Cultural Heritage and Entrepreneurial Spirit with Migena Agaraj.

0:00 Hello, welcome everybody to another episode of Arthur's Round Table. Super grateful for everybody who's paying attention and shares it with others and the family office insights community that's been kindly sharing it with their communities. And so we're, we've had a lot of fun doing these podcasts and we have lots more coming up. And today we have a new friend, my Jenna, who is actually, we didn't know each other, but we figured out we knew each other in a serendipitous way through other people that we knew. So I'm really, really grateful that you come on today and love to hear your origin story and start at the beginning and talk about your business and that will be fantastic. And we and we also share some cultural heritage and background. Albanian and Greek might as well be the same thing. I just logistically, but culturally super appreciate that it well and as well.

0:52 So thanks for doing this. Oh, no, thank you, Arthur. It's it's a pleasure. Or do we go by Arturo like Artur? Actually my my name is Athanasios. ATHANASIOS So that's what I'm going to call you from now on. ATHANASIOS Then so I'm again, I'm with Hardy and I'm grateful to be in your digital home because this is where you have all of your guests and I'm grateful that you made time for us today. I love talking about where I come from, what I do, how I do things because I feel that, you know, when you share and you're not a Hager of information, it makes life so much more beautiful. And I love, I love being on podcasts because the time is, is going by so fast, especially with technology. And why not let, let let technology be our tool and us control it and dictate it and tell it what to do and make it our ally.

1:54 So then, you know, we are in these spaces like yours where we get to say, oh, this is where I come from. And maybe there is somebody out there who has no idea where Albania is and one person learned something about a place that they didn't know it existed. So not undermining the the power of sharing just one little thing and spaces like this make it possible. I am in the Bronx, you are in Utah somewhere, or maybe I don't know, Belize, I don't know, somewhere like somewhere you could be, you know, like in the farm, you know, hanging out with the with the vineyards. And then you're like, oh, let me just hang out with me again for an hour and see what she's up to. And yeah, so thank you again so much for having me. And what, what do we talk about?

2:42 Do we talk about where I'm coming from? Yeah. Let's talk about the beginning, like the beginning of your journey, if that's all right to to the extent that you want to share that. Yeah. The beginning Well, I was born and raised in Albania in a very, very tiny town of no more than 300 families. Used to be just an empty piece of land at some point, and during communism it was converted into a bunch of buildings in the school that had all the grades on through high school. So you can imagine, everybody knew everybody. And I went to school with my cousins and I had cousins in the same class I was in. Grew up with my grandparents from my dad's side and mom's side of the family not far away.

3:27 So my childhood was so awesome. Mom had a tiny cafe, Dad had a shop because he's a Carpenter by trade. So literally, I grew up with entrepreneurial parents who had their own businesses and I literally had no time to play outside. But I find myself being the the bank for the family holding all the little money, like the dollars, like we call them neck. And mom would say, here is the money. And I'll say, wow, that's a lot of money. And she's like, no, no, no, this is not all profit. This is how much is profit. The rest needs to be used to buy more of these products to sell the next day. So before I even started first grade, I'm learning PNL without knowing that.

4:13 I'm learning that profits on loss that. Doesn't even happen today in school like 0. Or negative, rather, right? I feel like it's more negative. And Fast forward, I'm in New York City from that little town to the Bronx. Talk about cultural shock. I didn't speak English at the time. I spoke Italian and I started working as a Hostess in a diner and learned Spanish before I learned English being on survival. Because of the the back of the house, right, That sort of thing, yeah. Literally, it's a Greek diner in White Plains.

4:55 We have this family friend whose husband was working there as a chef. The lady hands my mother this bag of clothes. Maybe they'll fit me again on like she would get them from this wealthy ladies in Westchester. And I'm like, oh, here is a white shirt. Oh, cool. I have my mom's shoes. OK, maybe all I have to do is buy a pair of pants. Great. So here's my uniform to be a Hostess. So I'm wearing other people's clothes, mom's shoes. Thank God for those shoes. And in one of the books that I am a collaborator in, The Powerful Female Immigrants, I literally talk about walking in my mom's shoes, but literally, like actually literally wearing her shoes.

