Healing the Heart of Business with Elona Lopari

Ever wondered what drives true fulfillment in business? Join us as we sit down with Elona Lopari, the inspiring CEO of the Life School, who shares her incredible journey from Albania to the corporate heights in the United States, only to find that success did not equate to happiness. Faced with this realization, Elona embarked on a new mission to help CEOs and entrepreneurs create businesses that align with their core values. Her story not only challenges the conventional measures of success but also sheds light on the deeper purpose behind meaningful entrepreneurship.

We navigate the convoluted dance between ego and spirituality, uncovering how intuition and emotional intelligence can play a pivotal role in personal and professional growth. Through candid conversations, we illuminate how past traumas and attachment styles can shape self-worth and decision-making processes. By connecting the mind, heart, and spirit, we highlight the transformational power of self-awareness and the responsibilities it brings. Elona and I share practical insights into overcoming internal conflicts and making decisions that resonate with our true selves.

Step into a world where tarot becomes a tool for self-reflection and mindfulness, and where simplicity leads to genuine fulfillment. We explore how uncovering hidden traumas in business can unlock profound clarity and pave the way for authentic connections. Plus, discover the significance of real human interaction and spiritual awareness over materialism. The podcast culminates with an invitation to the Life School Masterclass Show, a platform that celebrates storytelling and personal experiences, encouraging listeners to shift their focus from head to heart.

Sponsored by Nico Van de Venne CommV

Chapters

• 0:00 Finding Purpose and Fulfillment in Business
• 13:25 Navigating Ego vs Spirituality
• 19:25 Uncovering Hidden Trauma in Business
• 26:59 Discovering Inner Healing and Connectivity
• 42:19 Connecting Through Life School Masterclass

Transcript

Elona: 0:00

When you lean into your heart and you just speak your truth, then the right stuff comes out. And now at least we know it. We say that 80% of healing is just awareness. Right, the other 20% is the process. But that's easy to tackle. At least we have it. We have the elephant in the room now and we can both see it, and then we can go from there. That's the way I tackle it, just always in empathy and patience and understanding and compassion. That's all we want anyway as humans, but it's hard to do it for ourselves for sure.

Nico: 0:32

Oh, absolutely. I think a lot of people would agree once they've stepped through the light, as they say. But right before they see the wall and the light, they're probably going to run away, run back, run away and at some point you get confronted and there's no way out, no way back. Let me invite you to sit back, drop your jaw, tongue and shoulders, take a deep breath and, if you wish, close your eyes for a moment and feel the beat within, from your head to your heart, and felt the beat within opening up to receive even more value and fulfillment out of your business and life. And today's episode. I'm your host, nico van de Venne, confidant to successful CEOs, founders and entrepreneurs who are striving to achieve everlasting fulfillment. Welcome to the Everlasting Fulfillment Podcast with our next guest fulfillment podcast with our next guest, elona Lopari, who is the CEO of the Life School. And I want to welcome you, elona. We're both Europeans. You might have been a bit away for a while, or still are, but tell us who you are, tell us about your magic.

Elona: 2:04

What do you do in the world? Well, thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much for creating this beautiful space. Natively yes, originally I'm from Albania. I've been living in the US, new York specifically, for the last 27 years, and my passion and purpose today is to help CEOs and entrepreneurs scale a ediline, a purpose-driven company that does more good in the world, through helping them do just that scale their purpose and alignment and profit, so that we can flip the script in the way that we are maybe used to growing a company that can be a legacy builder, can be something that you can exit from or can be used as a channel for philanthropy.

Nico: 2:44

That's a beautiful mission and I think there's a lot of companies out there who can listen to you or should listen? To you I would say when you look at the world and you say I want to make it a little bit better, how do you see that from your point of view?

Elona: 3:04

Yeah, and I think that stems from my experience, right. So I climbed the corporate ladder, chased the American dream. That was why we came here, right. I remember the early struggles of me being an older child, the oldest child of my other two siblings, and just kind of working very early on and very, very early on, as we both planted the seed by by my dad especially that we can be anything here and you, you know, chasing the American dream. That's kind of the goal of why we're here and why we brought you here. So that's kind of what I did, without questioning the journey.

