#246 Hacking our loop of thoughts, thinking in terms of short, medium and long-term goals, and choosing to put yourself first, with Katie Chonacas.

___

EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION

___

Please note that while an effort is made to provide an accurate transcription, errors and omissions may be present. No part of this transcription can be referenced or reproduced without permission.

___

Katie Chonakas  0:00  
We need to take the action to be interested and create space of time and energy, instead of watching a TV for two hours, how about try listening for two hours even if it's hard for you to read, listen, when we apply listening, we're creating new synapses or new things that can fire and wire that can take away the the old patterns right? It's it's get the shape shift, so that we get to create what we want internally first.

Agi Keramidas  0:37  
You are listening to personal development mastery podcast where you will find inspirational conversations and actionable takeaways to master yourself and improve your life. I am your host Agi Keramidas, and my mission is to inspire you to grow, stand out and take action towards a purposeful and fulfilling life. In this podcast, I invite myself inside the minds of successful entrepreneurs, authors, spiritual teachers, thought leaders, people who share their journey milestones and failures for you to be inspired to grow. In each episode, you will find actionable takeaways that you can implement right now, so make sure you follow the podcast to get them as soon as they are released. I remind my regular listeners here that for a short while the podcast will have one episode a week rather than two.

Agi Keramidas  1:38  
In today's show, I'm delighted to speak with Katie Chonacas also known as Kyriaki. Katie, you are a multidisciplinary artist who utilises her voice to inspire change and transformation in people who want to make an impact in the world. As an actress, you have over two decades of experience in the Hollywood entertainment industry, having worked with many of the major at least actors, you are also a musician, author, poet, podcast host, an environmental activist and a women's empowerment coach, passionate about inspiring change and transformation. Katie, welcome to the show. I'm delighted to speak with you today.

Katie Chonakas  2:21  
Agi thank you so much for having me I'm so grateful. Thank you. Yay, let's go.

Agi Keramidas  2:25  
It's great that we both have the Greek roots, which is we were talking about that just before we started recording.

Katie Chonakas  2:34  
It's so important like the our roots is it's everything our roots, where we come from, it's such an honour to be culture to be Greek and to know our name and where we come from and how we're connected. It's just it's very empowering.

Agi Keramidas  2:47  
Absolutely. And even though we do not live in the country that the we are from there is a believer, always this what you say there's such a more deep level of, you know, being Greek in a sense, so whatever that entails. But

Katie Chonakas  3:08  
so my my my day, yeah, I have a short story. My Yahoo is going to be 93 September 7, okay, she she is who I'm named after. And I go to I go to Greece, I say, What can I bring you? What can I bring you because she has everything she seen it all. She says Home ma home, ah, when I went, you know, the dirt the land, I literally bring, I bring her literally dirt in a bottle back because the roots of the land. That's that's what's so important. And I asked her, like, what's the most important and she says the home the land where you're from respect the land and the family. That's that. So that's some ancient wisdom right there.

Agi Keramidas  3:55  
Absolutely. Absolutely. Katie, I always like to start these conversations by giving a little bit of background apart from that very brief into the introduction that I gave of you. So I would like to ask you to share with us in your journey, maybe a key defining moment, some milestone, specifically, maybe in terms of personal development, and do you want to take us there and describe that milestone for you? Whatever comes up.