5:39 And with no, no English, no experience. So I thought I started this diner as a Hostess and I'm questioning why are these people hiring me? Like I have no clue what's going on over here and all I had to do was smile, stand by the front desk and seat people. Like I could count 2-3. Cool. Learn the numbers and you know, making $5.00 an hour I believe, or 7, $7.00 an hour. And I'm like, wow, I don't know if I'm scared that I'm going to lose this job the next day because they'll realize that I don't know English or they'll love me so much because back home I received training before I even went to 1st grade. Being in this environment and the fact that this was a very big diner in comparison to my tiny Cafe that mom owed made no difference.

6:38 Customer services. Customer service. And what a, what a great place to do it in New York City because there's so first of all, there's opportunity. So there was there was an opportunity for the diner to prosper and be able to pay you, right. Very true. And then people are expecting while you're in New York City that there's multicultural influences in languages. You know, It's, it's, I don't mean to interrupt the flow, but. Now please do. Interesting when you know New York City is a completely different planet than the rest of the country. But Oh my God, the rest of the. World anyways, but being a New Yorker, you expect and are tolerant of people who have accents and speak a little differently.

7:27 But they also rise to the occasion like you did and say, OK, I need to deliver, right? It doesn't matter what it is, I just need to deliver, right? I need to deliver for sure. There I am having a couple of shifts a week, would take the bus every day for an hour and a half. And then I realized that people loved working but also having days off and I didn't, I didn't want to have days off. And my first paycheck ever in this country was $189 stapled inside an envelope, handy to me. And I take the envelope and of course, I don't open it in the workplace.

8:08 I open it when I come home to show it to mom. And I learned a very important lesson. It wasn't 190 dollars. It wasn't rounded to $200. It was exactly the hours that were agreed and the amount that was agreed minus the break, the clocking in maybe 5 minutes later. Like the way the math worked out, it was precise. And I'm thinking, I love this so much because of that principle of it. And I grew up with that principal mom always teaching me that if you want to give something to somebody, you give it to someone without expecting it.

8:54 But if it's what you earned and it's with sense attached to it, it's yours. So you always pay attention to that. And I always look for that in in relationships, even Fast forward to today in business, I don't believe in rounding up, but I do believe in precise exact. If we've, we've agreed that you are $5 short and you will give it to me later, I expect it out of principle. And if my response to you that moment is no author, you can, you can buy me a coffee tomorrow. Please do not give it back because then I'll get insulted. But if we agreed and I say, OK, no problem, whenever you have it, that means you have to return it.

9:40 And what I do with that, it's up to me, but it cannot be up to you. You can't decide. I decide and vice versa. So here I am. Great. So I've earned $189. We get this Z bag, put the money inside the Z bag and hide it inside a bucket of flour that we would buy to make our own bread because we don't have a bank account. And literally our buckets of flour. It was our bank at first moving in this country and mom couldn't get a job because again, language barriers, no experience. So here I am working in this diner. By week two, I'm like, hey, can I pick up more shifts? Can I do your shift and can I work your shift? So I went from work in two days a week, Arthur, to Monday through Sunday, 2 shifts for three years with no days off. Not a single Saturday or Sunday.

10:41 And when I wasn't at the diner on that double shift, I was picking up other shifts at their other restaurant walking distance. I wouldn't have to take the bus to spend another dollar and $0.75 each way. And when I couldn't go to White Plains because I had registered to learn English now at a university next door to where I live, I would pick up some shifts at a bakery in the Bronx for $100 for three days. I mean like $6.00 an hour only because there's 18 hours free. And I can't have those 18 hours not making something in return. And in the process, at the end of the day, they throw away the bread and all these things that they had cooked that the next day they could not sail.

