Secrets to Leadership and Legacy with Elona Lopari

Rich Bennett & Wendy Beck 0:00
Hey, everyone is Rich Bennett. Can you believe it? The show is turning ten this year. I am so grateful for each and every one of you who've tuned in, shared an episode, or even joined the conversation over the years. You're the reason that this podcast has grown into what it is today. Together, we shared laughs, tears and moments that truly matter. So I want to thank you for being part of this journey. Let's make the next ten years even better. Coming to you from the Freedom Federal Credit Union Studios. Harford County Living presents conversations with Rich Bennett. 

Today, I'm going to get kind. 

No, no, no. The truth is. 

Rich Bennett 1:01
Thanks for joining the conversation, where we explore the stories and experiences that shape our world. I'm your host, Rich Bennett. Today, I am thrilled to be joined by an extraordinary guest. Alona Lipari. Alona is the visionary CEO of the Life School and the highly sought after speaker bestselling author and business coach. She specializes in helping purpose driven entrepreneurs and CEOs align their inner values with their professional goals, transforming businesses into legacy driven powerhouses. A former Fortune 500 executive, Alona, has been featured in Disrupt, Business Insider, CEO Weekly and many more. And we know she's going to be featured in even more coming up. She's built a community of over 30,000 heart driven entrepreneurs and is passionate about connecting people and building servant led communities. Alan His expertise includes branding, marketing, sales, team development and aligning purpose with profit. All designed to maximize impact and income. So today, we'll explore her unique approach to leadership. Her seven foundational pillars of success and how she's empowering leaders to create businesses that truly make a difference. Like she is alone. It's an honor to have you on. How you doing? 

Elona Lopari 2:32
I'm doing great. Richard, thanks so much for having me here. I truly enjoy our time. And yeah, I'm looking forward to adding value to your audience today through this episode. 

Rich Bennett 2:41
Well, before we get into it, do me a favor. Tell everybody your background, where you're from, and actually how you got into the business field. 

Elona Lopari 2:53
Yeah. So natively. I'm from Albania, moved to New York when I was only 15, and very early on I was instilled the American dream by my dad specifically that we're moving to, you know, New York, the city that never sleeps, the city of opportunities. So I was kind of program with Chasing the American Dream. So that's what I did. I got my bachelors very fast. I supported the family when I was only a teenager with those first couple of jobs and then climbed the corporate ladder all the way to the C-suite. Realizing that alongside that, I had built my family, bought a home, and kind of secured myself with the American. 

Rich Bennett 3:29
Right. 

Elona Lopari 3:29
A ways, only to find out that I reached the top. I really was unhappy and I started questioning a lot of things and I really was feeling from the outside. I had all the success, but from the inside I started questioning, Well, is there all there is? 

Rich Bennett 3:45
Right. 

Elona Lopari 3:45
I thought that this was supposed to make me happy, so I just really couldn't understand the concept that I was feeling internally when on the outside things, you know, seemed well and other people obviously saw what I, you know, what they saw on the outside. So that's kind of where I started to look for answers. I started to dive deep into some of my personal development and what is it that I wanted out of life? You know, 

Rich Bennett 4:09
Mm hmm. 

Elona Lopari 4:09
what were my own values? What is it that I was going to consciously choose to go after? And all of that, which was a completely different language for me. All those years. And that's kind of where entrepreneurship showed up for me. And meanwhile, I had seen my company that was very profit driven. They were purpose driven for many years, which is why I was happy growing there with them. But they were acquired by another company and everything changed. So somehow everything happens, you know, the right moment, right for you. 

Rich Bennett 4:39
Right. 

Elona Lopari 4:39
Something else, and that was my catalyst to entrepreneurship. Never thought to be an entrepreneur, but when I started doing this on my own, I realized that I was very entrepreneurial, which is why I was very successful. The company I worked for, which I worked in leadership business. 

Rich Bennett 4:55
You. 

Elona Lopari 4:56
All those different roles for all those years. So my train of thought was, Let me try this out. I have a lot of experience. If I fail, I'll always go back at another 9 to 5. 

Rich Bennett 5:07
Right? 

Elona Lopari 5:09
But yeah, ever since I've kind of done what I do now with entrepreneurship, I get to choose the work. I really inspires me that I feel is connected to my purpose and mission. But also also there's no cap to growth. And every day it's sort of like a personal development journey and a personal 

Rich Bennett 5:26
Yeah. 

Elona Lopari 5:26
development journey. So without looking back, it's kind of what I want to help other people do today and put my experience and my strong business mind and leadership skills to play where now I can help companies align with purpose first and really understand how that aligns with their profits and purpose driven Companies are more profitable in the long 

Rich Bennett 5:46
Yeah. 

Elona Lopari 5:46
run. So now that's become my my niche and my purpose, and it stems from my evolution as an entrepreneur as well. 

Rich Bennett 5:55
So the life cycle, Is this your first business that you started? 

Elona Lopari 5:58
Yeah. This is the first business that I have. 

Rich Bennett 6:02
Wow. 

Elona Lopari 6:03
Yeah. And I've always been a big believer in focusing my my thing on the one umbrella. I always knew that my company is going to be a corporation and I have structured it that way and I've grown it that way. Then under my brand, there's going to be other, you know, products and services that I was going to expand with. And now is what I hope other people do. So I found that more effective, more time efficient, because once you build a brand, we all know that, you know, it's not something you do overnight. So and the life cycle came to me through my professional and personal experience of working with other people. So I said, Wait, everybody, entrepreneurship is just like school. Every day you're learning and growing and you're a student and this is the school that never ends. You never graduate because every day there's something new for you to do. So I kind of just all put that together with the name of the company, and that's kind of what I focus on growing. 

Rich Bennett 6:59
Now, what year did you start that? 

Elona Lopari 7:01
I believe it's going to be over five years ago, so. 

Rich Bennett 7:04
Really? Oh. So right before COVID. 

Elona Lopari 7:07
Yes, I think two years before COVID is when I started hustling. Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 7:15
I haven't asked this question in a while, believe it or not. But how did COVID affect the business? 

Elona Lopari 7:20
COVID affected me very positively because there was a lot of people that were following the press that had some work to do around the department, much like myself, where, you know, you've got to go on the hamster wheel until you have time to stop. And it was a hard stop for many people to go with in. It was booming with tons of passion projects. Entrepreneurs found their purpose and needed support with the startup phases of a project. All in a project because businesses, you know, just the contemplation of many projects at the end of the day. But yeah, that time it was really good time to support people with the startup phase of their passion projects. 

