555 Elisha Covey:

All too often the road to success for female entrepreneurs can be lonely as we build and scale our… businesses. We all have so much to juggle and balance, that often what gets lost or deprioritized is our connection and masterminding with other women like us.

MELINDA

I’m Melinda Wittstock and today on Wings of Inspired Business we meet an inspiring entrepreneur who has co-founded an 8-figure business portfolio with 5 companies, including a company she scaled by some 4,000 per cent in just five years and another that just won a $1bn contract.

Elisha Covey, like many female founders, found herself alone on the journey. She knew other women like her were out there … but where? That’s when she knew she had to found something totally different: The League of Goddesses.

At just 20 years old, Elisha Covey was earning a six-figure income in the top 5% nationwide for AT&T Advertising and Publishing. She honed her ability to connect and build trust with her clients so that she could help guide them to achieve their business goals.

After helping so many others realize their dreams, Elisha decided she wanted to realize her own and we went into business for herself by age 25, founding and owning a multi-unit bakery brand, which is where she developed and mastered a unique system process and procedure – a unique ability she’s applied to all her businesses, and sought after by other entrepreneurs.

Today we’re going to talk about how to put the systems and processes in place to enable you to grow your business and still have time for yourself, your family and your friends, and why it’s vital to learn how to ask and receive, and hire early because your team is an investment in your future success. We also talk about why women in business need deep relationships with other women.

Elisha Covey has five businesses at the same time, and has found a way to manage all of them, and still have time for herself, her family, and building and maintaining relationships with other female founders.

Elisha talks about the secrets of her success – even in male dominated fields like construction, where one of her companies grew to work with the most recognizable companies in the space, including AECOM, Turner, and Balfour Beatty, and recently won the bid for work on a billion-dollar mixed-use development backed by Berkshire Hathaway.

It’s a story of investment in your team and processes, being willing to ask for and receive support, and seek relationships with other female founders who truly understand where you’re at.

Let’s put on our wings with the inspiring Elisha Covey.

Melinda Wittstock:        Elisha, welcome to Wings.

Elisha Covey:                     Thank you so much. I’m excited to be here.

Melinda Wittstock:        I am, too. I mean, it’s not so often that you talk to a woman who founded an eight-figure business including a company scaling 4,000 percent in sales in less than five years. That doesn’t happen all that often, and of course, you’ve decided to give back, or I like to say, give forward to other female entrepreneurs on that journey. What was the spark that led you to create League of Goddesses?

Elisha Covey:                     Lots of times I like to call my giving, I call it selfish giving. I’m like, “You know when you give, it makes you feel so happy and alive?” So when people say thank you for gifts, I always like to respond with, “No, thank you. Thank you for allowing me to share and to give, because that is one of the things that makes me feel most alive.” And I ended up creating the league really for myself. I was lonely. I had put my head down for five years and busted my ass. You don’t grow 4,000 percent in that timeframe without doing those things. And I realized that in those years I had changed and grown a lot. And the friendships that I had previously, I still had them, but they were very different from who I was at this point. So I started to search out and look for places where there were other females who were doing the things that I was doing, and I came up empty-handed. And that’s how the league was born.

Melinda Wittstock:        Gosh, it’s such a similar story to why I created this podcast. It was really the podcast I wish I’d had, because I remember those years growing businesses and feeling really isolated in a way, or not easily finding other women who were experiencing the same things as me.

Elisha Covey:                     I couldn’t agree more with that.

Melinda Wittstock:        And not that they weren’t out there. It’s just that they were also, we were all sort of self-isolating.

Elisha Covey:                     Yes. I think you’re right. It’s not that they’re not out there, and I don’t even know if it’s self-isolating intentionally or just that women in general wear so many hats that the first hat that seems to get given up is girlfriends and connections. It’s just like, “Oh, my gosh, I have to run so hard to keep my businesses going, and then I’m a wife, and then I’m a mother, and then I’m a sister, and then I’m a friend.” And then when is there time for networking or searching out those awesome connections? It just gets left by the wayside.

Melinda Wittstock:        It really does. And yet that’s the thing where we’re the strongest. When women really do support each other, mentor each other, show up in that way for each other, we’re so much-

Elisha Covey:                     Miracles happen.

Melinda Wittstock:        … yeah, miracles happen, and yet [crosstalk 00:02:54] we put it to the bottom of the list.

