What do you get if you combine data science, coaching and a team?

A happy team coached by Giannis Chatzidis.

Giannis is a Data Scientist. Team Leader. And a Coach.

He found purpose and joy in merging tech and coaching to help people reach their full potential.

He shares his journey and process in our conversation.

All started when I was like a leader in my team.

I've been leading the last five or six years.

Multicultural teams, if that makes sense in general, because the companies that

I work on is usually in the Netherlands, located, and through this leadership

journey and my one to ones with my team members I found them so viable, not

only for me, but especially for them.

I got a lot of energy out of them, meaning that the days that I had

one to ones with my teams was like probably the best days of the week.

This is how I was super eager to enhance the outcome of the one to ones and

everything around it, the questions to make it more interactive, et cetera.

And this is how I met coaching, so I was starting searching about ways to

optimize those sessions, et cetera.

And 18 months ago, I started my coaching school.

So now I'm a certified team coach specializing in teams

and leadership mostly.

I'm still a lead data scientist and the combination of two is like

inside my coaching sessions, I use a lot of AI and tech tools.

To make the whole session more interactive, more fun less boring.

Let's say, this is the power of Coach Tech, I call it.

And this is how, I use it inside

my sessions.

The hot

trend.

Yeah, I bet it is.

I'm still working as a lead data scientist.

It's part time and I'm transitioning to a full time team coach

so as a data scientist, I'm guessing that you look for patterns and

you try to connect the dots on data.

And then you've translated that into doing that with people.

Numbers and data always tell the truth.

Data scientist is mostly about, creating AI applications, products, et cetera,

around around data just to support people.

And this is how it goes with the coaching part.

You just collect the data inside the session, like some prompts

or let's say the main pain point that the coachee or the team has.

I'm trying to translate those data into an image.

Or into an application or, to reflect their words themselves, like an image

or like a poem generated by AI or, something that, they will see their

problem and they will face it immediately.

Because sometimes we have a challenge, but we cannot visualize it.

We cannot, let's say, dreaming of this challenge, but if we see an

image and we see ourselves inside an image or inside a written poem or

something usually it's more easy to do some reflections and to come to

an action.

So what you're really trying to do is speak to someone in the language

that they're going to receive best.

So whether that's an image or whether that's a poem or, whatever this is really

interesting because something I've been thinking about recently is, the difference

between maths and English and where I've noticed a lot of people struggle.

Like my daughters really struggle with maths and I think where people

struggle with maths is because they don't realize it's a different language.

In English you'd say something in it and it will be rich language and it'll

be a story because it's got a hero.

It's got a context and it's very concrete so someone can get to grips with it.

But in maths an equation is.

The purest is only the truth and only the universal and

everything else is taken out.

And so it describes the same thing, but it's applicable in every context because

as soon as it's not applicable in the context, the equation is no longer true.

That's interesting.

And then some people are artistic, some people are creative and

you have to meet people with.

Whatever speaks to them.

Yeah, so that makes sense.

It's mostly to speak the coachee's language.

Probably, a simple prompt by a coachee is I really want to stress less.

Okay, what makes you stressed?

What's make it so important for you or something and based on the answers They

can create an image, let's say, Rob, who is, let's say, really stressed and how

Rob imagines his situation when he's not stressed, And you reflect in two images,

for example, Rob is stressed, Rob is not stressed And reflect those images to

the coachee and ask a lot of questions.

Or how do you think, what do you see inside these images?

How would you like to see yourself when you're not stressed or something?

Those really simple questions where the coachee, okay sees two images, he's

really impressed and dive deeper inside the first image was super stressed.

But he would like to go to the second phase, which like take some

actions and not get stressed anymore or something, or get less stressed.

This is how it goes in terms of where you are and where you would like to go.

So it's two stages where, it's in coaching, it's still

important to to measure the outcome that you want to achieve.

This is how it goes.

You are, let's say in five and you would like to go in eight.

Okay.

What's the difference between five and eight?

What actions, let's say can fulfilled this gap.

When you initially took started doing one to ones, did you have the

same enthusiasm for them or is it, was it a process that you had to learn?

I was super enthusiastic.

Right from the start?

Yeah,

I was from the start.

Yeah, because it was like a time not for me and someone else.

It was a time for my team members to speak out.

