Unmasking Greatness
Join Fitness/LifeStyle Expert & Mentor Chris Kakouras talk about maximizing your health, business, mindset, and overall life! Let's get better together as I bring on amazing guest to interview and learn from!
Unmasking Greatness
Navigating Roadblocks to Achieve Well-Being
What happens when the car of your dreams turns into a bit of a nightmare? Picture this: the thrill of a brand-new car purchase quickly deflates as the digital dashboard blacks out, leaving you in the dark—literally. Join me, Chris Koukouris, on Unmasking Greatness as I recount the unexpected rollercoaster of emotion that began with my excitement over a new vehicle, only to be followed by the frustration of a malfunctioning cockpit. Through this adventure, I explore how new purchases can often come with unforeseen challenges and why it's crucial to tackle these issues head-on.
But this episode isn't just about cars; it's also about fine-tuning the engine that keeps us going: our health. Tune in as I highlight the importance of regular check-ups and hormone evaluations, drawing a compelling analogy between car maintenance and personal wellness. Whether it's preventing pre-diabetes or optimizing nutrition, accountability plays a key role in achieving our health goals. From utilizing tools like MyFitnessPal for smarter dietary choices to the power of community in fitness, this episode offers actionable insights and a supportive nudge to help you unlock your greatest potential.
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Welcome to Unmasking Greatness. I'm your host, chris Kikoris, a lifestyle fitness coach and mentor. This podcast is about unmasking your greatest potential, finding your purpose and crafting a life worth living. Health and fitness has been the gateway drug to all of my success. My continuous drive to keep learning and surround myself with other high achievers forces me to level up, which has developed my mind to something I never thought was possible. This podcast is here to share what I've learned and continue to learn with all of you. This is your sign to take back control of your health, mindset and personal environment. Strap in as we are recharged and always find value in the show. Please subscribe and share, as we can all get better together. Let's go. What's up, guys? Welcome to another episode of Unmasking Greatness. I'm your host, chris Koukouris.
Speaker 1:I have a funny story for you today. It's kind of funny, kind of not A little bit dangerous, but I figured this would keep you guys entertained this Monday morning. If you're listening to it on the way to your work, or maybe you're at the gym listening to this, wherever it may be, maybe you'll get a little bit of laugh at this, but it'll bring some light as well, a couple. Well, let me back up a little bit more. I, probably about a year or so ago, I bought a new car. Okay, prior to that, I had a car that was paid off for a couple years. Okay, prior to that, I had a car that was paid off for a couple of years and I always just I wanted a new car. I'm a guy, I like cars. I'm not a car guy or an enthusiast, but I do like I like certain types of cars, and so I would always look online and then I would be like, no, nevermind, I'll get it later, and I would just go back and forth. Maybe some of you guys can relate to that. But anyways, I got to a point where I was like, okay, it's time, like, let me, let me get the car that I want. So I went in and I purchased this car brand new. At the time, it was 2022. I bought this car and had like 6,000 miles on it, so literally brand new and I got the car of my dreams right. It's something that was just really, really cool for me, cool experience and just a milestone in my life. So, with that being said, I was driving it around, and then I eventually let my wife drive it around it around.
Speaker 1:And so one day my wife takes my car to downtown and she calls me and she's like Chris, I'm inside the car, your, your car turns on, but your dash is black. So it's a digital cockpit and nothing like car motors on, but the dash is nothing, it's just pitch black. I was like that's weird. You know, my initial thoughts is she did something wrong. But I told her I was like, uh, you know what? Just, um, just turn the car off and just turn it back on. And so she ended up calling me back and she was like, yeah, I don't know, it turned on, it's fine, okay. I was like, okay, cool, just drive it back home. Um, didn't think anything of it. So in my mind originally I was like, oh yes, maybe just a glitch, maybe she did something, press something, I don't know. So I just didn't even think anything of it.
