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
Unlock Your Mind From Prison To Paradise
What if your mind could either imprison you or set you free? Join me, Chris Kakouras, as we explore the transformative power of mindset and how the stories from our recent giveaway shed light on the silent struggles many face. Many find themselves caught in a cycle of negative thoughts, but through resilience and a positive outlook, we can break free and unlock our true potential. By sharing personal experiences, I highlight the importance of reaching out for help and the role of mindset in overcoming life's hurdles.
Embark on a journey of self-discovery and growth as we question inherited beliefs and societal norms that shape our personal values and behaviors. We'll also touch on cultural aspects like American eating habits, emphasizing mindful consumption. Revealing my own battles with fear and past experiences, I discuss how vulnerability is a crucial step towards liberation and healing. Plus, there's exciting news as we expand into video content, promising new and engaging ways to connect with you. Don't miss out on being part of this evolving journey.
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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.
Speaker 2:What's up guys, welcome to another episode of Unmasking Greatness. I'm your host, chris Koukouris, and this week has been a week, but I definitely wanted to give you guys an episode to listen, to give you guys some perspective on a topic that I have for you. But let me back up, let me reel you guys in real quick. So this week has been insanely busy for me. If you guys keep up with my social media platforms, of course, we just did our four year anniversary giveaway. So essentially the past three years we have done this, where we basically give a free ride away to two individuals. So one gets selected by a random raffle, which is lucky winner. The other one is hand selected by me and the team off of application. So we're looking at, you know, who really wants it, who really, we feel like, needs it, who's ready to change, and that specifically like who's ready to take that leap and know it's going to take work but they're ready to change. Because there's a lot of people that are work but they're ready to change. Because there's a lot of people that are suffering but they're just, they're not there yet and, I hate to say it, maybe they didn't suffer enough. You know it's possible, but the point is that was one of the check marks I guess you could say that we were looking for when we were selecting this winner. So I say that to say that it's been pretty crazy.
Speaker 2:We had over 70 applications, tons of people that entered in the raffle, so going reading through those it took a lot of time and also mentally and emotionally it was tough, honestly, like I, for whatever reason, I forget how hard it is, because the applications that get sent in, you know respectfully and to anybody that's listening that put it in, I have tons of respect for you. If you opened up, you were vulnerable, you shared your struggles with me and a lot of them I could resonate with and so you can, you can tell, like that kind of tugs, tugs on my heartstrings a little bit, because I feel for these people and I just I want to help everybody. You know, but we know in reality I can't help everybody, but I'm going to do my darndest to make sure that I help as many people as I can that really want it and understand that it's going to take some work and so you know, I share this with you guys today because the one thing that I want to really hone in on in this conversation, in this podcast, is that your mind and your subconscious will be your prison or your paradise. Your subconscious mind could be the prison to your life or it could be the key to the paradise of everything that you're looking for. And it all comes and starts and stems from the brain, from that mindset, and I can tell you, reading through all these applications. Obviously I'm not going to be sharing people's stories, I wouldn't do that but there was a lot of commonality. There was a lot of there was a lot of commonality. There was a lot of I don't want to say specifically like repeats, but there was a handful in there that have been going through the same struggles and hardships and they were pretty tough stuff in there.
Speaker 2:And I say that to say that be careful when you are in your hardest times, because many times you feel like nobody understands you, that you're going through this alone and nobody can relate to you. But are you opening up to people? Are you asking for help? Are you talking to anybody? Are you working with a therapist? Like most people, not. We like to suffer in silence and it's not that we really want to, but we don't want to burden others, or we don't want to talk to others because then they can't help me. They don't understand what I'm going through, but we don't know what they're going through. You see where this can be a conflict, and you can start to be a prisoner of your own mind.