11:27 So they're is this opportunity for my family now to, to eat without actually having to, to buy the food that we would eat. So from the moment I moved here for the next three years, that's my journey, either learning English as a second language, working Monday through Sunday and like that's it. Like I, I knew nothing about Manhattan, nothing like I'm Bronx, White Plains. Then I start college, Hunter College in New York City. So now I am taking a bus 7:00 AM waiting tables because now I'm a waitress. Like I upgraded after working as a Hostess. Of course, I started to make more money and I pretty much ran the place like literally like I love this so much.

12:11 Oh my God. Like it's, it's meeting customers and serving them and memorizing all of their foods was one of my absolute favorite things to do. Like I would see them walk in and I'm like, oh, here is Fred and he this is what he eats and I'll get it ready. He sits down, boom, it's there. Like how does she see us? Right to be in service, right? Oh, to be in service. And it makes me so happy that people are like, Oh my God, like that. That sense of gratitude. So then I'm a waitress. Take a bus, go all the way to White Plains by 7:00 AM. Wait tables all day, breakfast, lunch, walk to White Plains train station. Take the Metro North, go to Hunter College in the city, study all night, then take a subway and come in the Bronx.

12:55 So I'm a bus, a train, a subway every day. So hunters like. 1668, you're really good. Here. I am now doing this for six months. I can no longer sustain the whole going in three boroughs or other different counties at this point between Manhattan, Bronx and Westchester. The family was gracious enough and they had so many restaurants in the city. So from working at the City Limits Diner in White Plains, I'm now at Mollivos in the city, starting again as a Hostess because I don't have New York City experience as a way. On 7th Ave. 7th Ave. and 50 between 56 and 57. There there are.

13:36 The lemono soup is the best. Lemono. Yeah, the best. I know that menu by heart. Literally I am now working as. A space too big restaurant. By the way, they no longer renew the contract at that location because everything, I believe the Wellington Hotel either shifted or did something. So now they're in a different location as of recently. But there I am now working again as a Hostess. Then months later, I learned the menu. I go back to being a waitress. I am now at Hunter College playing catching up because I started college much later, not as soon as I got back into this country. Very important for me to be educated for my family. It's it's one of the missions to accomplish to honor the sacrifices of being in this country and do something with what was either given to us.

14:29 Worked hard for, paid for work, like all of all of the things combined. So I am now taking classes Monday through Sunday, graduated with like 3° in three years while having a full time job at Molly was then eventually at Milo's restaurant where I'm the cat where I'm a captain. So I went from three jobs to two jobs and and school. And then Fast forward I end up working as the human resources recruiter for a Class A commercial real estate space. And of course the pay was very little in comparison to what I was making as as a waitress or captain in restaurants. Because Milos. Like the second most expensive restaurant in the city. Clearly.

15:13 Yeah, anytime. Right. It is very, very, very beautiful, expensive, great and all the things but. Outstanding place, yeah. It's so cool. And imagine I'm there for eight years. Talk about the level of experience now strengthening my customer service skills without even knowing that I was doing and the sales aspect of it, because as a captain, we would sell the the best wines with the best fish pairing and, and creating a beautiful experience versus oh, you're hungry here. These are no, how hungry are you? Where did you come from?

15:57 Oh, you just flew from Dubai. Well, you can't have this like turn into this extension of of the person's well-being. And I'm not saying that everybody thinks in those terms. But to me, it was like a world of so many unknowns and at the same time of surprises because you sometimes didn't know who would sit at that table. So you had to rely on your instinct to feel what that customer was feeling. Someone not smiling at you, but then you look at them enough and you smile, and then they have no choice but to smile back.

16:37 And that that beautiful reward of how I just changed someone's second because of how I it was part of their emotions for like 2 seconds or two hours or now for years because they'll say, oh, it's Meganna working today. Great, cool. We want to sit with her. Well, she's not available. She has no table. All right, we'll wait at the bar. Like, are you freaking kidding me? Like they're like, Oh my God, who are these people? I'm like, oh, that's so. And so they came from California. How do you remember all these names? Or Meganna, go upstairs. We have an upset table. We don't want them to ever not come back.