Rich Bennett 8:02
See, the thing is, I think a lot of people during COVID 

really think outside the box. course you did. I mean, I was the same way Cova was one of my best. Cheers. I know that sounds cruel to say, but it was. 

Elona Lopari 8:18
Yeah. I mean, it depends what business you're in and where the people are. I mean, yes, I also have local business as well, actually, not that I think about. I don't like to dilute my brand with other businesses that I run, but I'm entrepreneurial. Me and my husband. In other industries, which is why I could tell firsthand that there was tons of local businesses that were affected, that they couldn't do it. I think a lot of businesses try to innovate and pivot, and the ones that were successful obviously grew. Their sales continue to skyrocket and scale and other, you know, other businesses got affected emotionally, you know, and stayed in the comfort zone. Right. So. 

Rich Bennett 8:56
Yeah. 

Elona Lopari 8:57
Yeah, I think it definitely depends on your industry because our business is online, obviously so rich people and because of COVID, this has become even more of a hybrid environment now. But yeah, I think it really depends on the industry and how you could potentially pivot. But just like anything, you can still start a you know, you're your personal brand and then go from there because now personal brand is becoming even more important than a company brand. So, you know, who knew how things were going to flow. But things have flown in this way now. So yeah. 

Rich Bennett 9:29
Do me a favor, because this is something I've been trying to explain to a lot of people. Yeah, you have your company brand. But if if it's your company, you have to have your personal brand, too. You got to put your face out there. People want to know who it is that's behind this. Can you explain how important that is? 

Elona Lopari 9:49
Well, it's crucial because now we have a AI, which is obviously after COVID. But I say that product based businesses got away with this for a long time. But I mean, now that it's time to get away from. But, you know, sometimes founders don't want to build businesses that have their face on them because obviously of the tightness to their companies, which is one of my missions, helping them become growth companies that are self led independent beyond them because of the right systems and structures. If you still feel like you are the face of the business, then you could still leverage that. But you've got to know where you're strongest and focus on that area so that everybody else obviously is focused on their other things. But with the age of AI right now, even if you have a product business, I say if you have a service, it's a it's a no brainer. You got 

Rich Bennett 10:39
Right. 

Elona Lopari 10:39
you got to do it. I've been pruning now who's doing what and why? And you are a service provider and people want to build trust with you. So it's it's really important. And today we're even going into the era of authenticity because, again, what's the difference between a AI and somebody that's talking from their life experience 

Rich Bennett 10:59
Yes. 

Elona Lopari 10:59
potentially? So I always say that you people build trust with you. They resonate with your values. They kind of gauge whether they don't like and trust you, and then the rest of the pieces can become the byproduct of you or an extension of you. And that's not to scare anybody, because I do have a profitable company that works very well in the back end with operations. But I still focus and I am still the face of my business because at the end of the day, I am the one that's the biggest driver of my brand because of why I do what I do and the mission. 

Rich Bennett 11:34
Right. 

Elona Lopari 11:34
Behind it. Does that mean that you can have support behind the scenes with lots of the ways that we can automate and systematize a lot of our processes, which before has to be done by mostly people. So things are shifting, but we're yeah, it's all about authenticity, who is behind what and people will always buy from other people. I don't care what you're selling. 

Rich Bennett 11:59
I'm going to need your help here then, because what do you tell somebody? Who is it is their company. It is a service company. But their response is, Oh, nobody wants to see my face. 

Elona Lopari 12:14
Oh, well, I would tell them that if they don't want anyone to see them, then they must not be so passionate about the work that they're doing and the product or the offer that they're actually selling. Because if you want to hide your face behind whatever, then how is it that people can see your passion? Right? The reason why you do what you do, which is why I very intentionally connect this to people's purpose, because I have found in my experience that if this is important enough to you, you don't care about showing face because you're in service. Right. It's not about how my hair looks. You know how I'm going to, you know how whatever. All the insecurities. 

Rich Bennett 12:55
Right. 

Elona Lopari 12:56
There are physical images and all of that. It's about me sharing this piece of inspiration, education, entertainment, whatever. Is your business based on that's going to be in service towards others. And I always say there's always two ways to drive our experience onto other people's lives. Either speaking through speaking, we're sharing our voice or we're writing about it. But those are the really the only two ways that people can see you, right? 

Rich Bennett 13:24
Right. 

Elona Lopari 13:25
You just like anything you are. If you're not seen and you're not heard, then unfortunately, I'm sorry, but you don't exist. Right? This is 

Rich Bennett 13:32
Right. 

Elona Lopari 13:32
other people that are doing it. So if you resist them, then I say, let's check your business. Maybe it's not the business that you really care about. Or maybe you got into it for the wrong reason. I. 

Rich Bennett 13:42
Yeah. Thank you, guy. Now I know what to go back with. 

So, with your business, with you, I mean, you've covered a lot 

when you started your businesses, and this is. I love talking about business because you hear a lot of people that want to start a business and they don't know what to do. When you started your business, you had a business plan, correct? 

Elona Lopari 14:12
Yes, I did that. I had a business plan. I had very strict goals that I wanted to follow and all of that. But I have found that none of that was what I needed to focus on. So, yes. So your question, but not very effective. 

Rich Bennett 14:27
So what was it that you focused on then? 

Elona Lopari 14:29
Well, I received support, right. 

Rich Bennett 14:32
Okay. 

Elona Lopari 14:32
Come from the business world. When you grow your own startup, it's very different, especially when you grow your own startup in the online space. What I was used to, even though throughout my journey I realized that a lot of the things that I knew were very applicable because this is a. 

Rich Bennett 14:50
Right. 

Elona Lopari 14:50
The end of the day. But unless I have support and somebody that walk me through the right stages of business growth and where I needed to focus on those income generating activities and how to grow my brand and do all these different pillars that I now teach others, then I just wouldn't have an idea on how to connect those dots. So I right away invested with my first mentor that I received support as far as where they were and what they could teach me. When I grew my business, because time was always very important asset to me. I've always been very time conscious. So to me it's like if I can invest and somebody else already has the proven or the experience to do this, I could fall and get up and do my trial and errors and all of that which will happen anyway. I mean, nobody's ever saved from that as an entrepreneur. 

Rich Bennett 15:41
Right. 

Elona Lopari 15:41
Life in general. But, you know, to me, I always seem smarter to invest than learn the things that I didn't know about. 