Katie Chonakas  4:26  
Yeah, it could go in so many different directions, I guess. I guess to my, you know, earlier roots of self development would be when I was 14, I wanted to be a motivational speaker. And I knew what I knew, and I wanted to share that with others. I had everything planned out. I was going to put a local ad in the paper. I was going to have a two day conference room. You know, at a nearby hotel. I was going to cater lunch like the details of it. I was going to or have people go out to lunch at And then I had it all figured out. And as an entrepreneur, and then I stopped myself from myself, I thought it was the imposter syndrome, the perfectionist syndrome, who's going to listen to a young 14 year old girl who was an of the world. So I took myself around the world, I got myself so much experience in life. And that's how I created like, she's all over the place podcast, one, one of the reasons why, but after going, doing that whole experience for two decades, while still enriching and inspiring people during the Great reset when I had a lot of time to soak for myself to take out, and I was growing through this journey, and I was really facing things that were holding me back and certain identities that I, that people labelled me as, or I labelled myself as I put myself as, so I was able to look at those reflect and dismantle those things, and see that I could have done what I wanted to do. The only one that stopped me was me, I was the only one that stopped myself. And there's no going back. But it's like, what if I would have taken that path? What if I was a child prodigy, like I just I won't know when I can't like sulk in it or anything. But I can just be aware of the imposter syndrome and how I made excuses for myself. And then take that and apply that principle to other areas of my life, and enrich and inspire others to take a look in and say, Hey, how long have you been wanting to do this thing that's ruminating in your head now? Two decades, three decades, for decades, five years, one year, six months. So now, I'll check in with myself if I want to release music. Or if I want to get on a TV show. I'm like, How long have I been wanting to do this? What actionable steps am I actually doing? And what is the projected date for when this is going to happen? Oh my gosh, it's been six months. Oh, my God has been two and a half years. But it's a thing I said I wanted to do. But it's not happening now. So what can I do to dismantle whatever I need to dismantle? What energetic things can I pivot and shift to actually apply and hack to make that a reality? instead of it just living in my head?

Agi Keramidas  7:19  
Thank you, you. You mentioned quite a lot in in that and the the imposter syndrome, you said that I believe many if not everyone can relate to that when you and you you were saying you done all the preparation or and everything was ready. But the the thoughts of who's going to listen to me or who am I to speak to these people it is very, very common and what you were saying also about, you know realising looking back and realising that it's been a long amount of time when we want to do something, and we kind of put it off postpone it for any reasons, we have, unfortunately, the the illusion that we have all the time in the world. Whereas we really don't. And it's only in moments of reflection like this, when you look back, especially when you have written goals and things like that, which really help you look and say, Oh my God, this has been I've been wanting to do that for such a long time. And I haven't and so what's what's your advice to someone who will listening to us right now and saying exactly this? Oh, my God, I've been thinking of X and they haven't done it

Katie Chonakas  8:33  
yet. Yeah, if someone's complacent, and they think they have all this time, we're just in a spiral, we're just in a loop going over and over again. So Dr. Joe Dispenza says we have 60 to 70,000 thoughts per day, and 90% of those thoughts have the same thoughts. And we're firing and wiring the same thoughts and the same patterns over and over again. So we're just staying stagnant in an area. However, when we hack and we apply, and we change the thought, we shift the energy, we change the pattern, we hack it, then we get out of this vicious loop that we don't want to be in. And so that's a way to hack out of it. And it's difficult because we're screaming and crying and yearning for our parents and our partners to understand us help us to get out of this quicksand. But it's not for them to do it. They're stuck in their own stuff. Like most people are stuck in their own stuff. And even if they want to help you like it's, it's we can create some space for people if we can, if we know how to create space for ourselves. But most people don't know how to create space for ourselves, let alone create space for another person. All those others. Some people are people pleasers, and then they do create space for other people. They do things for other people, but then they don't know how to do it for themselves because they want someone else to do it for them. Because we're doing it for other people. The thing that we do to other people, it's because it's what we want most of like I give so much is love and so much kindness and so much compassion. And it's a practice. It's like because that in turn, that's all I want for me from from people to give me an opportunity to hold space for me to keep my beacon of light shining. So I like to share inspiration and make sure other people's beacon of light are shining. So that's a really important thing to do. And it's those micro choices every single day, that make up the macro.

Agi Keramidas  10:29  
That's great. And I will repeat that, in my own words, what you just said about the micro choices and you said about the loop of thoughts that we as many of us seem to remember throughout the day and find a way to hack out of it because that will immediately give us new thoughts, new ideas, new actions, hopefully new new habits, new behaviours.