17:18 So go fix it. OK, Sure. I'll go fix it. So I'll just go upstairs and well, hello. How are you? And they'll be like, who are you? Like, completely attack me. You're not our waitress. I'm like, OK. Oh, I see you having a martini. Oh my God, you love feta cheese. So do I am obey and I make my own. Oh, OK, cool. Like just working around their, like emotions and expectations because at the end of the day, they're there because they want to be there and they're willing to compensate for that time. So you need to honor that. Well, I need you to honor now you, Arthur, Please don't be a waiter. Just be be on the podcast. Just kidding.

18:01 I was just teasing. So that's my world author for like 12 years being in this country while my mother feeling upset that here I am economics degree, minored in history, minored in Italian, speak 5 languages and I'm still waiting tables. Making a lot of money. But it didn't matter at that. Point. Yeah, right. Because I also learned that money was not a motivator for me. I was non motivated by money. I was motivated by by by that respect, the professionalism and doing something meaningful.

18:42 So I worked very hard because I knew that I was providing for my family and I knew that I was contributing and I didn't feel useless. And then I would go to school again, honoring ancestor sacrifices for my parents to get to the point to leave everything behind to be here. And how can I not go do the things that I was very capable and able of doing? And it was a choice. So then working hard and rushing to go to the restaurant from school. I lived on chocolate for three years. Like I had no time to eat. I had no time. I would take winter classes, summer classes, full semesters, 21 credits per semester with bag Deans to open registration. So I can register for 21 credits per semester versus 12, which was almost double.

19:37 And I had a fantastic GPA and took all these languages in fast tracks, two classes per semester versus 1. So I bought back time like that's what I was doing. I was buying back time. I was in. I was, I said, what can I give up for this? Literally, I never went out to this day. I mean, I don't go out like my going out is there are summit, there's events, I'll meet awesome people who get to talk about live business and networking at the different venues. And to me, that's, that's very satisfying. So I know New York, but not really. I know, I know the heart of it. I know the energy of it, but if people were to mention certain names of certain places, I would be like, I don't even know where that is. And I and they're like, wait, you're in New York 23 years. I'm like yes, but.

20:28 Being in New York, unless you live a certain lifestyle, unless you're in a certain industry, you're dictated by that industry and your environment becomes that go. Across. And you, you could agree to this. And if I am in the restaurant business, for over a decade, I spoke restaurant language like no other. I have an economics degree. I can't speak finance language because I couldn't get hired in the financial world. I had 0 experience. I had no internship. I could not afford to have an internship because I am working. Money for your.

21:09 Family I needed to work because one thing that I didn't want is to have a student loan. We had a lot of debt come in this country. I was not about to add on more to it. We we ate cereal for years until we saved the money and paid it back like at a speedy level. Then when and people often ask me like when did you really when did you really feel like you, you made it like you're in New York. I never feel like I made it like I don't even know what that means. What does it mean to even make it? It has such a such an individual definition that there is never a right or wrong answer. But I say often time that when we paid our debt is actually like the first day for the rest of our lives in this country. Maybe it's.

22:10 A Wiring. And the fact that we honored and the way you honor someone doing something for you is by returning what's not yours, but it was gifted to you for you to have a better life. So to me, that's when I felt that, OK, now I can breathe. Then I'm going to school, I can get a job. All of a sudden, I find myself as a human resources recruiter, full time, temporary. What does that mean? That means that I would work 40 hours plus a week. But this was not permanent. It was seasonal, $16.00 an hour. I'll take it.

