Unfiltered Sessions

TRANSFORM Your Corporate CAREER into a PURPOSE-DRIVEN Entrepreneurial Journey with Elona Lopari

• Philip Sessions • Episode 237

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What if you could turn your corporate career into a purpose-driven entrepreneurial journey? In this episode, we chat with Elona, founder and CEO of the Life School, about her inspiring transition from a Fortune 500 leadership role to launching her own business. Elona shares how aligning her personal mission with professional goals empowered her to overcome fears, navigate cultural shifts, and break down big dreams into manageable steps.

Elona also dives into the importance of self-development, vision, and authentic communication in entrepreneurship. She offers practical advice on making a smooth career transition, building a supportive network, and knowing when to fully commit to your new path. Learn how to humanize your approach to business, combining purpose with profit, and discover heart-centered strategies for fostering genuine relationships in today’s fast-paced, ad-saturated world. This episode is packed with insights to help you achieve success through intentional and purpose-driven efforts.

NOTABLE QUOTES
"My mission is to humanize business" – Elona
"When I hear entrepreneurs that finally give up the reins to some portion… to somebody who's 100% focused on that, that person always does better than them." – Philip
"Vision is where everything begins because once you have that…, you can work [backward]." – Elona
"Understanding the map of where you're going has been very important to me because that has given me a lot of security…Even if I am… taking the wrong step…, I'm still learning something." – Elona
"There's always going to be pain to growth. It's never going to be [an] easy, smooth sail." – Elona
"You can be a good student to the process of things, but don't be afraid to step out of the process sometimes and test a lot of stuff and experiment." – Elona
“You are always more creative than you think you are." – Elona
"Having our own passion, our own spin on it, I believe, allows people to be engaged and interested in us doing it with them, or coaching them, or buying our product or service, versus going to somebody else because of the passion, because our personality that we put into that." – Philip
"Always be authentic and share from your experience." – Elona
"Speaking from the passion, we can get that tonality, that excitement that's behind what you're talking about." – Philip
"If we want to build trust and build good, genuine human relationships, offer value." – Elona
"We really need to get back to building actual, genuine relationships, not transactional relationships." – Philip
"It all starts with you." – Elona
"When you're good with yourself, you're good with everyone." – Elona

RESOURCES
Elona
Website: https://www.elonaloparicoaching.com 
Email: elonalopari@gmail.com 
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/elonaloparicoaching 

Philip
Digital Course: https://www.speakingsessions.com/digital-course
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamphilipsessions/?hl=en
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@philipsessions
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philip-sessions-b2986563/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/therealphilipsessions

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Philip Sessions:

What's going on, guys? Welcome back to another episode of the Speaking Sessions podcast. I have Alona here and she is the founder and CEO of the Life School, keynote speaker, trainer, facilitator, expert panelist, and her mission is to educate, elevate and empower individuals and teams to build legacy, businesses and lives that create influence, impact and do more good in this world, and I am super aligned with that. That's really why I got into speaking. Coaching was to be able to help people create a legacy and be able to help share the information that they've learned from building their own businesses. So we're going to have a lot of fun on this conversation podcast today. But, Alona, welcome to the show.

Elona Lopari:

Well, thanks so much, philip. We're so aligned with the mission that we both believe in, so I'm definitely sure that we're going to have a great conversation, hopefully adding tons of value to your listeners today.

Philip Sessions:

Yeah for sure. So unpack for us a little bit. A lot of us probably have been in corporate America at some point. Maybe some of us never have, but we've heard about the horror stories of corporate America. I know you were in leadership in a Fortune 500 company and everything and decided to go out on your own, still working with some of those higher level companies or bigger companies and everything. But you're helping leaders and people in general really create a legacy and learn how to change their passions into profits. But how did that all kind of come about, because that doesn't just happen overnight. Where you go from this, I'm going to guess very cushy corporate job, very stable and everything to decide. You know what I'm going to go do this passion of my own. So how did that journey start for you?

Elona Lopari:

Yeah, I love your question, Philip, because that's exactly how it started. I was very early on, programmed by my parents, migrated to US I'm natively from Albania when I was only 15. So for the longest the blueprint was you go to school, you get a good professional degree and then you find a good job and you build a family on the side. That was kind of my instructions on how to live my life and that's what I did. I got my bachelor's business, finance, management and finance and then I got my first job at a Fortune 500 company which happened to be in growth mode at that time. So I was in the right place at the right time. Then I climbed the corporate ladder for many years. I did many roles with them. I was actually very happy for many years. It was a good culture, it was a lot of growth opportunities, I was valued, I was trained, I was appreciated All those things that now I know make a really healthy culture. All those things that now I know make a really healthy culture.

Elona Lopari:

And, however, just like any journey in our lives, there's a starting point and maybe an end point or a transition point where whatever you're doing is no longer really aligned with you. You start feeling inner conflicts. A lot of outside circumstances start happening. The company actually gets acquired by another company and the culture changes to completely opposite from, you know, being connected to the mission and vision of the company serving clients, serving customers, serving their team members to more profit driven. A lot of changes with the organizational charts and positions and all of that, so a lot of confusion. And meanwhile, and positions, and all of that, so a lot of confusion, and meanwhile that, as that was happening, I also was hearing an inner voice, um, that I ignored for a while because it's just I'm like too afraid to even understand, like what else is there out there for me? Um, where it was like okay, this is the end of this path, that you are seeking for growth and you, you need to make a change. You're meant for something bigger. That's kind of what I started to hear and slowly but surely, I started, you know, exposing myself to a different world.

