Life in United States, Business Owner in Chicago, Learning English | Episode 3: Leyla Khanahmad
originally from azerbaijan and i have lived in five different countries i'm facing this challenge really it's a huge value added on to who you are if they want to perceive a life or a career in us that was a picture of a beach and i was like hey wait a second chicago the beach like in one street i'm in paris and in one street i'm in new york has helped me build a more structured habit english can be learned by your own to invest your time and finances into mental health as soon as you get the opportunity to use [Music] hi everyone so welcome to another episode of social distance show i know you mostly want me to upload some english videos with turkish subtitles so here we go um this time i will be having a guest that i will be talking in english so i'm gonna take leila very soon to here so leila how are you thank you for coming morning from boston to los angeles julian i've been waiting for us to sit down for such a long time you've been such an inspiration for me as a female entrepreneur and as an expat living in the us so yeah it's an honor thank you for having me same i should do this entrance that's you so actually i want to give the word to you first like to introduce yourself what are you doing in the us where are you from absolutely um well i talk about myself a lot i feel like um on social media but yeah i'll do a little bit of an introduction so i am originally from azerbaijan and i have lived in five different countries so far so i've lived in russia azerbaijan switzerland belgium and i eventually moved here to the us to kind of establish my career and i moved here and i am now planning on staying here and growing my career businesses startups in chicago i'm currently in boston visiting a friend but i live live in chicago so what i do is i am a small business owner i co-own a restaurant in chicago and i am now getting into the startup industry i co-own two startups one related to the restaurant industry and the other related to um the education industry and yeah and you know i do youtube and instagram to leverage my businesses and my presence as a social entrepreneur because i'm also running a non-for-profit organization called i empower you.org and that's where we do monthly book clubs for juniors and seniors which is completely free of charge and that has a uh positive social impact on uh on the communities across the ocean yeah that's so great i would love to uh participate in that one time i was lovely too that's sorry next time yes so um you told us that you've been living abroad for a long time so can you share a little experience with living abroad and being far away from your hometown from your family so um i think that i was thrown into this international environment when i was little because we moved to russia when i was six months old and i graduated primary school in russia so i was kind of a little bit familiar with what it's like to be living abroad to be experiencing a different culture to be experiencing different types of foods and you know social political and economic systems but i feel like you know studying abroad living abroad moving abroad has a lot of impact on who we are as individuals first of all it adds a lot of value i feel like it elevates our individuality from being just a citizen of a particular country to being a global citizen in a sense and obviously adds a lot of value to our resumes as you know as students as professionals there is a lot of i i'm going to say culture shock associated with moving abroad and living abroad especially if you've done it across multiple like continents countries and cultures but at the end of the day i feel like it's a huge value added on to who you are as a person that's so true so is there any like a challenge that you faced as a foreigner in us because like most of my audience wants to study in us work in us learn like come here to learn english so what would you say to them like i'm facing this challenge really you know i come from a very conservative background i lived in nazareth for about eight years before i moved to switzerland and belgium so um to me moving from azerbaijan into europe and the americas like the united states wasn't really a challenge because i felt like i was moving from my i was moving from a discomfort zone into my comfort zone but um a lot of us try and learn to speak english right english is a very big part of traveling it's like having a second password to the world i don't have much to say in regards to the us but i have a lot to say in regards to moving it to a country that speaks a language which is other than english so when i was moving to switzerland i was this very confident you know mini global person that spoke english and i was moving to a country that spoke french italian german and romans and i spoke none of those languages so my self-confidence was obviously shattered the minute i landed in geneva at the airport i had to kind of start from scratch and add on to add on another language onto my resume which was french and to me it was a psychological academic professional challenge but in terms of living in the us i feel like it's such a melting pot it is so international so accepting so tolerant we're not going to ignore that the u.s has problems of its own but i feel like it's so easy to fit into the american culture because almost everyone is an outsider and you're part of that international melting pot you're one of those outsiders that are locally global true because i also hear a lot of like how can you handle it like you are not from them and they can act you very weird but surprisingly they don't like it's hard to explain to outsiders how you feel here but i get to feel the same with you like they're