Elona: 3:35

I got my bachelor's business management and finance. I was always intuitively pulled towards business, even at that age, because who knows who you are at that early age of college, those college years. And then I happened to be in the right moment, at the right time and spot with a company that was growing in the retail industry. So that's my first job. I climbed the corporate ladder, started from management trainee all the way to the C-suite level, only to be like. Is that all this is Like? I thought I, you know, I would feel different, I would feel happier. Meanwhile I had built my little family, married my husband, you know, bought her a home and all of that, right. So I had, I guess you know, a safety, the base, the safety base built in my life and I just couldn't understand why I was unhappy and unfilled Speaking of the theme and the podcast today and I felt jinxed. I'm like wait, I was praised for achievement all these years and I thought that me achieving would be my ticket to happiness and I felt a big emptiness inside of me and a little voice started to come about, like a little birdie voice of me saying that you're meant for something bigger. Like a little birdie voice of me saying that you're meant for something bigger, you're meant for something else. And I just didn't know what that was going to be like. And that's kind of how entrepreneurship showed up for me. Rasmus has been an entrepreneur for years ago Well, years before that, I should say in the construction field, and I guess he's more practical than me. You know, when you're in like a crossroad, you don't always like see what you don't see, and he saw it for me. He's like you've got a lot of experience.

Elona: 5:10

Especially, leadership was one of my top strengths. They said why don't you just go out on your own and try it out Cause I didn't feel like I wanted to go and do another nine to five. So, like, been there, done that, done that, what else was there? And plus, I wanted to explore the big wide world, so to speak. So that's kind of what I did.

Elona: 5:28

Ventured out for executive coaching for women leaders, because I happen to be a woman, uh, in a c-suite position, and then I still felt like it was in a corporate space. I said, okay, it's got to be more, this is not really the thing, uh. So then I offer some career coaching due to my HR experience, which still didn't feel like it was the biggest impact I wanted to make. And then, just piecing connecting dots, I stayed with business. I said business is the leadership of my two strongest pillars and that's really the way that I want to contribute towards myself, or beyond myself, I should say. And I said because I now answered my purpose.

Elona: 6:05

I think there's got to be better ways to grow a business that's more holistic, where you can put your purpose first and then align the profit piece, because one of the reasons why I left where I was is because the corporate culture turned very profit-driven, where I was no longer seen as an individual.

Elona: 6:22

I no longer believed in its values and the way that my work was contributing beyond my paycheck and all of that and all the bonuses that I would receive at those stages. So I said there's got to be a better way and I'm glad I stuck with my guns and there is a better way. Putting purpose first is really important and then obviously we still have to make money, do all the things P&L. You know all the profitability measures and metrics that are still important. But when you put purpose first and you connect it with a lot of those metrics, you tend to be on fire because you're only going to grow and evolve and you're never going to face the risks that most companies face with kind of dying out, phasing out, copycatting, competition all those things that happen when you're just doing something for the wrong reason. So what's turned into my mission today?

Nico: 7:15

That's a very specific path you walked. You know it's just, you did a discovery, but it was very specific. Did you take the time to reflect on that and looking at all the dots that passed through those periods?

Elona: 7:29

Yeah, I mean my first book was called Connecting the Dots Backwards, because I go back and forth in retrospect a lot. I don't know if it's something obviously connected to my purpose or personality or what it is, but I like to go backwards into my past and kind of, you know, look at patterns, look at the things that attract me, look at things that I'm passionate about, look at even my challenges, like how did I fall, get back up? And then I'm a visionary. So I, like I see visions for the future. I see what's not seen, I hear what's not heard, learning how to tap more into my spiritual world and intuition and all of that.

Elona: 8:04

I realized that I oh wow, I'm equipped with much more, much many tools than I realized were more seen at. You know the material world of, kind of just you know technical skills or, like you know business world skills, things like that that you can measure those hard skills. So when I just go back to back and forth, I go in and utilize my paths to connect my dots, but then I create in the present moment, right, and I kind of understood that creativity is also very unlimited. For the longest I thought I was then had a creative bone in my body, even though, looking back at my journey, I was also very entrepreneurial inside of a company, which is why I was getting promoted every two years. And you know, I just downplayed my gifts because I just thought everybody knew how to do this Right.

