Akshat to akshat_xesthetix

Akshat Mathur an introvert, was a little boy who had no friends because of the simple reason that he was a shy child. Also many of his classmates bullied him, due to which he became more quiet and reserved. He hated being at school, his only friends were his parents and his little sister who was too young to understand anything (5 years younger ). He used to find excuses to go back home, sometimes stomach ache, sometimes headache, he made sure to come back home before recess. Life was being harsh at him. Maybe being an introvert was his mistake. Eventually he became very close to his parents because they were the only people who made him feel comfortable, loved him and gave him a sense of protection, they were the only people who valued his emotions and understood his nature and respected who he was. He wanted to make friends, but never knew how to? Also as he used to be alone people found it easy to bully him and mock him. He was teased for wearing specs, for being skinny, for being alone and whatever else possible. Being  alone, only thing he could do was show his anger and hate all of them, and cry when no one was around. He was going through a very hard emotional phase. Being so young it is really difficult to deal with all this.

                            

He was a bright student, as he had no interaction with people, books were his only friends. He used to study a lot and scored good in all subjects which was the reason his parents started expecting more from him. In the end of his 6th standard he represented India on international level in a Maths Olympiad held in Malaysia and came 3rd in his category.

                   

He had no friends until then as everybody had an image of him being rude, aggressive, geek and a little weirdo. In his 7th standard he joined his school basketball team (first time in his life he did something else other than studies). But as he was a very thin, weak boy he decided to join gym. He joined gym telling his parents that he is doing this to gain stamina and has nothing to do with strength lifting. He joined gym purely to get better in basketball but out of curiosity he also started weight lifting. Eventually he got better in his game but gym was not of much interest yet, he used to go there to gain stamina and also to escape from studies (yes, he explored a bit and understood that there is a lot more in life other than studies). As soon as he came in his 8th standard he got selected in his school's district basketball team, also got selected for states but his father did not let him go due to his NTSE. As a result of which he started indulging himself more in extracurricular activities, though still he was a bright student.

                 

His parents used to feel happy and also were proud to see him do well in other things as well but to a certain limit (until his studies were affected). Also he started having friends, life started changing and now he found few people other than his parents and sister. By the end of his 8th standard he won first position in district level weight lifting competition in his weight category. This evoked his interest further into this field, he bought a book "encyclopaedia of bodybuilding" by Arnold Schwarzenegger. He started reading the book, gained knowledge, got motivated also a little serious.

                  

In his 9th standard he changed his gym as his father thought that gym has started distracted him and the gym in which he used to go earlier was an old school gym which charged 1000/-, so after having a little argument with his father they finally ended up changing the gym which was nearer to the house and charged only 500/-. He joined the new gym with his friend Jatin (Kotai). Eventually they ended up being brothers and gym partners.

As we all go through that age and so was he (teenage), he saw a girl whom he liked a lot, she was from his school itself. He was a thin guy till date. He went up to her and told her his feelings, she rejected his proposal. He felt that his looks were the reason.

As he had gained a little knowledge and got a little serious about gym he slowly started getting results. Also that now he had someone by his side in the name of a gym partner who was willing to achieve the same things, he got a better environment and a sort of support in which both of them were helping each other with whatever little knowledge they had and were gaining from their respective resources.

As his past has been too emotional a journey he became quite sensitive about people in his life, which included that girl. They became friends later or can say classmates. But one day she herself went up to him and agreed for his proposal, he felt really happy and somewhere deep down he believed that his growing body was the reason for her to agree to be with him (no doubt that was a naive thought). This became an another reason for him to love gym, he got his first love of life with its help( according to him). A guy who never used to have friends now had friends and also someone he loved truly. Things were getting smooth, life was fun. His priorities were set, being an engineer just like his own father, earn a lot of money, had someone with whom he imagined his entire life with, had friends and a normal teenage life.

After approximately 10 months later things started getting wrong in between the girl and him, some misunderstandings occurred and his fantasy came to an end. He got really disturbed by all those things because whatever it was, it was true and real from both the sides. Eventually only antidepressant he had was gym. And as it is said "breakups make bodybuilders", he was in the same race. He started focusing more on himself and also started indulging himself in it totally.

