Welcome to Tectastic, where we navigate the intersection of technology and business, uncovering innovations that redefine our world. Alona Lipari. Welcome to it's fantastic. It is lovely to have you here. Hi, Grisha. Thank you. So I I ultimately wanna hear your story. I understand that you left the Fortune 500 company as an executive and then went into helping other executives and entrepreneurs find their inner vision, their inner story, and their passion.
And I'm really curious, like, how you found that spark in yourself to jump from what feels like the safety of an executive role in a large company into going and chasing your the thing that you knew was your purpose in life. So, my origin story. I moved to New York when I was fifteen natively from Albania. So part of my culture, you know, I always hard for my parents to go get the American dream. That's why we came here. So that's kinda what I did. Graduated like a good student I was.
Climb a corporate ladder for 13 years. I was actually in a good company for many years, and they were in girl help mode. And I was able to learn and grow and climb the corporate ladder Ali. I did HR marketing sales. I started as a management trainee, and then my latest role with with them was a executive leader in a C suite or regional director. Until just like everything, the company was acquired by another company, the culture changed its focus changed to turn war to profit driven, culture.
So no longer saw a good fit and good alignment in the future with them. So I started looking around for, obviously, what else did I wanna do when I grow up and entrepreneurship was never in my car, so I have no one in my family. It was never a model that I was even considering that I was gonna follow.
However, through a lot of personal development and just meeting people that were really using their experience skills and all the things that they had learned in service to others somehow always attracted me. Cause for me, where I found the most fulfillment was was in helping others and creating value and contributing and doing work that I really cared about. So I'm always, curious channel, child around the bigger why? Why is it that I'm doing? What I'm doing?
How is it, you know, connecting to my personal goals or things that I care about? Or even how is it, you know, in service to others. So that's kinda where the whole thing and purpose came about. And I said, okay. I'm I'm listening to that. In her voice that I was hearing at that time. I'm gonna start to follow my God and intuition and kinda just grow into this journey.
So starting with Zack coaching, career coaching, and then it's the last, I guess, 3 years that now help purpose driven entrepreneurs much like myself and corporations that going back to serve the corporate environment with conscious leadership and helping them align and scale purpose with profits so they can jum good in the world. And now I offer my fractional COO services and HR services, and my consulting services for businesses and companies that want to scale purpose of happened.
So the audience is a is an interesting mix of people that are on an entrepreneurial journey. They're they're starting a company or they're at a startup. And people that are at large corporations in a executive role usually around technology and what's coming.
And one of the things that was really interesting when, we connected over you being on the show is if you don't know why you're doing what you're doing and you mentioned this on your own, it's very difficult to motivate anybody, including yourself, on it. And if you really wanna be successful in life, it's important that you understand that.
And that's the problem is that most people don't actually understand what drive them what motivates them and what they really truly care about because it gets lost in the noise of our lives. You know, the people in your life influence your opinions on it, the news, and television, else or influencing you in very specific ways. So how do you cut through all that noise and get back to the reason I exist and the thing that I must accomplish in my to feel fulfilled. How do you find that?
I wish that was an easy answer, but it leads me back to say inner work, doing some clarity work, doing some implementations in systems, whether it's meditation, journaling, physical exercise, taking time to reflect, sit with yourself. Spend time with yourself is so true. I think this is honestly now the hardest thing for people to do as, you know, we need to fill space in the air with with something, right?
Cause we feel unproductive or inefficient or not worth it if we are going to just sit and do nothing because first of all, we're I don't normally wanna go too much in spirit, while we're human beings, right? I mean, we're human beings, not human beings, and all and the being is when we start to discover those things that we really care about or kind of gets, you know, connect dots I always say or like little insight around things that, you know, give you joy.
Shine your light things that make you happy, hobbies, things that are really pulling you. When you listen to people that you consume content around or whatever is that they were getting your information. I always noticed in my personal life that I if turn, you know, models attracted me or certain messages kinda spoke to me, There's something about that inside of me that I haven't discovered yet. So kinda just let those clues be the clues so that you start to discover that.