22:52 Meanwhile, I'm making six figures in the restaurant business. But it didn't matter. I could care less about the whole pay cut. Starting back. From experience, not 0, but there is a quote that I will not do justice. But it goes something like this. There's certain people out there who truly hope and wish that you don't recognize your own values because they do. They want to take advantage of it. Because they exactly, they don't want you to know who you truly are, which nobody really knows who they truly are, ever. I think we're in the process of discovering ourselves every day if we paid attention.

23:38 But at a minimum, having a restaurant experience on my resume, I felt so little, so meaningless, useless. I had nothing to bring to to this organization. I felt that they were doing me a favor to to literally open that door so I could go work. And they they felt that they were doing you a favor too, no doubt. I now I know back then I didn't. Back then it was 100% the favor was on them. And there I am, wearing a suit order every morning. Pants, blazer, beautiful shirts, hair always up, never down, always makeup, heels and smell in perfume. And 4:00 hit.

24:18 I negotiated with them. I don't want my lunch breaks because I need that half an hour to take the subway from the West side to the east side to go back at Milo's, wear uniform and smell like fish all night. So I'm doing this. Suits every morning, uniforms every night, Monday through Friday, 40 hours. And Milos is Monday through Sunday because on the weekends we make more money, as you know. And 8-9 months go by, it's a Wednesday like today. And someone from HR says, hey, thanks for your time. Your last day is Friday, 2 days from today. I'm like, thank you so much. I expected it. Yeah, I honor those commitments. If it was said that it was temporary, it was temporary. It was a matter of time.

25:02 I worked as if that was my company hired thousands of employees that went into the skyscrapers, help them with their applications. There was never lack of the different system. There were not systems more like techniques and and skills that were needed for certain jobs that need you to get done in these big buildings of New York. And everybody knew Meganna. People would come in and say, hey, I am Meganna's cousin. And literally at that point is just me and my parents. My brother is still back in Europe. I had no cousins. And I would be like, I don't have any cousins in America. I'm like, who is my cousin? And I'll just look and random people. I'm like, yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, sure. Here, let's meet in the meeting room. Next thing you know, here's my wife, here's my son, here's my daughter, my son-in-law.

25:51 Can you hire us? OK, what can you do? So I would have like 30 plus interviews a day. No time to eat. Here I am now, no more job in the morning. I'm back at the restaurant, which I never stopped. 2 weeks later they called me back and like hey, do you want to come back? It was like a Wednesday again. I'm like sure. What do you want me to do now? Well now you're going to replace everyone in the human resources department because now we're going on vacation. I'm like bingo. I am going to learn all of the different departments. I am so excited. Meanwhile, they think I'm so desperate. Can you start Monday?

26:32 I'm like, no, I'll start tomorrow. Wait, tomorrow is Thursday? I'm like, I don't do anything during the day. I work at nights. I'm either home now or I'm going to work for you guys. I show up on a Thursday for a second time at the same company, and by Monday of that week, they're like, all right, she's back. We're not going to let her go this time. Like we're going to keep her now. So here I am finding myself as a project manager for three commercial buildings with 20 employees from a Thursday to a Monday. I'm like, I don't know how to supervise people. I can't handle multi tenant buildings. I don't even know what multi tenant means, for Christ's sake.

27:16 I don't know what commercial means. I don't know exit. I don't know. Tag sales. OK, Megana, you need to get out of the restaurant business. It's the same company. They let you go once because it was temporary. Now it's permanent. You don't know if you will be good at this job. You need that safety net. Here we are now. Megana wears a uniform every lunch at Milo's and wears a suit every evening managing buildings. Insane, right? Now that I'm talking about it, I'm like, Jesus, what happened there? Like, why would I do that to myself? Like, why did I do that to myself? But about a year later, managing 3 buildings learned the business.

27:58 Mom is also in that business. At the time I would call her, she would guide me when it came to the union laws, rules, employees. I'm like mom, I'm here. On my day one on the job, I started crying because this boiler started making this noise as if the building was going to explode. I said I didn't come to this country for this. I would work in the restroom business for the rest of my life. I am not doing this. Like this is day one. It's dark. I'm in the basement. My office is the property managers archives office. I know I can go anywhere. So literally I roll up my sleeves, Arthur, I called some of my employees. I said, can I have some rags and some stuff?

