Translator: Nihal Aksakal Reviewer: Saliha Karatepeli
Everything started with dreaming.
All my life,
I've tried to be a man
chasing his dreams, pushing the limits.
The experiences and knowledge
that I had through this process became the nicest directives
to plan the next step.
On the way out,
it was my dream that
I'd have a Volkswagen Bettle,
travel with it
and be a Rally pilot.
Life consists of moments and opportunities.
I've tried to chase and push
all the opportunities
that I've faced with.
My first opportunity, the first one in my life,
began when a friend
brought me a Pokémon photo in elementary school.
Internet, computers, printers were not common
in the house back then.
When my friend printed out
and brought me that photo,
all my classmates
and friends at the school
requested their Pokémon photos from us.
In fact, my entrance to the business life
started with a photo paper of Balbazar Pokémon.
We earned a good amount of money by selling,
giving Pokémon photos to all the school.
Of course, as in any business,
soon the change hit us.
First, the pogs came out,
then Pokémon cards became common.
With the spread of Pokémon cards,
everyone at the school was collecting,
trading the cards
and spending a lot of money on them.
With the money
that we made in the first job,
we started to buy and exchange them.
We made so much money
that every day I returned home with a certain TL, dollar and even mark.
Of course, this caused a reaction at home first.
This caused a fear.
Since my father was a financier,
he took me to the bank
to evaluate the money I earned
and opened my first bank account.
I consulted him every day,
and I started to sell and buy
funds with my experience.
While this was going on in a very beautiful way,
there was an end to every story
and an end was waiting for me.
With a warning that says
"Trade is prohibited in Ministry of Education schools."
my parents were invited to school
and I got my first so-called disciplinary notice.
Although, I made a very serious money
in this period,
it ended
and we had a Pokémon coup in 2001
when the Pokémon cartoon
was banned in our country
and my first job was completely finished with the coup.
This process actually taught me two things very fundamentally.
1. Whatever you do, things can change.
2. In the country we live, in Turkey, we don't know what will happen tomorrow,
anything can change any moment.
However, in the process up to university,
my life was spent by experiencing many things.
If you were a child
who made money in primary school,
you start to see and live life very differently.
From that day on,
I became not the same child, not the same man.
I've always been a man who pushed the boundaries,
goes after the excitement,
and always curious.
Till the university,
I had the opportunity to experience many things.
I wanted to make a sail,
so I worked at a shipyard for a summer.
In return, I learned that I had to work hard
to get something.
I had the second place in the world national team of table tennis.
Actually, I learned to push the boundaries.
I played professional basketball for long years.
I got scholarship and education grant
and thanks to basketball, I learned to be a part of a team.
I directed my own short film,
worked in other short films and theaters
as an assistant director.
I've experienced designing and making my dreams real.
I've been part of a Windsurf Club since its beginning, for four years.
I became the first trainer.
Then, I became one of the twenty-five
international Windsurf Trainer in Turkey,
and I learned to teach what I learned
and to share in there.
These processes continued until the university.
It was the time I felt everything was going very well,
that everything was very good.
I went to college; I became one of the presidents
of the Student Union at the beginning of the university.
I became the founding president of the Cinema Club.
I became a member of the basketball team.
Thought it all went so well,
until I was expelled.
Unfortunately, I was expelled because I failed in preparation school.
This was actually a failure pinnacle of my life.
Sadly, many of my friends who had same status with me
at school gave up.
Either they prepared for the exam again
or they switched to other universities.
But something inside me was bothering me.
I liked my school, I liked my teachers.
I actually wanted to be there
and I didn't want to give up.
A few days later,
I sat down to examined the whole school and the preparatory procedures,
and the laws of the Council of Higher Education,
I realized there were some shortcomings
in the procedures because our school was new.
I compiled them and made a presentation
and knocked on my teacher's door and entered.
"You cannot expel me," I said.
Of course, there was a laughter.
"Dear, we wrote those procedures.
There are no mistakes or omissions," he said.
Then they listened to me, I made a presentation to a very nice team
and they agreed.
What really upset me most was that I wasn't just expelled.
All the competence was taken away.
I left the team, my entrance card to the university
and even the library card was taken away from me
and I didn't want to lose them.