Speaker 2:There was a term that I heard the other day I wish I could remember who said it, but they were talking about the mind as an echo chamber, and if you've ever heard anything like that, I mean it is what it sounds like right, echo, right, when someone's like you're in a cave, like hey, hey, hey, right, and then you know a chamber, you're secluded. An echo chamber is your mind. We are surrounded every single day by our thoughts. So what are you thinking? What are you saying in your mind? Are they bombs going off, right?
Speaker 2:Are you saying negative concepts, talking down on yourself, you know, saying that you'll never get out of whatever situation you're at? Are you tearing yourself down or are you reinforcing your mind? Are you saying you know, I can do this, I'm strong, I believe I'm going to make it through, no matter what. I'm resilient. What are you telling yourself? Because, whatever you're saying, I promise whoever's going through the toughness right now and you're like I'm never getting out of this, this is going to be the end of me. I'm sorry. It is Because eventually you're going to believe in yourself, because right now you don't believe that you can get out of it. I believe in you. Others around you may believe in you, but you don't believe you and that's all that matters. You have to believe in yourself and sometimes we just need to know that there is some hope, there's a chance, there's some light, and if you're not looking, if you're not asking, if you're not talking to people, you are going to be a prisoner and suffer in silence. So I encourage you to do some research. You know there's tons online. Go on YouTube. There's people that share different stories, but if you can at least resonate with somebody, I think this is what's going to help give you a little glimpse of hope for yourself, and this is honestly why I feel like I can.
Speaker 2:I've helped so many people already because I've worked with a lot of individuals and all different backgrounds. You know different struggle points and outside of, just like the workouts and the nutrition, you know different struggle points and outside of just like the workouts and the nutrition, you know these are great gateways to like obviously improve the endorphins, to the mind and feeling better, and, you know, holistically, kind of like healing. But there's some fundamental groundwork that we need to start pulling back layers and restacking, because from generations you have taken on different thought processes that may not be accurate, they may not be true to this time or this day, and so we start to set these expectations off of others and so it's not what you know. People get caught in the fact, like you know, my parents wanted me to go to college, get married, have kids, like that's their expectations. But what is yours? Do you believe in those? Is that your values? You know that used to be the way and maybe it still is for some people.
Speaker 2:But everybody's individualized. You know what about you know, when it comes to food, my, you know our family, you eat everything on your plate before you leave. Well, my, you know our family, you eat everything on your plate before you leave. We'll go out to dinner now. That's a three-course meal on one plate. No wonder we're overweight.
Speaker 2:You know not to go on a side tangent with this one, and I don't know if this is a joke or not, but if you guys know and you're obviously anybody that's on social media knows this like TikTok's about to get banned, so TikTok's going down. People are going to other platforms. Now there's like Lemonade, and then there's another one I think it's Red something, but it's a Chinese app. I mean, it's like apparently, like when you sign in and all that kind of stuff, you gotta follow whatever the Chinese laws are in their country. I mean, I haven't really dug into it, but what I'm getting to is they were saying one of the common jokes apparently with the Chinese about Americans is that Americans eat. Like health insurance is free.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, all right, I mean, let's talk about it. You know it may be a joke, but it's not a joke because, honestly, like, sometimes the funny stuff is the truth. Right, we do, we do, we eat like ain't nothing going to happen to us. And well, look at us, we are probably the most unhealthy we've ever been in the US in this current time unhealthy we've ever been in the US and in this current time. And so I say that to say that we need to be careful what we're consuming. Okay, and not only that, what we're also thinking in our own minds. And this is also, like I said, this is why I've been able to help so many people is because I can resonate. I'm not saying my story is worse or not worse than anybody's, but we've all been through it. We've all been through some stuff and that's where we can build some common grounds and reinforce each other and believe in each other.
