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
Cultivating Success Through Identity and Persistence
The episode emphasizes the importance of five key habits for achieving personal and professional success: controlling emotions, developing patience, getting comfortable with discomfort, being okay with being the exception, and doing what you say you will do. Through sharing personal experiences and insights gathered from working with many clients, the host illustrates how mindset plays a crucial role in reaching one’s goals.
• Mastering emotional control as a foundation for success
• Understanding that patience is vital in any meaningful journey
• Embracing discomfort for significant growth
• Accepting being the exception in a society often critical of personal goals
• Following through on commitments to build self-confidence
If you need help, reach out to me on Instagram at Coach_Kak.
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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. I hope you guys are having a fantastic start of your Monday. I'll tell you what I am. Well, monday, when this episode comes out, I'm actually at my new office space that we just got, probably two, three weeks ago. So if you've been following me on my Instagram, I've been kind of updating you guys in the stories of setting that space up.
Speaker 1:The coolest part is that and the whole reason I went to doing this was one. I do need a physical location to just get me in my element. When you work from home, it is a blessing and a curse, because there's just like a lot of stop and go. You know, especially if you have kids and things going on, you can't really just get into a flow state sometimes. So it has been something that's been on my mind for quite some time and opportunity came up. As you guys know, I also go to a gym called Carolina Iron which is in Greenville, south Carolina, and he has actually a couple office spaces within the gym and he put them up for basically rent and I kind of sat on it for a little bit, see if anybody else would jump on it, and then eventually I just went and talked to the owner and kind of gave him my pitch. I was like I really just want to not really come in here to do in-person training more, so content, studio and podcast. So we basically came up with a deal and that's where I've been and you know I've been showing you guys on my Instagram kind of the updates and, you know, putting the new walls up and all that kind of stuff. So we're almost there, I would like to say, in the next, you know, three, four weeks, within this month, I want to have everything set up and ready to rock and roll Because, of course, with Unmasking Greatness, I have a list of individuals I want to bring on that can provide you guys a ton of value, and I'm excited to chat with them as well.
Speaker 1:Likely going to start uploading these videos, full content videos, into probably YouTube for you guys, if you want to, if you want a visual to the audio as well. So pretty pumped about that. You know, one of the things I'm going to tell you guys about doing this, and it was just like when I first started this whole podcast. Sometimes I don't really know exactly what I'm doing or what the vision is supposed to be. I'm just moving in a general direction and hoping things kind of fall into place. So you hear me use the term messy action. Well, here you go. This is straight up messy action from Chris Kikoris just rolling with it, rolling with it, and it's, you know, fortunately it's rolling pretty good.
Speaker 1:So, anyways, that's a little update of things going on, but today I really want to give you guys some value and something to think about. More specifically, some habits that I have developed myself, but also have noticed in successful individuals that I have worked with and at this point, over 15 years I've worked probably with over a thousand with their health and fitness goals, and I just noticed some, some common traits between everybody. And so today I want to go over at least five of these habits that I noticed in these highly successful people that do and crush in our program. And here's the thing you know, when it comes to what I'm about to talk about, the problem most have when not seeing the results in their body or health is less about the nutrition, the workouts, the supplements, etc. And it's more about you, it's more about the individual itself, because a lot of this is a mental play, right? And this is also why a lot of people can't get long-term success, because you can jump into a program and you know, do things like 75 hard, or these keto programs or you know any other weight loss program. The problem is one there's no exit strategy. They don't know what to do afterwards. No-transcript live in.
Speaker 1:So before you become something, you must believe it and want to be that thing or that person. So it really comes down to who do you identify as right, who do you identify as? Do you want to identify as a healthy, successful individual, or do you identify as someone that just doesn't follow through, that can't follow a nutrition plan or a workout, that can't go to the gym? Like, are these the things that you are ingraining in your mind, because you will believe them and your actions will follow. So you know, if you're somebody that wants to lose 30 pounds, you know, ask yourself this, like, how does that 30 pound less version of you act? Or how do they act, you know, are you a successful entrepreneur or business owner, or you want to be? Well, how do those people act? You don't have to accomplish the goal that you want to start acting like that, right? So I'll give you an example.
