About me
Hello there, how are you doing?
I appreciate you stopping by to check out my bio and learn more about me and how I can help you achieve your goals.
I assume that you are here because you are looking for my advice on how to become financially and geographically independent. It could also be because you want to escape from a job that does not fulfill you anymore or maybe never did.
You could have landed on my page on your quest to make your life better. You want to be the maker of your future and have more time for the things that really matter like closely watch your children grow up every single day.
If any of the above cases is true, I believe I can help you so stick around.
In order for me to help you though you must be willing to be helped. You must have a positive attitude towards adjusting and learning new stuff. You must also be willing to invest time and money. Finally, you should be a positive thinking person.
Keep in mind that I cannot help you if you are looking for a quick fix, for a get rich quick scheme. I don’t know how to do this and honestly, I find it hard to believe that it is out there.
Now that we have made this clear, know that I tried hard to make this a short read. However there are important parts of my life that are key to the understanding of the whole picture so I had to include them at least in a quick mode. This is my best try.
“Captain of my own ship”
I have come to a point in my life where I can choose. I choose where and what. This is because quite early in my life at the age of 29 to be exact, that is approximately 15 years back, I realized that my future was not as an employee. I didn’t want my future to be in someone else’s hands. I wanted to be the captain of my ship.
After working on my first job for a large firm for 4 years I refused to accept that I would continue as an employee for the rest of my life. I did not want to have the same future as my oldest coworkers. I didn’t want to be stuck in a 9-5 job. That is why I quit my high paying job and I traveled the world for 4 months.
“Backpacking alone for a long period of time at the age of 30 was a life-transforming event for me. I had the time to be with my own, to feel comfortable with myself, to practice my communication skills and to be inventive just to mention a few of the benefits.
I visited amazing places, met incredible people, put myself into memorable situations.”
2005 at the center of the world in Ecuador
Then, upon returning to Greece I knew one thing for sure: that I wanted more of that long period travelling. I did not know what I wanted to do for work, but I knew that I wanted to be self-employed, I wanted to be free of bosses, I wanted time to do the things that really mattered to me.
Letting go of a secure job is a risk, how many times have you heard this? I too was told so back then by most of my friends and family, but I was willing to take that risk at that time instead of having to take it later when I would be higher in the ladder with “more to lose”.
Can YOU too relate to that? Do YOU also feel this pressure from your environment? This is the time when you must dig deep and listen to your inner voice. You will know you are on the right path when you hear the voice telling you to move forward.
Getting into entrepreneurship at the age of 30
It was then that I embarked in the journey of entrepreneurship and by following my intuition I started my first business which was commerce of electronics that I sourced from China. I did that for the next 4 years.
In the course of the following 9 years I went on to start 3 different businesses living in Brazil and Hawaii.
Out of these 4 businesses all but one made financially successful. The one that didn’t make money though taught me the most valuable lessons. I say this because I am a strong believer that when it comes to failures in business, in life too for that respect, they are actually more useful than successes if you are ready to learn from them, stand up and move on.
The best part of my journey though has been the financial, time and geographical freedom it has provided me on the most part. I have traveled wherever I wished to follow my passion for waves and as long as I had an internet connection, I was able to travel for long periods of time.
Living in eternal summer
Even better, on November 2nd 2009 I moved to Brazil by myself, which had been my dream since my backpacking adventure. Since first stepping there in 2005 I had fallen in love with the waves, the vibrant people and it’s colorful culture, all of that really resonating with me. In the years between my first visit and 2009 I had revisited Brazil for 3 times each time visiting a different part of the country
Brazil my love
“It’s hard to describe how living in Brazil really is, but picture this: emotions to the max, dance, good mood all the time, optimism, sensations, brotherhood, adventure, beach life”
So I made my plans, I learned Brazilian Portuguese, I studied the economy and the business opportunities and almost 5 years later I found myself living in SAMBA country. Brazil treated me very very well indeed as in the total of 6 years that I lived there, I met my soul mate, we got married and we had our first child. I launched two businesses one in Real Estate and one in Technology. Both were successful.
Brazil was succeeded but yet another paradise. In 2014, at the age of almost 40, I was determined to push it to the next level. Being backed by a super supportive wife with whom we shared the same dreams and by our common goals to live our life to it’s best potential envisioned life in Hawaii.
And so, we made it happen once again and in December of 2015 we moved to Maui Hawaii, a place that was calling me due to the magic it boosts, not to say it’s world class waves. We stayed a total of 3 years on Maui where we had our second child AND we opened one more business which was a traditional brick and mortar business.