Elona Lopari:

I'm like what else is out there? Because when you're somewhere for 13 years, as I was, you kind of feel like that's all you know and I didn't know what I could do. You know how to structure all my experience, like what I like to do you know and focus on and all of that. I already knew that another nine to five was not really my thing because I felt like I've been there, done that, I wanted something else, and that's how entrepreneurship showed up for me. So I'm like, okay, this is the other, you know, equivalent to another way that I could pretty much grow my own thing, have no ceiling, grow myself, you know, have freedom, choose to do the work that I want to do and also be financially secure. So once those things lined up for me, that's kind of how entrepreneurship showed up.

Elona Lopari:

I started doing some executive coaching for female leaders because that was my role. It was an easy transition. Then I still felt I was still in the corporate world, so I continued to expand to more helping people with their careers, women get into leadership roles, and then I still felt like that wasn't it. And I've been pivoting into more of the business world now, where now I match my past and my present with really helping companies align their purpose and their profits so they can do more good in the world. My mission is to humanize business, because I really have done a lot of internal work as an entrepreneur which has really helped me to connect a lot of dots for personal life and business growth, and there's a lot of similarity between our own growth and the way our business grows. So that's kind of why I do the work I do today, and I feel very connected to that.

Philip Sessions:

So so many things to unpack there. I do want to mention there at the end. You talked about entrepreneurship. I feel like that is the biggest self-development journey, because there's so many things that we have to develop on our own, one of those big things being the vision, and we're going to get into that today. But also I've been noticing here more and more lately, delegation is one of those things and, as an entrepreneur, this is my baby.

Philip Sessions:

I want to hold on to it so close and so tight. I don't want to give it up because, oh, I can do it better. And time and time again, when I hear entrepreneurs that finally give up the reins to some portion whether it be marketing, sales, you name it when they give that up to somebody who's 100% focused on that, that person always does better than them. Yet we want to hold on to it because we think we can do it right, we're doing it right and nobody's going to do it the way that we want to do it and nobody's going to care about it. And I think that's more of it. They're not going to care as much about the business as we do and everything. But I want to go back. You talked about vision. I know on social media you talk about vision a lot, so I really want us to start here how important is having that vision when it comes to starting to work on building out your purpose.

Elona Lopari:

Yeah, I think that's actually where it begins and for most people just like myself, myself included when you start removing some of your fear and I love the question of just staying small and just being on your own because you know you don't want to trust someone else, and all of these things that really stem from our personal growth and our experiences but kind of leaning into, you know, our intuition, understanding what is that thing that's really attracting us and how do we now start with that thing that is, you know, pulling us towards something else and not having to worry about the details or the how to or kind of how am I going to get this done? So I've always been this kind of person in my life where if something big pulls me, something big attracts me, I'm like, okay, there's a reason why this is, you know, something that I pay attention to and other people don't pay attention to. So I think you know vision is where everything begins, because once you have that vision, you can work backwards right, because it's very important to you. It's connected to you in a deeper level. It's not just connected to you only for superficial material reasons. I always have found the visions that always connect to growth and contribution or service towards others are always the visions and the things that will keep us the most fulfilled and will keep us, even through the trials and errors of the journey, to be able to get to those goals that we have set for ourselves, whether it's from the outside or from the inside.

Elona Lopari:

So I think that's kind of how I see vision it's intuitively feeling pulled towards something that's important to you, getting clarity on why it's important to you. I think it's important because I've learned to separate fear-based thoughts from really highly you know high intuition. So once you will start to separate the two, you can really get that clarity around. Okay, why is this important to me? How does this connect with where I want to go? And then the rest is just the process of putting puzzle pieces together, follow the crumbs, connect the dots, align yourself with the right people, work and build yourself energetically so that you bring in and connect with those people that might be able to support your mission or the vision that you have for where you're trying to go, and it just becomes a much easier process after that.

Elona Lopari:

But I don't believe that we can take action unless it's actually we're connecting it to that bigger thing which is really important to us, and we've done that part, that we have that clarity. The rest is it becomes about a process of how to materialize that Like now how do I, how can I, you know, grow my business? I'm at this level, how can I? What's the next processes that I can implement to be able to get to that goal? And that becomes more manageable for people. I've learned over my experience Because then you really have clarity and you don't even care about rushing through things. You know that these are the right things that I need to do, because either you get a win or you learn something and that really adds to your growth and that keeps you very, very motivated internally, not externally.

Philip Sessions:

Yes, I completely agree with the steps. You have to find steps along the way, of course, have that vision, have that thing that you're going after and having it very clear what you're going to do. And I like to equate that to like running 100 miles 100 miles where a lot of people it's going to be way too much. But if you break it down into one mile at a time, you're more likely to succeed at getting to the a hundred miles instead of the whole time. You're a mile in 99 to go a mile to 98 miles ago. No, like, hey, I just finished two miles, okay, let's focus on the third mile. And like, yeah, just having those little chunks along the way and you learn more as you go along. Hopefully, when you're running a hundred miles you're not learning as you go, you already kind of have the plan. But in business that's how that works. But I want us to take a little bit of a step back. So having that vision is probably I would probably say that second step.