And this is super important for someone working, let's say, in 9 5.

To have, let's say, a stage and a microphone where the stage belongs

to them and they have the opportunity to speak out, to say things about

professionally, but also personally.

This connection between a leader and a member is for me, super special

because at the end of the day, it's a human connection, right?

Leadership is a human connection.

So building this human connection and, have a thriving human

connection with your team members.

For me, it's super important because this is how you are able

to get the best out of every

member.

And that was all remote, because you said the rest of your

team are in the Netherlands.

We're around the world, actually.

It's some Netherlands, in Greece Africa, UK.

Yeah, around the world.

So that was naturally something that you enjoyed and then that

became your favorite part of the day.

How did you then go from that into coaching?

I was searching for ways to optimize these sessions.

Initially I was watching a lot of YouTube videos about other coaches or how to

enhance your 1:1 with your team members.

How to create a safe environment with your team members through your one on

ones, what the best questions, et cetera.

I realized that this is my inner piece of puzzle that was always missing.

I always wanted to support and help people.

To get the best out of them, and yeah, I was searching about, how go, let's say in

mentorship, in coaching, in consulting, in advising or something like that.

And finally I realized after analyzing all of this super detailed aspects

because the difference between, coaching, consulting, and mentorship is

small details, but big the same time.

I realized that coaching is the one that fits to my personality, to my

way of supporting the other people.

And this is how I went to coaching school.

When you saw that, that it fit with your personality, I'm guessing that

there were examples of that when you were younger in life, where that kind

of coaching mentality, that bringing out the best in others was did you

have younger brothers and sisters?

Was there examples of where you were put in that

role?

Yeah great question, when I was 17, I wanted to be a

dentist or a doctor in general.

So behind of this was like my willingness to support people and

to have a special impact to people.

I failed twice and finally studied AI, computer science, et

cetera, with a master's degree.

With the vision to combine health with data again.

So health was like super important for me.

And after that inside my one to ones I started I started getting

a lot of attention to the mental health of employees and this is

how this eagerness, did spark.

And always, I'm a guy that I hate advices.

I don't really like to give.

Advices unless it's super important for the receiver.

So you come to me and say, okay, give me an advice, heads up or something.

So if it's not your final goal I'm not giving advices.

I'm just asking questions to help you to find your own solution, your

best action for you, let's say, and not the best action for me.

Because the best action for me is not always the best action for someone

else.

What did you learn most from the coaching process?

Yeah, a lot.

First is to cultivate a safe and trust environment where everyone is able to

share without feeling any judgment or feeling, let's say that everything is

going to get in public or something or any gossip, intuitions, et cetera.

So to build a safe and trust environment, this also applies in leadership as well.

And the second is show empathy and compassion because there

are two different things.

And yeah, I think you should show empathy as a coach, as well as a leader.

And it's really important to put yourself in other shoes, but not being Giannis.

Being Rob, so I cannot wear your shoes like being Giannis because I'm going

to give you advice like Giannis, right?

But I have to wear your shoes and have your own way of thinking,

your own way of acting, reacting.

Your data of your environment.

This is how I can understand how you feel and how you want to act you know.

And the third one is The Q& A part.

I really feel the Q& A the question answer part.

A really typical question is like, where would you do if you were me?

Every time that we are in, let's say, in a friend zone or something,

or in a friendship relationship or in a love relationship or something.

The first question that we ask, okay, I have this issue, where

would you do if you were me?

And people usually because they are busy or they want fast advice

and ready advice or something, they want to hear what we do.

The only thing that I learned is like asking questions.

and deep questions and dig deeper inside, the main challenge that the other person

has is the way to move forward is the way to take some action and not just tell

something and that's the end of the story.

No, this is not the end of the story because the story has a lot

of aspects, you have to dig deeper.

The deeper you go, the better, in order to find how the other person feels,

acts understands a lot of situation around in the environment, et cetera.

Yeah, I think those are the three things that I learned.

Of course, there are much more, but I think those are the.

The best.

I heard once if someone's coming to you about something that you

know a lot more about than them.

When they ask a question, you should always challenge the context,

rather than answer the question.

If someone's new to a topic, they don't generally know enough

to ask the right question.

Often the question someone asks shows the level of knowledge that they have

and it's usually the wrong question.

If someone's new to a topic, they'll ask a beginner's question.

