CareerJitsu Ep.52: The BJJ Blueprint For Career Success From Environmental Engineer, Sakis Gidas

Unlock the secrets of career success through Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu principles! In this episode, we chat with Sakis, a brown belt and project manager, who shares his unique journey from Greece to the UK and how Jiu-Jitsu shaped his career.

Key takeaways:

•    Discover how to apply Jiu-Jitsu principles to your career progression.
•    Learn the importance of knowing your next move in both Jiu-Jitsu and life.
•    Understand why comparing yourself to others can hinder your growth.
•    Hear about the value of consistency and honesty in achieving your goals.

Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction
00:27 Sakis' background and journey to Jiu-Jitsu
02:41 How Jiu-Jitsu principles apply to career success
12:03 Challenges faced in the UK and lessons learned
22:32 Sakis' six-step methodology for success
49:09 Key takeaways and wrap-up

What's your biggest challenge with balancing Jiu-Jitsu and your career? Drop it in the comments!

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Sakis's Information:

LinkedIn:   / sakisgidas   (https://www.linkedin.c...)

IG: @sakis_gd

Facebook: Sakis Gidas

https://www.facebook.com/share/17EBAzW6KK/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Welcome to the Career Tits podcast, where we connect the Art of Tits with your career. Artists can empower and inspire you to engage in conversations and valuable insights from people just like you who benefit from the shared relationship between your workplace and the art of jujitsu, leading you to a more fulfilling and successful life. This episode is brought to you by 9 Lives Jiu Jitsu. Nine Lives Jiu Jitsu was built for people who understand what it means to tap, reset, and come back stronger. Cats have 9 lives, and grapplers do too. Since 2013, 9 Lives has been creating premium classically designed gifts for practitioners who respect the art, embrace the grind, and truly love the game. 9 Lives Jiu Jitsu has a clean design and a timeless style built for the map. Because when you look good, you feel good. And when you feel good, you roll good. Check them out at 9livesbjj.com and enter the promo code Career Jitsu to receive 25% off your first order. Welcome to the Career Jitsu podcast. We are so excited. We have somebody from the UK today, from Europe again. It's been a while, Frank, since we've had somebody from all the way across into in Europe.

SPEAKER_02 1:32

Across the pond.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Yeah, and Sakis is actually he's he's Greek. He grew up in Athens, Greece. So he works in the UK right now, but he's actually from Greece. Um so this is the first time for us to have somebody from Greece, which is really cool. So I'm really excited for our listeners to hear all of the insight that he's gonna give us into the culture of jujitsu in Greece because he started jujitsu in Greece. So it'll be really interesting for our listeners to hear what it's like. And uh we also will be able to connect that uh jujitsu experience with his career because he's had a very unique career path. Um, he's faced a lot of adversities that he will talk about in his career path. He is currently an environmental engineer in the UK. Uh, and he also is a project manager for Portsmouth Water. Uh, and he will talk about that experience with his career um and link it to jujitsu. Um so welcome aboard, Sakis.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

Thank you, Jason. Thank you, Frank. I'm very happy to be here. I have been listening to your podcast, and I think you are doing an amazing job. So that's that's kudos to you and to the community that you are supporting. And I'm really happy you had I can contribute to that community with my insights, and then hopefully that can be a better place for anyone, and then you know, moving forward would be great. Just for the people joining Jiu-Jitsu or they want to benefit from this podcast.

SPEAKER_02 2:53

Thank you, Sarkis. Thank you so much. We are very, very excited to have you here. And it is such a cool feeling that we are global, right? We're meeting people, we are meeting people from all over the world with fascinating backgrounds, like you being a project manager and a problem solver. There's gonna be so many connections that we're gonna make between what you do in your career and what you do on the Mac. So let's roll right into it. And why don't you start off by telling us what first sparked your interest in jiu-jitsu? How did you hear about it? How did you learn about it? What was your first experience with it? And then a little bit of your journey towards your black belt.