Speaker 1:You know my, my background as well is I was a bodybuilder and at one point, like I, I wanted to become IFBB pro. That was like the, the ultimate win status. You know, whatever you want to call it in the bodybuilding world, that's what I wanted to shoot for. So when I started competing, you know, and I got a coach, of course I had a game plan, but it was tough, right. There was a lot of times I just didn't want to do a lot of things, like I didn't want to eat the repetitive you know, chicken, rice, fish, steak, you know stuff like that. I wanted something different.
Speaker 1:There was a lot of times that I didn't want to do the cardio or I wanted to quit five minutes before my time was up. You know, there was a lot of challenging moments that were more mental than anything and I had to almost kind of play these mental games with myself, and part of that was, you know, if I wanted to become a champion, if I wanted to become an IFBB pro bodybuilder, how are they acting? How are they thinking right? Are they going to hit the snooze button in the morning to not do their fasted cardio? Probably not. Are they going to just sneak in little treats and snacks and not follow the nutrition plan? Probably not. Are they going to skip the gym just because they're tired? Probably not. Right, you want to be at an elite level. You have to act like you're an elite level. So there's many times I was, I had to do.
Speaker 1:There was a. At one point I was doing 45 minutes on a Stairmaster and that is quite exhausting. But also when you're just like sweating you're, you're breathing heavy and you're just watching that time track down. You know it would be like 35 minutes and I just want to get off that thing. So bad, you know. And then I'd be like, oh, five more minutes, five more minutes. And then I do another five minutes and then I'm almost I'm a little bit closer and I would play these mind games and I would also say, you know what? I would get down to the last minute and I'd just be like one minute is not going to make a difference, but it does right, it does. I committed to that time, I committed to finishing it, and I'm going to do it because, in my mind, that one minute was a determining factor from first and second place. That's what it is.
Speaker 1:That first place winner, that champion, that person that is going to get that IFBB Pro status, is not going to cut any corners. Again, you have to be the exception, you have to do exceptional things to get those sort of results. So, again, you need to start embracing and acting like the person you want to be, just again, like going into my business, like I found very successful business owners that were in the same field as me and I wanted to know, like, what are you guys doing on a daily, what are you consuming, what are you doing at nighttime? To know, like, what are you guys doing on a daily? What are you consuming, what are you doing at nighttime, you know how long do you work, and that's how I got into, like you know, listening to audio books, reading podcasts, going to these seminars, finding a mentor. Like all those successful people are doing these things. I'm going to do that too.
Speaker 1:There's a Chinese proverb that they say If you want to know the path ahead sorry, if you want to know the path ahead, ask the person that's coming back right, find the person that's already walked that path. So start embracing that. Now, here I'm going to start digging into. These are the five habits that I've crafted into myself but also have noticed repetitively with our successful clients. So the first one control your emotions.
Speaker 1:You got to be able to control your emotions. If you cannot control your emotions, this means you haven't developed the discipline or the consistency and keyword developed. This is a skill you know. Most people will come to me and they're like I'm not disciplined, I just there's no consistency in my life. It doesn't mean that you can't be, you just haven't developed those skillsets, and so part of that is learning. But if you cannot control your emotions, this is why people stop and go when they get into their fitness journeys. This is also why they lose weight, gain weight, go back and forth, because the minute you let your emotions get in the way of what you're supposed to be doing moving forward, this is where it starts to pull you down a path you shouldn't be.
Speaker 1:It is okay to have emotions. Let me be clear. It is okay to be sad. It is okay to be happy, it is okay to be upset and angry and frustrated, like these are all just perfectly okay emotions, but it doesn't mean that you need to identify as that. You are not your emotions and you don't have to act on it. But it takes some awareness to understand like I can feel this way, but I can still continue walking the path that I need to to achieve my goals, and it just takes time. So, again, being aware of your emotions is crucial, but you got to have that power over yourself to be able to push forward, so don't let your emotions get in the way. And this is also why people have like emotional eating right, they get happy, right, you go to a wedding, a birthday time to eat. Right, you get sad. Oh man, I just wanna eat some comfort food. The reality is again, when you're aware of these emotions, you got to ask yourself the question like, yeah, if I eat what I want to, it will satisfy me in the moment, but I'm going to have instant regret afterwards because I know that's not what I should have done and it's not what's going to be, you know, contributing to the goal that I want. It's going to set me back. So do you want to feel that way? Probably not.
