How A Dentist Rebuilt Life Through Podcasting with Dr. Agi Keramidas

What if the career you built isn’t the life you want? That question sparked a midlife awakening for Dr. Agi Keramidas, who traded a thriving path in dentistry for a mission fuelled by curiosity, conversation, and service. We unpack how intuition led him from the clinic to the microphone, why public speaking unlocked confidence, and how podcasting became the platform to learn in public and help others do the same.

Across this candid conversation, we pull back the curtain on the real engine of a durable show: consistency, systems, and a clear why. Agi shares the early “coach every week” insight that transformed interviews into a powerful form of self-education, then explains how doubling his publishing schedule revealed both the workload and the joy that turned a hobby into a mission. We dig into the marathon mindset—why most creators quit before episode ten, how trust compounds around episodes 50–60, and why comparing yourself to celebrity brands misses the years of reputation those voices carried long before their first upload.

We also get tactical. If starting today, Agi would build systems first: booking workflows, prep templates, editing pipelines, and distribution checklists that make publishing inevitable. We talk about smart automation and AI as time-savers, not shortcuts, and the importance of protecting authenticity over gimmicks. Then we explore content leverage: turning a library of episodes into evergreen assets, including Agi's book, 88 Actionable Insights for Life, distilled from hundreds of interviews into practical guidance.

You’ll leave with a simple invitation—choose one small step you’ve been postponing and take it today. Subscribe for more conversations about podcast strategy, audience trust, and the creative habits that make meaningful work sustainable. If this resonated, share it with a friend, drop us a review, and tell us the one action you’re taking next.

Chapters

• 0:04 Welcome And Guest Introduction
• 1:29 Midlife Awakening And Career Pivot
• 3:55 Choosing Podcasting And Early Spark
• 5:10 From Introvert To Ambivert
• 6:20 Aha Moments Behind The Mic
• 8:10 Scaling Output And Finding Mission
• 10:31 Podcasting As A Marathon
• 13:05 Building Trust And Audience Over Time
• 16:06 Systems, Automation, And Delegation
• 18:24 Authenticity And Smart Use Of AI
• 19:28 Turning Episodes Into A Book
• 22:01 Final Advice: Take A Small Step
• 23:27 Credits And Calls To Action

Transcript

Carl: 0:04

Welcome to Communication Connection Community, the Podcaster's Podcast. This podcast takes a deep dive into modern-day communication strategies in the podcasting space. We chat with interesting people who make the podcasting and speaking spaces exciting and vibrant. We also dive into the podcasting community with news, updates, latest trends and topics from this ever-evolving space. So strap in, it's going to be one amazing ride. Let's dive into today's episode. And my guest today is Dr. Agi Keramidas, originally from Greece, and he's been living in the UK since 2010. His personal development journey took him from being a dentist with a master's degree to becoming a podcaster, knowledge broker, and author. He is on a lifelong journey of personal growth and self-mastery. Despite his formal education, he is a big believer in the immense power of self-education. He is a critical thinker and yet at the same time deeply spiritual. He is a sought-after podcast guest. We've already said he's a podcast host, and we're so thrilled he's joining us today. We're going to talk about a number of different things, including Dr. Agi's journey into podcasting. Welcome to the podcast.

Agi: 1:22

Carl, thank you very much for this wonderful introduction. I'm excited to be here and I'm looking forward to this conversation.

Carl: 1:28

From dentist to podcaster, knowledge broker, and author, what was the transition from one to the others?

Agi: 1:37

I think it was what I like to call a midlife awakening. Not a crisis. Not a crisis, yes. I took the lesson early, Carl, and didn't allow it to transition into a crisis. I think the crisis happens when you don't deal with it, when it appears and you postpone it. But yeah, what changed for me was uh realizing that dentistry, what I had been doing for all my life, you know, then until I was forty or so. Actually, I had just finished a master's degree in dentistry at that time. So instead of being super pumped and motivated to practice, I was the opposite. I was unmotivated, confused, I didn't want to do any of that. And that led me, you know, to start investigating. And I mean investigating myself and figuring out led me to personal development, reading books, going to seminars, this one thing led to the other, speaking happened as a result, and then podcasting. So it was a gradual transition over a period of years, but it was and still is a beautiful journey for me.