Elisha Covey:                     I think that we don’t understand it or we wouldn’t do that. I have to tell you that we just had our very first retreat and there were 12 of us there, and I just watched the magic. It was like fireworks the entire time and friendships were built there that I didn’t even… It was hard for me to comprehend that women could meet for the first time and instantaneously bond like that. I mean, it’s a universe thing from my point of view, but the magic that happened there, I’m watching it carry over and now it’s been a month and these women are doing business together. They’re creating things together. I was just so excited to see that what I was hoping for is actually possible-

Melinda Wittstock:        Yeah, so you-

Elisha Covey:                     … and that it’s there.

Melinda Wittstock:        Yeah. Well, you and I have the same story because last year we did these two retreats, an offshoot of this podcast, called Wings of the Empowered Woman. The whole ethos was “lift as we climb”. So how can we create this ecosystem where women are mentoring each other, promoting each other, buying from each other, investing in each other, all of this. It combined everything from business learning to self-care, but like a lot of white space for that kind of connection that you talk about. And likewise, same thing happened. We did $500,000 worth of business with each other in the months after this, and amazing friendships and bonds created and just all the boundaries, all that stuff, just came down. It was amazing to watch. But there does need to be this kind of education. How do we prioritize these things? Because as women we’re so acculturated to think that we have to do it all.

Elisha Covey:                     And by all, that means the never-ending new items that come up, too. It’s like, oh, now we have social media. That’s one more thing you have to do. And now we have… I’m like, “Where do we get off thinking that… Our grandmothers couldn’t do it all and they didn’t have the internet.” And now we have all of this new technology but we should still be able to do it all. It’s like we keep adding jobs to the woman’s role and it just is never ending. And so it’s really intriguing to watch it and to watch how we all try to adjust to it as it happens. And then this light bulb has to click that, “Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I don’t have to do this all. I might have to manage this all and assign out the information, but this is not my job.”

Melinda Wittstock:        Exactly right. Right there is understanding leverage. And I find that male entrepreneurs seem to have more of a natural knack for getting that point of leverage. Like-

Elisha Covey:                     Of course.

Melinda Wittstock:        … not thinking that they have to do it all, but that knowing that it has to get done is a difference.

Elisha Covey:                     They’ve been practicing this since they were toddlers, taking off their dirty underwear and leaving it in the room for their mom to come pick up. Hello!

Melinda Wittstock:        Right.

Elisha Covey:                     It’s like, they’ve been assigning out tasks since they were born. It’s natural. Like, is someone going to follow me and pick this up?

Melinda Wittstock:        It’s so true. So women, to succeed in business, though, I mean, because there’s no way you can scale a company by doing it all. And as a result of this, you see a lot of women in business never quite make it to the million dollar mark, say.

Elisha Covey:                     And they burn out.

Melinda Wittstock:        Yeah. In fact, less than 3% of all female founders make it to that seven-figure mark.

Elisha Covey:                     I’ve never heard that-

Melinda Wittstock:        Right.

Elisha Covey:                     I knew it to be true just from the vibes that I get, but that statistic is very awakening.

Melinda Wittstock:        But it’s true. One of my theories, anyway, is not being able to get out of our own way in the sense that we think we have to do it all, because there’s no way you can get to that million dollar mark if you’re trying to do it all. It’s just impossible. You have to invest in other people and systems and all that kind of stuff. And think big.

Elisha Covey:                     Of course. I would not do what I do for that amount. No way. And the best part about it is, if people are able to grow and expand their vision and do these things that you just mentioned, it becomes so much more fun. I’m not going to say it’s easier because if you’re looking for easy, don’t be an entrepreneur. But if you’re looking to grow and you’re looking to achieve and chase down those big goals that you made, the quicker that you learn to get out of your own way and to start finding the right people that are awesome at what they do and plugging them into your organization, the quicker you’re going to have so much fun building. I had to realize that, too. It’s like, “Oh, why do I want control of all of this? No, it’s not necessary. I might need oversight, but I don’t have to control.”

Melinda Wittstock:        Yeah. Oversight and an establishment of the results that you want that person to drive. Some sort of accountability-

Elisha Covey:                     Of course.