SPEAKER_00 3:34

Yeah, 100%. Um, so I in Greece, 10 years before, I think it's 10 years before, 11 years before, uh, Jitsu wasn't like a very popular sport. It was mainly kickboxing, muay thai, and wrestling, greco romano and other similar uh wrestling um uh martial arts. So I was never into martial arts um at all. I was always I was always um a sport person, so I was playing football, I was playing basketball when I was younger. And then 18 and 19 years old, when I moved to uh create for my university, uh, this is where I started doing a little bit more weightlifting just to benefit myself. But at no means I was into martial arts. Having said that, at some point some of my friends said to me, you know, would you like to start a little bit of kickboxing? It's nice just to see how you're doing. So I said, okay, let's let's give it a try. I did, I think, a couple of months of kickboxing with sardoing and uh just one to throw low, etc., which to be honest, I didn't feel very inclined to it, I would say. Yes, it's great, but it didn't suit me very well. So I just oppose it. I stopped and then I did the weightlifting as well. After two years, so it was around 2015, I think, one of my friends moved from Crete to Athens because they finished their studies. And then I was getting it out with him, and he said to me, uh, I have started a new martial art called Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I said, Okay, that's that's cool. So, what is Brazilian jiu-jitsu? Is it like uh kicks, you know, pances, etc. He said, No, no, no, no, no. It's something that you uh with roll with someone, it starts from the judo principles on uh standing, and then you go all the way to the ground, and then you need to submit uh to submit a person. And I said, Is it gonna be interesting? He said, Why don't you give a try? And I replied back to him and said, I have no experience, I have not to do that, I'm gonna look silly. And he said, No, you can't, because your your body, you have a thick neck and you have a small uh you know gap here, so it's gonna be great because people won't be able to submit you, won't be able to submit you easily. So I said, Okay, let's give a try. So once I finished my uh my degrees, then I moved to Athens um because in Greece we have to do our military obligations, our military service. So at that point, I found an academy. Um it was near where I used to live in Athens, and I need to tell the name because actually it was very good. So the academy got Brassilas, and the coach by the by the time was uh Hirakles Grigoriadis. And the reason I'm saying that is me, I had no experience, I had nothing to do with Jiu Jitsu, I had no visibility, you know what does it mean. So as soon as I stepped into the mat, I need to be very honest, I was a little bit intimidated. The reason is, you know, me as a newbie coming into academy that have no idea about what jujitsu is, and seeing a lot of big guys, brown belts, uh black belt guys with a lot of tattoos, they look jacked, and said to myself, what am I doing here? I want to find a sport that actually I want to enjoy that. And I was a little bit intimidated because I wasn't sure exactly what was. So what happened is my first session, everyone was so friendly, so approachable, all of those people that I was looting at, that was saying, you know, they will be killers, they will kill me. Actually, what does it mean is they were very approachable, very friendly, they welcomed me, and I felt very quickly as part of that academy and that community. And it was very great because when I was rolling with someone, I have never been in like very close interaction with someone in a martial art, because kinkboxing is not the same like jujitsu, so you need to have this very close uh skin-to-skin interaction uh body. And all of those people were very friendly and said, you know, you are doing great, don't worry about that. And I said, I'm looking silly, I have no idea what to do, I'm not sure exactly where to grip, what is a grip, what is a posture, what is this one. They said, Don't worry about that, just enjoy the moment, we will help you. And it's it was the first time in my life that something clicked from the one first day. So from day one, I said to myself, this is something interesting, and I want to do it moving forward. And since now, you know, I have never stopped doing jujitsu apart from the time of the COVID of apparently. But my experience was very positive, and for me, someone who has not been into any kind of martial arts at all before, that was just such a fantastic thing and such an experience to come up with.

SPEAKER_01 8:08

Yeah, we we get this a lot from our guests, Frank, tell people talking about going into an academy and thinking, you know, you know, that old-fashioned saying, don't judge a book by its cover. Um, you walked into an academy, and first of all, the I think you said the coach's name was Hercules. Okay. Yeah, that's correct. Yes. I wouldn't even need to walk into that academy. If I heard that the coach's name was Hercules, I would already be intimidated. But, anyways, you walked in there and you thought that, you know, these people were gonna kill you and found out that they're great people. So that's that's awesome. That's uh, you know, yeah, a common thing.

SPEAKER_02 8:40

We do hear that a lot. And it is a common denominator in most jujitsu gyms that you go in there and people are just happy that you're there and they want you to stay. They actually are happy that you came in and they want you to feel comfortable and they want you to stay. And I know in this gym I had the same exact experience. Everybody's like, oh, we're just gonna have fun. Don't worry, you don't need to know anything. Just roll. Just roll, roll like you're wrestling with your friends. You go hard, I'll go hard. If you go light, I'll go light. I'll just match you, all school. Let's just have fun. And that is the best way to learn, right? To have some fun and not feel that kind of pressure.

SPEAKER_00 9:19

Yeah, I I agree with that. It's as I said, when someone is getting to the gym that it's a martial art, usually you're a little bit biased that the people will look down on you and they will try to scare you and intimidate you. But because I have changed, I'm very fortunate to have changed two to three gyms from where I started until where I am now. I was experiencing the same exactly. So everyone was very welcoming, uh, regardless of the of the belt I was, like blue belt, purple belt, brown belt, everyone was treating me the same. So uh it's it's it's just a nice phenomenon. Of course, you will have some outliners, that's that's for sure, because jujitsu is like a small community, but the overall, the 90 and 90% I would say everyone is very welcomed and very friendly. Actually, it's kind of everyone tries to see you succeed, succeed in your jujitsu career. No one wants you to fail.

SPEAKER_02 10:07

Yes, indeed. And I think that's something that jujitsu represents very well. A community of people who are looking out for one another is one of the most beautiful things. And we do hear this all the time. Even yesterday's interview, he was saying he went in, and that guy was like the guy, the the little guy that was kind of manhandling him is like, hey, this is good, you're gonna be able to do this. It's a magic that you're gonna be able to learn, right? It's a magic that they show you, and then you want to learn it. And now you've got a black belt. So congratulations for sticking with it. It's a brown, your brown belt now, right?

SPEAKER_00 10:38

It's I'm a brown belt. I'm a brown belt currently, so hopefully in the next future I will uh be promoted to black belts, but that's up to me as well. Just to uh put it.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

That's fine.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

That's fine. Fantastic. Thank you very much for that. Great.

SPEAKER_01 10:52

You keep it on the career jutsu podcast, so that gives you your black belt now. So you can just let him just show your professor this podcast and you'll get your black belt.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

Is it automatic write? I think I I've got my I think I think I have yes, I have already I have already given my heads up that you know after the podcast he needs to promote me, but you know, and now I have a little bit of uh of a support as well. We've got your back.

SPEAKER_02 11:17

Um great so now tell us a little bit about the your job right now, as I understood it. I want to s I don't want to speak for you, just for our listeners. What Sakis does is in one of he does many projects, he manages many projects with a company called Sportsmith Water. And really, one of the things he's doing right now is he's making sure that the people in his area who drink water get water that is safely tested. And there's a lot of things that go into that, and he's managing a project right now on that. So, can you talk to us a little bit about some of the challenges that you face in your career and maybe some of the things you've learned on the mats that are helping you face these challenges?

SPEAKER_00 12:01

Would you like me to talk about my career from start to where I'm now? Would you like to explore expand more about my current role?