Nico: 8:53

Very pleasurable.

Elona: 8:54

Doing that is so special, so maybe it seems linear and maybe that is my path, but that's why, to me, when I meditate and go within and I do a lot of inner work, even with my clients, because I believe that's actually the work. Everything else is learnable. We can, you know, learn the skills, we can have the knowledge, the education, but the inner work is the work that's going to transform you into that leader that you want to be and keep you on that path, connected to your own unique journey. I realized that all those things that have happened to me have completely just were there for the right reason and happened to me on purpose so that I could be here, and then I just try to be very mindful and aware. The biggest thing I've worked on is awareness, because the more aware I can be, the more I could see, the more I can create, the more I can make the right decisions, which are such important things, especially when you are in the main decision maker seat, whether you are a founder or a CEO or even working in the C-suite level for other companies.

Elona: 9:56

I think decision making from a good place is honestly the most important skill we have, because when I look at my life. It's all a sum of those decisions that I've made. And when you make those decisions in the unconscious mode and you tend to suffer and you have consequences, of course you learn from them If you're smart and you know how to turn all of that into learning. But why go through pain when you can be more intentional and you can tap into things that are going to really help you work smarter or live smarter or more intentionally within, connecting with your purpose, so that you can have more flow, more ease, you know, more fulfillment and at the end of the day you wake up and you realize that you're not a human doing, but you're a human being. That's my big heart lesson for a high achiever like myself.

Nico: 10:44

Yeah, yeah, I love the the human doing human being. It's like the busyness and business uh the part. You know a lot of people are busy but they're not business. Um, yeah, I, I kind of love what you're saying because there's a lot of uh parallels with with my own story. I'm going to go into detail.

Nico: 11:03

I've already told a lot about that in in other episodes, but in in essence, I love the fact that you bring up the the more spiritual side of the person. There's one thing that I've noticed in in all the coachings that I've been doing is that the idea in the world, in the general world let's put it out there is that people in a certain role should be hyper-rational, they should be calculated thinkers, determining strategy based on clear thought, and so on the contrary, a lot of C-suites and a lot of leaders and founders. They look or they listen to their belly and ask does this feel right or is this okay? And the body makes them clear. If it's okay and indeed one of the statements that I love using it starts from within. It's the only place where everything starts. If you have an issue with any people within your team, it starts from within. It's the only place where everything starts. If you have an issue with any people within your team, it starts with you. So, yeah, I love what you're saying and indeed, with the flow story, I've been through struggles as well Hidden the wall right, not even walking, but running straight, sprinting into the wall by just not thinking or feeling if something is right for me, and it's one of the things that I actually did when I left IBM was when I actually decided to leave.

Nico: 12:32

That was a gut feeling, it wasn't a rational thing, and the moment I submitted my resignation and I stepped out of that office, there was just joy in full embodiment, and that's completely different than what we're used to seeing or being taught in the business world, where you make statistics, look at the KPIs and see your upline, your downline, whatever all those terminologies. And you're right, we need the numbers as well, need to profit, otherwise your business doesn't run. But how in in what way can I see you tackling a situation, for instance, with a c-suite person who is very rational on the outside but actually suppress this inner self? And in that story, can you give me an example of how you tackle that?

Elona: 13:25

I felt your story, nico, because I, I get, I'm, I mean, once you developed a lot of, uh, these, I guess I call it five senses of intuition. Um, because that's easier for us to understand. And for me, this used to be foreign language, right, it might have been belgium, I don't know how to speak it, right? So, um, but yeah, all this is foreign language until you try to go in and understand how these things work. But at the end of the day, it's always that battle, right, between the ego and spirit, the battle between the logical and the feeling, right and the gut. Now, how do we lean into each one for whatever you know situation or circumstance, and it feels responsive. Less right, because I grew up to be very responsible and to use my logical brain for my executive decisions or major life decisions. I always had, like the paper of, like the pros and the cons, because that's how you're taught to problem solve or the SWOT analysis.