Philip Sessions:

And you mentioned and I'll be curious how long it took you, but you mentioned about having that desire on your heart to do something different. You were in the company for about 12 or 13 years I forget the exact amount of years, but over a decade and then you just had this burning desire at some point in that timeframe and so it probably took you a few years I'm not sure, but let us know about that how long that took you and what was finally that catalyst to make you take the leap ultimately? Because some people are like I got the idea, boom, I just go do it, and other people they've got to take time, and situations are different for everybody. So there's not a right or wrong of when you should finally take that leap and go after your heart's desire. But what would you tell us about your journey? But then also help us understand how we can take that leap of faith, if you will, on our heart's desires.

Elona Lopari:

Yeah, I belong to the second group of people because I had a lot of fear, a lot of changes in my mindset, the way that my life had worked up to that point, you know, the comfort zones that I had built and kind of the blueprint that I had for life. So for me, you know I did it slowly, I still was working while I started to take the right steps or whatever steps that I could take at the beginning of my business. And then eventually, once I really felt comfortable financially and I was able to, I made a decision based on my time, where I'm like, okay, where's my time, you know, at the highest value here. That's kind of when I made the leap and jumped on the other end and that actually helped me because I didn't have that hard, almost like the hard transition. It was more like a slow, progressive transition and I understand that most people don't have that as a choice, because sometimes you know these decisions are made involuntarily for you and you do have no choice and you have to jump in and you have to figure that out. However, my story was more on the other end, where I, you know, strategically planned the steps that I wanted to take and when I felt that it was time to cut the cord on this end, I just continued and actually I had a big growth.

Elona Lopari:

Because that's another thing that I've noticed when you try to have your feet kind of in two places, you're kind of just splitting your energy. That's why I say I wish maybe you know for people that this decision is made for them. That's actually I say I. I wish maybe you know for people that this decision is made for them. That's actually easier, because then you have no choice and you have no cord and you just gotta go um and uh. But yeah, for me I realized that that also wasn't very helpful, where you just have your energy split in so many directions. So one, one moment you gotta cut the cord, and that's actually where I grew the fastest. So so, um that that that was my experience, but it also it will all.

Elona Lopari:

It was all because of fear, of uncertainty. You know a lot of my new fears started coming up over in financial insecurity, kids, 401k, health insurance, like this practical life stuff, um that you know, I started kind of worrying about and slowly worked out a lot of my beliefs old belief systems, transitioning into new belief systems and then taking action hopefully inspired action through that and then just focusing on my growth and staying faithful to the thing that I was feeling very strongly, because if I was feeling it, it must be there for me. I mean, that was my affirmation. There's a reason why this is attracting me. I have to stay the path and I'm glad I did, because, looking back, I mean, my life is so different now and I really work and live on purpose. I can't tell the difference. I don't work a day in my life, just like they say, but unless you experience it, it just looks like you know a cliche quote out there that we read but yeah, your life just is a big, you know big game and it's all a big party, right?

Elona Lopari:

And it just, it's just such a different life when you follow that intuition and your purpose is why I believe in the work of purpose and that piece. And then entrepreneurship is just a channel of obviously aligning that purpose with some business structures and things that we need to structure out company, which is an asset and it's independent beyond ourselves, not only for exit purposes but for legacy purposes. For some people that will be their mission in life. They want to build that legacy of impact and they want to leave it to other people they love or you know, or make other decisions philanthropy, other channels based on kind of where that leads them. But you know, understanding the map of where you're going has been very important to me because that has given me a lot of security for understanding that even if I am, you know, taking the wrong step or I'm failing in the cultural definition, I'm still learning something and I'm really working backwards towards things, and that usually eliminates a lot of my uncertainty and anxiety every time I have to get to a new level of growth.

Philip Sessions:

You can definitely tell you're in a very good head space because it's all about no, I didn't fail, I learned something. I didn't not succeed Again, it's learning. You've really put a positive perspective on a lot of these things. It was an opportunity to grow, things of that nature. How did you really help yourself get into that kind of mindset Because I know I'm guilty of that sometimes where I'm like, oh I just I get so frustrated and beat myself up about it. So how did you really help yourself and I'm sure you're not, you're not perfect on this either they were all again, we're all guilty of beating ourselves up time here and there, feeling like we're not good enough and saying that out loud, which, of course, is detrimental. But how do you keep that positive attitude and put that positive spin, even when in reality it's not?

Elona Lopari:

Yeah, I love your question, Philip, because this has been my life's work of really. I mean, this is such a new world for me. I was also always driven, you know, programmed to get results, like work hard, hustle, like all these things that were very fear based. Every experience that has led me to the thing that I was very uncomfortable with it took a necessary process of feeling all my negative feelings and going through the purge of those emotions and giving myself empathy for a lot of things and then, once that process was done, coming up with those stories that I was telling myself so that I could shift these beliefs into the other end, so that it looks like the end product is oh, why are you so positive all the time? And a lot of times, you know, these beliefs were not, were, very unfamiliar to me. I mean, even just to think like I'm learning, I was like, no, I failed because that's what I knew. So, all these things that now seem natural for me and are part of my new identity, so to speak, because I think we just evolve our identity over time and you know, you detach yourself from a lot of your roles and material things. It's a lot of yeah, a lot of feeling work, understanding how to give yourself empathy, understanding how to stay and be comfortable with a comfortable feelings when we have those days, how to stay and be comfortable with the comfortable feelings when we have those days. I'm having those days today, but I know the process, so I don't panic, I just sit with it and I'm like, oh, get curious. Empathy, validation of the things that we're going through. We're human, we're going to have, you know, fear, we're going to have things that threaten our safety or perceivably sometimes, or even, you know, actually in reality. But just understanding how that process works. It's been trials and errors, for sure, and it keeps showing up in different areas. So it gets easier because then you start to get the awareness. I think rising our awareness is really an important step in us developing as human, because the things that you didn't, I didn't see years ago. Now, to me that's very clear and I understand what's holding me back from, maybe, a certain result that I'm trying to accomplish.