28:40 No, no, we'll clean. I'm like, Nope, you do your job. I'm cleaning my office. Literally shift the whole thing, put the computer facing this way. So when the door opens, I see people versus having my back on the door like overnight. Day one. I am like fixing the office. The client in the morning had called my boss, who did you bring in my building because he hadn't met me yet. And he goes, Oh my God, what did she do? He said to her, he says to my manager, well, she did a lot, but let's, let's start with this. If she can train these employees to maintain my buildings, 5% of what this office looks like, we're going to be OK. You'll never hear me complain about anything. He's like, Oh my God, thank God.

29:25 He calls me. He's like, what did you do to the office? I said, what office? My desk. I mean, because I don't have an office, it's just a desk. I said, well, I cleaned it. He's like, why are you crazy? Employees clean. I'm like, no, no, no. I clean. My employees don't clean. I clean my office so literally that was the beginning of me being in this space while every lunch I am waiting tables that you don't want to give me lunch shifts because I always work dinners and I had to fight. I had to fight to get this lunch shifts even though I was a captain for years. Finally they said, oh God, if we don't say yes to this one, she'll never, she's not going to stop. I was very persistent after a year of doing this. Multi tenant buildings, snow removals, walking ten blocks between buildings, checking on the employees, converting this building from a loss to half $1,000,000 in revenue. All Megan like my buildings would always be examples at the PNL meetings that this multi billion dollar company that I was working for had.

30:29 I know not none of these, by the way, I learned this years later. I said, OK, I need more. I I'm bored. I'm bored. I need to do more. Bored with two jobs. They're like, great, we'll we're going to make you a project manager at Goldman Sachs. I'm like, what? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I said promotion. I didn't say demotion. What is this? I have 20 employees going to give me 150 overnight. No. Managing the the employee. The day-to-day maintenance I said no. They said, well, it's either this or you're out. What do you mean I'm out? Yeah. You either take this or you're leaving because we told the client and you start Monday. So I literally in many levels am forced into going to Goldman Sachs. I didn't.

31:16 Thank God I did. I started there, end up resigning. Well, not even resigning Milos. I stopped going there. And there is a joke every time I go to Milos. Years later, the hey, when are you coming back? Because you left on a Friday and you never shop for work on Monday. And I'm like, yeah, I think I will at some point, but not yet. Because I never quit Milos. I could not quit Milos. I could not resign the restaurant. But I was now in this building that's like a freaking city, 2.1 million square foot of space here. I have hundreds of employees. I'm managing the 2nd and the 3rd shift. No interview with the clients, just go to work. I'm like, wow, like this is incredible. It's like in a machine.

32:02 I got the training of my life. Yeah, it was baptism by fire. You had to do it. So you had to figure it out, right? There wasn't anybody here doing an onboarding and teaching you the ropes. No, no, no, no. Here like these are the employees. Figure it out. I'm holding meetings, I'm holding safety trainings. I know all my employees by name. I have 400 tickets every night that's printed and I'm doing these payrolls, but there is this tickets that they all had to be closed. But no, no, no, I'm not going to rely on someone says we did this. I'm actually going to take the tickets that they did go back, check, then do a second check, then enter it in the system. Do this three years Monday through Sunday snow removals cleanups for like the trading floors, which are like 60,000 square foot of space of 6 computers per per per Goldman employee times 1000 people per floor trading floors like insane.

33:00 But that's where I, that's the time where I really learned a lot more about management, a lot more about who I was and how much I loved being of service. Now to the employees who I absolutely did not allow to call me a boss. I said I am Ghana, I'm not the boss. I don't own the building. You don't work for me. I work for you because I was hired to support you. You don't work for me, I work. For you. And literally everything you need, you let me know because I'm here for that. That's my job. That's my job. You want a vacation in January, you got it. You want it in December, you got it. There is no between this window or that window. We work together and for the next three years it was amazing. I was then took over the entire operation when the day project manager left.