Speaker 2:Because, listen, if you guys listened to my past episodes, maybe I'll do a recap or not a recap, maybe I'll get back and do another episode talking about it again. Because you know, back when we started this podcast with Dr Preston Gregory, we opened up pretty heavy on some things. There was topics I didn't want to talk about, there was topics I was avoiding and trying to forget and Preston was able to, you know, kind of support me and say, hey, man, I think you should share this because I know you told me, but there's some people out there that need to hear that from you. You are going to be that glimpse of hope for them. It's not going to resonate with everybody, but somebody is going to hear you and you know I did and I shared it. I shed some tears on some episodes, but I've been through some hard things in my life and again, not to say one's worse or the other.
Speaker 2:But I had to open up because the very thing that I was avoiding was what was keeping me encaged in that prison, and so the fear I think fear in general was what was holding me back and that was something that I really started digging into as well is because you know, you think about fear. In society. Normally what would happen is four different things happen when people get caught with the face of fear. One, they panic, they freeze, they don't know what to do. And I kind of rolled into the next one. So you panic, you get lost. But the second one is you freeze, you get stuck, you don't know where to go, you're hoping that it's just going to get its way through. The third one is that you run away. All right, you dip out, you're just like I'm out, I'm just avoiding this all together. And then the last one is you bury it, you try to hide it, you try to forget it Like it's never even there.
Speaker 2:I was a three four, I was a runaway and a bury it person, and so I tried to run away from all my problems and anytime I ran into them, I tried to shove it under the rug like it would never even existed. And over time, you know what happens when you keep shoving stuff under the rug it makes a little pile. You will have to handle it at some point in time. You will have to handle it at some point in time. Don't let it get too bad. And so, for me, I had to really do some internal work on myself. You know, coming from you know drugs and gangs and you know divorce and all kinds of things I mean like. And the crazy thing is all of that happened all at the same time and I'm not going to sit here and say like it happened to me. A lot of things were my choice, that I was putting myself in positions, I was doing substances and things of that nature, so but it was a lot easier to do because it was an escape.
Speaker 2:I was running away then too. I was running away from my own feelings, I was running away from you know whatever, and I got lost. I could care less about my life back then and when I look back I'm like you were so foolish, you're so foolish back then. But you know I don't regret any of it because it's made me who I am today, and this is where I'm coming to you guys and I'm going to angle this towards you. If you hear me, if you resonate with me, if you've gone through it you're going through it right now that very thing that you're going through could be your championship story. It could be you could be your own superhero to somebody else.
Speaker 2:Understand what I'm saying. I had to go through that. I had to find my way through and inevitably it took time. It took years for me to get through the stuff that I was getting through. But when I started to understand and work really on myself, do a lot of personal development I was reading, I was hiring, mentorship, you know, working with people I started to change the perspective of fear and I started to see the value that fear sometimes offers. It can offer freedom, it can offer the key to that paradise. But we have to learn how to reprogram it and it's going to take work and it's going to be hard. You might have to cry, you might have to sweat. You have to go through it and I'm telling you guys, I'm telling you, stay strong, go through it. Don't do it by yourself. Ask for help, find somebody. This is going to speed up everything for you. You're going to get the results that you want a lot faster if you can work with someone that's been through it right. So I say that to say whatever you're going through, you could actually and I know, I believe, you can get through it, but you could be the reason that someone else can get through it as well. This is how you know outside of, just like the traumas I'm talking about. This is how, like, entrepreneurship is even like brought alive.
Speaker 2:You know, when you think of people that start businesses, why do they start businesses or how do they start businesses, it's they had a problem. They found a way to solve it, and so what people do when they put a business together that solves problems, people pay with speed. What is money good for? Nobody just cheers because they have, like, millions of dollars in the bank account, right, they use money as a automotive reason to get things that they want. Right. It's a purpose of transportation. You know whether you want to purchase things or you want to get somewhere, but you can also use it to invest into yourself to time collapse the results that you want, and this is why there's mentorship, this is why there's coaching. There's things like that. You know why do people pay for Uber Eats Speed. They want speed, which is also like crazy to me, right, god forbid. You cook anymore. It's too much work, but you'll pay somebody, but then you don't have the money to.