Whereas someone who's say an expert, they'll look at the same question and

say you're asking the wrong question.

We can often get in the trap of answering people's questions when often what

we really need to do is challenge the context in which the question was asked.

Also, I think it's super important.

Yeah.

How do you set to challenge the other person?

Okay.

I have a vision about, becoming a top team coach, let's say, for example,

okay, but let's challenge this my vision and my mission, what makes you

super driven of being a team coach?

What, how is it going to happen if you don't become a team coach?

It's a lot of, there are a lot of challenging questions and aspects.

Through a vision, a mission or an action or something.

And the super important thing as well is to not listen to what is being said,

but listening to what is not being said.

The underwaters, it's something like you feel that, Giannis

has a procrastination feeling.

Okay, just breaking the surface, what does procrastination mean to you?

Let's say, what's how does it affect your daily life?

It's what is not being said most of the times more important than what's said.

And same in leadership.

And a team was not where nobody speaks out.

It's not a high performing team.

It's the other way

around.

Very true.

So that makes me question what has been the biggest impact for you?

In your journey on you personally,

The biggest impact in my journey as a leader or in my journey as a coach.

In both.

In both.

Okay.

In my journey as a leader the biggest impact to myself.

Yeah, tough question, I think.

The way that I see my team members growing, this is what makes me

super happy and super motivated.

And not only inside the company, but outside the company, their personal lives,

where, when I see them, changing habits.

Changing their characters, their way of communicating, acting, et cetera.

This is something, makes me super proud of them.

At the end of the day, this is what they want, because every time that

they hire someone I don't really care if they're super tech skilled

or they know how to write perfect code or something, or my goal is not.

After the six months period, let's say it was a probation period to

be, let's say, better in coding or in AI, but to be better persons,

specifically us as individuals.

When I get messages from my old team members, I go to this new

job or, I go this interview and I'm super happy and everything

started from you, blah, blah, blah.

I'm super grateful for, and I'm super proud of them, and yeah, I

think this is the the impact that I always wanted to help the people.

And when I have it, I'm, yeah, this is it.

I'm super fulfilled, and from the coaching part, I think more or less.

It's the same, when I see transformation to someone, so for example, I had

recently a team coaching session here in Greece and after 90 minutes, the

whole team finalized to an action to have a meeting once a month altogether

without the leader and we'll discuss their problems, their challenges, their

priorities, their vision, everything.

When they found this action, which was like it sounds super easy, right?

But for them, it wasn't because we've been there, let's say for 90 minutes

and talking, discussing trying to optimizing the approach, et cetera.

And when they found it, I saw nine faces, super smiley.

And that was the moment that I said, yeah, you did some, something right.

I don't know if I did everything right, but you did something right.

And that was the aha moment, let's say from the session that not only made

them happy and smiley, but made me super smiley inside my heart, soul,

et cetera.

So there's clearly that's to do with your purpose.

So what is that tapping into in you?

That's the thing that brings you purpose.

That's makes you feel fulfilled.

What you do for them is you make them happy.

And what is that activating something in you?

Are you aware of what that is?

Yeah, at the end of the day, every team and every leader wants to

be more productive, more high performer to bring more results, et cetera.

And also this is my goal.

In every session, so to yeah, to have, to be a better version

of themselves in general.

So I have this theory that everything we do comes down to about,

probably about eight to 10 currencies.

It's recognition, it's care it's love, it's respect.

So I'm guessing for you it's feeling valued.

Feeling valued.

Do you mean to me or to

others?

I think it's about value as in you providing value and feeling that

you're being a personal value.

It's mostly about unlocking what is really hidden in your personality

and helping you to see what's unfolded.

So it's a chef who has a certain set of ingredients.

They can bring a recipe that makes a higher or less lower value meal.

My interpretation is that you like being valuable as in producing

value and unlocking value in people.

I think it is.

Yeah.

It sounds simple.

It sounds simple.

I think people are simple.

I think there's only a few motivations people have.

But we cloud it . We often feel that we shouldn't have that.

And we feel that we have to present some noble intention.

If you talk to people about why they do what they do,

they'll talk to you with logic.

And when they talk with logic, it's not really what they're talking about.

They're talking about the rationale that they've given that they feel is

acceptable, but it doesn't, it's not really what excites them inside them.