Speaker 1:There's been many times that I used to. You know, rummage through my kitchen, walking laps, opening cabinets, opening the fridge, and I just I want to eat, but I know I'm not supposed to. I would literally just do that, walk maybe three, four laps, and then, just like, chris, you need to go to bed. You know, and I would, I would drink a glass of water and go to bed, and I'll. Also here's a side hack for you guys I used to keep small cans of Coke Zero, the small mini cans, in my fridge. If I got into those positions and I would drink one of those and I was good and I'd be able to just like, go, lay down and move forward. So there's, there are little hacks like that that you can do. That was one of mine.
Speaker 1:Okay, number two uh, these people have developed patience. Oh my God, the virtue, the patience this is. This is hard for us in these days, but understand, the results are not immediate and the things take time. Right, we know that this is a marathon and not a sprint, you understand. So, like when you're getting into starting a business, when you're getting into a fitness journey, that you have 20, 30, 40, 60 pounds to lose, we know this isn't going to be like a four-week program that's just going to get us the success that we want. I mean, think about anything that was really worth achieving to you. I mean even getting. If you go to college and get a bachelor's degree, you know it's supposed to be four years. Sometimes it can go a little bit longer, but we know it's going to take time and we know we really want it, so we got to stick with it.
Speaker 1:So the question you know there's two questions that you can ask yourself. You can ask yourself how fast can I lose this weight? Or how can I stick to this long-term Right? These are very two different questions with the same kind of outcome, except the one outcome how fast can I get something? Those are the people that can't stick with it long-term. They're looking for the immediate results. You know, versus like how can I develop the skills and the habits to stick to something long-term, knowing that whatever I achieve I will have forever?
Speaker 1:I also call this the entitlement syndrome. If you ever heard of this like entitlement syndrome, what's entitlement right? This is someone who believes they should see results but not putting in the work to get those results. Ooh, now am I going to hurt some feelings here. We've had people come into the program that have followed a program for a week and are like Chris, why am I not losing weight? Listen, you have been living a lifestyle for years, decades, been overweight for years and decades, and you come in one week and you think you're going to get just instant results.
Speaker 1:Sometimes the body doesn't work like that. It takes time to get the metabolism revved up. It takes time to get your hormones regulated. It takes time to get the metabolism revved up. It takes time to get your hormones regulated. It takes time to build that consistency. Just because you didn't lose weight doesn't mean that you didn't have a successful week, because think of it this way you have never followed a plan before and you followed it for a week. That's a massive win. That is a huge stepping stone that you have been able to prove to yourself that you can follow something. So again, don't follow into this entitlement syndrome where you believe that you should be getting all these results but you just haven't put enough work in yet, just like with you. Know people that start a business, like dude. It takes time, especially like the restaurant business. You know their rule of thumb is you really don't profit until like two or three years in, right, you're recouping all the investment that you put in. So, again, it takes time.
Speaker 1:So the question becomes can you deny what you want now for what you want most, right? Here's some examples. Right, like I, you know, there's been times I want to sleep in now. I really want to sleep in now, but I really want to drop this 20 pounds, so I need to get up and go do this cardio, right? Or I want this pizza now, but I want what I want most is to feel comfortable and confident in a bathing suit, right? This doesn't mean you can't have pizza once in a while. It doesn't mean you can't sleep in once in a while.
Speaker 1:You know there's circumstances for that, but in an overall big picture, like you got to let go of what you want right now for what you want later, and this really goes into also letting go of some FOMO. So if you're familiar with FOMO, is fear of missing out. This is a real problem, this is a real disease out there for many of you guys FOMO and the reality comes to the fact that you need to ask yourself, like why do I have to go to every single thing? There is right, why do I go to every single wedding, every single birthday, every single outing, every single business meeting? Why do you need to go to all of them? Pick and choose your battles Again.
Speaker 1:Now, when you build and develop the skill sets and you've gotten yourself into a good position and you can control going back to controlling your emotions, controlling the actions that you take then sure, feel free, go to all of it Because, again, you are in control of what you're doing at these events and you're in control of what you're consuming, which means that you can still control the outcomes. Right, but if you're not there yet, you know, listen, you gotta. You gotta avoid some of these things. Okay. Number three you must get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Okay, you gotta get comfortable being uncomfortable. This is why, you know, comfort has gotten the US to be in over 50% obese. This is the reality of it.