By the end of his 10th standard he had attained a normal physique, a physique which helped him stand out of the crowd, a physique which yes of course attracted girls around him. In his 11th standard he decided to leave his school and go for dummy and IIT coaching classes. Things were going great, he was performing good in his studies as well as was doing well with his physique, until the point his coaching teacher told his father to stop his gym and to take away his phone as that would help him score more. By the start of his 12th standard, his father started scolding him and asked him to leave gym. Until this time gym had become a very important part of his life.

He was restricted now. He was not allowed to go out, gym was a “big No No” now. He got frustrated and eventually his result got affected, he was not able to score good which made his father more afraid and things started getting worse. On the other hand seeing his body lose all that it has gained in past  5-6 years, he bought some dumbbells, rod and a resistance band at home and started working out at his own house (his mother is a fitness conscious women, helped him a lot to get all those equipment home).

Now he started realising that he wanted to make his career in fitness and engineering was not something that gave him that sense of satisfaction which fitness did. He told his father about the same, to which obviously his (father) reaction was predictable. (obviously no parent would appreciate his child for talking about the ideas in air and not providing him a proper view of whether he could do what he is talking about). He had to agree to what his parents wanted and also once used to be his own aim. He gave his IIT exam and cleared the mains. On the basis of that he got his college LNMIIT, Jaipur. This very place played a big role in making him who he is today.

He went there and then history repeated itself. He started feeling exactly how he used to feel in his school before his 7th standard. Also this time struggle was more because now he had no home to go back to his parents. He was struggling to have anyone for support, someone who could listen to him at least. He was surviving somehow, again gym became his support, his companion. Also as he used to come back home in his school days similarly he used to come back home from college. His college was in Jaipur and he used to stay at his house in Ajmer most of the time.

Only friend he had was in Ajmer, which was also another reason for him to come back to Ajmer again and again. She was like his counsellor, a good friend, someone with whom he could speak his heart out, someone who always got solution for almost all his problems, someone who believed in him when he himself was struggling to do so, she encouraged him to continue his passion and turn it into his career.

After first semester he came back after his end semester exam. He was happy to be back home. Staying with his people(mother, father, sister, Jatin) everything seemed perfect, although he knew it was only for a month. While doing squats on a smith machine his leg slipped and fell down with a very heavy weight, he fainted then and there itself. Jatin and people in the gym called for an ambulance immediately, also informed his parents. Everybody got really tensed and worried. After all the check ups doctor told that it was a compression fracture. After hearing that the very first thing he asked the doctor was “will I be able to workout”, to which doctor responded first stand on your feet, it is not a small injury many people cannot even walk after such injuries. His parents got really worried about him hearing that. He was given a complete bed rest for approximately 2 months. Bt as it is said " sometimes you have to get knocked down lower than you have ever been, to stand up taller than you ever were". Life did knocked him real bad, but as soon as he was able to walk, the very first place he went to was the same gym where that accident happened, he used to go there everyday with jatin and sit there thinking ''would he ever be able to lift again". Than after approximately a month he started a few body weight exercise ( push ups, free weight squats, lunges, plank hold, etc.). Than after 2 more months he joined Golds gym, Ajmer with jatin and slowly started getting back on track. Also he started focusing on his Instagram handle(Avdesh Singh Rathore one of those few friends he had told him about Instagram)  and YouTube channel.

Slowly things started falling in place. In December (approximately after a year of his injury) he and jatin got their first client and then eventually more people started taking their plans, also his followers reached 10k. Suddenly one day some page posted his one photo claiming that he has Photoshopped his pictures. That was disturbing, also many people started believing that he is cheating and fooling around. The page posted his 3-4 pictures more and this thing turned up into a large chaos of his life.

