More Clients Less Hustle

Seven Essential Pillars for Building a Meaningful Business with Elona Lopari

• Caroline Balinska + Elona Lopari • Season 1 • Episode 22

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Can you truly marry purpose and profitability in your business? Join Caroline Ballista as she sits down with Ilona Lopari to uncover the secrets of a fulfilling and financially successful entrepreneurial journey. Ilona shares her transition from an unfulfilling corporate career to a purposeful and prosperous business, proving that you don't have to choose between making money and doing good. Learn how aligning your business with your personal values can create a venture that's not only sustainable but deeply impactful.

Discover the seven pillars essential for anyone looking to leave a corporate role and build a meaningful business. Ilona walks us through concepts like conscious leadership, fostering a conscious culture, and the crucial alignment of profit with purpose. We also touch on the importance of innovation, future work, and legacy building, providing a comprehensive framework for achieving both personal and professional success. By listening to your inner voice and adopting sustainable business practices, you can create a rewarding career that resonates with your deeper values.

Finally, we tackle the significance of inner work and creativity in driving personal and professional growth. Caroline and Ilona offer practical advice on self-reflection and nurturing creativity, even for those who don't see themselves as naturally creative. They share insights into building a business brand that can thrive independently, preparing for unforeseen circumstances, and setting up systems that ensure long-term success. This episode is packed with actionable insights and inspiring stories, helping you focus on the bigger picture and align your business efforts with long-term objectives.

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Elona Lopari:

And when you marry both, you're actually going to be more successful and you can sustain that for the longest time. So that's kind of what I've learned.

Caroline Balinska:

Welcome to More Clients, less Hustle. The podcast where we break barriers, defy labels and empower busy entrepreneurs like you to soar to new heights. Let's pave the way for more clients, less hustle. I'm your host, caroline Balenster. Hi everyone, welcome back to the podcast. I'm your host, caroline Ballista. Hi everyone, welcome back to the podcast. I'm very excited.

Caroline Balinska:

We have a special guest here today, ilona Lopari, and she's going to be sharing with us a lot of goodies about being with your business on purpose and purposeful business is actually something that I'm really passionate about, so I really wanted to have Ilona on here today. For me, I have got my other podcast, life on purpose over 40, and I created that podcast because I really wanted to talk about living purposely and I think that it's very important in business and I think that we can have, we can make money, we can create a business that makes us a lot of money and we can live our life on purpose and not feel like we are giving ourselves to the devil. So, alona, thank you for joining us. I'm really excited about this conversation.

Elona Lopari:

so nice to have you here, carolyn thank you so much for having me something that you just said, just like my memory that, yeah, I mean I love it. Purposeful people run and build purposeful businesses and companies, so it's just like a natural evolutionary progression to kind of where we're heading. So I love that you also do the work that you just mentioned.

Caroline Balinska:

And I think some people get really stuck on the fact that before we get into the questions, I just sort of, while we're on this topic, I think people really get stuck on the feeling that they're either there for the money or they're there for the doing good for people, and they don't understand that you can do both and you don't have to feel guilty about it. So I don't know if you've got something to add to that.

Elona Lopari:

Yeah, absolutely and that was my challenge as well thinking in very black and white terms in life, right, but when you kind of understand that there's so many nuances and life is very colorful, you can absolutely align and merge both of those so that you are still very profitable, but you're also doing work you love and it's actually creating, it's being in service and in contribution towards someone else, and when you marry both you're actually going to be more successful. You can sustain that for the longer, longest time. So that's kind of what I've learned.

Caroline Balinska:

Do you want to give us a little bit of a background on your situation, of how you actually got here? What's the reason that you found this so important?

Elona Lopari:

Yeah, I think I could start with my unfulfilled corporate career. I climbed the corporate ladder for many years in a Fortune 500 company. I was very blessed and happy. For many years I did various roles for this company until it turned into a very profit-driven company. It was acquired by another company, so the leadership changed, the culture changed. The values of kind of how the company was operating were definitely not in alignment with me and that's kind of where I had to make a decision around okay, so what's my future going to look like?