The Greek Oven Maui
The business we opened was a Greek bakery/bistro, The Greek Oven and it was located on the small city of Haiku on the North Shore of Maui. Well you might wonder now how the heck did I come up with this idea of a business, right?
The background of this is that for the previous 5 years or so, my wife and I were flirting with the idea of opening a cafe in Brazil or somewhere else around the world. Owning a small cafe has a mystic, I would say even romantic breeze which had been attracting us.
We dreamed of serving amazing cold Greek coffees, Greek delights, hosting our guests in a spectacular space. We visualized customers lining up to try our delicacies and us collecting all the money and feeling super proud!
We even imagined ourselves as small business owners and we thought that it would be a very relaxing and gratifying business to have.
Scroll through to get an idea of what our life was like for almost a year and a half
The reality of this however was that although it gave us many positive experiences, friendships and lessons, it was mostly a hard time.
Having two young kids along with a new restaurant was FAR from life in paradise. My wife and I took a toll and experienced stressful weeks and months with no days off, long days and nights on our feet, the work in the kitchen, dealing with reviews, etc etc.
Imagine, a business that does not rest, a far distant island, expensive life, no family support and finances going down…fast!
Going down the rabbit hole
It’s hard for me to put in words the anxiety that both my wife and I felt during that period. I remember the frequent times when at night, after coming back from work, we would look each other deep in the eyes, face to face, arms holding and saying “What did we do????”
Well, it was not too long that after serious, realistic conversations Santuzza and I decided to put an end to this before it put an end to us.
Most importantly because we did not see ourselves doing this job in 5, 10 years. There was just no leverage, not our ideal lifestyle, we were not growing and…unless it’s your passion, which it wasn’t ours, it would eat us alive.
We realized that this is not what we wanted as it directly opposed our freedom concept.
So, we closed it down taking a large financial loss and we moved back to Greece to be close to family support.
We lost a lot of money BUT we are dead sure that that was the best decision we could have made.
Money we can make, time we cannot
My wife told me something which made everything clear: “Money we can make, time we can’t!” What I realized then is that if I would loose the precious time of the upraising of my children, I could not bring that time back.
More importantly I thought that no money is worth sacrificing my marriage, my relationship with my children and my personal health, all three directly suffering from our business.
Insight about a CLEVER business
This extreme experience opened my eyes and was the necessary push to bring me where I’m now.
It’s astounding how our deepest insights and strengths come jump out of our fiercest lows in our life. We just have to listen and to be brave to acknowledge them.
I remember all the agonizing months leading to closing down our restaurant when I was telling my wife and to my employees every day: “Man, our next business has to be a CLEVER one”
It has to be a business that a) involves no investment in fixed assets as equipment, furniture, and refurbishment, b) has no geographical constraints, c) has very little fixed costs and no binding contracts and d) if you decide not to work one day or one week, nothing bad will happen.
These were exactly our PAIN POINTS at the restaurant.
If by now you feel inspired stick around because I will be able to help you. At least by inspiring you to take action and follow your true destiny.
I live in Greece now, with my wife and our 2 children and a lifestyle that most of the people I know admire me for.
Riding the digital wave
My goal was to spend the upcoming, early years of my children working from home to spend a lot of time with them.
I was fortunate to find an excellent course provided by an inspiring team of mentors who taught me how to build my own online business.
With simple steps, one after the other, I learned the skills needed to set-up, operate, and scale an online business.
And the result? In the last two years, since Hawaii, I started two online businesses.
Both of them are entirely online, but they are in different segments.
I launched the first one alongside learning online skills, and this was a business that promoted education programs.
The second one was a travel blog around the Greek islands promoting islands, travel tips, hotels, ferry tickets, etc.
Following my values
In 2020 I did a carreer re-thinking and I decided to get into the promising energy market.
Capitalizing on my engineering degree I took some courses and became marketable again; ready for one more carreer change.
Then I looked around, worked on my networking skills and finaly I scored a job as a project manager on a solar company in Hawaii.
Enterpreneur to the core, I treated this job as a stepping stone and before a full year could go by I was once more with my own company saving the planet.
My new venture, NETZERO ENERGY, is giving me tremendous satisfaction because I can use math, technology and peoples skills to save energy for my clients.
Closing note
I wish to thank you for taking the time to read through this pretty long About Me section. I hope this has been inspirational for you and that it will help you take concrete action towards improving your life.
You will need guts, commitment and faith if you want to transform your life. But remember, with hard work comes pay-off and there is light at the end of the tunnel, I guarantee you that.
I am glad that I can be of service to you in your path.
To your success