accepting they are already from other places not like originally from here so yeah yeah that's true everyone is from somewhere and also i feel like our presence in the u.s adds a little bit of a color into the solid american um culture when they hear that we're from turkey or other beijing like what what are their uh first feeling and reaction to you we were raised differently and we have certain fundamental understandings you know sets of behavior that are very different from the americans for example we can be very direct we can ask very direct questions we have certain expectations of people correct we're using whatsapp americans don't use whatsapp um yeah and i think that americans were raised a little bit on the other end of the spectrum where they were taught to be nice you know if if they're going to criticize you they're going to use the sandwich method where you know they'll tell you something nice and then they'll criticize you and then they'll conclude it with something positive we weren't raised that way we were raised under very different circumstances where we were criticized we were judged we were discriminated against as women you know in our cultures we grew up in conservative environments and i think that that could maybe play a role a little bit in how we interact with americans but mostly i feel very welcome in the us just like you do and i try and i try and think before i say anything especially being an employer working with american employees i try and be very careful because i try and remind myself that i'm not an azerbaijan and there's a different mentality here and i have to work with that so probably you already talked about this issue on your channel but what do you recommend to people from azerbaijan or from turkey if they want to pursue a life or a carrier in the u.s obviously we could sit here and talk for hours about your academic background your professional skills and all that but i feel like the number one thing that everyone has to have on their personal resume is being an open-minded a tolerant and accepting and a progressive person the american culture is very progressive and we were raised again on very opposite ends of the spectrum where in the u.s if you are not supportive understanding supportive and understanding of the lgbtq culture for example you get cancelled in turkey and azerbaijan if you don't support if you do support the lgbtq community you get cancelled so if you have two opposite spectrums of cancer culture and i feel like to be able to thrive here in the us to be able to thrive in this progressive culture you have to keep up with it correct you have to ask the right questions you have to question your own values in a sense that if your culture does not respect black people you need a new culture if your culture does not respect feminism you need a new culture and that's that and i think that that's one of the biggest challenges for a lot of the people from azerbaijan and turkey that are trying to integrate into this culture they want to benefit from this culture but at the same time they're resistant to change so you told us that you own a mediterranean restaurant in chicago how was the process of the creation of that business like when did you open it how can one person own a business in the us how did you stuff like that so i studied hospitality management in switzerland i kind of worked in restaurants and hotels i had a very clear cut understanding of what the industry was like in europe and i had a little bit of experience under my belt and i had developed this desire of having my own place back when i was in switzerland i was still graduating and i was planning on opening a um you know a spot on my own here in the us i think that one of the biggest challenges that i faced in terms of starting a business in the us is not knowing what the expectations of americans were in terms of food so i came in here in 2017 and i opened a pop-up bistro at a community mall which wasn't entirely i wouldn't say was unsuccessful but it was a temporary project it was a pop-up bistro i ran it for about a few months for about six months and i i had to shut it down because i did not see a future in it i then went back to work in the industry i worked in wealth management you know i worked in investment banking for about a year and i wanted to get back into entrepreneurship i wanted to get back into opening my own space up back up so at the time i met my partner who is a chef and things are much easier if you're opening a restaurant and if you have a chef on the team because that's going to be one of your biggest challenges biggest costs i think that starting a business in the us is a lot easier than doing it in other countries under different circumstances i feel like the the american culture is very open and supportive of the small business culture you know the small business values so what ahmed and i did we my partner is kurdish by the way so what we did is we started looking for opportunities where a restaurant owner would be selling their restaurant because they were sick and tired of it those are always the cheapest opportunities because you know the previous business owners they want to get rid of the business they've been there for 10 20 years they don't want to do that anymore they're ready to sell and they have all their licenses all their paperwork in place so they'll they'll tell you the company so ahmed and i bought a company with all the food and liquor licenses for 25 000 and mind you we were paying that off over six months we did not pay all that upfront and we found a place that was very cheap on rent so we it was a turnkey opportunity we just changed the dba we came in with our own furniture our own design our own menu our own wine list and that's how we started and