Melinda Wittstock:        … but the best people don’t want to be micromanaged. So if you want to attract really great people, you’ve got to [crosstalk 00:07:52] let them do their thing. [crosstalk 00:07:54] There’s a lot of mindset issues, I think, for women around hiring. I think at the very early stages of companies, I see so many women making this mistake, like, “Oh, my goodness, I can’t hire, I can’t afford the expense.” And for women that I’ve mentored at that stage, it’s like, “No, no, no, this is an investment.”

Elisha Covey:                     Yeah. You can’t afford not to. Yeah, we actually did an exercise at our event about this, and I will try to tell you this little funny story, short, but to give women an idea of what they’re doing. So, I am totally OCD, not that you would have gathered that from what we’ve talked about so far. I’m very picky and we do a lot of… Business development is my role, part of my role, and I’m very picky about what our clients receive from us, that it be branded correctly, that the bows are right, that the colors match, that everything that they see from us is excellent. Well, I have standards of procedures in place so that anybody can come in and do these things for me so that I can go out on my business development calls.

And it just so happened one day that I got busy and I ended up doing prepping for 10 client visits on my own, and everything looked gorgeous, of course, because that’s who I am, right? It’s going to be perfect. And I trotted into my husband’s office and was like, “Look at how gorgeous all of this is. Everybody’s going to love it.” And there was dead silence. And I know when my husband does that and just looks at me, I’m about to get it. And he was like, “Okay, Elisha, are you done playing? You know how much those cookies cost us? A thousand dollars. So, are you happy?”

He was like, “You’ll put us out of business, but go tie your pretty boxes.” I was just like, “Oh, shit.” I just got spanked there. And at first I was pissed because I’m like, “How could you say that to me? This is going to our clients, right?” And then when I stepped away and thought about it, I was just like, “I could have paid somebody $15 an hour to do what I did.”

Melinda Wittstock:        Exactly.

Elisha Covey:                     I’ve already have the standards and procedures in place and a how-to for it. But I thought that I could do it better.

Melinda Wittstock:        Right. This is the thing. So we have to be able to let go of these things that we master. We master something and perfect it, create a process around it, but then we have to be willing to let it go. And it’s hard because-

Elisha Covey:                     It is.

Melinda Wittstock:        … because we feel a personal connection. We have this attachment.

Elisha Covey:                     And you know what? I think some of it, too, is like, “Okay, maybe another person could only get it to 97% of what your expectation-

Melinda Wittstock:        Oh, gosh.

Elisha Covey:                     … is,” but it’s just like, “Guess what? Your clients would have been happy at 80. So if they’re hitting 95 or over, you’re good.” So, that was a good figure.

Melinda Wittstock:        That’s so true. I had a similar lecture from a mentor of mine who took me through all the things, all the different ways I was spending my time in the day, everything from doing the laundry to fixing a link on a website to landing a big strategic clients, say, or innovating new technology or something new for the app or whatever it was at the time in any of my businesses. And he took me through this lesson and he said, “Okay, so how much would you pay someone to do the laundry? Okay. But how much is it worth it to you, say, if you spend an hour and you landed a strategic client that’s worth a million dollars worth of revenue in your business. What’s your hourly rate?”

Elisha Covey:                     That’s exactly what we worked through. It’s shocking to think about it because every woman that did that exercise with me had over 80 hours of work on her plate a week, which I knew that was going to happen. I mean, we’re all entrepreneurs and we do it to ourselves, but almost half of their time was spent doing jobs that were valued at under $20 an hour. But yet their dollar value was hundreds. And so, for me, I’m like, “Can you see? You don’t touch any of those. There’s not appropriate for you to spend your time doing those when your time is worth a hundred plus, that’s where you need to be investing it.” So to say, “I can’t afford to hire an assistant to do these things,” that is not true. You can’t afford to not. You’re holding yourself back and that’s why you’ll never hit those big numbers, is because you won’t give it up.

Melinda Wittstock:        So true. So, Elisha, what was the spark that made you become an entrepreneur? Because you started out entre-pioneering, I guess, pretty early in your life.