SPEAKER_02 12:09

Well, yeah, give us you can give us a brief summary of how you grew into the position and then talk about what you're doing now and some of the things, some of the challenges you're facing.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

So I think a lot of people, um, it's and it's the same with jujitsu, I would do a parallel contrast. Um, it's that people think that the higher you get in terms of the career ladder, I would say that politely, it's something like you have been given by default, or it's easy to achieve, something like a brown bird or a blackbird, for example. People think that this is something that you know you have been lucky or you were not put a lot of effort to do that, but actually it's up to each individual person to define their standards and how they want to progress both in their career and their journey. And what I mean by that is that, as I said at the beginning, I moved to UK from Greece because I was trying to have a better quality of life so I can give more from my skills and from my mentality to other people in the community, and the same at the same time I would like to benefit from my career progression as well. When I came to UK, I came with my expectations. I wouldn't say low, but I would say I had a realistic expectations, okay? From someone moving one country to another, you are not, I was not expecting me to be a director in an overnight or someone who is like an executive leader for one night. So, what does it mean? Is that I have to start it from from scratch, from the baseline, and then I have to do appropriate, let's say, steps in order to go where I was meant to go or what I would I think I need to go. Okay. So I when I moved to UK, my first goal was to have a steady income for me to pay my expense because I have no support from anyone, me and my wife, and um this is something I didn't want as well, someone to support me because I think everyone is capable of doing their own stuff by themselves. Yes, some support is always welcome, but actually it's yourself who is your ultimate responsible for your life. Okay. So I started in a warehouse, just picking boxes and putting them like a big warehouse for clothes. I was managing boxes, and then I was, you know, distributing them with a scanner to like a belt, and those get delivered to the customers. So that was my first job. Although I had both my degrees at that time, but I wanted to start from scratch because I wanted to blend the community and the society of UK because it's totally different, Greece and UK in terms of culture. Okay. So after that, I was trying to make small improvements and small steps towards where I want to go. And I was trying to find uh a job in the more professional, I would say, corporate world that is more aligned to what I have been studying in the past five, six years and also where I want to progress. So I found a role as a leakage. Um I was detecting leaks, water leaks in the pipes as an analyst. I was doing a test of analysis, and that meant I have to relocate from where I used to live from a uh city called Leeds to London because I have to find this opportunity. I want it to be fruitful for me. So I moved from one place to another after 10, 11 months from me being in the UK. So then I started, you know, to understand, you know, how the corporate language is is um is doing and also uh how my mentality needs to be shifted in order for me to do this one. After I did this role, I was trying to find a role to a more I would say formal water company, and my next role with a company called Thames Water, which is equivalent with Portsmouth Water. But as I said, in UK, there are a lot of different water companies depending on the area that they are covering UK. So you can get you can get to move between the water companies a lot if you are in that space. So my steps were very steady, and um I was trying to do it, not rushing, but I was trying to do it steady. So I was using the you know the quote that we're using to submission, sorry, a position before submission.

SPEAKER_02 16:19

You're not gonna believe it. I just wrote that down right here as a great example of submission, a position before submission right in my notes, right as you said it.

SPEAKER_00 16:29

So brilliant and connection. Just for the audience, that was not scripted as well.

SPEAKER_02 16:36

That was not, no. That is funny how we're on the same wavelength though.

SPEAKER_00 16:40

Yeah, and what I mean by that is that uh in order for me to find my next position, I had to stabilize myself and make it sure that I understand my level and where I want to be and make appropriate steps to the next level. So my career was was not linear. I have up and down all the time, like a lot of people they do. And until now, I was trying to always improve myself in terms of where I want to be and um actually how I want to be and where I want to progress in my life. So for me, as I said at the beginning, for the moment there are a lot of people doing project management worldwide, and they do different skill sets. And my current role involves a lot of communication with different people, with different stakeholders, they call them. So you have to have a lot of conflict management and stakeholder management so you communicate properly. This has helped me from me being able to teach jujitsu at the current gym that I'm doing. So being able to understand the process and be able to explain to the people what exactly needs to be done and how it needs to be done. It's very helpful for me. Also, you need to be very good with your prioritization skills and management uh managerial skills in terms of what exactly do we need to do by when and how. So you need to have this organized coordination of roles and coordination of activities among different people, which again, jujitsu has given me those principles to me, and all of those are very, you know. Um I'm I'm very glad that I have those from jujitsu. And I will stop.

SPEAKER_02 18:06

Just quick, I I didn't know if I caught that. Do you also teach jiu-jitsu? Do you teach that in your life?

SPEAKER_00 18:12

I also teach jujitsu in my current academy, which my current academy is under. So my coach is Jack Magee, and the academy called Matt Hatters Asylum, and he is a black belt under Roberto Correa, or they call it Gordo as a nickname. Gordo? Gordo, correct. He is a coral belt and he knows he knows his stuff. He knows a lot of stuff. So yeah, um I'm I'm very privileged to be able to do that in the to the new people uh coming to the jujitsu and they they want to understand, you know, how jujitsu works, etc. So I will stop there about my career progress, and if you have any questions about that or you want to expand that, and then I suspect what I can do is depending on the next steps, I have like a mini methodology that I use in jujitsu, that I use in my life as well for career progression, and how actually I think a lot of people can benefit from that.

SPEAKER_01 19:11

That we're we're really interested in hearing your methodology. Um that's a good that's a good word to use in explaining what you've done because you know I I'm as I'm listening to you talk about your transition from Greece to the UK and all of the adaptability that you needed to have to be able to position yourself in the right place and set yourself up for success. I lived in Japan for two years, and so I had a similar experience where I kind of had to empty my whole bucket and start over again, moving to a country where I did not speak the language and had to learn, learn Japanese to be able to get myself by. I had to, I started a business, uh English, English conversation school. So I I totally know and understand what it's like to have to adjust to a whole different culture as well. So there are challenges when you have to move to a different career, but then it's a whole nother level of challenge when you have to move your career and you and have to adapt to the culture as well.

unknown 20:17

Right.