Speaker 2:You know, invest in your health and mindset? Well, okay, see, it's not a financial struggle anymore, it's a priority issue. So that's a whole topic in itself. But I say that to say you could be the championship of your own story and you need to lean into that, and the way that you talk to yourself is how you're going to get there. That is the fundamentals and groundwork that's going to get you to be successful. And so I just had all these thoughts and I hope you guys are hanging in there with me because, again it, it really like taxed me reading all those applications in a good way, in a good way. I don't want to say like I was taxing, like an annoying kind of way, like I just resonated and I just want to help everybody, and I know I can't help everybody, but I just I'm going to do the best that I can. And so that's why we created a free Facebook group as well and just like let's get people together.
Speaker 2:And one of the things we did in there was, after this whole like anniversary spill that we did. I went inside of there and it's like hey guys, listen, thank everybody that you know, apply for the application. Listen, we're here to support each other. We want to encourage, we want to hold each other accountable. Share what gym, what location that you work out at and like it flooded. If people were just like boom, boom, whatever gym they went to and the purpose was that is like I hope maybe I can find some connection there. You know where they can. People can come together and you know, build a relationship, maybe train together, hold each other accountable on another level because that's what it's all about, that's what we did this whole past year was just like build connections with local businesses that were in the health and fitness space, everything from you know Clean Eats in Greenville, tns, which is the nutrition store. Pushmed, you know Prime, all Prime. I mean everything that, anything that was health related.
Speaker 2:I was like dipping my fingers in, but I was only dipping my fingers in the ones that I trusted right. I had to build a relationship with these people. I had to like understand the way that they think, how they were treating their customers, seeing if they're authentic. So when you come with me and I tell you you're part of my network, anybody I send you to, I trust them. I would trust them with myself, I would trust them with my family, I would trust them with you. So know that I would never send anybody anywhere I didn't believe in and this is why I don't. You know, this is why, like sponsorship stuff, for me it was always kind of like I don't know, like I don't care about your percentage you want to give me. If I don't believe in it, if I'm not going to take it, I don't care to share it with anybody. That's my name, my reputation. So, again, not to go on a rant with that one, um, but I hope you guys get some value from this. The mind, the subconscious, what you say to yourself. Again, this is going to make or break you. What you believe is your reality. Okay, it doesn't mean you're not going to have to work for it, but you'll work a lot harder if you do believe in it. All right, so I'll leave you with this one too, if you guys are listening to this and you hung in with me this far.
Speaker 2:A little update I have not announced this yet, but there is a gym in Greenville called Carolina Iron and I have done a couple of network events up there. We have done seminars up there with, again, some of these businesses got an office up there, an office space up there where we are creating a content studio. So we're not necessarily doing too much in person. I don't know if we will. That is, we haven't really like dug into that. The purpose of me getting the space was purely for a podcast studio and content, so we are going to move in there. We start next week starting to shuttle some of our equipment in there and get things set up and hopefully real soon.
Speaker 2:Uh, we're going to do a lot more interviews on this podcast with. I already have names lined up and tons of value that's going to come to you guys. So that is happening. Um, oh man, what else? Yeah, I guess that would be like the biggest thing that I'm gonna let you guys in on. A lot of the content is going to be. Really, you know, I'm going to try to provide you guys with more and more value. But, um, again, keep a lookout for that. We're probably going to dip into YouTube as well.
Speaker 2:So if you love hearing me and maybe you want a visual. I'm going to start doing some more video content that we'll put in there, so if you want to watch, I'll have some words. Maybe I'll show a screen or something like that for you guys as well. So, anyways, I didn't want to leave you guys with an episode, or not an episode, this coming Monday. So I'm here, it is Friday night at 730 and I'm ripping this one for you guys, all right? So I hope you guys have a good rest of the week and keep up with me. We got a lot of cool things that we're trying to do this year and I would love for you guys to be a part of it. All right, so have a good one. Love y'all, peace.