Elona: 14:21

The SWOT analysis from my personal perspective, yes absolutely A lot of the times they're like okay, that's how it's got to be. So I completely understand. And my more logical founders, which get attracted to me anyway, because I'm also very, you know, left brain, as the way I was wired, I just happened to have developed these other sides of me as well and obviously now I can tap into each when needed. It's really getting into the depth of things, right? Understanding for me is always asking. At the end of the day, all we do is our guides, right? I mean for people just holding space, asking intentional questions, going deeper with some of the questions.

Elona: 15:02

Well, why is that important to you? Right? Why is the number important to you? Why do you want to achieve that? Right? Getting into the five whys I mean, dean Garcia also talks about the five whys and he's got a book out and all of that. But I love that because when you ask you know, why is that important? And you keep connecting it to the, you know, keep connecting the dots as to why. Then you get to the emotional stuff, right?

Elona: 15:25

Yes absolutely what to deal with. It's like I don't get tired of this emotion stuff. I got a business to run, I got you know this to do and all of that, and that was my story for the longest as well. I'm like if I could just learn or just delegate like the leader, delegate the feeling part out, I could just be logical and I'd just be cold and I make my decisions like that and I I never can get hurt, you know, and I'm both with negative stuff, um.

Elona: 15:53

But I realized that obviously that was not because my attachment style was avoidance. Right from my trauma and some of the things that happened to me during childhood, or even the way I'm praised for achievement, I thought that's the way I am supposed to get love. If I don't achieve, then I'm not worthy of love or I'm not good enough. So going into the deep layers of the reason why people want to do things is kind of how I like to tackle things. And then you always connect that with the logical right, because at the end of the day, I think we all have these assets. Let's call them right. We have the heart, we have the head, we have the spirit, we have our smart body. I mean, I never realized how smart our body is until I learned how to tap into my body, because the longest to me is the big theory. I'm like tapping into my body, like what does that mean? Here's the body I can touch, like what is there to do with it? I said it's healthy, thankfully, and you know I took care of it by exercising and doing things that I thought I should do. But oh my god, now that I've been through a spiritual awakening. So now everything's like connected and I'm like my god. I wish everybody can understand that all these things work together and how they play. But yeah, yeah, I mean back to answer your question.

Elona: 17:07

It's me, years ago, holding the space and being uncomfortable with some of these answers and being honest and just splitting out or sitting out whatever comes out and connecting people to their heart Because in the brain we're going to try to give an answer that's intelligent or whatever we feel, based on our mumbo jumbo. That happens. But when you lean into your heart and you just speak your truths, um, then the right stuff comes out, and now at least we know it. We say that 80 of healing is just awareness. Right, the other 20 is process. But that's easy to tackle. At least we have it. We have the elephant in the room out and we can both see it and then we can go from there. That's kind of the way I tackle it, just always in empathy and patience and understanding and compassion. I mean, that's all we want anyway as humans, but it's hard to do it for ourselves for sure we want anyway, as as humans, but it's hard to do it for ourselves for sure.

Nico: 18:08

Oh, absolutely, I think. I think a lot of people would, um, would agree, once they've stepped through the light, as they say, um, but right before they see the wall and the light they're, they're probably gonna run away, run back, run away, and at some point you get confronted and there's no way out, there's no way back, and that's one of the things that I've noticed in all the years that I've done. Spiritual work is, once you've opened the eyes, there's no way of closing it. And sometimes it's kind of scary as well, because you know so much, you can see it in other people's situation and you're like sitting there and you're sitting in front of somebody and you're like just grab it, you can Come on, but you can't tell them because you might lose them completely. And then you switch over to the questions. You said the five questions. I love the seven questions. Basically the same, but just a little bit more. I like to do some extra and indeed it works marvels. It just opens up things that people don't want to discuss, and I've only recently done it again with somebody.

Nico: 19:18

And I work on three pillars radical truth, deep connection and enjoying the journey. Those are the three that I focus on. And this guy was really. He was lying to himself, basically, period, he was just lying to himself. Bodily, he was very big, he did not have any physical condition, so his body was shouting out as in you are not who you are, you should be different. And you could see that he could use another physique. And then in his job, he was arranging everything around him so that he doesn't have to take the responsibility of his own life. Those are just tidbits that you start seeing and I started asking just a couple of questions. I started to go deeper and deeper and deeper and at some point he made that complete switch. And I don't know how you experienced that, but when you see those eyes eyes light up, when they get the insights of what's really necessary and what they really should take responsibility for, that's a magical moment, something I get goosebumps because I'm a feeler.