SPEAKER_02 20:18

Right. It's actually called culture shock. You have to get over that initial culture shock. And when there's a language barrier, now there's not only a learning curve for whatever job you're doing, there's a learning curve for just communicating the basis. That is very, very challenging. Probably super healthy for your brain, right?

SPEAKER_01 20:37

Yeah, necessity is a virtue, right? I mean, you you you you're forced to do it. You have to, you have to live, right? So total immersion is is that is actually a good thing, you know?

SPEAKER_02 20:49

Yeah, so I would love to hear your your methodology for advancing in your career, your life, and in jiu-jitsu. So let's let's go right into that.

SPEAKER_00 20:59

Um I I said to Jason that um in the previous pre-interview, pre-podcast interview, I said to him that my life is currently fed from my jujitsu principles. So I have adjusted my life over the jiu-jitsu principles, and I will explain to that why that happened and when it happened. Because as you correctly said, moving from one country to another with a language barrier and with because a lot of people, when they go to a new country, if they find a job, they will be happy for the rest of their life, which is great. I'm not the person who will define how they want to live their life. A lot of people do, that's fine. But at the same time, I'm not greedy or I have a lot of ego or I am delusional what I want to do in my life. I want to do them properly. I don't want to jump. I want to make sure that I understand the principles so I can move. It's exactly the same like jujitsu. You cannot be a white belt and in two years, one year to be a black belt. If you understand the principles and the basics, then You cannot build up on those principles just to go up, okay? So from my jujitsu career so far and where I started my uh life in UK and where I am for the moment, I have created like a methodology, and it's almost like a pyramid, okay, with different layers. I will let you know what are my layers, and then on for that layers, I will expand to you more about how with real-time examples where that applies to my life in my jiu-jitsu, okay? So the baseline is you need to know that your next move. This is what I said to Jason. I said to him, you need to know your next move. What does it mean by that is basically let me give you the whole spectrum of the methodology and then I will go um for each example to give you. So the first, the baseline is you need to know your next move. Having said that, doesn't mean that you need to know what your next move is. You need to understand that you need to move. Okay? So that's that's you need to know your next move, that means you need to move. Okay? That's the first one. The second step in terms of the pyramid, it's you cannot compare yourself to what other people do. That's the principle that we use in jujitsu, and um that applies to myself as well, to everyday community. And some people say that is a little bit of cliche, but actually that works because if you stop comparing yourself, it's gonna feel so much better about you. You take the pressure out of your chest and your family and your individuals. That's a number two. Number three, it's you need to be consistent on your approach. So when you be consistent, you need to put the same effort, the same amount of time, you understand exactly what you need to do, and then you need to do that for a long of for a long time. And that is a little bit of um controversial with the current society and the current generations because they want everything to be done instantly. And I think we had the conversation, Jason, uh, in the pre-interview that everyone wants to be instantly something. So uh from deliveries, from relationships, for career progressions, for jujitsu journey, everything. Because everything is so accessible and so easy to for people to do, but they want everything fast, right? So we've got number three, which is be consistent, correct? So the next one that I used to do, it's I need to be everyone needs to be honest with themselves. If you are not honest with yourself, you cannot make the right decisions, or you think that you are making the wrong decisions, but actually you are not seeing the real the realistic results or the appropriate, you know, real words if you are not honest with yourself. And that applies to everything you do when you're applying for a job, when you do a technique in jujitsu, when you want to do a diet, but I'm gonna give you some examples later. Number four, we've got two more. I think the those two more are the most critical one. So the number, the next number, which is number five, is the three five. Though this is called the three T's. Things take time, right? And this is the the three T's, things take time, and for me it's very important because this is almost linked to don't compare yourself and be consistent and be honest with yourself. So all of those interconnect with each other. As I said, you need to put the time, you need to put the effort for you to see the results. If you're not putting the time and the effort, you cannot see the results. Okay, we talk about a lot in your podcast. The other day I was hearing someone talking about the marginal gain and one percent uh improvement every day. Okay, but the question is how do you how do you measure the 1% improvement every day? You measure that, you can measure that. You can, but you can measure that over a course of a period. You cannot measure that every day. Right, right.

SPEAKER_02 25:44

But if you can't measure it over, yes, not one day, but over a period. It's time, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:49

Correct. Another example, if you go to the gym, okay, and then you do bench press, are you going to see results? No, the same day. If you do that second time, no, third time, fourth time, fifth time, etc., you won't see that from one day to another because that's called marginal gain. But if you if you pause and reflect back after six months, you will see your improvement, especially with jujitsu or your career. You know, I am a project manager, I don't see my improvement every day. But if I look back six years, I will see that, or two years or six months, or whatever. Exactly the same with the jujitsu belts. If you are a purple belt, your technique doesn't work and you say, you know, I'm not good, etc. If you look back two years, three years, you have been a white belt, but now you are a purple. So the everyday marginal gain gave you that time, your progression. And the last one, the most important thing that gets me into bed every night and I sleep peacefully, and I think that a lot of people need to understand that is in life, you don't you don't get what you want, you get what you deserve. You don't get what you want, you get what you deserve. And that means that if all of those before are very applicable, then you will be rewarded. It doesn't mean that you will be rewarded when you want that, but if you put the time, the effort, the consistency, be honest with yourself, then at some point you will be rewarded. Because you deserve that. But if the pre pre pre-requirements are not there, you won't deserve to get a promotion. You won't deserve to get a new belt, you won't deserve to do it because you haven't the other stuff. And again, this is my personal methodology that I use for the moment, which has helped me progress through my career, my life, and my jujitsu journey. Okay? And um, yeah, that's my six-steps methodology that I use in life as well.