After that presentation, the board examined it,
agreed and changed the system, exam passing procedures
and I wasn't expelled.
Later, no student from Ozyegın University
was expelled -- including me.
This was the peak of failure of my life,
the most beautiful moment of hitting bottom.
In this period, when I was away from school,
I established my first company.
There was a good reason
to continue my dreams
with my first company
but the most beautiful part of this story was,
to me, one of the Angel investors of my second company,
which I was going to set up in the next years,
was our rector, who I made presentation to.
I became the only student who got investment
from a university rector in Turkey and in the world that I knew
but I'm not absolutely sure.
If I had given up with the failure that I had that day,
maybe I couldn't be here,
I'd be giving another presentation at another institution or place.
But that day I felt that I could actually change
and follow many things by not giving up, forcing
and chasing my dreams.
After that, life has become a little different for me.
I established my own company.
When you own a company in your twenties at the university,
it looks cool from the outside.
You're twenty and you own a company.
People point at you with a finger.
While studying at the university, we established our second company.
With our second company, we were carrying out the projects
and activities of many global brands and many international companies
and everything seemed to be going very well.
Unfortunately, that was only the visible part of the iceberg.
On the return of an event in Izmir,
we had a dialogue with my teacher on the plane.
I said, "Sir, am I the only one who have tax debt?
Am I the only one having trouble paying salary?
Am I the only one feeling unsuccessful?
Am I the only one suffering?
We welcome many important businessman in Turkey in our activities,
we hear their stories and get inspired by them.
But did no one failed
or no one hit the bottom and suffered?
Let's go and build an activity, a project and let people come out
and tell us about their failures."
This was a very valuable project that we called
The Failure Summit, in 2012.
Many important business people in Turkey have come to the event
and the first time they told their failure in Turkey.
They talked about how they screwed up a company,
had trouble with investors, starting a business
and that inspired many people.
In addition to being a company owner, while studying at the university,
we graduated from the university
despite many difficulties.
Two companies have grown together and with them,
we had more than five hundred projects implemented not only in Turkey
but also in five different countries,
and we were chosen to be one of Europe's best top hundred
companies in 2016.
These were the most important steps in our lives
but we never gave up our dreams
and the way our dreams took us.
My starting point was always have a Volkwagen Bettle,
to travel with it to explore new places
and to be a Rally pilot one day.
It was a passion in me.
That day I was able to go to graduation with my own Volkswagen Bettle.
I participated in many events with it,
I visited many cities and competed in the classic car Rally.
During the race, this happened recently,
we had an accident at the Spring Rally.
After the accident the car was damaged.
It was very difficult for us, too.
After all we finished the race. We finished it with a degree.
After we had a degree,
many people saw our patience
and passion for the race
and contacted us.
People introduced us to new people,
opened different network doors
and thanks to them and companies that these people introduced us,
thanks to institutions, I will make my second dream real,
I will be racing on The Rally Championship in Turkey this year.
You don't know who will open which door for you.
You never know who will inspire you.
You don't know which door opens up different worlds to you.
Therefore, knock on that door, open and enter.
In this process, I've told you three main stories
and I want to summarize them in three articles.
Imagine.
I think the biggest problem in our country is that
our children, young people and even us cannot imagine.
Don't stop with dreaming,
also you should have courage to chase them.
Sure, even if you don't have exactly same thing,
you'll have a part of it. Is it bad?
Don't be afraid to fail. People have this phobia in Turkey.
I work with young people, senior executives,
I touch many lives and many people.
Don't be afraid to fail.
Get up, try, fall. Get up, try again.
What will happen, what will you lose?
You don't know what you'll lose without trying. Try.
Somehow, start writing the story of your life.
Get up from your seat, go to your own stage
and to me, life consists of moments and opportunities.
Have that moment in your life, share it.
You don't know that opportunity is an opportunity without trying.
You will never know that there is an opportunity
without knocking on that door and entering.
Please, knock on that door and enter.
In fact, I want to finish this story with a word I love.
The best thing a child who wants to be
a Rally pilot can say:
"If everything is under control enough,
then you're not going fast enough."
Thank you so much.