Meet Daria Ahh

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Daria Ahh. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Daria below.

Daria , thank you so much for joining us. You are such a positive person and it’s something we really admire and so we wanted to start by asking you where you think your optimism comes from?

There’s a lot of wonderful questions here, but i decided to pick this one cause i think it’s one of my strongest points, something that feels natural to me, but wasn’t there my entire life. It developed over the years and now i can’t imagine looking at life any differently other than with optimism 🙂 I love this question because i never actually thought about it in this way before – where does it come from, how did i develop it? I could say it comes from faith – in that there’s Higher Powers ruling our lives that have a plan for us, and working things out for us. But even though it’s partially true, it’s too abstract and not too honest. The honest answer would be ‘my life and all my experiences’ that have truly shaped my outlook on things. One could say i’m just a privileged girl blessed with good family and good people around but in reality i wasn’t an optimist from the start, and did have very dark moments in life, moments of sorrow and even despair, and it’s those moments that taught me to look positively at all things, to believe it’s all happening for me, not to me. It’s in those dark moments where i realized the only way out is through and that self-pity and negativity will not bring me anywhere, with these things you only drown yourself into depression and even more sorrow. I don’t remember the exact time in my life it occured to me, that i can actually choose happiness and acceptance over tears and anger, but at some point something clicked in my head and i stopped feeding all the fears and worries that lived in my head and started to focus more on the feelings of hope, love and yes, optimism. Very soon i realized how much better it feels to stay and look on the bright side of things, and it became a habit.
I’d like to mention that it’s also the people in my life who taught me by example about how good life feels when you’re optimistic about it. My husband for one, opened my eyes to this truth and i think i took after him a lot in that sense – to not worry too much about the past or the future, but rather enjoy the present moment more, choose to smile more often.
It’s also the books i’ve read that influenced the development of this quality in me, first and foremost ‘Reality Transurfing’ by Vadim Zeland – this book has influenced me a lot, and it’s all about how you can choose to be happy, to focus on happy thoughts, your dreams and wishes and make them all come true for you; also ‘the Alchemist’ by Paolo Coelho and ‘’the power of now’ by Eckhart Tolle..

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

In my 20 years of work experience i’ve tried my hand at many things – from working as a kitchen staff in summer camp for kids to being a waitress serving guests on one of the biggest cruise lines in the world, to teaching English as a second language, working both at school and as a private tutor, to then switching to corporate world, and working for companies like Conoco Phillips and Baxter, to finally leaving the 9 to 5 and trying to create something of my own – together with my husband we’ve built a software development company building websites and apps for our clients…
For the past 5 years though i’ve been mostly focusing on working in social media, creating content for a couple of different businesses and people, including an independent artist promoting his works, an entertainment company called Wakn (Wakn.com) that’s focused on sharing the best of modern dance community, modern art and also spiritual awakening, sharing mindful tips on how to feel better about this thing called life 🙂 apart from that i’m also creating for my own blog where im sharing my life experiences and my good energy with like-minded souls..

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

I wanna say it’s the growth mindset, and my love of learning – even though i wasn’t too fond of school back in the day, i was always a curious kid, loved to read and somewhere in my college years picked up a phrase that’s became my life motto, ‘you can graduate from college and not come back there anymore, but your education or your self-education must never stop, it’s a lifelong thing’. I think that’s one of the things that keeps me young and passionate about life: there’s still so much exciting stuff to learn! Each new day, each new person that you cross paths with can teach you something you’ve wouldn’t otherwise know, i find that super inspiring!
Another one is imagining, dreaming, setting new goals. I think that’s a very important quality that most of the kids have and most of the adults lose with age, but shouldn’t. One should always have something in their heart that they long for, dream of, that they want to achieve in their life. Without it, life can get boring or so it seems to me.
And the last but not the least, discipline! I do believe that’s discipline is key if you want to achieve anything in life, be it your health and body goals, studies, career and even love life! With enough discipline you can make it a habit to cook/eat healthy, work out regularly, develop new skills, stay loyal and faithful, become a better partner and person overall.

What was the most impactful thing your parents did for you?

My parents are really good kind people, they’ve taught me a lot of things like, being mindful and respectful to others, the importance or education, they set up an example of a loyal loving caring partnership,
but the most impactful thing they did for me is definitely letting me live my life the way i wanted to. I was born and raised in Russia but always dreamt of traveling to United States, studying there, and eventually living there. When i was 17 yo and just started college, an opportunity came up for me to go and spend the summer in the states working in a summer camp for kids, and even though they’re worried about my safety and letting me go alone on such a distant journey at such a young age, they did that, they didn’t stand between me and my dreams, respected my aspirations and i’m super grateful for that. Now i do live in the United states, am a citizen of both countries, and without their initial support that would never happen.

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