For me, leadership is, should be emotional.

It should be driven by emotions.

Of course, there are a lot of times when you have to balance both.

Rational decisions, emotional decisions, etc.

But yeah, for me, leadership, because it's like a human to human

relationship, it should start by, understanding the other person's

emotions and how the other person feels.

In general, and the same applies in everything, in every lesson, it's okay,

and I totally agree with what you said, it's like people, the first thought

is like the rational one about what, it's acceptable by the society usually.

And what is like matching with the society believes actually.

And after that, you know what, when they start triggering themselves,

they will find something else that probably they're against this opinion.

Or they have, another opinion about that.

And this is what coaching actually does, bring to the surface, your own beliefs.

opinions, et cetera, and try to demolish them, split them in multiple factors and

understand, what, who am I actually, who am I at the end of the day as a person,

as a leader and where do I want to go.

That's my purpose in this life, let's say, in this position or something,

I think this is the most important.

And I think that my favorite question is just super similar.

It's what do you want to do?

Yeah.

Two X or something, what they want to become, what I had to do.

I want to be or something, it's like mostly four similar words

and you have An initial idea and the purpose in your life and

in your journey,

it's where all journey start.

Isn't it?

What do I want?

Where am I?

What do I want?

How do I get there?

And it really is that simple.

The problem I think is a lot of people aren't clear on what they

want and what they want is going to change as they go along the journey.

Because when you start, you want this thing and you haven't really

understood why you want it, but one of those like eight to 10 deep

currencies, is why you want it.

And then as you get closer, what you want changes because it wasn't

really the thing that was just a symbol for what you really wanted.

I agree.

I agree, but this is a transformation and this is a part of the journey, right?

I'm a huge believer that, it would be super viable.

For the society, for for the world around, if we were able to change, a profession

or a work, let's say every five years.

For example, I was a leader.

I am a leader.

I want to, I really want to become a team coach, a leadership coach.

And probably through this journey, I will find something else.

And in five years from now, probably I would want to become something different.

And as you said, this is the start of the journey during this journey, probably

you will find something else, something more fascinating that, brings you

closer to your full potential, because I don't think that when I will be,

let's say 80 or 75 or something really older, I will be to my full potential.

I feel it's impossible, but every day or every year I want to be closer to it.

And this is how it goes to everyone.

It's not to find it, let's say in the next month or after two

sessions or after three sessions.

It's about get closer

to it.

Being quite a bit older than you I'm about 30 years in now.

1993 I opened up a gym, so I trained in fitness.

I then trained as a nutritionist.

So I think it was about 1994 when I probably started

training as a nutritionist.

So I had fitness and I had nutrition and I barely used my nutrition qualification

because I thought, what was the point?

You write people diet plans and exercise plans and they do it for a

little while and then they never stick.

I went more into why don't people stick?

So then I trained in therapy and I ended up instead of selling gym

memberships, doing therapy, but to try and get to, cause I had a similar

kind of purpose and wanting to see people be the most that they could be,

I'm wanting to see people be happy.

I did.

Therapy, went into stress, motivation.

Then I went back to uni studied psychology.

And everyone in psychology was looking at mental health or criminology or alcoholism

or addiction or something like that.

And I was like, Freud said something that if all we do is look at problems, all

we do is make people moderately unhappy.

And I thought we want to look at.

We need to have somewhere to lead people.

I learned that happiness and I was quite lucky that it was when Marty Seligman was

first coming out with authentic happiness.

It was around the time when Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.

I can't pronounce his name, but when he came out with a concept of flow, and

because before then all they'd been was like a study in the fifties, I can't

even remember his name of optimal living.

So there was very little information.

That's when I got into coaching back in the early days.

I don't know if you know of Thomas Leonard.

I learned from him after he'd left the ICF, he wasn't happy with what it became

and then he was set up his own thing.

I saw what him and I was like, you're a genius, but I'm not that's not my style.

It doesn't fit with my.

I never identified in that same way as a coach.

I just saw it as a useful tool to have.

But I never felt like I embodied it.

I never felt it was.

I always felt like I wanted to know something and be able

to pass on that knowledge.

And coaching is a way that is able able to meet people where they are,

but it's not it's part of, like it's, I just took it as a tool.

Then I realized the real problem that people had was relationships, which then

led me to conflict, which then I went into mediation and realized it was teams.

