Well, 2025 was the most spectacular year of my life. There were so many ups and downs, but I gained incredible experience that year because I held multiple jobs in different sectors—from restaurants to salesman to pizza maker at the pizza store. But I never missed a chance to educate myself.
THE LEADERSHIPS PERADOX
There is a story about Ratan Tata where his father made him work at his company as a minimal laborer so that he could learn from them as a kid. I was thinking, why would a father want to do that with his child who graduated from the best school, which is Harvard? And what would he learn working with laborers? As for me, in this fast-changing world, I was wondering where to start in a new country. But I always wanted to have my own business; I always wanted to work for myself. But the lessons I got from working in the restaurant and as a salesman in a street shop—I think I just saved 40 years of my life and millions of dollars that it would have cost me to learn these lessons.
There, I learned how little empathy people use in the workplace. Most employers do not care about their physical and mental health. But here’s the catch: it does not affect the employees’ lives the way it affects the business. This kind of behavior drops the firm’s quality of service and sales because employees feel miserable; they have no motivation for the work. They work here because they need the money, and also they have lots of things going on in their own lives, good and bad. From that angle, I learned how I can use different empathy strategies to motivate them, and they feel proud and good when people work with me.