Elisha Covey:                     I did. I think that it was… Really, I have to say, it’s in my blood. Oh, my God, this is my grandfather was an entrepreneur. My uncles, some of them are entrepreneurs. And from a very young age, I was very conscious of money and how it impacted people, families, et cetera. And I knew. I was like, “I do not ever want to be broke. There’s no reason for it.” I could see that it was just an equation, like money in money out. And so I started babysitting and cleaning people’s houses at seven. I know, it’s ridiculous. When I looked back, I’m like, “How did that even happen?” But I had four younger siblings I helped to take care of, and so my mom had taught me well. And whenever somebody needed something, they were like, “Hey, is Elisha available?” And I started saving money from then on and I started to realize, “I like doing my own thing and I want to be in control of my freedom and my destiny.”

So, fast forward a little bit. I graduated high school at 16, went to college, got my own place, started working for AT&T when I was 18, just to get some stuff under my belt because I didn’t really know anything. And at 18 I was making 100,000 plus a year. Built my first home. Loved it. I was in business development for them, top 5% of their company every year that I was there. And I realized… One of my favorite realizations working there was, I was selling business-to-business for them. So advertising in the yellowpages.com, which is so old, but also Google had just come out and they didn’t have a sales force, so we were their sales force. So I got to see ahead of everyone else where this was going.

And it got me into people’s businesses and I got to talk to business owners every day, and I absolutely loved it. It just lit that passion like crazy. So I worked there with AT&T for five years and then opened my first bakery. And after about four years of that, I realized that that was a hobby and how many cupcakes I would have to make to make a million dollars, and realized I needed to pivot. So it was a good learning experience. I learned a lot. I had three bakeries and a food truck and about 20 girls working for me. So that was where I broke that down and into it and realized like, “Hey, this is definitely for me. I will never go back to working for someone. I don’t enjoy it. I love being out on my own and love my freedom,” but I definitely needed to pivot. And that’s when my husband and I got together and started Alphapex.

Melinda Wittstock:        And this is a construction company, yes?

Elisha Covey:                     Correct. Alphapex specializes in waterproofing, which is totally not sexy at all, but it is very, very important that your business does not leak and have water intrusion all the time. So it’s one of those things nobody thinks about until there is water intrusion in your building. So we started that company. My husband came up with the idea. He’d been in construction most of his life and realized that the biggest problem he ever had in commercial construction was dealing with the waterproofer. So we basically took a niche that needed to be renovated and it was, excuse me, it was ripe for it. And all of the big players had all been around for 25, 30 years and hadn’t changed anything. This was just the way it was, and we came in quietly, busted our asses, and toppled it all.

In the beginning people were like, “They don’t know what they’re doing.” Because we hear it from our reps that would come into our business. And, “They’re going to fail,” and this and that. And then it turned into, “What’s,” like terror, “What’s going on over there? And what are these two doing?” And now we’re one of the top four waterproofers in the North Texas area, and it’s amazing and I don’t see us stopping. It’s been an enjoyable climb, a very hard one, but a lot of lessons learned that apply to all of the other businesses we’ve started along the way.

Melinda Wittstock:        That’s fantastic. So how many businesses now, have you?

Elisha Covey:                     We have five [crosstalk 00:16:14] at the moment, but I do have-

Melinda Wittstock:        You have five, concurrently? At the same time.

Elisha Covey:                     We do. We do.

Melinda Wittstock:        Wow.

Elisha Covey:                     And I don’t think that will change. We enjoy it. I think part of what my husband and I feed off of is creating. We love the creation. I love creating standards and procedures and creating a way that a business can run without us involved. So that’s our next step, is watching how we can make that happen with one of our largest businesses, because obviously we still care about it, but we don’t feel possessive of it. We take that into our management style as well. We don’t think we have the best ideas. We just think we have some ideas and we hopefully have hired people that have awesome ideas, too, and usually the best idea comes as a compilation of these, right?

Melinda Wittstock:        Absolutely true. To have a team of A players, people who have integrity and mastery of their particular area, and a diverse team from perspective and experience and more, but aligned on a mission.

Elisha Covey:                     Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Melinda Wittstock:        And that’s where magic really happens in a team-

Elisha Covey:                     Right.

Melinda Wittstock:        … and getting that right.

Elisha Covey:                     I agree with that. And I will be the first to admit, that that is not easy.

Melinda Wittstock:        No.

Elisha Covey:                     That is not easy, especially when you’re talking to entrepreneurs, because there’s already something in my point of view about an entrepreneur that is a little bit of a lone wolf. We think that we can do it better on our own, that’s why we’re not working for someone. So, when you ask those types of people to now create a culture where people come in and think that you can do it better and they’re willing to get behind you, it’s very intriguing, but then also keep them happy and realize that they are very different from you and their needs, wants, desires and goals are very different from you.

