MY INNER SUCCESS THROUGH LIFEEXPERIENCE

By Elona Lopari

I didn’t know until my late 30’s. I was brought up in the American dream after leaving Albania. It was the happy-ever-after scenario. I got my degree and climbed the corporate ladder. I am passionate about learning, and I was happy in the corporate retail industry, but then it all changed, and their values didn’t align with mine.

Ididn’t know what I was going to do when I left, but having witnessed my husband’s entrepreneurial journey, I started Executive Coaching for female leaders. I still felt like I was in the corporate environment, but I felt like a child needing to explore the world and looking further afield. That’s when I discovered my gift for business.

Leadership is very attractive in my mind, and I positioned myself in the business place helping people discover their 7-figure salaries. Success for me externally was incredible, but I needed to discover my inner success through life-experience. Life is its own school, so I needed to bring ‘life school’ into my work and do more good in the world, but at the same time, drive my own purpose-built company.

There was a lot of fear and uncertainty – like any leap in life outside of our comfort zones. I started to expose myself to different mentors and connect to like-minded people. Then I hired a “personal mentor”. We have to be surrounded by support, even as solo entrepreneurs and therefore, I understood how to leverage off collaboration. I started to see my business grow and eventually, the side hustle paid off. I got my “feet wet” and started to see the traction of how to invest time and energy into a new type of network and presence.

When I felt I had good footing, stability and income, I donated all my time to my business.

My capability and self-worth journey was a huge aspect in believing in my brand. Loneliness in business was very jarring and something I needed to learn quickly by shifting my mindset. I needed to redefine ‘who I was’ to figure out what my values were. I had to recalibrate my priorities, and the life I was trying to create.

Every day I wanted to quit my business in my first year, because the challenge was huge, and I am not ashamed to say that. Most people think the same – because building a business can be terrifying. However, leaning into that fear actually made me understand neuroscience, which altered my confidence and former practices.

I believe it’s all about creating an intention and un-doing unhelpful habits. Faith, growing in my spirituality and believing that if an idea was calling me, I needed to walk towards it.

Then, I saw the results.

Following ovid, I was no longer exposed to belly-to-belly networking, so discovering new ways online and through social media was key. Trust happens so naturally in ‘real life’ with another human being, but when I understood the power of social media, I immediately saw how content was attracting a new audience.

Through paid advertisements, I overcame a massive learning curve and began to understand organic growth. I hired people who were good at those things, and I modelled my own success by observing their skills. Marketing campaigns were at the core of my business for selling services and products, and I collaborated with my team to ensure consistency by investing ‘smart’ ways.

I live my personal and business life the same; spreading myself evenly across family time, personal time, relationship time, and professional time. I am the CEO of my life.