[00:00:00] Agi: Theory is good to some extent. And I've made that mistake in my personal development journey early on. I would read the books and do nothing with it, just accumulate knowledge. And things were not changing. Then when I started doing the exercises in the book and doing what the book was suggesting to do, I realized how growth is.
[00:00:22] Aneta: We often hear people wishing us a long, happy, and healthy life, but what if the length isn't what matters most? What if instead, it's the breath depth and purpose of each day that matters most? Welcome to the Live the Width of Your Life podcast. My name is Aneta Ardelian Kuzma and join me weekly as I interview guests who made changes in their own lives to live more fully with intention, gratitude, and joy. Be prepared to be inspired by their stories of how they shifted their mindset, took courageous action, and designed the life that they always wanted to live.
Welcome back to the Live the Width of Your Life podcast. My guest today is Dr. Agi Keremidis, he's originally from Greece but has been living in the UK since 2010. His personal development journey took him from being a dentist to being a podcaster, a knowledge broker, and an author. He is a lifelong learner.
He loves personal growth and self-mastery, and he also is extremely spiritual. He sees himself as a critical thinker. He's the host of the Personal Development Mastery podcast, and his mission is to inspire his audience to stand out and take action toward a life of purpose and fulfillment. His podcast is in the top one-and-a-half percent globally.
He's interviewed over 200 people and he is just so delightful. We had the most interesting conversation. I think you'll enjoy it. Take a listen.
Agi Keramidas I'm so excited to have you on the show today.
[00:01:54] Agi: Aneta, it is a pleasure to meet you today. I'm very much looking forward to our conversation.
[00:01:59] Aneta: I was looking forward to it. I was so excited when I saw you on the calendar because you and I had an opportunity to speak on your podcast. I don't even know, maybe a little while ago. I know the episodes out there currently.
[00:02:13] Agi: It was I think a couple of months ago, it was episode 418. So on personal development Mastery, it was a wonderful conversation, which as a matter of fact, I was listening to earlier today to reconnect and remember what we had talked about at that time.
[00:02:31] Aneta: Yeah. And I was so excited to have you on because, when you're a guest and so much of the conversation is focused on the guest, I wanted to know so much more about you too. And so I get to return the favor today.
And for those that aren't that familiar with you, I shared some things in your bio at the beginning of the episode, but tell me a little bit more about how you came to be in this moment right now because I know that you started on a different trajectory in life and through a series of different events you now have a podcast, you're an author, you help so many other people. You're on your personal growth and development plan and journey yourself. So tell us a little bit more about that.
[00:03:15] Agi: Sure. Thank you. So the big transition, which you hinted was like, I started my life up to about 35 as a dentist, in Greece, which was my home country. Then I moved to the UK on my own, leaving everything I knew and familiar behind me, friends, family, dental practice, fiance, et cetera.
I moved to the UK because it was my calling I felt drawn to that. I carried on doing dentistry. I did a master's degree in dentistry and the transition happened after I had finished that where I discovered personal development because of my lack of fulfillment at that time because I was on the outside I felt That, and you are familiar with it.
We talked about this sense of having external success or factors, but inside feeling unsatisfied and fulfilled, or for me, it was directionless and that led me to personal development that one thing led to the other, and then I started a podcast.
And then six and a half years, close to seven years later, here we are speaking today.
[00:04:38] Aneta: Amazing. And your podcast is it's very well known. It's in the top one and a half-percent of all global podcasts, which is amazing because there are over 3 million podcasts now. And I'm sure when you started, there were fewer, but now there are so many podcasts available.
[00:04:55] Agi: Yeah. I wouldn't say that I caught the early wave of podcasting. I started in 2018. So it accumulates over time with experience, yeah, thank you very much my podcast is a product of, I was about to say passion, but I have gone past that stage. Yes, it was passion and still is, but now that has been superseded by a sense of mission or purpose.
[00:05:21] Aneta: And what is the mission or purpose of your podcast?
[00:05:25] Agi: It's a great question. So for me, as Agi, as a person living this life, it is to fulfill through my abilities and my capacity, my role is informing, and influencing, these are weak words. Let me find a better word, inspiring. That's a better word. Inspiring my audience in this particular case, since we're talking about the podcast, inspires my audience to take some kind of action that will allow them to improve their life.