Speaker 1:Well, a couple weeks later it did it to me and I was like, oh, this is not good Initial reaction, this is not good. This is a new car, this should not be happening. So I turned it off, waited, waited, turned it back on, turned back on right Again. Kind of same scenario. It worked no big deal, but it still was, had me kind of worried. I was like, why is that? That shouldn't be happening with a brand new car.
Speaker 1:Then, maybe three, four weeks later, I am at my house at this point in time. I go in my car in the garage, turn it on again. Car turns on, motor is on, you know everything, but nothing. Nothing on the dash, complete blackness, darkness on there. And I was like, okay, we got a problem. We're probably gonna have to call the dealership and you know they need to fix this. I turned it off, turn it back on, nothing again. It didn't do what it did before.
Speaker 1:And now I'm starting to panic a little bit. I'm like, okay, well, I'm in the neighborhood, let me just drive it up the street, stay in the neighborhood, right, I'm just going to drive up the street around the cul-de-sac. So I pull it out Again. Car drives, car's on, but I can't see anything. No speedometer, no temperature, no gas, like nothing. Can't see any of this. I drive it up and nothing won't turn back on.
Speaker 1:I drive it back home, park it in the garage and I turn it off. I sit there and then I try to turn it back on, praying that this would turn on the dash. Again, nothing. Again I'm like, all right out of the car, call the dealership. I'm kind of like annoyed. I mean this is a brand new car, this should not be happening.
Speaker 1:And so I call them, call the maintenance people, mechanics and I'm like, hey, listen, this is what's going on with my car. Dash isn't working. I don't know what to do. I've turned it on, turned it off. I don't know if it's a you know a sensor, I don't know if it's a. You know something, a wire loose, I don't know. But this is a problem, you need to fix it. And so, but the car is new, it's under a warranty. So they're saying, okay, no problem, chris, we're going to take care of you, just go ahead and bring it up here.
Speaker 1:Now, in that moment I'm just sitting in silence. You said drive it up there First off, the dealership is 30-ish, 40 minutes away and I have no dash, and so I'm sitting there and I heard them say that and I was like you know, I don't know if you understand what I'm saying. I don't know how fast I'm driving, I don't know what gear it's in, I don't know how much gas. I don't even remember how much gas I have in the car. At this point they're like oh, oh, yeah, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, chris, don't worry, we're going to send somebody to you with a rental car and we'll actually bring the car back. Okay, cool, thank you, handle that. And so they ended up.
Speaker 1:Long story short. They took it in. They had to have replaced the whole cockpit. Luckily, everything was covered under warranty, didn't cost anything out of my pocket other than just some stress and some time. But within a day, luckily, they had the part. They swapped it out. No big deal. Haven't had a problem since.
Speaker 1:And so I'm telling you this story because it's one gives me a little bit of anxiety thinking about it, but at the same time it's a little bit of funny story. But I was kind of going back in my mind thinking about this and I was like you know what I feel like some people actually live their life with no dash. Some of you guys out there are literally going through your life with no dash, no cockpit, not knowing how fast you're going, not if you're overheating, not if you have a flat tire, none of that. And it's so important that you guys understand and are taking care of yourself, right, because that dash in the car specifically. Well, what is it there for? Well, it helps make sure that everything in and outside of the car is good Tire pressure, temperature, motor temperature, gas how fast? And why do I need to know how fast I'm going? Well, because one, I don't want to speed, I don't want to get a ticket, I don't want to endanger others. I need to know what's going on at all times. This is why they created the dash right so you know, know and you can keep track of these things.
Speaker 1:And some of you guys aren't doing that. With your health, you don't know what kind of food that you're putting in your body. You're not doing any sort of personal development work, whether that's, you know, listening to podcasts. Well, if you listen to podcasts, thank you, but some of you guys may be not reading. Maybe you're not walking, exercising. There's something that you're not doing to help with your mental health and mental clarity.
