Interview with Performance Coach & Nutritionist Luke Georgiou

Patricia: I would love it if you don't mind sharing what life was like before you joined the academy? What led you to come to our Open House (that I remember so well when you attended and then took the leap, you were the first student who enrolled in 2019, actually).

Luke: Thanks for having me on, and it's a pleasure to be here. So my background has always been in sports, was a professional futbol coach, for a number of different professional futbol clubs. I've always been involved in performance, whether it be sport or the nutrition that goes with that.

A few years ago now I remember being in quite a low stage in my life. I can't quite put my finger on what it was, I didn't know if it was depression or what it was, but things didn't feel right. The only thing that I was still doing well was eating and I thought, 'well if I'm eating well, I must be quite passionate about nutrition and food, and maybe I should explore this a bit more.'

So I don't know what it was that led me to do it. All I can think of is was that, so I started to Google nutrition courses one night and I looked at The Academy's curriculum and was really impressed by it. And I think it was only a few days later, Lauren and I, my wife, got in the car and headed to an Open House. We found the building and I think we arrived a little bit late. So we'd missed most of the presentation. But I remember just seeing the curriculum set on the back table. I was going through it and it just blew my mind with the amount of information in it... Everything from Chinese medicine to modern science. I was so interested by it. And as you said, I was the first one to sign up on. I didn't even hear what you had to say, to be honest. I was just like, 'I think it was meant to be', and I signed up. It's literally changed my life and changed my wife's life as well.

Patricia: Thank you for sharing that. We often find with our students when they come to us, there is there's an innate knowing or an innate calling, to do this work. Perhaps you can't necessarily put your finger on exactly what you were looking to do with the curriculum. It was just kind of, 'Okay, here I am. It's calling me. I love connecting with food'. And then there's a bit of synchronicity that happens where you end up at the right place, at the right time, and then you may have that instinct to to join and end up honoring that which which is really beautiful. You know, for a lot of people, obviously, it's a big decision to make. There can be quite a lot of back and forth of like, 'Oh, is this right?'. But you know, when you truly know and you can honor that knowing straight away, it's such a powerful thing.

Luke: I remember I was running my sports coaching company at the time, so financially it was a commitment, but it was something that when I saw the curriculum and connected to it, it was a no-brainer for me. I didn't have to think twice about it. So yeah, I think it just as you said, it called out to me... How you link nutrition to spirituality, the Daoist side of things... that really fascinates me. Quite a few elements of the course spoke to me that night.

Patricia: You graduated March 2020 before the world turned upside down. And you've been doing some amazing things since. I was just recently a guest on your podcast, which was a really fun thing to do together. I would love for you to share a bit of what you've done since since you graduated, and what the curriculum has done in terms of integrating this both professionally and personally.

Luke: So professionally, I began health coaching in the lockdown online, making money, helping people. I was sending health tests to their house, I made sure they were eating. I was going above and beyond and getting their vitamin and mineral levels and combining that with the knowledge from the program. I really enjoyed doing that. My wife has always struggled with gluten intolerances and food intolerances and being on medication. Her diet has expanded massively since the course and she's now able to eat a lot more foods. A few weeks ago, she said to me how much me going on the course has changed her life, so that was really amazing to hear as well.

For me personally, it's allowed me to empower myself day to day knowing that what I put in my body is medicine and knowing how to best eat according to what I need, my constitution, what I'm going through, the seasons. So from a personal perspective, it's given me a whole host of tools to just live consciously rather than just to pick random stuff up and just eat for the sake of surviving, it's a lot more conscious and intentional with what you eat.

Patricia: Yeah, there is an intention that comes with our training. There's this this purposefulness that we integrate in the way that we live, where it's not just living on autopilot, but it is about embodiment, tuning in with ourselves, tuning in with nature, with the cycles of life, and being able to make those intentional, purposeful decisions for our wellbeing. That in turn, obviously supports those in our immediate surroundings. And then, of course, in our broader network as we continue to share that knowledge in various ways. And I know you obviously come from futbol coaching and now that you've come together with this really fun performance coaching. So if you want to share a little bit about how you've combined your previous life with life after Academy?

A lot of students come our way with and with various different paths that they walked and different things that they've done, other trainings or, they've done different elements in holistic health and/or other. And it's nice to see how everything kind of marries and how there's so many ways to integrate these learnings.

Luke: So I'm going to be launching a podcast very soon. We've already got three episodes recorded, including one with yourself, which as you said, it was really good fun. So mixing people from a performance background when it comes to sport, having those types of guests on the show for people heavily linked to nutrition and spirituality. Just combining all the things that I find interesting.

And then when it comes to futbol, I'm still coaching a lot. I do 1:1 with players and it's just another string to my bow to be able to offer them nutritional advice. It was only the other day I was giving a player some nutritional advice as well based on what I've learned at the Academy. So it's a massive part of my life and it's, yeah, fully integrated. Now it's hard to distinguish what is the Academy, what's nutrition, what's football, and what's the podcast. It's just all one, really.

Patricia: Yeah, it's just a manifestation of all that you are, all the interests that you have, and all the knowledge you have gained.