Elona Lopari:

I was always a very future oriented person. I always like thought ahead, you know, with goals and things that I wanted to do. So at that point, that's kind of where entrepreneurship showed up for me, because it just felt like I was not aligned with what I was doing and just that inner voice, intuitive voice, that now I know what it was, but back then I just you know I disregarded it for many, many years Just kind of was pulling me towards something else in my journey. And that's kind of where entrepreneurship showed up and I was a very simple sort of like okay, well, I don't want to do another nine to five work for another company. Let me try to take what I learned and now focus on things that I really care about and I can actually build something that's going to give me again the profit piece, the financial abundance that I was looking for, but also it was going to be something very meaningful for me and give me the freedom piece, because I was always a very independent person. I mean, I was very lucky for the corporation I worked for to be in those independent roles where I was, you know, a high performer and I would just kind of create value like that.

Elona Lopari:

So entrepreneurship is just like a natural progression. Never thought I would be one, but never say never, because you know that's kind of how you learn and grow and that's kind of fast forward, how I got to the work that I also do today just through my personal experience where I realized, wait, two of the most important values that are going to keep me happy and fulfilled not just, you know, paying the bills or doing all those low level stuff is, you know, being in contribution towards others and growth. So if I can make that my personal value, I'll know that I will continue to grow and do work I love and every day I will transform into a better version of myself. So I just pieced all those dots for myself and I kind of just yeah, that's how my journey has unraveled, so to speak.

Caroline Balinska:

Fantastic and you actually do a lot of. You get a lot of PR for yourself. I've noticed when I was researching you before we got on this call, you've got a lot of PR in all sorts of magazines, media, and you do talk a lot about the seven pillars of living on purpose, working on purpose. Can you talk a little bit more about that? What are the seven pillars?

Elona Lopari:

Yeah, everything to me is a channel. That's why, to me, it's all service, whether it's social media, utilizing media or doing this, sharing audiences and sharing my message. That's why I love the speaking side of everything as well, because, again, it's how can I add value to somebody else and being able to just again create impact? Can I add value to somebody else and being able to just again, again create impact? But I think the seven you know intentional pillars around you know, aligning your life and also business on purpose is conscious leadership is first right and we're always we start with ourselves. The more we again we work, you know, on our consciousness and our awareness and our inner work and all these amazing things, personal, develop yourself, the more we get to transfer all of that into whatever it is that we're doing, whether it's our company, with our teams, or our clients or our communities. So that would be the first one. The second one is a conscious culture. So wherever we are, whether it's in our families or in our work environment or companies, again you transfer those values and you transfer that into those spaces. So that would be the second pillar. The third one is, again, profit and purpose alignment or, personally, would be personal and professional success and aligning that from the inside out rather than outside in. That's kind of the inner work, to kind of flip a lot of these equations on the other end so that again we were feeling fulfilled. But then we're defining our own definition of success, and that's also very important as well. And then innovation and creativity, how to ensure that we're always, you know, working on that piece, especially with today's world. I think that's important to always be in those modes. And, you know, just by sharpening a lot of other skills that we didn't know we had, by intuition and, you know, awareness and inner world and all these different things. I think it's that really helps us see the world in a different way and kind of just create meaningful change based on our own, you know, perspective and the way that we see the world. And if we could do that with our teams, obviously that's even better, because that's a lot of value that's coming inside your company as well.

Elona Lopari:

And then just the future work, again being very connected to your bigger thing that you're trying to accomplish. How are you in service and contribution toward others and work on meaningful things that you, things that matter to you, and having something bigger. Always have that big vision that you're always working towards, because, again, that's going to be necessary, especially when you have challenges along the journey and you have those ups and downs and things that are going to happen on purpose, so that you can grow and develop. Without those, there's no development and growth. And then the last one is just working with the end in mind, meaning what is that legacy you want to leave behind, the positive legacy that you want to leave behind?

Elona Lopari:

So, decisions you make today and the intentional things that you said in play today, how do those connect to the thing that you're here to do? And these seem like big, big questions and big, big things to figure out, but you just start wherever you are, in, whatever season of life or of your company growth stage, Because the more you take action, the more the road will kind of unravel and you get more clarity along the way. So just keep going and you'll keep getting more clarity and you'll keep, you know, connecting more of your dots, and that's how you can actually continue and evolve and, again, ensure that you have a very clear purpose and you are, you know, overall happy with the work you do, but also your personal lives as well.