I would say.

There's always been a constant throughout what I've done and I think there's a

constant in yours, in that it was one to ones and then it became coaching.

I think there's a theme that runs through our life and I think our

theme is probably set by what we feel is important, maybe in childhood.

That's some significant experience.

And from then we're.

We look at different contexts, different ways of delivering it.

But I think that there's a constant in us.

Say for you, that constant seems to be about maximizing potential or

yeah, unlocking potential or helping people because even if you look

at health, health is about helping people be at their best, isn't it?

I went fitness, nutrition, that's how you help people be at their best,

whereas you can't because they don't stick to it, so what's the point?

So I went into the mind more, which fitted more for me.

Yeah.

That's an incredible journey.

And, I just have to say that I really admire and appreciate people like you

when, and I think this is your example is a great example about, starting

from something I thought it was viable.

And it's viable still because I think nutrition is like a part of

our being and our well being, etc.

But after that you just dig deeper and deeper until you found, what you are

passionate about at the moment, because probably in five years or in 10 years

from now, you will find something else.

Probably you will go to neuropsychology or I don't know what comes later.

It's also I think I have a deep sensitivity to failure.

And there's something like when you're in a kind of a relationship therapist, coach,

mediator, whatever there's, you have to you have to be able to detach yourself

from someone else's results because otherwise you're trying to influence them.

So you have to not care.

You care while letting them hold direction.

And I think I, I just found to work in nutrition, I would find that soul

destroying where basically maybe if you're lucky one in 10 follows

what you do, because especially I tend to go into things and I'm

want to really understand it.

And I'm like, okay, this is the absolute best.

Nutrition is so complex and it's so demanding of people because

the food supply that they have by default isn't very healthy.

So you have to spend money on nutrition.

You have to spend money on more food so that everything weighted against you.

And.

I don't think I could turn up every day to work and feel this doesn't work.

Not like I, yeah, I can have pride in I've got an understanding and I can give you

the best advice, but if no one takes it.

It doesn't feel like you're making any value.

I suppose it depends on how resilient you are, because some people really

have a belief and they'll pursue that nutrition, even when people

aren't getting results, not because of the fault of the nutritionist, but

because they just don't stick to it.

I suppose I'm detached from people like you can do what you want to do.

I need to have enough ratio that enough people succeed.

So I've always looked at it's like pushing the problem away.

The problems there.

How do I make the problem more and more minor by solving more and more problems?

So I don't know how you've handled that in your.

Journey, like how do you deal with maybe the term is not coachable

or people who don't want to take advice or don't want to do what it

takes to change their situation.

Yeah.

I think the word is coachable.

I'm not going to help or support someone who is not coachable, meaning that

if you don't want to change or if you don't want to take your leap of faith.

To take the next step or to start something.

I'm not the best guy for you.

I really want to work on with visionaries, bold people, change makers, people who

are, let's say, super eager to take the next step, to get the next step.

I usually say it's like detach from the results and attach to the process.

Detach from the results, but attach to the process.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This is how I always say to my clients and to the teams.

It's not about, being 10 percent more productive on your daily base.

It's take the necessary steps and actions.

To become 10 percent more productive and the productivity will come somehow.

With some magic way, so it's not about, what you want to achieve, but it's

about how you're going to achieve it.

And yeah, I think from my side, it's.

It's almost the same.

So I really believe in people's potential.

I really believe in your potential, but firstly, you have

to believe in your potential.

I'm not going to tell you how to believe in your potential.

If you want to start believing your potential, yes.

Come to me because you have a vision, to start believing in yourself.

Start leading yourself better.

This is how it goes.

Because you want something.

But if you don't want anything

You are not the best guy for me Or I'm not the best guy for you, try to find

someone else Who is eager to give you some advice Or probably, fit your,

in your personality or doesn't fit in your personality, but please don't come

crying back to me and saying, okay, I gave X amount of dollars and money.

This advice doesn't fit my personality.

And what should they do now?

I don't know.

I'm not, an advisor or a guy who's going to tell you what to do.

I'm a guy who's going to help you to tell yourself what to

do.

In my experience with in relationships, for example there was a great need and

a great market for people who had come out of a narcissistic relationship.

And, but the difficulty is they are so traumatized.