Katie Chonakas  10:52  
Yeah, well, everyone. Oh, sorry. One thing is like Nicole Kidman JLo. Will Smith like anyone you can think of on screen actors, voiceover talent, dances, Olympians, sports athlete. I grew up running cross country. It's my boss, my dad, he ran cross country turned me on to cross country running short term, medium term, long term goals. Like, I have coaches for everything that I do. I have consultants and coaches. We need because we're emotional beings. We're primal, emotional beings, we're going to be up, we're going to be down. We need people, if we have a healthy system within our family cool, but we also need people outside of our actual family, to you know, be rooting for us on the sidelines and cheering us and watching us go. So we need to all have coaches, you know, whether it's like if you can financially afford a coach, and then if you can't, Caroline mice, mi SS, Abraham Hicks, all on YouTube, Paul check Dr. Joe Dispenza. Dr. Gregg Braden like Dr. Gabor Ma Tei. Like, let these people who are the voices who are on YouTube who a podcast is be the guiding light to be your best friend to get you to where you want to go, Gary Vaynerchuk. Like, I mean, depending on what you're into in life, like I'm really been to mental health, neuroscience, crypto, NF T's acting, like show up to these things. There's so many things that are free nowadays, you know, so it's like, we need to take the action to be interested and create space of time and energy. Instead of watching a TV for two hours. How about try listening for two hours, even if it's hard for you to read? Listen, when we apply listening, we're creating new synapses and new things that can fire and wire that can take away the the old patterns, right? It's it's it's the shape shift. It's where we get to create what we want, internally first.

Agi Keramidas  12:48  
Absolutely. And you mentioned about the heaven coaches or people that are outside that gives you an a perspective that is more objective, because we eat no matter how good we are, or we think we are in whatever we do, will have blind spots. And it's impossible by definition to see what the blind spots are. So these people, the coach is either working with him directly or indirectly, by gaining the wisdom through the videos through the online courses, whatever it is, there is an abundance of knowledge of wisdom of information, all that's left to do for someone is exactly what you said to instead of watching two hours of Netflix or TV or whatever it is to learn to feed the mind with something that is empowering with something that will make a difference in their life and in the lives of the people around them.

Katie Chonakas  13:44  
And a lot of the people who are seeking out there who are desperately yearning and wanting to know and soaking up this podcast, a lot of times, it's not like a major shift. Sometimes it could just be a subtle shift to the left or to the right. You know, look, we're so hard on ourselves. We blame ourselves, we shame ourselves. We blame other people, we judge other people we judge ourselves, lean in and be curious, be kind, comfort hug, like that thing that's happening. You know, like, it's okay, I missed the mark. It's okay, I'm gonna try it again. It's okay, let's go get some ice cream, just gentle, gentle. It's, and that's why the coaches are there because listen to my voice, like I do voiceovers, I've auditioned for so many things. I've worked on projects, but my coach, which is outside of my emotions outside of me, it has a different perspective that can subtly shift me to the left or to the right a little it's just that subtle shift to align. So it's not forced and so it's more authentic or organic. So it's, it's that not changing who you are, you know, unless you want to completely but it's those subtle shifts because we're made up of such greatness in life.

Agi Keramidas  14:52  
It's indeed subtle, very, very subtle and very one one millimetres over time will make A massive difference in the trajectory of let's say, a vehicle that goes one millimetre to the left over a while, it's going to be a massive change. There is Katie, something that I've read that you you talk about, and you discuss, and you used to think in terms of short, medium and long term goals. So I would like to ask you to elaborate a bit on this distinction between the goals and how that way of thinking has affected you. Maybe compared to someone else that told the goals are

