28th July, 2025

Exceptional EA turns 12 today

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THIS ARTICLE includes a look at the scope and depth of what you can find here on Exceptional EA, as we mark its 12th anniversary , and comes with my thanks for turning to me for your professional development. 

I continue to stay connected with assistants and your careers, and to invest in my own professional growth. I work to maintain your trust and confidence as a valued resource - here on your screen, and when it comes to delivering training, keynote addresses and more for you at conferences, onsite in your workplace, and through webinar courses.

Join me in celebrating Exceptional EA’s 12th anniversary

Have a virtual slice of birthday cake! I’ve chosen the dual themes of “better” and celebration, since it was on this date in 2013 I launched Exceptional EA as a complimentary professional development resource for assistants around the globe.

Better

I believed we could do better in terms of professional development, community and networking for assistants, and decided to do something about it. I established goals.

Think back to 2013, and how few online resources – let alone complimentary resources – there were for assistants. I wanted to provide better opportunities for people to connect and thrive in this career. I also wanted to achieve my goal of drawing on what wound up being almost three decades in the career to speak and train internationally, and to positively impact assistants around the globe in person. Offering travel inspiration through my love of photography was an additional goal.

Before podcasts, I began giving voice to assistants in multiple countries

I also wanted to shine a light on individuals in the career, and – while happy to stand corrected – believe I was the first to routinely interview assistants like you from around the globe. Rather than focusing on people whose careers involve supporting famous people, I’ve been intentional in focusing on individuals whose roles are relatable to readers from various sectors and stages of career in 22 different countries.

I launched Real Careers to celebrate individual assistants’ successes, and to help other assistants gain insights and practical tips from interviewees’ careers.

Surveying you as the career evolves

Years ago, I launched my Weekend Polls so you could add your voice – anonymously – to questions about the career and how it’s evolving. Most of the questions have been multiple choice and, while I now refer to these as surveys rather than Weekend Polls, we’re continuing to build data that helps track trends and emerging practices. You’ll find my latest survey, assessing how our use of AI is evolving, by clicking here.

Goals

From the outset, I had big goals for Exceptional EA, for readers, and for myself. At that point in time, my connections with other assistants were limited to people in Canada and the US. I wanted to nurture and connect a global community of assistants – whatever your position title – who also want to perform at a high level.

We’ve accomplished that and more, whether it’s my Real Careers interviews, the inspirational quotes I offer on your screens, or the broad-ranging articles with news, strategies and perspectives to help you progress in your career.

Throughout the past 12 years, you’ll have found me focusing on recurring themes of adapting, learning, and nurturing resilience so you can thrive while succeeding.

Practical tips as well as inspiration

When we entered pandemic life in 2020, I gathered together an international panel of professional association leaders to share strategies, tips and experiences, and highlighted emerging practices from individual readers who were more than willing to allow me to share systems they’d created as we all adapted to new practices.

With so many assistants innovating as we made our way through and beyond 2020, I was able to bring you specific tips, guides and checklists to help navigate those memorable times. While some of these ideas came from yours truly, others reflected your counterparts’ experiences and undertakings, and their readiness to allow me to share them with you.

I’ve also assembled panels of assistants from different countries as we tackled various themes. These have included AI and digital disruption, stereotypes of the assistant career, social media and more.

Anything’s possible

Always interested in technology, I immersed myself in the world of website design the third week of July 2013 and launched this site the following week. I did so from our dining room table, while we were in the thick of a major home renovation.

[I am imperfect and, during the course of redesigning this website, inadvertently deleted a number of menu blocks, so – while you can still find all my Real Careers interviews through the search field – am still in the process of restoring links to all those interviews.]

I launched Exceptional EA while working in a demanding role supporting a board of directors. I’d already invested time and energy in higher education designed for college and university instructors/lecturers, focusing on how to design and deliver quality education for adult learners.

I’d been presenting at regional, national and international conferences in Canada and the US long before I left my own office career in 2018. In 2019, after almost three decades in office environments, I began speaking, training and writing year-round, rather than needing to use vacation time to travel and deliver keynotes and other presentations. As of 2025, I’ve had the good fortune of presenting in person in 10 countries, and to people in multiple countries through webinars.

If you have goals, be they modest, audacious or somewhere in between, know that you can achieve them. Plan, prepare, put in the hard work, treat people with respect and goodwill, and see how much you can achieve. It’s never too early or too late to identify and pursue your goals. Plan. Prepare. Recognise you’ll achieve some goals readily, while others take time. Be disciplined. Be consistent and persistent, and you’ll get there.

Thank you

Thank you for joining me here. Thank you to each and every reader, to each person I’ve interviewed, and to each and every client who’s entrusted me with speaking and delivering training. Special thanks go to Lucy Brazier, who’s enabled me to achieve my goals of experiencing travel in – and enjoying time with the people of – countries such as Australia and South Africa.

I continue to stay connected with assistants and your careers, and continue to invest in my own professional growth, with the ongoing aim of being a valued resource – in terms of all the professional development you’ll find right here, and when it comes to delivering training, keynote addresses and more for you at conferences, onsite in your workplace, and through webinar courses.

All images © 2025 Shelagh Donnelly. All rights reserved.

If you’d like to see more of my travel videos and pics, you’re welcome to join me on Instagram and YouTube , and you don’t need your own accounts to access these accounts.