's a great question. So it depends on the circumstances. I would say once a month I'm on a plane to go meet a client. I'll often go on location because the clients that contact me are often in dire straits.

00:04:57 BRIAN
There was one situation where someone had burned through 17 assistants in two years. Whoa. And so what I'll do is when the clients come to me, they're often exhausted in so many ways because they do try to take out job ads themselves. So there's something that happens where they hit a brick wall and then they come to realize we need professional help. We need to find out why all the cogs aren't working correctly. So I'll often go out into the field and visit the estate and see what's going on, talk to some of the players. And most of the time, the principals are not aware that

00:05:45 BRIAN
there's chaos behind the scenes. They often think they have a very well-oiled machine, but that's often not the case.

00:05:57 BRIAN
A Ferrari has a lot of moving parts and they're very temperamental, aren't they? So when you have these big mega estates, many of them over 20,000 square feet, and you have a lot of employees and a lot of departments,

00:06:16 BRIAN
There can be a lot of backbiting, backstabbing, inefficiencies happening in the operation. And sometimes they need a third party to go in there and take a good look at what's going on.

00:06:33 DIANA
Yeah, absolutely. And it's good to have someone like you being involved because you are in the middle between the assistant you hired for your client and of course being also the contact person for your client. So I can imagine that the job never ends, right?

00:06:50 BRIAN
There's always something to do.

00:06:53 DIANA
So we would love to hear a little bit more about your professional background, Brian. So why don't you let us know a little bit out of your bio?

00:07:01 BRIAN
Sure. So as is so often the case, I fell into the industry as so many people do.

00:07:11 BRIAN
You know, when you ask people how they got started, it'll either say a friend of a friend or I was the neighbor's niece or something like that. And it happened quite by accident.

00:07:22 BRIAN
So the first personal assistant job I had, I worked for an extended member of the Johnson & Johnson family. And that was, you know, the floodgates opened after that.

00:07:37 BRIAN
I was hooked, you know, working in the private estates and working behind the scenes and booking private jets for people. It became pretty exciting. And so I had a long career as a personal assistant and estate manager and a chief of staff working for high net worth families.

00:08:01 BRIAN
I worked for a very famous voice coach for several years who does all the Hollywood stars. And I worked for the Royal Saudi family for two years.

00:08:12 BRIAN
And then I came to a crossroads where, uh,

00:08:17 BRIAN
I had to decide, you know, if I was going to take a step back or not, because, you know, the really long hours and constantly on the road kind of gets to you after a while. The blessing is the curse. You know, the things that are very good about the job, it can become a bit of a chore. So in 2007, I decided to become a recruiter.

00:08:45 BRIAN
It's a very strange story because after I finished with the Royal Saudis, I was considering doing something else, and I went and visited a lot of the big quote-unquote famous agencies in LA and New York, and I was absolutely appalled.

00:09:05 BRIAN
at the treatment, I received that arrogance and the entire experience for me kind of opened my eyes. And I thought to myself, there's an opportunity here to do it a little better. I came to learn that

00:09:27 BRIAN
not just in private service, but most recruiters in any industry don't come from the field.

00:09:38 BRIAN
So this is especially true in domestic staffing. Very few people in the industry were actually in private service. And so I thought, well, because I come from that world and I've worked with so many families, I can make very informed decisions.

00:09:57 BRIAN
about placing staff with high net worth families. And that really is how the idea was born.

00:10:04 DIANA
Fabulous. So it was never a master plan that you said, one day I'm going to be my own CEO. I'm running my own business.

00:10:14 BRIAN
Never. It happened just like I got into the business quite by accident. I became a recruiter quite by accident.

00:10:23 BRIAN
You know, things were a little slow to start, frankly, because, you know, not only was I new.

00:10:29 BRIAN
in that genre but um you know right around 07 08 is when the financial crisis was happening with the housing market globally and so there were a couple days i said to myself was this a good idea but eventually things worked out and you know the word got out and

00:10:52 BRIAN
I started doing media appearances and things like that. And so I don't do any advertising at all. All my clients come to me either through word of mouth or they were doing research online and they found me.

00:11:07 BRIAN
So, yeah.

00:11:08 DIANA
Fabulous. What does it do to you when you look back? I mean, telling me in that moment about your career, is that still like a pinch me moment where you say, wow, incredible when I look what I've been doing and I've been running my business for such a long time. So what does it do to you when you talk about it?

00:11:26 BRIAN
Well, there are a lot of really great moments. Something very interesting happened about two years ago. I can't believe it's been two years, but I got a call out of the blue.

00:11:38 BRIAN
from someone associated with the real life crazy rich Asians family. And I kind of became, I don't want to say friends with the gentleman, but he was calling me frequently. There would be sometimes a whole week would go by and I talked to him every single day. So for months and months and months, we were talking and we were trying.

00:12:08 BRIAN
to find him the perfect traveling assistant. And because he was in a very, very unique set of circumstances and because COVID was happening, it was very difficult to find the, a perfect fit. And,

00:12:27 BRIAN
Long story short, there were several initiatives that he was involved in. He had a lot of projects he wanted to do that I was perfectly suited for. So I just threw this out there. I had a crazy idea. I said, you know what?

00:12:43 BRIAN
Maybe I should come on the road with you for a short time and really learn about the inner workings of your operation. And then I'll be better informed

00:12:53 BRIAN
about what it is you want, because so many of the clients think they know what they want and what they need, but they don't.

00:13:01 DIANA
Right.

00:13:02 BRIAN
So I ended up going on the road with him and one month turned into six months. And we were in a new country every two weeks. It was a very jet set sort of thing with lifestyle management. And it reminded me of being with the Royal Saudis. And, um,

00:13:23 BRIAN
But interestingly enough, because I had been out of the game for a little while, it made me realize how important brushing up on your skills, you know,

00:13:38 BRIAN
professional development initiatives, because there were a few times where I stumbled, especially with technology. And it was a very interesting situation because I was training three other new people to the industry. That was one of the things I was tasked with. And, you know, these young folks coming in here and

00:14:02 BRIAN
growing up with iPhones in their hand. They're very good with technology. So we had things that we taught each other. And in any case, that was a pretty fun adventure to kind of get back into the game again and

00:14:21 BRIAN
Be out there in the mix.

00:14:22 DIANA
Exactly. But how wonderfully ready to prepare yourself, you know, to find the right match for this customer. I think that's the perfect approach.

00:14:30 DIANA
So you've been naming it already. You worked as an EA chief of staff to celebrities, billionaires and royal families. So for sure, there's not only booking jets and villas and private security. There's much more involved. So how would you describe some of your jobs you've been doing in the past?