Speaker 1:Okay, also, what about let's talk internal? Are you guys getting your blood levels checked? Do you look at a blood panel? Do you go to a hormone clinic to see? You know if I may be looking great on the outside but wreaking havoc on the inside and I don't even know. You know if I ask somebody well, do you know if you're pre-diabetic? I don't know. I haven't been to the doctor in years. That's scary. You are risking a lot because if something minor was happening you can fix it right away. Right, we can get to the root cause and handle it before it becomes a problem, just like this dash.
Speaker 1:Okay, there's a problem, well, I could just let it go because I don't want to deal with it, and drive blindlessly throughout my days and hope and pray. Nothing happens. But we don't do that. So why do we do that with our physical health and our bodies and our minds? We avoid the things that scare us, and some of you guys have put yourself into a predicament with your health. Maybe you're severely overweight, maybe you have some other chronic illnesses, health diseases that are 100% preventable through exercise and diet, but you avoid those conversations because you don't want the doctor to tell you something you don't want to hear, and I used to be that way.
Speaker 1:I know it sounds crazy coming from myself in the health and fitness industry, but I used to never want to go to the doctor One. I think that's a man thing. You know we don't go to the doctor. You know we'll just fight through it, and that's one thing that might lack of focus, lack of drive, things that I shouldn't be feeling. I realized something was probably wrong and I ended up going to a hormone clinic. And I'll tell you something else on a side note of that I have a primary care physician to help me when I have sicknesses, a flu, a cold, you know something along those lines when it comes to my blood work, my hormones, those kind of details that I want to know. I go to someone specific for that, to help me in those areas, to help me optimize my life, because if you go to a primary physician, they're probably going to be like oh, you're okay. Oh, why do you want to know?
Speaker 1:First off, I think that's crazy. You should hear some of my clients that ask me why their primary physicians are well, why do you want to know if your testosterone is low or your estrogen is high or your thyroid? What do you mean? Why do I want to know? It's my body Run the test. That should not even be a question that comes out of their mouth. You know I'm feeling something is off. Can you please test me? Thank you, and a lot of that just comes with their. I don't think some of them have the experience, nor do they want to really mess with it, because insurance gets a big play in that and it becomes more of a hassle for them to go through prescribing certain things for you guys, hassle for them to go through prescribing certain things for you guys. So not to get on a tangent with that, but the point is you guys need to start to put things into action to make sure that you are keeping the motor running right, keeping things efficient and some of those things.
Speaker 1:I'm going to tell you what's going to help you when it comes to nutrition, if you don't know how much you're eating, what are good quality food sources, you know what is specific for you and your goals. Well, the first thing is you got to track, because if you're not tracking and you're not measuring well, there's no way that you can make adjustments. Again, you're going back to guessing. A black dash is what you're looking at. Download something that's free called MyFitnessPal. Dash is what you're looking at. Download something that's free called MyFitnessPal.
Speaker 1:We use this as a free calorie tracker that we use with our clients in our program that are in a place where we're actually doing more macro counting, because for us, when clients come to us, we build their nutrition plan. We tell them what to eat, how much to eat, everything. But eventually we have to teach and educate our clients what's good food sources, where can you go eat, how do you prioritize, and so then, when they get into another phase of the program but inevitably you have to track so that's a good source. There is other websites online that can tell you what are healthier options at these restaurants, any major food chain. There are websites that can tell you these are healthier options, because anywhere you go, you can get a healthy option. But are you, and we have something that we use with our clients called the pro method.
Speaker 1:Okay, think like a pro and to Ackerman, so your P for pro is when you go out to eat, when you're looking at a menu, where's the protein? That's the P. Find on the menu a meal that you want and look what's the protein? Is it chicken, is it steak, is it fish? What is that? Find the protein. Then R is ratio. How much protein do I, or how much protein am I shooting for per meal? Maybe it's 20 grams, maybe it's 30 grams.