Rich Bennett 15:50
Yeah. 

Elona Lopari 15:51
So that was my that's kind of that's the thing that I did that helped me the most. And then I as soon as I build that momentum, then I just continue to grow. 

Rich Bennett 16:02
You're still educating yourself. 

Elona Lopari 16:04
Every day. 

Rich Bennett 16:05
Is very important. And actually, I want to talk about that a minute because you you do the marketing. 

How have you seen marketing change throughout your career? Not just for your business, but throughout your career, period? 

Elona Lopari 16:21
Yeah, I do. Marketing is one of the pillars. I do branding, marketing, sales systems and team. And the reason why I have that process is because all of these feed into each other. It's like you can talk about one thing that this should be leading into the next thing. So marketing has changed very rapidly because now we're in a more mature market and more competitive market. Obviously, especially in the online space, more people have entered because 

Rich Bennett 16:49
Mm 

Elona Lopari 16:49
of low cost of entry. Not a lot of investment needed. Just open up, shop with an account and you're kind of just, you know, ready to go and offer something. So I find that at the beginning of especially the coaching and consulting space or where I kind of compare five years ago, the market was still very high, you know, economic times. And in very high need of sort of what this was and very hungry to learn and grow. And they also had the funds to be able to do so. So the market also got this education and everybody was buying things. Now people are more conscious because they've been there, done that. They made decisions. Some of their investments didn't turn out well. Some of their investments worked well and people are now even have the right education. Right, because that's what happened with the boom of the online space that everybody was sharing, creating content. So 

Rich Bennett 17:44
hmm. 

Elona Lopari 17:44
content is what we're consuming, right, as consumers, not just as creators. So I feel like the market is definitely gone into maturity where right now personal brand again is even more important because I have options, right? I have a lot of providers that can offer the same service. So unfortunately you start to become a commodity if you're only going to lead from price. If you want to build something solid and work on a quality business model, which is really what most businesses want, they always want the highest level of avatar that can pay them the most, that can value what they do and all of that in order to do that. Now we're just talking about brand, we're talking about mission, we're talking about something bigger than what your product or your offer. And people again, want to resonate with you and your authenticity. 

Rich Bennett 18:34
Mm hmm. 

Elona Lopari 18:34
So we have come back with some four things, which, you know, because there was so much boom and growth, it was not really that necessary. People didn't know what it was, so they were just diving in and investing. Now they're more conscious consumers, they're more mature and educated, and they do their research when they invest, right? Because now we 

Rich Bennett 18:53
Yeah. 

Elona Lopari 18:53
have all this track record too, to do some research around people. So people are more conscious and cycles have slowed down of how people buy. And again, if you want to reach more of elevated market, it's all about offering that first solution, but also importantly, being authentic and building trust at the highest level so people can see the difference between investing, you know, in one person versus another, and so that your brand and your business doesn't just become a commodity where then you have to lead with the cheapest price, which is always, always a struggling business strategy and business model, because how much lower can you always. 

Rich Bennett 19:36
Hmm. 

Elona Lopari 19:37
Your prize. There's always going to be somebody else that's going to be able to do that, right? So lead with value, lead with mission, lead with vision, Lead with consistency, service, all of those things is what I've seen are really things to build you for the long term and you're going to be around for a while. You're not just going to be like one of those. You just shows up and goes away. 

Rich Bennett 20:01
Yeah. 

Elona Lopari 20:02
What I've seen has shifted in marketing as well and. 

Rich Bennett 20:06
Do you see more businesses not really pushing to value as much? 

Elona Lopari 20:15
I believe that businesses are going to be more of the the value aspect. 

Rich Bennett 20:22
Good. 

Elona Lopari 20:23
They're shifting away from value because value has to be articulated and connected with the main pain point that you solve for people. So I have seen actually, I like how things have evolved because I. 

Rich Bennett 20:37
Right? 

Elona Lopari 20:37
These are bait marketing tactics, you know, techniques online and things that just gave people no context, but just share like these crazy testimonials, like make $1,000,000 in your business. And from three months or whatever was really happening at the boom of the start of this industry. But now I feel like people are going into more values and 

Rich Bennett 21:00
Yeah. 

Elona Lopari 21:00
then what's behind, you know, who I resonate with. You know what she stands for as a person, as a human, as a business. So we're definitely heading into more consciousness, a higher level of consciousness in business as well, which really reflects a lot of the personal journey people are doing within themselves as well. 

Rich Bennett 21:20
So with that, and this is where storytelling comes in a lot. When when if a business needs to 

reach, whether it be other businesses or customers, was B to B or B to C, what are some of the best ways for them to market and get out there and tell their story and, you know, supply more content, 

Elona Lopari 21:47
Yeah, I always say that. It's where I always begin. Who is your market? Right. Who is 

Rich Bennett 21:52
right. 

Elona Lopari 21:53
it? And where are they Hanging out. I mean, you always got to start with that, because then you're going to. No. Where is it that I can go and show? Show up and add value? Because they're already there. They're already congregating there. So that would be the the one thing as far as storytelling, I think it's back to life experience kind of how I. 

Rich Bennett 22:12
Right. 

Elona Lopari 22:12
Personal and professional experience. And in business, we're always doing both because again, you know, if you just talk about business, business, just your knowledge, knowledge, knowledge, like who's behind the business? Like, what do you care about? Are you a mom? Are you a dad? Do you like to travel? Like how what are the challenges do you have in your personal life? I mean. 

Rich Bennett 22:31
Right? 

Elona Lopari 22:32
Trust is built like that. Like a lot of the times, it's not even about, you know, talking about business is about do I like her as a human being? Right. So one of my missions to humanize this is for those stems from personal. I always say build a personal relationship and then get to the 

Rich Bennett 22:45
Yes. 

Elona Lopari 22:46
side. But I think it's it's the hero's journey, right? Most businesses try to position themselves as heroes. Where I've seen what's more effective is you position yourself as the guide. You don't know everything, right? And you just happen to have a solution. But you are just like your avatar that you're helping empathize with people, connect with people, and then when they see you as that trusted guide in the journey, they're not going to expect that you are perfect and you are the 

Rich Bennett 23:13
Right. 