00:14:50 BRIAN
You know, it's very interesting because I came from the field and I've worked in a lot of different capacities, had different titles, worked with many different employers. The thing that kind of strikes me the most is how varied the industry really is.

00:15:14 BRIAN
This is quite a hot topic with job titles, duties, and responsibilities.

00:15:23 BRIAN
It's very hotly contested in our industry. You can't get five people to agree what a PA, EA, or chief of staff is. What does a butler do? What is a major dormo? I mean, people really get hot under the collar when these topics come up. You can't get the private service professionals to agree. You certainly can't get the employer's degree and you can't get the recruiters to agree either. So it's a very unique industry we're in, in that sense, because if you look at engineering or project management or even dentistry you know there are a lot of commonalities in those in those fields terminology procedures there's a lot of uniformity in other industries there isn't in ours so the thing that i've come to learn is that when the employers contact me

00:16:26 BRIAN
And they start using certain titles. It is really up to me to dig deep.

00:16:33 BRIAN
In fact, just two days ago, I talked to a high net worth client who had contacted me and he thought he needed a house manager.

00:16:44 BRIAN
Well, the more I probed, the more I learned about what he really needed. And I said, you actually need a domestic couple.

00:16:55 BRIAN
So many of the people that come to me, it's their first time. You know, think about buying a home for the first time or going to college for the first time.

00:17:10 BRIAN
There are so many mistakes that you make. There's so much naivete. And I say that with all due respect.

00:17:19 BRIAN
So it's very difficult when you're talking to the clients to get them to confess, if you will, about what it is they want and need because they're holding their cards so close to their chest. But the other thing is, too, is they don't have a way to express or articulate what it is they need because they just don't have the vocabulary for it because it's all new to them.

00:17:47 BRIAN
We often have this conversation behind the scenes with candidates and other recruiters about old money and new money. So in Europe, they're doing, frankly, a much better job than we are in the United States with domestic staffing because it's been around for a lot longer, you know, hundreds of years.

00:18:08 BRIAN
They've had all of these different positions in the estates. But for a lot of families in the United States, it's all new money. So people come into money or they've inherited something. And then suddenly they have hundreds of millions of dollars and they're buying these big estates or they're being built custom. And then they're walking into the HVAC room and there's all these buttons and they don't even know what to do. They don't know how the systems work.

00:18:38 BRIAN
And then they start hiring staff on their own and it becomes a hot mess really quickly. And then they come, they go on the internet and they start doing some research and they say, oh, wow, there are professional outfits out there. There are domestic staffing recruiters that specialize in this space. And so most of the people that come to me,

00:19:03 BRIAN
um are in dire straits or they wouldn't be coming to me in the first place many of them have been to other agencies and got burned and so it takes a great deal of patience

00:19:17 BRIAN
to be able to unwind the mess that they're in it um the analogy that i could use is let's say there was a big construction project happening and there's a lot of moving parts and you had to fire the contractor and then another company has to come in

00:19:37 BRIAN
and clean up the mess. And they say, oh, look, this foundation was poured wrong and you're getting cracks in this thing over here. And this was not, you know, I don't have the vocabulary because I'm not an engineer or a contractor, but you get the idea.

00:19:52 DIANA
Absolutely.

00:19:53 BRIAN
Yeah, go ahead, please.

00:19:54 DIANA
I was going to say, because you just mentioned patience, I can only imagine that your clientele, I mean, do they have patience? Do they have time? It's always like fast pace. I mean, what does patience mean? I mean, it is a journey, right? It's not a fast match. It's a journey to really a marathon sometimes to really find the right people, to find the right staff and the process you described. I can only imagine how much time it takes and how much kind of interviewing it takes from your perspective with your clients to really know, okay, who do you need? And now I start, you know, my process. So patience is tough because as we all say, time is money and usually there's not enough time out there, right? So is there an understanding for patience when you talk to your clients? Yeah.

00:20:41 BRIAN
Well, when we are in this business, we in hospitality and especially in private service, we're using the term thick skin. You have to have very thick skin and a lot of resilience. As recruiters, we're always behind the eight ball because unfortunately, the clients, most of the time, they're in a very big hurry. And the problem is that

00:21:10 BRIAN
You know, we live in this instant gratification world, which is especially true. It becomes heightened to the nth degree when you're an ultra high net worth individual. They're used to snapping their fingers and get everything they want in short order. But the problem is when you're trying to find the perfect match made in heaven, it is not a process that can be rushed.

00:21:36 BRIAN
I got a call about a month ago.

00:21:40 BRIAN
from an ultra high net worth individual in the central states who was in, they were desperate.

00:21:48 BRIAN
You know, they wanted to hire someone yesterday. It was a great sense of urgency. That is almost always true. But with this one, it was exceptional. I mean, the assistant that I was talking to on behalf of the client was almost frantic. when you know they needed to hire someone right away because there was a big project they were involved in and the demands you know can come quickly and uh with a certain kind of fervor and we have to talk the clients off the ledge that's really the best way i can describe it because

00:22:33 BRIAN
They're already in a certain pattern that they've been following. And what I try to convey to them is that we want to break the cycle.

00:22:43 BRIAN
So if they have a great sense of urgency and they're in a certain state of desperation, they're going to make the wrong decision. And what we don't want to happen as recruiters is we don't want to get a call 45 days into the placement saying that there's problems.

00:23:03 BRIAN
So those calls can either come from the candidates and or the clients.

00:23:08 BRIAN
So that's why it's so important to be thorough. And one of the things, the great difficulties I face is getting the clients to be candid with me. I often lose...

00:23:27 BRIAN
clients in the very front end of the process. And I'm fine with that because I have to press them.

00:23:35 BRIAN
Most recruiters are just chasing commissions. I'm not about the money. I've never been about the money.

00:23:44 BRIAN
So when I see that the process is not going the way that it should, sometimes I have to have a tough talk with the client. and say this is not the right fit because there's a certain way that we do things around here and they don't want to play ball um there there has to be a mutual respect and

00:24:13 BRIAN
For the people, for the candidates especially, the very high-level candidates that come to me, they've come to expect a certain level of due diligence, if you will, a certain vetting of the clients. Because the clients expect that we vet the candidates, of course, but I also do it the other way too, which is very...