But I think as a foundation, it's of of anything any self discovery work is really around what are your personal values and for you to be the person to dictate these. For most of us, including myself, a lot of these values were probably values that I've seen in my family or in my culture or people that surrounded me, So I just took that and kinda rinse and re repeated it, but when you take the time to sit and figure out in the cover these, whether it's through the help of a mentor.
My first mentor absolutely transformed me because I started to recreate and reassign a lot of the use that were important to me as a person without the interference of, you know, what other people thought I should do or how I should live my So, you know, clarifying your personal values and that vision and mission, it doesn't have to sound this big, maybe when you're just at the beginning, but just kind of what is what are you feeling intuitively prone to really go after?
Like, what is the problem you wanna solve in the world? What pisses you off? What makes you happy? What are some things from your personal life that you can also be able to help others, with what you have learned as well? So start there, Dave steps. And then the more you you start, the more you take inspired action, the more you start to get clarity around what are the next steps for you to be able to take to get that.
And it's funny how companies mirror humans because obviously who's behind companies, humans, right? We all find them, found them, we'll create them, and then obviously we align the clients, our communities, and team around, but companies are much like the same thing as our personal life. You know, you want to do that in your company as well. Once you discover the values and the vision mission that your company has, then it's so much easier to be able to scale that company.
So it's a lot of similarities between, you know, Van and and, you know, business. If you're just at the journey, the beginning journey of solo Renewership, or all the way into entrepreneurship and CEO level, but it's all, you know, the journey of self discovery. It's always evolving and ongoing.
That you had figured it out and you're like, okay, now I know my values for life because you're gonna always evolve as a human, as you learn more things and as life teaches you a few lessons and all of that good stuff. But being a lifelong learner and always, you know, getting clarity on what's important to you, I think it's one of the most important things that we can do as humans. I I couldn't agree more.
The lifelong learner, especially in today's world where it's changing so fast technologies evolving so fast, and it's impacting all parts of our lives that you have to be capable of adapting to the change that comes. And if that's not part of how you approach life. If you expect everything to be set in stone and locked down, you're you're in trouble, really, because it's going to evolve and leave you behind that's not a good place to be.
But a couple of things that you said in there were really important. I thought it's also true with the company. You you might set your mission vision and values right now, and that's a moment in time. That's what they are today. And it's not that they are gonna completely reverse, and you're gonna think the opposite 20 years from now. But they will evolve because information will hit you.
In my case, it wasn't so much evolving as realization I didn't recognize that something was so important to me until I was talking to somebody, and I got very passionate about one piece of it. Was like, wait a second. I need to write that down because clearly I cared a lot about it. And when I took time to reflect on that one piece, I realized That's one of my core beliefs. It's one of the core things that drives me.
I think that the best thing that we can do in the world is empower human beings to be the ultimate version of themselves they want to be, whatever that is. It's freeing them from the shackles that constrain them to be who they wanna be. And I was saying it to somebody in the context of starting their own company. They felt like they were held back. They were like, I I wanna do my own thing. And I was like, what is stopping you, and I got very passionate about it.
And it was that that stepping back and going, that's a core belief. I didn't I didn't know that about myself. I didn't know that was something I had. And so I had to add to my list. Companies do the same thing. The Nike Maxoms, if you've watched the movie about Nike being founded and the Jordan signing thing that came out a couple years ago on Netflix, the maxims that they show in that, and they they come up on the screen Christian.
Like, something will Hammer, and it'll put that maximum And that's what sorry. That's what they call their values is the maxims. When I was there, those weren't the maxims. None of them were. They're all totally different. And it didn't mean that they were fundamentally opposite or they're fundamentally different, really. It was they evolved enough they had grown as a business and they understood more about themselves. So they'd in a way been refined and articulated in a tighter way. That's all.
