- April 25, 2024
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When Daina Akialis thinks about selflessness, she thinks of her grandmother.
Her name was Happy. And she was, Akialis said.
A month before she passed away in 2014, Happy told her granddaughter, "We always have a choice." Those are the words that Akialis has read every morning on her phone for the past eight years when her alarm clock wakes her up. She's an early riser, usually up by 6 a.m.
"You can wake up and you can name five things that might go wrong or that you feel are going wrong, but we have a choice," Akialis said. "It's all about attitude. If you choose to have a bad day, you're probably going to have a bad day. If you choose to see the best in the day, even if there's some darkness, then it's going to be the brightest it can be because you made it that way."
Three months after her grandmother's death, Akialis made a big choice: She decided to leave the corporate world of accounting and become a personal trainer. Despite her fear of change, she hasn't looked back once — she felt like her grandmother had guided her to take it.
"I feel like sometimes, your world gets flipped upside down and it kind of throws you into the direction that you need to go, even if you don't see it in that moment," Akialis said.
Akialis works as a personal trainer Platinum Health, Fitness and Yoga in Ormond Beach. She was a gymnast growing up, and then became a competitive cheerleader.
In 2015, she completed a health challenge that kickstarted her passion for nutrition.
"I love the fact that we have so much control over how we can feel just by what we put into our bodies," she said. "And it's made me learn so much more about food and health and wellness and nutrition. And it's something that I want to continue to learn about."
"Daina is the definition of kindness. She is a beautiful soul, and to know her is to love her. She is that person who enters a room and you just feel those heavy feelings melt away. She is a light, and spreads that positivity to each person she comes in contact with — friend or stranger.
"She is someone who loves fiercely — within her family, her career, and her enthusiasm for life. She has the biggest heart of anyone I've ever met, and Daina deserves to be recognized as Ormond Beach's Standing O because she doesn't expect the recognition, she believes being a good person should just be a way of life."
Nicole Damico, owner of Keys and Collars
Crunching numbers was not her passion, but once she started personal training, she felt she was right where she needed to be. Her clients have become her friends, and they're invested in each other's families, she said. That didn't stop during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when she began offering virtual workouts.
She said she loves receiving a text from clients about how much more energy or happiness they feel after a workout. Having an opportunity to make an impact on somebody's day is not something that Akialis takes for granted.
"I think it just brings people together in a small way, but in a big way," she said. "And it being so personal, you just learn so much about people."
Ormond Beach has always been home to Akialis. She was the fifth person in her family to graduate from Seabreeze High School. She moved away for a short time after graduating, and it helped her realize that this was where she wanted to be.
Community is the beauty of living in a small town, she said.
"Everywhere you go, you can know someone," Akialis said. "And I think that's kind of a beautiful thing, especially compared to a big city to where I don't think it would happen nearly as often. I think it's kind of cool. You walk in and you immediately see people you know."
That applies to the gym as well.
"When people can walk in the gym and see people that they know, that even they've just met there, I think that's special," Akialis said. "Like I said, my clients are literally my friends."
How one shows up — for themselves and for others — is important for a sense of community, Akialis said.
It doesn't have to be big actions. Akialis said creating a sense of community can come by way of small acts of kindness — holding the door open for others, taking a deep breath when you're stuck in traffic or helping to turn someone's day around through conversation.
That's what her grandmother did. People knew her for working at Chik-Fil-A and trying to make everyone's day a bit brighter. Her obituary states she kept a prayer list for all of her customers. Akialis said people have come up to her and told her stories of her grandmother bringing their children coloring books.
At her funeral, Akialis recalled how her grandmother's coworker stood up and said that he didn't know people like Happy existed, and that he was thankful to know her.
"It's such a huge influence on me to always take a step back and think of how I can handle a situation like she did, day to day," Akialis said. "She always said, 'Set the example, even when it's hard, and reach out to other people, even if nobody's watching.'"
That's the best time to do it, Akialis said. It's fulfilling, and she thinks her grandmother would be proud of her — for the change she made, and for the way she's living her life.
"I strive to be as much like her as I can be with how I treat people," Akialis said. "I think she would be happy."