Speaker 1:Again, if you don't know this, this is a problem and we got to figure out how to solve that Easy ways. So don't worry, a lot of times my fitness pal can give you some good ranges to work with in the beginning. So you have, you got to find the protein source, you got to find the ratio, and then O is pretty much everything else. You can overload the rest of the plate. I don't want to say overload, but you can put carbs, fats, whatever else you want, as long as you're staying within a good caloric range. So you know these are simple methods to help you guys make sure that you're making healthy choices moving forward and it doesn't restrict you to eating the same thing over and over again. Okay, another thing you know, if you guys aren't working on your mental health, right, mental clarity, your focus, again, if you're listening to the podcast, you're ahead of the game because you're here listening to me. You're probably listening to other podcasts that are helping you.
Speaker 1:Reading. Find books that you know there's so many books out there, okay, and you can do an audio book. I'm a big person for like audio books because I like to listen, I like to hear tonality. So you know, reading isn't always something it's not my first go-to, let like to hear tonality. So you know, reading isn't always something it's not my first go-to, let me say that. But there's books for everything, and I would just find something that you need help with or something you want to focus on in your personal life and go and dig into that because you're interested. So your focus is going to be there, like I want to read this, I want to learn. You know, versus me just throwing you a random book and you're like I don't care about that, of just throwing you a random book and you're like I don't care about that, of course you're not going to read it and think of this. I don't think people realize how powerful these books are. This person, whoever it is that wrote this book, is taking 10, 15, 20, 40, 50 years of their life and compressing it into a couple hundred pages. That's significant. That is so significant and people overlook it. You're having mentorship in a book.
Speaker 1:Okay, and exercise. If you're not doing exercise, that is the first, one of the easiest and simple steps that I would say just start going to the gym, just start building that routine. If you're going to start with one day a week, start with one day a week. 15 minutes, easy right. Then go to two days. Maybe try to hit 30 minutes three days a week. 15 minutes Easy right. Then go to two days. Maybe try to hit 30 minutes Three days a week. 45 minutes, if you can. Who who I mean? Think about this. Do you have three or four hours a week that you could focus on your health and fitness where you could do a little bit of exercise? Three, four hours a week? I would hope so. That's the three days, three days. You can do that, and it will make a mass change in your lifestyle.
Speaker 1:Again, hormones find a good hormone clinic that is near you. Okay, there's a lot of ones online that you can use, that you can do telehealth basically get on Zoom calls, facetime calls with a doctor. If you have deficiencies, they can prescribe it or they can tell you what kind of vitamins to get. But you want somebody that's going to be specific with those categories that you want to talk about. Keep your primary care physician Okay, that is, you need that. But if you're really trying to optimize and maximize your lifestyle, you want to go to one of these clinics, because they're going to be paying attention to the details, okay, so find one that is near to you, if you're in the upstate area. We partnered with PushMed, which is out of Greenville, south Carolina, and they have everything that you could possibly need there to get you what you want, and that is where we send all of our clients for their blood work. There's also where I go. So, again, I would never recommend something that I don't do. Great, great source.
Speaker 1:And then you know, the last thing, and I think one of the most crucial pieces that most people miss, is having accountability. Right, we don't have a lack of information. It's everywhere, right. You got Google, you got Siri, you got chat, gbt I mean, the information is all over the place. Where most of us struggle is application. How can I take this knowledge and apply it to my personal lifestyle? And is there somebody that I can talk to that's going to hold me accountable? That I don't want to let down, and that's the biggest piece I would say. When it comes to accountability, I don't feel like it could be. You know a brother, a sister, a cousin, a spouse, right, Because we live with them every single day. Sometimes they'll say things you're like, whatever you know, but if you have someone that you look up to, they have some sort of goal or achievement that you're trying to chase, whether it's their health and fitness, maybe it's their business, maybe it's, you know. Whatever it may be, you look up to those types of people and you don't want to let them down.