Speaker 1:Man Society has created things to be so easy for us and have so much access to things, like we don't have to do anything anymore. I mean, go to the grocery store why you can order that to the door, or not even go to the grocery store because that'll take effort. You actually have to cook your food. No, let's just Uber eat. You, I'd even go to the grocery store because that'll take effort. You actually have to cook your food. No, let's just Uber eat. You know, let's just go through a drive-through. I don't have to do any work and I'm consuming just easy, highly palatable foods, you know, that are deep fried and full of grease, and this is why you know, we start to overeat and consume foods that are obviously like unhealthy, that get us into the position where we are.
Speaker 1:So we have to understand, especially when we're getting into the health and fitness, it's going to be a little uncomfortable. There's going to be some changes. We're going against the grain. You know we're going to have to put a little sweat in, and you've got to be okay with being a little tired. You've got to be okay with being a little hungry. You've got to be okay with sweating a little bit, right, you got to be okay doing some of the things you're not used to doing to get a different result. Right, if we can get you to start thinking differently, we can start getting you to act differently and now we can start getting some results that are different than what you've been getting. So being comfortable being uncomfortable is going to be a huge stepping stone for many of you guys because, again, nobody wants to be uncomfortable, but we also know that's where the growth is and that's where we get better. So when you start getting comfortable being uncomfortable, you start to actually put yourself in uncomfortable positions more often because you see the benefits of it All right.
Speaker 1:Number four you got to be okay with being the exception. Okay, if you want exceptional results, you must become the exception. So sometimes, okay, you're going to be misunderstood, you're going to be made fun of for wanting to be healthy. You're going to lose some friends, you know. But here's the reality.
Speaker 1:Back when I started to get into this health and fitness. I went through all those phases. I went through like, oh, chris, you're going to just eat chicken and rice again. Oh, that's the the buddy building freak. You know, um, your, your friends quote unquote friends that you used to go party with and go out to the bars with. Slowly, those phone calls stop because you don't, you don't, you tell them you don't want to go out anymore. So you start to lose some of those friends that was in a certain season of your life. Okay, but you got to be okay with that. You got to be okay with that. You are making a decision, and life-changing decision to become better, to become healthier, to become successful, right. And so anybody that is not there to help support you in this journey is tearing you down and holding you back. So you either need to let go or be okay with being in the same spot.
Speaker 1:Your environment is so crucial to the success and you've heard me say these sort of things with your friends. Your friends are assigned. They're not aligned right. When you are in school, you have friends that were in school, but that's only because that you went to that school and put in a specific classroom with your peers, you made friends. Same thing when you get a job and you work somewhere, you become friends with the people that are there, right.
Speaker 1:But ask yourself this if you had to choose, if you got to pick who your friends are, would they be the ones? Maybe they are, more than likely not. I mean, this is just the reality. So sometimes we need to be a little more conscious of the people that we're hanging out with with any additional time or talking to with our additional time, because what you're consuming is becoming the reality. So being okay with being the exception you have to get comfortable with that's also getting into being comfortable. Being uncomfortable, like it is awkward. You know you're trying to hang out with people and they're making fun of you for wanting to be better. Like, what kind of friend is that? So you know, if you resonate with that, it's something to think about and listen.
Speaker 1:If it's family, it's not someone you can really cut off, then just limit your time with them. Limit your time. You don't need people with that negative energy or we call them energy vampires just sucking the life out of you when you're around them. Your energy and your aura around you should be precious to you. Don't let people just suck that out of you and just fill you with poison.
Speaker 1:Okay, this is the one. Do what you say you're going to do. Oh my gosh, do what you say you're going to do. This is how you're going to build confidence. Right, you got to commit and you got to have some non-negotiables in your life, because success starts when your actions reflect your priorities. Okay, when you tell yourself that you're going to go to the gym, if you tell yourself you're going to drink some water, if you're going to tell yourself that you got to do cardio or whatever task that you got to do, you have to do it. Non-negotiable. All right, because here's the deal. When we're talking about building your confidence in yourself, I want you to think of like a little bank, right? So every time you do something little right, it could be a little task and you complete it. We put a little deposit in that confidence bank, right, and over time, it will build into a large lump sum.