um we are now opening a bar down the street down the same street so that's going to be so we co-owned black and caspian and we're now opening black and barrel yeah and i i feel like you just have to look for those affordable cheap opportunities in the neighborhoods and a lot of the neighborhoods a lot of the neighborhoods in the us they want businesses in their neighborhood they want young entrepreneurs with you know solid creative ideas they don't want their real estate right exactly they don't want their real estate ghosting because that brings the value of real estate down so it's kind of you know it's a tightly knit community sure congratulations uh for the part i i wish i can come very soon but like i wouldn't i will not worry so let's talk more about chicago can you give a little bit overview of the city like how was the life there why did you choose to live in chicago and since i know you visited l.a
um maybe we can compare their cons and pros absolutely i feel like that's a very good question i get asked this question a lot so i um i went to a not-for-profit american high school in azerbaijan and i had american teachers at that high school so one of my american teachers moved to chicago and she bought a condo here so when i got the green card i was exploring you know online different states and places so she texted me on facebook and she sent me a picture of her view from her apartment and that was a picture of a beach and i was like hey wait a second chicago the beach and she was like she was like yeah i live on the beach and i live in the city and i was like let me explore this opportunity a little bit so i came to chicago the first time i visited chicago was the summer of 2017. it was beautiful i came in no covet you know the boats in lake michigan the city was beautiful very green the downtown was amazing i fell in love and i mostly also fell in love with the neighborhood culture of chicago there are multiple neighborhoods they're all very cultured i feel like the restaurants are very um chicago has a very particular restaurant culture um public transportation is very good you don't have to have a car you can live in the city but you can also go to the beach in five minutes you literally walk down a few blocks and you're on the beach it's a very affordable city that's what i personally think you don't have to die to live a good life and i i loved it it's very international very open-minded uh lots of good schools and lots of famous people that came out of chicago right the obamas so when i visited chicago a few years ago i felt like like in one street i'm in paris and in one street i'm in new york like i love that feeling of combining europe culture and american culture like uh and you actually highlighted a very important part when we compare it to la affordable and like you can live a easy life for example here you you can't do anything without a car um so like a little bit challenging when we compare to chicago and maybe we can compare some industries right because like here it's more about entertainment uh while in chicago i feel like more business right i agree with that yeah i feel like chicago offers maybe a lot more diversity in terms of you know career paths as well and and as you have mentioned that combination of a little bit of a european and a little bit of the american is just one of the best things you can get in a city um yeah but i love delay i visited la about and mark in martin no i visited la in well i don't remember when i have to look it up on my instagram i fell in love with late la is a beautiful uh city and what i loved about the la was this was this mix of nature and city where you could literally drive down 10 minutes away from downtown and you're on top of a mountain and you're surrounded by nature and that was beautiful so um i want to talk about a little bit um like student life and learning english with you as well because i know that you also work on uh language learning content as well with your platforms so can you talk about your student life how you learn english what was your journey like and like um i also wonder your opinion uh in a learning process because my audience is also very interested in learning english so do you think english can be learned by your own or like did do you think you improved yourself yeah i think this is a very good question i get i get asked this question a lot to you so i currently co-own a uh a english tutoring an online english tutoring platform which is dilbill.azdill.com and um so i think that my personal journey of learning english has culminated in this project very well i personally started learning english when i was in high school i was about 13 when i started and i went to a not-for-profit american school where my teachers were peace corps volunteers from the u.s and they were living in azerbaijan at the time and i think that the biggest part about learning a language is not the language itself but how you feel about yourself during that process and that is one value that i brought in onto my platform where i think that the people the tutors the moderators the leaders right the teachers of language have to be psychologists at the team at the same time it's not really about learning a language it's about how your teacher makes you feel about learning a language right if you are encouraged given positive feedback constructive feedback it the process is going to be much easier for you and another thing that i reinforce on my platform currently is the importance of speaking a language rather than worrying about your accent worrying about perfection which is why we have teachers from all over the world that have different accents to represent that and to expose the students to those different access to let them know that all types of