That it takes a really sensitive approach because they have a lack of belief and

they're not in a place to be challenged.

And there's a lot of people that need someone else to believe in them before

they, they believe in themselves.

A lot of people that have come from maybe an environment where

no one's believed in them.

Where, what you're looking for and your style is for the high flyer, the

visionary, someone who wants to change something who's already had some success.

So how would you define your ideal client and what are they

grappling with at the moment?

As I said before, visionary, change maker, bold people leaders,

founders who really who are the team.

People centric mostly, and they really believe that people can make

a difference inside their company.

And this is how they're going to be more profitable and they're going to

have more clients and more clients results at the end of the day.

Because what every company wants is like to me to be more profitable, to

have a bigger bank account to be, let's say, cash flow positive, et cetera.

But you really have to believe in your most viable asset, which is your

people and together with your clients.

Because if you ask me, I would say both are super important for the

thriving company clients and team.

You should focus on both in order to have a thriving company and to

find the right balance between them.

But yeah, I totally agree with your previous statement about some,

in some cases we have some people who, nobody believed in them and

they want some support on that.

To be honest, I don't know if these people want coaching or therapy.

Yeah, I think this is a great dilemma.

this is also a situation because.

If nobody believed in you in the past, and you have this this habit and this limiting

belief that I'm suck and I cannot find my inner fulfillment, et cetera, because

I'm, I'd say I'm a failure or something.

And this is something that I heard a lot and in life coaching mostly.

I think for these people, in my opinion, it's like a combination of therapy

coaching is the best because therapy, that better for me, I'm not a therapist

or a psychologist or something, usually addresses the past and the present

while coaching goes present and future.

I think a combination of both for these people is.

is the best.

Of course, as coaches, we are going to give, let's say, a hand to these

people, okay, to rise them up.

But as a coach, it's like we're not here to study their past.

We're here to design their future.

When you look at therapy you can look at all the different

schools of therapy and they're pretty much have a similar, Success rate.

What makes the success isn't the school of therapy.

It's the warmth of the therapist is how trusting the bond this how safe

the space the therapist can make and I suppose that's the same in coaching.

In order to change because it's so inherently stressful and because

it's so cognitively demanding and emotionally demanding.

We need that space is like a refuge.

If we go out and we take risks, we need somewhere safe, which is part of the value

of a relationship is that a relationship is means that you have someone that

has your back no matter what, like a romantic relationship, you have someone

that's got your back no matter what.

So you can go out and take risks in the world because you've

got someone to cover for you.

And I think that's what coaching does.

And I think that's what therapy does.

I think therapy has its place, but I also think it overspreads.

I think a lot of people will go to a lot of therapists who are schooled in a

certain thought of therapy and they'll frame everything in that thought,

whether it's, it happened from your childhood or it happened because of these

different parts or it happened because of, whatever kind of therapy, and often

all they're doing is giving a story.

And people can either become trapped in the story or they can go round and round.

So they spend years telling different stories and seeing different therapies

and getting different stories, but never actually changing what happens.

I think you have to look at all of these things as tools.

And I think we look at the big currency is we want.

Like you and I want to help people make, we want to be of value to people.

We want to see people thrive and optimize.

And I, so I think the key is you have to look at what's their framework?

What's their mentality of how are they thinking?

What's the barrier?

What's the block and what's the best way of getting over that?

And for some people that will be therapy.

For some people that will be coaching, for some people that will be mentoring

mediation or facilitation or whatever.

I think all of them are tools.

Depending on the personality, depending on the situation they can all be used.

But the main thing is they have to empower someone.

They have to make someone.

Take responsibility and help someone see how they can do

better, be better, feel better.

Yeah,

exactly.

Exactly.

Yeah.

It is the final goal for everyone, right?

Because everyone is like a different beast.

And from what we said before, and I think for everyone, everyone has the

same goal to, to see people change something, to see people grow, see people,

have more value and empower people.

Yeah.

I think it's mostly to find what, who beast fits better to your personality

and to what you want to be and carry on.

I have a motto saying every coach should have another coach, a therapist.

And the supervision, and I have a therapist, I have a life

coach, it's because I am a coach.

I can manage my own priorities, challenges, issues, it's, yeah, it's

not possible because Sometimes I did that from, I did that to the results

and this is a trap, so it's impossible to, to every time to say to do what

you say and to do what you believe.

