How One Miserable Dinner Pushed Me Toward My True Calling

Right then and there, without letting a single expression slip, I made a decision. I’m quitting.

A voice inside me immediately shouted back, Are you crazy? What are you going to do next? I genuinely didn’t know. But what I knew for sure was this: staying meant losing myself one day at a time. Leaving meant at least a chance at something better.

The next morning, I walked into my manager’s office and told him my decision. He was shocked, but understanding. And just like that, my short-lived corporate career ended—not with a plan, but with relief.

At 4:00 a.m. the very next day, I got up and returned to the only other way I knew how to make a living in America. Before my MBA, I had driven a cab in Chicago for three years. I knew every neighborhood, every shortcut. Uber was the only fallback.

My cab-driver friends thought I’d lost my mind. Maybe I had. But strangely, driving gave me something corporate life never did: time. Time to think. Time to soul-search. Time to notice the parts of myself I had buried under titles and expectations.

In that space of reflection, an old desire resurfaced—leather. I had grown up in my family’s tannery in Turkey. Leather wasn’t just material for me; it was history, identity, art. So when I discovered Etsy and saw makers selling personalized leather goods, something clicked.

Even though I had never crafted a leather product myself, I knew leather inside out. I watched every tutorial I could find, learned how to design and sew a wallet, and eventually made my first one. I took photos with terrible lighting, wrong colors, awkward angles, and stared at the screen thinking, Who in their right mind would buy this?

But Ariel—my partner, my supporter, my first believer—told me to post it anyway. And so I did.

To my surprise, orders started coming in. One, two, three a day. Reviews rolled in from happy customers. I picked the best leathers I could find, leaning into everything I knew from growing up at the tannery. And the thought kept creeping in: People really appreciate good leather.

I crafted between Uber breaks. Ariel helped with every order. And then one night, something happened that I will never forget—we got an order for thirteen travel wallets.

We jumped around our living room in total disbelief. Then panic hit: Do I even have enough leather?

I ran into the spare bedroom—our Pegai headquarters back then. Miraculously, I had exactly one full side of leather left, just enough for thirteen wallets. We cut, sewed, stamped, and worked through the entire next day. As I cut the very last piece, the leather ran out. It was barely enough, and I was grateful beyond words.

That half-hide, worth about $20 raw, was once considered trash at the slaughterhouse. Now it was becoming meaningful items that would travel the world, witness memories, and return to me as $600 in sales. I paused and quietly thanked the animal and the people who prepared that leather. It felt sacred.

By 8 p.m., the order was ready. It was too late for the post office, but the address was in the neighborhood next door. So we hopped into my car and delivered it ourselves. The review we received from that order became one of the best memories of my work life—not because of the money, but because it gave me something priceless: confidence.