Dilara Cossette

Dilara spent years in toxic workplaces where people raised their voices and made bad jokes. Then she joined a company where meetings started with 30 or 40 minutes of just talking and laughing. The culture shock was real. She realized her best bosses had always been the vulnerable ones, the ones who created a space where you could admit you screwed up without getting your head bitten off. It is a value she carries with her now, empathy and vulnerability.

The hardest lesson came from grief. About a year and a half ago, she took her daughter to Azerbaijan to connect with her biological father. He died suddenly just days before their flight home. The next day, Dilara was back at work, smiling on camera, then turning it off to wipe away tears. She says the guilt was eating her inside and she finally got help, but it took months to process everything because she tried to just push through it.

These days, she knows her own stress signals. The first is a drop in motivation. Then the headaches start. That is her body telling her to reset. She has learned to listen, taking a real vacation every six months and, more importantly, building fun into her day to day. She just bought a paddleboard and signed up for hip hop classes at age 40, because, as she says, if not now, then when?