Caroline Balinska:

Fantastic. I have a lot of questions that I've been jotting down while you've been talking, so I have four questions for you. You spoke about the inner work. I want to understand when you talk about doing inner work. How does someone know that they need to do inner work? I guess that's the question is, how do they know that they have to do something? Because I think we're not all of us, but I think a lot of people are running that rat race of you know, I've got to try to make money, I've got to try to make money, and then they're wondering why nothing's working. And I'm completely on your side about this. Like, I think that all your seven pillars are completely right and I think that a lot of people don't realize that there's inner work to be done sometimes. So can you sort of enlighten people on what they should be doing and what they should be looking?

Elona Lopari:

for, yeah, I love your question because it's so easy to get carried away, even in your business, right, and I find that if we just are not aware that this is happening, then we can just keep going and going and going until something big happens or big pain. We get something that happens in our lives and then usually we'll wake up like whoa, like I gotta, whatever I was doing was not working. Unfortunately for me also, that's kind of how it happens. So it's very rare for this to be more proactive. But I mean, take, you know, take a have a practice daily, daily, to kind of slow down and kind of reflect and kind of just sit with yourself and see how you're feeling right, how you're feeling with your life. You know, is it working for you On all areas? Really pretty much right. It's not just work that fulfills us, it's our relationships, it's our health right, it's the vision for the future or where we're trying to go. So just kind of just give yourself a break so that you have like more of a recurring habit that you eventually develop, to just kind of take some time and sit with yourself. You don't need to know what you know what you're doing there, but just start to create that time for yourself.

Elona Lopari:

The other thing is fears and triggers, right, I mean, if fears are usually a good indication, so there's something for us to figure out. If you have that conflict between what you want to do and the fear you're feeling and it's stopping you from taking action to get there, that's a good opportunity to kind of just figure out, sort of at least I'll give you a good indication around. Okay, there's certain things that I might need to look at. You don't have to know what it is, but at least you understand there's a gap between what you're feeling and where you're trying to go. Those are some you know things. And then the other thing is are you happy with your relationships, with your financial status? Are you happy with the work you're doing right? Are you just happy overall as an individual? Do you know yourself? Are you happy with you as a person? All those questions, I would say, are great indicators to kind of just see if there's maybe some inner work to be done or not.

Caroline Balinska:

Fantastic. And what about the creativity? You spoke about being creative and I think that there's people out there that think that they're not creative at all. Um, do you have any points that they should be thinking about when it comes to not having that fear and thinking that because I'm not creative, I can't do anything at all?

Elona Lopari:

yeah, that was me. I thought I had no creative bone in my body because I'm naturally a more logical uh yeah, right, brain, that's right now left brain person. I also thought you know, because I also was in an environment where that was not really being nurtured right, which you know for my talking about. Back to my corporate experience so, and of course I didn't know what I didn't know and how to even what was inside of me. I think the best way to start with that is just follow.

Elona Lopari:

You know certain things that light you up, or different hobbies, things that are important to you beyond the whatever else is that you're doing, and then through those activities you start to figure out you know what you like and what you don't like. So then you start to kind of wake up this thing that's already in all of us and then the more you kind of do that, the more you can stress yourself with kind of trying something new, and it all stems from new activities. It could be your business could pull you from a lot of people. Business is a great motivator just to really feed and kind of develop our creativity because you know you were always figuring out something new and you're always putting yourself out of your comfort zone and you're talking and doing things and talking to other people that you would not maybe had a chance to do that before. So I think, um, you know, just try new things, try new things. And then the more you try new things, the more you kind of just follow the next step, based on, kind of, where you're trying to go, and then always connect that with the bigger vision that you have for your personal professional life and then just keep following that and keep following things that you like to do.

Elona Lopari:

And I also figure out something else in my personal life, which is if something is attracting me, that means it's already sitting inside of me. So if someone, you know, a person, is saying something that is very kind of I'm just listening and it's pulling me in, definitely those are things that are already sitting inside of you and they just need to be realized. So just pay attention to who. You resonate with messages that come on, you know, towards your areas of life or hobbies or things that are important to you, and those are great. You know starters, um, and then the rest is just developing it, just like anything. The more you leverage it, the more you will build on your creativity.