Speaker 1:And we just had I'll tell you this, we just had a client sign up with us yesterday and I was talking to him and I told him I was like anytime anybody comes to us about coaching, we, we want to make sure that they're a good fit for our program, because there are, you know, requirements that we expect from our clients to be successful, and I want to basically give them my expectations of what we do. You know how can we help? We can't. Can we help you? You know that's a good question, because if we can't, then I'm not going to put you in my program. I'm going to help, point you in the right direction, to help you.
Speaker 1:Okay, and this guy, he knows how to work out. He knows what to eat for the most part, healthy, healthy decisions. Maybe not all the details when it comes to how many, how much protein, carbs, fats, calories you know how to make adjustments. Maybe some of those details are a little hazy for him. But the point is like he has a good foundation and he's like Chris, what I really want is, sure, like I want you to put this stuff together for me, but I want you to hold me accountable. And he actually came from a challenge that we just finished and the challenge is what got him back into exercising. And he actually came from a challenge that we just finished and the challenge is what got him back into exercising. And he realized him knowing that he had to check in and update his questionnaire that we send out every single week his pictures, his weight, et cetera. He didn't want to let us down, nor himself, and he wanted to see that he was progressing.
Speaker 1:And I told him I was like there is nothing wrong for you feeling that way. I was like I do this for a living and I have a fitness coach. Right now, I have someone that builds my nutrition and holds me accountable. And I'll tell you what do I know how to do this? Yes, can I put my own meal plan together? Yes, where do I struggle? I struggle to eat the amount of food that I'm supposed to be eating. And can I do it? Yeah, but how long could I do it before I'm like, oh, that's whatever you know, because we all, we all get there, and so me having to send in my check-ins every single week with my coach helps me stay focused, not want to mess up, not want to let him down. I want to see progress in myself, and this helps me just dial things in a little bit more, and so that may be something that you need to find in your life for whatever that you're trying to work on, someone to help hold you accountable, and this is a big piece of what we do in our program, of course. So the point is what I'm trying to tell you guys.
Speaker 1:I hope you enjoyed the story about the car, but inevitably I want you guys to turn on the dash. I want you guys to be paying attention to what you guys are doing every single day and take ownership of that, because if you let this thing go, if you ride around with no dash and you're not monitoring what you're putting in your body, you're not doing with no dash and you're not monitoring what you're putting in your body, you're not doing the maintenance work, you're not having someone hold you accountable calling you hey, it's time for your checkup, things of that sort you are going to decline. Your car is not going to last. Someone that takes care of their car regular oil changes, you know, maybe a couple belts, tires, things like that your car could last three, four, 500,000 miles. I've seen it. They may look a little rough on the outside, but they're still kicking at four or 500,000 miles versus someone. Imagine if you never changed your oil, if you never changed your tires, your brake pads you never did that you wouldn't even make it 100,000 miles, not even close. And so this is why it's so important If you want to have a long, quality, fulfilling life, you need to make sure that you're taking care of these things and you're monitoring and you're measuring and you're tracking, and if you don't know, don't be afraid to ask for help.
Speaker 1:Again, this is what I'm here to help you guys with too. So if you feel like you're lost or you're missing a piece, you need accountability. You don't know how much to eat you're looking for. Hey, chris, what was that fitness app that you were talking about? I got you. Just shoot me a DM. I'm on Instagram all day long. It's part of my job, so just shoot me a DM. Okay, and just ask me.
Speaker 1:Hey, I listened to your podcast, chris, awesome. I had a question about this specific topic. Could you you know? Could you tell me that again, or could you send me the link? I'm more than happy to do that. I'm here to help you guys. This is why I do the podcast. I want you guys to open up your mind, I want you guys to progress and where you need help, and hopefully I can just bring some clarity to that, all right. So, again, this podcast isn't meant to be long. Hope you enjoyed it. Every Monday I'll be posting one out, so I hope you guys have a good rest of the day. Thank you for tuning in. See you in the next one. Peace.