WHO WE ARE

From an early age, I was obsessed with freedom and the discovery of the self—who I was beyond the identities and expectations I had inherited. Anything less felt like a slow death.

As early as I can remember, I was asking:

Who was I?
Why was I here?
What was the purpose?

I had lived and studied in six countries across three continents by the time I finished university. Home kept changing before roots had time to grow. Maybe that's why, beneath all that searching for freedom, I was also searching for something else: home.

After earning a BA from Boğaziçi University, I moved to Los Angeles in 1997 on a corporate scholarship I had found and completed UCLA's Film and Television program. My ability as a storyteller and script analyst caught the attention of Academy Award-winning filmmaker Oliver Stone, leading to work with his company, X-LAN.

But America, a journey that had begun as a declaration of freedom and self-discovery, also brought loneliness. Without a work permit, making ends meet became a daily struggle. I sold shoes, handed out movie tickets—whatever allowed me to keep going.

Somewhere along the way, I lost myself.

Loneliness and depression, alcohol and drugs.

The freedom I had crossed an ocean searching for seemed further away than ever.

Kundalini Yoga became my first great turning point. Not because it changed my circumstances, but because it began to change me. As I turned inward, the depression lifted, the addictions lost their grip, and I discovered a different kind of freedom—one that could not be given or taken away by circumstances.

I returned to Turkey to support my aunt after receiving news of her cancer diagnosis, bringing with me the practice that had so profoundly changed my own life. What began as a deeply personal return home became something much larger. In 2002, I became one of the pioneers who introduced Kundalini Yoga to Turkey, eventually teaching and training others in the practice.

When I returned to the United States once again, I was peaceful. I was fulfilled.

And financially, I was starting over—back to selling movie tickets to make ends meet.

Around this time, I became clear about the kind of partnership I wanted—not who the person should be, but the purpose we might share:

Approximately 48 hours later, I met Ike.

My husband Ike's story could hardly have been more different from mine.

After graduating from the Ankara State Conservatory, he became one of Turkey's leading voice actors. His voice became familiar to millions through films and characters that defined a generation, including The Silence of the Lambs, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, and Kermit the Frog. Professionally, he was successful. Financially, he was independent.

Then he lost his mother.

They had shared an exceptionally close relationship, and her death changed something fundamental in him. Suddenly, the life he had built no longer felt like enough. With little left that seemed to hold him in Turkey, Ike made a radical decision: he would leave everything familiar behind and pursue a larger dream in America.

There was one significant obstacle.

He didn't speak a word of English.

The years that followed bore little resemblance to the Hollywood dream. Ike worked at gas stations, washed dishes, slept in parks, struggled with immigration challenges, and repeatedly found himself rebuilding from nothing.

But somewhere inside those difficult years, the nature of his search began to change. What had started as a journey toward becoming an actor gradually became a search for something deeper.

Who was he without the career, recognition, language, and identity that had once defined him?

The external journey was becoming an internal one.

Years later, after hardship had stripped away much of what he once thought mattered, Ike found himself ready for something different. He became clear about the kind of woman he wanted to meet—not what she should look like or what she should have, but who he wanted to become in her presence.

He set an intention:

Approximately 24 hours later, he met me.

When Ike and I met in 2004, neither of us knew that only days before, we had each independently asked for the other.

We had traveled very different roads, but somehow arrived carrying remarkably similar questions. We were both searching for something beyond the lives and identities we had already known.

About three months after meeting Ike, I made another decision:

Ike was already working with Darel Rutherford, but in the asking, the three of us entered what would become an extraordinary partnership—part mentorship, part friendship, part laboratory for transformation. For the next sixteen years, we met for an hour every week.

We questioned everything.

Who am I?
Who do I think I am?
Who am I, really?

We examined the beliefs we had inherited, the identities we had constructed, our relationship with money, love, possibility and ourselves.

Darel challenged us. Ike and I challenged each other. And little by little, what we were changing on the inside began showing up in the world around us.

This is where the fact that I had been selling shoes and movie tickets matters to me. This is where Ike sleeping on park benches and pumping gas at gas stations matters.

Becoming millionaires is not the point of the story.

Where you are today does not determine where you can go. You do.

Together, Ike and I built a million-dollar business. His books went on to sell more than a million copies. My book Money Does Grow on Trees received multiple international book awards. We developed certification programs, coached tens of thousands of people, built an international community, and were invited to share our work at the United Nations.

But those accomplishments were never the real transformation.

We were.

The life we built became evidence of something we had first had to discover within ourselves:

that when we change who we are being, we change what becomes possible.

Let's go higher.