SPEAKER_01 27:35

The six-step methodology to success in your career utilizing the principles of jujitsu.

SPEAKER_02 27:42

This is this is I'm gonna let you know that I'm a high school teacher and every day I start my day with a quote or a motivation for my kids, for my students, that I know is gonna help them. If they just take it and put it in their pocket and believe it, I know it's gonna help them. I'm going to post this interview on my school brains for all of my kids to see and make it a required listening because you have tapped into in those six steps so many of the universal truths that I've read from the top-level people, all wrapped up in one beautiful. You what you really did is you took wisdom from different components, different people, Shakespeare, everything, and you put it together in a puzzle that makes a beautiful scene. Because putting them in those steps, I have not seen that done, where you have the pyramid. It's kind of like Maslow's hierarchy of needs. You kind of made Sakas' hierarchy of success. And this is going to be part of my teaching. I'm going to make this on a computer and I'm going to teach it along with Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

SPEAKER_00 28:56

Yeah, that that's going to be. I don't want to be famous. I just want the people listening to the podcast just to be supported and be helped by this podcast and what you are exactly doing, because I don't want to become famous. I don't know to become someone that can support other people because I have been through that process. I know that it's very frustrating. And I understand that all it takes is your mindset to change, nothing else. If you change your mindset and if you apply those principles that I think they work, you will be so much better, I think, and you will be benefited. But having said that, there are some as well, some small principles that apply to that methodology, the stick steps. The first one is there is no ego, there is no, you are not delusional about what you want to do. You are not expected to apply that methodology when you are a white belt to become a brown belt or a black belt in a night, or when you are an employee to become a head of department or director in a in a month. That's delusional, and that's ego. And also, you need to be humble as well, just to understand that you are not the only person in the universe, you are the owner of your life, so no one's gonna arrest you.

SPEAKER_01 30:08

And that's I just I just want to elaborate on what you're saying here for our listeners, because what I love about jujitsu, one of the one of the top things that I love about jujitsu is how universal the principles of jujitsu are. You know, in our society here in in the United States, we live in a society where there's just immediate satisfaction for people all the time. And there's no sense, well, I shouldn't say there's no sense, but there's a lack of sense of delayed gratification. We we don't need to have something achieved immediately. You can slowly work towards something and make progress and and celebrate small successes as you go. Correct. And hearing you talk about this all the way in Europe, and somebody who grew up in Greece, you know, it's completely across the world from us, Frank. Yet the principles of jiu-jitsu are the same. Universal.

SPEAKER_02 31:08

Absolutely universal.

SPEAKER_00 31:09

Universal. And that's true. And that's true, and that's the beauty of this sport, which a lot of people don't understand that if they haven't been to the sport, uh, at the same time, it's it's very good for people to get to know jujitsu better because I think that they will benefit them lives. If you if I want to give you some examples about that methodology, just to see how how practical that is in life. So the first one, which is uh know your next move. I almost had an epiphany one day. Uh I think I was pepperbelt by the time. And um I was I think I was doing a competition. I don't remember if it's competitive was a competition or if it was a training session, and then someone pinned me down from a side control, pinned me down, and then they hold me there for at least two, three minutes. So technically for the whole of the of the of the competition. I was very frustrated, I was very angry, uh, I couldn't get out of that. You know, I was expecting him to do a mistake for me to get out. And then on the the next day on the training, I said to my to my coach, I said to him, like, I wasn't sure what to do. I was expecting him to do a mistake. And he said to me, Yes, you're right, but at your level, where you are now as a purple belt and as you want to move forward in the your career journey, you need to know your next move. And I said to him, What does it mean? I have no idea what you say. How do I should know your next move? And he said to me, it's very simple. You don't have to overcomplicate that. Are you in a bad position? I said, Yes. Then you need to find a way to get out. Understanding that you need to get out of that position, it's your next move. Now, if you do the appropriate technique, depending on his move as well and what he's doing, then you can get out. But you need to understand that he is not, you're not expecting him to do a mistake for you to get out. Yes, maybe that happens, but it's for you to drive that escape from that position because you need to own the next move. Okay, that's not easy for someone who white or as a white and a blue belt. We technically get taught to, I wouldn't say suffer just to maintain a position because we don't know what to do. But as you as you go through purple, brown, and black belt, then you own your game to other people. So you get to get the choices of your next move, your next escape, your transition from one move to another. So you technically need to know your next move. And that applies to uh, and I use this principle when I was working for a company that wasn't very happy by the time. I was very stressed, very uh, I would say a little bit anxious. Now with the weather in the UK, especially in the winter, you get a little bit of uh um um seasonal disorder, they call it, some stress in especially in the winter from the daylight. Um I was sitting one day and I think I was thinking, I don't know what to do. I was expecting someone to rescue me and say to me, Sakis, this is the position you need to apply. Apply for that and you will get a job. But guess what? No one does it for you because everyone is scared for themselves, which is great. So what I had to do, I had to understand that because I wasn't happy there, someone has pinned me down, I need to move. I need to move to an ex role, I need to move to a new company, I need to move to a different uh team or whatever it was. But for me, being there and happy, it's exactly the same principle that someone has pinned me down, but I need to understand that I need to move. So that's why I say you need to know your next move. When you're in a difficult position, understanding that you have options, it's your next move.

SPEAKER_01 34:31

Yeah, identifying it and then having having a strategy too, right? Correct. It's good to know that know that you need to move, but also that does build the mindset, knowing that you have to make the move allows you to have the mindset to stop and think of a strategy on what your next move is going to be and how you're going to do it.

SPEAKER_00 34:50

Correct.