33:54 So there I am by myself running this operation and literally I was so tired. Author of working nights and days and weekends, taking the subway with my employees at 3:00 in the morning and the next day again having a 9:00 meeting. That's rough. Two trains. And that's why now that I'm in in the business I'm in, people are like, oh, but how do you do this? I'm like, bring it on. Yeah, that's easy compared to that. You know, one of the things I think that I people might take away from this, especially early on, is that your level of appreciation of having the opportunity to work at $7.00 an hour and doing it.

34:38 Whereas there's so many people that feel entitled to something and if they're really not right, But it's an especially the the younger generations now see so much of it, especially, you know, COVID was good and bad for depending on where you sat at that point was fantastic for us because we shifted our part of our business to doing it online and that's survived everything. But it also because we built so many relationships in person that we're able to leverage those without having to be in person. I think that many of the people in this younger generations that are entering the job markets now have it's not even fair to say this.

35:23 But what I've some of my experiences that people are just saying because they got money for free during COVID and sat home and did nothing that they think that that it's somehow that money's continued to pour into them. And so they. It's a source that you can rely on long term, and that's not the case. It's not the case and I find myself, Arthur, sharing a lot more about the beginning. And I always wonder why I do that because it never fails, no matter who I speak with. That's my absolute favorite, most important part for somebody to know who Meganna is based on what transpired.

36:10 Because if I were to lead with, let's say Fast forward, I say, hey, my name is Meganna, which is, by the way, the absolute truth. Even now. I said my name is Meganna. I live in New York City. I speak 5 languages. I have 3° now. I am a 2X female business owner. I own a publishing company and I own a consulting company. I'm a liaison between family offices and opportunity. So call me an opportunity facilitator, call me a bridge, call me a liaison, call me a fractional growth officer, Chief technology officer. Maybe not, but I know how to use a computer. But I manage and handle so much behind the scene.

36:51 For so many business owners, Founders become an extension of who they are. I've done six book six books in collaborations with hundreds of women from all over the world. Many are my own creations, many are an invitation from others. And I have converted a lot of my friends into first time authors and what else? I'm an associate producer for a business competition TV show. What else? I participated at Miss New York USA 2024 because why not? I've always wanted to. I kept checking off on all my dreams. Check, check, check. And now someone will say, I wonder how Like it's impossible.

37:32 It's impossible. Like it's impossible for someone who is born in a different country, being here for a short period of time, not knowing the language, not knowing the system and and going to college and being forced to have an economics degree because there was nothing else that I wanted to do. Really. I had no idea. And I felt so upset with myself that each and every time we were supposed to declare our major, I had no answer. And I am literally facing myself in the mirror, Arthur, and crying, feeling so stupid that I could not figure out what I wanted to do when I grew up.

38:16 And now I'm like, thank God. Because you're not supposed to know. You're not. You're not supposed to. Know that it can change so fast and just because, I mean, it's one thing if you're going to decide to go become a doctor, that's one path. That's one path. Right, and but you can. Not that I'm a good example, but I've changed my mind a million times. Right. I mean, I can't even count how many times I've changed and and I've gone down some path and said, man, this is not going to work next, right? That's how I feel. And I don't know if it's because we're Albanians and Greeks and we grew up having vineyards, making our own wine and grappa and rakia and uzo and making our own cheeses and yogurts exactly like I. I'm like I tell everybody I am.

39:05 I'm a farm girl who lives in New York City because I make my own bread, I make my own yogurt, we make our own cheese, I make my own jams. I repurpose all the freaking fruits into the things that you can drink, make cakes with, preserve a gift to guests when they come over because I love being this little mom for everybody and feeding everybody. I'm like a walking snack. A friend of mine laughs when I say that because you like, don't say that because it's not good. I'm like literally anything you want, I probably have it in my bag and I have a lemon in my bag and some salt and oregano. You never know when you're going to need some lemon, so. Great. And honey, please, let's not forget the honey. My #1 Yeah, so.