Melinda Wittstock:        That is one of the biggest single pivots that any founder makes if they’re going to succeed in creating a scalable business, because there’s this moment where you have to let go of that scrappy, lone wolf founder starter, and make that transition as a team. Yeah. And it’s easier said than done because there’s a whole bunch of mindset issues around that. There’s sort of letting go, sort of surrendering. And just even attracting the right team and not attracting a whole bunch of mini-me’s, which I think a lot of people do, hire people exactly like them.

Elisha Covey:                     Yeah, that sounds like a nightmare. Like, “Oh, God.” My husband quite frequently tells me, “The world can only handle one of me.”

Melinda Wittstock:        Right. Well, I think that, again, but I think this is true of all entrepreneurs. I mean, entrepreneurs-

Elisha Covey:                     They’re eccentric.

Melinda Wittstock:        … really different from most people. Like I joke that everyone else is sort of a civilian.

Elisha Covey:                     Who are crazy.

Melinda Wittstock:        Exactly. So what were some of the toughest moments in scaling any of these businesses where you, personally, Elisha, had to transition or had to retire a way of thinking, maybe, that you were thinking, or a mindset sort of issue or block?

Elisha Covey:                     Mm-hmm (affirmative). I think that my biggest mindset issue, and it’s still an issue, I think I’ll fight it for forever, is thinking that people think the way I think. Like, I’m, “Oh, of course they’ll get it.” Or, “Of course they’ll do this.” Or, “Of course they would see that that needs to be edited.” Or, “Of course they would do it in the most efficient manner the first time, because why not?” And my husband, I think he would attest to that. That is one of my hardest things to remember, is that, “No, no one thinks like you.” You’re different and we’re all different, and so you have to find ways to communicate with others and help them understand your specific way that you want it, without it coming off as, “Are you an idiot?”

Melinda Wittstock:        Right. Yeah.

Elisha Covey:                     [inaudible 00:20:07] go well-

Melinda Wittstock:        No.

Elisha Covey:                     … like it really does. Say it. People can pick up your vibe.

Melinda Wittstock:        People feel it. So, that’s been one of my issues, too. I’m really searingly honest about that, and it’s tricky. I think the way I got around it was when I finally understood, and this had to happen to me, maybe expensively to begin with, in technology development, because if you tell an engineer how to do something, they’re going to be maliciously obedient to you and follow exactly. It’s actually a known thing in technology, malicious obedience. They will do exactly what you say, but you’re like, “I’m not an engineer.”

Elisha Covey:                     Right, right. I know-

Melinda Wittstock:        So you see-

… I go [crosstalk 00:20:52] Fill in the gaps.

… so you see the problem there, right? So this is my painful lesson. So, really, in essence, it’s about the why and the what and the results that you want. So, I want the user experience to be this, I want the functionality to be able to enable people to do this, but then leaving it up to the people who actually know how to architect those solutions to come up with the best answers. And having learnt that in technology, and now I manage very differently now, but that was a nice early painful lesson.

Elisha Covey:                     You summed it up really well, and I never thought about it that way. The why, the what, and the result. That’s awesome, and I’m going to take that. Thank you.

Melinda Wittstock:        Right. Well, I mean, I think a mistake that we make, too, and thank you by the way, but I think the mistake that we sometimes make in hiring people, is we hire people to do something, to achieve a result, right?

Elisha Covey:                     Yes. I think that that’s awesome. I actually had a friend mention that to me the other day. She was like, “You’ve so changed, because originally you were very transactional with your staff.” She was like, “Now you’re letting them do their own thing.” More like, “Hey, how can we get to this end result?” And I always had communicated it as, “Oh, I’m just more explanatory.” Like I give them more information of what I’m seeing and what I’m hoping the end result is, but really I’m doing what you said. I’m giving them the why, the what, and the result I’m looking for, and then saying, “Hey, I know you’re a fucking amazing person. How can you make this happen?”

Melinda Wittstock:        Yeah. And that way, people want to work for someone like that. Someone once said to me, and I love this. I wish I could remember who it was because it was a great quote. She just said, “Look, Melinda, nobody wants to work for a perfectionist.” Because that’s so hard. It makes their life miserable because nobody really wants to be micromanaged or second-guessed or whatever, right? So being… I think women, we all have perfectionist tendencies.