Carl: 2:43

It's funny because I think that a lot of people believe that, you know, why would you give up something like dentistry to take the self-employment or self-discovery route when in fact sometimes we need to do that, we need to let go of something, and sometimes that first career or our first love isn't the love we're experiencing right now, and especially as you're going on that self-discovery journey.

Agi: 3:07

Definitely. And what led me the way that you asked it was when you feel unsatisfied, when you don't feel in your heart that this is, you know, what you would like to do for the next 20 years of your life, when you don't feel, you know, fulfillment in what you do. I think that is the perfect way I can describe it. If fulfillment is lacking, then I really personally I didn't want to live my life feeling unfulfilled. And just going through the emotions before you know it, you know, you are 80 years old and you look back and say, Oh my god, what have I done? So I think when you look at it like that, it gives you more, let's say, courage and determination to take some decisions that can actually change things for you.

Carl: 3:55

And as you're on this journey of discovery, why podcasting? What is it that made you sit up and take notice of the podcasting medium?

Agi: 4:04

This is a great question, and the short answer is my intuition. My heart brought it in front of me. At that time I had just started doing public speaking, which was, you know, the complete opposite of what I used to be, a very shy person. And when I discovered how speaking made me feel, and what kind of energy I had, you know, when I was speaking to others, then I discovered podcasting completely accidentally, I would say. Someone was talking about it, and I thought, wow, this I think I can combine my new skills of speaking and put it into the podcast. So that was the spark of inspiration that triggered it. Of course, it took many, many months before I actually did something with it, but eventually I did, out of uh curiosity, and as a hobby completely at that time, I started my first podcast back in 2018. And then I realized very much that great joy when I was doing that, so I just kept on going. So that's how it started.

Carl: 5:10

So you're on this discovery journey, you're stepping from being a very shy, quiet person to now doing some public speaking, to doing podcasting. Would you still consider yourself to be an introvert, or have you shifted now to being more of an extrovert?

Agi: 5:27

I prefer in these cases the word ambivert because I'm by nature I'm still an introvert, Carl. I think, but that doesn't mean that I can't, when I, for example, here right now, I'm behaving and I'm performing or speaking in a very different way. I'm not the introvert, is you know, I left him behind 20 minutes ago when when we started the call. But that is my nature. However, I have learned to change it when I need not to be an introvert. And this is the I consider that to be. Rather than you know, the term extrovert, I certainly don't consider myself an extrovert, because I think that also implies some personality traits that I don't necessarily apart you know from the confidence to speak and express your opinions, there are other things I think that an extrovert.

Carl: 6:20

What are some of the things that you've discovered about podcasting that maybe you didn't realize when you first uh started your show? What are some of the aha moments that you've had along the way?

Agi: 6:32

That's such a lovely question. Uh you know, after all these years, there are many. I remember one of the first things I realized because uh when I started, especially when I started the podcast, the majority of my guests were coaches. So they were in the personal development space and the many were coaches. I would get to ask them anything I wanted, and most of the things that it was my own personal curiosity and what I wanted to learn. So I started half-jokingly saying that with the podcast I have a different coach every week. I interview different people, I ask them, so I'm getting also coached. So that was a very important realization for me and lesson, and that was early on. That when you are behind the microphone asking questions, there is a great power you have to learn, first of all. And you get to learn what you want to learn, you can be inspired, it all depends, you know, the kind of person you have opposite you and what you ask and what you want to draw from the conversation. But it was uh incredible the amount of knowledge that I was learning, and of course then passing it on to the listener whatever they want to pick from the conversation. So yeah, the first one that comes to mind was that. The second now that comes to mind, Carl, there are so many, I will tell you a couple of them, just uh random ones that come to mind, and was when I started second podcast, Personal Development Mastery, this podcast that I have now with uh 435 episodes now. I started it just before the lockdowns back in 2020 with the COVID. And I was I started it as one episode a week, like I was you used. And with the lockdowns, because of the additional free time that I had along with lots of people at that time, I started doing two episodes a week. And I realized two things very quickly. First, that it was a lot of work to produce two episodes a week, and at that time I was doing every single thing uh myself. We didn't have AI tools uh back in 2020 to write the show notes or things like that, so it was very much uh intensive in terms of the the work it needed. But I was happily doing it, and the second thing I realized was that this is not a hobby anymore for me. The the way that I was treating it was becoming a passion. I would spend the majority of my time. And of course, then it carried on since 2020. I carried on with that frequency of two episodes a week. And of course now it has gone even past uh passion. It is it has become mission for me. I mean I can't you know what, Carl, I will share that and then I will take a pause and uh you can ask whatever you want. I I can't see myself, let's say five years down the line, ten years down the line. I can't see myself not doing the podcast. It is something that I can see myself doing for a very long time. I certainly want to reach a thousand episodes. There is no no way I would stop before then. So I still have uh close to halfway there, but not yet.