00:24:36 BRIAN
untraditional, let's say, in our industry. Most recruiters are beholden to the people who are paying their bills, and I understand why they have to be like that. But I have a certain level of an expectation of the client. I have a whole set of rules that I send them in the beginning about how we work, which is the short list is that

00:25:06 BRIAN
Everyone's got to be paid legally on the books. No independent contractors and cash jobs, which is quite famous in our industry. Very important point you're addressing.

00:25:16 SPEAKER_04
Yeah. Yeah.

00:25:19 BRIAN
We have to have a salary range and job description on the table before we start, because what often happens is you'll go through a weeks long or even months long interview process. And then here come the lowball offers.

00:25:39 BRIAN
And I have to know in my heart that the clients are genuine.

00:25:47 BRIAN
when they say, this is the final job description that we've discussed. I'm signing off on this. This is the salary range. I'm willing to pay at the minimum this and at the maximum this. And these are going to be the benefits. Because, you know, when you read these bad reviews on Google and the other

00:26:15 BRIAN
I forget the names of some of these review sites, but I look at what's happening with the competition, and you'll often see these things that were written by candidates that say things like, I was thrown under the bus by my agent.

00:26:32 BRIAN
uh i showed up to work it was nothing like what was said in the job description um i got my first paycheck it was 25 less than it was supposed to be and then the client said no this is your salary i had discussed it with your agent and

00:26:49 BRIAN
And it becomes a hot mess pretty fast. So I avoid all those problems right in the very beginning. And I make, you know, the clients have to be held accountable.

00:27:01 BRIAN
And what often happens is that, you know, I get ghosted because I'll get emails from people. Oh, we're looking for this, that and the other thing. And I say, well, review this page of my website first, because these are

00:27:13 BRIAN
how we this is how we play ball at the celebrity personal assistant network and then i often won't hear back from them because when they when they see that they're going to be held accountable and people have to be paid on the books and taxes have to be paid by the employer and the candidate and i insist that the client the candidates have health insurance and we have to you know document their hours and they have to be paid overtime by law and they have to have their breaks they don't want all the rules that's why some of these third-party sites have become so popular with clients taking out job ads on their own and they just put confidential employer i've come to learn by the way after doing this for 16 years when i interview a

00:28:06 BRIAN
candidates. And I said, well, how'd you get this job? How'd you get that job?

00:28:10 BRIAN
And then they tell me what a mess it was to say, yeah, I was on one of those job boards. It was a confidential employer ad. And, you know, when those employers go through those third party sites and they cut out the middleman, the recruiters, you're giving up a lot.

00:28:29 BRIAN
You're walking into a minefield when you don't have a business entity protecting your interests because when you're negotiating with billionaires on your own and you don't have a seasoned professional on your side saying what about this what about this what about this you don't have an employment contract you're kidding you did all this on a handshake you're you're you're you're

00:28:56 DIANA
almost guaranteed to be walking into a mess in situations like that absolutely but you know what this speaks for the way you you operate and this is a huge amount of professional professionalism in there so um i can only salute you for also staying true to your values here you know and not uh jumping on every opportunity to make money but you know first of all

00:29:20 DIANA
seeing the priority and bringing two parties together and yeah, just sticking to values and your true beliefs. So I really salute this because this is not everything what we see out there, right?

00:29:39 BRIAN
Well, thank you for that. Yes. You know, I'm raising the bar. I've been trying to change the game. There's a long road ahead of me.

00:29:50 BRIAN
But I'm trying to institute some standards and best practices. There's a lot of lawlessness going on out there in private service and domestic staffing.

00:30:05 BRIAN
You know, there are plenty of blogs out there. And if you go to any of these conferences and things every year that some of these associations have, I mean, these are the hot topics that people are discussing either on stage or behind the scenes. So I'm one of the first, I suppose, to plant a flag and say, you know, there's a better way to do this. And I hope more people will follow me.

00:30:34 DIANA
And I mean, our audience that is listening now to us for sure will appreciate your open words here, because I'm sure there's always someone who's listening now. And of course, thinking of is that in your career path for me? And should I should I join, you know, becoming a personal assistant to a billionaire, to a celebrity? So, when you look back at your career, allow me to ask this once again, because of course, when I go to your website, I see famous people on that website. There's Alec Baldwin, there's Jay Leno, you've been mentioning the Royal Saudi family. So, for sure, pinch me moment, but...

00:31:15 DIANA
And we all know that at the end, these were your executives, these were your bosses, these were the people you've been working with. And I remember when I talked to the assistant of Bill Gates or the former chief of staff to Oprah, they all say the same. Like the moment you feel like, oh, that's a star, you're losing, right? And because at the end, it's your boss, it's you.

00:31:37 DIANA
executive and you were supposed to support this executive in their everyday moment. Would you agree to that?

00:31:46 BRIAN
I would say that you really can't be starstruck when you're working in this industry. You know, I've had a lot of moments. I've been to a lot of parties and I've been inside a lot of big estates and

00:32:05 BRIAN
seen a lot of things going on behind the scenes. And the thing that I would like to really convey to people that they really have to understand is that this is a business and you have to be a very level-headed business person to be in this industry. And in fact, I would say that in almost every case, the people I've met were quite different

00:32:35 BRIAN
than their public personas. And in fact, I've been disappointed more than I've been delighted, I have to say, frankly. So that is why when you go into this industry, you really have to know that it is a business. And at the end of the day,

00:32:56 BRIAN
Private service professionals do face a lot of adversity. And I often have to have these tough conversations with people that I'm coaching who get discouraged about some of the things that are going on behind the scenes. And I try to get them to screw their head on straight and do a self-assessment and evaluate whether or not it is they want to continue on their career path.

00:33:25 BRIAN
The analogy that I like to use is with police officers or with teachers. So if you're in law enforcement and you're out there in the world and you're not making much money and you're getting shot at and you're dealing with a lot of the...

00:33:42 BRIAN
uh dirty parts the the seedy underbelly of society it it makes you wonder why people would want to be in that profession but there is something about being a law enforcement officer that people really love and then the same thing can be said about teachers we know teachers get abused they're they're taking a lot of heat they're working very long hours um

00:34:09 BRIAN
The helicopter parents and the kids shooting spitballs at them. Well, why would you want to do that for such a low pay? Well, there is something about that profession that delighted them. And that's why they got into it.

00:34:24 BRIAN
So I say the same thing to private service professionals, right? There's the service heart.

00:34:33 BRIAN
And sometimes people call it a servant's heart. There's something about the hospitality industry that people really love.

00:34:42 BRIAN
And so like any profession, there will be good times and there will be bad times. You have to maintain your composure.

00:34:51 BRIAN
A stiff upper lip, as the British say, right?