Elona Lopari 23:13
expert. And all this lingo that really was resonating online for a long time. As far as as far as the personal branding piece is concerned. But I think it's more people resonate with somebody they like as a person first, as a human first, and then they decide whether I would like you to support me. So position yourself. Speaking about storytelling, I would say speak from the heart because you never need. That's why me and you probably love podcasting because it's all about I have no script. I'm just speaking about from my experience, right? And whatever comes up comes up. If I make a mistake, I make a mistake. And if I do Orson Welles, I mean, it is what it is, right? I'm human. 

Rich Bennett 23:52
It's natural. 

Elona Lopari 23:53
Right. It's natural. So that's that's kind of what people are looking for. Someone we're sharing our content. The more stories we can tell, the more experiences we can share. That's kind of where we're going. And always positioning yourself, be humble, be humble in their journey. Right. And 

Rich Bennett 24:09
Yes. 

Elona Lopari 24:09
always come from the place of I used to be there and this is kind of what I've learned. Right. So you are seen as that guide, but then you're also always speaking from your heart and your certitude rather than your ego or kind of that like the expert mode. Because I speak about ego a lot in business. It's it can be a journey where it feeds the feeds a lot of ego, unfortunately for lots of entrepreneurs, then I have not really have found that that's the right approach to go about. You can be very successful because obviously you can do other techniques and things that will make you very successful. But at the end of the day, what is the legacy you want to leave behind? So you always work with that vision and mission in mind, even though it might be years down the line. You're always working backwards, but you're never going to make a decision that's out of alignment with those values 

Rich Bennett 24:58
Right. 

Elona Lopari 24:58
because of a quick win or, you know, doing something that you might need for the moment. So I would say that, yeah, always lead with that, that future vision in mind and just share. Share. I like the word share. I mean, because it seems simpler and it's not overly complicated. And here's what I learn here. I'm sharing it. Here's what I'm doing. You know, here's what I learned from this. So just do it, you know, organic and natural and right as you speak. Don't overthink things. Right? I mean. Or originality wins the game. And thank God we're gone. We have gone to these really important values, which for a while I think we're just moving away from it a little bit. But I think what's important in life are always going to go to the earth, right, as humans. So we might deviate a little, try out a lot of things, but then get to the core, which is always who you are as a person. Which is why I say your own self-discovery as a human being is so important your business, because then you can always stand for. Otherwise you're just a copycat and you're just copying everybody else. And you have the same message with everybody else. And there's no conviction and there's no you know, there's no like what makes you unique and different. You don't even know that because you have to figure out what's your authentic voice. So there's a lot there's a lot into it. But I say that we all know, you know, what we want to share from the heart. We just have a lot of our own stuff that holds us back. 

Rich Bennett 26:25
I like that. The sharing and learning is it's basically going to help you become a better leader But something you just said, 

makes you unique and different? 

Elona Lopari 26:39
The heart of service and the fact that I care. I put a lot of passion into my work. I usually try to always filter out things that I think I should do rather than the things that actually excite me and lift me up. I'm always in the process of doing that inventory. Yes, there's certain things in business that we must do because there's things that obviously are 

processes that, you know, are important. I always try to find other people that can do it better than me and kind of complement each other. I believe in human relationships. I believe in complementary partnerships. So I always try to stay within me and figure out, work on my level, awareness and consciousness, and always understand and tap into my gifts, the things that I really care about. Where is it that I should stay in this moment? How is it that I should position myself and then look for the processes? I look for the people that can support me with other things? And one of my gifts now that I've discovered, is connecting the dots. I have an eye for looking at the most important things to focus on so that people can get those results that they're looking for. And I have a linear focus mind the meaning that I don't get distracted very easy and I'm very linear in my process with how I help and support businesses, because business is a game where you need a lot of focus. It's 

Rich Bennett 28:01
Oh, 

Elona Lopari 28:01
very 

Rich Bennett 28:01
yeah. 

Elona Lopari 28:01
easy to go south and do a lot of a lot of things, which is why I attract usually a lot of creative entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs. You know, my struggle with with a piece of the linear brain because you know, of their their genetic makeup. But I think at the end of the day, it's about really understanding, you know, where you work best and really honor that because, you know, what's the point of of growing anything if it's not in alignment with you and it's not giving you joy every day and it's not connected to who you are and your purpose and all 

Rich Bennett 28:32
Yeah. 

Elona Lopari 28:32
of that. Otherwise, to me, it just seems like too hard of a journey to do something that's not even something that lights me up when I have all the options to do the other. The opposite. I mean, if you have no options, yes, then you got to do what you got to do. But if you have a choice, why not put in the effort to realize what that is? 

Rich Bennett 28:55
And I could see a lot of solopreneur being distracted, especially, I mean, you know, a solopreneur that's walk working from home because and this has happened to me. Finally people got the hint, but it was so hard running my business from here because family or friends would call, knock on the door because they see me at home and thinking that I'm available. Well, no, I'm down here working and I would let it get to me and I would go out there and finally I'd just focus. It's like, No, this is my time. And I found it a lot easier. When you just like working in the corporate world, if you set your own schedule, set a schedule for yourself, and that's going to avoid that, well, it's going to help avoid a lot of the distractions, but tell people know I work from this time that this time I'm available after that or I'd never say before because I don't want anybody calling me before 530 in the morning. 

Elona Lopari 29:58
I. It's like with anything amazing where you get the freedom to make up your own hours and schedule. 

Rich Bennett 30:05
Mm hmm. 

Elona Lopari 30:05
On the things that matter to you comes the other side of the, you know, the dark side of time management, right? 

Rich Bennett 30:12
Yes. 

Elona Lopari 30:12
If you're not used to it, I think the more you entrepreneur, the more you get used to it, because then you build habits, you know, like what times are better for you energetically. Family obligations, things like that. But I definitely understand what you mean with people just thinking that you are available. Like even my kids, you know, sometimes I'm your home. So it's like, Come with me. Like drive me here and there. I'm like, No, I've got an agenda to follow. Doctor's appointments, like somehow you're always available. So I think it's boundaries. Boundaries. 

Rich Bennett 30:43
Yeah, 

Elona Lopari 30:43
You have to first know where your boundaries are, so then you can implement those for the people around you. But I think this gets easier because just like it builds habits, like I know the 

Rich Bennett 30:53
yeah, 

Elona Lopari 30:53
days that I'm not following my agenda, but I purposely consciously chose that that day. That's what I was going to do. But there's something about programming ourselves that we kind of do this and this and this and this. So we kind of tend to go to our old habits. It took a while to reprogram myself from corporate for sure, because I felt like I always had to go somewhere like, you know, it's like 13 years of doing that. So 

Rich Bennett 31:17
yeah. 