Elona: 20:23

I mean feeling was one of my senses that I had to really work on the most, because I shucked away much like that story that you talked about, where I try to do everything. So I never had to feel because every time I felt I was hurt, I was rejected. So those are the stories. But, yeah, when you see, that light come on to people's eyes and you can see it so clearly for them, but they can't see it, I think patience, patience and attuning in you know, to kind of what they're going through as well.

Elona: 20:54

I had a similar story with a client that we made a major decision of kind of discontinuing. She was in a physical location but now her business is completely the way to scale uh, we clarified, based on revision, alignment and all these, these things that are important to her. Um, she, she no longer needed the physical space. But the reason why she's holding this physical space is because she had relationship challenges at home, you know, with her romantic relationship and that actually that office was kind of her running away and trying to, you know, to cope with some of the things that were happening relationally. And to me it's like my god, like, look at the way that people make. We make decisions, right, uh, subconsciously or unconsciously or, you know, consciously, you know she's paying a lot of money for that office space which was she was not even utilizing, um, because again she was running away from something else, and need to be handled, and some of the traumas I need to take, you know, to get looked at. So that's how we make decisions every day in business, right, we invest in our marketing, you know, and we don't take a look at the ways that the results are actually, you know, happening for us or in our teams and that shows up in our attention numbers. So, yeah, it's amazing. I mean, it's almost like everything has like can be translated into something else and it becomes like a puzzle at the end.

Elona: 22:17

But we're all complex human beings and the good news about hiring professionals, getting people to support you, is that you know we've seen patterns and it's easier for somebody else to see what you don't see, because, again, we all have our blind spots, which is why relationships are where I really believe it's the base of humanity human relationships, because, at the end of the day, even in business, we have human relationships around us and those are always the best mirrors for us to take a look at and grow from. Or you know, or hide away, feel in a hide. You know we can only do so much work of our own. I feel like the rest has to be with other people around us. So, but yeah, it's amazing how a lot of the you know strategic business decisions that usually have a lot of hidden trauma behind them and you're trying to escape from another problem making the wrong decision, hurting your business because that was a big expense and she could just free up. Once that came up, she's like, oh, I can breathe, I actually no longer need that, I can tackle the actual issue.

Elona: 23:21

But getting to the base of stuff is really important, because a lot of the other stuff that we try to tackle is more like superficial leaves of a tree. I like to look like a tree. Even my logo is a tree, because when the individual is strong and solid, like the trunk of the tree, the leaves come around it and the flow is there. But most of the problems we try to come solve are not even that important. Tackle the base, the root causes of stuff, and everything else just will become a byproduct of the thing that we're trying to achieve and our life simplifies, we become minimalist. Then we can breathe finally, because we don't deal with 20 million things that have nothing to do with, but we, just because of our stories, we just uh want to feel productive, whatever story we got going down and why we're doing it. Life becomes so much simpler and so quiet. I love it.

Nico: 24:18

I understand you completely. I have the same feeling I was. I was on an interview last night, um, with a, with a guy from poland, and we had, uh, we talked about the subject, about how rich people never show that they're actually rich. You know, they don't find they buy this candy stuff and they don't. They don't buy the lambos and all that stuff. They just don't and they just, you know, reduce everything in their life to the bare necessity because they're like, need to have all these things to be happy.

Nico: 24:48

And that's the same thing within business.

Nico: 24:50

At some point you're going to learn to strip away all the layers that you've kept for years out of the idea of scarcity, or I'm not good enough, or what would somebody else think, and stuff like that.

Nico: 25:06

Once you, you know, start shedding those things and you just think, okay, we have a situation, there is a decision to be made, uh, or we need to go somewhere or we need to do something, and just do it, just decide, just do it, just go ahead, just, and not all the blah blah that goes around that you get from childhood on or from schools or from whatever region that you've been in, and I find that amazing that a lot of people drag that with them all life, whole life, and then at some point either they maybe turn out or depression, or or they really I don't know get fired from a very high position and then lose everything, or they just need to lose everything to to realize that there's another, another side of the coin.