And it can be a small thing. It can be A big thing. It doesn't matter. What matters is to implement the knowledge that you hear on the podcast, pick something, and try it out. And if it sticks you might change your life over some time, just by doing one simple thing or picking up the phone and making a phone call.
I probably digressed a little bit there, but my intention rather than mission now with the podcast is to contribute to the people who are in resonance with what I have to say or what my guests have to say because it's not for everyone.
[00:06:48] Aneta: Yeah.
[00:06:49] Agi: But the people who resonate with what's been said, there's my intention is for them to do something with this.
And yeah, we are in a stage of awakening of consciousness. And I think this is my let's say contribution to what is happening with humanity now, not knowledge, inspiration, action, or transformation.
[00:07:15] Aneta: I love the words that you've used because they matter. And sometimes we can't find words that are significant enough to convey what we're feeling, but I know that action is super important to you. And so you have a book that also has the word action in it. It's action. 88 actionable insights for life. When did you write your book and tell us just a little bit more about the book?
[00:07:41] Agi: Yes, thank you. I published it at the end of 2023. I wrote it, I started writing it two years before then The reason why I started writing and I will put it Aneta in a very simple way that I'm sure that you will understand completely and I hope that if you're listening now, you also understand it.
It was given to me. It was assigned to me. I felt like this was what I needed to do. I wrote about 90 percent of it in two months, and then it took me another two years to reach the stage of publication. And that's a different story altogether, but the book is, 88 as you said actionable insights for life and it is exactly the principle I was explaining earlier. It has to be actionable. You have to be able to do something with it. It's not theory.
The theory is good to some extent. And I've made that mistake in my personal development journey early on. I would read the books and do nothing with it, just accumulate knowledge. And things were not changing. Then when I started doing the exercises in the book and doing what the book was suggesting to do, I realized how growth is.
[00:08:58] Aneta: It's so true. We consume so much and we might retain some of that knowledge and may even talk about it, but really through the action, through the doing, do we see the change in our own life? And so I want to go back to this moment when you decided that you wanted to leave the dentistry career. And do something different. So how long were you thinking about leaving before you did it?
[00:09:30] Agi: Let me start by saying it was not, I don't want to get the wrong impression. It was not like a sudden decision that one day was working and then it didn't. It was, it has been a gradual process of slowly cutting down from five days to four to three to two and so on to one.
So this has taken a long time. I will say now I'm trying to think the way that you say it six years, five years, as I said, the gradual decline, and there are many reasons for that which we can go into them if you want or not. But yeah, it was not a sudden thing, I don't want to do this anymore.
The next day I stopped. But anyway, to answer your question differently, the decisions happened, and then I took the action to cut down when I finished my master's degree in aesthetic dentistry, having spent. Two years of my life studying and a considerable amount of money for the course and I found myself at the end of those two years rather than motivated, I had learned so many great things I was about to implement into practice and I found myself not wanting to do any of that.
And that led me, first of all, to start asking questions that I had not asked before. For example, why is this happening? Or initially, my first question is what is wrong with me? Because I have just achieved this great thing, I took a master's degree with distinction in not my native language and I feel empty and I feel I don't want to do any of that. What's wrong with me?
So it took me a while to reframe that question and ask the right questions. And then I simply realized that dentistry had served its purpose for my life and I had also served, my patients and whatever else is involved with the practice of dentistry. However, I realized that unlike in my generation or especially when in Greece, I suppose it's not too much different in the USA because it's not in England either.
If you study and have a career especially a career like dentistry or medicine or law, it is expected that you will retire from that career, you will somehow go through whatever, whether you're happy with it or not, you will go through that. And at the end, but it's not like that.
And I'm glad that many people realize that they can certainly change careers and 180 degrees if they want to, they can, whereas, many years or 30 years ago, maybe, or in our parents’ time, that was not even an option. It would be considered a very reckless and crazy thing to do. I'll take a pause here now because I take in many different directions.
[00:12:52] Aneta: No, I think that I was going to say I love that you brought up that, in our parent’s generation, maybe people would say, this is reckless. This is crazy. But were there people even in your life when you started to share like I don't feel fulfilled? I don't think this is something I want to do long term. This has served its purpose. Were there people who were shocked or who tried to discourage you?