accents are accepted universally across the world and your accent does not represent your proficiency and also i feel like lit and your accent is a very good um representation of your identity it immediately speaks a lot about you representing that you speak another language which is like which i feel like is a great value my personal journey was i feel like i was very lucky because i was immersed in that american culture in azerbaijan i played baseball i went to summer camps i i was in a very supportive environment which is the type of environment that i'm trying to replicate on my on my platform right now that's so good so i also saw that you made a video about five minute journal when i was like stalking you so i also did one very recently and talked about how it helped me to manifest and how to increase gratitude in my life so i wonder uh how it helped you is there any recommendation that you can give us about manifesting or maybe like an example that you think you manifested or created by yourself absolutely um yeah i saw your video about the five minute journal as well i saw your intro throwing the five minute journal onto that desk um so the founder of the five-minute journal is actually from azerbaijan her name is mimi econ and she is an azerbaijani expat living well she moved to canada she now lives in london she has a very successful empire of businesses so you know i've been in therapy for about a year and a half now and i've been in therapy trying and i've been trying to overcome a lot of the trauma that i experienced as a kid um a lot of the trauma that caused me you know a lot of pain a lot of kids go through trauma especially in you know developing and underdeveloped countries where anyone and everyone can have a child put it out there and just do whatever they want with them so the five minute journal i feel like was a very good integration into my therapy process because being grateful is one of the is one of the most powerful feelings to abundance in terms of personal growth you know financial success entrepreneurship whatever it is that you do and i incorporated into my daily life about i think a year ago i think i bought it last summer it's definitely helped a lot in a sense in a sense that it has helped me build a more structured habit of how i choose to see my day not how i see it but how i choose to see my day the words that i choose to describe my day my life and my goals and all that so yeah it's it's it's a good it's a good book i feel like everyone should have it on their shelves and definitely i agree so i want to like end our conversation with like a smooth and a sweet recommendation stuff so if you would have a chance to give some advice to your younger self especially considering that turkish young adults are watching also people from azerbaijan um like in this case to the younger audience who are watching us what would you recommend in few sentences i think that what i would recommend in the first place to everybody would be working on their mental health and i feel like there is so much stigma around talking about mental health this is a huge taboo topic in our culture and background i think that mental health should come first for everybody because when you are mentally healthy it is much easier to advance in all directions of life whatever you choose to do with your life but mental health definitely comes first so my biggest recommendation would be to invest your time and finances into mental health as soon as you get the opportunity because we all experience trauma we all experience trauma as kids and a lot of the times we choose to ignore it we choose to neglect it we deny it correct and that takes up a lot of energy all by itself and that prevents us from living to our full potential so definitely consulting a therapist working with a mental health specialist working on your mental health is should be everybody's top priority so thank you for sharing everything you think and everything you do very honestly as well it was a pleasure to have you on my channel i hope i get to see you soon in l.a or either in chicago um i will put uh any link that we mentioned about the maybe book club and what you do with dill bill and your channels as well so everyone who are watching can have a look uh to any topic that we mentioned here um thank you leila for your time thank you very much for having me i feel like you've asked very good questions i was like where is this girl coming up with these questions um you came up with very good questions uh it was very engaging very therapeutic for me as well you know i sometimes feel like i need to sit down and reflect on some of the things that i do in life and i think being being asked the right questions um you know makes me feel like um things are moving in the right direction you know that that's what i'm aiming in my channel as well like being in us learning english but also like learning yourself so exactly discovering yourself exploring yourself i'm so glad that you liked the process i did i enjoyed myself i had such a good time thank you very much for inviting me and i hope to meet you in l.a
me too have a great day bye bye so this is the end of this episode and i'm really happy that we had laila here i think she um shared a lot of valuable experiences and thoughts on the topics so as i said before i will be putting any link that is related to what we talked in this video and i will be putting layla's both channels and instagram as well if you want to follow and see what is going on in chicago and in her life thank you for watching i hope you liked this video and i hope you like this video because it is in english as well um see you in any other episode of social distance show or any of other my videos take care bye [Music] foreign
2021-03-28 20:44