Speaker 1:Now it also works the other way around. Let's say you say you're going to do something and you don't. Well, guess what? We're going to have to debit that out. We're going to have to pull some of that, that investment, out, and it can start to draw you up over time. And what happens when you're down to your last little couple quarters and dimes? You get real frustrated. You almost feel like it's not even worth doing anymore, right? But if we can build some momentum and that bank starts getting pretty thick, then guess what You're like heck, yeah. Like, let's roll, let's get into this, let's. How can we double the funds? How can we triple the funds? You know you start getting that, that confidence, and you want to push harder and you challenge yourself, right.
Speaker 1:So you got to make sure that you do what you say that you're going to do. And this takes some self-awareness too, right? So example for this is you know, again, I'm really big with routine, right? You guys hear me talk a lot on my, my podcast and stuff about having a nighttime routine and a morning routine and, you know, having things put in place and being strategic. You got to understand there's going to be things that happen in your life that can throw off the scale, right, and that's okay, right? This is life does what life does. It changes.
Speaker 1:So when I'm talking about committing, my normal routine to wake up in the morning is 5 am. My alarm is set for 5 am. So 5 am comes, alarm goes off, I'm up, we roll in, right. Now something happens that we have an event to go to, a birthday, maybe I'm out later than normal, I'm out till like midnight, something. That's just again. It's a one-off kind of deal.
Speaker 1:Do you think I'm going to keep my alarm at 5 am? Of course not. That's not going to do me any justice. I may set it to 6, right? Or I may not even set it for that time period, right? I set my alarm for a reason. Or I may not even set it for that time period, right? I set my alarm for a reason. There's a reason that we set an alarm. It's because there's something that I need to get up and go do, right. But again, if there's certain situations like that, it's okay because I'm not willing to sacrifice my word and my confidence because of some actions that I took the night before, which is perfectly okay. But it doesn't mean that I need to sabotage myself on the back end.
Speaker 1:You know, roll with life, adjust, pivot. These are the things that we have to like, teach our clients. You can't have an all or nothing mentality. This is why people quit so easily. You know I missed. You know I missed a meal. This day is over, right? Or I didn't work out. You know this week I'll start next week. You know you're wasting days before the next week, which is a Monday. You know this is this all or nothing mentality that will sabotage you and get you to set you way back. And you got to ask yourself are you okay with that? Like, are you okay with constantly going back and forth or do you pivot? Do you learn? Do you understand? Like, this is life, this is how we're going to do things, this is, this is the things that people need to start to understand in life. Right, and lastly, I will say this is this isn't really like an additional habit, I would say, but you know you got to give yourself some credit and understand quitting is not an option. You know there are no failures, only lessons.
Speaker 1:You hear me use this thing, this term of calling life a game. It is you got to learn to play, to win. You know, if, if, if, you know, think of any game right, there's the check, the checkers, chess, video games right, if there was no way of you ever losing, you never, you know, lost in the game, game over, like is it then? Then? Is it fun? Would you even play it? What's the point of even like once you, once you lose a life or something and you just you just put the game down. You're like I'll never play this again. Is that, is that how you want to play? No, of course not. You understand like okay, I didn't do this, let's do this next time. Let's pivot, let's try something different. We're learning, right, and learning comes with setbacks. Be okay with that. Setbacks are okay, but we're not quitting.
Speaker 1:I read this in a book and it says you never bring a towel to the game because you don't give yourself the option to throw it in. You ever hear people like throw in the towel, we're done. I don't even bring a towel with me because that's not an option for me. We're rolling, all right. So I hope this was helpful for some of you guys. You know those are the five habits that I've noticed with a lot of our successful clients. So the first one being, again control your emotions to patience. Have some patience. Three get comfortable being uncomfortable, all right. Four be okay with being the exception. Five do what you say you're going to do, all right. This has nothing to do with your nutrition, with your workouts, because if you don't get your mind right, none of that matters. None of that's going to work for you long term, all right.
Speaker 1:So I hope you guys got some value from this. If you need some help, if you ever have questions specifically, reach out to me on Instagram at Coach Kack Coach underscore Kack. I'm on there all the time. I answer all those DMs, myself posting constantly, so definitely follow me there. You'll just get value daily constantly, so definitely follow me. There is you'll just get that value daily. And you know, again, here in the next month we're going to start having some pretty cool guests, some visuals for you guys, so I'm really pumped about that. But if you got value from this, definitely share it. Leave me a good review. I'd really appreciate it and I will see you guys on the next episode. All right, peace.