Nico: 25:57

That's completely, you know, low and and easy and spacious, because I don't know how you feel about that, but the more I work these days with a sense of ease, the more spacious my world becomes, the more that I realize and come outside. I have an office in my garden and it used to be my garage we built, kind of renovated into an office.

Nico: 26:21

My wife is here as well not right now, but she's same office when we've talked to each other about this. We come out of the office, we just step out the door and we don't have a big garden or anything. We don't have a huge villa, but we realize there are birds in this, we realize how beautiful the clouds are. It's like all those things your, your senses, become a lot more aware of what's there in the, in that moment. And that's what I love. When you said you are a human being, it's, it's really. It kind of hits the nail on the head and it's one of the things that I've learned, especially from all the spiritual studies and so on that I've been doing.

Nico: 26:59

I've worked, I've worked with tarot for for for eight, six or eight years, I can't remember, but not, as you know, madam, whatever crystal ball stuff and future telling. No, it, it's a, it's a methodology that they teach you to focus on one thing, for instance, and to learn to be just, you know, be in the moment. And there was one exercise where we had um to one card three days and then it was six minutes. You had to watch the card for six whole minutes, just sit there and watch the card and and look at it and and realize what you see and then write down nine things that came up in you. Like you know, just write it down, say, oh, I saw color blue or I saw a curvature there or something like that.

Nico: 27:48

And then analyze what you wrote down and it was amazing that at point eight or nine you started to go deeper within yourself where you started realizing, oh, I'm seeing somebody here that actually hurt me in the. Why am I? Why am I thinking about this person now? Why I'll watch card and these are so beautiful? Because you make a healing thing about you. But your inner self and then your outside world also changes. That's one thing that I've mostly noticed is that I've had struggles with people and when I was doing the work within myself. I have a very specific situation. I had an N plus one, my manager and we had a conflict at some point and I didn't feel right. I didn't want to do anything anymore.

Nico: 28:35

You know it's like, no, I don't want to talk to her anymore, and I said, oh, hold on, this is a lesson. What have I got to learn from this situation? I started working on myself and you know, doing, doing hopono, pono, stuff like that, which I learned a while back and our relationship became better and better, better. It's so freaking strange that when you do it within yourself, everything else changes, but it's so logical on the other side as well.

Elona: 29:06

But it's really empowering too, because we talk about everlasting fulfillment right on the podcast. But it's also empowering that we I mean everything is never about anybody else or any other thing outside of us, and we are completely taught and programmed to look for everything outside of us, to chase everything around and outside of us. But at the end of the day, we're all equipped with all the right things and people are just mirrors of things that you're projecting onto yourself. So if you just stay in the being and stay in the present moment I mean so many teachers speak about it, right, but again, unless you go through certain experiences and start to heal some of your shadows, then it, you know it. Just, it's just theory. I'm like great, I mean good for somebody else that has 20 minutes to meditate, but my life is not that like. I got this and I got that and I got that because we're over here, right over here, there's always something to do, um, so, yeah, I have similar experiences.

Elona: 30:06

Uh, I have talked about this, um, even on my content. I have talked about this even on my content. I'm like I feel like I've reached this decade in the 40 now and I don't have a problem sharing my physical age, because I don't operate under my physical age. But it's like all the years has been the years of unlearning or learning how to get to the core of who I actually am as a person and as an individual. And yeah, even if I live under a tree I honestly would be very happy and peaceful.

Elona: 30:37

So all the stuff sometimes just overwhelms me that we have and we have accumulated even in my personal life. Sometimes that's about the metal time I and I'm like we need nothing, we just need just each other. Honestly, that's it, just human connections, because obviously we can't live without that, biologically right, but other than that, I mean, that's what it is. But I'm glad that I think we're, all you know, being supported in so many ways to understand what's really important. Because for the longest time we valued money, we valued fame, we valued superficial. You know who's going to be the fastest, who's going to be the richest, who's going to do this or that. And now I think we're really going into depths and core and really great values in humanity that always have been there, but because of all the growth and materialism they kind of faded away and all the shiny objects that are here.