39:45 So we. Have a We have a drink we bring to the gym everyday. It's lemon, local honey, salt and water, filtered water and it's like electrolytes. Magic. Magic, and it's magic. And we take, we have when we start feeling a little sick, we take oregano oil, lemon and honey. Anytime you have a sore throat, it meets all the Yaya stuff right. All the yeah the Yaya stuff. You are not wrong. So, yeah, so the journey backwards and then the journey forward, it blends and it makes up this dish with its own essence and aromas. And sometimes the oven was not the right temperature. It's part of life. It's part of the of the process.

40:29 But there I am now I'm at Goldman resigned Goldman end up as an era director for another trillion dollar company have 20 million of square foot of space of managing now multiple buildings, 5 buildings in the city skyscrapers from Federal Reserves to Black Rock to the IRSI was a project manager at Hearst Corporation do all of this for three years. Then I get a recruited by another billion dollar San Francisco company to be now the director of business development to expand their business in the tri-state area northeast. All that do that for another three years. Always proud to say that as I've worked for over a decade in that industry, I've had 100% client retention.

41:13 So I thrive on retention expansion. In my opinion, from what I've learned, it's organic. You can't force expansion. You can't force a bird to come out of the egg. You can't force a flower to come out of the the thing. What do you call it? The Bud. Because I don't speak. It's OK. Yeah, Bud. Tree language, right? Depending on the sun, depending on the soil, depending on the nurturing, depending on the season, how the winter was, how the summer was. It will happen when it's supposed to happen. You can be the force of that. You are the contributor of the environment you create. And I've come to this conclusion that when people in Business Today ask me if I am a closer, I said, no, I'm not. I'm not a closer.

42:07 They're like, you know, everybody in the world. I'm like, and I don't close. I don't close. So, but what do you do? I'm a nurturer. That's what I do. The closing happens magically, I promise you. Oh, so you're telling me you're a closer but you're not a closer, but you're the closer? I'm like, exactly. I'm part of the process, but I'm not responsible for all of it. Never ever, don't ever hire me to be a closer, but I could be beneficial to you if you are. You're the. Catalyst in in the human connection and the nurturing and making sure that for what I'm responsible for either being the sun the water in that relationship in that project whatever it is and we can't be everything or the rain you're. The Rainmaker.

42:59 Or the rain or whatever, like whatever it's needed, then that's where I'm at. So did that or I'm going. To interrupt you only because I have to, I have a hard stop. Yes. And I apologize and it generally leaves some room, but I wasn't able to do it today. No problem. But I this is a good part to lure people in with intention to part. 2 and be like, what do you think she's doing now? How does she? Yeah, what exactly is she doing? No. How did you get from there? Right. No, it's like she told us the end, the beginning and the end. But what about the middle? How did she get there? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But I am excited and thank you for for this.

43:42 Thank you for the opportunity. Thank you for sharing all this this fascinating story. It's fun. I knew it right when we first talked, right? I hope it's beneficial to the audience and yes, excited for a part to some at some point down the line. And I'm going to see you tomorrow at the training, at the presentation with the movie people. Yeah, it's so good, Yeah. Thank you. You're awesome. You're a great interviewer because all you do is listen. You're a great listener. You're very, very kind. And I and I talk your ears off. It's, you know what it is? It's this in our DNA we talked about before we got on the call. It's the Socratic method. Facts. Yeah, facts. But again, I am so grateful. Thank you so much.

44:23 And if you don't think the podcast was good, you know what? We can always do a Part 3. No, no, we're going to do. We're going to do more. No. Meaning even this one. If it wasn't good enough for you, no. No, it's fantastic. It's you and I talk. It's your friends. No, no, totally cool. Thank you so much. F Caristo Parapoli, Nick that Bye.