Katie Chonakas  15:39  
equal? Short, great question. I find in life, a lot of times, people burn bridges, and they're so short sighted. And I think it's just one of my guests. It's like the psychology of, you know, our makeup, short term, medium term, long term goals. My dad was a cross country runner, he turned me on to cross country running. So what I did as a, as a, as an individual affected the whole, so I can cross country, in sports, you have an individual score, based on your run, and then you have a team score. So it's like what you do as an individual affects the whole. So I always have this theory of the ripple effect, right. And so like, if I'm smiling and adding a lot of value, and you're hearing it, you're gonna smile, what you're doing, and then the person tuning in, could hear it, and then pass that on to somebody else. And it's beautiful. But if I'm doing the opposite things, which I'm not going to say, because there's enough of it in the world. Other people are going to do that positive breeze positive, right? Hurt people hurt people, and I feel healers heal people, right, we can only heal ourselves. But if we have the space, and we're open to it, then you know, we can attune to only heal ourselves. But I just took that, at a very young age, the sports mentality of cross country running short term, medium term, long term goals, and I applied it to my workplace. So it's like, I'm in here for a career not I remember, when I was a teenager, I learned job just over broke, like, and then there's a career, you know, and like you and anyone tuning in, no one's gonna know who I am, at the gym core of who I am, with my makeup of what I want my intentions, my goals, even if I aligned people in so many different ways, we still have multi dimensional things that make us different. It's our own unique makeup. And so by staying in tune to self, by listening to my core, to listening to the ancient wisdom in myself, even if I say go left, and all 99 people are going right. But if I don't follow the herd, and I actually have the courage to take action, and follow my own lead, it's going to get me to where I intentionally want to go. And in good faith, we're protected. You know, in good faith, we're doing things with intentionality. You know, I think it's really important. So I've done that. And when I do that, there's this momentum, there's this momentum, and then there's energy that just magnifies and everyone's like, how do you do it? But when I was disconnected to this voice, to this inner ancient wisdom, to who I am and what I wanted to do, because I was people pleasing, and doing everything that everyone else wanted me to do, but I wanted to know what everyone else wanted me to do, jump, how high left for how long run, how fast because I did things my way. And I had that experience. So I wanted to go out into the world and I travelled the world, how do you be successful, what is success, and I went on this journey of success, to get to the shiny thing to get to this thing that I wanted within my heart, soul and mind, my ego, my vision, blah, blah, blah. So I did it my way. Then I did it other people's way. And then then I sat with myself and I'm like, wait a minute, and then it was a long journey to get to myself to my core to my voice. Because it was so drained. It was like I was I couldn't hear it because I was so confused. Because I heard so many other voices. I didn't know which one was mine. And I had to go on this journey. And I was so lost. And I thought, am I ever going to find it again. And I made myself Wait to my to myself again. And I got to my core and I I honoured myself and I said, Hey, I was brave and strong and I allowed you I made the choice to let you go. But I'm making the choice never to let you go again. I love you too much. And you're number one is the gift of why we're here as individuals. So what we want is number one, in a healthy way. You know, it's all about self care, self love, and if we really self care and take care of ourselves that We can really make an impact on this world for each other for our families and future generations.

Agi Keramidas  20:08  
That's great. You spoke about getting in your core or you use the you call it the inner ancient wisdom or that voice, which is the true inner voice among all the other voices, that you had the you mentioned the journey. And earlier on, you also spoke about dismantling some identities, which I don't know if that is or is not related. But my question is, in this journey of really discovering your inner truth, the core or the ancient wisdom, as you said, What would you say who is was one of the biggest catalysts or something that maybe someone else could see it? That method or path or person, I don't know what that might be? To direct them towards that finding? Or discovering, which is the true voice out of all the ones that would have inside their mind? I hope my question makes sense.