Elona Lopari:

And then the second part is I love to journal. I mean for some people, whatever works for them to have a practice for, for to identify all this inner stuff, I like to journal. So I'll do, like old beliefs around a certain area that I'm feeling really not happy with, and then I'll do like a new belief column and then I'll defy my old beliefs and I will put down beliefs that I actually believe about the new story and then continuously to practice that. And that way I get to shift a lot of my beliefs, but I get to sustain it, because I used to skip the feeling part and I just go to toxic positivity and affirmations.

Elona Lopari:

But that didn't work, because I would go back to this stuff and I'm just saying this to myself, I don't believe it. So you go back and retreat and go back into these old modes. But what has really shifted me, transformed me? 100 and a lot of those things that held me back don't show up anymore, even in other areas of my life, not just my business growth. I you got to go through the process of the feelings. So you need to to uh, two tools, so to speak, to be able to always have at hand so that you're tackling your uncomfortable feelings but also your limiting beliefs.

Philip Sessions:

I like that and I like that idea of not only just, yeah, you have the negative belief, if you will, the old belief and then the new positive belief, but have the feeling of why that positive belief needs to be there and everything Is that. Am I under? That's, that's how you're saying it? Right Not to address the old negative belief or not hear that wrong that?

Elona Lopari:

new belief is something that you believe and if you already have the clarity on where you're trying to go, then you believe connects to that. So it's almost like the old belief falls off because you're like, oh no, but this is actually what I feel and what I learned is when you put it on paper it's black and white. I can't lie to myself. Sometimes when you do this work in your head, it gets messy. You don't know fear from intuition. You don't know what's the right thing to do or not, because we're in our head. There's more obviously transformation to go through when you connect to your heart and you come out of the head. But, um, yeah, just to answer your question, I think always connecting the new belief to the thing that you're trying to, to go to or accomplish and why it's important to you, back to the vision and purpose, definitely ensures that those old beliefs that you wrote I almost like laugh at them. Sometimes they're like. I actually like thought that yeah and just you know it's a. You can make it a playful, curious process about how our brain works and all of that. But it gets easier because you become very aware and you start to detach, like you catch yourself faster and then it just becomes a process like tools right, we need tools in business. We need tools in business. We need tools in our personal growth and as leaders. Uh, it's even more important that we do that inner work, because then we're going to project a lot of that fear onto our teams and cultures or children or loved ones, or I mean it's human right. I mean, even a business is just a community of humans. So when you look at things at that more like wide perspective, it just makes you humble and you could really see how everything connects together and it just gives you that higher awareness level where you just kind of just give yourself a lot of grace and patience around some of the uncomfortable stuff that's needed.

Elona Lopari:

The growing pains to growth there's always growing. There's always going to be pain to growth. It's never going to be easy, smooth sail. Even if you have that clear vision, you just expect that process to happen and you never go back to your old self. By the way, you're always going to get to the next level. That's the good news. When I learned that, I'm like good, this is actually worth, you know my time and energy, because sometimes I get logical and I'm like is this worth my time and energy? Because I'm never going to go back to that old identity and self. So I'm always going to shift into the better version of myself. So that's the good thing. Self.

Philip Sessions:

So I'm always going to shift into the better version of myself. So that's a good thing, yeah. And you've been mentioning process quite a bit as well within there and I can't help but think about when you talked about oh man, should I do this business, Maybe I should just quit, go back. And I think as an entrepreneur, if you're not doing that at least once a week, you're probably not pushing yourself enough. So that, or maybe you're very fortunate that everything just smooth. I doubt that's the case, but we're always kind of questioning should I keep doing this? Should I quit? Should I do something else?

Philip Sessions:

And you hear this whole trust the process kind of thing. And I know in my fitness days and working with fitness coaches and everything, it was all about trust the process. So you're trying to lose weight, You've got to eat the right things, you got to work out all this stuff, and you don't see the weight fall off right away. But eventually the weight starts to fall off because you trusted the process and you just ate the right things consistently and that happens. So talk to us about that a little bit, because I think that's an important thing for people to really understand trusting that process and having a process and just following it to really see the results in the long term, not just the next day.

Elona Lopari:

Yeah, I love that. I laugh because it's so true. I think we all as entrepreneurs I mean, I think about this stuff weekly. Every time I have a big challenge. It's like I'm tired, I just want to stop.