It's really beautiful to see how everything can fall into place and students who come our way are typically nervous about what will be after graduation. What can they do? There's always this opportunity to trust that the answers will come to you. And we obviously support you through the business training, and through that, the student projects can understand their gifts and how they can bring them to fruition. And then by the end of it, you know, there is no line between what's work and what's not in a way, like you said, it's a selfish pursuit in the sense that what you do, it just becomes so enjoyable that you know, it's doesn't even feel like work anymore, which is what we think work should be like for everyone.

So, yeah, thank you, Luke. That was nice to hear. I would love to hear a bit about your experience with the course. What do you think was your biggest takeaway from the training?

Luke: It's hard to pinpoint one thing, but I went in thinking that I knew quite a bit about nutrition, but I actually realized that I didn't. So from things like soaking, sprouting, and learning how to make foods more digestible and more bioavailable to learning about fermented foods and probiotics. I mean, they're the things that I use day in, day out that I had never done before. Every day I have fermented foods now. Soak my rice, I have rice every day. Those are some of the things day in and day out that I had never done before. And then there's food energetics and knowing how to be in tune with the seasons, which I had no idea about. Learning that food is medicine has been a massive one. When we are going through training sets, and if a client has a certain ailment or condition, knowing what organ to nourish and what you can do when it comes to Chinese medicine to help.

I give the example we spoke about it in the podcast that my mum was struggling with osteopenia and she was afraid to leave her job and also had tinnitus, and another third condition. So I looked at the Chinese medicine theory and saw that all three of the things relate to the kidneys. And then we created a program to help through nourishing the kidneys, which I never had a clue about beforehand. So yeah, that was a real game-changer for me, learning how to look at food as medicine from a whole new perspective.

Everything's been incredible. So that's the curriculum. And then the tutors and the knowledge base that you're learning from are incredible. Everyone in the program is so knowledgeable and has so much experience, I think you're really learning from people that have been there and done it. It's a perfect environment if you want to learn.

Patricia: Yeah, absolutely. Everyone really honors our teachers for their depth of knowledge. As some of you may know, our teachers have been in the field of holistic health since the sixties. They've been pioneers in this field and we always have to cut classes short! Otherwise, we could go on and speak for ages with them because they know so much. It's just such an honor to continue to learn from them and have more and more people access their brilliant minds. They're not modern-day teachers. They're not really on Instagram or, perhaps you don't see them in this space as much, but they are incredible.

Luke: They are doing really good things in the world.

Patricia: Exactly. It's incredible to have them in our curriculum and be able to share that knowledge. In TCM, we welcome this kind of holistic view of the body and how everything is connected and intertwined. In terms of your case study with your mom and how you were able to find these different points and bring awareness to how they're all connected.

I think that the last question because obviously, you've mentioned the takeaways in terms of the curriculum, what was your favorite highlight?

Luke: I really enjoyed the practicals which were incredible. Inga is unbelievable when it comes to food is medicine and teaching how to incorporate these herbs and healing properties into food. So that was a real game-changer because not many courses, especially online, have practical sessions where you can actually cook along and go through that yourself. So that was really special.

Patricia: It's a highlight for many students being able to taste and embody what nutrition and food as medicine is. There's one approach is to learn it in your mind and then to actually embody it. And you can only do that in the kitchen. During our last Open House, someone asked, “how do you measure success at The Academy?” And Roger said, “I want to know how dirty your kitchen is.” At the end of the day, that's the invitation and the journey of studying with us. It's really getting your hands dirty in the kitchen and starting to experiment with different ingredients and cook along. This is a format that we teach that the practicals enable students to do that from the comfort of their homes, it's been a really powerful, a really powerful part of the curriculum for a while.

Luke: My dad winds me up because he says that I eat gourmet for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I've got like my apple cider vinegar, my extra virgin olive oil, all organic. I have all these added things, stuff that he doesn't even know about, with all my meals. And he says, “you should probably be just as happy with steak and chips.” But like, I'm like, “No dad, I've got to take my time with this. It's important.”

Patricia: Of course, it becomes a ritual. Eating is no longer mindlessly putting things into our bodies, but again, bringing back that intention and making it the enjoyment of the day. The cooking time and the nourishment time.

I certainly have heard a lot of our students relay that to us. A couple of our students have done several other courses as well, and they always the academy is there with me for breakfast, lunch and dinner. So that's always really incredible to see.

Any advice to anyone who's on the fence or thinking about the curriculum?

Luke: Let's put it this way. I don't think that you can be disappointed in what you're going to learn. Honestly, it's a no-brainer. If you can't afford it, you can't afford it… But I tend to be of the belief that you find a way. What really helped me was the payment plan! And I didn't even think about the money, to be honest, because what I was learning was so beneficial. And I always find that the more when I'm enjoying my life is when I'm learning the most. I'm enjoying the phase in my life when I'm deep in learning. And the academy was a perfect example where I was in a period of deep learning. So just, yeah, just do it.

Patricia: Awesome. Thank you, Luke. You came alive through the curriculum. You were always cracking jokes with everyone and just being such a life force. So it was incredible to see your transformation and everything that you're doing.