Carl: 9:50

Well, congratulations on the success of the show. That is phenomenal. Some podcasters don't even get to episode eight, let alone over you said over 400 episodes. 435, yes. Wow, and again, you would not have that success if you stopped month three, right? You would you would just would not have that success. And you'd be scratching your head still saying, I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing. And whereas the podcast I think has given you some purpose. And great things that you've shared about things that you've the aha moments that you've had. It's definitely a long game, not a short game. So when you talk about 10 years, you know, five years, 10 years down the line, you don't see yourself not doing a podcast. I think it's refreshing for somebody who's either brand new in the space or considering the space because sometimes they can't see the forest for their trees. They don't even see their first 50 episodes, let alone 10 years of episodes.

Agi: 10:46

It's a great point that you're making. And I often say that podcasting or the success in podcasting, if you want, is like a marathon. It's it's not a sprint. And anyone that is thinking that will go into podcasting and they will, I don't know, become viral or whatever, and they will create a huge success in the first few months. I think they should probably no not start it in the in the first place, because podcasting doesn't work like that, in my experience. Anyway, it is a long game. And you said unfortunately many people don't even reach episode ten or or eight, and that's the sad reality. I think it is two thirds of the podcast that quit before they reach there. It's uh mind blowing. I think uh something important to begin with for someone so that they won't quit before episode eight is to have a very good understanding of why they want to get into podcasting and to have a very clear intention and good mentor also I would add not to go into all this thing on their own. Because then it is it gets very easy to become part of those uh sixty five percent of uh podcasters that quit before episode ten. When you look at the longer game, when you look at a hundred episodes, when you look at past the first year of the podcast, these are things for me you have to consider from the very beginning, at the outset, and look ahead like that. And that's what many people, or two-thirds of the people, don't, in my opinion. That's why they don't manage.

Carl: 12:22

I like how you defined that. They're not seeing it as a marathon, they're seeing it as a sprint. I think they're also comparing it up front to other media that we've come to know over the years and expect instantaneous results. Or they're looking at some of their colleagues or friends who are maybe further along on their journey, or even people they admire. You know, maybe it's uh Brene Brown or Tony Robbins or any of those folks who are very top-notch and well-known celebrities and thought leaders, and they think, well, if they can do it, I can too. Not realizing that that journey that those individuals have been on, it didn't start with the podcast. It started years before, and there were personal struggles and challenges and business and all kinds of things. That that's now how they're able to do that. So, to your point about it's not likely that you're going to have instant success unless you already have that status, you're right. It's definitely going to take some time and dedication and commitment, and it might take 10 years.