00:34:56 DIANA
Absolutely. And I have to jump in here as well, because I just read today, earlier, I'm sure you're aware of that, because of your networks, Anna Vintor is looking again for a new assistant.

00:35:09 DIANA
Salaries, 80,000 US dollars. And I know a lot of assistants are probably listening to us and reading this at the moment. They would say 80,000. Oh, my goodness. This is not going to work for sure. The amount of work I bring is much more worth. Yeah.

00:35:25 BRIAN
It's a lot worse than you think, because I do have that job posted on my website right now.

00:35:32 BRIAN
The salary range is actually from 60 to 80. So on the low end, you're at 60. But even at the high end at 80 for New York City, this has upset quite a few people.

00:35:47 BRIAN
And I start getting emails about it. I should say, though.

00:35:55 BRIAN
It's not unlike the entertainment industry. For example, those Hollywood agents that work at the big agencies had to get a $250,000 education from either USC or UCLA.

00:36:13 BRIAN
And they started in the mailroom and worked their way up the chain of command. And it's going to be a good five years minimum.

00:36:24 BRIAN
of just scraping by, making nosebleed low salary to be able to work your way up to be an agent where you're actually dealing with the A-list stars.

00:36:37 BRIAN
You could say the same thing about the movie studios. So the fashion industry is no different. So it seems incredibly unfair to be the personal assistant to Anna Wintour and work those really long hours and take the heat

00:36:53 BRIAN
for only $80,000. So in New York, San Francisco, LA, and Miami, it costs $5,000 a month or $60,000 a year.

00:37:07 BRIAN
just for a livable apartment. Right. So the only person that's going to be able to take this role is going to have quite a few roommates or they're going to be living with their parents, frankly. It's going to be a lot of sacrifice to make it work. But what can be said, though, is that if you could do a job like that for two years, the sky is the limit. So many doors globally are going to fly open because the access that you're going to get, the, um,

00:37:50 BRIAN
This just occurred to me.

00:37:54 BRIAN
For people who don't know, if you work for the State Department or you're a Secret Service agent or you work for the CIA, those salaries are incredibly low. You wouldn't believe it.

00:38:09 BRIAN
But...

00:38:10 BRIAN
What a lot of people have on their minds when they go into a role like that is, I'm going to do it for five years. I'm going to receive millions of dollars of education and training. And then I'm going to open a consultancy and make $3 million a year running a security outfit or whatever it is that they're thinking about. So if you want to work for Anna Wintour and you can...

00:38:41 BRIAN
financially get by the rewards at the end are going to be you know there's going to be a big pot of gold at the end of the ring because you're either going to be able to move up in that company and maybe become a vice president or it's going to give you access to all the fashion designers

00:39:01 BRIAN
And so there are many rewards that are going to come from the training and education that you're going to receive along the way. You have to do a lot of soul searching.

00:39:13 DIANA
Right.

00:39:15 DIANA
Brian, when you when you talk about this, would you say that there is actually a career path for an assistant, maybe starting as a personal assistant to Anna Wintour or Kim Kardashian? So is there a career path possible when you do a good job? I'm so glad you asked. Right.

00:39:34 BRIAN
I get emails every single day from people all over the world that are either in the industry already and they're trying to level up or they're thinking of breaking into the industry. I...

00:39:53 BRIAN
have to give them some very honest and candid advice about the career choices they're making along the way. It is a little bit of a crapshoot, but you have to have a strategy.

00:40:10 BRIAN
Some celebrity assistant jobs, for example, on the outside might seem very glamorous.

00:40:18 BRIAN
But it depends who you're working for. Could it be a stepping stone to something else? But I get these heartbreaking emails from people saying, I worked for this A-list celebrity for three years. I was being paid cash. Nothing was on the books. And I don't work for that person anymore. They've changed agents. I can't get in touch with the celebrity anymore. And what I'm leading up to is their employment is not verifiable.

00:40:48 BRIAN
And then I have to be the one to give them really bad news and say, I'm really sorry. You basically just wasted three years of your life because you it doesn't count it's like top gun below the hard deck doesn't count right and if you can't prove that you worked for somebody you don't have a a recommendation letter you don't have paid uh check stubs it doesn't count so you know i'll get um

00:41:20 BRIAN
It's so shocking. I get these messages from people that are working for huge A-list stars that have production companies and they're making like $150,000 a year. And they're thinking, oh, I'm thinking of quitting and I want to go somewhere else. I said, don't quit. I said, are you kidding me? I said, most celebrity assistants are only making $60,000 a year.

00:41:46 BRIAN
um some of them make less and you know that's not even enough to cover rent and you know there's a lot of french benefits like the private jets and the red carpet events and stuff but you have to strategize and and know what steps you're gonna take where ultimate what's what's the end game You can't do it for the sake of doing it just for the fun of it.

00:42:15 BRIAN
You have to always be planning. What is my next three, four or five years going to look like?

00:42:24 BRIAN
So I had somebody once, for example, sent me an email. He was working for a very high profile person in the entertainment industry and

00:42:36 BRIAN
She wanted to quit. And I said, listen, I already know what you're going to tell me. I said, you're working 14 hours a day, six, seven days a week. No matter how much you're getting paid, it doesn't seem like enough. I said, it's not going to be any better anywhere else. I said, the bright side for you is that because the person you work for has this gigantic multinational company, that you can start showing your value, work your way up, and you could be a vice president to one of these many businesses that this

00:43:13 BRIAN
famous personality has, I said, you need to start thinking about it that way. Right. And so I often have to talk people off the ledge. I got another call once from somebody who said, I'm working on a private island. I'm only making $250,000 a year. And, you know, this person was working for an icon of industry. And they wanted to quit. And every single time, by the way, I get these calls from people without exception, every single time they fell into the role. They had not worked their way up to that position. So they didn't have a certain level of gratitude and appreciation because they didn't understand what was really going out there in the industry. They were living in a bubble and they didn't actually know what kind of precious situation that they were really in.

00:44:07 BRIAN
So with the guy on the private island, I said, you need to calm down. Absolutely.

00:44:15 BRIAN
And reassess your situation. You're in a you're in a wonderful situation. It's never going to get any better than this. But I get these calls from candidates and like, oh, I'm just going to get another two hundred fifty thousand dollar job working for this other high profile person. They just think these things are like apples on a tree and you can. And I said, you don't understand. You know, on my facts page for candidates, you know, you go to my jobs page and there's a link there before you can even read the jobs. It says candidate facts. And I write this really long. There must be twenty five hundred words on this page or more explaining this whole Q&A about how the system works. And I said, listen, you don't understand how ultra hyper competitive it is.