Caroline Balinska:

I love that. It makes me think about my own situation because I was a hair and makeup artist. So everyone assumes that I must be really creative and I'm terrible at drawing, like literally. I have a four-year-old daughter and she's like mommy, what are you drawing? That is not a dinosaur, that is not a boat, that is not a car. Like literally, I'm terrible, but I'm good at hair and makeup.

Caroline Balinska:

I also remember years ago, 20 years ago I bought myself like this really fancy camera and I decided I was going to become this. Like you know, do photography as a hobby. Never actually turn that camera on, like it was a $2,000 camera, never turn it on. And then, when I had my daughter, I bought a course, a photography course, saying I'm going to finally take good photos. So I've got beautiful photos of my daughter.

Caroline Balinska:

I literally never opened that photography course and I'd love to have good photos, but there's just something in me that just does not drive me and it's like what you were saying, like if something's driving you towards it, then you probably got it, whereas I think I was forcing myself into the photography things as sort of like well, it's part of what you know, I was a hair and makeup artist, so it should be part of what I do, because I worked on film and TV. But I think that understanding that even if certain things are not okay for you or you don't get good at them or you don't want to do it in the end, don't think that nothing else is, don't think it's a blanket statement, it doesn't mean that all creativity is bad. I think, looking for it, you'll find other things in there.

Elona Lopari:

There's there's so many different parts of creativity that can really jump out at people yeah, I love what you said because, uh, you're also reminding me of a lot of my own ways of older thinking, where you have to be like the next logical step, meaning okay, so for you it's like I do here and that's okay. Now, what you know, maybe photography? Photography could be the next thing that I actually explore, uh. But I think, yeah, just staying open and curious, um, you know, go back to our child, like days, you know, um, but just, yeah, pay attention to those things that pull you. I think that's, at least for me, been like a very strong indicator, because the more you start to look for them, the more you actually start to build that skill as well and build that eye, for you know, train your eyes, so to speak, for the things that matter to you.

Elona Lopari:

So, yeah, it's not necessarily the next logical thing that has something to do with what is it that we already have experience around it can come from really anywhere and just take inspired action. I found that that's actually very helpful to just do the next thing, don't just let it sit. You know, once you already have that opening or you know something's pulling, you just take the next step and then you'll get a little closer to figuring out if that's really for you or not. Or maybe you put it on hold for now and you know you go back at it later Because life is messy. There's no linear journey, right. There's always like things that happen in between. But at least you'll have that experience of at least taking those next steps towards more clarity around it.

Caroline Balinska:

Yeah, I love that, and I think that's another point that I would like to make at this point is that, even if you don't have the sort of skill set around business when it comes to creativity, employing people to help you out with those things is okay.

Caroline Balinska:

And the way I see it is, I would rather give jobs to other people that if I was to try to achieve myself, it's going to take, like video stuff, for example. I can do some video stuff. I'm actually not bad at video stuff, but the time it takes me to do it I might as well pay someone else, because my time is more valuable than that time of getting someone else to do it. And I think the creativity of business sometimes you can just sit down with like someone and do some brainstorming with them and come up with some processes and some ideas and you can pay people for like small tasks and then you can work out after that. Okay, do I get someone in my team to do it or do I do it, or do I pay an external company to help me?

Elona Lopari:

so I think that being fearful of creativity is not something that should hold people back no, I think it's the only way to grow honestly, for you to be able to complement your own skills, abilities, gifts, experience with other people.

Elona Lopari:

Right, I mean, that's the only way that we can buy back a lot of our time, because it's only 24 hours, especially when it comes to business. And seeing that as a necessarily thing, because one of the things that I always say is time is our most important scarce commodity that we don't get back right? So focusing on the things that matter to us is more important than kind of trying to be the jack of all trades and do everything that we need to do, because it's going to come at a cost, obviously. So why not open up those opportunities to other people that have those gifts and experiences? And that's part of their path as well, and that's the only way to scale at the next level. Otherwise, you'll just be, your world will be small, you only will have a limited amount of hours in a day and, especially in business, you know you'll have like more than a full-time job and you're going to start to hate your purpose, so to speak, or the work that you do or your business overall.