Elona Lopari 31:17
I think give ourselves time to transition. Transition is important and in business too. A lot of the activities I used to focus on that are longer than the business is the best school to teach you how to reposition yourself and new things because obviously whatever focus you had a year ago is not really the right, you know, our life or your time, money and resources. 

Rich Bennett 31:39
Yeah. 

Elona Lopari 31:40
Now I got a shift because you're in a different spot. 

Rich Bennett 31:43
You're listening to the conversations with Rich Bennett. We'll be right back. 

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Elona Lopari 33:33
So I think it's always an exercise of reprioritizing. But yeah, putting strict boundaries. Your time is important. Your meeting with the CEO, even on the days when you don't have an appointment. Because I think when we have our calendars and we have to show up, I think we do a better job at that because the fact that I got to meet Rich and we're having a podcast recording, but when it's time with yourself, when you're working on projects on the back end, I know how easy it is to just go on social media to pull something and then you find yourself like 4 hours later you're just scrolling or whatever else gets our attention. So I think we have to be very good stewards of our time and with experience. So you learn, you know, where to focus on what activities that are going to give you, then back your time and you rely on your profits. Because as entrepreneurs, we don't have the luxury like other people, that we don't get a paycheck, we make our paychecks. So. 

Rich Bennett 34:28
Yeah. 

Elona Lopari 34:29
And we have other people responsible on top of us as well. Right. So, yeah, it's it's it's one of those things you're now on the other side. I always say I've been on the employee side and now you get on the other side and it's a different world and even. 

Rich Bennett 34:43
Yeah. 

Elona Lopari 34:44
Think about things. But first is. 

Rich Bennett 34:47
A lot of discipline. 

Elona Lopari 34:48
Oh, yeah. A lot of discipline. But I find that when you connect those, the point, the discipline or the agenda, things that you have to do to the bigger thing, you tend to be, you know, very much more driven towards 

Rich Bennett 35:03
Yeah. 

Elona Lopari 35:04
doing those rather than when you're doing meaningless things that you don't like. What's the purpose of this? Like, I don't get it, aren't helping me with this or that. So if people don't get the bigger picture, I find that it's so much more easy to get distracted. But when they the next the thing is like, Oh, I know now why I'm doing it, and they're willing to do really hard things and move them really away from their comfort zones a lot of times. So I have found that that's really important in business. So it's the connected to the bigger thing and the bigger vision 

Rich Bennett 35:35
Yeah. 

Elona Lopari 35:35
and the mission of why they're doing what they're doing. And if they don't care about it, then I think we'll find something else because, yeah, otherwise it's just a miserable life and you're working on things that you don't care about. 

Rich Bennett 35:47
Exactly. What do you think is often now, too? I think a lot of people don't realize this. A lot of people that aren't that work for businesses feel that if you're an entrepreneur, you're your own boss. Well, that's not the case, especially. And you know, it's especially if you're married. My spouse is the boss because if I'm not doing good, I'm not making buddy. I get money. I got to answer to her. 

Elona Lopari 36:11
Well, the wife is always the boss. Never changes. 

Rich Bennett 36:15
Well, that is true. Happy spouse, happy house, right? 

Elona Lopari 36:19
Well, she's always the CEO. And whether you're working for someone or working for yourself. Never that never changes. But it's so true. I always say the same thing and I was actually thinking the same. But it is so funny how we're having this conversation. But your boss is your client. They both are. They pay and they make a decision with their wallet. So you always are working in service towards your client. So every day it's kind of what it is that you're going to still yourself with. But yeah, I mean, it's it's not. That's why I say that you must love what you're doing and service towards others because you're always, you know, working or helping others in a way or another or even a corporate. You're doing it with your teams and whatever you know you're doing based on your roles. And as the CEO and founder of your company, you are you have the responsibility towards your clients and your team. So yeah, there's always other people involved for sure. 

Rich Bennett 37:18
Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I like what you said there. Your clients are your boss because you think about how many times have you either fired your dentist doctor, mechanic, lawyer. Because you know, if they do something you don't like, you're going to go somewhere else. It's the same with being an entrepreneur. Running your business. 

Elona Lopari 37:40
Which is great for meritocracy because you must earn what you do. I mean, there's no 

Rich Bennett 37:44
Yeah. 

Elona Lopari 37:44
such thing as favoritism if you're not top notch. And obviously you haven't done your job with delivering what you promised. Yeah. You are hurting the business, so. Yeah. Hold your very accountable. 

Rich Bennett 37:58
So with the with the life cycle, because I take it you work with 

throughout the world, right? Because. 

Elona Lopari 38:07
Yeah. It's a global. 

Rich Bennett 38:08
We're all from Kobe. Yeah. You've been able to do virtual and all. Can you? And I just. I love. I love hearing these. Can you share a feel good story from about somebody that went through the life score and how it actually changed them and had improved their business. 

Elona Lopari 38:27
All day, every day I work globally. I offer my services virtually. I do have a couple of local clients and we like to meet up locally, which is always a good interaction because we're still human. And I like my. 

Rich Bennett 38:40
Yeah, 

Elona Lopari 38:40
I love things, but most of them like lines that come come for the pain point of they already have built their companies and now they're out of capacity with what they're doing. They don't have enough time anymore in their business. So one of my clients, she was building a bookkeeping practice. Then when she came onto the Life School, her pain point was that she had already created a lot of consistent cash flow and she had a lot of referral word of mouth clients, which is a blessing that obviously she was good at what she does. She did, but she was running out of capacity. She's like, All I do is service clients. I have like one assistant that does some of my marketing because that's the thing that CEOs and entrepreneurs need to realize that the business doesn't close. When you have to service delivery your clients, you still have to do your sales, your marketing and all the other activities, which if they stop your business, stops. So 

Rich Bennett 39:31
right. 

Elona Lopari 39:31
you don't have other people on these things. So that was our pain point. She was running out of capacity, obviously causing other personal issues in our home, you know, her marriage, struggling and parenting and all of that. So usually it's the fires always happen if you bitches be doing something and just saying stuck in the one thing. So that's kind of what we did right away. We streamlined a lot of the processes. We figured out that a lot of things she was doing, she could we hired somebody that could do some of the bookkeeping processes for her. So now she has help with the service delivery piece when she was still on board new clients, but she has the person and now we're streamlined. Also some of our marketing. She's doing a lot of manual things of reaching people and all of that. And I have a system that I use my clients that produce pretty much your automated thing, but we look in-house to streamline what is it that you can do and where is your time worthwhile? And then. 