Katie Chonakas  21:15  
Yeah, no, it's a great, great, great question. It's the core. It's the root, it's, you know, it's different for everyone. So for me, I'm Greek. So I grew up with Socrates and Plato and Aristotle, I grew up with Greek mythology, I grew up with language and poetry. So I would, you know, go on a journey of being alone or feeling lonely and going through this stuff and being lost. So I would write, I would read poetry, I would read literature, I would be around cultured people. So I anything that makes you feel good, like and if you go to your circumstances, you're like, I don't want to remember my childhood. I don't want to remember my circumstances. But within what you don't want to remember, what are the things that are covered within that you can take off those layers, dismantle those things, that aren't you that you were born into those circumstances, it doesn't make you the identification of who you are, it leads you to what you don't want, and what you do want, but getting to the core of what makes us happy, what makes us feel good. So checking in with the body, the intelligence of our body, what makes us feel good, and ice cream, the water, toes in the sand, a coffee butterflies, nature, a cave, like being in the cold, like, like, whatever, like, what, since Sorlie makes us feel good. And when we start with where we actually want to be, and then we can see where we're going and what we're going to become right. And it's a daily practice, within every hour, within every 10 minutes, within every 15 minutes. However, we want to acutely aware, be aware and attune ourselves to the energetic vibration of what we're listening to for how long am I talking to a family member for two hours, but actually, I just want to talk to him for 15 minutes, but I don't want to hurt their feelings. But I'm not being authentic for with our my relationship with them. And I'm not being authentic with myself. And that applies to other areas in life. If we're doing it with our own family members, you know, then we're doing it with everyone else. And then I'm not giving people my best because I'm not giving myself my best. So a lot of people are are in authentic of who they are. Because they don't take time to discover who they are. And it's really important to know when you're on this journey and you want to take action, the or husband or spouse or family member, we can't let them know like, Hey, I talked to you for two hours, but I only want to actually talk to you for 15 minutes moving forward. Because it's gonna hurt their feelings, we're around each other, and we're going to feel unloved and we're around people to feel love, and they're going to take it personal, and they're gonna think it's because of them and then there's going to be a fight. So it needs to happen. And in any situation is if I'm talking to someone for two hours, but I don't want to talk to him that for that long, but I love them and I want to talk to them. But I just want to explore and try other things. I need to say, hey, like, I got to take a call, I got it in the bathroom, like just get out of the situation, pivot the attention somewhere else. So you have that time, right? If you add up though that time, you could be painting or

Katie Chonakas  24:26  
on YouTube or if you can do this with this person, if they're interested. Like if you want to be studying something or reading a book and they're interested, you could do it with this person cool. But we cannot not do what we want to do. Sacrificing what we want to do for another human being because we think we have to like it's not okay, it's their lives and they're going to survive. And actually, it's allowing space for them to be around people who actually want to be with them. You're actually being very selfish by capturing their attention, holding their attention. hostage and you don't really want to be there, because they could be around people who actually want to spend time with them. And if you're if your mind saying, Oh, no, they have nobody else, they have nobody else. Well, that's their lives and they can sit with themselves and figure that out. And you know, or, or be around it, nature will take its course. And if it's like, oh, well, you know, I can't afford for our nurse to take care of this person, I can't afford it, like it works out. First, you have to unhook yourself from the responsibility that you have to slave for this person. You know, that's, that's the first step. And it's the micro steps. It doesn't have to be so extreme, but it's allowing the process, it's acknowledging and knowing that you want to unhook from the principle of the thing you want to unhook from, and, you know, everyone's situation is different. And I can break it down. I'm very good at that. So I mean, I can coach people, I can talk with people, they can listen to my podcast, there are ways to just it's most people are enacting. It's storytelling, It's life and death. It's like very extreme. But actually, it's just a shot a subtle shift the quality of the choice to get other people to take on responsibility to help out because a lot of people feel alone, that we're doing it all by ourselves, or that we have to, and we're drowning ourselves out. We're disconnecting ourselves, because we don't know how to ask for help. And we don't know how to be authentic with other people, like I said, because we don't know how to actually be authentic with ourselves.

Agi Keramidas  26:28  
Absolutely. And the word of authenticity was coming into my mind while you were speaking, and it is exactly that and there is maybe a fine life line between being authentic of being tactful or being avoid in uncomfortable situations while being authentic. That is something that I really wanted to ask you about. Because you have worked in the entertainment industry, Hollywood, in particular. So you have been around people with who in most people's eyes, there's, you know, idolise their stars, they are put on pedestals. So I would like you to share with us some lessons or some traits that you have gained by being in proximity with these people, something that can maybe some someone can relate to and understand, based on the preference I gave earlier about the pedestals in the the idols and so on.