Caroline Balinska:

So yeah, yeah, I love that. And you spoke about legacy as well. How would a person starting a business or in a business already how should they think about legacy? I had this conversation actually, and this is why I find it really important. I actually had this conversation with a friend of mine the other day and she was discussing whether she should set up her business in her own name or in a like a business name. And the first thing I said to her whether your like domain is your name or in a like a business name, and the first thing I said to her whether your like domain is your name or your business name.

Caroline Balinska:

One of the big things that I worry about having it in your own name is if you ever want to retire or if you want to sell your business. When it's in your own name, it's much harder to work with that. You're better off building a brand like then trying to build your own name. So so that's one thing, and in her situation she's actually got some illnesses, so for her, you know she's going to at some stage need to stop working. So I was trying to explain to her she wants to build a legacy, to leave something for her children, but she also has to look at that. You know, how long is that process and then what does that look? Look like. So if there's people out there that are thinking, you know, I want to build a legacy, how I guess what are a couple of things they should really be thinking about, about making that happen and how soon in the process is that important?

Elona Lopari:

yeah, I think it's back to obviously what everyone you know what, what that definition is for everyone. It could not be um. But if we want to just focus on business, if their business is their legacy or their company is their legacy, I think it's understanding how to build a business that is um, independent completely from from that right in the long term, because when you evaluate a business in the market, that's going to be the most important pieces of a business, or the way that you can maybe transfer that over to your children, to your other generations, or even exit one day, if that's kind of you know what aligns with the end in mind, creating the right systems and structures and the right teams inside your company so that you are removing yourself completely out of business but still choosing consciously to work on certain areas, depending on, obviously, what also you care about and all of that. But that should be more of a conscious decision rather than just you know, this is what I do and this is what I will work on, rather than and miss all the other pieces of actually scaling a company. So if you're talking about legacy in entrepreneurship, I think it's important to understand that there are certain phases, stages of growing a company. But if you ever want to scale anything, it's always, you know, product or service. That's always rinse and repeat, and you've got systems and structures working under that and teams I mean that's kind of the only way. And AI now, but that goes into the system piece. That is, you know generating income on its own and you're growing your company overall. So, and then having the right finances in order, I think that's important as well, so that when you're making decisions, uh, you know exactly how you're making them and you know where you are at the certain phase and stage of your journey exactly and where you need to be going. But education, educating yourself on what are all these priorities and what are all these things that you need to know going. But education, educating yourself on what are all these priorities and what are all these things that you need to know so that you can prepare yourself for where you're trying to go and sort of what that next phase looks like for you.

Elona Lopari:

And when it comes to personal life, for some people, legacy is really healthy relationships, right, it doesn't always have to be business or parenting. I mean I've seen, yeah, I've seen legacy to be business, uh, or parenting. I mean, I, I've seen, yeah, I've seen legacy to be very defined in many different ways. It's not always business, it's maybe self-exploration at the highest level. That could be my legacy. So, again, just like anything we all have to, you know, specify that for ourselves and it's okay.

Elona Lopari:

If you change your mind, you'll get more mature, you'll evolve. Through the journey thing, new information will come up, new people will show up. I think just stay open to that, just like we talked about creativity as well. It doesn't have to be this concrete answer trust you, but you need to figure out your life's purpose or your legacy that you want to leave behind. But just be more intentional with you, know where you're going and that test always works right, the one that you ask a question as if you are at the end of your life and you're like if I were to go backwards, what were some of the things that I would want to do? You know, as studies have come out over and over over people that were at that stage of life, and what they would say, I think I've always learned love to learn from other people's experience, but this is still a very individual journey. So everybody kind of pieces um, puts his own pieces together, so to speak yeah, I love that.

Caroline Balinska:

I've sold five businesses, so I'm all about the legacy of business and setting up a business with that opportunity to sell it. My last business I had no intention of selling, but at the end of my pregnancy I was in a situation where I wasn't like able to even walk. So I realised that I really needed to take some time off and then I decided I'm going to just spend time the first few years of my daughter's life only concentrating on her, and I know my personality. If I would have kept my business I would have still been working in it. So at that stage it was like a very, very quick just one day I was like I'm gonna sell my business and if I had not set that up as a independent business to run independently, I wouldn't have had that opportunity to sell like I did.

Caroline Balinska:

So, and same with the other four businesses before that. I'd set up those ones in with the with the opportunity to sell as well. So I'm all about setting up a business with that. I guess maybe that's how I live. My life is always be ready for plan B, c or D. You just never know what's going to happen, and it doesn't mean that you have to like stress about it.