Rich Bennett 40:25
Right. 

Elona Lopari 40:26
Going into the next phase of hiring the right people, coming up with the right roles, and then doing the hiring, the training and the developing. And then once the company is structured out a little bit where some of the journey now we're clarifying, which is hire somebody. So we work on the systems and then now we're bringing on new people on board as we streamline some of our sales and marketing so that she keeps receiving the cash flow, because obviously the cash flow is what's needed to reinvest back in another hire or reinvest back in other things that she needs to do. So once we did that and now we're structuring out the rest of the departments where she can put people for her marketing, her executive assistant people for her service delivery, and then eventually a leadership that oversees the little team so that she could come out and focus on the things that she needs to do to grow and develop her business long term. So those are some of the things that we've been focusing on. And of course, you know, everything quadrupled in our company, in our business, but also. 

Rich Bennett 41:25
Wow. 

Elona Lopari 41:26
She had like she's been found working 30 hours in a business compared to 70 hours a week before. So she's got the peace of mind. She knows she's working on the right priorities. But, of course, she's also moving for the right thing. So. 

Rich Bennett 41:41
She went from work as 70 hours a week on her business to 30 hours a week. So you taught her how to work smarter and she was working harder and not getting success. 

Elona Lopari 41:53
She's on the hamster wheel. Not only corporate corporate employees can get on the hamster wheel, entrepreneurs can 

Rich Bennett 41:59
Hmm. 

Elona Lopari 41:59
do the same because you just get comfortable with that. And you just stay there, right with without knowing now how to work on the business, get the right things situated and structured. I do a lot of organizational structure because at the end of the day, business is really just, you know, a component of just systems and people working there. So 

Rich Bennett 42:18
Right. 

Elona Lopari 42:18
it's like it's like a home. You got to organize things. You have a kitchen, you have a bedroom. Mhm. Right. And business is the same. Otherwise you're just doing everything on your own and you're going to be a slave to the business and always being there. Hamster wheel. But yeah, you have to understand how to do that. But that's my magic to know what are the right things to focus on. Because for a lot of entrepreneurs it's a very overwhelming cycle. 

Rich Bennett 42:41
Yeah. 

Elona Lopari 42:41
Hiring people like I don't know who and how to pay them. And there's a lot of other problems and things that show up. But I would say is the good problems you want to have because that means you're growing and you're heading in the right direction. So we all go through the same processes at the end of the day. 

Rich Bennett 42:57
So I wanted to ask you this earlier and completely forgot because I got so I just listen to everything we were talking about. But with this, the Seven Foundation, the Pillars of Success, want you to explain what they are because I want people to sign up for the school. But what are the seven pillars? I remember marketing. 

Elona Lopari 43:20
Yeah. So the seven pillars are in our alignment of your vision, mission values. Because to me, that's very important. I always do that first to me at. That's like the number one thing because we can be building a business complete night vision aligned with you. And I don't want to work backwards. I like to work in steps, meaning let's not put on all this energy in the wrong thing and then realize it's not the right things. So I work with steps that are predictable to get people to to the right result. So that's the one pillar aligning what that is. And then the second one is branding. Understanding how to build a positive personal and company brand and align both and all those things that are important in there. And then the marketing is the third one, which is again, you know how to build well, I can trust the people, add value and all of that. And then sales is the other one. And then I got my systems, which without them, right now it's even becoming more important because we're living in the age of technology and then the team aspect and then the visionary leadership aspect, which is more once all these things are set up, then you are the visionary leader that understands how to move the company forward. Make those high level decisions. Do I want to sell it excited? Do I want to leave it as a legacy? Do I want to still continue to develop it or maybe acquire other companies? I mean, those are more high level decisions that a visionary CEO makes. So understanding how to bring people from, you know, this process and all these pillars is something that I've seen in my experiences has become my my unique methodology, where I am pretty much setting everything up for them rather than them going on this track themselves well, here I need to do the marketing here and then the branding here and then I to do this. Yeah, know about here. I just realized that there's a process and we all go through that and there's predictable results at the end because I'm a big process person. There's always a process in how we get results. Nothing ever comes to from the sky, right? There is predictable things we do to get to a certain result. So I use the same methodology in business as well. And then when it comes to personal success, to me it's the first piece aligning what your personal life looks like and how your business supports your personal life. I always start with that. I think your personal life is most important and you want your business to be the servant of that right or the money to be the servant of a view, not the other way around. What your business is just taking over. And we all know the problems that happen with that, with people not having time for themselves, their families, their relationships, their health. So I have more of an inside out approach to the business rather than just looking at the outside results. 

Rich Bennett 46:03
Right. 

Elona Lopari 46:04
So that's my process. That's kind of what I believe in and how I also live my life. Also. 

Rich Bennett 46:11
Okay, so somebody goes to the life school or signs off for the life school. Is it is it courses or is it consultation? How does it work and how long does it last? 

Elona Lopari 46:22
Yeah. So I offer a few products now I offer my private professional services. I offer our community, which connects people to speaking opportunities. And I also have lots of courses people can consume. So I just have three of those products and buckets depending on where everybody is and what their budgets are, and then based on where they are and what they need. And then we offer what's going to be the most supportive. 

Rich Bennett 46:49
Okay. And. You're also an author. 

Elona Lopari 46:54
I am an all. 

Rich Bennett 46:55
Books. How many books have you written? 

Elona Lopari 46:57
Going to be five books. 

Rich Bennett 47:00
Going to be five. 

Elona Lopari 47:01
Yes, because I'm always writing the next one. Right. 

Rich Bennett 47:05
Okay. 

Elona Lopari 47:06
I'm like, okay, how many of them? So it's going to be five. And that's just another thing that I would love to do. I've done speaking for a while. All my experi ence and I actually spoke my first books into writing, meaning I transcribe them. So. 

Rich Bennett 47:23
Ah, 

Elona Lopari 47:24
Of of madness, of how I put together my knowledge, my experience, my expertise, because I love the legacy peace. And I find 

Rich Bennett 47:32
yeah. 

Elona Lopari 47:32
that, yes, I can you know, we can do this digital product right here. But there's something like a good book where, you know, somebody grabs it and they can just read it and get those ideas and connect their own dots. 

Rich Bennett 47:45
And. 

