Born from a Greek family who moved to S.Africa and then the UK with no money was very inspiring for Dino as he saw his parents go from Zero to successful, whilst still being well cared for. This inspired Dino to want to give back in some way.
As a young adult he wanted to be a rockstar and entertain, but his real heart was from a charity perspective to earn lots of money and give it back to others. Enjoying a gap year after Uni, with a business plan in property prepared, Dino’s life changed after a call from his brother telling him mum has been diagnosed with motor neurones disease. So complete chaos ensued with the person closest to him at that time. His plan blown into smitherines, and he went from being super confident to unconfident and a mess.
Instead of doing what he’d dreamed of he joined IBM as a consultant. Then a man said come to finance and sales thats where you can earn the most money, his ambition lead him into the trap. Then headed up a European company and got to travel, where the money was unbelievable earning six figures at 27. When he told family he was unhappy, they blamed it on his mums illness but he was physically throwing up before going to work with stress.
His mum passed away 5 years after diagnosis which was pivotal in Dino realising he needed to change, as he hadn’t found a way to be truly authentic. So in walks Alex Eastman who shifted Dinos world 180 degrees. He allowed the possibility of opening himself up to a level where he could find his true purpose by knowing himself better. Uncovering his core values, and realising his vision and mission has been the turning point for Dino. It allowed him to feel held and be patient.
It was then that he had a big shift in thinking and realised he could impact people now. So he joined a charity to build it from a local one to a nationwide one. This was a massively more aligned role than corporate sales. He also took a massive pay cut to do it which weirdly given his previous ambitions wasnt a big deal.
This work then started opening his eyes to how his other values could be realised and coaching started to surface as a deep desire that was massive for Dino in terms of fulfillment. He realised he needed to step away from the charity and be true to where he was aligned and threw himself into some additional studies at Cambridge and Oxford to develop a framework that could help others transcend the same chaos that he had been able to do.
This work allows you to uncover the confidence of who you are and what you really want to do and gives you a reference card to work from. UCU was born and the next step was to grow it and add value to people. He had no idea where the money was coming from but people are just joining and it’s grown from 1 to 80 people in a short time and he is now tapping into the 20 year old him for the first time.
Dino and I both agreed we didn’t want to play the game of corporate, or the game of relationships, but until we did this work we didn’t have the confidence to play our own game, and had no idea what we wanted it to be. What we realised is you don’t need to play another person’s game, and you can create your own within the environment you’re already in with fun, joy and meaning.
Values are the things that determine our behaviour. Whats most important to us can be out of alignment when external factors close in and we can act out of integrity. You need to know your whole array of core values to be in integrity, otherwise your are too biased in one direction which may not be serving you or others in your life. If you want to change your chaos Dino’s advice is to look inside, clear some space and build your own game. And to do it properly you need a coach who will help guide you through your own core values, vision and mission statement. Then you will be aligned. You can reach Dino at https://www.dinorakitzis.com/
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