I think from the moment in school where we were making our notes look pretty and all this sort of stuff, and we confuse I think, sometimes, perfectionism with mastery. They’re two different things. So perfectionism, I think, is something that holds back a lot of women in business. For what we’ve been talking about, like trying to do it all ourselves, where the conversation began, but also it can be fear dressed up in a pretty bow because we think it has to be so perfect before anyone else will value it.

Elisha Covey:                     Yes.

Melinda Wittstock:        So as an exercise, ultimately, entrepreneurship is, because you’re creating value for others, but ultimately the transformation for us as entrepreneurs is learning how to value ourselves.

Elisha Covey:                     Mm-hmm (affirmative). I couldn’t agree with you more.

Melinda Wittstock:        And it’s such… It’s been, ultimately, entrepreneurship for me has become a spiritual journey for that reason because so many lessons along the way that are so humbling.

Elisha Covey:                     You know, Melinda, you are not the first woman who said that to me, and I feel the exact same way. I often wonder and am thankful for this journey for so much more than the money. Take the money, take the purses, the shoes, the clothes, the events. If you take all of that, I don’t care because what was most important was the growth that has happened in the last five years. I don’t even recognize myself sometimes. I’m just like, “Holy shit, would I have been able to push myself that far if it wasn’t demanded of me to be a successful entrepreneur? Would I have dug in so deep to find out where do I need to change and evolve?”

Because the only thing in my point of view that will stunt your business is you. So, if you’re not physically, spiritually, mentally where you need to be, your business, it shows where you are in those areas. And so, to me, whenever I was hitting a roadblock in my business, I was like, “Where am I on my personal growth? Where am I stunted?” Because once I find that it’s going to unlock the business and it’s always happened that way and I’m so thankful for it.

Melinda Wittstock:        I think an interesting way to look at it, too, is, you know when you get triggered by something? Or when someone or something or some event is making you feel angry, sad, frustrated, whatever the emotion is? I’ve learned in my journey to actually see those things as opportunities because there’s always a lesson in it. There’s always something that I’m supposed to learn from this, right? And so, getting into the habit now of saying, “Oh, how interesting,” not judging myself or not getting… Like feeling the feeling, but then letting it go. This is like, and-

Elisha Covey:                     And keep observing it, right?

Melinda Wittstock:        Observing it, being aware, letting it go, asking for what the lesson is. I find that the more I get into that, it’s pretty much constant for me now. It’s just how I am now. It didn’t start out that way. It started out, like, it was really hard to be consistent, but now anything that you practice it often enough it becomes a consistent thing. And so nothing really much like, “Oh…” Sorry, I was going to say, I’ve just picked up there, entrepreneurship by definition is all kinds of things beyond your control and unexpected things happening or whatever. But I find myself not reacting to those things as much, or they don’t get to me in the same way they used to. It’s kind of, like, “Oh, it’s part of the journey.”

Elisha Covey:                     Yes. I think that’s part of the journey for the ones who end up successful and peaceful, because I’ve done it both ways, where every-

Melinda Wittstock:        Yeah, me too.

Elisha Covey:                     Yeah, it’s such a… And I don’t know if you’ve ever read this book or not, but Power vs Force. I am great at forcing things. I’m like, “Oh, I can force almost anything into existence. If I want it, I will create it.” But I want to go from it being forced to it just happening out of peace and power. And so that’s-

Melinda Wittstock:        Beautiful concept. I’m going to go get that book. That sounds amazing.

Elisha Covey:                     It’s lovely, and it kind of wrapped up the feelings that I had, because 2020 to me has been an amazing year. I know that for lots of people, they’ve seen a lot of negative in it, but I just took it as, “Hey, I’m going to keep growing as fast as I can,” and I realized, no matter what, the most important thing to me is peace. That doesn’t mean… And I used to be nervous that if I sought peace and it fully envelopes me, then I would be stunted or I’d lose my edge or I wouldn’t do as well because I wouldn’t care, right? All of the rest of it wouldn’t matter anymore.