Elona Lopari 47:45
So I learn and I've fell in love with that process. And I also love the speaking side of my business. So it all connected together and that's kind of what I do with connecting things with brands, kind of what is the thing that you care about doing? Is it a podcast? Is it a book? Is it, you know, an event that you like to run and host or other things that are still feeding into the brand of the business? But are there things that actually resonate with you and you love doing so? That's been my experience with book writing. I spoke my books into writing, I always say. 

Rich Bennett 48:21
That's that's smart, though. I've told authors this before. If they're using Microsoft Word, there's a little thing there that says dictate, and you can click on it and record what you said. There you go. So you said speaking to you toward a country speaking. 

Elona Lopari 48:38
Yeah, I'm a professional speaker, so I speak at events that have entrepreneurs and CEOs that I have my audience, whether it's paid to speak or I go based on the visibility approach of speaking. I do a lot of that. I do virtual and live events. 

Rich Bennett 48:55
All right. Let me make sure I got all of this straight. So you're an entrepreneur. CEO, 

a mom, a spouse, a speaker, a podcaster, an author. Good Lord. Am I missing anything here? 

Elona Lopari 49:12
community builder. 

Rich Bennett 49:14
A community builder. 

Elona Lopari 49:15
I love community. 

Rich Bennett 49:17
Um. Wow. And basically just a all around great person. Yeah. You're keeping busy, aren't you? 

Elona Lopari 49:26
Thank you, Rich. I appreciate that. And everybody tells me that I you do so much. But honestly, I don't feel like all of these things are like, you know, a lot of work for me. It's more like, okay, I clarified that this is the right next step in the journey for me. And I love I be feel I get full, you know, to do this or that and I just follow my intuition. So yes, it's been actually the well, I'm an overachiever, recovering overachiever. So my life journey is to really focus on doing the right, the things that really my heart speaks to, and not because I feel like I'm supposed to achieve, to receive love and to be worth it or all of that. Right? So I've done a lot of interior work with that, but nowadays it's more like I get I meditate a lot. I do a lot of, you know, work in the work. And once I get the light bulb, I have to follow it. I have to. 

Rich Bennett 50:16
Yeah. 

Elona Lopari 50:17
So it becomes like, okay, now I got to write the next book and then I had to do this right? And it's not like, Oh my God, I got to do it. It's like, Oh my gosh, Like, I just got the inside that that's going to be my next thing and I just obey my intuition. So maybe on the outside it looks like, Oh my God, like you do so much. But to me it's like, No, it came to me in the right moment. I just surveyed my little dots. I connected my journey and I just execute on the things that light up my heart and 

Rich Bennett 50:45
Yeah. 

Elona Lopari 50:45
ends up being a lot of things in the journey, which is all my body of work at the end of the day anyway. But that's kind of how I felt through my process of words. Should I be focusing on? I just go with them and I get the insight and I go executed on the outside. 

Rich Bennett 51:00
I have a funny feeling. You're like, You're a lot like me. You look forward to waking up in the morning and start starting work, don't you? 

Elona Lopari 51:11
Always. 

Rich Bennett 51:11
it. So. 

Elona Lopari 51:11
How about this? The the good thing about being aligned with your mission and purpose is that you never need an alarm clock. Is the Steve Jobs saying. 

Rich Bennett 51:20
Right? Yes. 

Elona Lopari 51:21
When I used to read that saying or quote when I was working on lying. I don't know what he means, right? It's more like, Good for you. But I am not in that situation where if you do what you love, you never work a day in your life. And now I'm actually this is reality for me. The other side of that is that you can get burned out because I love what I do so much that I can never stop working. So that also has been a problem, too. It could it could burn out your batteries and you don't need. 

Rich Bennett 51:48
Yeah. 

Elona Lopari 51:48
As I'm still human, I need to still do my physical care and all of these other things. So I am at that mode where I'm always balancing and trying to harmonize or, you know, the fire and the purpose and the things that keep me up. And also the self-care piece, which I have found is also important in the journey to. 

Rich Bennett 52:10
Oh, my God. Yes. Very important. Yeah. It's funny because I remember somebody had asked me it was on a weekend and it was a Sunday. What are you doing today? You know, why don't we have a drink later or something? I said, No, actually, I'm going to be working there like it's Sunday. You're not supposed to be working. I was like, Well, there's some things I gotta do because I let one of those distractions get. 

But I did. I mean, I never I don't think I ever. Besides, when I was in the military, I never had a job where I worked seven days a week. But I really loved doing it. I mean, I may take a couple of hours out of the weekend just to do some things I want to do. Podcast. What made you decide to start a podcast? 

Elona Lopari 52:57
Yeah. So podcasting is how I started learning about this whole world of being an entrepreneur. So I fell in love with it. Yes, because he had a lot on me. I was a busy executive when I first started to question what I was doing and I was not happy in all of that. So podcasting was something I could just put in my head, my whatever, my ear buds on and drive as I was going, doing my stuff and still let consume like stuff that was going to open up my mind and expose me to a different world. So I started learning from podcasting, so I just fell in love with that channel. And then as soon as I started my business, I started because of the speaking thing is very strong for me. I said, I'm just going to share my experience and just speak to other people and share what I know. So that's how it began and the fact that it allows for over the years, obviously I've grown and develop it, develop the channel, even through me being an interviewer and going and podcasting in other people's shows. It's the authentic feature of it, meaning 

Rich Bennett 54:00
Yeah. 

Elona Lopari 54:00
it's real. There's no agenda. Whatever comes up comes up and. I've also clarified a lot of my own aha moments and messaging and all of that through just speaking about certain things that, you know, you probably wouldn't have gotten a chance to do otherwise. So it's also been therapy 

Rich Bennett 54:19
Yeah. 

Elona Lopari 54:19
in a good way in my business messaging, because every time you speak about something, you're like, Oh, that's why I think about that. I should talk about that in my content, right? So I just have found a lot of wins for me and that keeps me that keeps me in the game with it as well, but also that I get to interview now it's grown. I've interviewed over 500 people. 

Rich Bennett 54:41
Wow. 

Elona Lopari 54:42
Yeah, it's like it's on School of Life. I get to, like, talk to you, for example, when you'll be on that podcast, if you decide to come or other people and like just learn from them and it really helped me become a better listener also, 

Rich Bennett 54:55
Right. 