00:45:07 BRIAN
The example that I used, I used Gal Gadot, the actress in Wonder Woman. I said, in the old days, the actresses in LA were only competing against the Hollywood people. Everything is global now. So when these people contact me and they're looking for a search, we're not just searching in one state or one country anymore. We are often on a global scale where they're going to be competing competing against the world's best people in the industry. You're going to be up against hundreds of other A-list level candidates that have been working for billionaires.

00:45:50 BRIAN
They have master's degrees. They have more qualifications than you do. They're, you know, Six Sigma, Black Belts. I said, you don't even know what you're up against. And so part of what I do as a recruiter being in the middle,

00:46:05 BRIAN
I have to sober people up, both the clients and the candidates.

00:46:12 BRIAN
I talked to them about humility. I said, listen, I was just telling this ultra high net worth client the other day because there's a certain air that they have about them and the demands that they're making. I said, sir, listen to me very carefully.

00:46:29 BRIAN
I'm like a sports agent. representing the Michael Jordans of private service.

00:46:36 BRIAN
These people are like sports stars. They are in demand. They know their worth. They are hard to recruit.

00:46:48 BRIAN
So everybody has to go in with a certain level of patience and humility.

00:46:57 BRIAN
Because the candidates sometimes are acting a little arrogant about who they've worked with. And oh, I look at Ryan. Do you need to take another look at my resume? I've seen your resume. I know who you've worked with. And I want to tell you, it's not a slam dunk like you think it's going to be. I have the same talk with the clients, too.

00:47:19 BRIAN
Because if people's expectations are too far apart and then you get these people in the room and they start interviewing with each other and egos get in the way, you're not going to be able to come to an agreement. It's just not going to work. You know, I get calls all the time from people.

00:47:36 BRIAN
They're very discouraged. I remember I got a call once from a private consultancy that was in Las Vegas.

00:47:45 BRIAN
And they had been trying to broker a deal. They weren't a domestic staffing firm, but they worked with a lot of high net worth people. And they had a client who was a multi-billion dollar figure in the Middle East and the United Arab Emirates. And the woman was almost in tears. And she said, we spent six months trying to close a deal with a candidate.

00:48:07 BRIAN
We offered her a $250,000 salary and a very nice title. We were going to relocate her. And remember, in the UAE, we're talking tax-free salaries. Exactly. To bring home $250,000, you'd have to be making $500,000 in your Western country because of the tax bracket you'd be in. And then plus you're getting...

00:48:32 BRIAN
The luxury car that's included and a luxury condo or high rise apartment that's worth millions of dollars that you get to stand for free. So you get all the perks, you know, so we're talking comp packages all in that are worth maybe a million dollars. And then they. they couldn't work it out.

00:48:55 BRIAN
They couldn't close the deal. And then they're like, oh, we're so discouraged. We have to start all over again. And the reason that these deals fall apart is because you don't have a middle person like myself trying to broker it and be in front of these problems. I mean, when you've been doing it for 16 years like I have, you can be very predictive.

00:49:19 BRIAN
I can look at someone's resume and talk to them for five minutes and then talk to the client and know right away, instantly, what kind of problems are going to present themselves down the road. And in fact, those problems come in stages. I say, you know, two weeks into the process, this is the hurdle that it's going to present itself. And after we jump that hurdle, this is going to happen. And almost like clockwork.

00:49:48 BRIAN
You become like a wizard. You're clairvoyant. And you can just start seeing. So you have to be ahead of these things. And if you don't,

00:49:59 BRIAN
Put people's heads on the right way from the very beginning, and I mean both the candidates and the clients. You're almost sure to be in a situation where you're going to invest weeks or months of time, and then there's not going to be any fruit at the end.

00:50:14 SPEAKER_04
Yeah, yeah.

00:50:16 BRIAN
The chasm will be so big that it will be impossible to jump over. You're like Evo Knievel on the motorcycle jumping over Caesar's palace fountains trying to get over the canyon. If you see those Evo Knievel wipeouts that are so famous, this is what happens sometimes when you're putting deals together.

00:50:35 SPEAKER_04
Mm-hmm.

00:50:37 BRIAN
the catastrophic train wrecks that come afterwards. And then the tempers come because then the candidates get upset. The clients get upset. I've invested weeks of time. Look what happened. And I said, Hey, remember when we talked about it, you could go back and read the email and I encourage you to do it this way. And you didn't want to do it. And, you know, so a lot of consulting and consoling.

00:51:03 BRIAN
as part of my job as a recruiter at this level.

00:51:07 DIANA
And this is why we need these agencies, right?

00:51:10 DIANA
Just because the process, again, you've been describing, it's just a huge amount of time dealing with both parties, consulting with both parties, coaching both parties, being a mentor for these people. So, yeah, I mean, incredible job you're running and also the insights you hear, of course, with every case you get on your desk. So I would love to hear a little bit more also about the skill set they should bring to the table. You've been great. telling us thick skin you've been telling us resilience is there anything else i mean can only imagine because of the clientele that becomes more international there needs um language skills for sure uh what else would you add i mean in order to to serve this that's a great question so um somewhere on my website i have a graphic of a three-way venn diagram

00:52:07 BRIAN
It might be on my employer's facts page on the bottom. I'm trying to remember. But on that Venn diagram, in the very center of those three rings that come together, it says lightning in a bottle. And the three categories for the Venn diagram are hard skills, soft skills, and then traits. This industry is wildly...

00:52:36 BRIAN
unpredictable. So you could be an estate manager for a high net worth person in tech, let's say.

00:52:45 BRIAN
And those two, you can have two different estate managers working in a 20,000 square foot estate and both the employers are in tech and the jobs will be night and day different from each other. So the first thing I want to say is

00:53:05 BRIAN
It's really hard to coach people on a career path because, well, this just occurred to me. So I got to meet Drew Barrymore once.

00:53:15 BRIAN
I was at a small event. I was there talking to her and her producing partner.

00:53:25 BRIAN
I apologize. This was 10 years ago. I don't remember that person's name. But the story that I was told

00:53:35 BRIAN
I wasn't the only one there. Drew Barrymore said that she picked up the phone and called this woman who had never been in the entertainment industry before. She had met her at a wedding and said, I'm starting my own production company.

00:53:49 BRIAN
Charlie's Angels was the first big movie that they made.

00:53:53 BRIAN
And she called this woman and said, I want you to be my producing partner. So this woman said, I read a book about being a movie producer.