SPEAKER_01 34:50

Yeah, very very good input right there.

SPEAKER_00 34:53

That's that's a thing I think that applies to a lot of people. That a lot of people, where they are, they think that this is where I want to be in 10 years, 15 years, which is great. And how do you actually make sure that you know your next step? Because the small steps are the steps that will get you where you want to be. Okay. So if you break down your, it's exactly like my my uh current role as a project manager. If you have a big project that you need to manage and you break it down into more tangible small chunks, then you can easily manage them instead of having to manage um the whole of the project. Okay. So that's why I said to you, yes, I need to escape, I need to submit the other person. For in order to do for in order for this to be to happen, I need to actually get out of the position, move to a different position, uh, position before submission and all the way. And the same with my career. I need to move from my current role, I need to um upskill myself, I need to talk to people, and then I will need to move to the new one.

SPEAKER_02 35:50

You know, that's something that Jason always says in class, and a lot of us do this by accident. We know we're not supposed to, but especially when we grapple with somebody who is at a higher level than us and we get an opening, Jason says, You get so excited, you jump three steps because you saw an opening, and what you're forgetting is, okay, so you got their ankles, but now you have to control their knees. Now that you have their knees, now you can kind of control their hips. Now that you have their hips, you can move up, control their shoulders, and then start going for your and he says a lot of times when you're rolling with somebody who you're just excited, hey, I got I got out, I got an opening, and you you dive in all the way to the top. He's like, you're climbing a tree. You can't skip your steps. You have to know the next step. Good for you. You got out and you got their ankles. Don't just jump on top of them. Now you have to get their knees, then their legs, then their hips, and then then you can move up to their shoulders and go for your choke, right?

SPEAKER_01 36:50

It's the funny, funny example of that, Frank. The other night, and we like to talk about Juan and Vlad. We always there's a few people we always talk about.

SPEAKER_02 36:59

Juan and Vlad are famous because they're so beasts.

SPEAKER_01 37:02

So a perfect example of that is the other night Juan was trying to pass Vlad's guard, and Vlad put his knee up, and uh Juan just tried to kind of jump over his knees, and he literally jumped and drove his groin, his testicles, literally right into Vlad's knee and was like curled up in the corner. And that's a perfect example of don't rush it, you know, don't just try to jump past his guard, man. You gotta like get the right grips, you gotta control the right joints and start pressuring before you go and just try to jump over somebody's knees. So that's a great example of that, right there.

SPEAKER_02 37:39

Awesome example.

SPEAKER_00 37:40

Yeah. So that's the reality. So that's that's one of the examples that I use for the first step. So if I go forward for the next steps, um, and I give you a couple of other examples if you want. The next one is do not compare yourself, which I think it's obvious. This is the first principle we taught in jujitsu that it's not possible for people to compare themselves to other people, what they do, because um it's it's it's unfair for someone who is a white belt to um compare themselves with someone who is blue belt, purple belt, brown belt. Because what they do is that we were very hard on ourselves, and this is not great. You have your own life, you have your own um um career jujitsu um journey, or you have your own journey in life generally speaking, and this is what you need to focus, okay. Myself, for example, I am a brown belt for the moment, I'm 35 years old. There is another brown belt who is 30 years old, okay? So I cannot compare myself to him because yes, he might be more athletic than me, um, or maybe he has uh more time to train, and other people are brown belts which are 50 years old, 55 years old, 45 years old, and it's not appropriate to compare because everyone has different journeys. Someone started earlier because where they're coming from, Jiu Jitsu was more, I would say, transport. Someone else started by accident, someone else started later. So there are a lot of different aspects in life that they would do. And also, you need to compare. The only person you can compare yourself is your own self. There is nothing else. So everyone that does jujitsu knows that. And exactly the same with your career. If I am a project manager for the moment, I cannot compare with myself with someone who is a head of department or a director and executive, or other people in the same age as me that are in better positions, better position types of the career hierarchy, uh, because they started on a different uh timescale. They had more support than me, maybe. They had a better university pet degree and they attended different universities than me. They didn't have to uh move their country, so they started from merely in the same country. So it's unfair for me to compare myself to other people because everyone has different standards, different um baseline where they start. So that's the principle, okay? And everyone knows that. And I think for the next step, I would say number three and number four, which is be honest to yourself and be consistent, those go together and that applies to everything. So if you are doing jujitsu for a long time, you know that consistency beats intensity every single time. Okay? If you go hard one time to a training, it doesn't mean you're getting better. But if you be consistent over the course of six months, yes, you are better for that. And it's the same principle, like let's take a scenario, okay? Someone starts to do a diet today and they want to lose some weight. If they are not consistent, they won't be able to achieve that goal. Yes, maybe they will try some stuff which I don't like, like um, you know, thermal burns and other principle and other supplements, but if they are not consistent with the diet, they won't achieve anything. The same with your career. If you want to get to a position that you think it's good for you as your next move, if you are not consistently applying for roles for that position in different companies, maybe, because you don't you don't have to work only one company or in one sorry uh discipline like water, aviation, consultancy engineering, you can you can do the same job in different uh areas, you're never gonna achieve that. And that's very important because when I came to UK, I started, as I said, to work as in a warehouse, um I was picking boxes. So, in order for me to apply to find my first position, I had to be consistent. And if I give you an example, I was waking up at five o'clock in the morning, half past five to half past five, and I was applying for at least 20, 30 positions every single day, regardless of the industry, because I was told that this is how the algorithm works in terms of your profile visibility in that platform. Okay, so I didn't have any networking, I didn't have any connections, I didn't have someone to do that. So I had to be consistent and every single day to apply for a position no matter what, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, for the same, and then you need to apply that for a course of period, so you need to be consistent. It's exactly the same with jujitsu your jujitsu. You need to train three times per week, let's say, over the course of six months for you to get a progression. If you are not really consistent, you won't get any benefits. And then this is where the other part, be honest with yourself, kicks in, and then you use it as an audit and say, okay, am I consistent? Yes. Okay, I'm honest with myself. Do I get the results? No. Why I don't get the results? Because I don't put the time. So I'm not honest with myself. I have to say, I'm not consistent, so I need to change my approach. So those are some back and forth steps in order to understand that what you do works for you and what you do doesn't work. So if you are consistent to be honest with yourself, be honest with yourself, it's very difficult for a lot of people to do that because we we as humans have a lot of ego and we don't want to say to ourselves we are not honest. We expect someone else to say, you're not doing that right, and they try to uh help us escape, which is not gonna be the case. So those are some examples and I use for that methodology, and almost what I do is that like a scent check. So the first step is you need to know your next move. Okay, green, tick, next move. Um, do not compare yourself. Tick. Next move. Uh be consistent. Am I consistent? I think I am. Tick. Let's move on. Am I honest with myself? I'm not sure because I'm not consistent or because I compare myself to other people, or because I don't know what to do. So I need to go down one step and then change my approach in order for me to progress. And when I am honest with myself, the two top steps are there. Things take time, you get what you deserve, not what you want. The two steps, if you do the rest of those, the two final steps will be always there. But you need to be patient.