Elona Lopari:

I just want to take a break and I found my healthy ways to, you know, honor the spaces where I feel the most pressured, and all of that. But back to your question, philip. I think it's a balance. Actually, I have been such a process-oriented person because, again, I was more left-brained and I developed that a lot in my corporate space career and in my life in general, and I I'm a big believer that every result to like to get it from here to here, there's always six steps. It doesn't just happen, but that's more of the material stuff, or more like the technical stuff, let's call it, because that's more black and white, right, I mean there's. You got to do this, like losing weight, like you said. I watch your nutrition. You got to, you know, add your exercise things. You got to sleep well, Right? So it's like these are the steps of the process to get here.

Elona Lopari:

I like that, I love that. I've learned that. That's obviously how you know things work in reality, where it's more touchable and understandable for people. But also there's a lot of other belief work and intuition work that needs to be done alongside with that, because sometimes, when that process is not leading you to new results, you have the power to come up with something completely new that works for you, and that's where innovation comes in. And intuition new that works for you, and that's where innovation comes in. And intuition. So I've learned that, yes, you can be a good student to the process of things, but don't be afraid to step out of the process sometimes and test a lot of stuff and experiment, because through that you're going to not only come up with something completely new that you never heard before, or you will just get a shift and you can start bringing that into everything you do with your business or personal life as well. So I've learned to do more of the harmony now.

Elona Lopari:

I used to be very processed. I'm like that was my security because I knew I can lean on myself. I'm very disciplined, I know how hard I can work, but I think that's just more of the extreme level. I'm understanding there's a whole other side. So I think if you just complement both and not to be afraid to come out of the processes of society and the programming and what's been tried and true, the timeless things that have stood over you know years of time for a specific result, I think that's still doing old stuff, but it brings you such a good new energy when you're leaning into your intuition and your innovative abilities, because we're all very creative human beings. We just have to learn how to tap into it. So I think it's a marriage of both.

Elona Lopari:

To answer your question, if you asked me years ago I would have said all process you want to get here. It's like two to like four things. Even in business, it's that you want to do your marketing. Here's the steps to get to a certain result, and that has a lot of valid validity. But I also love to inspire my clients to tap into their innovation, creativity and intuition, because that's where they can innovate and be the new problem solvers of the world, because we all are feeling the shift of old structures falling down and the new world's kind of building. So lean into both is what I've learned. Don't be so afraid to just go for what's already been done, because that will in business, you know um not help.

Elona Lopari:

You stand out, be a thought leader, have authenticity, because then you're just saying the same things that everyone is saying, um? So don't be afraid to lean into your creativity. You are always more creative than you think you are.

Philip Sessions:

Agreed and speaking along those same lines. When we talk about aligning our passions to our business and I want to also bring speaking into the mix here as well, but to me a lot of that, because you talk about having that passion and that purpose and aligning those to create that profit that, to me, is the separator for us, because, yes, we can say all the same things and, at the end of the day, when we're educating on a certain thing, the education is about the same. If we go back to our fitness example, you got to eat less than you are, you got to consume less than you burn, and so that way you can actually have a deficit to lose the weight. Of course, if you want to gain weight, then you're going to go the opposite. You need to add more calories in and everything. So there is a quote-unquote process that it's this specific thing, but we can change it up. We can do different things. We don't have to only eat chicken and rice in order to lose the weight, or eat steak if we're going to try and gain weight or whatever.

Philip Sessions:

And so the same thing when it comes to our business. There are certain processes that, okay, we need to do this. This is the way to educate on it, this is how somebody can learn this and now do this themselves. But having our own passion, our own spin on it, I believe. But having our own passion, our own spin on it, I believe, allows people to be engaged and interested in us doing it with them, or coaching them, or buying our product or service, versus going to somebody else because of the passion, because our personality that we put into that.

Elona Lopari:

So help us unpack how we align our passion with our business. Yeah, this is very simple for me. I think my process brings for a lot of things that maybe sometimes, you know, sound very confusing to others, but to me it's all back to the core of things. It's all experience. So I think when you're in touch with how you got certain results and you share this from your truth and authenticity and you share about you know you share this from your truth and authenticity and you share about, you know you share stories about your experience you're just pretty much sharing your experience. That is what makes you authentic. That's it. That's it. And the more you realize every day and you grow and you piece new dots together in the journey and you're like, oh, that's how I got this and you know, this is how this happened in my life, or maybe the thing blocking me now is the thing that you know I was at a you know a story about it in childhood or whatever the case is. I think if you just take more of that approach to your speaking as well because I love speaking I realized it was one of my gifts, actually, and I got. I was very lucky that I was able to practice it at corporate, because, being in executive leadership, everything is about communicating through the people that you know are driving the results and communicating the vision of the company and all that. So I learned very early how to connect with people like that and but always be authentic and share from your experience, because I think that's actually where you get the most traction, the most authenticity and the most sales and the most profits and the most great team members and the best talent and the best people that are gifted to come around the table for you, because you will attract that energetically as well If you just stay in that calm space of just sharing things from your heart.

Elona Lopari:

I actually have a little thing in my world where I talk about, or I just also lean in my heart when I speak, because we all know the information we get in our head. We're like, well, let me just do, I know enough. Or how am I going to structure all my thoughts? Right, because we all have a different type of brain, we're all built differently. Um, but I I've always leaned into. I will always know the answer if I tap into my heart. What is the message that I feel like I should share right now that's relevant for the people listening. So I think once you always come down to base when you're trying to do all this stuff, you will. You will, I mean, look grounded, you'll look confident, you'll be trusted because you come from a good place. You no longer coming from, you know, a fear agenda based place of I'm trying to sell my program, which is why I'm just sharing the little bit.