00:54:04 BRIAN
And then come to find out when I actually started producing, nothing that I learned in the book was true. Now, that said about private service also. So I could coach people six ways from Sunday about what happened when I was in the industry.

00:54:25 BRIAN
And of course, I have a lot of other stories from other people I've coached, but plus the candidates that became clients. And, you know, I have a whole encyclopedia of knowledge.

00:54:36 BRIAN
But sometimes almost none of what I could say could apply to a very specific situation that somebody was in.

00:54:45 BRIAN
But what can you do? Well, here are some commonalities that you're, regardless of whether you're a nanny or a security agent or personal assistant or state manager or whatever, right? You're going to need very thick skin and incredible patience.

00:55:05 BRIAN
Project management is a very big one because regardless of your employer,

00:55:15 BRIAN
You're going to be in situations where you might have to run events or you're going to have a lot of moving parts or there might be a construction project. So getting the PMP certificate is not something that very many people talk about. But if you get yourself involved in project management, there's no way to lose. Another commonality is that you really need to up your skills with Microsoft Office.

00:55:46 BRIAN
Most people who think they're black belt wizards at MS Office, they really aren't. They don't know every single command in the ribbon.

00:55:57 BRIAN
They just don't. They think they're pretty good at the commands that they do know.

00:56:03 BRIAN
But when you decide to become certified in Microsoft Office, you're inevitably going to be learning things that you didn't know before, especially where you get into Excel. That's my Achilles heel. I was never very good at Excel. But if you're going to be working for a billionaire or you're going to be an estate manager, You're going to have to manage a lot of data. You're going to be aggregating things and you're going to have to be a wizard with Microsoft Excel and, of course, Word and then the calendars and all of that. So in addition to PMP, I would say, you know, up your skills in Microsoft Office. That will never fail you.

00:56:53 BRIAN
And what also people have to do, I often get emails from people who said, I'm the neighbor's niece. I just got hired. I'm starting in two days. I'm working for a billionaire. I have absolutely no idea what to do.

00:57:10 BRIAN
Crash course. You know, I say go to the site map on my website. There is no other website anywhere in the world that has as many resources as one place available for free to the public as my website. There's no there's no close second. You know, I got.

00:57:28 BRIAN
how to build a billionaire's wine cellar, all the different models for private jets and the distances that they can travel and how much weight for the luggage, what it means to be a sommelier, how to pour wine. I mean, you name it. If it has to do with private service, it's on my website. So I say you have to steep yourself in the world

00:57:57 BRIAN
of the private service professional and start learning about the exotic car fleets. And, you know, I got a funny story. When I started working for the Royal Saudis, I didn't know what a Maybach was.

00:58:14 BRIAN
And they were talking Maybach, Maybach. And I was like, what's a Maybach? I mean, I made myself look like a fool.

00:58:21 BRIAN
So 20 years ago, the tools that are available to people today were not available to me. So part of why...

00:58:33 BRIAN
I've built my website the way I did with all the resources is because I made my own wish list. What do I wish I knew?

00:58:45 BRIAN
Right. And so I put it all out there because every day, just like there's a new busload of people that show up at Hollywood and they want to be stars and they're fresh, fresh off the bus, as they say, they're fresh off the bus and private service, too.

00:59:00 BRIAN
There are 3,000 billionaires in the world. There are more than 50,000 households that have net worth between $50 and $500 million. I mean, the debt...

00:59:15 BRIAN
The wealth is just fantastic. You know, these people can employ small armies of staff. And every day there's a whole new group of people that are starting a private service that don't know what to do. They can go to my website and they can dive in and start steeping themselves in the language in the world.

00:59:35 DIANA
But how generous of you to put it out there, because I can only imagine these people who are probably settled maybe after one or two years, they got to learn on the job. But again, there's always how we can do things better and how we can learn, especially when it comes to technology. You need to be a game changer and you need to embrace technology. But it's not easy that you go out there as the personal assistant of Drew Barrymore and say, oh, I need to network with someone. I need to have someone next to me sharing a little bit out of my role.

01:00:13 DIANA
And of course, maybe letting them know who I work with. So it's not easy to talk about your role with everyone out there. So are there any specific celebrity networks out there? I know in New York, there's a big one. Probably L.A. also has one.

01:00:27 BRIAN
I would say on that subject, the good news is for people that are either starting in the industry or people that are already in the industry and they think they need help. There is no shortage of associations and clubs and different things that you can join to help, you know, so you can get advice, so you can level up.

01:00:52 BRIAN
There are clubs and associations for estate managers and nannies and personal assistants and executive assistants. There's a whole cornucopia of podcasts and everything. So I would tell people you need to dive in and see what works for you. A lot of these...

01:01:16 BRIAN
associations charge or their invite only. They charge and their invite only. So you got to see what works for you. You know, there are plenty of choices out there. There aren't any burning recommendations I have, but you just

01:01:35 BRIAN
have to see what fits for you. Because what might be a great association for one person might not necessarily be good for someone else. You have to know what niche you're in.

01:01:50 DIANA
And the funny thing is, if I can add this, because I was kind of helping someone in Germany to work with a high-profile executive.

01:02:01 DIANA
And I know she's in the job now for three years. It's a good match. So they are just wonderful together. But I know that this client doesn't want her to be visible on social media, doesn't want her to go out there on networking events mentioning the name and the company she works for. Do you hear this a lot also in the U.S. ?

01:02:23 BRIAN
This has always been a problem in our industry. So this idea of discretion and keeping a very low profile.

01:02:34 BRIAN
I'm the poster child for what you're not supposed to do, but I'm not in the industry anymore. So that's why a lot of people...

01:02:43 BRIAN
that I know that have been in the industry for a very long time and they've survived and they've been able to go from one job to another. Generally speaking, they keep it very, very low profile. People that are on social media a little bit too much, even if they're not mentioning their boss's name or anything, as soon as you kind of cross that line and you go into that other world, it makes employers nervous because then

01:03:14 BRIAN
they start asking themselves is this person gonna start making videos and taking pictures behind the scenes of things that they shouldn't and so you you have to be very careful about these sort of situations um because when you're working in private service um you just don't know you know it's all right going back to what i was uh saying before how hyper competitive it is and you're going to be competing against hundreds of other people well at the end of the day it's always going to come down to two people and then they start splitting hairs so if they say well here are two people that seem equally qualified they both work you know the resumes are very strong candidate A is on social media a little bit too much and candidate B is a lot quieter it's a pretty easy decision when you get to that when you're faced with that sort of dilemma so these are the things people need to be careful of I recall now I was coaching someone years ago

01:04:30 BRIAN
Very nice gentleman, lots of experience, and he was having trouble scoring his next gig. And I looked at his resume and his social media and I said, you know, I have some suggestions for you about how you can polish up a little bit.