[00:13:17] Agi: Shocked, probably [00:13:20] not. And I think again because it happened gradually. I think you know people who know me could get it. It's quite obvious at the same time. I was doing more and more with the podcast. So Yeah, I don't know if that answers your question or,
[00:13:37] Aneta: Yeah, I just didn't know if there was even initially when you first started to think about making some changes. Did people on your journey start to notice changes? I guess I asked because I know that in my own experience, some friends are there for a season, and then, some people have a specific role and there are others who understand and you can share more of yourself and all of yourself with. So I just didn't know if anyone in your life, if any of those changes happened.
[00:14:06] Agi: Now that you say it, I realized that the fact that all these changes have happened to me in the second, let's say part of the life in the UK, where I started from scratch, pretty much. And I mean socially not from the other aspects, but I didn't have any family or friends here.
So that's, I think made a difference in the sense that I didn't have that kind of friends, maybe the childhood friends that would say, what are you doing? Are you crazy? And even my parents eventually were supportive of it, but initially let's say they were concerned and that's a very, polite word to use, but still, they were in a different country.
I didn't have this kind of direct influence. So in that sense, I was lucky and blessed not to have much resistance to what I wanted to do. I was more surrounded by the new people I was surrounded with, who were very supportive of following one's dream.
[00:15:12] Aneta: Yeah, that's beautiful. Yeah. I love that. Concerned. Very polite way. You're from Greece. I'm originally from Serbia, so I understand parents’ love. But tell me a little bit you mentioned that you were on this personal journey and you've talked a little bit about spiritual journey and awakening. So what was that like for you? What was your journey or your path? It never ends of course, but just curious about how you started to question what fulfilled you and what the purpose of our life is.
[00:15:45] Agi: Yes, there are many facets to the story. If I answer what you mentioned about the spiritual element. What I will say is that when I was in university, back in Greece, studying to be a dentist. I had my best friend at that time we were so close together for a few years during university.
He followed the spiritual calling that he had very strongly and he went to Siberia and he became a shaman. And then since that time, he has been traveling the world teaching and healing. And when I saw his initial transformation at that time I was, 21 and I saw some things that, and because he was my also my best friend, I soaked up everything that he would tell me and there was no resistance.
So from that time, I have been extremely open to any idea or notion or anything that comes my way without putting too much of the rational mind,, I am a scientist, I have a master's degree. So I have this kind of critical thinking, which is, it's great. But sometimes your critical thinking allows you to understand that if I only put my intellectual or my mental capacity as a way to ,decide for example, that is very limiting because I have my limitations.
I only know what I know. So to make a long story short, from that young age onwards, I learned to trust my intuition for the decisions or the choices. So if I hear, for example, and that's why I started saying it, an idea that, I don't know, aliens landed on earth or I would never dismiss something based on my knowledge, it depends on how it will feel.
And these things I have allowed my intuition to. Guide me and make some decisions that I wanted. And again, I realize now, Aneta, that I have taken things again in a very different direction. I like it. Now I'm starting to get used to it. I'm not usually like this.
[00:18:07] Aneta: I love it. And I think that the conversation goes exactly where it's supposed to go. I do believe that. And I was going to ask, how do you cultivate more of that trust with your intuition? Because especially for someone, as you said, a scientist, someone whose education is in critical thinking and so much in the sciences and things are seen.
And now you're talking about, trusting your heart and tapping into your intuition. So what are some of the practices that you have that have allowed you to grow this belief or the trust in your intuition?
[00:18:39] Agi: It is a great question. One of the people practices and course, that's not going to come as a surprise to anyone when I say meditation. Doing meditation is I think it's fundamental. I'm now thinking in terms of practices because you asked me about practices that I have used personally too.
And that's something that I realized that I've never spoken about on a podcast before. So that's interesting. A few years ago, I was speaking with one of my guests on the podcast and he explained about a pendulum dowsing. And I found that interesting. I asked him a few questions and then I thought, this sounds very interesting.
Let me look into that. So I ordered myself a nice pendulum. And I found another one of my previous guests that I knew that she knew it very well. And I asked her, can you teach me? So we did one lesson. I was so surprised to see that I was holding the pendulum and it would change direction. It happened so quickly that I was so surprised with this.
So that is something that, I haven't spoken about before, it's not like I use it for decisions often, but I have used it over the last, let's say four years. Yeah, about four years that I have, got it. I have used it certainly on the big decisions.