But I've talked to so many founders that are like, no. This is our this is what we believe, and this is we're stuck here. I'm like, really? Is that true? Are you really staying with that? I love it. Can I pick it back up a few things that you said? I think it's most important what you said around, you know, stopping and being almost like a child, like, chat like curiosity around, like, why did I just get passionate about that? Right? Is that something that's important to me?
And kind of just reflecting back on that because as humans, We only evolve and get this clarity in conjunction to another person, right? That's why I always believe that, yes, AI is gonna advance and we're gonna use technology and We should be smart about implementing it, obviously. And, you know, there's always like positives and negatives to everything that we do.
Human to human can end will never go away, and we always learn a growth of sharing each, you know, experiences and and stories with each other. And a lot of the times, something that you might say might just spark a a new seed in me that maybe I didn't think of something, you know, a certain way. So just having these type of conversations. And then when you get those insights Aja moments pay attention to them because they're not just passing thoughts, especially if something keeps showing up.
There's a reason why it keeps showing up for you and not for me. Because obviously, you know, it's not connected. I don't wanna go too spiritual on this, but it's connected to our souls path, right? So there's a reason we're all here. There's a mission and vision that we're, you know, we all get, inspired by. And at every stage of season of life, nothing is ever wasted. It's always building to what the next thing that you wanna do.
But when it comes, you know, to companies, much like living in life, the companies that don't wanna evolve, you know, and get more clarity on their vision, values, and mission are gonna be left behind. It's just, you know, the way it's always worked. Right? Do they they reach a certain level of maturity And then if they don't innovate, and if they don't get, you know, inspired with new ways of doing things or adapting to what's happening in the world, eventually they start to die.
Just like human life. We don't evolve personally. We'll eventually, you know, get far worse. We can't stay in the same spot. So I think if you just compare it to personal growth, company growth is much like the same. So that there's a couple things that on your profile I wanna touch on because they were I thought they were really good points for the audience.
And it's difficult, I think, for most people to find that purpose in life to start with because I think the the people that are enlightened enough to want to be self introspective will seek it out But a lot of people, they they don't interrogate self to understand better what they care about. But how do you go about aligning your purpose with profit. This is an important one because in a lot of cases, people's motivation seems so altruistic. Do you line that with profit?
How do you find a way that you can exist in a capitalist society when you've got an altruistic driving internal story? Yeah. I would like to start off with what's coming up for me is exactly what you said, right? I mean, the people that, if somebody is just not feeling, you know, inner conflict and it's really comfortable with where they are, then they will be where they are, right?
I think though what happens is that when something is pulling to you or it's calling for you to grow, whether it's learning how to now, you know, marry the profit side to obviously, what is it that you really are passionate about, you know, doing in the world, or that the problem that you wanna solve in the world, because that's where it all starts, right? So figuring out that problem that you want to solve in the world. And at the beginning, we start solving tiny problems.
And then eventually, as we learn and grow and evolve, and we learn how to that into a healthy company is what I say. The vehicle and choose the vehicle of entrepreneurship to be able to do so, then you can do both. You can unite purpose, and you can deny the profit. And how are you able to do that? It's obviously through the, aspects or pillars to how any company grown traditionally that we now maybe admire those bigger brands that we talked about, you know, the Nike's.
It's all about the brand, the market, the marketing, the systems, and then the team, right? So those are the main pillars of really taking that purpose, taking that vision, taking that main problem that you really care about and feel obviously also qualified to be able to create transformations with.
Whether it's a service or a product, and now implementing and structuring it out like a company and bringing other people on board and having a really healthy business model that attracts the right market for yourself so that you're able to create the profit.
And then when you create the profit, learning how to start delegating it out that you're removing yourself and replacing yourself as the operator or the owner on the right activities that you care about you can add the most value in your company with and then delegating the reps.
And that's how you start to create something that gives you freedom because another problem usually, you know, around up with some profit is like, you know, people are always sometimes when you start a company or business, you know, you started with a good desire to be free and focus on the thing that you care about and being meaningful work.