SPEAKER_01 44:10

I feel like you have a diagram in your head.

SPEAKER_02 44:12

Yeah, I just wrote, I've just I just wrote, constructed like a true engineer. Yeah, yeah. You've constructed your methodology like a true engineer. You are who you are.

SPEAKER_01 44:26

Yeah. Yeah, this has been amazing, Sakis. I it's already, we're already towards the end of the podcast. Um and it just flew. It has flown by because of so much great insight you've given our listeners. So we really appreciate all of this insight, Sakis. And breaking it down the way you did, you know, by steps is um, I think a unique way for our listeners to hear it. So that's awesome. So what time is it, Frank?

SPEAKER_02 44:54

It's your favorite time of the program. Tap out time, raise the roof, they're raise the roof, where we wrap up some of the golden nuggets of our conversation. Sakis has given us so many great things to think about and really laid them out so pristinely. So I'm gonna just review some of the things that really uh stuck with me. So, first of all, I just want to reiterate this is gonna go on my Google classroom for my kids because you're speaking the same language that I try to speak to my students. What you're giving us is deep proven wisdom that is going to help everybody who attaches to even one of these principles. So, without further ado, let's start rolling into it. One of the things you said that I really liked was uh that adversity builds strong character. You have built strong character because you've decided what you wanted, where you were, you were in a not in a good position in in Greece because of the economy there. And you just said, listen, I'm gonna have to go somewhere else, even if I can't get my first choice. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it well. Uh, I also wanted to say to everybody out there so you're a confident guy, you're a smart guy, you're a strong guy, but even you, when you started jujitsu, thought, I'm gonna look silly. I'm gonna look silly when I walk in there. I don't want to look silly. That is everybody who tries anything new. And the point here is that don't worry about looking silly. Don't worry about it at all. If you're thinking about joining a jiu-jitsu gym, go in. Don't be intimidated. The people there are gonna be happy to see you, and they are not gonna beat you up in almost any jujitsu gym today. Right? You have to find one with a good culture. You find that you're gonna have your community, and it's gonna, like you said, it's gonna click. It clicked with you immediately. And when you feel that click, it's a great thing. Next, some of the things that I thought were very interesting in your approach to your career. You said it is not a race, which Jason always tells us, focus on the fundamentals. You don't have to do anything fancy. Fundamentals win fights, and fundamentals win careers as well. I love the fact that you think position before submission. You said, I'm just gonna get a steady income. I have to survive. I have to survive in England. I have no ego, I have this high degree, I'll take working in a warehouse, packing boxes, and managing your inventory. Ain't no thing but a chicken wing. I don't care. I'm just getting, I'm just jumping in there. Number two, once you're in there, you're like, okay, I can feed myself. Now, what's my incremental step? Not racing, what can I do next? Then you move to London just to like fix pipes with leaks and things like that, just to get into the water. So you're in the industry. Now you're in the industry. Again, it's like you got the the ankles, then you got the knees, now you're going for the hips. And then finally you went with Tames Water, which is a big company that does the stuff that you want to do, and then they you establish yourself, and now you're killing it. So, man, that is you were jujitsu in your career. This is like such a parallel to the fundamentals and applying it to your career. Then I like that you said my life is based on my BJJ principles. You gave us the sakis hierarchy of success. And some of the things you said, for example, your baseline, know your next move and don't be having ego. Make sure you remain humble. Jiu Jitsu practitioners come on our show has said, balance your ego out. You need to have confidence, but you must be humble. Number two, comparison reminds me of a great quote. Comparison is the thief of joy. Joy. Correct. And I would say it's also the enemy of progress. So I'm glad that you put that. And I want all my students to know that you don't have to be in accelerated or AP courses. You can be in a regular course, and you should still be proud of yourself for pushing your goals. Next, you said consistency. I think it was atomic habits that said consistency, consistency trumps talent every time. You don't have to be super athletic to be great at jujitsu, and you don't have to be a super genius to be great at your career. You just need to be consistent. You told us that things take time. I just read a book by Morgan Housel on building wealth, and he said the exact same thing on how to build wealth. And that is exactly how Warren Buffett built his empire with the philosophy that things take time. I'm not out for the quick grab. I'm not out for the quick gain. Slow and steady is going to win my race. And I'm not going to argue with Warren Buffett. I think you're not either. And finally, six in life, you don't get what we you want, you get what you deserve. Bam. That is an example of if you look at where you are right now, don't point fingers. If you point fingers, three fingers are pointing back at you. You're where you are because that's what you've built for yourself. And once you realize that, you lose the victimization framework and you say, if three fingers are pointing towards me, I'm here because of my decision. So now what can I do to get out of it? I'm not blaming anybody. I'm understanding that my destiny is in my hands. This is overwhelmingly inspirational. And I know this is going on and on because you gave us so much stuff. And then I love that, Jason. I love that you talked about instant gratification is just a horrible thing. It stands in the way of your progress. It has to be delayed gratification, and your delayed gratification is what's going to get you a black belt one day. It's what's going to get you further in your career. It's going to what's going to make you a better parent, a better partner, a better everything. I mean, that's just a mic drop. That was such a great interview. And it was cogent.