01:04:49 BRIAN
The thing that I will never forget as long as I live is on his LinkedIn profile, if you can believe it, he had pictures of someone's feet.

01:04:59 BRIAN
And I was like, what is that? Because when you comment on people's profiles now, that becomes part of your professional identity because it's right on the homepage of your LinkedIn profile, right under your headshot, it shows your activity. So someone had taken a picture of their feet and they said, oh, I'm so sore. I was on my feet all day and I just got a foot massage. And it was a weird thing that the person said,

01:05:28 BRIAN
picture of their feet after they got a foot massage and then he had like commented on that yeah listen man let me let me be frank with you said, I'm a billionaire and I'm looking at your resume and I'm thinking of hiring you to share all my secrets with you and give you all my credit card numbers. And I'm looking at your LinkedIn profile and I see a picture of someone's feet. I'm going to run the other direction. I'm just thinking. But the guy, he was a bright, the guy was coaching. He's a very bright person. He has a lot of, but he just didn't,

01:06:03 BRIAN
He wasn't thinking of it that way. But because I'm an outside person looking in and I have that perspective, I said, it doesn't work, man. You've got to delete all that stuff. When you're looking for a job, especially, all your social media profiles need to be on mute. You need to go back. There was this...

01:06:25 BRIAN
guy once i remember um worked at um one of the one of the world's largest and most powerful talent agencies you know talking about like this anna wintour thing about the the doors that it opens well this guy had worked at this mega power agency but he had been unemployed

01:06:48 BRIAN
for over a year. And I thought, that doesn't even make sense. I'm looking at his resume and he went to the fancy school and paid $250,000 and stopped school. And

01:06:59 BRIAN
Then I, I Googled him and there was his Facebook page and he's on a table in Vegas with his shirt off acting like a fool with like a shots and just acting like an idiot. And I thought, Oh my God, no wonder, you know, because of course is 93% of employers and any industry are going to

01:07:28 BRIAN
google you at some point during the process and they usually do it sooner than later and here he is with a very bad social media presence and what i don't understand about this why people keep making this mistake yeah there have been thousands of stories online fired over facebook posts and stuff i mean people know now more than ever how sensitive it is to do this

01:07:51 BRIAN
And people keep making the same mistakes over and over and over again. I hate to say it. It's usually the younger people. People over 40 usually learn a lot of really hard lessons in their life. And there is a certain maturity level, both personally and professionally, that the younger people don't have. But when I see these snafus that people make, it almost always is the younger generation. Right. So people need, you know, they should be teaching this stuff in school, in both high school and college. They need to be teaching what it means to have good business sense.

01:08:31 DIANA
And for every industry, right? For every industry, it's important because as you said, everyone is going to Google you and keep a low profile, especially in the industry you are dealing with. And I remember... It's been a few years ago. And of course, I also follow quite a few celebrities on Instagram. And here and there, actually, you see how they sometimes tag people from their staff team. And here and there, it includes an assistant. So, yes, Kris Jenner's male assistant she has and Gwyneth Paltrow mentioned one of her assistants in the past. And every time when I looked at their profile, they were absolutely low profile. Here we go. Silent, you know, and so super discreet. And it's exactly what you need to do. And thank you so much for highlighting this once again, because I think out of this wonderful, wonderful, honest and transparent conversation we had,

01:09:27 DIANA
It's just not this fancy job that some people see on an ad, like reading, and I went towards a job ad, or also something that you've been posting recently, a Formula One driver is looking for an assistant, traveling to different states. So please, people, it's not everything you see out there. So I'm glad that you are here with us today to really clarify a few things.

01:09:51 BRIAN
Well, yeah, the analogy that I like to use is,

01:10:00 BRIAN
those actors that go on those shows and they do the interviews and I'm thinking of the actor's studio and you'll see Julia Roberts or, you know, they'll have all these huge stars. And I posted about this recently. There was an article about celebrities and billionaires saying, follow your dreams and all of this stuff.

01:10:25 BRIAN
And some people say that it's bad advice.

01:10:28 BRIAN
It might be.

01:10:30 BRIAN
The thing that discourages me about those shows where the actors go on and they do the interviews, the part that they never say, I've never heard it once. The ugly truth is that 99.9% of people say,

01:10:46 BRIAN
who moved to LA that want to be an actor will never make a dime.

01:10:51 BRIAN
Statistically speaking, there's a 99.9% chance you're going to fail. They never talk about that. I think it's irresponsible not to do that. So while I am an advocate for our industry, I'm a cheerleader for our industry.

01:11:11 BRIAN
It is a wonderful industry.

01:11:13 BRIAN
At the same time, I don't sugarcoat anything. I am very clear with people, even when I coach them, that there are pros and cons to this industry. And I am willing to share that information. Most people aren't.

01:11:31 DIANA
Yes. And that's exactly why you are on the show here, because I absolutely appreciate your openness here.

01:11:40 DIANA
There are actually two last questions I have for you, Brian.

01:11:44 DIANA
We need to find out what's going on with L.A. because a lot of celebrities, and I've read it in various articles, are leaving L.A. because the situation is not as safe as it was anymore, talking about crime, talking about drugs. So how do you see the situation?

01:12:00 BRIAN
Yeah.

01:12:03 BRIAN
They're in dire straits. I'm not going to sugarcoat that.

01:12:07 BRIAN
The crime is up. The homeless encampments everywhere. San Francisco is not much better.

01:12:16 BRIAN
Two years ago, like I said, when I went on the road with a client, I spent an extended amount of time in San Francisco. I was there for several months. And

01:12:30 BRIAN
California, generally speaking, they've got some challenges that they're trying to face.

01:12:36 BRIAN
So the good news is this. 3000 billionaires in the world. About 600 or so are in the United States, less than 100 are in New York City.

01:12:53 BRIAN
Now, what am I getting at? What I'm getting at is there are billionaires and ultra high net worth families everywhere in every state in America.

01:13:05 BRIAN
There are 10 million millionaires. So what is that? A couple hundred thousand per state. There there's no shortage of people right there in your backyard, wherever you live, that you can work with. So you don't have to have stars and go to San Francisco, L.A., New York or Miami.