Elona Lopari 54:56
because when you're a speaker, we tend to just use that skill and we forget to use our ears. So there's been a lot of great benefits and obviously in service towards the audience, I've been able to build my communities with offering service that way as well. So it's also another legacy product. It's there, right? It's recorded and anybody can listen to it and anywhere in the world and you just never know who's hearing what and how you can create impact with that as well. So those have been some of my reasons why I love it. 

Rich Bennett 55:29
All right. You said over 500 episodes. What do you drop it five days a week? An episode each? Every day. 

Elona Lopari 55:34
Yeah. So my podcast was that three times a week I was doing my shows three times a week. Right now I'm gone back to two times a week, focusing more on quality. But yeah, I was doing a lot of shows because I love it. It's also how I meet and greet people. And to me it just became a very natural process in my business. So yeah. 

Rich Bennett 55:56
It's a great networking tool. 

Elona Lopari 55:59
Yes, absolutely. And. 

Rich Bennett 56:01
And actually with your because I know you I think you've interviewed some of the people that I've interviewed myself, and I'm sure you've talked about this, how important is it for an entrepreneur, a business owner, a CEO to get on podcast, even if it's even if they're just local? 

Elona Lopari 56:23
Yeah. I mean, it's it's very smart because you're leveraging other people's audiences. And we all know how much time and energy it takes to grow anything, to grow, an audience, to grow community. And other people have done it. So if they have the audience that aligns with what you do, you'll be very smart to go and show up and offer value and be of service to that audience because you just never know again who can, you know, listen to what you have to do. And even the simple action of just connecting beyond this, like I found you on richest podcasts or alone podcast, and the fact that we can now be in each other's network, you never know. I'm all for relationships, right? And for nurturing the right relationships. We can meet at a podcast, we can meet other places, but that's kind of what I have to say to people. You know, it's it's kind of really amazing. I look at it more like a relationship building. So it's it's really an amazing place to be able to do so. And plus, it gives you a chance to really build trust with people because you are with them. 30 minutes an hour, right? It gives you a chance to open up and share like things that might be helpful to them. So it builds trust. And that's important with humans or your relationships at least. 

Rich Bennett 57:37
I'd tell everybody the name of the podcast. 

Elona Lopari 57:40
It's called the Life School Master Class Show. And the vision behind it is that every conversation is like its own master class. 

Rich Bennett 57:48
And what I love. It's those of you listening. You can find it on YouTube, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Good Pods. Listen, it's basically I hate saying it's everywhere because not all podcasts are everywhere, but it's basically everywhere. 

Elona Lopari 58:08
It's basically everywhere. For many of more, I can leverage my time. As I say, I'm a savvy, you know, intentional entrepreneur. I don't believe in working hard, but working smart. If I'm going to put in half hour, I'm going to try to find my people and optimize my time. So 

Rich Bennett 58:23
Yeah. 

Elona Lopari 58:24
that's how I think about anything I do, how to do structured in a good way. So podcast is the same way. I repurpose it into blogs and so many other things. So yeah, but it's where most major podcast platforms are featured. 

Rich Bennett 58:42
Yeah. 

Elona Lopari 58:42
Featuring our shows, I guess. 

Rich Bennett 58:45
But the easiest way to find is to by going to your website. Which is what? 

Elona Lopari 58:50
Yeah. So the website is called on all the coaching dot com and then they just do slash podcast. They'll just go straight to the podcast page. And also I would invite your audience there because I have a few resources if they enjoyed anything that I mentioned with building a company aligns with their purpose and profits. So Flood an independent. I have a few resources on the website that they can take advantage of and sort of go from there. 

Rich Bennett 59:17
What is one piece of advice that you wish someone had actually given you before you started this journey? 

Elona Lopari 59:29
your trust your intuition and trust your 

guidance to make really important decisions in your life, in business, but also be smart and get the bigger map of what you're trying to do because you don't know what you don't know. So making decisions blindly usually never leads anyone into the right trap. So learn as much as you can about the one thing that you're trying to do, whether it's growing your business, whether it's another goal that you have in your personal life. Get mentors, good people that are already been through that experience. Save your time, invest in the right things, get the result, get going. But also pair that with your own inner guidance because we all have it. And I really find that when you make decisions like that, they're always the right decisions for you and you don't regret. And they turned out to be very successful, 

you know. So I'm like, okay, we got it. So we got to align the inner with the outer, got it. So that was my. 

Rich Bennett 1:00:32
And I'm glad you mentioned the mentor part, because that is I believe everybody has to have at least one mentor and I want to be where I'm at today. If it wasn't for my mentors 

God, that is very important. So those of you listening, if you don't have a mentor, you're in business actually, and it doesn't even need to be for business for anything. Always look for a mentor because it's very important and it definitely help you. 

keep those distractions away right alone. 

Elona Lopari 1:01:08
Yo, keep your poker. Distractions away. But we humans learn from humans. So some of them. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:14
Yeah. 

Elona Lopari 1:01:15
Well, unless robots look like. Conversations. 

Sometimes we just need to run, you know, we'll talk to talk things out with another person. Right. Even though it's the right thing, we are we're we're still human. We have insecurities. We gotta stop sometimes. Just having another person when you're talking about stuff just make you feel it makes you feel so much better because you can. Entrepreneur is a lonely journey if you'd be your own. Jael of entrepreneurship and you need to get out and talk to people and be in communities. I love communities. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:47
Yeah. 

Elona Lopari 1:01:48
Align yourself with communities, other people like minded, like values, like journey. All of that so that you feel like you're not alone and you're just feeling connected to other people. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:00
You're seeing it in the podcast world now. I mean, you're see, because you and I connected through Pod Match and Alex has started communities and there and it's great to see each other, you know helping each other and it's very important. Alan Is there anything you would like to add before I wrap it up? 

Elona Lopari 1:02:21
I mean. No, I mean that that's kind of, you know, everything. I think that was kind of the final message that came up and. Yeah. Just get your audience to maybe check out my show as well, since they're podcasters anyway. At the Live school Masterclass show and I really enjoyed our time, which was really natural heart to heart conversation. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:41
Oh, 

Elona Lopari 1:02:41
I 

Rich Bennett 1:02:41
what? 

Elona Lopari 1:02:41
like it. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:42
Thank you. I have a funny feeling you're going to be on again in the future as well. 

Elona Lopari 1:02:47
Likewise. I'd love to have you on mine and get this relationship nurtured and see how is it that we can support another. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:53
Oh, it would be an honor. Ilona, thank you so much. 

Elona Lopari 1:02:58
Thank you. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:59
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