Katie Chonakas  27:38  
Yeah, I mean, the thing that comes up for me is comparison. So I feel like a lot of people will judge when they see within the first three seconds, we judge and then we compare this person's journey to my journey, this person's journey to this person's journey. And we comparisons is a death threat. So like comparison is going to get you nowhere fast. If you want to align and connect with this person and reach out because you admire what they're doing. And you see what they're doing. You want to connect with them cool. And if you have the courage to be a sovereign being and do that awesome. And if it doesn't work out, just be okay with that, like you did your best. But a lot of times, it's just a mere reflection. So if we're seeing something we like and honouring it like a beautiful flower, or like some delicious food, and we're like Yum, this is so delicious. This is so good. Or we see human being and we're like, Yo I love your dress, like your stylists who styling you like the choices you've made for your acting career, like I honour you, this is great, those are positive things that are gonna feed you that that are going to inspire you so many you can like look up to and probably be friend if you're in the same social circles, but to dishonour and to disconnect and to compare, and to judge and start, you know, doing tit for tat, it's just means you need more love. It means you need more self love, if you know if one is comparing themselves to another, if you're feeling bitter inside, a lot of friends, I know they're friends with a lot of people but they mute them and they just don't follow them because it doesn't make them feel good. A lot of times it makes you feel like if you're doing nothing it makes you feel like like you're worthless or like you're nothing or you're not doing anything, but the truth of the matter is we can't always be in the yacht and in the boat and flying high. A lot of times we need to hibernate and rest and repair and go you know on a sauna and disconnect from social media and disconnect from other humans so we can reconnect with ourselves in mother nature. So you know each moment has its season so you know in when you're doing glam world's on red carpets, and you know, I just all year my first red carpet was this just this week. I haven't been on the red carpet all week. You know, I used to be on red carpets like five times a week on the red carpet all the time. Well, I'm working my tush off right now to get back on a TV show. So that's my focus. And I'm going to have my moment where I'm going to be like on the red carpet non stop again. So this is a time I can rest to repair where I'm building and working. So there's a moment where you're, when you're baking a cake, you know that you have to, you have to work, you have to, you know, say I want to

Katie Chonakas  30:14  
make a cake, you have to go buy the ingredients, or make the ingredients or grow the ingredients from a garden. And then you have to, we get to cook those ingredients, and then, you know, then it has to, we're doing it, and then there's a baking process, and then there's the you know, has to cool down and then you can deliver it, you know, and everyone can enjoy it. So there's, there's a moment to every aspect. And a lot of times when I was a kid, I remember I was wanting to go from zero to hero, I would go zero all the way to 100. Right, I would be going zero and then flying around on private jets around the world. Like I bypass all this other stuff because I wanted to like you know, not jump through hoops I want to just to bypass that there's there's something called the journey of life. And there's a process to everything. And nature takes its course. And like Khalil Gibran, one of my favourite poets in the world, like I'm loving on joy and sorrow on love, like how can you know, the highest of the highest joy? If you haven't experienced the depths of sorrow? Like how low does one go? And in your darkest day, and then like, How can you say, Wow, this is like the brightest rainbow I've ever seen, unless you've witnessed some doll rainbows, and you've seen some rainbows. So you know, like, I love thunderstorms. And it's like, oh, this is a really good one. Because it's like, it's just when you hear the raindrops, and it's like, thundering and it's like very moody and I my emotions, I get a little scared sometimes. So it's like that, you know, it's like, we move like water. You know, nature takes its course not everything is, you know, what we see and perceive that it is sometimes you can see someone and you're thinking one thing, but you know something in their lives, that something could happen with like a lot of things that could have does where human beings, things happen. We all have stuff going on, when there's the compassion and kindness and understanding that everyone has something going on. And whatever you have going on, your energy could make match that same exact individual, they could feel your lowest of your low, they can know your highest of the high, whether we are unconscious or conscious or realise it or not, we all have it within us. Some of us choose to acknowledge it, know that it's there. And some of us remain unconscious, because we don't have the courage to look at it or we don't want to look at it. It's intimidating. But the longer we don't look at certain things, the more it festers and grows from within. So it's about hacking that it'd be friending it, befriending it, and growing along the journey and nipping and nipping it in the bud, like hacking it and nipping in the bud when it comes up. Because we're human, it's going to happen. It's human what's going to happen, but when it does, how do we respond to it? How do we nourish it? How are we curious with it? Instead of judging it dismantling it disempowering us and self inflicting what we don't want? Yeah, responding to it, instead of reacting to whatever it is.

