Work/Life Balance Goals

Peter Forras is not your typical business owner. He starts every day with meditation, time with the kids and a surf – because these are the things he loves and he refuses to compromise his family and his passions for business. That’s why he’s running an international business from Torquay,a renowned surf spot on Victoria’s Great Ocean Road.

XTM, an abbreviation for the term ‘cross the mountain’ or ‘X-The Mountain’, has carved out a niche supplying accessories, baselayer and snowear internationally. Peter started the business after representing Australia as a professional skier.

A close relationship with some of the world’s best athletes has been instrumental to the development of the business, helping XTM pick up the sole glove license for GORE-TEX in the southern hemisphere. Working with the world’s most advanced materials and technologies, it manufactures about 600,000 units each year, which are sold in 24 countries.

But Peter’s life is far from being all about business. “When I retired from ski racing and started getting into business, we made a conscious choice to move down to Torquay and live in an environment where we can surf and work and raise a family,” he comments. “To have family time, and time with my kids, while being able to manage a business is 100 percent key. It was non-negotiable for me. If I can't spend time with my kids, take them to the school and pick them up, it's just not really living the right way for me.”

Peter’s passionate commitment to work-life balance is a foundation stone for XTM. “The culture we try to live and instill at XTM is a real family culture of being true to who you are, having life balance, being accountable, doing what you say you're going to do, and doing it with passion.”

He’s equally passionate about giving back through XTM’s Heat the Homeless initiative, which collects warm jackets and distributes them to the homeless. “This was something that we could connect to our company and that we could really get all our skiers and boarders as well as our retail partners, to be able to connect with people that are way less fortunate and help in a very small way.”

As for the future, Peter’s focused on more than money. “Creating a whole lot of wealth is not the most important thing to me. It's more about the ability to go and chase your dreams.”

We see exactly where Peter’s coming from – because at NAB, we understand that there’s more to business than the transaction – it’s about understanding what’s important to business owners, their families and the people they work with. We also believe that work-life balance is better for people and for business, which is why, like Peter, we’ve invested in work place flexibility.