Agi: 13:26

It will take as long as it will take. These are the things that no one can uh predict uh beforehand. And you know, all this. You have to build the audience, you have to build the trust of the audience. And you mentioned all these people, Tony Robbins, etc. How many times have has one listened to Tony Robbins' content in one way or another? To be able to say, absolutely, of course I will listen to this podcast and I will follow them. But he is very well known because we have been we know him. You have probably heard him, you know, ph hundreds of times. You have been to his events like I have, or so on. So it's it's not the the podcast, of course. It came as uh he's a well known. But when you don't have an audience and the podcast will allow you to have a deeper connection with the audience compared with, I don't know, TikTok or whatever else. It has a deeper connection with the audience. But in order to build that connection, that's what it takes time. And you know, if you think of the podcast that you like, how many times have you listened to them to you know trust the person that is behind the microphone and respect them? It certainly didn't happen when you first listened to answer. You said, Oh, this is great, I will follow this person and do whatever they uh recommend. No, it takes time. And I'm just coming back, uh Carl, to what we were saying about the the long-term game. Hopefully it won't take ten years, as you said, but if it does, it does, you know. Things take from my experience longer than I would like them to.

Carl: 15:03

Yeah, I think that's uh on my part, that's an exaggeration. And I think the point I was trying to make was it'll it might take more, likely will take more than eight episodes. And it might take, you know, your journey might take. I had a colleague who once said that, because I remember asking him fairly early on in my podcasting journey. I asked him, at what point, how many episodes in do you start to see the needle move with how many listeners and what's the engagement level? And he said, somewhere around episode 50 to 60. And at this point, I was at episode, I don't know, maybe episode eight or nine. And I'm thinking, I have a long way to go. I'm over 200 episodes now, and I'm scratching my head going, and I was worried about episode hitting episode 50. But but I think we we look at that and we say, Oh, that's gonna take so long. But nothing good or nothing worthwhile in life ever comes easy, and some of the greatest things take a long time, be it the Sistine Chapel or Rome wasn't built in the day, so neither should your success in podcasting. And let me ask you this question though, Aggie. If you were starting out again, talking about the podcast, or maybe in business too, but if you were starting out again, what would you do differently? Or would you do anything differently? Would it be the same?

Agi: 16:16

If I started out now, I don't know if if I would go back in time and restart it, but if I were to start now, I would uh definitely make uh use from the beginning of the the systems, the processes, the automations that now I'm aware of that you know they have taken me over my six plus years of podcasting. I have learned a few things as you can imagine. But I would certainly utilize those because they are a time saver. Because podcasting, there is this bit that one or the listener sees or hears, that is the finished product. In order for that to be on Spotify ready for you to download, there are other things that need to be done that if you don't either systemize it or give it to someone else to do it, then they're going to eat up a lot of your time. And that is uh inevitable if you want to do something good. So I think to answer your question concisely, I would utilize as much as possible automation AI and systems that now I know about and I can go through a checklist of some sort, and you know things uh happen very, very fast.

Carl: 17:35

And those tools are phenomenal. And I and I'm glad how you mentioned too that, especially if you're doing it yourself, because there are a lot of people who will do their podcasts themselves. And previously, I'd say prior to 2020 for sure, a lot of that grunt work you had to do manually. Now there are tools that can help you do that. If you don't even want to do that yourself, there are agencies like mine, for example, and that's what we do. We take the back-end responsibilities or tasks away so you can just focus on doing your content and we make you look and sound good on the other end. So all those cleaning up and digital mastering and all of that stuff. We take care of that. You don't even have to figure it out. But to your point, those tools are there for a reason. They're to to help us and make our lives easier.

Agi: 18:21

Definitely. All we need to do is embrace them and use them effect effectively.

Carl: 18:27

I like that. Use them effectively. Effectively, yes. Don't use them against you, and certainly don't put certainly don't put a bad product out there just because you you want to try and seem creative. I've I've seen some people do that, especially with some of the AI voice technologies, they'll they'll do some very I'll say weird, weird voices that don't even match the not a clear reflection of their show, but they just like how that sounds. Well, that if it's not a reflection of your brand and your business, why are you doing it? Why are it bringing in about inauthenticity when what the audience wants is the real, the authentic, the you, so they can decide whether or not that connection is worthy of listening to next week, but then even doing a deeper dive with you and and following up and buy your book or jump into one of your programs or whatever it is.