I totally believe I have to go detach from the results, but there are

also some times where I chase the next dopamine hit, it's it's all of

this like a huge journey about work.

It's about getting closer to your full potential and if you have people around

you, helping you get closer to that, I think you are on the right, right path.

We all have blind spots.

People are a closed system and sometimes we need new information

into that system to open it up.

One of the things I always think of when there's always like new fads and

this is the greatest thing and whatever, and I always think 2000 years ago you

look at you like Jesus, the Buddha, Lao Tzu, people like that they went

through the same things that everyone who's striving in personal development

or spirituality or whichever field.

It's basically the same thing and they didn't necessarily have therapists or

coaches or something, but they had someone who was there was always their wise elder.

There was always someone who'd been through it, the

mentor those kinds of things.

So I think I attach less significance to the actual label and more to

the relationship and the key.

And I think it is.

In the end, all it is we all need to see beyond we need a fresh set of eyes.

There's certain things that we can't look at ourself.

And so I think that's what people like you and I can do is give people a different

some different either idea or insight or fresh pair of eyes on their situation.

Yeah, exactly.

And if we look back at the history, we'll see a lot of fortune tellers, probably

it was in the mythology, we see Calchas Mopsus, a lot of fortune tellers in the

Greek mythology and you know what they did is like they they were looking at

the future, this is their charisma, let's say they're unique talent or something.

And people back then, they really needed these people.

They really had someone to tell them, probably in our imagination

is old man with, a white beard or something, and super wise and

from experiences, life, et cetera.

But everyone wanted someone like him, to support them, to tell some different

opinion, a different perspective.

To challenge them sometimes, to advise them, it's also fine, if

that fits to you and yeah, this is what all of us together do nowadays.

We don't have fortune tellers, we don't have Old man with white beard

or something, but we have coaches, we have therapists, mentors, consultants,

facilitators, whatever they are, and yeah, find what fits to your personality

and pick one, start with someone.

I think this is how it goes.

This is how you get closer to what you want.

It's not embarrassing to ask for help.

For me, it's like a superpower because personally, I didn't

ask for help as a leader.

It was a period that I was like, super bad as a leader.

And I really I understand it.

I understood it after some period and because I couldn't ask for help

and it's super bad, not only for me, but for the rest of the team, because

everyone is was living in the dark.

And I took the decisions.

I wanted to control everything.

I was like a control freak or something.

It's bring everything to the surface.

It's this is how it goes.

Like you said, I think in one of your posts, like we are like a computer

with a lot of history, with a lot of folders that we haven't met yet.

We haven't unfolded yet.

And it's time to double click, this is it, double click in those folders

and see what it is, what is inside.

Yeah.

It's, it sounds simple.

It seems simple, the first step is to start.

Momentum has great power in it.

Then just one more question before I let you go.

You talked about like the old man with the white hair and all of this kind of thing.

If you look at all the examples from culture, from films, from TV

shows and things, who would be the character that you see yourself

like or would like to be like?

Like to be his old man.

In your role as a coach and as a leader.

Developing others.

Is there a role model you want to be?

A Yoda or do you wanna be a Gandalf or a Dumbledore or those kind of roles?

Yeah,

yeah.

I understand your other question.

I always want to be, let's say, really invisible in the room.

This is my approach in coaching.

So I'm not a centric person.

The coach here, the team is the center of the session.

I don't want to talk a lot.

So it's like silence for me is power.

And do you remember the old man from Pocahontas film?

I've never seen that, but Yeah,

I think this is it.

It's like an old man sitting at his chair and listening deeply with

Empathy and compassion and talks or ask questions whenever it's asked

for that.

Okay.

Yes, that's that's why I saw with you have a noble strength and an ability

a patience to wait for the result.

I can see that.

Okay.

And if someone wanted to reach out and see if coaching with you would work for

them where should they get in touch?

What should they do?

LinkedIn is the best way.

It's Giannis Chatzidis and you can DM me ask your question, yeah, whatever,

my DM is always open, feel free, don't hesitate, it's not embarrassing.

It's fine.

So yeah, on

LinkedIn is the best way.

Thank you.

Giannis is been fascinating to hear your journey to here.

What makes you and I'm going to have to go and look at Pocahontas now.

Yeah, it was my pleasure.