Elona Lopari:

I mean people feel this, like everyone, I think. Well, most people are working on their stuff so we can pick it up. Maybe sometimes we don't always can articulate it with our words, but we do feel like resistance when the other person on the other side is not truthful. So having a clear intention and really being, you know, purely connected with that, connecting it always to service and contribution, has always, like, kept me, even from all the noise we have around imposter syndrome and all the things we hear about public speaking. Right, oh my gosh, like I'm going to die when I get up there. I'm going to get stuck, you know.

Elona Lopari:

I mean preparation helps back to the process. There's, you know, the reps. It helps because you're building that habit and it becomes second nature. But the other part is, don't be again back to our question with you know how do we come out of something old and get into the new space of growth?

Elona Lopari:

Complement that with you, kind of speaking from your experience and not always leaning on a strict agenda for what the message should be, because there's many times where I have a certain agenda but I completely just feel like I need to share something else, because I'm reading the room, I'm feeling the energy, I'm connecting with people.

Elona Lopari:

So I feel like, based on that, I will still use some of the old information, but I can innovate right in the moment and share something that I really feel from my experience is the right thing that I can share, because we naturally do this with our friends. We sit around the table, we eat together, but we just share things with no fear because we feel safe, right and we just all. What are you going through? You know, here's something that helped me just always come from that place of service. I found out it really kills, always, always, um, you know the need for um, to, to um, stress yourself over certain things that you all, you have the tool inside of you. Just a matter of tapping into it so, yes, so much truth right there.

Philip Sessions:

Yeah, when we're, when we're speaking for that passion, especially the experience we have as well. So, speaking from the passion, we can get that tonality, that excitement that's behind what you're talking about. Speaking from experience, you can tell that somebody actually knows what they're talking about. So if you're the speaker and yes, there still should be preparation, like you said but there are times, especially when you have a lot of experience in speaking, where you can speak more off the cuff, like you were talking about and alluding to as well, definitely would suggest that for a first time speaker talking about and alluding to as well, definitely would suggest that for a first-time speaker. But again, if it's still something that you've experienced, it's probably still going to come off pretty good. It's not going to be ready for a TEDx stage or anything like that, but definitely something that it will still impact people and people will most likely understand it. They'll know it's coming from a good place and you don't have that speaker's breath, also known as commission breath, because we know all those salespeople. You can just tell when they're up there to sell you. And it's the same thing with speakers when all they're doing is they're trying to go through the spiel that just sounds good and talks about how amazing they are all so they can say, hey, buy my product and I'll help you too, kind of thing. Everybody can tell that, or pretty much everybody can tell that now, and we've kind of talked about the old school versus new school as well.

Philip Sessions:

As we get into this newer generation and we're constantly bombarded by ads, we start seeing that more and more and we can pick it up a lot easier when it's coming. For example, I get them. I'm sure you probably get this too like on Facebook, where somebody they'll send you a friend request. You happen to accept it because you're like oh, we've got quite a few mutual friends, they don't look very spammy, and all of a sudden they're like, sending you a little wave like, hey, how's it going, where are you from? And you're like really, so here it comes. Here comes the crypto pitch or something, some kind of pitch, and you just see it coming before they even say anything. And it can even start from the hey, how's it going? Hey, where are you from? And you know from there. They haven't even said the words, they haven't even started to try and sell you or anything, and you can just see that from that. So we're much more accustomed and aware of a pitch that's coming for sure. So definitely speaking from that passion is so important.

Elona Lopari:

Yeah, that's another class. On human relationships, right, I mean, if we want to build trust and build good, genuine human relationships, right, I mean, if we want to build trust and build good, genuine human relationships, offer value, find common points of interest, come up from that place of genuinity to add value. Do some research, you know, if you can be the person in person. Obviously in person it's easier because we can pick up where we are in our journey and what we're looking for. What would be interesting, what are we struggling with? Right? But when it comes to social media, obviously now machine learning and AI, you know everything's getting smart, All the algorithms are aligning to more interest-based. So, because that's how, naturally I mean, I look at everything that the online world offers in a human way, because every time I mean you, the online has to always match the human interactions.

Elona Lopari:

Right, because that's kind of weird, the ones using it um and uh. Back to relationship building. Offer, offer help, offer support. Do some homework. Genuinely connect with people. Don't just say it for the agenda to pitch a sale or your offer. Connect with them, offer value through your content, engage with their posts, just like in natural life. I mean regular life.

Elona Lopari:

If we're to see each other every day, well, like every day might be a little much, but you know, depending on your level of relationship, maybe like once a month or whatever, you're just like not going to go in and be like, hey, I want something from you. Um, so you've got to go through the process of human relationship building and that is actually what I teach through my prospect journeys. There needs to be an intentional prospect journey where we are building that know, like and trust that everybody talks about and that has. That should be very genuine and authentic to you, because it's going to be very important. If you don't believe it and if you don't build relationships that way, it's going to be seen that you're just following scripts and a thing right. You're like what's this one say? Now? I mean, do you do that when you meet people live? You don't. You're just like genuinely interested in people and what they're going through and you offer empathy and you listen, right, and then you try to be like you know what, based on our conversation, I really like this is like what I do. You know, this is the problem that I solve. Can I maybe, you know, talk to you further about it, or can I maybe send you something as a resource to get you, at least you know, see if it helps? You Come from always the soft approach and the heart. The heart always knows what to do. We just get in our head and we're like I need to do that, I need to do that, I don't got time, I gotta send a million messages. And then the marketing statistics don't help. Send a million messages, only three percent will reply, you know, and that's fine.