Agi: 19:20

Absolutely, Carl. I I agree with you. I mean, I don't have anything particular to add to that.

Carl: 19:28

Let's talk about your book though, because you do have I think this is a good transition to talk about your book because you uh you do have a book, 88 Actionable Insights for Life. Let's talk about it, yeah.

Agi: 19:38

Sure, the interesting thing is that content of the book, the vast majority of the content of the book came from the podcast. And I think that is something very interesting, and that for someone listening that considering a podcast or have a podcast is that that content can be used again. Once you have collected enough and you process it and you look at it, you can then so that's what happened with uh with me. I realized I had at that time about two hundred and fifty episodes or something like that, maybe a bit less. And I thought this is the time to make a book. I mean I got uh inspired very much by Tim Ferris, who used his podcast to make uh Tools of Titans, etc. And I thought okay I will make a version of uh Tim Ferris. And that's where Eighty Eight Actionable Insights for Life came about, with uh actionable things that my guests mainly, but also I have uh my own there as well, but uh the guests from the podcast gave me about their topic of expertise. So there are uh about fifty different uh people combined in the book, sharing their wisdom that I uh distilled through the the podcast. So it was a very uh it was of course a learning process and a very interesting all I'm saying is that since we are talking about uh podcasting generally and people who are interested or have their podcast, uh that there are tremendous possibilities with your content to do some other things with it and make it evergreen and so on. So it it takes a lot of work for sure, but all good things take a lot of work, but uh the it's a great idea.

Carl: 21:31

Everyone has a book in them, everyone has a podcast in them too, and I'll tell you the two go hand in hand. So the fact that you've taken a lot of stuff from your podcast and put that into your book is amazing. So thank you for sharing that because quite often I'll have folks who'll say, Well, I want to write a book and I want to do a podcast. Which one should I do first? Six of one half dozen the other. I always say the podcast just because it's an easier runway, and that's where you're going to get a bunch of that content. But certainly the other way works too. So we'll make sure that the link for the book is in the show notes as well as all of your social media, your website, and all of that stuff so people can connect with you after today. Oh my goodness, Dr. Agi Keramitas, it has been an amazing conversation today. Before I turn you loose, though, to go produce another podcast, phenomenal podcast episode, or dive into some other phenomenal things like what you're doing, I'll give you the final thought.

Agi: 22:21

What I would say, and it kind of ties to something we were saying earlier, try and find something that excites you that like to do and think of something that maybe you have been wanting to do and been postponing it for a long time. Just pick that one thing, and I think uh each of us think they can figure something out very quickly. And once you pick that up, then take a small step, a small action towards it. And when I say small, it can be as simple as uh you know going online and checking a website about thing or you know sending a text to your friend that knows about it. Something very simple. It doesn't matter what it is, as long as it is a small action towards that. And then see what happens. That's my open invitation. See what happens afterwards. You might be very pleasantly surprised.

Carl: 23:14

And enjoy the journey as you're doing that too. Dr. Agi Keramidas has been my guest today. Thank you so much for being on the show.

Agi: 23:21

Thank you very much, Carl.

Carl: 23:22

It was a real pleasure to be here. And hey, thank you for being a part of the show today. So glad you could join us. Believe it or not, I can't work this magic by myself. So, thanks to my amazing team, our audio engineer Dom Carillo, our sonic branding genius Kenton Dobrowolski, and the person who works the arms, all of our arms actually, our project manager and my trusty assistant Julovell Tiongco, known to us here simply as July. If you like what you heard today, let us know. You can leave us a comment or review or even send us a voice note. And if you really liked it, we hope you'll share it with your friends and your colleagues. If you don't like what you heard today, well, please feel free to share it with your enemies. And if you know of someone who would make a great guest on the show, let us know about it. You can get in touch with us by going to our show notes where all of our connection points are there, including the links to our website, LinkedIn, and Facebook as well. And if you're ready to be a guest on podcasts, or even start your own show, let's have a conversation. We'll show you the simplest way to get into the podcasting space and rock it. Because after all, we're Podcast Solutions Made Simple. Catch again next time.