Nico: 31:38

And yeah.

Elona: 31:39

So I'm glad that we're all understanding and coming to our own awareness energetically that these things exist and we are spiritual beings at the end of the day and our body is just our temple, which is a very smart temple to hold a very powerful spirit. So absolutely all that that inside of us absolutely.

Nico: 32:01

I love that. There you go, we get a ding. There you go, we have another confirmation. Indeed, it's. It's. It's beautiful to hear what you're saying, and especially when I come back to the fact where you're saying that we are human beings and we need the social contact. Um, a couple of months ago somebody told me, like the evolution of so we can last a very long time without physical food. We can last less time without water. We can last a very short time without our breathing, but we cannot last at all without the. What was it? Again the indication of a physical presence in your environment. So, where your senses are triggered by be by something in your environment and they proved this for a part with microsoft created this, this room where they removed all sound.

Nico: 33:12

Uh, it's, it's like a closed case and there's apparently something going on where you can win a million dollars if you stay in there for an hour or so and they put people in that room and they they leave everybody else, of course out the room and they're in complete silence. So they're only with themselves and the effect of no sound. So you hear your own heartbeat within your veins and everything in your body that moves, because the human body moves the whole time. Also, you hear all of that, but one of the things that the people that were sitting there had the feeling that they had a very, very lonely, lonely, lonely, and it was so horrible that nobody likes to stay in there. In the beginning they were all saying this is because the sound is gone, and so on, but it had to do with there was no connection anymore with the outside world. It was real isolation with the outside world. It was real isolation. So it's something that I found very interesting because, you know, I always think, yeah, you know your surroundings, you need.

Nico: 34:13

But apparently one of the other things that they found out was when they left babies in their crib for a long time, they would actually die. It's a kind of a horrible test, to be honest, but in, you know, they've done real things in the past, but but apparently they would actually die because there was no physical affection. So they just got their bottle and the people didn't even, you know, get them out of the bed and gave them the bottle and putting them to the chest. No, they gave the bottle really far away. And apparently, children in that position, they, they wither, wither away. They need affection. So our human internal spirit needs that affection. So we cannot live without each other.

Elona: 34:54

We cannot See.

Elona: 34:56

When we get down to the core of this, then it's like, okay, oh my gosh, human relationships is the most important piece, and you're not going to realize that until you kind of go through some of these things spiritually, whether it's voluntary or involuntary.

Elona: 35:12

In spiritual awakening there is a phase called the void, and I've gone through it a few times. This is the scariest one, because it's exactly what you're saying where you feel disconnected to everything, including the universe. So you're like where am I? Why am I here? Like you start going bazooka and many things, um, and that's why you gotta stay patient and you gotta, you know, focus on those other things that can keep you and, you know, keep you in touch with the people around you, or even your body, or even your breathing. But it's a test so that you know that that is the most important thing, but also a test so that you learn how to survive in that situation where you really are so independent but also so connected to other people. We've heard it in so many ways, but I have lived through that and that's honestly, like you said, sometimes I wish I don't know what I know and I just go back to unaware, close my eyes.

Nico: 36:13

Your ignorance is bliss.

Elona: 36:15

You know, ignorance is bliss on some of the days, but it's all there to serve you at the highest level, right, because it's your spirit, and I have learned that your spirit will never throw a test on you that you can't handle. So you just got to be, you got to trust and have faith, which is a really important thing that we can all lean into, especially when we don't see what we want to see or feel what we want to feel, and feel disconnected, as we're talking about so and most people that have vices or addictions. You know, I've also noticed a struggle from that, right Because you can't get connected to self. How is it that you can get connected to other people? So it always starts and ends with us, which is also very empowering, I should say, because to me, I've always been very independent and self-reliant, for many ways because of my trauma bonding, and then a self-reliance for many ways because it's my trauma bonding, but many other ways is because I value my freedom and just to do the things that I want to do, and you just realize that it's really important to know how to be on your own, but also so that you can have the most amazing relationships around you the most amazing humans, but you never gonna know or see them or appreciate them or know how to connect with them.