Elona Lopari:

Research is great because, you know, this is kind of the what you, what you're how to. These are the rules of the game, so to speak. I mean, I'm always been a big believer understanding how things work. I'm not like you know somebody like, ah, I don't know, I'm in La La Land doing my own thing. I think it's always like a complimentation, um, but when I have, uh, I mean the most success I've always had in sales and even high ticket or anything, because I do big corporate projects all the time, or deals, that's what it's called.

Elona Lopari:

In that way, it's always just coming from this place of interest's choices, you know, ask intentional questions to help clarify their problems. Because, you know, don't make a rush judgment and judge people. It's like, oh, he's not or she's not, you know, going to be able to buy from me and then just poof like, shut them down, be in people's lives for a long time and that's how you build a great brand, right. And don't look at build a great brand Right. And don't look at people like numbers. Don't look at people like well, you know, they said no to my offer, so let me get you off my lead list.

Elona Lopari:

I hate the word lead. It's to me like I don't want to be a lead to you. I mean I'm just a number. I want to be like a person that you know and I know and we've been interacting and nurturing something and that's going to increase. You know that that's going to help you actually work more on quality. I work on quality all the time. It's my business model. I'm not interested in building a huge brand with tons of people that I know nothing about. You just decide what really speaks to you and who are the people that you want to serve.

Elona Lopari:

But yeah, I think, if you just get clear on that, which is all your personal work, all this stuff comes from personal first and then gets into the professional world because I now know what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. So the sales, the prospect journeys, the customer journeys that you know we need to be clear about in our businesses should come from a good place, not from the place of sales and numbers and profits, and just make people convince them, like all these old masculine tactics or traditional business tactics, I like to call them that maybe have worked right Because we lived in a different world, people had less choices, people were not so educated, but we got to level up. Every time your audience is steps ahead of you, it helps you grow, um, and you got to get back to where I realized that everything is back to core. Like, if you just get back to the most important stuff and simplify things, uh, you will always know the right answer of what to do next.

Philip Sessions:

Yeah, so true, and there's so many choices out there. You can go search things so quickly and people can find out so much about you before they even reach you anyway, so why sit here and try and force a sale? I mean, there's times that people they really need to kind of be pushed over that edge, so to speak, and you'll feel when it's that time for those people. But there's a lot of people that don't necessarily need that push, because they'll push themselves. They just need that time to think about that. And it's all about building that relationship. And I agree with you and you didn't say this word but there's a lot of transactional relationships going on right now and we really need to get back to building actual, genuine relationships, not transactional relationships, for sure. Yeah, absolutely.

Elona Lopari:

With the age of AI, what I'm talking about is going to be even more valuable because there's going to be less of that, even through the creation of content On content yes . love If can something , never the of voice , the , and just because something takes longer doesn't mean that you know it's not giving you a really high roi for what you're trying to build.

Elona Lopari:

And let's get off the fast overnight successes. I'm glad that I've seen not much messaging about that now. So I think we're, we're aligning well with each other and, yeah, not, you know, not giving people false hope, and that has really, uh, have given a lot of bad influence to you know, our industry coaching, consulting, people, trying to be in service towards others. To me that's how I see it um, because it came from the wrong reason. So we gotta get back to the core and to really real human values. So I'm glad that we're going in in the right direction eventually and evolving.

Philip Sessions:

Yeah, agreed, and I find that what seems to be inefficient thing in the moment is really the most efficient thing, and I can't help but think, like sending somebody a card, you writing a handwritten card, and whether it's like a thank you card saying thank you for your business or hey, was just thinking about you, it's inefficient because now you've got to write that out by hand, you've got to go stick it in the mail, you've got to get envelope, all that stamp, everything, send it out. It'll get there in a couple of days, depending on how far it's got to go. Versus, you could just send a text hey, I really appreciate you. You're doing so great and boom done, super simple. It could be the exact same message, but because you took the time to write it out and put it in the mail, somebody appreciates that so much more. That recipient appreciates that so much more because you took the time to do that or felt like you took the time more to do it.

Philip Sessions:

Of course they appreciate the text as well, but for some reason, doing that more inefficient thing or, yeah, inefficient thing actually creates more efficiency because it builds that relationship to be even stronger now because you did something a little bit more inefficient in the moment for you to help build that relationship. And I'm not saying, do that just so you can build a relationship better, but just doing things like that I have noticed, really help out and even like with leadership, going out of your way, having a conversation, really getting to understand the people that are working for you, rather than just telling them what to do, like just going in and seeing where they're coming from and everything, and having that dialogue before saying, hey, here's the way that we're trying to go with the company or whatever that situation is. There's a lot more efficiency in the long run from that, although you were inefficient in the beginning.