I don't use it to choose trivial things or for practice, so I have not done that for some reason I have only used it to, and the funny thing is Aneta has always so far verified what decision felt like it was the right for me. So it's not that I don't know, and then I put the pendulum out and then I will make a decision based on how it moves. No. I've already known.
Or have a very good feeling that this is what I should do, or this is the right thing to do or not to do. And then I have gotten just a verification for my rational mind also to be more at ease that you go that also, and then I do the decision. But what I'm trying to say is that the knowing of what is the right thing to do is already there. Maybe it's not crystal clear, but it's there.
[00:21:09] Aneta: Yeah. And it's the trusting, learning to trust that we have the answers within. And so for those that aren't as familiar, the pendulum is, I understand you put it over your heart, is that right? And then it would.
[00:21:21] Agi: You hold it in front of
[00:21:23] Aneta: in front of you. Okay.
[00:21:24] Agi: Yes. It moves like a pendulum basically from side to side. But when you think of something or when you ask a question and you focus on it, It can say, and it does change the direction. And these are things that, when you start to learn what means yes, for example, what means no, or there are more, sophisticated things that it's never went into those.
I keep it simple for a yes or no. So basically what I get based on the movement of it is a yes or a no. And trust me, I have done it a few times with different things before, I don't just do it once I say, okay, that's a yes no.
[00:22:08] Aneta: Yeah. Is it in tune? I love that. And you talked about meditation, which I'm a practitioner as well as and facilitator. And when did you find meditation?
[00:22:20] Agi: At that same time, when I was with my friend, the shaman in my, twenties that's when I first learned about meditation, and then the last few years, of course, many things have changed in terms of techniques or apps or things like that. Yes, that's a wonderful topic and such a wonderful practice.
[00:22:42] Aneta: And it is. And it's so interesting, sometimes I laugh because it's free. And once you learn how to do it, you don't have to buy an app. You don't have to do all these things, but there are so many resources available and there are so many different styles. I know some people there's resistance because they might have in their mind that it's only one way to meditate. And I think that there are just so many opportunities for people to discover, what feels good for them and what works best. Do you mix up your meditation practice or is there a specific type of meditation that you gravitate towards?
[00:23:16] Agi: I do mix them up and I'm now nodding when you were saying that's because I have the knowing the feeling that it would be better if I stuck to one of them. And that one in particular, because I trained on it was Vipassana, the silent meditation.
So I did the 10-day silent meditation retreat and as a technique, as a practice to go deeper, to something beautiful. You were saying in our previous conversation to read that level of stillness or calmness, that you can see the images or, you have a direct knowing of your subconscious. So I realize I'm answering your question now as a self-reflection as well, that for a while I was practicing Vipassana meditation constantly, but then I went again into some other let's say easier and I said it now, so I can't take it back, easier.
But as we know, easier is not necessarily the right thing to do. And now that you say that it is my action I will take off this conversation. So I'm probably the first one to be inspired by it. And I hope the listener also, switches back and becomes more consistent with Vipassana meditation, which funnily enough, Aneta, I have been thinking about the last few days. So ...
[00:24:45] Aneta: There you go. There's no judgment here. I love Vipassana. It allows me to just drop in and it's just so beautiful. It's what I practiced first, but sometimes we change. I was just listening to Gaya has this beautiful special on Ram Dass and his teachings. And the one I was listening to this morning, he says, sometimes we just move from one spiritual practice to the other because we reach a certain level and then we come back to it and we're able to go deeper as a result of it.
We reach a level and then we might need to shift and change something and then come back to it and be able to go even deeper. And no judgment, if it works, and even now, if you find yourself saying, I think I might want to go back to it. That's beautiful. Where did you do your silent meditation? Because I know there are Vipassana centers all over the world.
[00:25:30] Agi: They are all over the world. I did it in the UK not very far from where I lived in a nice rural area that had some very interesting realizations. Those 10 days of silence.
[00:25:42] Aneta: Yeah, I've not done one. I want to do one. My godson. He's 21. He just did one in Chicago this summer, and had some very beautiful experiences. Difficult. You encounter yourself over and over again, and constantly. But I do think that there's something something about not speaking and not trying to convey our meaning through words that allows us to go deeper back into the spiritual self and less of the ego or maybe connect to our earthly body. So you've had some time to think about it. Have you thought about what silence did for you?