Elona: 37:34

So the work is only ours, and that's the most important work that I think most humans are realizing. And then everything else will be a by-product of that, right, the business, the money, the same or whatever else. Once we start questioning, you realize it's all ego anyway, and once you're, there's no need for all of that because it's just. The spirit is free and happy, wherever they. You know it is well, you know it's it's, it's fun, it's it's. Life becomes like a game at the end of the day, and every day is a new experience to wake up, feel joy, you know, grow, learn, grow, stay curious and just do it over and over again. You lose concept of time. Right, because in quantum there is no such thing. Right, it's all human stuff.

Nico: 38:25

So we can structure things mean yes, yes so we invent the time, we were the time inventors and basically it's non-existent. The only thing that exists is choice. That's uh, that's something that I've learned as well in the years. I I really love our conversation, alona, but one question I really want to ask you is what's the message that you want to send out into the world right now?

Elona: 38:55

To just pay attention, stay aware, connect your own dots. If there's things that are attractive to you, follow back that feeling, Try them out. If what's the worst that could happen you're going to realize then you don't like it's something. Stay open and curious. Surround yourself with the right relationships. I think it's really important. It's back to that saying you know, the five people we hanged out with are pretty much that's our circle. So align yourself with the right people, but pay attention to that and then find spaces so that you can spend time with yourself.

Elona: 39:30

Whatever channel you're going to utilize doesn't have to be meditation, it could be a walk, it could be anything else that you enjoy doing, but spend time with yourself. Um, to kind of listen to your intuition, because we all have it. Um, you might have some natural intuitive intuition that you don't even know is down. You know it's actually inside of you. Um, you might have some natural intuitive intuition that you don't even know is down. You know it's actually inside of you. Um, and then that's it.

Elona: 39:51

Life becomes about just you know, following the breadcrumbs and just connecting your own dots towards the things that give you light and joy, and the end of the day is only dark and lightness right and lean into your light and when you're in your darkness which is all the the shadows, you know the things that you'll overcome find support, find people that are there, that can do this for you, hold the space and hope, you leverage some of those blind spots so that we can you can, you know tap into your light again and heal what's unseen.

Elona: 40:21

And this is the only way that obviously you could even have all the material results that you want a successful business, money, fame, relationships, whatever else you value. Freedom, I mean. I think most people realize their freedom and freedom of my time is the most important commodity that we have. Message for myself every day, even though you know we can get lost sometimes and we can get into our problems which kind of, you know, take us in downfall. But, you know, just stay mindful that you have your own individual path and as long as you just stay within that, you're always going to know what will be the right next step for you and take that inspired action step. It's there for you to take and always trust it I like the inspired.

Nico: 41:12

Action absolutely. Thank you very much, alona, for for these inspirational words. It's very nice to hear that um there's also buddy, somebody over in new york that has kind of the same mindset that I have. I know there are many more, but you confirmed to me that indeed there's an alignment there. Where can people find you and how can they get in touch with you? Because I think we might have a couple of people to say Well, thank you, nico.

Elona: 41:46

Yes, souls don't have a physical home. I could physically be in new york and you could be there. That's how I I look at things nowadays, with lights and just soul everywhere in the world, and we come into each other's paths to support each other. Uh, people can find me on my website alone at the parrycoachingcom, and they also will find some free resources that could help them with some of the discovery of their purpose, and then, of course, tools to utilize that and put that into a successful company that, at the end of the day, does more good in the world through their service if they have a service, because that's really what.

Elona: 42:19

I do and where I specialize. So, yeah, and my podcast as well. I would love to invite you to that. I do a similar type of format. It's called the Life School Masterclass Show, and I value people's experiences as humans. This is how we learn from one another, right? We learn from sharing our experiences, and you never know what that gets connected by listening, which I hope that the same happened here. And, yeah, if people want to check that out, it's, uh, the life school masterclass show. They can find it anywhere.

Nico: 42:50

Podcasts are spread out well, people, you know where to go. It's as simple as that. Just, you know, click on the kind of on a couple links in the in the description. I'll put them down there as well, so people can easily connect with you thank you again, alona, for uh, for your time today, and to the listeners, I hope to jump from your head to your heart. Have a good one.