01:13:25 DIANA
I mean, look at people like Matthew McConaughey. He's out in Texas. And, you know, I also read the other day, who was it? One of Kelly Clarkson who said, I'm going to move to New York. And if you want to keep me as your moderator for the show, you need to move the whole production to New York. Right. So there's a lot of things going on. Right.

01:13:44 BRIAN
Yeah. So what I tell people is one of the biggest surprises of my career is, you know, I get these frantic calls from people in the in the middle states. So not just the Midwest, but any of those states, you know, as soon as you go off the coast, the East Coast or the West Coast, and you work your way inward, it becomes incredibly difficult that world class talent. The big shocker to me is how unwilling people are.

01:14:14 BRIAN
to make a move, go out of their comfort zone. I'm working with a client now in the Midwest who's a high-profile billionaire, and they're doing a nationwide search for a chef and a housekeeper. And the reason is they can't find the caliber of talent that they need.

01:14:41 BRIAN
outside of those big cities, right? But the problem is a lot of candidates don't want to move.

01:14:48 BRIAN
This is a shocker to me because you could, if you were making 150 in New York and you moved to the Midwest to make it 150, you've just almost, you've definitely doubled your salary, maybe even tripled, you know, relatively speaking, because the cost of living is so much lower.

01:15:12 BRIAN
when you're out of those big cities, but people get kind of too comfortable with the big city life. And I had a guy once that was in, you know, I get people from Texas and Montana.

01:15:28 BRIAN
In Idaho, they have these huge ranches. They're willing to pay 150 and up. They can't get the talent because people don't want to go to their comfort zones and move out of the big cities. So I would say to the people who are new in the business,

01:15:43 BRIAN
that want some world-class opportunities, take the road less traveled.

01:15:51 BRIAN
Go out of the big cities because if you're trying to level off or you're trying to break in and you're competing against that world-class talent in those big cities, it's going to be much harder for you.

01:16:02 BRIAN
If you take the road less traveled and you're willing to go out of your comfort zone, there are some world-class, once-in-a-lifetime opportunities out there just sitting, waiting to be had if you're willing to go for it.

01:16:19 DIANA
And people don't do it on your own. You know, make sure you reach out to Brian, who has the right network.

01:16:26 DIANA
So make sure you check in with our show notes, because you'll find all the information around Brian's agency and his LinkedIn profile. And yeah, of course, make sure you connect and learn even more.

01:16:44 DIANA
But I have one last question, actually, because you have been on the road a lot with your former executives when you were part of this industry, being there as an assistant chief of staff yourself. So when you look back at all these trips, all these private jets going to all different countries, what is one of the most memorable trips you still have in your head where you think like, that was great and maybe I'm going to go back one day?

01:17:11 BRIAN
It's very ironic that you're asking this question. I did a tour of the Middle East.

01:17:19 BRIAN
I was in several countries, including Saudi Arabia. I might be going back actually very soon. I have something hot off the press that this is the first I've talked about it, the exclusive on your show.

01:17:36 BRIAN
I might be going back to the Middle East for a project. You know, the Middle East is there's so much to offer. You know, I've been all over Europe, all over Asia. I've been to the Middle East and there's something the mystique of it.

01:17:55 BRIAN
It's not what people think it is. You know, of course, certain places you do have to be careful, but that's true in Europe, too.

01:18:05 SPEAKER_04
Absolutely.

01:18:05 BRIAN
Paris and London can be very dangerous.

01:18:08 BRIAN
Yeah. So I had a wonderful trip to the Middle East.

01:18:15 BRIAN
I've been to Dubai.

01:18:18 BRIAN
Even though it's not the Middle East, I've been to Istanbul, but, you know, it's an Islamic culture. I was in Jordan.

01:18:27 BRIAN
I loved it. You know, there's so much to offer.

01:18:32 BRIAN
There was that story I told you of the consultancy in Vegas and someone turned down a $250,000 job. They didn't want to move to the Emirates. Yeah. There are a lot of opportunities out there in the Middle East.

01:18:51 BRIAN
I think people should look into it.

01:18:53 DIANA
Absolutely. I actually teach there. I have clients when I run my webinars. So a lot of assistants joining my webinars from the Middle East. And these are very high profile assistants. And really, yeah, it's a whole different level, as we all know, how we look at Dubai and also Saudi Arabia, what you have been sharing with us or other countries.

01:19:18 DIANA
And I like to observe that. And by the way, I also like the fact that they actually have a lot of mail assistance in these countries. Is this something you observe as well?

01:19:27 BRIAN
Yeah. So, uh, particularly in the middle East, um, there's a lot of opportunity for men because as we know, I mean, there, there's no sugarcoating this, you know, most assistance and private service or in the corporate world are women.

01:19:44 BRIAN
It's, it's a little tougher for men. Um, for a lot of reasons, I don't want to get into all of them, but has something to do with, uh, a little bit to do with the egos of the VIPs that you're working for. But again,

01:19:56 BRIAN
For cultural reasons, the women in the Middle East hire female companions or assistants and then the men hire males.

01:20:09 BRIAN
So, yeah, there are definitely a lot of opportunities out there. You know, Saudi Arabia has really opened up.

01:20:17 BRIAN
Their crown prince has completely, I could use the word revolutionized, you know, Saudi Arabia. There are a lot of they've dropped a lot of these old school rules and women are driving now and going to school and, you know, taking their burqas off and all of this. So, you know, movie theaters are opening. It's a completely different world than it used to be.

01:20:43 BRIAN
Yeah. Go ahead.

01:20:47 DIANA
So it must be very interesting. I mean, first of all, thank you so much for sharing the hot news that there is a project waiting for you. And so I can only imagine how excited you are also to going back to these places where you have been working and spending your time and, you know, freshening up memories.

01:21:03 BRIAN
Yeah. Looking forward to it.

01:21:06 DIANA
It has been a huge pleasure talking to you once again. Thank you so much for giving us your view of this industry. Because for sure, a lot of people, as we heard, look totally into the wrong direction when they see a job ad and they see a celebrity name and they see a billionaire's estate. So everyone out there who is interested, of course, in getting to know more about this industry, make sure you reach out to Brian. And yeah, just... hear a little bit more about the things you've been sharing with us great wisdom you've been sharing so thank you so much once again and wishing you all the best and enjoy the rest of the farthest day yes it's my pleasure thank you have a great day thank you

01:21:52 DIANA
You never know when it's time to find the next challenge. So make sure to reach out to Brian Daniel. We have all the necessary links in the show notes. And maybe he's going to be a big help for you for finding the next match. Thank you so much, Brian, for being on the show. And I hope to meet you one day in person.