The things that tick my boxes in my personal time are my family, friends and community.
I find people so fascinating and they are a big part of my life. I think that it is very important to always give to your ‘circle’. It is very important to me that we look after each other. I strive to always do that for all my friends and family and business colleagues and treat them all like they are my family. This attitude has benefited me in my life am thankful for the richer relationships I’ve developed because of this treatment towards other people.
For me family goes way beyond my immediate family and cousins. Family doesn’t need to be blood related, and is all about behaviour and no matter what your own personal requirements are, being able to be extremely comfortable and be the ‘real me’ with no judgement and to live my best life, vulnerability and all.
Another passion of mine is travelling. I just love to travel and experience different cultures and food. This is a passion driven by family and my love for meeting people. It’s the creatively of humans that fascinate me the most, that people start with the same slate, yet have such diverse interests and tastes in food and music and create things from nothing. I’ve experienced the most amazing and beautiful things in my life from travel and want to see and meet as many people as I can.
My background is Muslim, Iran. Some people would be surprised to know that I love to eat strange things. I eat pork and love the fact that I can have blue cheese and it takes like crap but it is exciting that so many senses in my mouth and in my body and that’s what I like.
Another love of mine is extreme physical activities because of the speed and adrenaline it creates in me.
I love to ski, deep-sea fishing and boating and in the last 18 months cross fit which is extreme gym.
I’ve been skiing for about 20 years now and started when I was in high school and never looked back. I met my wife when I was 18 and told her that skiing was my number one passion and that she came second and would have to become a good skier. Luckily, she pushed herself to learn how to ski and is now an avid skier. I don’t think that line would work today but am thankful we can now go everywhere together. We have had some amazing ski trips, not only do we spend nearly every second week at our unit in Jindabyne and ski six to seven times a season. We also travel overseas to the US in the last few years as well, so luckily my stubborn attitude didn’t scare my beautiful wife away back then as it really makes for a fantastic family holiday. It is quite an expensive sport so we have had to become quite savvy at saving costs by knowing the sport and owning our own equipment.
I also do cross fit and have been doing cross fit for the last 18 months. Cross fit is a form of high intensity, high repetition, high volume of gym exercise which pushes your body to its limit and gives me that adrenaline rush. It can make me feel like I want to vomit, gag and other things I won’t mention. A lot of people have asked why an earth I would do something like that and I love it,
I love to eat strange things that get me going and excited, strange cultures, strange music and just fascinates me that people can start with the same slate but can have a different makeup and go down different paths and because of that I’ve been to nearly every continent in the world, America, South America, some of the Pacific Islands, Asia. Africa is on my bucket list, I just need more time and money but I will get there. My mission is to travel every year as much as I can. The last few years I have been travelling to the USA. The USA can be seen negatively but I think its one of the most amazing places on the planet. The people are amazing, beautiful friendly people. They also stop to help, are polite, friendly even in remote places racism isn’t as bad as other places. I can’t speak positively about it enough.
Next year I plan to take my wife and kids on European adventure and hopefully spend Christmas in Europe in next 18 months.
I love challenge and cross fit is a challenge, skiing is a challenge when you’re on a mountain and you are looking down in front of you and there is a km or two of very steep down hill mountain and you have nothing but two sliddy things under you, you have to figure out how to solve this problem, how to get down the mountain and if you get, fearful your physical body will suffer from it and you will get hurt and so everything is on the line and that what ticks my boxes if you don’t concentrate you will get hurt.
The cross fit has significantly improved my strength. I’ve lost 44 kg in the last 18 months.
I have now increased my skiing skills by at least 150%. My skiing after cross fit has never been the way it has been even when I was a teenager.
It is important to me to challenge my body to be the best it can possibly be and has resulted in a better lifestyle for me.
I’m all about travel adventure people and life and connecting with as many people as possible. And I hope you found this somewhat interesting.
Ali Akbarian, Client Manager