Agi Keramidas  33:25  
JP, if you were to give to the listener right now, based on everything we've talked about one action of light and something they can pick up and implement. Immediately, what what would you tell him or her

Katie Chonakas  33:40  
one thing that people can take action on right away? I would say, you know, in life, the two biggest things, practising gratitude and practising patience. And I grew up, you know, as a child seeing Oprah. And when I saw this Oprah episode, it was on gratitude, I immediately got a journal, and I started writing gratitudes. And when I was a kid, they were very superficial. It was very, but it's very important. Like, look how many people don't have hair or eyes or beautiful skin. So I would say, I'm grateful for my mom and dad, so people don't have a mom and dad, I'm grateful for my eyes. I'm grateful for my hair. I'm grateful for my skin. And I was a kid, you know, but those things are important. Like I have arms, I have all my limbs. So I think practising gratitude is so so important. And I went through my journey, practising gratitude writing, gratitudes. Teaching my niece and nephew gratitudes What are three things you're grateful for? I'll go first. So let's make it interactive together, right? You don't have to do it by yourself. You can make an intro and then lead by example. So not only, you know, practice gratitude, but Jim quick says this. When you're learning and let's say I'm practising gratitude, it's awesome. I'm a student, I'm learning when I'm practising gratitude or whatever it is, and I'm teaching you or another individual And we're doing it together. I'm teaching but I get to learn twice, right? So, practising more people need to practice way more gratitude, multiple times per day. And then I went through the journey of Oh, like practising patience, which I'm still working on. And, you know, it's like a lifetime practice of practising patience. But how do we do that actionable steps to do that. But then within that, I realised, because I grew up as a teenager, doing so many gratitudes and thinking I was so in my mind and my spirit of my knowing and my being of knowing gratitude, I realised, oh, and people around closest to me, pointed it out. And I'm like, Oh, I practice gratitude. I thought I was a master of gratitude. But actually, I need to hack and call myself out. Because what I was once doing, I'm like, I've been actually lacking in the gratitude department. Like, I'm grateful, but I've been lacking. So I call myself out about it. And so I then I'm like, well, when's the last time I actually journal about gratitude? So then I got myself a new gratitude journal. And I started practising gratitude more, because I felt like my cup was overflowing because they've already did it. But then I didn't realise because I was running on old fumes, that actually my gratitude is probably pretty below the halfway point now, and I need to re up my gratitude. So like, I'm, I'm like, off to the races running, thinking I was good in that department. But I had to check in with myself. So make sure we check in with ourselves, like, not five times a year, like, you know, once a day, check in with ourselves, how are we doing? How are we feeling? Like check in? How are we feeling? How are we feeling before we can check in with other people and how they're feeling?

Agi Keramidas  36:48  
That's a great, it's a very, very useful piece of advice. Katie, thank you. And I'll make a quick comment here. When you're saying about patience that you still you know, PRAK practice in that you reminded me of there is that phrase that says patient is not patience is not just the ability to wait is how you behave. Why you wait. So it just says just came up as a you know, as a quote. I have some quickfire questions to wrap this conversation up. Katie, before I ask them, Where will you direct a listener who wants to find out more about you and discover more about Katy? Karaoke?

Katie Chonakas  37:35  
Sure. chinachem.com, my last name CHONAC, A S, ch, o n a cas.com. And also, she's all over the place podcast streaming everywhere. So we have almost 100 episodes that way, we just wrapped the finale of the women empowerment series.

Agi Keramidas  37:53  
And just some final quickfire questions, then, Kate, in the first one, I'm very curious to hear your answer. What does personal development mean to you?