After so much of struggle, all this was heart breaking for him. Though his friends and followers were supporting him constantly but the negativity against him was large. People started commenting on his posts as photoshopped, fake, fraud etc. Started abusing him and many people turned upon him and started keeping grudges for no reasons at all. Also people who supported him were abused and made fun off. His followers started increasing people started following him to make fun off him and to mock him whenever possible.The situation became 'a hard nut to crack'. Things got so ugly that he decided to shut his Instagram handle, his friends and family talked to him and told him not to do so, they said "stand even if you are alone stand for yourself, if you are right no one can pull you down, just believe in yourself and continue". That is when he decided to tell everyone who believed or did not believe him, what is his side of story, also he started posting videos instead of photos and made some videos regarding the pictures people called photoshopped. He also made a YouTube video about the same issue thanking and talking to people who believed in him.

In between all this chaos where people were questioning him and abusing him, he received a DM from a person named Shakti Saini to join the team Muscleblaze as an influencer. It was a big opportunity but as things were not going down well he was concerned about what if because of him the company suffers so he did talked about it to him, to which Mr. Saini said that I am observing your profile since last 2 months and am aware of everything and have also talked about it to the company, "WE BELIEVE IN YOU AND YOUR WORK".

After a few weeks he saw a video of one of the top fitness influencer Mr. Tarun Gill about a photoshoot of a fitness magazine in Gurugram, Haryana. He and Jatin decided to go there in hopes of getting some recognition. He told his father about the same,but then he backed off and decided not to go because he did not felt confident enough to go there. That is when his father encouraged him to go as he saw his sons hard work, he booked a car for them and supported him for what he was doing, ofcourse now he had his father's back, also now he realised that he always has his father's back, it was just that he never expressed it to him before this. They went there and the shoot went amazing also Tarun sir talked to all the young fitness enthusiasts  and he mentioned his name and also his Instagram handle, that video was uploaded on Tarun sir's YouTube channel. After which his followers increased in a crazy amount, from 15k followers they went up to 30k and continued.

After a few weeks Muscleblaze called him for a influencer's meet in Delhi. There he met all the other influencers of Muscleblaze, attended a session about nutrition and also met the sponsored athlete of Muscleblaze MR. Ranjeet Singh Ricky. And then Muscleblaze presented him a whey named as Akshat's whey. After this event eventually his work got a boost and also his Instagram handle's followers reach 50k within a few weeks. Then he did his certification in nutrition from ISSA.

After which he started getting offers from many companies, he also worked with few of them like Swole,Fuaark, ripped up nutrition, etc. Then he went to IHFF amateur Olympia in October 2017 as an athlete of Fuaark. There he met many of those people whom he used to admire in Indian fitness industry and also a lot of his own followers.

Today he is a 20 year old boy who aspires to achieve a lot of things in life and is sure working hard for the same. All he wanted to say is

 “never settle for anything less than what you deserve

Keep the goal in mind and day and night keep pushing yourself forward no matter what your friends say your family says

Prove them wrong not by words but by actions 💪

Its your life and you have to design it

Be special feel special”.

Ofcourse this is just the starting of his career and  there is a lot more to come. He is happy about the fact that you all believe in him and support him so much. It feels great to earn all this in such an early age. Also now he has friends or should say a gym squad in his college as well as in Ajmer. He says he is and will work harder now because now his life is not just his life, it connects 94k people and adding more to the family in future. Also wants to thank all those who supported him with all those DMs, comments, calls or any other type of help. And most importantly to all those people who play a very important role in his daily life (Mr. Rajeev Prakash Mathur {father}, Mrs. Simmi Mathur {mother}, Priyal Mathur {sister}, Jatin Kotai, Shoaeb Khan, Hitesh Tekwani, Himanshu Mourya { Ajmer gym squad}, Utsav Singh {first friend in college}, Akshay Maheshwari{first gym buddy in college}, Aman Kumar, Ravi Sharma , Vishnu Yadav, Arun Phogat, Himanshu Purohit {college gym squad}, etc.)

This motivational video played an important role in his career, he used to hear this everyday and followed it (video was removed from youtube, but he knew all the words by heart so here it is in Akshat Mathur's voice).