Elona Lopari:

Exactly Old modeling efficiency, productivity, doing, doing, doing doing something all the time and skipping the human part. So I think it's time to just look back at our own human needs. I have always found that the best talent, even in my HR days, are the team that is always appreciated, feels, understood, heard, seen, understood. So, just again back to human values and human cores. Again back to human values and human cores. And yeah, I mean it might seem like exactly like that card could probably take 10 minutes, more than you sending a quick text, which will take a second. However, the impact that that card can have on someone's perception or life or not, because of how you want to be seen or perceived, because of that ROI or agenda that you might have. But it's like, if I know somebody is going through something a lot of my clients, like I, get invited to, like it's all like family to me, like I don't. I never really understand the difference anymore. But, um, when you know things about people, you generally want to check in with them. I look at it like a check-in and I appreciate when someone checks in with me Like you remember, like you care. So, just if you really incorporate those values in your company and you embody those and you lead by example. And it all starts with you. I mean there's no way that the culture is not going to be that. And gosh. I mean, you talk about your numbers and KPIs and your P&L, everything's going to go that. And gosh, I mean you talk about your numbers and kpis and your pnl, everything's going to go on the on the right direction because, um, you're really focusing on the right things and the right value and, at the end of the day, the money is not going to give you personal fulfillment, but the impact and the service and the stories that you get to share about the impact you've able to been able to create, and transformation and service will fuel everyone, including your soul, and you'll never stop because you're addicted, in a good way, to selling and contributing. So it's almost like a full circle moment. I also, you know, just watching yourself when you come from the efficiency and the fear, because you know we're not robots. We have a lot of support now with ai, so it's good that we could do a lot of that. And that was my other thought about what you said. If something in the process doesn't need my authentic touch, like, for example, I can create one amazing piece of post completely out of my own awareness and experience, but doesn't mean that my team can't post that in a million other places, because it's still my voice, right, it's still the thing that I felt like I wanted to share. So there's definitely things that we can do to delegate that process, but, again, ensure that you're doing the right thing for the right reason and look at it more for that you know.

Elona Lopari:

Back to that long term vision of you're trying to build long-term relationships. When I talk about when, when people tell me about brand because I teach, you know, obviously brand is a very important thing in scaling it's to me it's always about long-term human relationships. That's how I would define brand. That's it Build the right long-term human relationships. And you have a brand people know you which is more important than who you know right relationships. And you have a brand people know you which is more important than who you know right.

Elona Lopari:

We always hear about these different quotes and things that traditionally have been tried and true and timeless. Um, people will feel the impact that you've had on their lives and a lot of the times when I hear back stories and things that I have you know, intentionally, unintentionally um, just try to be myself and share something helpful when I hear, like, how that affects others half the time I don't even know that it would affect someone that way I'm just like, okay, I mean, that's why we, even with our content, let's not be metric. You know, driven engagement, number shares going viral, these are all again very outcome outside of outcome driven stuff and again, you can learn about obviously all of those things. But focus more on the person, the five people watching that video and how those five people, you help them maybe connect a new dad in their lives in that five second or ten second video or even this podcast. Um, so I think we have to go back to quality as humans, because it's so easy to fall into just consumption production, the next thing, the next shiny object.

Elona Lopari:

I need to get the answer from the outside. I need to get more, more, because at the end of the day, I don't feel good enough. So I've learned that it's a process of simplifying and the more maturity you get, the more you see how the thing unravels and you start to get that clarity. But it's all a mirror of you If you are just saying these things and not acting, your actions and your feelings and your words and your thoughts are not going to be in alignment and you're not going to get the results. So you've got to get that checked out first, get those in the right direction and then the rest of the byproduct of the results on the outside.

Elona Lopari:

I promise you will always be there for you and even if the timing is not right, watch, wait for the timing, because we all you know, sometimes push things as humans. We think like, oh, I'm not getting it fast enough, or whatever. But I have a belief that what's meant for me is always going to find me. I'm on my own journey and I'm not comparing. I live from my own set of values. I learn, I grow, I expand, I take action. I take inspired action and try to stay away from. You know how things can affect you from the outside. When you're good with yourself, you're good with everyone. That's kind of what I've learned.

Philip Sessions:

Agreed, yeah, quality over quantity. For sure, we need to have more human touch, human connection. And speaking of that, if people want to connect with you, where's the best place for them to do that?

Elona Lopari:

Yeah, it will be my website. It's more like my hub where I have many resources that I think definitely the audience would find helpful with kind of helping them scale their companies, that aligning their purpose with profits and really build a self-led company. And then you make a decision whether you want to exit, go public legacy, philanthropy, all those other options that could show up for you. Um, and the my website is alonel parry coachingcom and I also have a beautiful podcast, much like yours, where I love my podcast and the space there because I do lots of shows like just like this and very open conversation.

Elona Lopari:

I call every conversation a master class because there's always something I'm learning, there's something the other person is learning and we're just exchanging experiences, whether it's your professional, your business, the mission you're after, why you do what you do, your unique way that you like to solve world problems, or you know any personal stuff. How do we get here? What are the lessons? You know pretty much this type of heart, open heart conversation. Um, they can also check that out. It's called the life school master class show. It's also on my website awesome.

Philip Sessions:

Alona. Thank you so much for your time and all the value that you shared on the podcast today. We thoroughly appreciate it thank you so much.

Elona Lopari:

I really enjoyed that conversation but most importantly, I really hope we added value and it was in service towards others. Thanks so much for having me.

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Philip Sessions

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