[00:26:27] Agi: What you said and what comes to mind right now is bringing you back to the present moment. For example, when we were having our meals, it was all in silence. So when you are [00:26:40] in silence, you have in particular, now I'm giving this example of eating when you're not speaking while eating, you are more likely anyway to be present in the moment of what it is that you're doing right there at that moment, which is eating and putting some something nutritious inside your body.
So that's one example of the silence that it did for me. It makes me realize more or serves more as a reminder to be in the present moment. It's very easy to speak or to listen to something. Or to watch a video or whatever and be distracted from the present moment, whatever that is.
And I think this is even more important at the times that our situation, and I mean our internal situation is not peaceful. It has some unease that thing that I'm not sure what's going on, but I don't like it. So I need to do something about it, which could be picking up Facebook or whatever each person finds to distract them.
But when you have silence. Complete silence. And for those days, there's nothing of that, so no matter what happens in your internal world, you can't run away from it. You look at it and as you mentioned, it is beautiful, transformative, and very powerful, but it is difficult.
I will tell you this, and then I will end with this topic at the beginning of day three, I woke up and I thought, this is only day three. It felt like I had been there a week already and it was only two days. But it is worth it. 100 percent worth it.
[00:28:36] Aneta: It's been calling me, so it's going to be something I do. My godson had the same experience. I don't remember what day, but he said he had a day where he woke up and said, and then he was counting how many more days were left to go. And that's the resistance, right?
That's the suffering the resistance. And we've already made the decision. You're already there. You're ready in the middle of it. And it speaks, it's probably a reflection of how we approach so many things in life when things get a little bit difficult or maybe there's some uncertainty, but I love this topic and this idea of mindfulness and how you become more present. How has it changed you as a podcaster to have had this experience?
[00:29:20] Agi: That's a question no one has asked me before. So thank you for this. Now remember and I will mention, I will start with this that when I got back after, 10 days of silence, the following morning, I picked up my microphone and I recorded a draft for probably a couple of hours, whatever I could think about as an experience. So then I created a podcast episode, which is for me, one of my favorites, because, for someone like you, or for someone who is interested or has a calling for Vipassana.
I hope that when they listen to that podcast, the calling will be transformed into, going to the website and checking, okay, where can I book it? And when I think about answering your question more directly, it has changed me in the sense that I can bring it up more often. The topic of meditation, I can bring it up more often because I feel that have some specific experience.
I'm not claiming that I have mastered anything. But I have indeed done a 10-day and then a three-day later on a silent retreat. So I can bring some of the knowledge insights and experience ahead to a conversation since you're asking about the podcast. Yeah, perhaps it has guided me some questions that otherwise I might have not asked. So thank you for allowing me to reflect on this for the very first time.
[00:30:51] Aneta: No. And also having been your guest, you are so present. And so I feel that it has impacted you. I don't know what you were like before, but currently, the way I experience you is being so thoughtful and being so present and being in the moment and being curious. And I think that probably going through what you did and experiencing, that helps influence that level of mindfulness in the way that you meet and your guests and the way you have conversations and ask questions.
So I've been on the receiving end of it. So I appreciated that. And I do want to go back to the book because we've talked a lot about actions and just why it's so important to be able to take all these learnings, take everything that we consume and books and podcasts. There's so much information out there, but what are some of these actionable insights that you do talk about in your book, and have any of these come from your guests on your show?
[00:31:57] Agi: Again, a great question and I'll answer the other way around most not most of the books has come from to a large extent. I don't like using the word all. So let's say the majority of the book comes from the podcast.
Much of it, let's say two-thirds of it, is indeed the wisdom I gained from my guests that my guests shared in podcast episodes. About one-third of it is my insights or what I have learned through my personal development journey over these years. So it is a blend, but all of it has come from the podcast.
It felt as I told you earlier on when you asked me that. At some point, I didn't know that I wanted to write this book, and at some point, I thought, that's the book I want to write. And I started some of the insights. I will go back to the meditation. That was one thing that I had the opportunity to speak with meditation teachers.
And first of all, learned from them and put out some actionable things for example a technique of meditation is one of the insights, so you can use it. Morning routine, is a very big actionable insight that I discuss and explain over there its importance and what elements consist of it.