SPEAKER_01 50:58

That was we our listeners got insight from a modern day Greek philosopher. That is it. The modern-day modern day Greek philosopher. Do you read Marcus Aurelius?

SPEAKER_02 51:10

It's in your blood. It's in your blood. He's got a live your living.

SPEAKER_00 51:15

I will tell you. I will tell you what. When I finished my degree, my first one, and then I did my other master's, I swear to myself, I'm not going to read anything else because I spent seven years of my life reading and going through examinations from my universities and said to me, I'm not going to do. I prefer to hear podcasts like yourself, which you are doing an amazing job and well done to you, but I'm not reading anything. So the only thing we need to add, Frank, on the methodology is next step which says be honest to yourself, because that's really important. Actually, you missed one of the steps.

SPEAKER_02 51:50

No, no, like wait, no, I have it in my notes, and I actually have a Shakespeare quote to back that. To thine own self be true. Shakespeare. He said it. So it must be true, right?

SPEAKER_00 52:01

Yeah. And it's it's it's great. It's it's great. And I think if you applaud those principles and do you actually understand what it means for everyone that will be beneficial for every single person, regardless of if they do jujitsu or if they want to delve into jujitsu or when to be beaten career, because it's such a powerful, at least for me, uh tool to use this methodology. And I'm hoping your audience will be benefit from this one. That's that's that's one of the reasons I'm here. I'm not here to to get fame or famous. It's more about supporting the community and if there is an opportunity in the future, you know, to have an additional podcast. Generally speaking, I'm more happy to be in cloud and then see if other people will benefit from that as well. So yeah, thank you very much, I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_02 52:47

Very, very humble. Not here to get famous, I'm here to help others. I wish I could be that high, but I am here for all the clout. But that is that is a very humble thing to say. We very much appreciate your time, your sincerity, sharing your story with us. Our listeners are going to drop lots of hearts for this. And to our listeners, to our listeners, if you have a kid in high school, they need to see this. Because this is a cool guy. He's a savage, he's somebody that kids could look up to and respect, and he's also a consummate, professional, and a humble human being. All the great things that you would want your kids to know. So I'm gonna make sure my students watch this. If you have any children for our listeners, please send this to your kids and let them listen to this and learn from this.

SPEAKER_01 53:37

Yeah, I mean, his great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather is Plato.

SPEAKER_02 53:42

Absolutely. You have that in your blood. You have that in your blood. Just like the Brazilians who come into our school already are like startup bluebelts.

SPEAKER_00 53:51

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 53:52

You have that in your blood, man.

SPEAKER_01 53:54

You definitely do. Well, thank you so much, Sakis. Our call to action, like Frank said, is um let's get this pod, let's get this episode out to people because you know, anybody who knows Sakis in the UK, people that you grew up with, Sakis. Um, I'm sure that people that you started doing jujitsu with in Athens, you know, share this with them too. Have them share it with their friends. Um let's make your podcast go viral in Greece and the UK.

SPEAKER_02 54:19

Yes, making a better world, making a better world, one role at a time.

SPEAKER_00 54:25

That's correct. That's the most important fact. We need to have our society a little bit to shift from the, as you said, the instant gratification and to actually have someone with their examples and their experience as uh I would say um a role model, because nowadays, if you open your Instagram, if you open your TikTok, if you open your YouTube, if you open your Facebook, whatever social platform you have, everything seems very um you know great or easy or um awesome, but actually you need the new generation need to have proper examples from people that have actually gone through that. And before we end up this show, what I would like to say is that I always try to get advice from people that have gone through a specific uh route in their life. So if I want to get an let's say an example or support from someone for something, I will ask the people who have gone through that route. So if I want to be a black belt, I'm gonna ask a black belt how they do that. If they ask, like a mentor, if they want if I want to become a director at some point, I will ask someone who has gone through that uh process, and I could ask what the drawbacks were, not how he succeeded, because the drawbacks is what we treat as optimal for growth.

SPEAKER_01 55:40

Right. Wow. Awesome. Thank you so much for your time, Sarkis.

SPEAKER_02 55:44

Yes, at least stay in touch with us, stay in touch with us.

SPEAKER_00 55:47

Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, uh, I don't have any problem. We have the LinkedIn, we can we can uh get changed as well, WhatsApp or other phones. I will have my email. I'm more than happy for for you guys. You are doing an amazing job, well done. You have a fantastic community. Yes, keep keep doing what you're doing.

SPEAKER_01 56:02

If you have any connections in Athens, Frank and I would love to take a trip to Greece. Yes. So definitely.

SPEAKER_00 56:10

I can I can I can be there for you. That's not a problem at all. I can move from UK to one point just by the day in Greece. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 56:18

Great. All right, my friend. Thank you, Zargus. Have a great day. Let's enjoy the day. Bye. Bye. Bye-bye. Well, there you have it. We wrap up today's episode. Let's take a moment to reflect on the powerful connection.