And, you know, you, you figure out that you really Hammer really overly more than a full time job we pretty much just slave to your business because unless you move your business does not move.
So, you know, thinking more on the long term lengths or longevity of your business and the vision that you have, you wanna structure your profit side in the ways that a business is structured so that you're able to bring that purpose into play and then connect all the people around you, whether it's the tiny team, 1st, you're, you know, solar for newer, then you move into entrepreneurship, and then you get to the COO level, whether your company is
more established and you're more established and you put you know, a good brand in place and you build trust in the marketplace and all those different functions are already there, then you start to grow in scale and maybe current markets and new with what you have going on. And that's how you eventually expand, but it's very smart to be able to know when to invest.
A lot of that cash flow that keeps coming in after you pay yourself and you pay your team and you pay all the things and knowing your numbers, and then reinvest that back in in the scaling of your company. That's how you move to the three levels, which is trade time for money. We all begin there, then trade money for time. You want to start buying back a lot of your time.
Otherwise, you're gonna die and just grow in a business you can't, anyway, because you're gonna be the bottleneck of your company. And then the third one, which is time for time. Right? So, I mean, sorry. Money, you put money to get money, right? So, That's the 3rd level of freedom. And those are all phases.
And, you know, most of us have not skipped to, you know, the phases accidentally, but just knowing, you know, what's out there available for you and making the right strategic decisions and aligning the right people that can get you there is honestly the only thing that we can do to be able to align purpose with profit, but without that strong reason why you're doing what you're doing, the money is just not gonna carry you that far. That's kinda what I've learned.
You just said one of the biggest pieces of advice that a lot of first time entrepreneurs I think they buy into the, I'm no longer trading my time for money. Like, I'm not working an hourly job or a salaried job where I'm trading my time for money. They buy into that, and they think that it's instantaneous. It's like, ah, now I run the company and I'm trading my knowledge or something else for money, and it all magically happens. It's like, no, man. Like, you actually just downgraded for a while.
You're gonna spend a lot more of your time and get a lot less money than you're maybe comfortable with, and you've gotta get through that phase. And the first major milestone you have to hit is that the company, it it can sustain. That doesn't mean it can sustain you, but the company doesn't die tomorrow. You've got enough of revenue coming in that it sustains. The second major milestone is it sustains you. And then the 3rd is that you could start buying your time.
You could start paying for other people to do the things that you were doing right now. I said, notice that that's the 3rd milestone you gotta hit. And those other 2 are critical to get to this one. If you can't do them, it never gets to the 3rd. And then you can start worrying about the money for money eventually. Like, I'm buying other companies up where I'm I'm leveraging my capital to make more money. The, the I just realized that we're getting low on time.
I wanna make sure everybody knows to go to alonavaparicoaching.com. It, there's 3 valuable sources on her website, a free marketing checklist, a free master class to building a legacy company, and a free ebook on the 50 purpose questions towards your aligned potential. Alonav, do you have anything else you wanted to share with the audience? No. I mean, thanks so much for having me.
And, like I you know, entrepreneurship is definitely a game, but I I also don't believe in anything, you know, overnight success. I guess that's the right time to point in it. It's always the preparation that we we do before, you know, in the back end to even get to that. Even those lucky wins or timing, the vine timings that are connecting.
Obviously there's a lot of that, but, at the end of the day, if you're going to do something, absolutely ensure that it's it's it's in creates value for others, and it's adding value. And it's your you have that service mindset of of being a service and contribution towards others. Because most people, that's what they want. They just wanna be, you know, significant. They wanna look at the impact that they're able to create with others, and that's gonna keep you going for a long, long time.
So that's what I would love to leave your audience here with today. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you. And that's a wrap for this episode of Tectastic. Wanna thank you personally for joining us, and we'll see you next time. Until then, keep exploring, and stay curious. Thank you for listening. If you are new here and enjoyed the content, please subscribe. It really helps us out. And if you are a regular listener, thanks so much for your continued support.
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