I do not go into it, I was about to say how it has influenced me, but the book has nothing like that. The book is not about the how, the why of the things, or the background. Each of those 88 actionable insights is a couple of pages. It's not theory. I do a morning routine. I have donethis for many years.
It's one of the most important elements of my day. That's it. Here are the elements. Bam. So these are some of the insights, Aneta. They have another one that comes to mind, which I will mention since it came up is how to find your purpose. It's a simple exercise that one of my guests described and it is It's shocking how simple it is, but you have to do it again. It is not something that, you listen to it and say, yes, I got it. Do it.
[00:34:26] Aneta: That's a big one because a lot of people struggle with that topic. And if you don't do the exercise be curious about what is your purpose, or I say there are many purposes with little P's. It doesn't have to be one big purpose with a capital P. Do you remember which guest or which episode it was?
Or I guess we can look into it and put it in the show notes afterward to direct people to it. They'll have to find it. I would direct everyone to your podcast because you have so many people that you've interviewed.
[00:34:59] Agi: Yes, there are many. So it depends on which of you want, but yes, I'm happy to share some of the links with you. So we can put them in the episode description.
[00:35:09] Aneta: That's perfect. And where can folks find your book?
[00:35:14] Agi: My book is on Amazon and Kindle, so you can get it there. I would like to offer the electronic, PDF version of the book free to your listeners. So if you are listening now, you can go to agikeramidas.com/88. And we will put that on the
[00:35:34] Aneta: Oh, that's fantastic. Thank you.
[00:35:36] Agi: You can get it for free.
[00:35:38] Aneta: That is very generous. I encourage everyone to not only get the book but also to subscribe to your podcast because you have so many amazing episodes and so much wisdom that comes from it. But just, of course, I love listening to you interview the guest And yeah.
[00:35:55] Agi: Can I add now, since you mentioned the podcast, that I will direct, if you are listening right now, we'll direct you to episode in particular, episode 418 of Personal Development Mastery podcast where I had the real joy of being the host of Aneta in the show. It was a brilliant conversation because it was all about being present or the underlying methods, even though there were other topics, the underlying methods throughout the conversation were. So yes, I'm sure that you will enjoy listening to that too.
[00:36:33] Aneta: Thank you so much. I loved being on the show and just having the conversation. You're such a joy and Agi, if people want to learn about other ways that they can work with you or what other things that you were doing within your business, what's the best way that folks can find you?
[00:36:48] Agi: Send me a message. I'm easily accessible. I think I have a website, agikeramidas.com. The podcast has information also, but please send me a message. If my voice resonated with you with what I said yeah I'm very happy to connect and see where that leads us, but I'm always happy to help,
[00:37:09] Aneta: And the final question I ask all my guests is tied to the title of the podcast, which is what does it mean to you to live the width of your life?
[00:37:18] Agi: The width for me is how much of your potential, and I will use this word, how much of your potential you can fulfill during your life. So the length is the years that you live, but how much of the possibilities that were. all of the things you were called to do and you had the inner desire to create or follow, how many of them did you do?
Because these are for me what creates the width, that expansion, that feeling of fulfillment, that feeling that, when you reach the end of the length, and you look back at your life your last moments or minutes. What do you look at? How wide was it? Did you do what you wanted to do or are you full of regrets for living the same year for 50 years and calling that 50 years rather than one repeated one?
So yeah, that's the way the width for me, Aneta and say, it's a beautiful question. The width of your life is, how much of your potential or of your purpose you fulfill during your length.
[00:38:47] Aneta: I love that answer. I love it. And I agree with you. We want to not live the same year over and over again. Yeah. Agi, such a pleasure to have you on the show. Such a pleasure to have met you. I'm so grateful for our conversations and I know we're going to continue to have more and just encourage everyone to reach out to you. What a generous offer make sure you download the book and I wish you continued success.
[00:39:13] Agi: Thank you so much, Aneta, for this wonderful conversation, all the very best.
[00:39:18] Aneta: Thank you for listening to today's episode. If today's conversation inspired you to dream again, break out of your comfort zones, or reflect on what it means to you to live more fully, then please follow this podcast because every week you'll hear more stories from people just like you who took imperfect action towards their goals, created more joy and are living the life that they always dreamt of living.