But that’s not true. Once you find your peace and your presence, for me, it’s a lot of presence practice. I realized that my business was so impacted in the positive that when I sit down to work, everything comes crystal clear. When I sit down to work, all those scenarios that used to bother me when they would happen and I’d be like, “Are you kidding me? Again, here we are.” It’s just like, “Oh, again, here we are, and this is the reason why I either fix it, change it or accept it and move on.” And it’s so much more peaceful and I’m just like, “Wow.” The first four or five years, they were very hard. Did we accomplish great things? Yes. But now I see how I can accomplish even more and have peace.

Melinda Wittstock:        Yeah. This resonates so much with me because I think for the early part of my career there was a kind of willful Melinda. I did so much through just strength of will and I guess force, say, if we’re using that terminology around it. And, yeah, I got a long way on that until it stopped working for me.

Elisha Covey:                     Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Melinda Wittstock:        There was so much that… Yeah, it was a long process of it stopping working or whatever, or sparking needed to transition to a different way that’s much more peaceful, much more about acting on inspiration, attracting, manifesting things. It’s like a completely different way to run a business.

Elisha Covey:                     Yes. It’s like a joy, right.

Melinda Wittstock:        More enjoyable, yeah. So that’s the other thing, too, because I mean when you think of your motivation for being an entrepreneur, you want to be an entrepreneur because… For lots of reasons. Mostly we want control over our own lives or we [crosstalk 00:29:23] want to forge our own destiny, freedom, financial freedom, all these things. But, surely, we want enjoyment along the way, right? If it’s not fun, then what?

Elisha Covey:                     Right. Exactly. Exactly.

Melinda Wittstock:        So making it fun is important. And so, talk to me a little bit, Elisha, about what your vision is and where you’re going. You’ve got these five companies going, you’ve got everything going on with League of Goddesses, which I love. I think it’s just so awesome. And the more of us step up in this way, I think we’re really going to transform the world and empower women to really do great, great businesses that are disruptive and social impact businesses and so much beyond. Where do you see your life going in the next five years?

Elisha Covey:                     Yeah. That’s a great question. In the next five years, Charles and I have some pretty lofty business and financial goals that I see happening and I’m watching it. Of course, whenever you’re trying to grow and stretch, it’s scary. If it’s not scary, then you are 100% insane, and I’d like to claim like 95%. So, we definitely have some big goals in mind. Our end goal is of course to be billionaires. I mean, that’s just because we want it. It’s kind of silly, but I would love to do that and the path to get there is, we’ve tried to lay it out and it’s doubling our money every two years. And so we’re working on it and it gives us a big goal to work towards and we enjoy it and we like partnering together. So as far as financial goes, we’ve found some different ways to incorporate that goal, I guess, and a lot of it is more investing than we have done previously.

We’ve always invested into ourselves and our businesses, whereas we’ve gained so much knowledge building those that we feel like we can invest into other businesses and implement our systems and make them skyrocket as well. So that’s the goal on that side. The goals that are more personal to me are to help other women move further, faster. Like, “Hey, if I have some type of knowledge that could help you catapult yourself, please let me share that with you. And please let me be a support to you.” That’s why I started the league, and as we continue to grow in our businesses, I’m working on balancing the time that I can give to things like the league and other charities like that, just because I love it. And like I said, it’s selfish giving. It makes me feel great and I enjoy that opportunity. So those are probably the two things that we’ll be working on pretty hard for the next five years.

Melinda Wittstock:        I love it. So, Elisha, where can people find you, and how can they work with you?

Elisha Covey:                     Sure. You can check me out on my website. It’s just elishacovey.com. And then if you are a amazing goddess, sorry guys, no men allowed, theleagueofgoddesses.com. You can learn a little bit about us there and then request access and we’ll get that for you and you can join all the other women in there that are just killing it. I will say that the League of Goddesses is a place for personal, mental and physical growth.

We’re not in there playing around, but we’re building amazing friendships and community where these people are there to support you, but to also push you and to share their insight and to really let you be you, and then give you that feedback in a loving manner that helps you grow and achieve versus where sometimes out in the world, it’s just like, “Here’s your feedback, and move on.” Whereas, in the league, it’s loving and kind and we all want the best for each other. So, that’s what we’ve got going on in there, and you definitely want to be growth-oriented if you join, because that’s what we’re working on.

Melinda Wittstock:        Ah, that’s wonderful. Well, thank you so much for putting on your wings and flying with us today.

Elisha Covey:                     Oh, Melinda, I enjoyed it. Thank you for having me.