Elona Lopari:

It just means like have that you know, openness to something changing yeah, that's why I've also been a student of you know, a life student. I call myself, and even my company is called the life school. Because I think it's education is very important, right? The more you know, the more you can make those decisions ahead of time and know exactly, you know, so that you can prepare yourself for whatever happens in your life, because we don't, we don't know. Obviously we don't know how we're gonna feel like right now I feel like that's my baby and I'm never going to, you know, exit. But you just never know what life throws towards you in your journey and you might make that decision later on and but again, you don't want to say, well, I wish I would have this of that, right. So, yeah, I think it's kind of education is very important, because the more you know, the more you can make the right decisions.

Elona Lopari:

And tell me more about how to align your purpose with profit. Yeah, I think it's really just like personal life. So, once a company is really clear on the impact that it creates towards others the service aspect you're going to have a service or a product, because hopefully each one of those has an impact on your consumer or your client Clarifying the values right, what are important to the company, and then ensuring that your culture is very healthy. It's, you know, people feel safe, people have opportunities to grow. Your team has opportunities to be able to contribute beyond themselves. They receive regular feedback, they're always, they can be creative, they can add value, they have ownership and accountability right. They feel like whatever they're doing is very important and they're owning the pieces of whatever roles and responsibilities they're part of. And once that culture is very, very healthy, then we can tie those activities to pretty much the bottom line and the profit and loss statements.

Elona Lopari:

Let's say, a very healthy culture aligned to I don't know my sales or my profits or my or the salaries of the payroll that I'm actually, you know, investing in my team. So all of this has to have a direct correlation to the numbers piece as well and utilize both to align them, but also to be able to make very informed decisions around your numbers as well. The problem with lots of companies in my prior journey is that companies just focus on this other side, right, and they completely skipped what we just talked about at the beginning and that could be great for the short term. But if you want to build something again that we talked about where it and that could be great for the short term but if you want to build something again that we talked about where it's a self-led, independent company that can survive, you know, through the economic turnovers, competition, all those outside factors that companies go through then make sure it's solid. Those foundations are there, um, and there's always a focus around both of those pieces I love that.

Caroline Balinska:

And, ilona, can you tell us more about the life school and tell us more about what you offer in life school, so if people want to reach out to you and get more advice, then they can find you yeah, thank you so much for that.

Elona Lopari:

So so inside the Life School we offer fractional services for companies and also we have a community of entrepreneurs and CEOs and people can get introduced to other audiences and also warmly connected to one another and other benefits as well, set up inside the life school for now, but it's pretty much, you know, the school of life and business alignment and scale at the next level for people that want to do more good in the world, leave a positive legacy behind but also be very profitable in the process, cause I feel like that's the missing piece for a lot of entrepreneurs and CEOs. They might have a clear purpose, they love the work they do, they love their companies, they love the services and the products, but they don't necessarily know how to do the second piece.

Elona Lopari:

And the second piece is very healthy, especially when you also build nonprofits and have other things, other causes that you contribute towards, because, again, that profit, those profits and that money can become a great tool to be able to create change and contribute towards other things that are important, or even scale your company, create more jobs and all these things that are going to be positive changes, you know, in society overall. So yeah, that's kind of the vision for the life school and our mission fantastic.

Caroline Balinska:

Can you just tell us the website? I'll put in the show notes as well.

Caroline Balinska:

It's alonalaparicoachingcom Fantastic. So, alona, thank you so much. You have been absolutely wonderful, and I think that my viewers, my listeners, the people that I work with, my clients this is the sort of thing that they really need to understand, because we sit there and we talk about, oh, you need to send an email, you need to, you know, do a discovery call. But I think that what you have helped us see is that we need to really focus on the bigger picture and what it's actually all about, because without that, all the emails in the world will never get us to where we really want to get to.

Elona Lopari:

Yeah Well, thank you so much for having me and I hope what I shared was a value add for your audience and was contributed to some key takeaways.

Caroline Balinska:

hopefully it definitely was so, everyone. The show notes. In the show notes will be the website so you can get in touch with Alona and Alona. Thank you so much for joining us and thank you everyone for watching and listening. Thank you.

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