Katie Chonakas  38:05  
Personal Development, to me is the journey and the experience of life. To understand why we are here is the biggest gift, we go into life. And we dismantle our own needs, based off of our circumstances, and what we've been told and conditioned by society, you're supposed to get a job, get married, have a family do this, do that. And I went on a journey with myself where I was celibate for seven years. And I wanted to travel the world and not be in a partnership. I didn't have a partner for nine years, because I wanted to experience what a partnership with myself, and why I why this gift was given to me. Because if it's in my cards, and God willing, I hope it is, before I birth another life into this existence, I wanted to go on a self development personal journey of why this gift was given to me. So I connected with the universe with God, to connect deeply with myself to discover this self discovery journey. And so I did that, you know, I made that choice to do that. And I feel it doesn't matter if you didn't make that choice, because people were like, Oh, I wish I would have did that. We can we can do it today. We can do it right now. And I can make a choice today to rediscover who I am in a whole new way and go on a self development journey. It's when we make the choice to put ourselves first, because we come into the world alone and we leave alone. Why are we here? Why question, how are we here? Why are we here? What are these experiences? All of that is self development. And then when we understand it and experience it, we can share it with others and I feel like it's the gift of self self development and why we're here. Know thyself, Socrates Understanding, being so rich from within, and then being able to share it. That's the gift.

Agi Keramidas  40:07  
And a quick hypothetical one, then if you could go back in time and meet your 18 year old self, what's one piece of advice you would give her?

Katie Chonakas  40:17  
Oh, great question. Well, if you said 14, I would say just do the conference. Right? When I was 14, the motivational conference about probably went to 14, I would say that, but 18, um, oh, this is a good one, I would, I would say you don't have to, I force myself to do things I thought I had to do that were shyster things. I forced myself as a kid. Because I was so quick and smart to go have experience and do things that I thought I had to do to make it or to get out of certain circumstances. And I was hard on myself. And that made me to put more heart hardened hardness within myself and got me away from my power and created psychological things that I only created for myself, but maybe I was supposed to grow and have those experiences. But I would tell myself, you don't have to do those things. And so I tell anyone listening anything you don't want to do that you think you have to do. It's just, it's um, it's hurting our spirit and our soul, it's actually hurting us. Whether we know it or not, or feel it or not. It's actually it's, it's hurting us. And it's not gonna lead us to where we're wanting to go. It only disempowers us the thing that we think we have to do, that we don't have to do. We don't have to do it.

Agi Keramidas  41:42  
Thank you. Watch one book that you would recommend to the listener based on the topic we had today.

Katie Chonakas  41:51  
So I Kaluga, Braun comes up again. He has an amazing book. Oh, it's so poetic. It's broken wings by Khalil Gibran, his book comes up. Oh, there's this amazing one by Bethany Webster. It's a newer book. But it's discovering, like its divine femininity, your spirit and discovering the mother womb, the inner mother womb. But I would say that's amazing, because I feel a lot of people who are on the medication, and a lot of people who are split with their personality and bipolar. It's because this, this area wasn't nurtured of the mother womb. And it's discovering that I found when I read this book, and I listened to it on audio, I like listening to audio, because I read a lot for my work, but I can soak it up. But when you're growing through this experience, and this way that we weren't nurtured our spirit our soul in this way, because our parental figures didn't have that they didn't know how to nurture themselves in that way. A lot of the issues stem from that very thing, where it's like, it's a psychological thing. And I feel a lot of people wouldn't be on medications, if they were actually touching upon these very spirited things that are in this book. It it's just a once you know, within yourself, and you're like, ah, that's Bruce Willis, or that chocolate cake. And it's like, you read a book and you're like, ah, like, that's how I'm feeling. Then we stop doing these psychological things where we're being hard on ourselves, hurting ourselves thinking something's wrong with us, when you're just like, Oh, I just needed love and attention and nurture in this way that that psychologists and doctors and no one knew how to communicate with me. So I think it's a really important book.

Agi Keramidas  43:52  
Katie, I want to thank you very much for this amazing conversation we had and there was so much wisdom and this incredible energy that you shared with with me today, I want to wish you all the very best in your life in your career in your mission. Any last parting words from you,

Katie Chonakas  44:14  
Scotty so probably my favourite record is thank you that Scottie stole Bob and Billy. I honour I'm grateful for you.

Agi Keramidas  44:23  
I hope you enjoyed listening and that you got a huge amount of value from today's episode. If you have please share this episode with someone who you think will benefit from me. If you want to know more about me and what I do, visit my website AGIKERAMIDAS.COM     

Agi Keramidas  44:47  
And until next time, stand out don't fit in.